“Could you show me your thesis?” I was nonplussed, and exclaimed, “But I haven’t started it yet!” He said, “But you have all the conclusions.” That single remark untied a strangling knot fastened on my brain by a totalitarian “education.” We in China had been trained not to draw conclusions from facts, but to start with Marxist theories or Mao thoughts or the Party line and to deny, even condemn, the facts that did not suit them.
