Sail across the sea

Chapter 560 When did the professor ever have any morals?

Yuan Xiaoyan raised this question based on her own experience.

At Gao Fan's suggestion, she read some Western journalism literature and saw that some Western journalists themselves exposed various industry scandals, and some scholars were also sharply criticizing the hypocrisy of Western media.

She wasn't originally a journalism major, and as an undergraduate, she had limited exposure to foreign literature. When she saw this content, she found it quite novel and her thinking was greatly impacted.

Immediately, a question arose in her mind: it wasn't surprising that she hadn't read such literature. Hadn't so many journalism professors in China seen it either? Why did those professors speak of Western journalism with such admiration, never mentioning these unsavory aspects?

Upon hearing Yuan Xiaoyan's question, Gao Fan sneered, "These scholars aren't unaware; they're just selectively concealing it. To maintain their prestige domestically, they need to leverage foreign influence. If they expose the hypocrisy of the West, how can they still pretend to be 'international scholars'?"

"Think about it, when Granny Liu returned from the Grand View Garden, did she boast to her neighbors about how magnificent the Grand View Garden was, or did she tell the truth about all the ugliness in the Grand View Garden?"

This analogy made Yuan Xiaoyan laugh. She nodded and accepted Gao Fan's explanation.

Gao Fan then raised a third finger and said, "The third point is to promote the idea that the world today is still a world where the law of the jungle prevails, and that backwardness invites aggression. We must maintain an independent industrial system, otherwise we will inevitably suffer from the blackmail of the great powers."

"This is what it means to advocate for your business community."

"There's a viewpoint that China doesn't need to develop an independent industrial system; integrating into the international industrial system is enough. We need to make more people realize that a nation's destiny must be in its own hands. If you pin your hopes on integrating into someone else's system, what will you do when that system stops working with you?"

Yuan Xiaoyan made another note, then said with a bitter face, "President Gao, these requirements of yours sound simple, but do you know how difficult it is to implement them? Take the matter of searching for foreign literature for example. The editors I hired in my company have been working on this for more than a month, and everyone's eyes are all panda eyes from exhaustion."

"Don't think I don't know you're using this method to brainwash the editors," Gao Fan revealed.

Yuan Xiaoyan laughed and said, "As expected of the evil capitalist, my little thoughts as a high-class working girl can't be hidden from President Gao. But, to be honest, it's really hard to find articles on these three topics you listed. This is completely mind-blowing. If I hadn't been brainwashed by you for a few years, I would never have believed your views."

“Everything is difficult at the beginning,” Gao Fan said. “In the past few years, everyone has been used to blindly following the West. Whatever Westerners say, we believe. Of course, there is also a group of Western scholars who are praising the West, so this kind of social perception has been formed.”

"What we need to do is inspire people to question such perceptions. It may be difficult at first, but once the seed of doubt begins to sprout, people will recognize the various problems of the West without you having to deliberately guide them. At that time, it will be easier for you to solicit articles."

"But what do we do now?" Yuan Xiaoyan asked persistently.

She believed Gao Fan's vision of the future to some extent, because she herself was a living example. Several years ago, Gao Fan had planted a seed of doubt in her heart, and now, when she hears others talking about the West, she can't help but want to refute them.

“A problem that can be solved with money isn’t a problem,” Gao Fan said. “Just like when I hired you to write articles, you took the money and went to the university to find people. Let me tell you, the national treasury is tight right now, and the funding for universities and research institutions is very tight. University professors are also struggling to make ends meet.”

“Go to one of those top universities and find a journalism professor. Pay him ten thousand yuan, and I guarantee he can write whatever you ask.” Yuan Xiaoyan sighed, “President Gao, can you please stop saying such uncivilized things? Professors have principles too.”

"No way, when did the professor ever have any principles?"

"Can't others have even a little bit?"

"That's true. If they have no morals, how can they sell their morals?"

Yuan Xiaoyan lost; Gao Fan's words made perfect sense.

Isn't integrity something that can be sold off?
Over the years, Yuan Xiaoyan has met many university professors. Among them, quite a few are indeed capable of finding contentment in a simple life. Yuan Xiaoyan does not believe that she can use money to tempt them to abandon their academic views in order to cater to the needs of capital.

But as the saying goes, "a large forest has all kinds of birds," and there are plenty of scholars who are keen on opportunism and scheming. These people never have any fixed academic views. They are good at changing their tune depending on the wind; today they say something is white, tomorrow, depending on the wind direction, they can immediately say it's black.

Yuan Xiaoyan was fully confident that if she took 10,000 yuan to these people and asked them to write some manuscripts that met Gao Fan's requirements, they would definitely not refuse.

People who become renowned professors generally have excellent writing skills, and their manuscripts are sure to meet the requirements of magazines.

As for the viewpoints in the article, they themselves don't believe them, so who cares!

"If you were to actively solicit manuscripts, the costs would likely be quite high. University professors may not have much integrity, but their asking prices are not low," Yuan Xiaoyan cautioned.

“This money is worth spending. You don’t need to worry about funding; I can allocate another million.”

Gao Fan said arrogantly, earning Yuan Xiaoyan a disdainful look in return.

Canghai Chemical's current projects are all very solid cash cows, so Gao Fan is definitely not short of money.

Yuan Xiaoyan's joke about Chinese people lacking a scientific tradition really annoyed him. He had heard similar claims in his previous life. Back then, China had already consistently ranked first in the world in the number of high-level scientific papers published each year, but there were still a group of people who kept babbling about scientific traditions and cultural genes, turning perfectly good scientific research into metaphysics.

What do you mean Chinese people don't have a scientific tradition? Isn't this just changing the "Sick Man of East Asia" label to "Mentally challenged Man of East Asia"? How can you tolerate this?
For Gao Fan, spending some money to refute such nonsense was something he was willing to do.

Money is so willful.

(End of this chapter)