Sun Liping, "What's Wrong with our Experts?"

Sun Liping, “What’s Wrong with Our Experts?”[1]

Introduction by David Ownby, Translation by James Thompson

Introduction

Sun Liping (b. 1953) was a prominent sociologist at Tsinghua University until his recent retirement and is a frequent blogger on WeChat with a considerable following.  A good number of his blog posts are translated on this site because they are pithy, to the point, and aim to tell truths that others perhaps dare not.

The post translated here is no different, and is part of the intense polarization and bitter debate that has marked Chinese society since the abrupt end to Xi Jinping’s trademark zero-covid policy in early December.  The change in policy was in part in response to the largest demonstrations in China since Tiananmen, which in turn reflected growing impatience with the restrictions of life under zero-covid throughout Chinese society.

Of course, such a sudden decision to live—and die—with covid could only be costly and controversial.    After attempting to do careful contact tracing since the beginning of the pandemic, China seems to have thrown caution to the wind, which has predictably produced a wave of sickness and death, particularly among older Chinese.  China’s messaging machine, dedicated for years to frightening citizens into submission with stories of covid’s awful power, changed gears overnight, and is now singing the tune that “Omicron is no worse than a bad cold” and that “everyone is responsible for their own health.”  The results have been widespread panic and shortages of hospital beds and medical supplies.

Sun Liping’s ruminations on “what’s wrong with our experts?” is part of this turn of events, and asks the question “Who should we believe?”  Although he cannot come out and say it directly, it is clear that in Sun’s mind the culprit is not China’s experts, but the government, which provided experts with their script and policed what they could say.  His larger point is to remind people that most experts will try to play their roles properly if given the freedom to do so, and to caution resistance to the sort of blind populism which refuses to trust in a society’s institutions, even if it is clear yet again that it was government policy that created the cynicism behind the populist anger.

I am happy to welcome a new guest translator to the site.  James Thompson is currently completing his M.A. degree at National Taiwan Normal University’s Department of East Asian Studies.

Translation
 
With the change in covid policy, experts have also become a target of derision and ridicule. Especially on social media.

The reason, of course, is obvious. Let’s take just one example:  will items used or touched by an infected person carry the virus, resulting in secondary transmission? A few days ago, I forwarded some information to a friend saying that toothbrushes and other things used by an infected person should be thrown away once they have recovered. My friend responded immediately, saying experts had already dismissed that as a rumor, and that even if the virus remains on something like a toothbrush, for instance, it is dead virus that isn’t transmissible.

But what if we had had this exchange a month or so ago?

At that time, epidemic prevention workers [“big whites/大白”] often forced their way into sick people’s homes to wantonly carry out disinfection. Clothes, bedding, and food inside fridges were sprayed—even precious antiques and artworks weren’t spared. How much property damage was caused in this way? How much disruption to people’s lives and psychological trauma resulted from this? Where were the experts then? Why did not even one person stand up and say that these items wouldn’t cause secondary transmission? Despite so many homes having been entered and disinfected, I’m sceptical as to whether experts ever provided any so-called scientific evidence for this practice.

Could it really be that overnight they all changed at once or improved their understanding of the virus? Obviously not. In this sense, is it unjust that experts are being cursed, derided, and ridiculed? Not at all. I want to curse them, too; I want to deride and ridicule them, too!

But derision and ridicule aren’t the point, because even this won’t be able to solve the riddle I can’t figure out:  Why weren’t these experts able to tell the truth? Why did they line up to say things that would soon make them a laughing stock? Some people say that the experts have ties to certain interest groups, and some experts themselves were even doing business on the side. I can’t reject this explanation out of hand. However, can it really be said that so many experts were all engaged in this sort of side hustle? Are that many experts in cahoots with interest groups?

This might make sense if we were talking about PCR tests or traditional Chinese medicine. But what about the damage to personal property and those precious antiques and artworks? What’s the link here? Were they in the clothing, bedding, antiques and artworks business? It’s difficult to pinpoint a true explanation based on financial self-interest.

Instead, I think that under normal circumstances, experts and scholars prefer to express their knowledge and insights. And I also believe that in most situations, based on their knowledge, they will have a more professional and scientific understanding, and see things more clearly, than the rest of us.

Having said that, I’m someone who is also engaged in scholarly research. I know that the vast majority of scholars have respect for science and knowledge. At the very least, it’s natural for people to care about their image, to have self-respect or “face.” Who wouldn’t want to receive affirmation and praise for speaking the truth? Who would want to receive derision and ridicule for saying something false? Who wants to make a fool of themselves in public?

So where is the problem then? This question is really worth thinking about.  Of course, I can’t say any more about this than I already have.  

In addition, I want to mention two things that worry me. My first concern is the problem of public trust in society. Over the course of the epidemic, it can be said that public trust has taken a hit. The fact that Zhang Wenhong[2] 张文宏 (b. 1969) stands head and shoulders above everyone else shows the loss of credibility of experts in general. In fact, has it not gone much further than just experts? Isn’t it the same for the media, etc., as well? We should realize that a society needs to have trust in its institutions, otherwise it may descend into chaos. Isn’t it time to talk about the scars left by the pandemic? I think this is one of the scars. After the epidemic, we must face the issue of rebuilding public trust.

Secondly, we mustn’t be suspicious of knowledge or lose respect for professionalism and learning just because the experts didn’t perform well this time around. Indeed, we can easily find out what we want to know online in this current social media era, but this mustn’t become a reason for us to hold experts in contempt, and we mustn’t slide into anti-intellectualism either. Experts have not lost their value. After all, in this online world of multifarious information, we get fragmentary knowledge that is completely different from the long-term focused research of experts.

Of course, it’s absurd that sometimes the words of experts are more superficial and ridiculous than the bits and pieces of knowledge we pick up from who knows where. Yet in most cases, the issue isn’t the level of expertise, but rather it’s a question of the independence of knowledge and expression.
 
Notes 
 
[1]孙立平, “我们的专家怎么了？” published on Sun’s WeChat feed on December 22, 2022.
 
[2]Translator’s note:  Zhang Wenhong is a doctor and public health specialist in Shanghai who is widely admired in China (although he had his detractors as well) for speaking clearly and directly about covid on social media.  Some have called him “China’s Dr. Fauci.”