because of fear of censorship but because the pain caused by all forms of oppression is so intense that conventional epithets are too shallow to express it". Themes Bei Dao's approach to form has been said to reflect his major thematic concerns. Primary among these is his exploration of individuality, often embodied in a presentation of complexity and paradox. Palmer has described the work of Bei Dao—and of all of the Misty Poets—as "a complex interweaving of inner and outer worlds, the private and the public, the personal and the official, the oneiric and the quotidian, the classical and the contemporary". Similarly, the scholar Dian Li argues that Bei Dao's embrace of paradox is rooted in both Western tradition—e.g., Plato's Parmenides—and Eastern tradition—e.g., popular folk tales like one about a blacksmith who creates both an invincible sword and an impenetrable shield—and by placing opposites together, one can arrive at a truth that is "multiple, undifferentiated, and indeterminate". Or, as Bei Dao has said, "There are many principles in the world, and many of these principles contradict each other. Tolerance for the existence of another's principle is the basis for your own existence". By embracing the complexity of the world, in other words, one arrives at individuality. McDougall argues that this preoccupation in Bei Dao's work is "not a pretended or temporary escape from society" but rather "a commitment to non-political communication between people and the realization of the self". Another of Bei Dao's recurrent themes is language and its recovery from the political realm. According to the scholar Vera Schwarcz, the Cultural Revolution's use of manifestos, slogans, and propaganda, with their underlying threat of oppression and violence, turned even innocent imagery (the sun and sky, for example) into ominous symbols. Bei Dao's project has thus been to reclaim language for the imagination, to create, as the scholar Claudia Pozzana has termed it, "an independent space for poetry". He has done this by expressly rejecting the political co-opting of certain words, as he does in his famous "I don't believe" declarations from "The Answer". In addition, an attempt to reclaim language can be seen in what Schwarcz calls "the stammering quality of Bei Dao's vernacular", through which the short, elusive nature of his verse attempts to mirror his personal experience and challenges political descriptions of the world. Influences Bei Dao has written of the influence on his early work of the