Chapter 8 Contemplative stubbornness

Brother Yaoji said that the German sociologist Max Weber (Max Weber) lives in two worlds, one is the hot political world, the other is the cold academic world; he also said that Weber has two voices, one is for academics One is a desperate plea on the fringes of politics.I agree with this observation.At the end of 1977, for several consecutive winter nights, I quietly read some Weber and books about Weber by the fireside in my London apartment, and I felt a lot of rippling in my heart, thinking of the time when intellectuals hovered between cultural conscience and real politics. This is a mixed mood, and I can't explain it for a long time.In the past six years of editing "Ming Pao Monthly", I have seen mainland China painstakingly learn from the pain and devote themselves to repairing the blue and white fragments of human dignity; I have seen Taiwan's economic tractors fail, and everyone is busy cleaning up the sewage of material civilization in the Grand View Garden; I saw Hong Kong's old Victorian quilts being removed, and a political sneeze woke up many high hats and swallowtails.At this time, I also saw that the personal beliefs of Chao Qin and Mu Chu casually tampered with values; all kinds of political propaganda were aligned with commercial advertisements, using modern media technology audio-visual devices and printed materials to harass the tradition of mindfulness meditation in Chinese and Western cultures day and night .Therefore, "Mingyue" edited by me and I also live in two worlds, one is the hot political world, and the other is the cold cultural world; "Mingyue" edited by me and I also have two voices, one is Sincerity and commitment to culture, a call for care on the political fringes.

I say "cultural" instead of "academic" because I don't want unsightly academic bills to monopolize the entire knowledge market.I say "caring" instead of "despair" because I still have a lot of hope for the future of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and Hong Kong: my hope is not so much pinned on the political system, but rather placed on cultural ideas above.Politics is a "life of action"; culture is a "life of contemplation". The political actions of the government can turn the world upside down, while the cultural contemplation of the opposition is always a check and balance force, making people think about what they do.I often feel that there is not too much room and opportunity for "action" in life after all, and the objective environment often only allows life to retreat and watch the changes; and the only benefit of knowledge is probably to teach people how to create room for change, not to teach people How to open up the sprint space.In this way, "Jing Guan" seems to have a more sincere character and fortitude.

Of course, the function of culture is not easy to analyze and summarize with statistical data; in this era when "action" superficially prevails over "mindfulness", a publication that focuses on culture, academics, and thoughts can give a "life of action" It is even more impossible to calculate how much wisdom of Jing-Guan has been adjusted. December 1985