Chapter 5 Executioner who plays the piano

Is there a difference between literacy and knowledge?Of course there is, and there are extremely crucial differences.Let's not forget that the Nazis wrote charming poetry, many of the Nazi leaders played the piano, and had Ph.D.s.Aren't these politicians very humanistic?In my opinion, what they have is humanistic knowledge, not humanistic quality.Knowledge is something outside of you, it is a material, a tool, and a quantifiable knowledge; knowledge must enter a person's cognitive ontology and penetrate his life and behavior before it can be called literacy.Humanistic literacy is after dabbling in literature, history, and philosophy, we further realize that these humanistic "studies" have an ultimate concern in the end, the concern for "people".Without caring for "people", you can only have humanistic knowledge, not humanistic quality.

The difference between literacy and knowledge allows me to steal Wang Yangming's language to explain.A student asked him why many people know the principle of filial piety, but do evil things. Wang Yangming said: "This has been cut off by selfish desires, and it is no longer the essence of knowledge and action. There is no one who knows but does not do it; knowing but doing it is just unknown." In In my personal interpretation, the "unknown" referred to by Wang Yangming is the level of "knowledge", and literacy is the "noumenon of knowing and doing".The four words Wang Yangming used to explain the "noumenon of knowledge and action" can express my understanding of "humanistic quality": sincerity and compassion.

The most terrible irony of human literacy is that in the concentration camps, the Nazis made Jewish musicians play their violins and send their countrymen to the gas chambers.A person who can write poetry, understand classical music, and has a doctorate in philosophy may not be self-important and careless about human life.But a person who truly understands the value of humanity and "sincerely sympathizes", that is, a person who is truly humanistic, I believe that he will not violate the ultimate concern of people-oriented. In our history, whether in the past or in the present, there are too many political figures who are not people-oriented.