ABSTRACT
Editors' Introduction: This statement is a demand for intellectual autonomy in all fields of creation. There can be no creativity without a sense of freedom by intellectuals, both internally and externally. Yan draws on Einstein for this distinction. (External freedom refers to not being punished for saying controversial things; internal freedom refers to being free from the weight of tradition and social prejudices.) Truth and beauty are ends in themselves, he argues. Fang Lizhi, China's most prominent dissident from 1985 to 1989, also spoke of internal and external freedom. (See Orville Schell, Discos and Democracy [New York: Pantheon, 1988], p. 134.)
