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More accusations were directed against him when he claimed that his sprint was practicing the spirit of “liberalism.” Since then he has earned the nickname “Fan Run Run,” and some angry netizens have named him the “most shameless teacher.”
“It’s fine. No need to run,” was Fan’s first reaction at Guang Ya High School, when the magnitude 8 earthquake struck the area around Dujiangyan City. A few seconds later, when he realized the seriousness of the quake, he shouted, “Earthquake!” and rushed out of the school building, leaving behind his whole class.
“Even if it was my mother, I would have still left her behind under such a circumstance,” he declared, revealing his own behavior on the popular online Tianya Forum ten days after the quake. The public was shocked, and his act drew strong criticism.
Fan wrote again in self-defense, “I am a person pursuing freedom and justice, but not someone who can bravely sacrifice myself in order to save others. Even if my mother was there, I would have left her behind to save my own life first.”
He reasoned his 17- and 18-year-old students were too heavy to be carried and believed it would be meaningless if he died trying to save their lives. “Sacrifice is an option, not a virtue, and has nothing to do with nobility,” he commented.
The more Fan sought to explain himself, the more criticism he drew. Many scholars and critics, in particular, could not accept Fan’s attempts to defend himself through his interpretation of “liberalism,” which he described as one’s own freedom to run or help others first. Fan explained that he was simply choosing his own right to live. Moreover, Fan lamented that he did not live in the United States where freedom and justice are applauded, and autocracy shunned. Fan’s discourse has, as a result, led some to draw away from liberalism while some other scholars disagree with his interpretation.
Fan accused his critics of hypocrisy and "kidnapping morality." In return, Yang Hengjun, a well-known Internet critic on current affairs, accused Fan of being the perpetrator of hypocrisy in his attempt to kidnap liberalism and Western values. Yang, who had the opportunity to discuss the issue with a teacher from the West, wrote that teachers in Western countries clearly acknowledged the duty to protect students during earthquakes, fire accidents, etc. According to the teacher with whom Yang spoke, although the responsibility is not explicitly written in the law, the teachers’ workbooks clearly specified such a responsibility.
Shao Jian, associate professor in the Chinese Department of Nanjing Xiaozhuang University, also contradicted Fan’s theory by illustrating a clear picture of liberalism. “This behavior has nothing to do with liberalism; if analyzed further, it actually violated liberalism,” Shao said. According to Shao, freedom stipulated within liberalism does not suggest acting without restrictions; on the contrary, freedom falls within the context of others. In other words, freedom is not freedom if it harms the freedom of others.
“Unlimited freedom will lead to the cancellation of freedom,” wrote Shao. Its limitation transforms into “responsibility,” he continued. In Shao’s view, freedom without the consideration of others is not liberalism, and could even be considered harmful. Thus Fan’s escape, in essence, was a run from his own freedom when he acted irresponsibly toward his own students. Fan did, after all, tell his students, at first, not to run.
Liberalism addresses both freedom and obligation, insists Shao. “Students pay tuition, which should be exchanged with service from the teachers. Fan would have done better had he at least warned the students to quickly run.”
