I have often gotten into discussions about history with Vietnamese, and when I try to make a point which a Vietnamese disagrees with, the Vietnamese person will say, “Well that’s one perspective. There are many perspectives in history. For instance, the Chinese might say one thing, but the Vietnamese say something else.”
I’ve often wondered where this kind of logic comes from, because people in other places do not use this form of (relativistic) logic to dispute historical matters as much as Vietnamese do. Instead, other people use evidence to argue over whether one view is more believable than another.
Recently I realized that this form of thinking probably comes from the “peaceful evolution” (diễn biến hòa bình) discourse. For at least the past couple of decades, Vietnamese have been warned about the dangers of peaceful evolution.
What is peaceful evolution? It is the idea that the Western capitalist world is attempting to undermine Vietnam by seducing people with ideas about how good capitalist and democratic societies are, and corrupting their minds with ideas about the problems in Vietnamese society.
One form of argumentation which is used in the discourse about peaceful evolution is to say that whatever ideas come from the West are merely perspectives.
Whether or not people agree with this, I think that they have internalized this form of argumentation, and that they use it today to debate about things like history.
However, not all history is perspective. In fact, most of it is not. Saying that the Khmer Rouge years in Cambodia were a disaster, for instance, is not a perspective. There is much evidence which can be used to demonstrate that this view is correct.
In any case, this form of historical logic – arguing that a certain position about the past is a perspective – is not a universal form of logic. It is, however, prevalent in Vietnam. There has to be a reason for that. My guess would be that it comes from the diễn biến hòa bình discourse.
I also see it as a kind of “coping mechanism.” When you don’t like what someone says, all you have to do is say, “well that’s one perspective,” and by saying that, you can continue to feel good. You don’t have to change your ideas. It’s very convenient.
Sometimes I use “Well that’s one perspective” as just my way of saying “You’re wrong but too ____ so I’ll just stop our discussion here.” Depending on the person, the blank may be “stubborn” or “stupid” or often both.
Yes, this is true. But I’m thinking of situations were one person provides evidence to support a position, and the other doesn’t, but then says “well that’s one perspective.” So in this situation it is used as a way to deny an argument when one doesn’t have the evidence to actually support a position against the argument.
I once had the pleasure of getting published in a relatively scholarly journal in Vietnam. Even though I was writing about a Vietnamese art form, my article was placed at the end of the issue as the sole essay in a section labelled “Văn hóa nghệ thuật nước ngoài.” Seen in the light of what you’ve just written it now seems likely that this was a way to segregate my outlook.
Yea, I think that is pretty common practice in Vietnam to put foreign scholarship in the end, “segregated” so that it doesn’t contaminate anything. . .
Seems like “perspective” is a necessary defense mechanism when official history says one thing happened, and there are millions who’ve lived through it grumbling that something different happened. At least this is the way it is in the lay public sphere.