Chapter 118 View from afar

1 A college student came to me and said that he wanted to discuss the issue of "Twenty-Four Filial Piety". I was surprised. I was only seven years old in 1949. I grew up under the red flag and never went to an old-style private school. Later, I experienced waves of political movements. At the age of 24, I caught up with the Cultural Revolution and was swept up in the "Broken Four In the midst of the "old" fury.Before that, I had never read and never wanted to read "Twenty-Four Filial Piety". It was not until the reform and opening up in the 1980s that I read the complete "Twenty-Four Filial Piety" for the first time.My understanding of "Twenty-Four Filial Pieties" in my youth was through the works of Mr. Lu Xun. In his collection, there was an article specifically criticizing "Twenty-Four Filial Piety", but his article did not mention the "Twenty-Four Filial Piety" The story is fully quoted, so for a long time I have not known who all the dutiful sons were and what they did.

Of course the college students who came to see me had also read Lu Xun's article.He said to me: "Mr. Lu Xun wrote such articles at that time, it is understandable. But that article is one-sided..." I listened to him patiently.According to him, the two cases Mr. Lu Xun disliked most, "Guo Jubuier" are indeed 100% dross. How can there be such a reason as to preserve the old and eliminate the young?Not to mention human beings, but ordinary creatures, for the sake of genetic inheritance, they always have to give up the old and support the young.Another example, "Lao Laizi entertains relatives", Mr. Lu Xun also pointed out that the earliest record quoted in "Taiping Yulan" said that he "often wears colorful clothes, fetches drinks for relatives, falls on his feet in the hall, for fear of hurting his parents." Heart, stiff servant crying for the baby", although this is somewhat nasty, but the essence of the matter is to adapt to the situation, and it seems that there is no need to hate it.Later in the Yuan Dynasty, Guo Jujing wrote "Twenty-Four Filial Piety" and used it as a "fraudulent servant". Therefore, Mr. Lu Xun denounced: "No matter how filial or disobedient, children are unwilling to cheat...Mr. Daoxue thinks he is flawless. At that time, he had already died in the child's heart." In addition, the superstitious "crying for bamboo shoots" and "lying on ice and begging for carp" were also criticized and ridiculed by Mr. Lu Xun.

The college student said that he studied "Twenty-Four Filial Piety" from the perspective of sociology.The so-called "filial piety" refers to the young life caring for the old life.Today's human society has entered the state of "sub-aging society", and China is no exception.Therefore, all human beings' previous texts on "coordination between the elderly and the young" can be used as a reference resource.From this perspective, "Twenty-Four Filial Piety" was listed as one of the first "available resources".He said and took out a list to show me.It turned out that he had started with statistics, and classified and arranged the twenty-four cases of "filial piety" in "Twenty-Four Filial Piety" as follows:

Should be completely denied: Guo Jubuier Wishes are desirable, but the probability of success in the cases is extremely low, and they belong to the superstition of promoting miracles: springing carp, weeping bamboo to grow bamboo shoots, lying on ice to beg carp, carving wood to serve relatives The starting point is good, but it is reduced to low-level interest: play, entertainment, pro What should be basically affirmed: Xiaogan Tiandi (Yu Shun farmed in Lishan to support the whole family), deer milk serving relatives, single clothes obeying mother, selling one's body to bury father, working as servant for mother, leaving relatives pregnant with tangerines, weeping at the tomb after hearing thunder, stealing mosquitoes to eat Blood, Tasting excrement and worrying, Nurse never neglects, Abandoning an official to find a mother

What can be fully affirmed: Carry rice for relatives, taste decoction for relatives, pick up berries for mother, fan pillow to warm quilt, strangle tiger to save father, kiss for drowning utensils Can not be regarded as a superstition, can find the basis of genetics and psychology, full of strong human touch: finger biting heartache (I once participated in the collection of salaries in the mountains, there were guests at home, the mother was at a loss, hoped that the ginseng would not return, so I gnawed the finger, refuted suddenly Heartbroken, I returned home with a salary, knelt down and asked why, my mother said: There is an urgent guest, I gnaw my finger to understand Ruer.)

According to his calculations, there is only one case of pure dross because it is against humanity, accounting for only 5%; five cases containing superstition and vulgar taste add up to 20%; what is certain is that it can still be used as a coordinating representative today There are as many "Eighteen Filial Piety" examples of "resources available" in the relationship between people, accounting for 75%, or three-quarters! I started to feel resentful about this college student's research, then shook my head and sighed, and finally I said to him: "Mr. Lu Xun and a group of masters in the May 4th Movement back then, they were ignorant of the feudal society that has sustained the feudal society for thousands of years. Old ethics, old morality, old books and old writings are really full of deep hatred! He used the mouth of the protagonist to say that in the history of the ultra-stable feudal society for thousands of years, the words benevolence, righteousness and morality were written on every leaf. But if you look carefully, there are two words written all over the book, which is eating people! He wrote the article "Twenty-Four Filial Piety" in 1926, and the whole text is much more peaceful than ... But Mr. Lu Xun has completely denied it. How can you do such a heartless thing now... What kind of quantitative analysis is done, and what available resources are obtained?!"

The college student just looked at me and smiled, which was a bit like "twenty-five filial piety", no, "nineteen filial piety". He patiently said to me: "The value of Lu Xun's criticisms of feudal ethics back then will last forever. He The kind of one-sidedness is the one-sidedness of the passion of the times, the one-sidedness of progress, which should be understood and fully affirmed. People of your generation, for everything with old characters, old society, old China, old culture, old literati, old things... The antipathy of ... is indeed a cognition and emotion worthy of respect. But with the passage of time, our generation is bound to produce new ideas, and we are chasing the latest trendy things, especially foreign - and especially the West - At the same time as all kinds of the latest academic fashion and life fashion, the old and old things that are getting farther and farther away are also regarded as the most interesting things, and the available resources are obtained from them...Just one example is enough, Look at how popular books like "Old Photos" are now, and we, the youngest generation, are the largest buying and reading group...why don't you understand?"

2 Why don't I understand? After the college students left, I thought for a long time alone. I re-read Mr. Lu Xun's article "Twenty-Four Filial Pieties", and found that his article had at least a thousand words at the beginning. He didn't bother to denounce "Twenty-Four Filial Pieties", but cursed "everyone who opposes and hinders vernacular" with gnashing teeth, and even said: "Anyone who murders the vernacular should perish!" After the "May 4th Movement", the vernacular won a decisive victory.Who is the murderer of the vernacular?I can't think of it for a while, but for those who oppose the vernacular, I can think of a bunch of them at once: Lin Qinnan, Gu Hongming, Chen Yinke, Wu Mi...

Although everyone now speaks of Lu Xun in unanimous admiration, but how many descendants still regard his deep hatred for those who oppose the vernacular as a "resource that can be used"? On the contrary, Lin, Gu, Chen, and Wu, who I mentioned above, have published new editions of anthologies or monographs, and there are endless biographies and discourses about them, which are very lively, and positive comments are surging. For a moment.And during the "May 4th Movement", the masters who devoted themselves to promoting the vernacular, such as Qian Xuantong and Liu Bannong, were really depressed. How many of their books have been reprinted?Can it be sold?Who is enthusiastic about writing biographies for them, researching and evaluating them?Even some college students whose majors have nothing to do with them simply don't know when and what they are doing.

Chen Yinke's attitude towards vernacular is the most decisive.In 1949, his "Lu Chenxia's choice" was to stay in Guangzhou, the inland area, and he lived until 1969, but he never wrote in vernacular, and he was not allowed to print his books in simplified characters and horizontal layout. In 1996, a publishing house released a set of "The Great Series of Essays on Chinese Academic Culture in the 20th Century", which included the collections of 20 leading figures in the academic world. The compilation and printing were very serious. I got a set, and one of them was Chen Yinke. Since the biography of his "last 20 years" came out, a university scholar who has become famous in the intellectual circles because of the ten words "independent spirit, free thought" has learned more and feels very precious.However, I soon saw a newspaper publishing an apology statement from the publishing house that published this series of essays. The cause of the incident was that Chen's family reiterated that they would never publish any of Chen's texts in simplified characters and horizontal layout.The publishing house also stated that it would seal up and destroy Chen's collection of essays that had been printed with prefaces and postscripts in vernacular, annotations, and printed in simplified characters and horizontal layout.

Chen Yinke's name and his "Cross Proverbs" are now familiar to college students of any subject, and have become things in the category of common sense.Vernacular is not vernacular, and now it is completely out of consideration to look at his scenery. 3 Yes, it's far away, who cares about right and wrong at that time?What is left by the sieve of time is only a landscape in the eyes of people at the moment. In 1985, I bought a collection of Zhang Ailing's novels published by a Shanghai bookstore. Except for an envelope, it was basically the same as the "first edition of the November 35th edition of the Republic of China".The photocopied original cover borrowed a picture of a lady in fashion in the late Qing Dynasty. It showed a woman with a three-inch golden lotus protruding from her skirt, quietly playing dominoes, and a nurse sitting next to her, holding a child... But outside the railing, Suddenly, there is a human figure with wrong proportions, like a ghost appearing, it is a modern person, peeping inside very curiously.Just the title of "Osmanthus Steamed A Xiao Beiqiu" makes me feel very fresh.However, a colleague who was 20 years older than me had a natural aversion to that book.Why are you disgusted?In fact, Eileen Chang revealed in "A Few Words to the Readers" at the beginning of the book: "I never thought of defending myself, but in the past year I have often been discussed, and it seems that I have been listed as one of the cultural traitors." One... The only suspicion is that the so-called Great East Asian Literature Scholars Conference once invited me to participate, and I was included in the list published in the newspaper; although I wrote a letter of resignation to go... As for the many nonsensical abuses, even involving me private life..." The colleague said to me: "In the early 1940s, I was already a young man. At that time, my emotions were completely overwhelmed by the great event of national peril of the Anti-Japanese War. The impassioned text of relationship is really very good for Zhang Ailing, a writer like Zhang Ailing who only talks about getting famous as soon as possible when the nation is in peril, and writes about the joys, sorrows, sorrows and joys of rich women who play dominoes quietly and hire a nanny to hold their children. I have to despise...Of course, after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, if Zhang Ailing was designated as a cultural traitor, I would not agree. She did not attend the Great East Asian Literature Scholars Conference organized by the Japanese devils. She and the traitors of the Wang puppet regime Hu Lancheng had a romantic relationship, and that was really just her private life, but why would the Japanese devils include her in the list of that kind of meeting? Although she herself did not work in the Wang puppet regime, but until Hu Lancheng fled to Wenzhou after the Anti-Japanese War, she Still looking for him, how can such a private life not be ridiculed? What's more, she ran to Hong Kong in the 1950s, and then went to the United States, where she wrote a thick anti-communist novel, so she didn't think about it , Art is also crudely made, how can a person like you ignore these things and just accept Xia Zhiqing's evaluations and regard her as the greatest modern Chinese writer?" When Zhang Ailing published her, I was still illiterate.When I was growing up, I didn't even know there was such a writer as her. Once I came into contact with her works in the 1980s, especially those praised by Xia Zhiqing as "the greatest Chinese novella since ancient times" in his "History of Modern Chinese Novels" written in English, I really felt my eyes opened --The writing is really good, just the metaphor at the beginning: "...the moon 30 years ago should have been a red and yellow halo the size of a copper coin, like a teardrop on Duo Yunxuan letter paper, old and confused. "It's amazing.The colleague who was 20 years older than me had such a subjective feeling because he had a close observation of "shared time and space" with Zhang Ailing.And I, because I am too far away, do not have the premise of "mainstream emotion of the times". For me, Eileen Chang is just a beautiful scenery that provides aesthetic pleasure. 4 Entering the 21st century, the entire 20th century, including the last 10 years, is suddenly far away. I think my mentality should be mature.Some indisputable "conclusions" formed under the current circumstances do not mean that they should be overthrown.Just as the college student treated "Twenty-Four Filial Piety", he did not intend to deny Mr. Lu Xun's historical achievements in anti-feudal ethics, nor did he want to desecrate the textual value of Mr. Lu Xun's article that fiercely criticized "Twenty-Four Filial Piety". Looking at the scenery, it turns out that "Twenty-Four Filial Piety" is not blindly corrupt and ugly, and it can also extract "available resources" that are conducive to intergenerational affinity in the modern "sub-senior society". Therefore, if I encounter such a "viewer" in the 21st century and come up with some similar "perceptions", even if I cannot reach a consensus with them, at least I will not be surprised anymore. I remember that on the way from the hotel to the airport in other places, I saw a lot of litter and plastic bags blown by the wind and hung on the trees on the street, which made me feel very bad. There is no cure!But when the passenger plane I took took off, I looked down from the porthole, and what I saw were green fields, green daisy forest belts, neat roads, overpass bridges like dragonfly wings, and winding rivers reflecting the sky. As well as clusters of colorful building-like houses and towers, they all show that the people living on this land are tirelessly creating new civilizations... Looking at the scenery from a distance does not mean closing your eyes in the face of historical scars and real problems. It is to try to jump out of the limitations of the time and place, to obtain a broader and thus larger historical perspective, and to capture all available traditional resources as much as possible. It is to obtain a more overall and therefore more essential landscape when observing real problems and looking forward to the future, so as to maintain due optimism, confidence and aggressiveness.