无知是恶：我为什么如此厌恶”中国耶稣” Ignorance Is Evil: Why I Loathe the ‘Chinese Jesus’

程敏

B站有一位坐拥近百万粉丝的视频连线博主“路西法”，因长相酷似经典画像中的耶稣而迅速走红。他的视频内容大多是与世界各地的网友进行连线聊天，风格轻松幽默。前几天我无意中刷到了他的视频，一开始，我也觉得这种跨文化交流挺有趣；但多看了几个视频后，尤其是在看完一条与美国普通网友连线的视频里，我却本能地对这位博主产生了一种强烈的厌恶感。矛盾的是，我很清楚这不能简单地归咎于这位博主个人，他在视频中其实表现得风趣幽默，积极向上，甚至他所说的一切大概率都出自其本心。我仔细思考后发现，我的这种厌恶感并非针对他个人，而是指向一种被体制驯化后的“无知之恶”。

简而言之，那段视频的氛围本身其实没有任何问题。博主与那位来自美国的连线者双方都表现得客气且友好，交流也很顺畅，而让我感到心理不适的，是两人的对话内容 。当那位美国网友随口询问他新疆是否存在人权危机时，这位博主不假思索地矢口否认。并且以自己为例，动情地讲述了少数民族享受到的种种政策优待——比如自己高考只需500分，就能读上其他省份汉族学生拼命考到600分才能上的大学。他的言语中满溢着一种“听党话、跟党走、感党恩”的幸福感 。面对这样一位长相阳光、充满魅力且“血统纯正”的新疆青年，那位美国网友自然被轻易说服。甚至痛斥西方政客卑鄙无耻、西方媒体充斥谎言。而镜头这端的博主则报以温和、赞许的微笑。画面无比和谐，但落在我这个反共仔眼里，却无比荒诞诡异 。

我对这位博主的厌恶并不仅仅因为他为中共张目，事实上，在各大海外社交平台上，职业的“外宣矩阵”和翻墙爱国者成千上万。论口才、论逻辑、论讲故事的专业度，根本不缺他这一个，我相信如我这般的反贼也早已免疫。我之所以对他产生如此强烈的心理不适，原因在于以下几点 。

第一：真实的谎 言世界上最完美的谎言，是由一个不知道真相的人，用最真诚的态度说出来的 。这位视频博主，我相信他并不是一个专业的外宣或洗地博主，他说的每一个字，大概率都是他的真实经历和真实想法。作为一名能够读完大学、掌握流利外语、甚至能在这个时代自由做自媒体的维族人，他的生活经验里确实只有“高考加分”、“民族团结”和“岁月静好”。在这个信息被精心过滤，只留下阳光与鲜花的温室里，他的幸福感是100%真实的 。但这也正是最残忍的讽刺：他在浑然未觉的同时，以自己个体的幸福，去否认了成百上千万同胞被剥夺基本人权的苦难。作为一个有跨语言交流能力的视频博主，我毫不怀疑他有翻墙了解信息的能力，那么但凡他愿意去谷歌搜索新疆人权四个字，也能轻易找到大量新疆人被迫害的视频或文字证据，即使他可以以中共固有的话术解释那些消失的清真寺，高墙下的集中营，强制安装的监控系统，但他作为一个维族青年，想必也无法问心无愧的脱口说出“新疆完全没有人权问题”这种话来。或许应该说，他是被系统训练得“选择性失明”。因为无知，他就可以心安理得地用自己的“幸福人生”作为盾牌，替这个庞大且冷酷的体制作无罪辩护。当他带着阳光、帅气的微笑，对镜头那端说出“我就是新疆人，我们过得很好，没有任何人权问题”时，这种“真实的谎言”对于不了解真相的外国普通民众而言具有极高的误导性。它可以轻易地摧毁一个外国普通人对于新疆人权危机的既有印象，将几百万不愿屈服中共驯化而遭到迫害的新疆人的血泪，降格成了一句简单的“西方政客见不得中国好”的无端抹黑。这种“无知”之所以令人厌恶，是因为它不仅蒙蔽了这位博主自己，更在无意间成了体制最完美的防弹衣——用一个受害群体的极少数“幸福代言人”，去粉饰整个群体正在承受的苦难。

第二：聪明的糊涂。 如果说第一点是这位博主因为“被蒙蔽而无知”，还可以归结于中共洗脑术的高明，那么第二点则涉及一种心照不宣的“聪明”。 首先，如我之前所言，这位博主作为一个维族人，能熟练地运用流利中文与英语与世界交流，我不觉得他有智力障碍的问题，相反，从我的观察得到的印象，他非常聪明且敏锐。 正因如此，我相信他的内心深处隐隐约约、甚至可能清清楚楚地知道有些红线是绝对不能踩的——在中国的网络生态里，指出任何对于这个国家体制的负面、展现真实的底层苦难，都可能意味着封号、禁言甚至肉体上的消失；而相反，对体制进行毫无保留的赞美、去迎合宏大叙事，对西方的普通人灌输“我们在党的领导下很幸福”不仅绝对安全，还能换来源源不断的流量、名利与官方的保驾护航。 这便达成了一种极其微妙且自私的“默契”：为了维持安全且体面的生活和源源不断的粉丝，他们的大脑会进行自发的“自我审查”与过滤。他们主动闭上眼睛，不去探寻深究那些可能会让自己痛苦、甚至会砸掉自己饭碗的“负面真相”。他们用“赞美是自由的，而批评是危险的”这一生存法则，合理化了自己的避重就轻。这种“聪明”之所以比无知更让人感到寒冷，是因为它本质上是一种自私。他用一种近乎天真的姿态扮演着“盛世顺民”，他不是不知道代价，他只是假装不知道支付这笔代价的人，是那些无法发声的同胞。看着这位长相神似耶稣、个性开朗、能用流利外语开玩笑的新疆年轻博主，我们无法去苛责一个在温室里长大的人为什么不知道寒冬的残酷，也无法叫醒一个靠着装睡来赚取名利的人。

这或许确实不是他一个人的错，他是这个庞大机器流水线上，被精心筛选并组装出来的、最精美的一个“无公害外销产品”。但正因如此，这种真诚的“无知”才显得如此面目可憎。无知也许不是主动的恶，但在一个系统性掩盖真相的环境里，拒绝探寻真相、并用自己的“幸福”去为禁锢他人自由的枷锁涂脂抹粉，就是一种帮凶式的恶。

A Bilibili creator known as ‘Lucifer’, who conducts video chats with strangers and has almost one million followers, shot to fame because of his striking resemblance to Jesus as depicted in traditional paintings. Most of his videos show him chatting online with people from around the world in a relaxed, humorous style. A few days ago, one of his clips appeared in my feed by chance. At first, I found this sort of cross-cultural exchange quite entertaining. After watching several more, however — and especially one in which he spoke to an ordinary American — I developed an instinctive and intense aversion to him.

The contradiction is that I know the blame cannot simply be placed on the creator himself. In his videos he is witty, upbeat and positive; in all likelihood, he genuinely means everything he says. After thinking it through, I realised that my disgust is directed less at him as an individual than at a form of evil born of ignorance and conditioned into existence by the system.

Essentially, there was nothing objectionable about the atmosphere of the exchange. Both the creator and his American interlocutor were polite and friendly, and the conversation flowed easily. What unsettled me was what they actually said.

When the American casually asked whether there was a human-rights crisis in Xinjiang, the creator denied it without a moment’s hesitation. He then offered his own life as evidence, speaking with feeling about the various preferential policies enjoyed by ethnic minorities. He said, for example, that a score of only 500 in the gaokao had been enough for him to enter a university that Han Chinese students in other provinces would have had to struggle for 600 to attend. His words overflowed with the contentment of someone who ‘listens to the Party, follows the Party and feels grateful to the Party’.

Faced with a handsome, charismatic young man from Xinjiang who appeared radiantly healthy and ethnically ‘authentic’, the American was easily convinced. He even denounced Western politicians as shameless and Western media as riddled with lies. On this side of the screen, the creator responded with a gentle, approving smile. The scene was perfectly harmonious. To an anti-CCP dissident like me, it was also grotesquely absurd.

My dislike of this creator does not arise solely from his advocacy on behalf of the CCP. Across major social-media platforms outside China, professional overseas-propaganda networks and patriotic internet users who bypass the Great Firewall number in their thousands. In eloquence, logic and the professional art of storytelling, there is no shortage of people more capable than he is. Anti-regime dissidents like me have long since developed an immunity to them. My unusually intense discomfort has several other causes.

1. The Truest Kind of Lie

The most perfect lie in the world is one spoken with utter sincerity by someone who does not know the truth.

I do not believe this video creator is a professional propagandist or paid apologist. Every word he says probably reflects his lived experience and genuine convictions. As a Uyghur who was able to complete university, become fluent in a foreign language and even work freely as an independent content creator in China today, his personal experience may indeed consist only of ‘bonus points in the gaokao’, ‘ethnic unity’ and an untroubled life. In a hothouse where information is meticulously filtered until only sunshine and flowers remain, his sense of happiness is entirely real.

Yet therein lies the cruellest irony: without the faintest awareness of what he is doing, he uses his own happiness to deny the suffering of millions of fellow Uyghurs who have been deprived of basic human rights. As a video creator capable of communicating across languages, he almost certainly knows how to circumvent the Great Firewall and access information from outside China. A simple Google search for ‘Xinjiang human rights’ would reveal a vast body of video and written evidence documenting the persecution of people from Xinjiang. He might still explain away the vanished mosques, the concentration camps behind high walls and the compulsory surveillance systems using the CCP’s familiar talking points. As a young Uyghur, however, surely he could not proclaim, in good conscience and without qualification, that ‘there are absolutely no human-rights problems in Xinjiang’.

Perhaps the more accurate description is that the system has trained him in ‘selective blindness’. Ignorance enables him to use his own ‘happy life’ as a shield, serenely offering a defence of innocence on behalf of a vast and merciless system. When he turns his handsome, sunny smile to the camera and says, ‘I am from Xinjiang. We live very well. There are no human-rights problems at all’, this ‘sincere lie’ becomes exceptionally persuasive to ordinary foreigners who do not know the truth. It can easily erase an outsider’s existing understanding of the human-rights crisis in Xinjiang, reducing the blood and tears of millions of people persecuted for refusing to submit to the CCP’s efforts to condition them to a baseless accusation: ‘Western politicians simply cannot bear to see China succeed.’

This ignorance is repellent because its consequences extend far beyond deluding the creator himself. Unwittingly, it becomes the system’s perfect bulletproof vest: a tiny number of ‘happy representatives’ from a victimised community are used to whitewash the suffering endured by the community as a whole.

2. Calculated Obliviousness

The first problem could still be attributed to sophisticated CCP indoctrination — to ignorance born of deception. The second involves a tacit and knowing form of ‘cleverness’.

As I have already said, this is a Uyghur man who can communicate with the world in fluent Chinese and English. I see no reason to doubt his intelligence. Quite the reverse: from what I have observed, he is highly intelligent and perceptive.

Precisely for that reason, I believe he senses at some level — perhaps vaguely, perhaps with perfect clarity — that certain red lines must never be crossed. In China’s online ecosystem, pointing to any flaw in the country’s political system or revealing the suffering of people at the bottom can lead to an account ban, enforced silence or even one’s physical disappearance. Lavishing unqualified praise on the system, conforming to its grand narratives and teaching ordinary Westerners that ‘we are very happy under the Party’s leadership’, meanwhile, is entirely safe. It can also deliver an endless stream of clicks, fame and money, together with official protection.

This creates an extraordinarily subtle and selfish compact. To preserve a secure and respectable life, along with an inexhaustible supply of followers, people like him allow their minds to censor and filter themselves. They close their eyes voluntarily, declining to investigate the ‘negative truths’ that might cause them pain — or cost them their livelihood. They justify their evasions through a simple rule of survival: praise is free; criticism is dangerous.

This kind of ‘cleverness’ feels colder than ignorance because selfishness lies at its core. He adopts a nearly innocent pose as a docile citizen of a prosperous age. He understands that a price is being paid. He merely pretends not to know that the people paying it are his voiceless compatriots.

When we look at this cheerful young creator from Xinjiang — with the face of Jesus and the ability to crack jokes in fluent foreign languages — we cannot condemn someone raised in a hothouse for failing to understand the cruelty of winter. Nor can we wake a man who earns fame and fortune by pretending to sleep. Perhaps the responsibility truly is not his alone. He is the finest ‘harmless export product’ to have been carefully selected and assembled on the production line of this vast machine.

That is precisely why such sincere ‘ignorance’ is so hideous.

Ignorance may not be an active form of evil. In an environment built upon the systematic concealment of truth, however, refusing to seek the truth — and using one’s own ‘happiness’ to decorate the shackles that deprive others of their freedom — is a form of complicit evil.