Luo Xiang pushed the door in, wearing a beige woolen hat and a pair of brown glasses. He was scanning the Beijing health Care at the door, wrapped in a down jacket, slightly shrunken back, even at 1 meter 86, he was not too conspicuous in the crowd. We agreed to meet at a cafe at 3:00, and after settling down, he took off his hat and glasses, and I asked, “Will you be recognized a lot now?” He laughed and said, “Not really.
Two days before the interview, Luo Xiang was once again thrust into the limelight because of the broadcast of “Thirteen Invitations” and the talk show’s anti-New Year’s Eve party. He said in the talk show, “2020, for me, is a very magical year. Suddenly it entered an era of universal online classes, someone took the video of my lecture at Houda University and moved it to B station, and soon I had 10 million fans, I really didn’t expect that people’s favorite online class would actually be a criminal law class.”
After becoming famous, Luo Xiang’s requirement for himself is “to be a good teacher”. 2020 summer vacation, as in previous years, he flew around the country to do judicial examination training. A few days ago, a student came with a law school acceptance letter and asked him to sign it, saying that he chose to study law because of him. A student wrote a letter to him, saying that he used to think Luo Xiang was very tall, but then he slowly found that he was just an ordinary person, “but because you are an ordinary person, you have the power to move me, because I am still young”.
According to Xu Jilin, a professor at East China Normal University, “Luo Xiang understands the limited nature of human nature, the limited nature of law and the limited nature of enlightenment, and he has a very thick humanistic value scale behind his interpretation of criminal law. He is very wary of the vanity that comes with fame and has seen life through. As an enlightened person, he has a calm perception of the limited nature of enlightenment, that instantaneous touching is not the same as sustained touching, and that the most frightening thing is the totalitarianism within the ego: vanity, arrogance, indulgence and various illusions.”
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“The law is not exalted.”
SCW: In 2020, the rule of law events that concern you most are two age issues: the downward revision of the age of criminal responsibility for minors, and the upward revision of the age of sexual consent for abuse of a position of trust. What are the practical implications of these two amendments to the law?
Luo Xiang: This actually reflects the law’s concern for the actual life of society, and tells us that the law is more of an experience than a logic. Law cannot be satisfied with metaphysical things, it has to meet the rich needs of social life. When social life is characterized by the murder of 13-year-olds and the massive sexual exploitation of underage girls, the law should make certain adjustments.
The sometimes very clear-cut logical philosophy does not necessarily apply to the actual life of society, because the rule of law is in a sense a reactive action. The rule of law itself is not an optimal choice, but a suboptimal one. Human beings always want to pursue the optimal choice, but it is often counterproductive, which is why Plato moved from the rule of man to the rule of law.
The same is true of the age system. We have always wanted to set up a logically rigorous age system, which does not necessarily meet the actual needs of social life, so we need to make corrections that are in line with the current view of justice. Maybe in a few years we will find out whether this setting is a little bit rash, whether there are some things that need to be fixed, and then we can fix it again. The law is not made to last forever, it will certainly be revised constantly, reflecting the combination of expert wisdom and folk wisdom.
Southern Weekend: These two amendments to the law reflect the law’s response to social reality and the people’s voices. Why is it so important for you to say that “lawmakers should avoid falling into technocratic analysis and departing from the simple sense of justice of the people”?
Luo Xiang: The law is not above us, and we should not think that we are getting professional opinions and ignore the ordinary wisdom of the people. Orwell said that some opinions in this world are so stupid that only some intellectuals believe them. The Nazi jurists, for example, argued that Jews were not people, and they sincerely believed that Jews were not people. When there is a fire, the wisdom of putting it out is definitely more important than the wisdom of metaphysics. We need professional opinions, but we also need to be aware that as professionals we can be biased ourselves.
Southern Weekend: You said on the talk show that many people watch your videos as a momentary touch, “A momentary touch is not the same as a sustained touch.” A few days ago on a talk show, you quoted Orwell and went on to tease, “One of the students listened and said, well, O’Neill was right.” Are you also wary of being misunderstood and misinterpreted when it comes to alternative legal education for the public?
Luo Xiang: Being misunderstood is a normal part of life, understanding itself is scarce, sometimes you can’t understand yourself, let alone let everyone else understand you. Secondly, don’t have a sense of intellectual superiority – how come you don’t even know Orwell? This would fall into what Socrates criticized – the arrogance of scholars.
I have always thought that the arrogance of scholars is just a manifestation of uneducation. Because not everyone is willing to read, and not everyone has the opportunity to read, philosophy depends on leisure. To be honest, we, intellectuals, have a lot of time to read, but some people don’t have time to read. You can’t expect a delivery boy to read, he doesn’t have that much time.
Why should we be able to sit in a warm environment like ours and drink coffee and read a book, why should others have to deliver in the cold wind on the street? So when you have the knowledge to read, you have to have a sense of responsibility, not to look down on people who don’t have knowledge with assertion and nobility.
Southern Weekend: How will your popularity be perceived within the academic community?
Luo Xiang: I don’t know, because I can’t speculate what others think. But your good friends around you will support you, encourage you, and also be wary of you. They will remind you to be humble, that there are occasions that you don’t necessarily need to attend, and also that you are doing something meaningful, and not to give up what you should do by listening to a certain voice that says what you are doing is comical and not what a scholar should do. It’s still true that the gods of fate have chosen you, so do what needs to be done. I was already a person who didn’t know much about rejection, much less being able to reject fate.
Just do it, but also to accept that it is not what you want, because all things in life, there will be a negative slope, slowly will deviate from the main line, so don’t take yourself too seriously, and don’t take yourself seriously, life is wandering between nobody and somebody, first accept yourself, but also accept others. This way you can comfortably do what you need to do and comfortably accept the destiny that will one day bring you down.
“Let the emotion flow where it should.”
Southern Weekend: In 2020, there were several legal cases of national concern, such as the “Li Xingxing case”, “Luo Champion’s alleged sexual assault case”, and “Gou Jing’s case”. These cases initially gained huge public opinion, but later they all reversed course and public opinion quickly turned against them. There is an argument that this will undermine the trust mechanism of society and discourage more victims from filing claims in reality. How should we view this phenomenon?
Luo Xiang: This also puts a high demand on our news media to be as objective as possible in our reporting, otherwise incalculable damage will occur. But what these cases make me reflect on is still a notion that is in line with the Middle Way. There is a legitimate element of public anger, and the simple sense of justice of the people is to be respected. But the legal person has to transcend the prejudice and parochialism of the public, which is actually a kind of proportion.
Why is the rule of law a conservative concept? On the one hand, it does not join the popular orgy, and it maintains a kind of vigilance when the people are in an orgy. On the other hand, it keeps a moderate distance from power, and believes that power should be restrained. I think the popular sentiment for justice still has to be within a framework of the rule of law, and it has to be allowed to flow in the river, to flow where it should flow.
When such a sentiment in the framework of the rule of law is captured by our judiciary and respected by the legislature, then the eventual emergence of amendments to the criminal law is precisely the return of such a simple sense of justice to the people, but also within the framework of the rule of law. This is what I said, the rule of law is not an optimal choice, is a sub-optimal choice. It believes in justice in the world, but justice is flawed. We can’t draw that perfect circle, but we have to pursue a circle that is as perfect as possible.
Southern Weekend: The Gou Jing case has led to a discussion about the “perfect victim”. If a victim is not perfect, the initial support is lost, does this obscure some of the more critical issues?
Luo Xiang: People are very critical of victims. But we need to recognize that these kinds of cases reflect a universal problem – and that is the tremendous harm caused by impersonation. In fact, in the current law, the law is constantly adjusting. 2015 has provided for the crime of “using false identity documents”, but the maximum sentence is detention. Now we have added a new crime – “impersonation”, and the penalty is increased to fixed-term imprisonment. This is how the rule of law continues to reach relative perfection through individual cases.
We cannot say that one must be a perfect victim in order to consider his needs accordingly. We have to acknowledge his imperfection, which is his fault, and he should bear the social condemnation and even the necessary punishment for his imperfection, for his good faith deception or malicious deception. However, such cases reflect a kind of impersonation problem, which should draw the attention of the law and promote the soundness of the legal system.
Southern Weekend: These cases have reversed public opinion and developed into “standoffs” among people with different positions, will this aggravate the tear in society?
Luo Xiang: Monism can easily lead to such a situation, because its position is too distinct. But every viewpoint must have its flaws, and monism can easily lead to disillusionment while it is intense. A fox-like pluralistic combination may be less prone to disillusionment, because it insists on its own viewpoint while accepting that the opposing viewpoint has relative rationality, so it is more rounded, and on the one hand, it will not overly attack others, and on the other hand, it can achieve self-preservation, and will not easily go to cynical nothingness and disillusionment.
People cannot be emotional, stand in line, attack each other, and this kind of monistic thinking is terrible. The monolithic thinking can actually meet the needs of the human mind and emotions – that’s why there are so many “barbarians”. Because it has a clear position for you to choose, clear logic for you to choose, but the problem is that our social life is not so clear, which is why the rule of law rejects monolithic thinking, it is a pluralistic thinking – fully consider the various opposing interests, these opposing interests may be reasonable, the rule of law is in a variety of opposing The rule of law is to find a balance among the opposing interests.
Southern Weekend: In 2020, there was a hit web series “The Silent Truth”, which you recorded a video to recommend, and you read the original book “The Long Night is Hard to See”. As a member of the criminal law community, do you think you are more like Jiang Yang or Zhang Chao?
Luo Xiang: Actually, it’s not a good analogy. The reason why these characters can move me is because they can touch my heart’s view of justice and my inner helplessness. I think maybe these roles need to be combined. On the one hand, you don’t have the courage of Jiang Yang, on the other hand, you can see your cowardice and helplessness in Zhang Chao, but at the same time, you hope to be as brave as Jiang Yang, but of course it must be on the track of the rule of law.
Southern Weekend: In any interview, you will mention the key words “courage”, “moderation” and “vanity”, which seem to constitute a code for interpreting you. If you were to explain the relationship between these three in one paragraph, what would you say?
Luo Xiang: Among the four virtues of ancient Greece, bravery is the most scarce. But bravery also requires moderation, otherwise it will lead to courage without resourcefulness. All human courage should not be a sense of moral superiority – because you are brave, you look down on the cowardly; because you are brave, you judge the cowardly at will, and that will actually lead to vanity. In my opinion, courage both belongs to you and does not belong to you. Among the multitude, the god of destiny chooses you, and the god of courage gives you courage. As the hand of fate thrusts you into a special moment, I hope you will be as brave as you think you are.
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