The Terrible New Things

By Author: sadas
Total Articles: 105
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My computer is still not online, and I've considered getting connected to the Internet. But I've heard there's a lot of pornography on the Net, as well as some reactionary political stuff. That scares me stiff. Recently some people were saying we should limit the use of the Net. I couldn't agree more. Surely, we can't permit the free flow of information, can we? But if I understand the situation at all, then it would seem to me that, other than just cutting it all off clean, there's really no way to put limits on it. That stuff is just so fast, so amazing. With the information explosion, it's just too -difficult to monitor it all— banning it outright would be a lot easier. Of course, if we were in business, or doing scientific or technological work, I couldn't very well get along without the Internet. But then why should I worry about businessmen, scientists and engineers? There is indeed a vast ocean of information flowing out there on the information superhighway. But for someone like me who writes for a living. I can get along without it. So I say: cut off the Internet completely so that I don't ...
... have to be bothered with it.
The Internet is just a tool for transmitting information. There are also tools for processing information, namely, the various personal computers. Just think, if there were no personal computers, even if the Internet still existed, there would be no way to connect to it. Besides, the sale of pornography can still go on with floppy disks and CDs. We have to ban personal computers if we want to get to the root of the problem.
In addition to computers, you have TV and movies, which also propagate' unhealthy information. I am very clear on this matter: I am in favor of strict control. First of all, foreign films and television programmers, are simply not appropriate to conditions in China; they should all be prohibited without exception. Secondly, movie makers and television producers in China are not always the finest individuals, and there is a lot of junk that gets produced. I Jam a fiction writer, I don't have anything to do with movies or TV, and I don't make much money. Wang Shuo, Feng Xiaogang and all those movie stars—none of them has the academic creden¬tials4 I do and what they produce is not up to my standard, yet they do make big bucks. There should be a strict monitoring of all this. But when you think about it, monitoring every page on the net before approving it for distribution would be impossible. Nor would it be easy task to watch a 120-episode5 TV series from start to finish. We might as well just ban it all. During the ten years of the "Cultural Revolution" we only had the eight "model operas" and we managed alright, didn't we. I am not like today's young people who simply must have a CD, a VCD, a TV and a VCR. Just give me a book to read and I'm happy. Having said all this, I overlooked pop music. That filthy6 racket should be the first thing we ban. If young people don't have anything to occupy themselves, they can do more physical exercise to develop their bodies along with their character.
If we continue to ban things like this, eventually its going to come around to me. There maybe no unhealthy content in my novels, but if you ask me to go through them line-by-line and demonstrate' that its all good-quality information, then I wouldn't be up to it. And anyway, at that point I would be loo terrified to defend myself. If movies and TV can be banned, why not novels? We may like to read, but there are also plenty of illiterates, and they would certainly have no problem banning all books. Okay, so I'll quit writing. I'll get a job as a porter at the railway station. I'm in pretty good shape. I could do the work of a porter. Yet not every writer could lift heavy bags like I could. . .