Chapter 33 Why doesn't "God" preach in person

On November 16, 2006, Mr. Friedman passed away, and many people began to miss him.Zhang Wuchang said, "He will still stand there." However, in my opinion, it is not only an economist who won the Nobel Prize, but also an outstanding political scientist who continues to stand there.Obviously, Friedman's understanding of politics and the country surpassed those of his contemporaries, and even surpassed that Mr. Kennedy who was elected by the Americans as the "general chair" of politics. As we all know, President Kennedy left a seemingly immortal quote in his inaugural speech: "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." While spreading enthusiasm and praising Kennedy's patriotism, Friedman saw the darkness in the words of the star president with great insight—it is this inversion of the functions of the individual and the state that is corrupting a country's freedom with impunity. foundation.

Looking back at the fanaticism of nationalism in the 20th century, people living today will never forget how "patriotism" was once reduced to a dirty word.In Friedman's view, neither part of Kennedy's famous quote correctly expresses the ideal of a free society and the relationship between citizens and government.The paternalistic "what can your country do for you" implication is that the government is the protector and the citizens are the protected.This view is clearly at odds with the belief that a free man is responsible for his own destiny.Likewise, "what can you do for your country" implies that the government is the master or god and the citizens are the servants or believers.For each free man, the state is only a collection of free men, not something beyond them.Free men take pride in their common inheritance and allegiance to a common tradition, but government remains essentially a means, an instrument.Government is neither a person who brings us favors and gifts, nor is it a master or god to whom we blindly worship and serve.Therefore, Friedman said: "He recognizes no goal of the state except the agreed goal for which the citizens are each serving; any ideal."

It is on this basis that Friedman firmly believes that a free man asks neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country.Rather, to ask, "What can my fellow citizens and I do through government" to fulfill our individual responsibilities to achieve our individual goals and aspirations, the most important of which is: to protect our liberty.Furthermore, the fact that the government can be used by us is the legitimacy basis for the government to exist.The next question is: By what means can we keep the government we have created from becoming an uncontrollable monster that would destroy our liberties?

Obviously, such concerns are not superfluous.Looking back at the progress of human civilization, it is not difficult to find that the greatest threat to freedom is the excessive concentration of power.As a result, the public power is armed to the point that its teeth are extremely strong, while the private power is like a piece of window paper that can be broken at a glance.Therefore, in order for the people to keep their freedom for a long time, on the one hand, we recognize that the government is necessary. Through the government as a tool, we can exercise our freedom and work together for a certain goal.At the same time, it should also be seen that since power is concentrated in the hands of those in power, it is bound to pose a threat to freedom.The Moral King is unreliable, and, in Friedman's words, "power that has been concentrated cannot be rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who created it."

Therefore, once the government is established, the citizens immediately divide into two ways: on the one hand, they must use the government to guard against external enemies; on the other hand, they must guard against internal enemies, that is, the government itself.The former is to prevent hegemony, and the latter is to resist totalitarianism.It must be pointed out that only a totalitarian state with power over one country and an unscrupulous hegemony that disrupts the world can truly become the public enemy of the whole people. So, how to eradicate the government's fangs and claws so that they will no longer harm the people?Anyone with a little bit of political savvy will not oppose the existence of the government. People's differences are only how to make the government.If we admit that human beings live in a state of competition forever, we should admit that the establishment of any government benefits from the selection and support of its own citizens.The so-called "there is a government with the kind of people, and the people with the kind of government" refers to this principle.On the whole, whether a government is established in a democratic or non-democratic manner, it is the flowering of the choice or refusal of a country's citizens.The point is this: No responsible citizen should create a government and then cut off all ties with it, leaving it to grow up like an orphan, tainted with savage habits, and uneducated.

On this point, all those with profound insights will realize that the most effective way is to lock or persuade the government into a cage, that is, to restrict public power through constitutionalism.Obviously, Friedman saw this clearly. The best way to limit power is to decentralize power. The advantage of the federal system in the United States is that it not only allows people to participate in elections, but also allows them to choose their own elections in different states. Life.Here, it is not difficult to find that what Friedman advocates is that a country should not only have its own market economy, but also have its own "market politics".Active competition in the political market is not only reflected in immigration between different countries, but also in the fact that citizens of a country can move freely according to their own wishes.Like he said, "If I don't like what the state I live in is doing, I can move to another state."

It is undeniable that this kind of openness in time and geography is the most exciting picture of an open society.This kind of openness is also manifested in the fact that people not only have a market economy to choose from, but also "market politics" to choose from. Those politics that are not accepted by people or that have been proved by practice to not really benefit the country and the people will eventually will be abandoned.The decisive significance of the formation of political markets for an open society is obvious.No one can always make the right choice. If elections in the political sense mean that citizens can "choose by choosing relief" in time, then free movement in daily life also means that people can "choose relief through choice" at the geographical level. choose".This is why when the former French Prime Minister Jospin exclaimed "market economy, not market society", the author advocates "market economy, but more importantly, market politics".Without market politics, there will be no real market economy, and only when politics enters the market and there is sufficient competition, can it be possible to create cheap and powerful public goods.

If we admit that the significance of the market is to facilitate the parties to the transaction to gain profits through equal bargaining, then we cannot ignore that the emergence of the market is also related to the spiritual revolution.That is, in the face of market economy and market politics, every "economic man" and citizen can choose a life with their heads held high.Furthermore, what the government maintains is procedural justice, how to better provide public goods, but it does not take responsibility or monopolize everyone's interpretation of the meaning of life.Just like the referee at the stadium has no right to ask whether the athlete goes to bed early and gets up early when he is at home, or who he is dating.

Looking back at the operation of power in human history, we also find that almost all "pre-modern politics" have one thing in common - on the surface, the power holders will more or less admit that they are just acting on behalf of some kind of divine power .And this "divine power" either comes from a fictitious public entity, such as "the people" or "the masses", or from some mysterious power, such as "God", "God", etc., rather than those specific , Those who hold the votes.In this case, whether it is acting on behalf of "human rights" or acting on behalf of "divine power"; whether it is the king or the government, as the owner and user of power, they are the only intermediary for the people to obtain rights.Moreover, the king or government will at least admit in words that its existence is for the "blessing of all peoples."

Here, we might as well refer to these politics as “intermediary politics”.Obviously, the governing techniques such as "son of heaven" and "divine right of kings" are the continuation of this logic.As far as the "Son of Heaven" is concerned, if we compare the people to A (this side), the king to B (the only bridge), and the sky to C (the other side), on the surface, the legitimacy of the existence of the king is given by heaven. However, the power of interpretation is entirely in the hands of the king as to what the intention of heaven is.In other words, the starting point of power is apparently with C, but actually with B. Because of B's ​​strong interpretation power, B has the absolute initiative over C and A here. Whatever meaning B wants "heaven" to have, so "heaven" has the meaning.When the society agrees with this kind of heavenly rule, it also means that the subjects are constantly being added meaning to the king's golden words.

Since the Enlightenment, the concept of "people", like "heaven", has been forcibly defined and dressed up at will.The so-called "people" is just a divine concept extracted from the people (A) on this shore.On the surface, the legitimacy of the government comes from the "people", but since it is a virtual subject, a plastic concept, its power of interpretation is in the hands of the government, which also means that the starting point of power is still in the government.In fact, this is also the reason why the Nazis always claimed to represent the people, but in the end they could only do evil on behalf of the people. It is not difficult to find that in the period of "pre-modern politics", what people respected was not the contract of spiritual equality, but some mysterious power.On the one hand, emperors, churches, and totalitarian organizations will legitimize and strengthen their rule by explaining concepts such as heaven, God, and the people. Asking prices, charging sky-high bridge tolls and intermediary fees; revenge for wrongs.The excavation of the resources of ghosts and gods vividly shows us a paradox that has existed in human history for a long time-human justice can only be resolved through "non-human" gifts. In the depths of the human psyche, the "non-human" has always been fascinating.The transcendental "natural human rights" are always more legitimate and provocative than the "natural human rights" grown on the earth.Therefore, even those uprisings of "human-endowed regimes" in history usually used the banner of "naturalized regimes" to attract the hearts of the people.For example, in China, when Chen Sheng and Wu Guang rose up, they used the fish belly collection of books to express "God's will", indicating that "Heaven" wanted to destroy Qin; The historical series of "Tianmin rebelling against the Son of Heaven"; during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom period, Hong Xiuquan made Yang Xiuqing foam at the mouth and engaged in "behavioral politics" between the heavenly father and the heavenly brother. Immediately it becomes a facsimile machine conveying God's will.Of course, the real value of this fax machine networked with God is that there is only one in the world, and it is this one that monopolizes all messages from heaven.From this point of view, in all dynasties, those who seized power in the name of ancestors, heaven, or truth mostly had a process of frothing at the mouth and striving to be God's fax machine.Who can say that the "Pravda" of the former Soviet Union is not such a fax machine for sending and receiving truth? Voltaire said, "If God does not exist, he must be made." Dostoevsky believed equally sincerely that man did make God.In the twentieth century, when the Enlightenment raised human reason to truth, and power holders obtained a certain divinity because they monopolized the truth, they also turned themselves into the only intermediary between the truth and the people.The difference is that the so-called "divine grant of the king's power" in the past has now become a "truth grant of government power."Power monopolizes all definitions and explanations of truth, thus making itself the sole producer and defender of truth. If democracy is "relief of choice through choice", then autocracy is "relief of truth through truth". Although both are repetitions of actions, their meanings are vastly different.Democracy's "choice by choice, relief" is realized on the basis of trial and error and error correction, so it has the spirit of repentance in its bones.On the contrary, the possible result of "relief of truth with truth" is that in order to maintain the correctness and majesty of the original truth, new truths must be constantly created, so that truth has a certain flavor of fundamentalism.One of the logics is more like, if you tell a lie, you must use a thousand lies to cover it up. It is not difficult to find that it is precisely because of the continuous production of truth that the truth depreciates or loses credibility due to inflation. Therefore, truth only has the effect of censorship but not mobilization.In other words, it can clearly tell the people what is in line with the truth, but it cannot call on everyone to continue to be loyal to the truth and sacrifice to some mysterious power. It is obvious that Western countries have finally moved from theocracy to human rights. The benefit of realizing democratic politics is that citizens know what kind of public power they need, what kind of private rights they have, and know what they think at all times, and everything is up to them. There is no need to speculate on why the ethereal "God" or "truth" is fickle and unpredictable, and there is no need to worry about being taken advantage of by the only "political intermediary" who monopolizes the interpretation power of God and truth. The power monopoly spares no effort to tell people that only themselves are the only possibility for the people to lead a happy life.Just like a matchmaker who "knows how the matchmaker hides from both sides of the matchmaker, but cannot tell the matchmaker's double-sided transmission", in order to obtain high profits from monopolizing power, monopolizing information is undoubtedly the most effective way for political intermediaries to "loot".On this point, the epic film of the famous former Yugoslav director Kusturica undoubtedly has a good interpretation. "Underground" is a film full of alcohol, gunshots and gypsy music. It is a spiritual history that condenses the great changes in the former Yugoslavia from 1941 to 1992.The protagonists Ma Gao (poet) and Hei Zai are the underworld duo in Belgrade. They are engaged in smuggling and have close ties with the Revolutionary Party at the same time.When the German army invaded Belgrade, Hei Zai fell in love with the drama actress Natalie, and was arrested by the Nazis because of his jealousy with the Nazi officers.Fortunately, Hei Zai was rescued by Ma Gao; unfortunately, he was seriously injured and was sent by Ma Gao to take refuge in his cellar like many other people.Marco thus became their only point of contact with Belgrade. Rescuing is only the beginning of kidnapping.Four years later, the invaders were driven away and Yugoslavia was liberated. Ma Gao, a high-ranking revolutionary poet, had married Natalie, unveiled, gave speeches, and recited poems everywhere, and was worshiped by the masses.What's mean is that he didn't tell the people living in the cellar that the Germans were driven out, but he tried every means to convince them that the war was still going on and that the only way to serve the country was to serve the "revolution" in the cellar Keep making guns.For this reason, Ma high-profile slowed down the clocks in the cellar, faked air raid alarms, and always dressed as if he had just been tortured by the Nazis every time he went to the cellar to visit comrades on behalf of Tito, so as to stimulate the fighting spirit of the black boys.And these comrades kidnapped by comrades never dreamed that Ma Gao had already become an arms dealer. Twenty years later, at a drunken banquet, Sonny the orangutan living in the cellar accidentally pulled the trigger of the tank and opened the burrow.When these ghosts of the former Yugoslavia emerged from the ground, what they returned was not the homeland occupied by the Nazis, but the era of Minosevic's rule.Armed with live ammunition, Hei Zi continued to fight with his son Zu Fan to eliminate the Nazis. The actor in the Nazi uniform was killed by them... In the film, the son Zu Fan is more like a metaphor.On the day Hei Zai's wife was taken to the basement, she gave birth to Zu Fan and died.Zu Fan's life is a witness to life in the basement.Like the movie "The Truman Show", Zu Fan has lived in a world of lies since he was born.The life in the basement was his whole life.To him, the so-called outside world is just a patchwork of false propaganda, outdated photos, dramas and audio-visual materials.So, when this caveman first came to earth, he mistook the moon for the sun and "took the stag for the horse." Plato has a famous allegory of the cave in: There is a group of prisoners in a cave. Their hands and feet are tied, and their bodies cannot turn around. They can only turn their backs to the entrance of the cave.There was a white wall in front of them, and a fire burning behind them.On that white wall they saw shadows of themselves and of things behind them to the fire, and seeing nothing else, the group of prisoners would have thought the shadows were real things.And, there is nothing else in the world but shadows on the wall. It is not difficult to find that a group that is isolated from the real world and surrounded by countless false negative information will make wrong judgments about reality!The fate of Zufan is the fate of these cultural prisoners in chains. Significantly, among all the creatures living in the cellar, the only one that has not been brainwashed by Ma Gao is the orangutan who fired the cannon.Obviously, it is not an animal warrior, nor is it a guardian of human interests. It just touched the cannon at will, and this inadvertent destruction objectively liberated the basement.In this respect, the lack of language between the orangutans and humans is not necessarily a bad thing—at least, in this cellar, the orangutans maintained their independence and were not fooled by Ma Gao's false war propaganda.The so-called "everyone sleeps, but the orangutan wakes up alone". Here, we might as well switch the scene to the Opium War that took place in 1840.Wasn't the British at that time such an orangutan?Since Columbus, Europeans have been groping around in the open sea to the point of mistaking America for India.But in China, historical events will cause them to put opium in the barrel and pull the trigger.It was those rumbling cannons that opened up China's millennium dark room.Knowing this, it is not difficult for us to understand why in a country with a high degree of unity of thought, if we want to seek liberation, we have to rely on external forces-even if it is just an orangutan sometimes, at least it is a maverick Chimpanzees. As mentioned above, the revolutionary poet Ma Gao also achieved the rule of the minority over the majority by creating a false meaning.When he divides the world into above ground and underground, and monopolizes all transmission channels of underground and above ground, and is responsible for explaining everything above ground, he becomes a hero like a savior.He first deprived the caveman of everything, and then gave little by little.And these fearful people also unsuspectingly gave Ma Gao the right to know everything on the ground. In "Underground", there is a plot of false preaching of imperial edicts.In order to encourage Hei Zai to work in the basement with peace of mind, Ma Gao gave him a watch with Tito's face on it in the name of Comrade Tito, and told him Tito's "original words": "It's too early to end the war. Tell Hei Zai not to let him come out of the ground. He is a necessary talent for the decisive battle." Hei Zai was ecstatic about this.A lie, like a shamanic spell, only works if you believe it.The black boys who believed in Ma Gao became a group of slaves who produced guns for the illusory concept of "freedom".Just like people in the Middle Ages entrusted the church with all the keys to their pursuit of truth and happiness, so that this "intermediary giant" has the opportunity to wipe out the oil and water of man and God. All men are created equal, what a beautiful slogan!However, no one can deny that in this world, no one is born equal.Regardless of height, weight or intelligence, no matter the circumstances of the times or the conditions of their parents, it is impossible for everyone to be absolutely equal.However, the significance of our promotion of political civilization lies in the fact that we can build a system through the efforts of generations, so that everyone is born free, so that every citizen of the republic has the conditions to be born with a key to freedom. Friedman once quoted a judge who said, "My freedom to move my fist must be limited by the position of your jaw." In order to live in groups and not hurt each other, people were forced to partly surrender their keys to the government Keep it on your behalf.However, the ensuing question is, will the person in charge of the key to the warehouse take the warehouse for himself?Will the well-paid nanny lock the owner out so that he can't go home? The Russian thinker Shestov wrote in "The Reign of the Keys" that Catholics quoted the Bible and believed that "God delegated his power to his successor, the Pope who is still alive today." Say to the polytheists, "the key is there, it is kept on earth, but it is not in your ruined temple, but in our temple".When faith rises to power and begins to replace the thoughts of the people, the church and believers also believe that they have reached the truth and have the key to the final secret and the road to eternal bliss.As Shestov said, what Catholicism believes in is not God, but itself.If Christ should return, the great Inquisitor would burn him, as he burned all heretics. Dostoevsky wrote about his deepest concerns in The Inquisitor.When Jesus returned to the world, the religious judge, as the agent of God's power, not only did not serve Jesus like a servant, but arrested him. "The Great Palace of Religion" tells us the story that human beings no longer long for "food from the sky", but indulge in "food from the ground", and it also indirectly confirms the Chinese saying that "county officials are not as good as current management".The devil lingers in the world, and God is used to condoning and punishing evil. When human beings need justice, it is always long overdue. For the same reason, hundreds of years ago, Luther viewed the pope as anti-Christian.After ten years in the monastic life he had to believe that he had fallen into the anti-Christian camp, convinced that he was serving not Christ but Christ's eternal and implacable enemy.Therefore, for him, when he entered the monastery, he expected his own salvation and escaped destruction. Similarly, when he left the monastery, he expected the same salvation and escaped destruction. When there is no God, everyone has a God in their hearts; when the impression of God is confiscated by the church and made into a standard image for promotion, it also means that people transfer all the power of the key to a person or an institution, and this contact is related to The only intermediary of God thus becomes the biggest obstacle for man to communicate with God.Cheap promises have since replaced the living God and the true freedom of human beings.The Church is on two boats—representing the people to God and God to the people.For the church, this is a profitable religious business.It is precisely because of this distrust that the Michniks in Poland, who feel that they have been "losing money and making money", have the idea of ​​​​"believing in God, but not in the church". However, in Shestov's view, the reign of the key has always maintained its own vigorous vitality.Those who serve God have followers, and philosophers have crowds.Most people have been taught how to live a laborious, temperate life.More importantly, the pope found a way to compromise with the philosophers, and the philosophers no longer regarded the pope as their enemy, and even regarded it as their ally.The confluence of thought and power will inevitably reject the choice of politics returning to the hearts of the people with seemingly natural violence. In the nineteenth century, the gods in heaven died; in the twentieth century, the gods on earth died.Some people worry that in the 21st century where entertainment is to the death, everything will lose its meaning, and people will almost lose their lives.However, there is still a belief in our hearts that people can live firmly-because time has not collapsed and choices continue.To have choice is to have hope, and all our hope lies in having choice. As mentioned above, in a country that promotes market politics, "the voters are God".Since the "church" cannot fully express the heartfelt voice of "God", why doesn't "God" preach in person, so as to directly express his wishes?Similarly, as Schiller sighed in his poems, since no one can guarantee the heavenly beings to the creatures on the earth, why not let them live on the earth and listen to the inner voice?