Chapter 5 Know the Writer, Respect the Writer

---Writing for the 100th issue of "Literature and Art" The home is the sensory organs, thought nerves, or pupils of wisdom of a nation or a class.A writer is a loyal soldier who defends his nation or class spiritually—that is, emotionally, sensibly, intellectually, psychologically. The writer's job is to condense his own or his chosen characters' feelings, emotions, and thoughts into a language of images by which to unite and organize the whole of his nation or class. The purpose of a poem, a novel, or a play is either to make one's own nation or class reflect on oneself, or to improve the self-esteem of the nation or class, or to increase psychologically the strength to defeat the enemy.

Someone asked: "What is the use of literature and art?" Literature and art are indeed of no visible use.It cannot be used as a bench to sit on, a bed to sleep on, a lamp to light, or a washbasin to wash your face... It cannot be used as food, clothes, medicine, or syphilis. So the anti-utilitarian esthete, Gautier, would say with indignation: "...we cannot get a hat from a metaphor, or wear a metaphor like a slipper; we cannot use the duality as an umbrella, we cannot , unfortunately, wearing Rhyme as a vest." But human beings can still think, feel, know shame and glory, know jealousy and sympathy, love and hate, and often feel emptiness and sadness in their hearts, and ask deeply in their loneliest moments: "To live Why exactly?"

These things cannot be completely solved by stools, beds, lamps, washbasins, meals, clothes, medicine, and 606.Because these things also happen among people who have no material worries. Even the most primitive human beings have their mental activities; even the most uncivilized peoples have their own poetry. When Valery, the great poet of the French bourgeoisie, published "The Song of the Narcissus", a critic of his class praised his work in the following words: "In recent years, an event more important than the European War has occurred in our country. That is, Valerie published his "Narcissus"."

The reason for this is that "Songs of Narcissus" raised many trembling questions for the familiar French bourgeoisie, or the bourgeoisie all over the world. His poems, through his own deep examination, aroused philosophical Questions about doubts about living entities. It seems that an Englishman once said: "It is better to lose an India than to lose a Shakespeare." The reason for this is that Shakespeare was the spokesperson of the era of the rise of British commercial capitalism, the advocate of British imperialism expanding its power to the world, and the great poet that the British Empire is still proud of to the world.His works can support the self-esteem of a nation, so that it can be exchanged for more than one India.

I often hear people say: "Some people are not happy after reading a certain work." My heart is very happy.For, from this we can know that the work did work. A writer is not a lark, or a courtesan who sings to entertain people.His painstaking works are completed by the beating of his heart.He can't deceive his feelings to write something, he only knows to see things, describe things, and criticize things according to his own worldview.When he creates, he only seeks to be true to his emotions, because otherwise, his works will become false and lifeless. The person who hopes that writers can write scabies as flowers and pustules as buds is the most worthless person—because he doesn’t even have the courage to see his own ugliness, let alone change it?

The dirtier a person is, the more he likes others to tickle him.Writers, on the other hand, are not the type to tickle people. Wait for someone to scratch it or take a bath.If you have appendicitis, cut it with a knife.If you have Sha eye, use copper sulfate to scrape it. It is unacceptable to be afraid of surgery when you have a disease that requires surgery.It is not acceptable to suffer from typhoid fever and be gluttonous.It is not good to demand compliments when the nose is emptied of syphilis. If the job of a doctor is to protect the health of the human body, then the job of a writer is to protect the health of the human spirit—and the role of the latter is more general, lasting, and profound.

Writers claim no privileges other than the freedom to write.One of the reasons why they use their lives to support democratic politics is because democratic politics can guarantee the independent spirit of their artistic creation.Because only by giving artistic creation a free and independent spirit, can art play a role in advancing the cause of social reform. To respect a writer is to first understand his work.A writer, when he is a writer, does not expect any respect beyond his work.Appropriately criticize him, inappropriate praise is tantamount to irony, and a slightly degraded evaluation of him is even more insulting.

Let us learn from the highest sentiments of the ancient people's spirit of loving writers—there is no need to be a ten thousand householder in life, but I hope to know Han Jingzhou once. Originally published in Yan'an "Liberation Daily" on March 11, 1942