E-nonymous

Chinese-American, lawyer, liberal.

Views are my own.

[E-nonymous @EnonymousAcc]

@TheStalwart Oh snap! You’re in HK?

[E-nonymous @EnonymousAcc]

@TheStalwart FWIW I don’t think democrats are doing to galvanize anyone who isn’t a political centrist. People aren’t excited to vote for them, especially when Biden largely felt like a continuation of Trump I

[E-nonymous @EnonymousAcc]

@TheStalwart We Can Remember It for You Wholesale

[Joshua Claybourn @JoshuaClaybourn]

On Sunday, my friend Gordon Wood was struck and killed in a car accident. Gordon taught history at Brown Univ. and was among the most accomplished historians America has produced. He won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for The Radicalism of the American Revolution, and his earlier book The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 took the 1970 Bancroft Prize. He also received the National Humanities Medal.

He was, in my view, the finest historian of America's founding—which makes it all the sadder that he did not live to see the nation's 250th birthday. His reputation reached popular culture, too. Matt Damon's character in Good Will Hunting invokes him by name in the famous bar scene, accusing a Harvard student of simply "regurgitating Gordon Wood, talking about [...] the pre-Revolutionary utopia and the capital-forming effects of military mobilization."

I feel fortunate to have collaborated with Gordon on several projects. In a 2019 anthology I compiled, he wrote an essay on the possibility of a shared American narrative. He centered his argument on equal rights as "the most radical and most powerful ideological force" the Revolution unleashed. "This powerful sense of equality is still alive and well in America," he wrote, "and despite all of its disturbing and unsettling consequences, it is what makes us one people."

When I needed jacket blurbs for my new book Lincoln's Compass, coming out this November, I turned to Gordon. The fit was natural: the book argues that Abraham Lincoln took the Declaration's claim that "all men are created equal" as his guiding moral compass—and that he refocused the nation on that claim. Gordon, ever the gentleman, offered generous praise.

He was, in many respects, the dean of American historians. He will be very hard to replace.

[Paul Triolo @pstAsiatech]

👇👇👇

[E-nonymous @EnonymousAcc]

@levelsio The part that is actually nice about them is that the wheels are 🔥

[E-nonymous @EnonymousAcc]

@TheStalwart I’ve had this conversation with friends multiple times. People were more afraid for jobs before they tried the tools.

[E-nonymous @EnonymousAcc]

@TheStalwart I thought your mic was a tie for a second.

[E-nonymous @EnonymousAcc]

@tea_and_sleep @mmue_pungmu @AngelicaOung This is a dumb take. Why should they be expected to welcome a profession that is known to engage in odious behavior at home and abroad?

[Matthias Müller @mmue_pungmu]

@AngelicaOung 3. Two anecdotes: I was looking for a Chinese expert on North Korea. The one who was perfectly suited to my needs no longer spoke to correspondents. Why? The NYT had put words in his mouth that he hadn’t said in an interview.

[Matthias Müller @mmue_pungmu]

@AngelicaOung 2. Regarding my personal experiences as a correspondent in mainland China: the Chinese no longer trust the correspondents, and the correspondents no longer trust the Chinese. However, the latter bear a large share of the blame for this.

[E-nonymous @EnonymousAcc]

@KaiserKuo @AngelicaOung Both! Neither!

[E-nonymous @EnonymousAcc]

@KaiserKuo @AngelicaOung I dunno, I did pull up the NYT China page earlier today. My silver lining was that it’s better than a decade ago?

Admittedly I stopped actively reading the NYT because I thought their China coverage became abysmal after that hack in the 2010s, so there is a lingering assumption.

[E-nonymous @EnonymousAcc]

@KaiserKuo @AngelicaOung We probably just won’t agree on this. I think you have a soft spot for journalists. Maybe. Or maybe I’ve just had too many bad experiences.

I’m sure many historical missionaries did it for a higher calling. It’s not clear to me that the institution did good for the world then.

[E-nonymous @EnonymousAcc]

@KaiserKuo @AngelicaOung Or, maybe not “only” (I don’t know). But it’s certainly the case in the examples you pulled up

[E-nonymous @EnonymousAcc]

@KaiserKuo @AngelicaOung They’re not driving either of the stories though. One is a climate newsletter and the other is from a ME bureau.

And sure, maybe he has a lot to say but his hands are tied, but isn’t that part of the problem?

[E-nonymous @EnonymousAcc]

@KaiserKuo @AngelicaOung Are any of these bylines from the China bureau? Sort of seems like the more up to date views on China are coming from reporters *not* based in China.

[E-nonymous @EnonymousAcc]

@KaiserKuo @AngelicaOung Which outlets though? Yes, BBG does decent work in China.

But what kind of impression do you get of China reading just the NYT?

[E-nonymous @EnonymousAcc]

@cszabla @AngelicaOung I do think that the press has brainwashed themselves into thinking they are doing gods work, probably not unlike the conquistadors of old

[E-nonymous @EnonymousAcc]

@cszabla @AngelicaOung Helped by a willingness to be loose with the facts