There's that kind of book that's hallucinatory: read along and think you wrote it yourself.Because the subject it talks about happens to be the one you want to talk about the most; the way it approaches that subject happens to be the path you would naturally choose; even its tone and way of speaking are in harmony with your inner The voices are consistent, as if they were their own.Then, you can't help but blame yourself: Why did someone else write this book instead of yourself?Why am I so lazy and don't sit down and fulfill my destiny? But when I look back, I realize that since this book is destined to be written, we shouldn't bother with such trivial issues as who wrote it.What's more, as long as you calm down, you will notice that its author is so outstanding, he is the most suitable author for this book, because he knows the details that you don't know, and he masters knowledge that you can't. Seeing far beyond your eyesight.So, your sense of being the author of this book is nothing more than an illusion.When I read Brother Xiong Peiyun's book, I went through this strange journey of waking up from hallucinations.

First of all, the title of the book is good, it captures the spirit of the times in China in recent years and the main points of the changes in the past three decades very accurately. We know that China used to be an "omnipotent country" where the government was omnipotent and the people had nowhere to escape; almost everything you could think of was planned by the government.Major issues such as industrial structure and resource allocation, as small as personal entertainment methods and family life, are all inseparable from the command and arrangement of the state.I still remember the elders in the countryside telling me that during the height of the Cultural Revolution, even Chinese New Year greetings were not allowed. When people met on the road, they could only secretly nod their fingers and pretend to be right.

The reform and opening up is the process of a country's retreat.Today's young people can choose to listen to rock or worship Jay Chou, because the country doesn't care.After graduation, the government will no longer assign you a job; if you start a family independently, you cannot expect the government to arrange housing for you; when you are admitted to the hospital, you find that the public hospital has to settle the money with you first; even when you file a complaint, sometimes you have to spend money to buy it. To the service you thought you could buy without money.What the hell is wrong with this country?How far will it retreat?Why is it not in the place where you think it shouldn't retreat; where you think it shouldn't appear, it stands there like a mountain?In addition, we have to think carefully about the various "should" and "should not": What standards and principles should we base on to judge the scope and obligations of the state's presence or absence?What models and methods should be used to explain its presence or absence?Don't forget that these 30 years are not a straight line of a country's overall retreat; it has advanced and retreated over the past 30 years, and it has gone back and forth. Some areas have been lost and regained, while others have never returned.

We can boldly say that almost all the debates over the past 30 years are inseparable from the big theme of whether the country should retreat or not, where it should retreat and where it should not retreat.Some people think that the state has not retreated far enough, and such people are usually called "liberals"; some people think that the state has retreated too far, and such people are usually called "new leftists."In order to understand these obfuscated phenomena, we have experienced different great paradigms.If it is not too simplistic, I would say that the theme of the 1980s was "individual", and everyone directly regarded the reform and opening up as an opportunity for the rise of the individual and the restoration of humanity; from the 1990s to the beginning of this century, the theme changed. It has become a "market", and reform and opening up is regarded as a tango and game between the state and the market.Whether we are talking about individuals or the market, we can draw an axis to accommodate different positions and different attitudes, roughly dividing them into two camps, left and right.

After walking through individuals and markets, what should we talk about today?Brother Peiyun's answer is exactly the topic I've been thinking about: society.Between the individual and the country, there is still society; apart from the government and the market, we must not forget that there is also a large part of society.Since Brother Peiyun has already used the space of a book to talk about the rediscovery of society, and he has said it very well, I don't need to repeat it.But I still want to remind everyone of the ambiguity of "society".According to Brother Peiyun's thinking, although society is not the same as "civil society", the two are also inextricably linked.If this is the case, the high-standard society is suspected of leaning to the right.Because the current China is very idiosyncratic, some media once accused "civil society" as "a product of the Western universal values", which is not in line with the national conditions; Pretending is a better way to replace the market.However, we also know that society was once a key target of the Western right-wing. Hayek certainly criticized the abuse of words such as "society" and "social". Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher even publicly stated that "society does not exist." .One of the slogans of the anti-globalization movement in recent years, "Market economy, not a market-oriented society," seems to prove the leftist suspicion of "society."Is society a new weapon for the right to cover up people's ears, or is it a small channel for the left to secretly cover up the old positions?

Regarding this issue, Brother Peiyun did give a new set of ideas for paradigm shifting.Although in my opinion, he handles the details of many issues more "right" than me, but this line of thinking is something I agree with very much.That is to use "upper/lower" to replace "left/right"; to propose society is to displace many unnecessary debates between the left and the right, and to re-understand China's problem is still that the country is above the top, and the society is suppressed below. Breathless facts.If society cannot survive by itself, the distinction between left and right is meaningless.

It sounds abstract, but it's actually incredibly specific.To give a simple example, many people are considered liberals as soon as they say the words "freedom of speech", as if freedom of speech is a special term for right-wing liberalism.However, does the New Left not need freedom of speech?Don't you need to express your thoughts without any scruples?of course not.It can be seen that freedom of speech is really the basic bottom line that any position should be jointly presupposed and jointly defended.The "society" mentioned by Brother Pei Yun, roughly speaking, is a boundary drawn by a series of basic bottom lines.Without this boundary, without this series of basic bottom lines and common values, nothing can be said.

I read a story in Chen Danqing's "Waste Collection".It is said that Hu Shih was asked in Taiwan in his later years, "There is a revolution in the mainland now, what do you think would happen to Lu Xun if he lived to this day"?Hu Shi's answer was: "Don't worry, Lu Xun belongs to us, and he will not give in." The difference between Hu Shi and Lu Xun is so great that later generations have always regarded them as sworn enemies. How could he say " Lu Xun is our man"?What does he mean by "we"?I think this is the common sense of intellectuals.Everyone can have different opinions that are diametrically opposed, but they must maintain basic trust and basic respect for those who disagree; this kind of trust and respect does not come from external politeness and hypocrisy, but from everyone's commitment to the common bottom line.From this perspective, it is nothing less than Xiong Peiyun's expectation for the Chinese intellectual community: let us rediscover who we are, and let us return to the common bottom line.

July 18, 2009