Seeking truth is key to a civilized society
Imagine this scene: a helpless mother in Guangzhou with a six-month-old baby with cancer posts online for financial help. A cruelly minded netizen, known as "Jinquan Shaoxia" promises her 20,000 yuan but only if she walks on her knees for two blocks. Out of pressing need, the mother complies but the donator disappeared without forking up. A further twist was added when the trickster admitted to engineering the plot to raise attention to the mother's plight.
The Internet rightly condemned Jinquan Shaoxia, but a network poll showed 67 percent of respondents saying they "understood" his "good intentions." Such "understanding" is not normal, which shows that society does not think "Jinquan Shaoxia" committed any serious mistakes. His original motive could offset his deception of the public, but this approach is inappropriate.
We believe that Chinese society should take this horrific behavior more seriously. Facts should constitute the overriding principle and nothing can interfere with this.
Currently, Chinese society is used to considering motives for behavior and taking speech as the determinant for its attitude. As such, some public figures are keen to stand and argue whilst ignoring the facts.
Most false news is easily forgiven. Recently, a public figure questioned China's telecommunications sector through the false information that a annual mobile fee in the US only costs $9.9. As public image of China's telecommunications operators was not good enough at present, although the false news was quickly corrected, it did not affect the person's reputation. On the contrary, many people defended him.
The legal foundation in China is not strong enough. When the laws are not sufficiently respected, respect for the facts is bound to be insufficient. In life, we attach importance to whether an "intention" is good or not and this is reproduced online. The reality is that the words of some people are always thought to be right while the others are always wrong.
Chinese society should continue to evolve, based on the principle of seeking truth from facts. In the past, "seeking truth from facts" was often seen as a political slogan, having nothing to do with public opinion. But the truth is that all of Chinese society suffers from not adhering to this principle and that it has become difficult to "tell the truth" in China, not only in official circles, but also on the Internet and in real life. There are many examples in which lies are applauded in Chinese society.
China is rapidly changing and society is often arguing about the conflicts in values that have emerged from social diversification. It should not be encouraged to put value judgments above truth, which in fact is encouraging the public opinion to split along with those dividing values. This division is completely different from having healthy and diversified public opinion.
China's history shows that the country's development proceeded more smoothly when the principle of "seeking truth" was more respected. In revolutionary times, or during unrest, value judgment was deemed superior. In peaceful times, rationality has more space.
Now, we have no reason not to seek truth from facts above all other ideologies.
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