Art & Creativity Quote by Iris Chang

Chang’s line is a clean slice through the pieties that cling to “responsible” writing, especially when the writer is a historian and the subject matter is soaked in real-world suffering. It reads like permission, but it’s really a warning: if your work is built around pleasing editors, institutions, factions, or even a grateful audience, you will eventually start laundering your own judgment. “Please yourself” isn’t a narcissist’s motto here; it’s shorthand for intellectual sovereignty, the stubborn inner barometer that lets you stay honest when the room wants something else.

The second sentence is the provocation. Historians are routinely told they have duties: to the record, to the dead, to the nation, to “balance.” Chang flips that script with a kind of bracing absolutism. She’s not denying ethical stakes so much as refusing the idea that obligation can be crowdsourced. Duty, in her framing, becomes a solvent that other people use to dissolve your voice: tone it down, soften it, be more “objective,” don’t anger donors, don’t trigger backlash. Saying you have “no duty towards anyone else” is an attempt to sever those invisible strings before they start pulling.

Context matters because Chang’s career was a case study in what happens when historical writing collides with geopolitics and public memory. Her work drew admiration, scrutiny, and pressure. The quote’s intent is survival-minded: write from the center of your own conviction first, because everyone else’s “duty” often arrives wearing a leash.