Li Ao - political gadfly, social commentator, intellectual?

I’m curious as to what everyone thinks of Li Ao 李敖 (1935- ), born in Harbin, China (the same place where my grandfather was born, although my grandfather is about 20+ years older than him). I’ve done quite a bit of reading about him and have heard lots of varying opinions. He’s viewed by many as not only one of the most prolific authors in modern Chinese literature, but also quite a talented historian and literary critic. I’ve even used one of his more “unorthodox” interpretations of a poem in the “Book of Odes” 詩經 in my M.A. thesis. He is certainly someone who likes to push the envelope. Isn’t that something that Taiwan needs? Not to mention he was imprisoned by the KMT for many years, helped a prominent pro-independence political prisoner escape to Japan, and during the years of martial law, was one of the top three political prisoners on Taiwan that the U.S. was pushing strongly to have released. Any other thoughts? Or does the fact that he criticizes CSB and LTH mean that he must automatically be an evil guy?

Li Ao is one of a kind. He is a great scholar and has done some remarkable work in the past. However lately he seems to disagree with everything and everybody just for the sake of arguing.

Li Ao is not afraid to challenge the fundimentals of people’s belief. When the KMT was in power, he challenged their view of control. When the DPP was in power he challenges their fundimental belief in Taidu motivation.

If more people took his approach to complex political problems then there wouldn’t be so much problems on Taiwan.

Whatever his merits from the past, right now he’s just another obnoxious loudmouth the Legislative Yuan could do without. Despite different political views, I put him in the same league as dpp morons like Cai Qifang and Lin Chongmo.
The local media will ask them for opinions on everything - including colleagues’ divorces - which is all good for some clownish fun on TV, but it distracts from what legislators should really be working on.
If Li doesn’t do some serious work instead of blabbering and suing, I predict he will not be re-elected.

[quote=“enzo+”]
If Li doesn’t do some serious work instead of blabbering and suing, I predict he will not be re-elected.[/quote]Sadly, I feel many legislators are reelected simply because they’re always on TV talk shows running their stupid mouths off or involvement in frivolous libel or slander suits. :unamused:
And yes, in this respect DPP is no better than any other party.

He writes pretty good prose, has excellent recent skills, and knows about a lot of stuff. On the other hand, he is a terrible scholar because the point of advancing an argument for him is to show that everybody else is wrong and an idiot compared to the great LI AO. He’s also a tireless self-promoter and loves the spotlight, which is why he is now in the legislature. There is probably a thesis waiting to be written about why the Taiwanese public loves him despite the fact that he is a complete clown at this point . Or maybe not, since that is probably the simple answer.

I wouldn’t cite him if you want to be taken seriously.

[quote=“Feiren”]He writes pretty good prose, has excellent recent skills, and knows about a lot of stuff. On the other hand, he is a terrible scholar because the point of advancing an argument for him is to show that everybody else is wrong and an idiot compared to the great LI AO. He’s also a tireless self-promoter and loves the spotlight, which is why he is now in the legislature. There is probably a thesis waiting to be written about why the Taiwanese public loves him despite the fact that he is a complete clown at this point . Or maybe not, since that is probably the simple answer.

I wouldn’t cite him if you want to be taken seriously.[/quote]

I cite him with about four or five others with the same view on the particular verse from the ShiJing. I’m not that stupid to make him the sole basis for my argument … :wink:

That’s not quite what I meant by saying that I didn’t think it was a good idea to cite Li Ao.

If you’re going to cite someone else’s view, I think you should cite the person who came up with it or who has the most authoritative version of the reading. Who you cite says a lot about your work and how familiar you are with the field. There is also no reason to cite multiple people who hold the same view.

[quote=“Feiren”]That’s not quite what I meant by saying that I didn’t think it was a good idea to cite Li Ao.

If you’re going to cite someone else’s view, I think you should cite the person who came up with it or who has the most authoritative version of the reading. Who you cite says a lot about your work and how familiar you are with the field. There is also no reason to cite multiple people who hold the same view.[/quote]

In this case where it is such a controversial viewpoint, I think it is necessary. But I’ll leave the final decision up to my advisor.

I agree with you, but that’s not the whole story: a big reason for people loving him is for what he did to help the democratization of Taiwan. He does deserve respect for that. And anyway - name me a politician in any country who isn’t a tireless self-promoter and loves the spotlight :laughing:

That said, I really don’t think the legislatature needs someone like him; just this month he has:

  • Threatened to sue every other member of the legislature (NT$1 each)
  • Drawn a knife in the legislature and suggested the minister of defense uses it to cut off his balls
  • Suggested that all of James Soong’s advisors are in the pay of the CIA, and of US weapons manufacturers.
    Even by Taiwanese standards, that’s hardly mature political debate :unamused:

Just the other day, I was in a hotel room in Guangzhou watching Li Ao’s talk show. I never thought I’d be able to see a Taiwan politican’s show in the mainland (though I think it was on a HK TV channel, which you can often get in Guangzhou,) but considering his hard pan-blue stance, I guess it’s not that surprising.

One of the more annoying things was the way he kept saying suowei whenever he referred to some Taiwanese governmental body. Like he’d say, he was a member of the suowei lifayuan, as if it weren’t the governing legislative body in Taiwan and it’s the People’s Congress in Beijing that passes Taiwan’s laws. And in the Chinese subtitles, they’d adopt the Xinhua approach of using quotation marks around the name of any governmental position. (Isn’t it great how he knocks the very platform for self-aggrandizement?)

Nonetheless, he’s probably the most entertaining guy on the Taiwanese political stage and even though I disagree with him on most things, he actually seemed to have pretty good reasons for some of his stances. For instance, regarding his comments calling for the guofang buzhang to cut off his balls, he actually did a pretty job explaining how what was more absurd than his comments were the Americans demands that Taiwan purchase $18 billion worth of arms, even though the Americans admit that all those weapons probably wouldn’t arrive for several years and that they probably still wouldn’t be enough for Taiwan to defend itself from a mainland attack for more than several days (during which the Americans may or may not come to Taiwan’s aid.) According to the Americans, the purpose of Taiwan buying all these weapons isn’t for the actual defense of the island, for which they’d be nearly useless, but rather to show Taiwan’s “determination” in defending itself. So, hell, why not do what government officials back in the Ming dynasty did to show their determination and chop off your balls and save Taiwan the $18 billion?

Grandstanding? Sure. But it’s an entertaining sideshow, which is what Taiwan’s democracy is all about, right? Too bad that none of the pan-greens (at least as far as I know what with my lack of Taiwanese language abilities) are as entertaining.

In today’s newspaper Li Ao supposedly has proof from the US CIA that President Chen staged his own election eve shooting.

taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/ … 2003258547

If this is true it is a sad tradegy, if this is not true, I hope to see Li Ao pay an absurd amount of money and do jail time for this false accusation. Li Ao is one of many of those China born Blues that are so BLUE they are RED.

Nice to learn of his birthdate and that he is 70 years old this year. You wouldn’t know it from his TV appearance. These guys can’t live forever…however, I am afraid their children are only a little different.

I haven’t heard of this yet, but it might as well be true, Li Ao is well know for uncovering similar stories.

I wouldn’t think this is true because I have some vague memory of Li Ao making false accusations before and getting called on it. I think he is not know for his credibility. Furthermore, it is common practise of many Pro-China pan Blues to make wild false accusations. I think the KMT must make it part of their politics and with all of their money they can have some large legal defense fund.

Such as? Hope you’ve got something to back this up, mesheel.

This whole thing is a sad joke. Li Ao is trying desperately to stay in the limelight and keep up the mad cycle of accusations against Chen. Notice how all this bullshit has come up again after the self-outing of Deep Throat?

The idea of Chen having Annette Lu killed, while entertaining, doesn’t explain its ineptitude. And what idiot would knowingly place himself next to a potential assassination target when the weapon to be used was a handgun?

Surely you jest, mesheel? Or am I missing your sense of humor?

It doesn’t sound very plausible to me. I don’t see why the CIA (if it had information on the case) would leak it to Li Ao, or even leak it at all. Even if it is authentic, I doubt the CIA or U.S. government would confirm it.

If it isn’t true the rotten scoundrel should pay for impugning the reputation of this country’s president like that. How very unpatriotic for a Legislator. Oh excuse me, I seem to have forgotten where his loyalties lie.

I wonder if people like Li Ao will run away from Taiwan one day if the Greens win both the legislature and the executive office?

[quote=“Hobart”]
I wonder if people like Li Ao will run away from Taiwan one day if the Greens win both the legislature and the executive office?[/quote]I think there’s a good chance that you’ll see both happen. :wink:
I hope he takes his bitch friend Sisy Chen with him.

C’mon, think about it. If he had evidence, he’d have splashed it by now. He’s going to hawk this bullshit around until either he gets called on it or people get bored with it, and then run back to China for another holiday. :wanker:

I watched one of Li Ao’s shows many years ago, and I decided never to watch him again after that. The one I watched wasn’t really about politics, but it showed his Sino-Chauvinist thinking through and through.

It was something about Buddhism. He brought out all those Tibetan tantric Buddhist images with a lot of sexuality. From them he concluded that Tibetan lamas are just sex maniacs.

Based on whatver reading I have done about different forms of Buddhism, all I can say is he showed gross ignorance. Of course he’s free to have his opinions, but it was the conclusions he drew at the end that showed his true colors.

“So the Chinese tradition has got to be the cleanest, purest form of Buddhism. Such as Zen.”