世間鮮有人將他人的共同福祉置於首要地位，更少有人願意為了實現這一目標而承受個人苦難。納爾遜·曼德拉、瓦茨拉夫·哈維爾和莫罕達斯·甘地是這樣的人，劉曉波亦是如此。
劉曉波天生求知若渴。在大學和研究生求學期間，他研習中國古典文學，深深醉心於莊子的道家思想與唐詩，尤其是詩人司空圖的詩論。共產黨指責他為了西方價值觀而背棄中國文化，這種說法既無知又荒謬。
他確實研究過西方思想家的著作，從蘇格拉底一直到西奧多·阿多諾，其中尤為深入地鑽研了奧古斯丁和阿奎那的思想。他出版了一本視野宏闊的西方哲學史著作，題為《形上學的迷霧》。由於該書問世之時，正值1989年春季全國性學生抗議活動如火如荼之際，因而鮮少受到關注。書中將西方哲學家分為兩類：一類是受形上學誘惑者，另一類則是未受這一思想痼疾侵染者。
1996年至1999年，在勞改營服刑的三年間，劉閱讀了大量關於宗教——特別是基督教神學——的著作。他重讀了奧古斯丁，隨後又研讀了西蒙娜·薇依的《等待上帝》、漢斯·昆的《論基督徒身份》、迪特里希·潘霍華的《獄中書簡》以及許多其他作品。潘霍華的著作對劉而言特別珍貴，因為其中包含的道德指引，探討了像他們兩人那樣的政治犯應如何看待獄中經歷。
曉波的朋友們幾乎都說，他從勞教所出來後判若兩人：變得比以前溫和、謙遜且寬容了許多。他那著名的「我沒有敵人」的理念，便是在那段歲月裡形成的。從1999年到2009年他最後一次入獄期間，他的人權工作始終聚焦於「弱勢群體」──包括婦女、兒童、普通工人、政治犯以及其他各類弱勢族群。
他的一生歷經坎坷，但在我看來，始終貫穿的一點是他對自己理性判斷的堅定信賴。除非自己想通了其中的道理，否則他絕不接受任何主張。早在孩提時代，他就敢於同父親甚至幼兒園老師爭辯（他曾勸告女老師：「別那麼單純吧。」）在攻讀碩士和博士學位期間，每當導師的指導與他自己的判斷相左時，他都會斷然拒絕師長的建議。當異議運動中的朋友主張採取暴力手段時，他會直言不諱地提出反對意見，即便明知這可能會導致友誼破裂，他也毫不退縮。
我們該稱之為「勇氣」嗎？在我看來，這個詞並不完全貼切。對曉波而言，做他認為對的事，與其說是出於勇氣，不如說是出於邏輯。如果他的理智認定某件事是正確的，他便會去做；如果新的認知讓他意識到別的事更好，他就會做出改變。理智始終佔據主導地位，勇氣不過是輔助罷了。
萊比錫，2026年7月
The Triumph of an Honest Mind
– for the Liu Xiaobo Human Rights Award Ceremony
Perry Link
Leipzig, July 2026
Few people in this world make the common good of others their highest priority. Still fewer are ready to accept personal suffering in pursuit of the goal. Nelson Mandela, Vaclav Havel, and Mohandas Gandhi were such people. Liu Xiaobo was as well.
Liu was born with a voracious mind. In college and graduate school he studied classical Chinese literature and became enthralled by the ancient Daoism of Zhuangzi and by Tang poetry, especially the literary theory of the poet Sikong Tu. The Communist Party’s charges that he sold out Chinese culture for Western values are simply ignorant–and absurd.
He did read Western thinkers, from Socrates through Theodor Adorno, with lengthy stops at Augustine and Acquinas. He published a wide-ranging history of Western philosopy that he called The Fog of Metaphysics. The book was little noticed because it came out just when the nationwide student protests in spring 1989 were heating up. It divided Western philosophers into two groups—those who were seduced by metaphysics and those who remained free from that intellectual scourge.
During three years in a labor camp from 1996 to 1999, Liu consumed texts on religion, especially Christian theology. He re-read Augustine and then went on to read Simone Weil’s Waiting for God, Hans Küng’s On Being a Christian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters from Prison, and many other works. Bonhoeffer was especially valuable to Liu for his moral advice on how a political prisoner, as Liu and Bonhoeffer both were, should regard prison experience.
Nearly all of Xiaobo’s friends said that he emerged from the labor camp a changed person: much more gentle, modest, and tolerant than before. His famous philosophy of “I Have No Enemies” grew out of those years. His human rights work from 1999 until 2009, when he entered prison for the final time, was focused on 弱势群体 ‘vulnerable groups’–women, children, ordinary workers, political prisoners, and others.
His life had many twists and turns, but, in my view, one constant from start to finish was his unshakeable trust in his brain. He accepted no proposition until it made sense in his own mind. As a small boy he argued with his father and even with his kindergarten teacher (“Don’t be so simplistic,” he advised her.) He stoutly rejected the advice of his M.A. and Ph.D. dissertation directors whenever their counsel ran counter to his own judgment. When friends in the resistance movement advocated violence, he contradicted them flatly, even when he knew his words could cost him a friendship.
Should we call this “courage”? That word is not, in my view, quite the right one. For Xiaobo, doing what he thought it was right to do was less a matter of courage than of logic. If his mind told him something was right, he would do it. If new knowledge told him that something else was better, he would change. His mind was always the boss. Courage was ancillary.
