Chapter 2 text to the countryside

Country people are "stupid" in the eyes of city people.Of course, we remember that many friends who advocate rural work associate ignorance with disease and poverty as symptoms of rural China.We seem to have objective criteria to say about illness and poverty, but what is the basis for saying that country people are "stupid"?On the road, the countryman heard the car behind him honking his horn continuously, and panicked. He didn't dodge east or west. The driver pulled the brakes, stuck out half of his head through the glass window, and spat at the old man. He took a sip: "Idiot!" - If this is stupid, they are really wronged.I once took my students to the countryside. There was corn growing in the field. There was a young lady who pretended to be an expert and said, "This year the wheat grows so high." Might as well translate it as "stupid".Country people have never seen the world in the city, so they don't know how to deal with cars. This is a matter of knowledge, not intelligence. It is just like a city person who can't even drive a dog in the country.If we don't admit that it's "idiots" for picnic ladies to change color when they hear a dog barking, there's no reason why country people don't know that "keep to the left" or "keep to the right" and other directions that are often changed by government decree are because they "Immensely stupid". Where is "stupid"?

In fact, friends who work in the countryside say that the country people are stupid because they are illiterate. We call it "illiterate", which means that they have blind eyes and can't even read.This is of course a fact.I absolutely dare not oppose the movement of sending literacy to the countryside, but if it is said that illiteracy is stupid, I will never be willing to accept it. If "stupid" refers to lack of intelligence or defects, literacy and illiteracy are not the standard of stupidity.Intelligence is the ability to learn.If a person has no chance to learn, no matter whether he has the ability to learn or not, he still can't learn much.Are we saying that rural people are not only illiterate, but also less able to read than others?

Speaking of this, I remembered what happened when I was evacuated in the country.Some children of my colleagues were sent to primary schools in the countryside. In terms of courses, these children learned faster and got better grades than the children in the country.When teachers meet, they always praise these children for their kindness and intelligence in front of their parents.This is equivalent to saying that the children of professors have high intelligence.I am naturally selfish about these compliments.The poor professor has been deprived of everything else, but we still have an inheritance beyond the reach of other people.But one day, I was in the field watching elementary school students coming back from school catching grasshoppers. Those "smart" and kind children pounced around and failed repeatedly, while those country children were quick to respond and caught one after another.When I got home, the little pride I had just now seemed to have disappeared.

It is the same meaning that country children cannot read and recognize professors' children in the classroom, and professors' children cannot catch grasshoppers in the field but country children.I don't blame my children for catching less grasshoppers. The first is that we don't need to use grasshoppers to add vegetables. (Grasshoppers are served with rice in the countryside of Yunnan, and the taste is very similar to the dried shrimps in Suzhou.) The second is that my children have no chance to practice.The professors' children wore shoes and socks, and for the sake of decency, they had to plant their feet indiscriminately. If they got dirty, they would be scolded when they returned home, so they inevitably had some scruples when they caught grasshoppers, and their movements were not flexible.These may be secondary, they are not used to running in the fields, and it takes a lot of eyesight to distinguish grass from insects, so the protective color of grasshoppers is easy to take effect. ——Can the defense I made for my own children also apply to the "foolishness" of rural children in literacy?I think it's quite appropriate. Children in the country are not like the children of professors who see books everywhere. This is not the environment they are familiar with every day.The children of the professors are not necessarily genetically predisposed to be particularly good at reading, but it is obvious that they have an environment that is easy to read.In this way, whether the country people are inferior to the city people in intelligence is at least an open question.

From this point of view, when friends who work in the countryside say that country people are stupid, they obviously do not mean that their intelligence is inferior to others, but that their knowledge is inferior to others.This point, according to what we said above, is still not quite self-justifying.At best, it is true that country people do not have as much knowledge as city people do.Can we also say that there are many illiterates in the countryside because there is no need for literate eyes in the countryside?Having said that, we should discuss the usefulness of words. In the previous article, I explained that one of the characteristics of rural society is that people in this kind of society grow up among acquaintances.In other words, the people who cooperate with each other in their lives meet every day.In sociology, we call it a Face to face group, literally translated as a face-to-face community.According to Gui Youguang's Xiang Jixuan's diary, he always comes into contact with those people on a daily basis, so after a long time, he can use the sound of footsteps to identify who is coming.In the "face-to-face community" it is possible to know who the other person is without even meeting each other.Although we have lived in modern cities for a while, the habits we have developed in rural society still dominate us if we are not careful.You might as well give it a try, if someone knocks on your door to come in, you ask "Who is it!" The people outside the door will answer you with a loud "I" out of ten.That is to say, you have to distinguish people by their voices.People who live together in a face-to-face community do not have to share their first and last names.Few wives will answer their husbands' questions by name outside the door.But because we have been accustomed to this kind of "I!"Once, when I came back from my hometown after a long absence, I heard an unrecognizable "I am" on the phone, and it was indeed a joke.

"Your surname and big name" is used because we are not familiar with it.Familiar with the National People's Congress does not have to be like this, the sound of footsteps, voice, and even smell can be enough "registration".The infrequent catchiness of our social names also shows that we originally lived among acquaintances, a rural society. At the beginning of writing, it was "tie-knotting to remember events". The need to tie knots to remember events is because the contact between people in space and time is hindered.We can't speak face to face, so we need to find something to speak for.In Yaoshan Mountain in Guangxi, when the tribe was in a hurry, they sent someone to send a copper coin to another tribe. The other tribe received the sign and immediately sent someone to rescue them.This is "text", a sign that both parties agree to represent a meaning.If it is possible to speak directly face to face, this kind of mark constrained by the pre-agreed meaning is not only redundant, but sometimes the words do not express the meaning and cause misunderstanding.More than ten years ago, when young people fell in love, they were limited by direct social interaction, and it was common to write love letters. Many tragedies occurred because of misunderstandings in love letters.Those who have had this kind of experience must be able to understand the limitations of words.

The feelings and meanings that words can convey are incomplete.It's not entirely for "indirect contact" reasons.The affection we want to convey is compatible with the local external situation at that time.You have written down the feelings of the time and place in words. If you look at it in different times and places, the reactions you will arouse will hardly match the reactions that may be aroused in the situation at that time and place.Words as a tool for expressing emotions often suffer from this irremediable defect.Therefore, when using words, we must pay attention to grammar and art.Grammar and art are reducing the "aliasing" of words.

We can ignore grammar when speaking.It's not that there is no grammar when speaking, but because we have many auxiliary expressions to supplement the role of conveying affection.We can take the word "I" out of words by pointing at ourselves.Not so when writing.So we have to try our best to write complete sentences according to the grammar.Ungrammatical words will inevitably lead to misunderstanding, so it is not good.If we use complete sentences when speaking, it will not only appear pedantic, but also ridiculous.This is the pain that people who learn foreign languages ​​from books often feel.

Words are indirect speech, and an imperfect tool at that.When we had telephones and broadcasting, the status of letters and proclamations has been greatly affected.After the facsimile technology is developed, it is very questionable whether text can be used. In this way, not using writing in rural society can never be called a manifestation of "stupid".Face-to-face communication is direct contact, so why use writing instead of this more perfect language? I also want to go a step further here and say that in a face-to-face community, even language itself is a tool of last resort.Language is a symbolic system expressed by sound.Symbols are things or actions that have meaning attached to them.I say "attached" because "meaning" is added by association, not a property of the thing or action itself.This is a product of society, for an individual needs to express something only insofar as it is necessary to act in concert with others;So a symbol includes a meaning shared by most people, that is, this thing or action will cause the same reaction in most people.Therefore, we can never have a personal language, only a social language.In order for most people to have the same meaning for the same symbol, they must have the same experience, that is to say, contact and use the same symbol in a similar environment, because the same meaning is attached to the symbol.Therefore, in each special living group, there must be their special language, and there are many words that cannot be translated in other languages.

Language can only occur on a level where a community all have the same experience.The larger the group, the more complex the experience of the people it includes, the more limited the common ground for language to emerge, and the more simplistic the language.This is clearly seen in the history of language. But on the other hand, in addition to the common language used by a community, there will inevitably be many special languages ​​among a few people due to the needs of individuals, so-called "jargon".Jargon is the words of peers, and laymen will not understand it because they have no such experience.In every school, even in every dormitory, there is their special language.The most common idiosyncratic language occurs between mother and child.

The "special language" is just that part of the symbolism used in intimate communities, the part that uses sound as a symbol.There is more raw material available for symbolic systems in intimate groups.Expressions, movements, because in a face-to-face situation, sometimes it is easier to convey emotion than voice.Even when language is used, it is always closely coordinated with other symbolic materials.For example: I can say to an acquaintance: "That's really it!" At the same time, I frowned, the corners of the mouth slanted down, the skin on the face tightened, I inserted my fingers in the hair, and the head sank, and the other party understood "" That" means "no way", "disappointed".If the same two words are used in conjunction with another expression, the meaning can be completely different. "Special language" is often very effective because it can get rid of the fixed meaning of words.Language is like a sieve set by society, if we have an emotion that is different from the grids of this sieve, we will not be able to pass through.I think everyone must have had the experience of "no words are better than words".In fact, although this sieve helps people to understand the world, it also formulates the affection between people and the world, so that the actual affection of each person and every moment has changed a little bit.We are perpetually cutting our feet to fit our shoes, and make the sensitive resent the confinement of language.Li Changji wanted to find a closer expression in this bondage, no wonder he had to vomit all his efforts. Therefore, among acquaintances, we talk less, we "eye-eyed", we "pointed to stones to prove", we put aside more indirect symbolic materials, and sought more direct understanding.Therefore, in rural society, not only words are redundant, but even language is not the only symbolic system to convey affection. I am by no means saying that we do not need to send writing to the countryside. In the process of modernization, we have begun to abandon rural society, and writing is a tool for modernization.What I want to distinguish is that the illiteracy in rural society is not due to the "stupidity" of rural people, but because of the nature of rural society.I would also like to go further and say that it is not enough to criticize people and their understanding in a society from the perspective of words and language, because words and language are only a tool for expressing emotions, not the only tool, and the tool itself It is flawed, and the feelings and meanings that can be conveyed are limited.Therefore, those who advocate sending writing to the countryside must first consider the basics of writing and language. Otherwise, opening a few rural schools and making the rural people more literate may not make the rural people "smart".