Chapter 2 Preface by Professor Ai Kai: "Will This World Be Okay"

It is a great honor for me to write the preface to this little book. I would like to first talk about the karma of my conversation with Mr. Liang Shuming. When I was studying at Harvard, I became interested in Mr. Liang's life and career. I took him as the subject of my doctoral dissertation, collected relevant materials in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and searched for his old friends and old acquaintances.Due to the political situation in China and the United States at that time, I was still unable to go to China and meet Mr. Liang, the subject of my research. In early 1973, I had the first opportunity to travel to China.At that time, it was still extremely unusual for an American to go to China.Why can I do it?This is because after President Nixon's visit to China, several Chinese delegations came to the United States in succession in 1972, and I acted as a Chinese interpreter, acting as a bridge between the two countries. Therefore, in 1973, my wife and I had this rare opportunity to visit China.At that time, the first request I made to the Chinese side was to meet Mr. Liang. However, due to the sensitive timing of the Cultural Revolution, I did not meet Mr. Liang as I wished, so I could only return to the United States with regret.

In 1979, at the same time as my study of Liang Shuming, The Last Confucianism, was published, China's politics underwent tremendous changes.This wave of reform and opening up has also changed Mr. Liang's life.Mr. Liang, who originally lived in a small room with his wife, was placed by the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in Building No. 22, known as the Minister's Building, and lived opposite cultural celebrities such as Ding Ling.With a comfortable house, Mr. Liang thought it would be more suitable to meet guests, so he immediately tried to find a way to contact me.

One day, I suddenly received a call from an unfamiliar person. Mr. Shi, an eighty-year-old man, was on the other end of the phone.He was a student of Mr. Liang at Peking University in the 1920s. He had just come to the United States from Beijing. He was entrusted by Mr. Liang to send a message, saying that Mr. Liang already knew that "The Last Confucianism" was published, and hoped to meet me.A few months later, after class one day, a Chinese student suddenly came to see me.He came to the United States from Beijing not long ago to reunite with his father.He took Mr. Liang's contact address and told me that his old neighbor, Uncle Liang, hoped very much to meet me and see my published works about him.

I immediately sent my book to him, and soon got a friendly response from Mr. Liang, and agreed to visit him in Beijing next year. On the first day I arrived in Beijing in 1980, I immediately went to look for Mr. Liang, and he told me how he moved to Building 22.The next morning, I paid a formal visit to Liang's house. All of Mr. Liang's relatives were there, and they treated my visit with great solemnity.Mr. Liang introduced me to his family, and I gave him a souvenir from Harvard University and a posthumous painting of his father.After all kinds of twists and turns, after so many years, I was finally able to sit with Mr. Liang across a small table and start a conversation.For the next two weeks, I visited Liang's house early every morning to ask Mr. Liang for advice.I recorded and sorted out the content of the conversation, which was later included in the complete works of Mr. Liang, and now it is published separately as a book.Looking back on the fate of the two people talking about each other, I am really moved.

During our conversation, I understood a characteristic of traditional Chinese intellectuals through Mr. Liang.This is the most worth mentioning part. During our two weeks of intensive conversations, in the first two or three days, Mr. Liang told me a lot about Buddhist thoughts, which made me very puzzled, so I asked: "Didn't you publicly give up Buddhist thoughts many years ago? "He said that he gave up and did not give up, and talked about the title of his book "The Last Confucianism" positioning him as a Confucian, and he said he could accept it.However, sometimes he also told me that the science of Marxism-Leninism is very good; when it comes to traditional Chinese culture, he also praised Taoism.He once mentioned that he met Marshall for organizing the Democratic League. He spoke highly of Marshall and thought he was a good man because he was a devout Christian.

At that time I was quite puzzled, how can a person be both Buddhist and Confucian?Both agree with Marxism-Leninism and approve of Christianity?Later, I finally figured out that this kind of fusion of multiple contradictory ideas is the characteristic of typical Chinese traditional intellectuals. When a hundred schools of thought contended in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, although there were many debates, the scholars of the hundred schools of thought did not consider themselves to be a specific school. For example, when we discuss Mencius and Xunzi now, we think that although they have good nature and evil nature, they are all Confucianism and Confucius. believers, but at the time, even Confucius did not necessarily consider himself a Confucian.The academic classification we take for granted today is actually a system invented by Sima Qian in his "Preface to Taishi Gong" and his father Sima Tan's "On the Essentials of the Six Schools" to separate schools of thought.

I think Chinese culture is a culture that integrates many seemingly incompatible ideas, but at the same time likes to divide into categories.As long as you pay attention, you will find that most of the Chinese intellectuals are actually a fusion of various ideas.Zhu Lu Wang, like Fang Fang, is also a Neo-Confucianist. Although there are great differences in the rationale and xinxing of the lectures, their thoughts all contain a lot of Buddhist elements.Intellectuals in the late Qing Dynasty, such as Liang Qichao and Zhang Taiyan, were of course divided into two poles in terms of political stance and modern and ancient Chinese classics, but they also integrated Buddhism, Western thought and Confucianism into their personal thinking.

This explains why for me, who is trained by modern academic norms, it is impossible for a person to be a Confucianist and a follower of Marxism-Leninism at the same time; but for Mr. Liang, this is not a problem at all.From this point of view, Mr. Liang is still a fairly traditional Chinese intellectual. In my humble opinion, although the pre-Qin philosophers have different paths, they all share a view of the universe. They believe that the universe is one and organic, and that each component of heaven and earth is interrelated with other components. Therefore, there is no absolute contradiction in this view of the universe. , there is only a relative contradiction.This kind of cosmology, after thousands of years, is still deeply rooted in the bottom layer of Chinese intellectuals' thinking. It is based on the fact that various ideological components can coexist in one person's thinking, and they do not run counter to each other.

A large part of the conversation between Mr. Liang and me was that I asked him about personnel affairs in the early 20th century.Why don't I quietly listen to Mr. Liang express his thoughts, but ask him about many past contacts?I am a historical researcher, so I naturally hope to preserve more historical materials. Mr. Liang is the last surviving and clear-headed person I know. He has personally participated in the drastic changes in Chinese culture in the past few decades and knows many important intellectuals. intersected.His memories are precious, so I presumptuously lead the conversation, hoping to record these unique experiences.

Like me, it may be an unprecedented special case in the field of modern Chinese historiography that the author finally meets the biographer after the biography is published.After talking with Mr. Liang, I added a chapter at the end of the book "The Last Confucianism", adding and correcting some unfinished parts of the original book, especially the section on his suffering during the Cultural Revolution. I met him before, and there is no relevant record circulating, so I don’t know the details, and I can’t include them in the book. I only learned the truth after talking with him, and added it in this last chapter.Generally speaking, I did not modify the structure and content of my work after meeting Mr. Liang in person.After talking with him, I found that Mr. Liang was the same. His articles honestly reflected his perceptions, and he never concealed his sincerity because he wanted to adapt to the current situation. Therefore, the Mr. Liang I met through writing was the same as what I actually saw later. Mr. Liang who talked about it is unanimous.Therefore, although I didn't have the chance to meet him before the book was completed, I still have a deep understanding of Mr. Liang's true character and thoughts through his articles.

From the perspective of a historical researcher, I think that even after a hundred years, Mr. Liang will still occupy an important position in history, not only because of his unique thinking, but because of his consistent personality.Compared with many Confucian believers in the 20th century, he is closer to traditional Confucianism, actually practicing his thoughts in life, rather than just talking about it in the academy.Mr. Liang will always be unique in that he embodies the ideals of Confucianism and Chinese culture with his own life. September 2005 in Chicago