Chapter 18 Liang Shuming: An Eternal Clear Conscience

Liang Shuming (1893.10.18—1988.6.23), a famous thinker, philosopher, educator, social activist, patriotic democrat, famous scholar, master of Chinese studies, mainly studies life problems and social problems, early representative of modern New Confucianism One of them is known as "the last Confucianist in China".Influenced by the Taizhou School, Liang Shuming initiated the rural construction movement in China and gained experience that can be used for reference.Author of "Rural Construction Theory", "People's Heart and Life" and so on.Liang Shuming is a famous modern Chinese scholar and a famous cultural nationalist. He is called "the last great Confucianism".

Liang Shuming made no secret of his frankness when he first arrived at Peking University. On the first day he gave a lecture on "Indian Philosophy", he said to the students attending the class: "I am here to do nothing but play for Sakyamuni and Confucius. Most of the students under the podium were enthusiastic supporters of "Down with the Confucian Family Store". During this period, Gu Hongming, a conservative representative who was also at Peking University, suffered a lot from the students. At that time, Peking University was full of talents. He is still an unknown person, even if he is dismissed, no one will find it new, but he has been teaching at Peking University for 7 years. The Confucius class he taught is very popular. defensive.

The most shocking anti-tune he sang at Peking University was during the "May 4th" student movement. The students were outraged and united with the enemy. Liang Shuming expressed his views in the "National Gazette": "My meaning is very ordinary. I am willing to pay for the student incident. The court handles it, and the prosecutor’s office is willing to file a public prosecution, and the trial office will try and convict, and the students will obey the sentence and plead guilty.” He also pointed out that there are too many students who cannot be checked thoroughly. “You can turn yourself in one by one.”His reasons were, "In principle, wounding is an active crime." "Even though Cao and Zhang committed heinous crimes, he still has freedom when he is not convicted of the crime." Liang Shuming said this based on his longing for a society ruled by law. .The students could not forgive him, so they wrote many anonymous letters warning him to be careful.

The consequences of his rashness are indeed shocking. After the Li Gongpu and Wen Yiduo murders happened in 1946, as the core figure of the Democratic League, Liang Shuming publicly declared at the rally: "Secret agents, do you still have a third bullet? I am here waiting for it!" In the early years of the Republic of China, Liang Shuming worked as an editor and a field reporter for the "Republic of China News" founded by his colleagues in the Tongmenghui. He often used pen names such as Shoumin and Shoumin.Once, Sun Junming, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper, wrote a fan for Liang with the inscription "Shu Ming".From then on, Liang took the name of "Shu Ming".

In 1906, Liang Shuming was admitted to Beiping Shuntian Middle School. His self-study progress in all subjects exceeded the teacher's classroom teaching progress.He has read a lot of extracurricular books, and his Chinese composition scores are often among the best.Liang Shuming likes to write essays that reverse the verdict, and he never falls out of the cliché, which won the appreciation of his Chinese teachers. When Cai Yuanpei hired Liang Shuming as a teacher at Peking University, he was only 24 years old. Some of the students at Peking University were older than him. secondary school graduates.

In 1916, the "Oriental Magazine" in Shanghai serialized an article written by Liang Shuming, "Theory of Casuism in Yuan Dynasty". Cai Yuanpei discussed with Chen Duxiu, then dean of liberal arts, and decided to hire Liang Shuming to teach at the school, but Liang Shuming was very panicked by this.He said to Cai Yuanpei: "I'm just a beginner in Buddhist scriptures, and I don't know anything about other Indian philosophy." Cai Yuanpei immediately asked, "Then do you know anyone who can teach Indian philosophy?" Liang Shuming said he didn't know, and Cai Yuanpei continued : "We have not found anyone who can really teach Indian philosophy. They are similar to each other anyway, so you should come!"

The young Liang Shuming then boarded the podium of the highest institution in the country.There was a lot of excitement in the newspapers.One is because Liang Shuming is young, only 24 years old; the other is because he has neither gone to university nor studied abroad, so he has to study all his knowledge;Liang Shuming lived up to President Cai's trust and stood on the forum of China's highest university for 7 years. Liang Shuming never sticks to one style in his lectures. Sometimes he takes students into a dilapidated house and guides them to discuss the differences between Eastern and Western philosophies through house renovation; Let the students look at the people drinking happily in various postures, and let them conduct an analysis and debate on the different values ​​of Eastern and Western people.

In 1919, Liang Shuming's book "Introduction to Indian Philosophy" was published by the Commercial Press, which aroused strong repercussions in the academic circle.In the same Philosophy Department of Peking University, Liang Shuming taught "Introduction to Indian Philosophy", Hu Shi taught "History of Chinese Philosophy", and Ma Xulun taught "Lao-Zhuang Philosophy". landscape. Liang Shuming published "Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophy" in 1921. In the book, he publicly declared: "The future of mankind in the world will be the revival of Chinese culture." The book was reprinted in eight editions in eight years, and it was the first time to advocate Eastern and Western cultures. An academic classic in comparative cultural studies.After reading this book, Liang Qichao, a master of Chinese studies, visited him personally to discuss knowledge with him.When Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, visited China, he said that he had known Liang Shuming’s name for a long time, and said that he “would like to hear Liang Shuming talk about Confucianism.”Tagore praised him as China's "New Confucianism".Later, "New Confucianism" became an important school in Chinese academic circles, with Liang Shuming, Feng Youlan, Xiong Shili and other famous scholars as the backbone, which exerted a huge influence on Chinese academic circles.

At the beginning of 1924, Liang Shuming resigned his teaching post at Peking University, started a rural construction experiment with extraordinary perseverance, and once again became a well-known figure in the country.From Guangdong to Henan, and from Henan to Shandong, he set up the Village Governance Institute, the Rural Construction Research Institute, and the "Rural Construction" magazine. He worked hard and never got tired. In 1936, he published the 400,000-word monograph "The Theory of Rural Construction" (also known as "The Future of the Chinese Nation"), expounding his approach of starting from village governance and exploring a way for the nation to save itself and transform China.At the time when most of the educated people ran to the city, he led a group of loyal followers with the ambition of "revitalizing the agricultural law in Denmark and building the countryside to save the Chinese". Cattle, sheep, chickens, dogs, and pigs are friends, and work hard on the rice, sorghum, sorghum, wheat, and millet." It took seven years, and he also made some achievements. The set of methods he provided to promote social modernization according to China's national conditions is still used today. certain value.

In January 1938, Liang Shuming visited Yan'an as a senator of the National Defense Supreme Council.When he was teaching at Peking University, he often visited the home of Yang Huaizhong in Tofuchi Hutong. The tall young man who opened the door for him was Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Committee of the Communist Party of China at that time, and he was Mao Zedong.The two figures who were born in the same year and have unique research on China's rural issues sat around the fire and had a heart-to-heart talk.From a high position, Mao Zedong affirmed that some of Liang Shuming's rural construction theories were correct, and at the same time pointed out that it could not fundamentally solve the problems of Chinese farmers.The two debated from time to time without restraint, and before they knew it, it was already dawn.

The difference between Liang Shuming and his contemporaries was that he did not go to a private school or read the Four Books and Five Classics during his intellectual enlightenment stage. He directly entered the capital school and received Western ideological education.His father, Liang Ji, was a Confucian student with a chivalrous spirit. Stimulated by the national disaster, he formed utilitarian values, which had a profound impact on the development of the young Liang Shuming's thoughts, making Liang Shuming mainly regard the "Whether it is beneficial to people, and the size of the benefit."It is easy to draw westernized conclusions when observing state affairs with such a rational attitude.Liang Shuming lived in the upsurge of national salvation in full swing in the late Qing Dynasty. He took "saving the country and the world and making contributions" as his mission, and was keen to explore a good way of political reform.He admired the Western political system very much, "thinking that as long as the constitutional government is on track, it will not be difficult to follow in the footsteps of Europe, the United States and Japan, and become a modern country."He first advocated a constitutional monarchy, and after being disappointed with the constitution, he joined the Tongmenghui and turned to advocate assassination and revolution.After the establishment of the Republic of China, he and his friends founded the "Republic of China Daily" to continue to publicize political changes.This fanatical advocate of modernization, this enthusiasm is obviously driven by his strong national salvation psychology.But at this time his national consciousness was still at the emotional level. Liang Shuming is undoubtedly an institutional theorist or a politically oriented figure.There is still another side of his personality deep in his mind, which presupposes a possibility space for future changes.Liang Shuming, like his father Liang Ji, possessed the dual enthusiasm of decency and morality at the same time, which is also the Confucian personality ideal of sage inside and king outside.Liang Shuming later said: In the early years, he pursued two issues endlessly, one was life issues, and the other was social issues.After the founding of the Republic of China, he witnessed all kinds of corruption and darkness in politics and the moral degeneration of congressmen, which led to his first major turning point in his thinking.The significance of this turning point does not lie in the transition from entering the world to being out of the world, because within a few years he returned from Buddhism to Confucianism, and returned to the human world; the most important thing is that Liang Shuming's standpoint in dealing with the world and observing issues has changed since then.When he returned from Buddhism to Confucianism, he did not simply return to the old worldly doctrine, and he no longer simply started from the perspective of institutional reform and political transformation, but began to do it from the perspective of culture, human nature, morality, custom and etiquette. Make your own judgments and choices. In 1917, Liang Shuming was invited by Cai Yuanpei to teach Indian philosophy at Peking University.At this time, he was indulging in the enthusiasm for Eastern philosophy, and Peking University was the source of new trends of thought. He felt an atmosphere of oppression, so with a sense of mission to defend Chinese culture, he decided to sail against the current to defend Sakyamuni and Confucius won a place.He believes that he is not a "man of learning", but a "man of problems". The study of Eastern philosophy is not interested in pure academics, but ultimately to solve the problem of Chinese culture and the way out of the Chinese nation. In 1922, Liang Shuming published "Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophy" on the basis of sorting out his speeches, and for the first time systematically compared the three cultural systems of China, India and the West. This work attracted the attention of the academic circles. From the perspective of people from both sides of the camp, Liang Shuming should be a bat-like weirdo.Radicals consider him a conservative because he defends Chinese culture and boldly predicts that the future of world culture belongs to Chinese culture.Conservatives also smelled a certain radical flavor in his writings, because Liang Shuming categorically denied the possibility of reconciling Chinese and Western cultures, and advocated that in terms of realistic choices, "to overthrow the fundamentals of Chinese culture" and "to put a knife on the throat" , "total acceptance" of Western culture.This logical contradiction just shows the inner psychological tension of a cultural nationalist. During the "May 4th Movement", Liang Shuming also had the same blazing double desire in the depths of his mind.One is that as a nationalist, he still hoped that China would be prosperous and prosperous as before. He believed that this goal could only be achieved through the path of science and democracy in the West, so he advocated "total acceptance" of Western culture.In terms of this character, Liang Shuming maintained his longing for modernization in his early years, and his attitude was as firm as that of Chen Duxiu and others.Second, as a culturalist, the inhuman negative value of Western civilization exposed by the First World War made him, like other cultural conservatives during the May Fourth Movement, wary of modernization. Liang Shuming was neither conservative nor radical; in other words, he was both radical and conservative, moving towards opposite poles at the same time. He was not only an enthusiastic advocate of Westernization, but also a critic and transcender of it. Liang Shuming took the responsibility of inheriting the orthodoxy of Confucianism all his life, but when people compared him with Xiong Shili as a symbol of the third revival of Confucianism, he seriously distinguished himself from Xiong Shili: "Although Mr. Xiong and I share the same love for the East, The study of the ancients, who have been traveling and teaching together for more than forty years, the traces are rare, but their thoughts are really different. Mr. Xiong should belong to Confucianism, and I belong to Buddhism." No matter how much Liang Shuming devoted himself to Buddhist thought, judging from his life, he was ultimately a true Confucian with "Zhi Yi Yin Zhi Zhi", as can be clearly seen from the following incident. On Christmas Day 1941, Japanese troops invaded Hong Kong.After a life-and-death struggle, Liang Shuming finally escaped from the tiger's mouth.He sailed up the Xijiang River and entered Guangxi.After safely arriving in the Kuomintang-controlled area, he wrote a letter to his son: "The predecessors said, 'Continuing the study for the past sages, and creating peace for all generations'. This is exactly the mission of my life. Three books including "Human Heart and Life" should If I write it, I can die, but I can’t die now. In addition, the overall situation of China in the future and the work of building a country will also need me, so I can’t die. If I die, the world will change color, and history will change. It is unimaginable, it will never happen." This remark was criticized by many people including Xiong Shili and others.But Liang Shuming replied: "There is madness, but there is no madness." Generally, what a cultural nationalist identifies with is not that country, but the culture of that country.In order to preserve the integrity of culture, he does not hesitate to change any social system that is contrary to culture.As the impact of the modernization process on Chinese culture became more and more serious, Liang Shuming's local cultural sentiment became more and more intense.He found that since modern China embarked on the road of Westernization, it was falling into a stalemate of "if the east cannot be achieved, the west cannot be achieved".One is that Western political systems are not suitable for Chinese people's cultural habits and are difficult to transplant to China. On the other hand, under the impact of modernization, the traditional Chinese society based on ethics is facing complete collapse.Liang Shuming called this social and cultural crisis "extremely serious cultural imbalance".Cultural imbalance originated from the national self-rescue movement since the end of the Qing Dynasty. In order to adapt to the environment and imitate the West, they consciously destroyed the inherent Chinese culture, causing China to "leave the inherent spirit and lean towards the brutality of the West", resulting in the collapse of social order. Self-disorder.Liang Shuming began to wonder: Was this method of national self-help wrong from the very beginning?Without the Chinese culture that is the foundation of the country, can the Western modernization path save China? After five or six years of skepticism and thinking, Liang Shuming finally had a second major change in thinking.With the unique thinking of cultural nationalists, he believes that only "new sprouts grow from old trees" and starting from the inherent ethical spirit of Chinese culture, can we find a way of national self-help that is different from that of Western countries.He said that he admitted in the past that Chinese culture had a higher spiritual realm than Western culture. This was not a "realization at home". ".He said that his ideological changes in his life can be roughly divided into three periods. "The first period is the road of modern thought. The second period is from the life thought of Western utilitarianism and then back to the birth thought of ancient Indians. From the thought of birth in India This is the third period.” It can reflect the mental journey of Chinese intellectuals seeking value coordinates again after the collapse of tradition.From the beginning of the 20th century to his death at the end of the 20th century, Liang Shi was pursuing the revival of Chinese culture and the question of the ultimate destination of human culture.As a Chinese intellectual (Confucian) who still retains many traditional qualities, he put forward his own unique views. His book "Eastern and Eastern Cultures and Their Philosophy" in the 1920s can quite reflect his "theory of the third period of world culture". . This is undoubtedly a moral utopian kingdom, which is destined to be irreversible. From this, we may not be able to understand Liang Shuming's mysterious thoughts, but it is not difficult to see that Liang Shuming is a very contradictory person, but it is his uniqueness. His character made him successful. Liang Shuming has always been admiring the Buddhist idea of ​​birth. He has been a vegetarian for many years, and he still does not marry a wife when he is nearly 30 years old.Liang's father repeatedly pressed him, but Liang Shuming refused without any room for negotiation.Unexpectedly, two years after his father's death, because of his lecture on "Eastern and Eastern Cultures and Their Philosophy", he gradually had the idea of ​​starting a family. Once Liang Shuming talked about this with his friend Wu Boyong. Wu Boyong asked him about his conditions for choosing a wife. Liang Shuming said: "I don't care about age, appearance, and family background. I hope to find a lenient and kind person. However, just It seems that it is difficult for me to be merciful but lacking in extraordinary charm. People who have extraordinary charm but not enough courage to match will inevitably suffer themselves. Therefore, I am looking for someone who is tolerant and charitable but has courage. Naturally, this is not easy to come by. If someone has a talent similar to this, it doesn’t matter if they are illiterate.” Wu Boyong couldn't help showing joy: "If this is really possible, then I can introduce you to a good one now." It turned out that Mrs. Wu Boyong's sister Huang Jingxian was 28 years old and not yet married. Liang Shuming asked to meet first. If you are conservative at home, you have to try to carry it out.At that decisive meeting, Ms. Huang Jingxian's clothes were very out of date, and she looked like a man. Standing with her sister, Mrs. Wu, she appeared to be older than her sister.Liang Shuming said: "Where a woman can attract a man, she has nothing." However, the marriage was fixed immediately.The Liang family was very surprised at such an easy engagement.Of course, according to Liang Shuming's self-cultivation, it is not impossible to treat such a big event without some consideration.He later stated bluntly in the article "Mrs. Huang Jingxian in the Mourning Room": "In fact, I have thought about it. My first thought: I probably won't choose my own marriage from the girlfriends I have made friends with. I must rely on others to pay attention; others There are many people who are eager to help me, from my own brothers and sisters to the elders and relatives near and far, but it is not as good as my mentors and friends who know me well. I asked myself, if I really pay attention to the conditions of my temperament, I must trust my mentors; What Wu Boyong said is especially worth considering. Second, I think: what Wu Boyong said is absolutely true to him, and I can believe it. If his observation ability is more than half reliable, then this woman is also very good. There are options..." The year they got engaged, the two got married.After marriage, the first few years of running-in were not smooth, and as time went on, the love developed more and more, and the love became more and more delicate and sweet, which belonged to the typical "marry first and then fall in love".Because Liang Shuming still wanted a daughter after having his second son, Huang Jingxian became pregnant again after two miscarriages, and finally died of "placenta previa" dystocia. Liang Shuming was in great pain. Liang Shuming's choice of a spouse is very interesting, but the most touching thing is the heroic spirit of Chinese scholars.Another point is that in the face of Wu Boyong's "sales", Liang Shuming had no doubts and trusted him.However, the facts also proved that the friend did not cheat him.