Chapter 12 freedom and interference

freedom and interference Liberty is a big mastermind of Western thought.But they think that a person's freedom should be limited to not infringing on the freedom of others. This statement is unreasonable.If your freedom is limited by the freedom of others, this is your lack of freedom.If the freedom of others is limited by your freedom, this is the lack of freedom of others.Whether it is economically or politically, the liberalism they proclaimed is currently shaken, precisely because freedom does not have a clear boundary between each other. The opposite of freedom is interference.As long as there are two or more things in the world, one will inevitably be interfered by the other.Interference by the other impairs the freedom of the other, and the more interference there is, the less freedom there is.There are three ways to deal with foreign interference, one is to use force to suppress, the other is to mediate, and the third is to submit.The freedom of each person is bounded by the freedom of others, which originally seems to be a kind of reconciliation, but unfortunately this kind of limit is not easy to determine, so reconciliation is impossible.Infinite forwardness is another characteristic of the inner requirements of Western thought.If we strive for freedom with unlimited advancement, there are only two ways to suppress and submit to each other.On the one hand, there is suppression, and on the other hand, there is no surrender.In the process of suppression and submission, there is struggle.In fact, it is tantamount to seeking freedom through interference.Therefore, those who love freedom most love interference.Is that also the opposite?

Taoism runs parallel without conflicting, and all things grow together without harming each other (the golden mean), this is the Chinese way of thinking.But can there really be no interference or conflict between things?Or can an ideal harmony be found after all in mutual interference?Regardless of the intrusion into the natural world, in terms of personnel affairs, you cannot be left alone in the world. Since you were born in this world with people, you must not be interfered by others.This is not your freedom.Only the unique in the world can be truly free.May I ask whether life can exist uniquely in this world?In my opinion, only in the human heart can be unique.How do you say that you can be unique in your heart?Let's talk about knowledge first.Knowing is formed by the connection of knowing and knowing, which is beyond what can be achieved and is independent, it can also be said to be neutralized by reconciling what can be achieved.Knowing touches knowing, or it can be said that knowing interferes with knowing.But if we only speak from the aspect of knowledge, that interference will never damage the freedom of the person being interfered.A person who suffers from hunger and cold, in terms of material life, it can be said that he is not free.But if you only speak from knowledge, you know you are hungry when you are hungry, and you know cold when you are cold. There is nothing unfree about that knowledge.Knowledge is beyond the opposition between things and me, and is formed by reconciling the opposition between things and me. Knowing is absolute, so it is free.In other words, if knowledge is free, how can it be ignorant?In fact, knowing that you don’t know is also knowing.The positive and negative sides of knowledge are also knowledge, so the knowledge of the human heart is absolute and free.

Let's talk about emotion.Emotions, anger, sorrow, joy and all kinds of emotions, people often feel not free for this.In fact, as far as the emotion itself is concerned, it is also absolute and free.It is independent because it is also a superpower, and it is also neutral because it is a harmonious power.So joy is free joy, anger is free anger, sorrow and joy are free sorrow and joy.Like lust, like bad smell.One side is interference, the other side is freedom.You shouldn't say that I have lost my freedom because of the interference of lust outside me, making me have to be good.Or because the stench outside interferes with me, I have to be evil, so I lose my freedom.When you know it's you, you realize that he is lustful.It's because you are evil that you see that he is a stench.A fair lady, a gentleman loves sex, it is freedom, if you can't ask for it, tossing and turning is also freedom.I should know that seeking what I can't get is still the freedom of my heart.Whether you get it or not is an external matter.External matters are naturally not within our freedom.But tossing and turning when I can't get what I want, this is the freedom of my heart again.If you only talk about all emotions in your heart, you should be free.

From the above, freedom is internal, and interference is external, but there are points of reconciliation between the two.The inner knowledge and emotions have been reconciled with the inner and outer, transcending the relative and neutral.Therefore, all inner life that belongs to science, art, literature, religion and morality, and the active extension of knowledge and emotion should be freed as much as possible, and there is no way to get as much freedom as possible.But when it comes to external things, interference sometimes outweighs freedom.With respect to material nature, it can be said that knowledge is power.The progress of knowledge is the progress of power.The so-called authority is tantamount to exerting high pressure on external substances to make them submit.But there are limits to this, and it can only be applied to the natural material world.If in terms of the humanistic community, it belongs to human beings themselves, it may not be possible to apply the same approach and the same method to deal with the material nature.Therefore, in the material nature, knowledge can be given priority, or emphasis should be placed on knowledge.For the humanities community, it can only focus on emotion, or put emphasis on emotion.You should know that profound knowledge and sincere emotion are also a kind of power, and they can also make people walk on the road of freedom.The ancient Chinese saying, "Heavenly kings are holy, ministers should be punished for their crimes, and parents who are everywhere in the world are all sincere words of emotion.For example, Shun's filial piety and Qu Yuan's loyalty are not about submitting to the outside world, but a kind of supreme freedom to stretch out the inner emotions.An inner freedom fused with outside interference.Gusou and King Huai of Chu were tantamount to a strong interference with the inner demands of Shun and Qu Yuan. Shun and Qu Yuan did not give in to it, and they insisted on increasing Gusou and King Huai of Chu to win their own victory.The filial piety and loyalty of Shun and Qu Yuan are a manifestation of the emotional completion of the unity of neutrality and superhumanity.Lao Tzu said: "There is filial piety when the six relatives are not in harmony, and there are loyal ministers when the country is in chaos." This is the truth.You should know that the disharmony among the six relatives and the confusion of the country will not prevent the loyal ministers and filial sons from freely fulfilling their loyalty and filial piety.The highest achievement of all art, literature, religion and morality in the history of humanities is the expression of this kind of inner freedom.

Scientific knowledge is a kind of supreme freedom that integrates the knowledge of things and self, and art, literature, religion and morality is a kind of supreme freedom that integrates the feelings of people and self. (In the meantime, art also deals with objects, and science also deals with people. Here we only give a general discussion.) These are all internal.As for political power and economic wealth, neither of these are built on the inner side, and their important conditions are all inclined to external things.If you ask for freedom from these places, on the one hand, it is impossible to obtain it, and on the other hand, it will be converted into a kind of interference with others.True lovers of freedom should be indifferent to it.

Traditional Chinese thought seems to focus only on inner emotions, and fails to actively promote intellectual freedom.The call for freedom in the modern West was first aroused by the awakening of scientific knowledge, but later it was used in political and economic terms without limit, and it was not worth the trouble.In the First World War, Yingzhe Russell proposed the difference between the creative impulse and the possessive impulse, probably because of this.