【YouTube背後】Gordon Mathews教授對網友的逐一回覆

Gordon Mathews教授的訪問分享後，得到大量留言，難得他本尊現身逐一詳細解答，無論是否認同他的觀點，這都是很難得的互動。我們將一些有代表性的對答節錄分享，讓大家可以進一步思考。

Gordon Mathews Introduction:

• Hi--I won't argue with your delightful comments.  But a few points: 1) I live in Hong Kong, and daily deal with students quite deeply, both graduate and undergraduate, and both Hongkongers and mainland Chinese.  So I know Hong Kong pretty well.  Hong Kong is my home and will continue to be my home unless I am forced to leave in the future, as I hope won't happen, but might.  2) I have pretty consistently kept the same views over the past five years--I am a light yellow in my views, and wish that protests had never become violent , but have great respect for people like Benny Tai and Joshua Wong.  I am a centrist by nature; I have compromised nothing in my expression in recent years.  You may disagree with me--fine!--but I hold these views with integrity. 3) My deepest belief is not in democracy--look, after all, at the disaster of Donald Trump--but in critical thinking: that's what I stand for, and continue to engage in in the classroom, and will do this regardless of what may come.

Dialogue 1

• Reader 1: You have the freedom to continue living your preferred way of life in Hong Kong, but there is a thing call good and evil, right and wrong, fact and lies. You are the one who chose to say that "totalitarian governments have many good things about them." This is crossing the line. You know it is an immoral, dishonest, wicked, and destructive stance to take. You choose to be aiding and abetting a tyranny that has murdered hundreds of millions of Chinese people. You "won't argue" with us and so you can get off the hook for being a man who speaks like Hitler's press officer? Just because you teach in a classroom does not mean you "know Hong Kong pretty well." Do you even know that names of the 47 who have been in prison without trial for over 17 months? Do you care about the young kid who was shot at close range holding nothing more than a surf board and then charged with rioting. "Consistently keeping the same view" does not absolve you from being an amoral, heartless person who willfully distort the truth and make excuses for something as vile as the NSL. How could you hold such views on barbaric and inhuman laws and call yourself having "integrity." I am sure Hitler's henchmen also hold views about the holocaust "consistently" and "with integrity" according to themselves. You don't believe in democracy; but have you found a better way to govern a country? Churchill admitted that it is the best of a bad bunch of ways and history has taught us that democracy and freedom has brought the greatest benefit and rights for humankind. You are not teaching critical thinking; you are using this term as an excuse for your utter amorality, opportunism, self-interests, and disrespect for universal human values. A man of your education and time of life acting like some eunuch for a tyranny. I feel sorry for you.
• Gordon Mathews: Life is more complex than this.  Democracy is indeed ultimately the best form of government, I agree: but who would you rather have as your leader, Xi Xinping or Donald Trump?  I detest them both myself, but hope I never have to choose between them. The degree of your antipathy is extraordinary, Agatha, but, whoever you are, have a good life!

Dialogue 2

• Reader 2: Excuse my ignorance. The way I understand critical thinking is to have the free will, mind and heart to criticize. Can professor tell me whether such critical thinking still exists in HK? HK people not only lost the freedom of expression and speech, they don't even have the free will to keep silent.
• Gordon Mathews: In my view, critical thinking means to convey all sides of an argument and then let students make up their own minds, and to grade them on the quality of their argument rather than the content of their views--I have given A's both to radical democrats and pro-China students if they can make their arguments well.  Hong Kong is free to the extent that informally, people can speak freely.  Many of my friends say that if the pro-democracy supporters had been successful, Hong Kong would be a better place.  I believe that myself, and say it freely. Now, I wouldn't write that in a newspaper column.  But I do think that expression informally remains relatively free, at least among the Hongkongers I know.
• Reader 2: Professor, thanks for your enlightenment from your perspective about critical thinking and allow a free discussion in this forum. It appears that you might be living in an Ivory tower with the people around you can still enjoy the freedom that HK people used to have. Haven't we see respectable lawyers, legco members, social workers, teachers, professors, students, doctors, nurses, people from all walks of life got arrested, prosecuted, jailed without trial? Do you see in the Ivory tower, any of your students got beaten up, prosecuted, jailed?
• Gordon Mathews: I have visited jail several times to visit people; I have seen the bruises of my students from being beaten by police and talked with them at great length; I have been tackled by students who didn't want me to get shot by police rubber bullets that were being fired near me.  I know this stuff--I have lived through it (although I was not arrested, probably because I was white and took a position more as an observer than a participant, as a foreigner).  I suspect that a number of my commentators have not lived through this, but I have, rather intensely.  Give me a break!

Dialogue 3

• Reader 3: You said "Obama, Bush, and Clinton respected those checks and balances, as Trump did not." Did they all just respect those checks and balances, or did they ever want to ignore them but find them too big a hurdle to overcome? We will never know. Understand that I am not saying this out of disrespect for any of these men. I am speaking from the perspective of my understanding about human nature. A person entrusted with such great power faces enormous temptation to use that power for personal gain. As they say, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely". In the end, they all "respected those checks and balances". Is it because of their outstanding self-control or is it simply because the checks and balances were working? Trump did try to ignore them, but the US is still in one piece, thanks to those checks and balances. So, thank you for proving my point that a system with checks and balances is less dangerous than one without. An autocratic system is good from the perspective of the person who holds the power. For those who don't, it's hell. That's why people like Xi, and Kim (in N. Korea), will never allow a free press. With knowledge and information, the common people will know they are in hell. So, Professor Matthews, while all man-made systems are imperfect, they are not all equally good, or equally bad.
• Gordon Mathews: I agree with you.  Autocracy can be more efficient than democracy, as pro-CCP figures like to say, but democratic governments, because they were voted in, have legitimacy, as autocratic governments do not.  Voters in democracies do often make short-sighted choices, but the will of the people is, in the end, most important.  The great problem in the US today is that the Republican Party wants to claim that the elections it loses are illegitimate--that attitude may well destroy democracy.  The bigger problem is in China, though, where the CCP seems terrified of real democracy, but can never fully gain legitimacy without it.

Dialogue 4

• Reader 4: Thanks Prof. Matthews, personally do not think violence is necessary, but 2019 movement is based on police brutality. Police widely violating lawful act and intentionally hidden their identity with suspious gangs within the team. It was peaceful and only building structure were damage which is reversable and no big deal to this money flooding city. Who did the first shoot? Who choose to use violence against fresh blood instead of buildings? Who work with gangsters at Yuen Long, North Point, Quarry Bay etc...? Who use violence against journalist and suspressing media and information flow?   Even though I am not for any form of violence, but I believe in self protection. People are lawful to protect themself and unlawful gangs origanization should be dismissed  Anyway, it is important to keep critical thinking. Thanks professor for standing by HK and keep educating. ❤️
• Gordon Mathews: I think you're largely right, and the violence I saw was indeed initiated more by police.  On the other hand, though, a dear friend of mine directly witnessed a pro-government old man in Ma On Shan being set on fire by several protesters: that too can't be denied.  But you are certainly right that police shot first in their interactions with protesters, and probably did indeed work with gangsters at Yuen Long.

⏺ Gordon Mathews (麥高登) 教授：《港區國安法》生效後，我留在香港，就是為了繼續教批判性思考
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7_-ML8bAYE