Chapter 5 Take your seat

I thought hard: I should also take my seat.At that time, hats were flying all over the sky, and there were many numbers.I think there are two hats, and two numbers are ready-made for me: one is a capitalist roader, and the other is a reactionary academic authority.Both hats fit me perfectly, neither big nor small, just right. What are those in power who are taking the capitalist road?First of all, he should be a person in power; if he is not a person in power, he is not qualified to wear this hat.I am the head of a line, a small official who is many times smaller than the seventh-rank sesame official.But this is an official after all.I'm definitely a member of the establishment.Am I taking the capitalist road?I can't tell.Now that almost all the people in power in the country have left capitalism, can I not leave?Therefore, I think this hat is quite suitable.

What is bourgeois academic authority?Regardless of my knowledge, anyway, I am a first-level professor and a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the word authority cannot be rejected.Am I bourgeois?The core of the bourgeoisie is individualism.I have studied politics for almost two decades and I am convinced of this.I have personal considerations, and I'm not old or young.This, of course, is bourgeois thinking.I have such thoughts, of course it is bourgeois.The bourgeoisie is reactionary.In addition to academic authority, what am I not a reactionary bourgeois academic authority?When several factors were put together, a vivid image of reactionary authority was established.If I don't wear this hat, I will feel unfair and uncomfortable.I am sincerely convinced, "Heavenly King Shengming, I deserve to die for my crimes."

But the problem is not that simple.What I am most concerned about is: what kind of contradiction is this? Since the mid-1950s, the whole country has been studying two kinds of contradictions of different nature.I am certainly no exception.The more I study, the more I admire it. I admire it from the bottom of my heart.In countless study meetings, I also talked about my own learning experience, and I was elated and spitting.However, it was only after the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" that I discovered that before, it was all on paper and had no connection with my own reality.Now I have to get in touch with my reality.I want to know, what is the nature of the contradiction between these two hats?

We all know that in the new society, life is of course good for the broad masses of the people.However, no matter what the reason is, if you are labeled as a conflict between the enemy and ourselves, your life will be very uncomfortable.The day when the masses of the people are happy is the time when the counter-revolutionaries are sad.In the past I had only a rational understanding of this, and I never cared very much about it. Together with the "Cultural Revolution", the problem will happen to us.I just realized that this is a very important question.I am in my own seat, willing to wear those two hats.If I like to open a hat shop, I have to.But what is the nature of the contradiction between the two hats?This question is extremely crucial to me.At this point, this is no longer a purely theoretical problem, but a practical problem, and I am trying to find a qualitative basis.

All newspapers and magazines have emphasized the need to correctly distinguish and handle these two types of contradictions.But the boundary between them is extremely delicate, it is almost less than one hundred thousandth of a hair.In other words, if there is no reality, it is elusive.There are certain situations in which no qualitative expert and any quantitative expert in the world can help.I am getting more and more confused myself.Are two contradictory theories of different nature a philosophical question?Or is it a legal issue?If it is a philosophical question, what practical significance does it have?If it is a legal issue, why is it not revealed in the legal provisions?I am a complete layman to the law.But I have spent five years in the highest authority that formulates laws, and I have never seen such words as two types of contradictions of different natures in legal provisions.What is the reason?I am puzzled.

I'm not interested in theory.I have only a sense of disgust and no sympathy for the theory that what is said to be popular today is completely dependent on the wind and the rudder.However, this is not a theoretical question for me now.In the process of checking in, I was full of worries, all because of this very real problem.I am between the enemy and myself, my heart is hanging outside the two categories, my behavior is free, my heart is contradictory, and I live a life of worry and worry. When we talk about wearing a political hat, we often think it is a very simple matter. "It's none of your business, hang it high."After liberation, there were various political movements and various hats.What kind of hat you put on others has nothing to do with yourself.I have successfully spent nearly twenty years in this way, and I have never felt it personally.I think the people who are put on hats are respectful and respectful, "Heavenly kings are sages, and the ministers deserve to die for their crimes."I never wanted to understand their inner feelings.I've also never seen a person actively fight for a hat.But now I think about it, look forward and backward, and always feel or have a premonition that I will be at ease when I am put on a hat, as if I am about to go out in a cold and windy day.Now hats are flying all over the sky, but I don't know whose hands they are in.Is there a god in charge of the hat in the division of labor between the principal and the vice gods?

In the eyes of the revolutionary masses, I don't know what my status is.Anyway, no one has publicly reprimanded me, let alone hit me.I, the dean of the department, has not been dismissed, but I don't know when the seal has slipped from my hands.There were also a few small surprise attacks that kept me busy and nervous for a while.For example, one day I went to the Foreign Languages ​​Building and posted a notice on the bulletin board: "Order Ji Xianlin to hand over 3,000 yuan!" There was no word in front of my name, neither "capitalist roader" nor "capitalist roader" Reactionary academic authority", "bald and wordless king".I feel rather disappointed.However, since the order has been fulfilled, of course it must be implemented with sincerity and trepidation.So I immediately took out 3,000 yuan and sent it to the designated room in the student dormitory.With a big smile on my face, I presented the money.Several students had weird looks on their faces, and they didn't move or smile, which made my hair stand on end.But, totally to my surprise, they refused, "You take it back!" they said.Of course I respectfully obeyed.

Another time, I was reading a book at home, and suddenly, following an extremely loud knock on the door, several young students broke in, claiming that they were here to "destroy the four olds".What are the "four olds"?I can't tell.There is no time for verification.It had to be decided by this group of Red Guards.There are many knickknacks on my desk, on the wall, or on the bed.These became the main targets of their destruction.What they say is the four olds, I will remove or smash them.I respectfully obeyed, and I didn't even have the slightest intention of resisting in my heart.Because the classic saying is that they represent the general direction of the revolution.Within half an hour, I "broke" a lot of my beloved things.What I recall most clearly is a Huishan clay figurine, Ah Fu, which I brought back from Wuxi. It was a fat, smiling child, very cute and joyful.They didn't know how to find out that there was no dust on the portrait of the leader I hung on the wall, and they said I had just hung it, and they scolded me for being godless and ungodly.In fact, I just hung it up; but I respectfully said: "It is precisely because I am devout and 'wipe frequently' that there is no dust." I can't help but admire the piety and carefulness of the revolutionary young general. .However, at the time when my piety was at its peak, I had a rebellious idea in my heart: If we want to destroy the four old things, the oldest thing on earth is undoubtedly the earth itself, and the object of destruction, the earth, should bear the brunt.Logically speaking, why not destroy the earth first?Since then, I have heard a lot of news about breaking the four olds across the country.A professor told me that he had a painting by Qi Baishi and a painting by Wang Xuetao in his possession, both of which were considered to be the Four Olds and destroyed.This is just the petty ones.How many national treasures have been destroyed in the whole country may never be counted.If the policy of destroying the four olds had been fully implemented throughout the country at that time, wouldn’t the precious cultural relics of our motherland be wiped out?Even if we want to carry forward today, what is left to carry forward?I really shudder.

I still come back to the issue of wearing hats, which is something I have never forgotten and will never forget.Which hat will the revolutionary masses or someone above want to wear for me?It's not a question for me to decide.As the revolution progressed, I gradually felt that they probably labeled me a bourgeois reactionary academic authority.As I said above, I would like to wear just such a hat myself.The two sides coincide with each other, how fast!Literally speaking, this is a contradiction between ourselves and the enemy.However, the above said that the contradiction between the enemy and ourselves can also be handled as the contradiction among the people.I probably fall into this category.

The revolutionary masses have not forgotten me, and from time to time they even ask me to hold a criticism meeting or something—note, it is a criticism meeting, not a criticism meeting; the difference is a thousand miles away—the main criticism is my intellectual education first, business Above all, they call this "revisionism", what a wonderful connection!It is said that what I advocated in "Chun Man Swallow Garden" is also revisionism.Even the Department of Eastern Languages ​​has been implicated by me.It is said that the most prominent problem of the Department of Oriental Languages ​​is that intellectual education comes first and business is paramount.For this, I wholeheartedly accept.If this is revisionism, I am happy to accept the rather scary label of revisionism.All previous political movements after liberation, as long as I can check this point by myself or on behalf of the Eastern Language Department, and check my revisionist thinking that puts intellectual education first and business first, I will surely pass the test smoothly. The "Cultural Revolution" was no exception.But I am an "unrepentant" person.After the inspection is over and the gate is passed, I will continue to practice my revisionism as usual.Today, looking back on the past, I suddenly realized something.If I hadn’t engaged in some revisionism like this in the past forty years, I’m afraid I would have achieved nothing today, and the translation of the seven or eight million words would never have appeared.I really want to thank myself for my unrepentant determination.In any case, I'm really satisfied to put on the hat of a bourgeois reactionary academic authority who has some connection with business affairs and handle it as a contradiction among the people.Although I am also clearly aware that my situation is not completely beautiful, I am still like a bird in the air, with snares everywhere, everyone can be shot with a shotgun or stoned; When I am happy, I am happy to be happy for a while.