At a dinner party, a friend praised the writer Lu Zheng for his credibility.I was very happy for him, but said lightly: "He is studying Wang Yangming." My friend said that there are too many phenomena of light promises and little trust, and who usually takes what is said at the dinner table seriously?Lu Zheng promised him a small thing at the dinner table, and he really did it with his heart afterwards, which is remarkable.The friend said with emotion: "Recalling that when we were young, we also wanted to be an upright and trustworthy person, but we couldn't help but relax later."

Soon, at the salon of "Modern Civilized Personality Series", I saw Lu Zheng, whom I had not seen for a long time.He is one of the editorial board members of this series of books, but he missed several public lectures due to retreat writing.He sent me a new book with 600,000 words. It took two years of writing, and after repeated studies, it finally came out with difficulty. Lu Zheng can be regarded as an extremely lucky writer born in 1985.His "The First Brother Wang Yangming of the Ming Dynasty" has been reprinted many times, with a circulation of hundreds of thousands of copies; his writing is relaxed and timely, and when reading his books, he always empathizes with reality.

Inheriting Lu Zheng's always lively and humorous style, but behind the laughter and cursing, there is a deep despair like autumn water.for example: On many occasions, the Chinese seem to care about politics.It doesn’t matter if you don’t care, if you don’t care about politics, politics must care about you, every day you think about how to squeeze some more people’s fat from you; In a country with a long tradition of autocracy, how many people repeat the mental journey from hope to disappointment to despair to hopelessness... People have trained a harder heart in a cruel society.Complaints, jealousy, hatred, sarcasm and suspicion are their habitual emotions, while love, tolerance, understanding, consideration and sharing seem to never come to this cursed land;

This is a pool of hopeless stagnant water, and the pain between people is never connected, so that no matter how deep the pain is, it can only be as silent as ice and snow flying into the sea.Over time, indifference has become the most appropriate expression; Fairness is not absolute in any era or place; but injustice has been accurately and repeatedly realized in this casino; Resisting, shouting, sarcasm, and cursing are all in vain, and the sinful system has created a sinful nothingness.It is like a black hole, like a quagmire, the more you struggle, the more you sink.It devours not only faith in justice and conscience, but your very soul—if there is any.

The dark age is long. When we look far into the distance, we will feel depressed and hopeless and lose our direction because of the endless night.It seems that the journey of getting out of the tunnel and bathing in the light can only be filled bit by bit with years, with the lives of countless old, young, and young people. ... The purpose of whipping is to explore the collision and fission of system and culture. Different from previous biographies of Yuan Shikai, this book objectively restores Yuan's little-known youth based on real historical materials.For example, I visited Zeng Guofan with my uncle, and listened to the debates between the "Four Scholars of Zengmen" Tong Ronghong and Wang Kaiyun on Eastern political and cultural traditions and Western democratic constitutionalism, which forged progressive thoughts.In "Dingwu Qihuang", Yuan Shikai and his uncle went back to Henan for disaster relief, and witnessed the bottom truth like purgatory and the corrupt bureaucracy.The death of his uncle, who was regarded as the spiritual pillar, was a strong stimulus to Yuan Shikai, and he gradually established the lofty goal of "death at the top".

From building meritorious service in North Korea to Xiaozhan military training, Yuan Shikai fought every step of the way, using resources within the system to climb to the pinnacle of power, established an unbreakable Beiyang team, and fought back when the Qing court was about to die, shaking this tree down The dead trees riddled with holes have avoided the bloody "violent revolution". However, this constitutionalist standard-bearer who carried out self-government experiments and promoted universal suffrage at the grassroots level during his tenure as the governor of Zhili actually ended his life by proclaiming himself emperor, leaving behind a public case that has been litigated to this day.Yuan Shikai's "stealing the country" is not only his personal tragedy, but also the national tragedy.This "Peter the Great of China" could have become the banner of China's modernization together with the revolutionaries Sun Yat-sen and benefited future generations as an extremely precious political heritage, but he has been reviled for a hundred years because of this.

Lu Zheng discussed the reasons.In his view, on the balance of hatred, selfishness and responsibility, and humility, and on the balance of adulthood, possession and youth, and ideals, most Chinese people's lives tend to slide towards the former.Yuan Shikai was no exception. According to records, Lucifer was once the highest-ranking angel in heaven—the seraphim, and served as the archangel.Because of his arrogance and anger, he led one-third of the angels in the heaven to raise the banner of rebellion, but failed and fell into Satan.So there is a term in sociology-the Lucifer effect. In fact, without understanding the Lucifer effect, all of us Chinese can understand the variation of life and society.It is difficult for people to "keep their own way". In the face of huge and fast group demonstrations, people can only become a member of the "herd effect", pure, innocent, and obedient, and quickly move towards the instinct, Greed, vendetta.Sun Yat-sen saw that this kind of superficial obedience was actually "a mess of loose sand", and it was difficult to establish a genuinely good order from it. After that, he went to dictatorship and struggle for a while, and it was not until his death that he realized "peaceful struggle to save China".

The chaos of the Republic of China gave Chinese people a perception that it was "not as good as the Qing Dynasty", and the reality that government was achieved through bribery intensified.The provinces withhold tax revenue, the central government does not have a unified finance, and even the salaries of officials cannot be paid out. The disaster of carve-up is imminent.In a country that has been autocratic for too long, although there is an ancient teaching that "seeing the dragons without a leader, the world will be prosperous", people are more likely to understand it as "the Qin lost its deer, and the world will chase after it", and they only want to grab the existing rights Instead of creating, unwilling to fulfill their responsibilities to themselves, their surroundings, and even the nation-state.

This is indeed the first democratic republic in Asia, farther than the constitutional monarchy of Britain and Japan.But people at the time discovered sadly that it was members of Congress and local governors who enjoyed the sweetness of democracy and freedom, and had nothing to do with ordinary citizens and farmers.In order to eradicate corruption, eliminate dissidents, and enhance administrative efficiency, Yuan Shikai took up the poison of autocracy and drank it without hesitation, just like the dictators before and after him. In order to analyze the origin of dictatorship and explore "who can do justice for the sky, the hero is still the rule of law", Lu Zheng dug out Wu Lien-teh (medical scientist), a looming historical figure, and through his mouth, he expressed both true and false that "everyone in the country have authoritarian genes” point of view.Perhaps, as he said, Confucianism's impulse to transform the world has left an indelible imprint on us of "Chinese-style success learning".

Domineering, domineering, democratic, centralized, common people, righteousness... those standpoints that are as numerous as stars have created the dreams that people live and die on.It is not wrong to have a dream, but it is a big mistake to force others to live in your own dream.It's a pity that from "princes and generals, it's better to have kindness" to the Datong society of Hongyang chaos, how many moths are desperately rushing towards that ray of light, but they have long been unable to distinguish ideals from desires, and would rather starve to death. , nor give up the utopia that he insists on in his heart. The people in the "herd" hold a big banner and walk towards evil with red faces.

As a younger generation of authors, being able to have such thinking and gains not only attracts people's attention, but also makes people think introspectively. Young authors have changed the order of knowledge with their own thinking, which is worth noting anyway.Lu Zheng used multiple references from history and reality to touch on the variation of our people. In the book, he sighed, "Despotism is the idea that one is absolutely infallible; democracy is not so sure about what truth is." We bear in mind. In my opinion, Lu Zheng's book not only makes people understand our common political problems, but also allows us to reflect on ourselves.Our life and society educate young people in a way of "seeking sages and sages", but few people become sages with their whole life's efforts, and most of them embark on a path of sinking and degeneration since their youth. Most of them His character and heart lost his early purity, sincerity, and fraternity, and mutated into autocracy, greed, and selfishness.Reading history makes people wise. History authors like Lu Zheng are not only writing history, but also directly "tearing" the truth of reality or the tragedy and comedy of life to us. How many people ask themselves whether they have suppressed the creativity of others, first of all, the dreams and creativity of their own youth?Have you mutated into a real "lonely person" in the lively life and Chinese society?In this case, the great director Wang Bing once expressed it to me. Mr. Wang Bing once said sadly, work hard, we can't be like those people, become the kind of middle-aged people that young people hate and hate most.