Before you read what is here, you must read the Danwei post A brief history of media and information policy in China. There is no disagreement whatsoever from here with Jeremy Goldkorn’s post. The remaining part of this post is just copying from Ronald Egan’s translation of portions of an essay by Qian Zhongshu’s article titled “Stupefying The People” collected in “Limited Views: Essay on Ideas and Letters” published the Harvard University Asia Center.
The first part of the translation is completely consistent with Goldkorn’s excerpt:
The envoy saw the noblemen of Zhou. Earl Lu of Yuan, there and, speaking with him, found that he did not like learning … Min Zima said, “The realm of Zhou will soon be thrown into chaos! There must be many there who have this view before it could extend to the grand officers. The grand officers worry that learning may lead to error and delusion, and some of them say, “It is all right to have no learning. To have no learning need do no harm” — The Zuo Commentary
The grand officers worried that learning might lead to the loss of the Way and delude people’s minds. — Commentary by Du Yu (222-284)
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