Chapter 3 Part Three Whose Ideals and Values

Old Xia: Looking at your anthology, it can be said that the first book is basically impossible to read. The descriptions of landscapes are all copied from other people, such as "silk-like waves" on the sea. It starts with you.But then you suddenly jumped into the film and television industry, probably because you saw that it was profitable.When I first entered the film and television industry, someone else adapted your stuff. In the late 1980s, movies based on three or four of your novels were launched at the same time.I began to be alert to this kind of rush. Once something becomes popular, I have to ask myself.Immediately after that, you started to play film and television directly, starting with "The Story of the Editorial Department", the more you did it, the more outrageous it became.After watching two episodes of "Love You Without Discussion", I said to my friends, "Wang Shuo is finished. He is just a decent spoken-language writer who writes the truth about the existence of Chinese people. Once he enters the film and television industry, he will definitely be useless."Then I thought maybe he was like that at all, and once he got a taste of the world, of popular culture and popular stardom, he couldn't stand it any longer.I even thought maliciously that this Wang Shuo had no higher education, and was abused and discriminated against by intellectuals when he first debuted. Now he has become a cultural upstart, and his shamelessness is similar to other upstarts.With money and fame, you can't find North at all. You don't know where to invest your money and intelligence, and you are swallowed by this feeling of getting rich overnight.

I also think of the contemptuous and ironic attitude towards cultural people in your works.I admit that the sarcasm is on point.But I wonder if your rejection of intellectuals and institutions of higher learning stems from a narrow hatred, a kind of revenge for being coldly treated in your early years.When you came out, I understood that there must be a kind of reverence for something sacred behind your sarcasm, otherwise you would not have stabbed the vitals of Chinese people so sharply. Although your method is quite rogue, it is very direct and enjoyable. , like a stone breaking glass in the middle of the night, waking up the sleeping person.But as soon as you enter the film and television, it suddenly becomes a lullaby. You push the door lightly and enter, singing so that people will sleep peacefully forever and never wake up.How can this be?You even set up a company and advertised Wang Shuo's film and television production studio everywhere.I can only think, don't put your hopes on Chinese writers, every hope will end in greater disappointment.You are also a pair of knowledge.Ruffian writers with intellectual hatred don't have the reverence I thought they had for things of real value.

Or you are afraid of this kind of thing.It's a bit similar to the kind of vengeance some people have towards intellectuals. Wang Shuo: No.I have no hatred or prejudice against intellectuals, nor have I ever doubted the word intellectual.First of all, I must be in awe of knowledge. A lot of knowledge cannot be exhausted in a lifetime, and there are many truths in it.Secondly, I consider myself an intellectual, a person with a conscience, and I will not be shameless enough to use knowledge to deceive others. Let me come back to my views on Chinese intellectuals.Chinese intellectuals are indeed suspicious.In addition, we grew up during the Cultural Revolution, when intellectuals had no dignity.He has no status and is not worthy of envy. Since he was a child, he felt that graduating from high school was enough.This stuff definitely has an effect on me.Intellectuals posted big-character posters to each other at the time, you expose me and I expose you. I saw that none of them were clean. Although they were knowledgeable, their character was bad. In addition, the intellectuals in the school who were most directly impressed, such as the teachers in the school , gave me a very bad impression.I feel that these so-called intellectuals have no knowledge at all, other than lying, they are pretending to be grandchildren and using power to overwhelm others.I think these people are housewives.This made me very uncomfortable. After all, I still have a little respect for knowledge and intellectuals.I always have to ask myself, why are intellectuals like this, biting like dogs, and not telling the truth, they say they are not human, and teach people with great principles, isn’t it just a few years of schooling?In fact, some people did not study hard in school.I don't have any concept or attitude towards intellectuals, I just simply don't think that thing is so good or amazing.Later, when I got to know more about intellectuals, I had this kind of mentality: I think Chinese intellectuals are not superior to others at all. From the perspective of intellectual value, including the discovery of ideas, they have basically never done anything. What, so I basically don't envy them.What disgusts me the most is that some intellectuals always want to educate people in their lives. I am extremely disgusted by this attitude of wanting to educate everyone, indeed.The obedience of these people to power makes me feel that they are accomplices. They have been accomplices for so many years, fooling the people, and they are profiting from it. That's what it says.

But then they turned around and respected knowledge and talents, and they seemed to deny it, saying that we were just oppressed. Old Xia: They have all become victims and heroes against the "Gang of Four". Wang Shuo: I don't mean that all intellectuals are like this. It's really good.If you talk about it abstractly, then I think they are as a group, how do they... how to say it?It is impossible to simply become a mentor to the public.In fact, I have no personal grievances with them, and I personally have not received any stimulation from intellectuals. My contempt for intellectuals is not because of personal grievances, but because of their poor performances in society.Personally, in a way I don't think it's really that important whether you go to college or not.My way of thinking is not theirs. The Chinese intellectuals I saw in school are always energetic, and I think they have a sense of superiority.Of course, as far as I am concerned, the public is also very suspicious.Anything abstract and general is suspect.My way of thinking has always been based on the concrete and personal, the concrete is what is real.As soon as it is abstracted, it is suspected of pulling a big banner as a tiger skin.I don't think it's at all appropriate for me to be such an intellectual myself.It's what it should be, isn't it?The weakness of human nature cannot be improved through the accumulation of knowledge, it cannot be done at all.I think that you think that as a person with knowledge, or as a person with ideas, you are superior to others. It is not true. You say that because you have knowledge, you are morally mature or perfect. cannot be established.

Lao Xia: For example, intellectuals or writers want to be "engineers of the human soul" and shape people's lives. Wang Shuo: This is nonsense.Totally self-defeating.Then again, are they dumbfounded and unconscious.I don't think so.At least one of them is not. It's not that he doesn't understand what this "soul engineer" is going to do. He understands, understands very well, and he will use his professional and knowledge advantages to do so.So as long as they don't say they are "engineers of the human soul" and don't want to shape people, I don't have any prejudice against intellectuals.We all criticize ourselves, and then criticize society. I think criticism is a professional requirement for intellectuals and a requirement for social division of labor.If you are an intellectual, you must have a clear critical consciousness, and you have to do this.

Old Xia: Sometimes, an intellectual's sense of superiority is manifested in his criticality. To criticize, to criticize soberly, one must have extraordinary vision and courage. Wang Shuo: But you can't emphasize that just because you are criticizing, you are superior to others, absolutely not.Because the intellectuals I saw as a child displayed this shameless superiority too much.In China, whenever there is an anti-cultural and anti-intellectual tendency, it is precisely the intellectual groups that vilify intellectuals and punish themselves.And once you respect them, they will be elated and proud for a while.Even talking about diplomas when looking for a partner, college students are much better.Then they continue to discover the truth and become preachers and speakers of the truth.They did enjoy themselves in the 1980s, but their self-identification was not established.Unlike today, in the 1990s, intellectuals seemed to be a little more pitiful.Some vicissitudes.When I say this, it sounds a bit like adding insult to injury, as if it is wrong to despise people when they are reciting words.I also heard others say that they are difficult and not easy, but when they are not difficult, they are not self-respecting.I don't think their ups and downs have much to do with life.Now that popular culture is so vigorous, no one will listen to them any more when they say high-spirited words.But some of them will continue to come out and say these things, talking about where our country should go and what the future of our nation should be.I seem to be a very extreme person on this point, and I don't think anyone needs to talk about this.That is to say, everyone in this world is self-selecting.Where is the responsibility of intellectuals?It is to advocate self-selection by all people, and to criticize all principles, power or other things that want to dominate the world.I think I look at intellectuals from this standpoint.When attacking each other, of course, there are many emotions.But that position is fundamental.

Old Xia: When you were writing the novel, didn’t you feel that this stance was dangerous?That was the time when intellectuals were in full bloom. They were the authority in the field of culture and could decide the future fate of a new writer. Wang Shuo: That's not true.Because that's all I can do if I don't deceive myself. It's not that I have other tricks that are useless, but this one is the only one.I have nothing else, no other reason. Lao Xia: Intellectuals used to hold a different concept of literature and novels, which is the one we received education when we were young.

Wang Shuo: Yes.If I were to go to school, I wouldn't be in the way I am now, and I would feel that this way is inappropriate.But since I didn't go to college, I wouldn't use the set they taught, and now I feel that there is no literature in that set.Without that, I want to write novels again, so I can only write like this, and I can only write with my own things.If they accept it, they accept it, and it doesn't matter if they don't accept it, anyway, they are bumping away.I didn't expect to bump into it. It was a complete accident.If there is nothing else but their way, maybe I will not be recognized, not recognized by anyone.

You didn't admit it from the beginning.Fortunately for me, there was a good phenomenon in the 1980s, that is, publications. Some publications seek innovation, unlike now, they seek common ground.At that time, he didn't seem to care about the value or not. As long as you were new, he liked to post it.You could call it blind pursuit of novelty.Blind or anything, but he just likes new ones. Old Xia: Is that true emancipation of the mind? Wang Shuo: Looking back now, I really feel that it was a time of ideological liberation.I may not have felt it at the time, or felt it less strongly, but still felt that there was a lot of restraint.But looking back now, the 1980s was really liberated. A lot of things were broken at that time, and a lot of shiny things appeared at that time.It's hard to live with any norms once you take your first breath of free air.

Old Xia: People may have seriously thought about truth since the 1980s, and felt that in the history of human thought, truth often went to its opposite, becoming a kind of bondage and a burden.The process of discovering the truth must be very difficult, but once it is discovered, the discoverer or owner will be given privileges, and they think that they can command the world with the truth in their hands.On the other hand, for the general public, the truth is a reason to be lazy. Now that the truth has been discovered, we don’t have to think, doubt and explore anymore, just act according to the truth.With the truth, everyone has a way of living, and no one wants to bother anymore.Together, these two aspects stifle the urge to doubt.The urge to think.Without the urge to create, the world becomes a playground dominated by a certain truth.Doubt has but one object: the truth, the divine truth.Only when you doubt the truth will you know that any truth has a limit, or in Popper's words, the truth must be falsifiable.What cannot be falsified is also not "true," some monstrosity that can be neither falsified nor true.Sadly, humans have lived under the shadow of this monster for a long time, and even after going through bloodshed, they still remain infatuated.

Wang Shuo: Because there is no absolute in this world. Old Xia: Absolutely this thing has caused too many disasters in China.But on the other hand, making relativism absolute will lead to new disasters, even the same disasters as when believing in absolute truth.In the 1990s, out of the political and psychological needs of rejecting Western hegemony, the theory of cultural relativism flourished in intellectual circles, and it had nothing to do with localization.The popularity of Orientalism overlapped.This kind of relativism is so relative that there is no standard, or it can be done in any way, and it is reasonable in any way.In the end, relative to each other, there is no good or bad among cultures, no high or low values, and no comparison between living methods. However, there is one thing that must be clarified here, what is the true value of a person's choice.You can't say that a person's no choice in total closure is real and good.Because he has never seen other ways of living or other civilizations, he has no way to compare or choose. How can you judge that his closed and primitive life is the most suitable life for him?The choice of value must be based on comparison, and having no choice without comparison is not the result of his free choice.Only when he is open, he breathes the air of freedom, and he understands various ways of life, can he make a choice that is truly in line with human nature.For example, a Tibetan, let him come out of Tibet, go to the mainland, go to New York, Paris, Copenhagen, Cape Town, he has traveled all over the world, and finally he returns to Tibet and chooses the Tibetan way of life. people's choice.If you don’t give him an open vision, you can’t make value comparisons, and you can’t compare his own way of life with other people’s way of life, which one he likes better, so you tell him that his current life is the best, what is it called? ?It's a bit like the noble lady in ancient Rome watching the slaves' hand-to-hand combat in the arena.They sat in a safe place and held up binoculars to admire the bloody slaughter among slaves. It was indeed exciting, exciting and screaming, but your appreciation came at the cost of the death blood of others.For the appreciators, this is a wonderful stimulus, but for the fighters, it is inhuman cannibalism.Sitting in the city and admiring the idyllic scenery of old cows cooking smoke, and then telling farmers that this is the best life.This tourist attitude is not substantially different from that of a noble lady admiring slave wrestling. Now, let's go back to your selection problem.You say that once you take your first breath of freedom, it's hard to accept anyone's norms.Then your writing.Is there a general standard for your way of life? Wang Shuo: I think there must be.There is nothing strange about this, and it is not a method or standard that I suddenly invented. In fact, they are all man-made values, man-made values ​​in daily life.The kind of moral relativism and cultural relativism you mentioned will be terrible if there are no standards.But the question is, who sets this standard?In fact, many of the debates are about who decides this standard?In fact, fundamentally, I think I also agree with your point of view. I don’t like the arrogant attitude of always saying something is outdated. Some fundamental things cannot be outdated. Old Xia: Lu Xun will never become obsolete in China, no one can save what should be obsolete, and no one can destroy what should not be obsolete. Wang Shuo: I mean, the standard he set is reasonable or not.I think a lot about this.how to say?Whether it is cultural construction or improving taste, in the final analysis it is a matter of establishing standards.The key point is that the establishment of this standard should be a basic social consensus reached through free discussion and mutual refutation, rather than relying on blunt lessons.Otherwise, although there is superficial obedience, in the heart, no one recognizes the mandatory standard. Old Xia: It is enough to have a "cross consensus", that is, several opinions or standards overlap with each other, and the overlapping part is the basic consensus. Wang Shuo: So sometimes I feel that it is impossible to discuss with some people to a certain point. He will not discuss anything with you in good faith, but it will be infinitely broad and far-fetched. There is no honesty except for personal attacks.Of course there is no standard... Old Xia: Standards are monopolized! Wang Shuo: Yes.I don't want to argue with anyone on this point.What I want to argue is only: After the collapse of the old values, old standards and old beliefs, rebuilding the value standard on the ruins, what kind of reconstruction is this reconstruction?Is it provided by a group of knowledgeable people for the society, or through an equal dialogue among members of the whole society?In my opinion, the establishment of this standard can only be the latter.Because the former is suspicious, the standards put forward by a group of honest men are all suspicious, let alone here, even honest men can’t be found. Even to me, their standards are no different from the ones that were previously mandatory. I wondered from the very beginning what is the ideal?Does it have authenticity?Later I saw an article saying that the reason why an ideal becomes an ideal is because it cannot be realized, and it is called an ideal when it exists in the distance.In other words, it is the ideal in terms of its unrealizability. Lao Xia: Some Chinese people's understanding of ideals is also pragmatic and extremely utilitarian.So their ideals are devalued things, equating ideals with worldly desires, specific life goals, such as wanting to be a pilot, scientist, writer.Famous actors, big money, luxury cars, big houses, wives and concubines... This is their ideal.Like some people's sense of religion.Most of the gods in China are transformed from human beings, or they are called personal gods. Some people believe in gods for extremely utilitarian purposes: praying for longevity, peace, many children and blessings, turning bad luck into good luck... There are even "worry" Water and firewood all have Buddha-nature, regardless of wind, flowers, snow and moon." They don't use their souls to talk to God and repent, but to bribe God with material things, and burn incense and kowtow traditionally.From the supply of food to the current supply of color TVs, refrigerators, cars, and money.Westerners, on the other hand, only have a "Bible" in their arms when they enter the church.Godheads are the most dangerous.Man must worship God, and must not worship man, and if he worships anyone, there will be great disasters. Besides the ideal.What cannot be realized is an ideal, and what can be realized is not an ideal. The significance of ideals to people is not that they can be realized and become a reality, but that they provide an absolute scale or frame of reference for human beings to reflect on themselves.The ideal comes from the incompleteness of reality, which inspires people's dissatisfaction with reality and with themselves, thus stimulating people's doubts and criticisms of themselves and reality.The reason why God and heaven in the West are made so absolute, and the reason why the city on earth and the city in heaven are absolutely opposed, and this absolute cannot be argued or refuted is that it is always surreal and unattainable.Human beings and the society created by human beings need a frame of reference higher than that of human beings and secular society. Human beings reflect on themselves and society by creating a higher frame of reference for themselves. Through this kind of introspection, imperfections can be discovered. , Only then can the criticism hit the point.Heaven is only in the illusory place, in the sky, but there is no heaven in the world or on the earth, and there will never be.Any ideal that attempts to create an earthly paradise on earth is doomed to create a hell on earth as soon as it is put into practice.Earthly disaster. Let's talk about freedom.It has many definitions in the West, but one thing is common, apart from the religious heaven, freedom is another ideal, a secular ideal. Its value does not allow you to do whatever you want, but that it is an original state of your life. When you are bound by various external forces, this original state requires you to get rid of the shackles and enter a free state, which is the self. Decide on self-choice. The only bondage that freedom allows is self-disciplined self-restraint.Free societies in the West also have various restrictions, moral ones.Legal, religious, but these constraints can all be reduced to a voluntary self-restraint in a system that can be chosen by oneself.Morality is the ethical standard I choose, law is the social rules I vote for, and religion is the ultimate value I believe in.Therefore, Westerners say that freedom is the right to be "free from coercive restrictions".But the original state of life can never be fully realized, so people in a free system still strive for freedom.Liberty precedes equality, its priority is unarguable (like God), "born free". "Natural human rights" are the rights to freedom that are natural and reasonable without argument.In this sense, freedom is an ideal, and freedom in reality is always imperfect and needs to be improved.Therefore, God or freedom as an ideal is not a halo, not a consolation, but a whip. The ideal is an evil God, and it will whip you to keep you awake in pain, keep doubting, and maintain a critical attitude. The life impulse of resistance, at this time, the ideal value comes out. Only in this sense, the ideal is a halo, a deep halo, the brighter it is, the more it can highlight the darkness of reality and the brokenness of life.What the ideal light illuminates is not the peak of the future, but the abyss of reality.The awe mentioned above is the humility of ideals and dissatisfaction with oneself.For a man with a conscience, the ideal is self-discipline. Wang Shuo: From the very beginning, I doubted whether the ideals and standards in the past were worthy of my adherence.In fact, whether ideals or standards, I think the time when you need it the most is when you are particularly dissatisfied with something and want to criticize it.For example, I hate Hong Kong and Taiwan culture and popular culture now. When I am very critical of it, when I think it is bad, I really need a specific standard, what is good, what is bad, why? That thing is good, and other things are not good. After all, these judgments are relative to a standard.If there is no standard, it does not matter whether it is good or bad.Of course, this standard is specific. For example, when I talk about a novel, I can only use what I think is a good novel as a standard to talk about. When I talk about a certain movie, I use a good movie as a standard to measure .Of course, when it comes to popular culture, I really haven't found a good standard right now.Say American popular culture is healthy?Is Japanese popular culture healthy?Compared with us, which mass culture should we take over?I originally wanted to use originality as the standard, but I am not sure, because I have little understanding of foreign popular culture.If we only talk about the originality of music, it is difficult to say whether the originality of music in Europe and the United States is better than that of Hong Kong and Taiwan in the East.The standard is my current heart disease.Because when I was enjoying myself a few years ago, in the case of self-satisfaction, I felt that there was no need for standards, and whatever I did was reasonable.Now I certainly think that what exists is not necessarily reasonable.For example, there are many perverted existences.The existence of deformities, you cannot say that once they exist, they are reasonable.In fact, there is no need for standards when self-satisfaction, only when you are not satisfied with yourself will there be a search for standards.I was dissatisfied with the mass culture because of my dissatisfaction with the mass culture circle in the past few years. Because of this dissatisfaction, I could not indulge myself like before, and had to have a standard to control myself.In a word, we cannot do without standards. Lao Xia: Foreign mass culture cannot be used as a criterion for criticizing Chinese mass culture.But there is one thing that can be used as our standard, that is, how the West maintains the isolated island or lighthouse of elite culture in the vast ocean of mass culture, so that it will not be swallowed under the impact of any storm, and it still stands there and still shines .In fact, democracy is a good thing relative to autocracy, but once democracy is realized, the operation and operation of democracy will become very mediocre, and it will also be a bit vulgar in mass culture.You say that politicians shake everyone's hand to win votes, and try to keep a smiling facial expression. This is not fundamentally different from the kind of coquetry used by celebrities in popular culture.The reason why Westerners have freedom.After the emergence of democracy, self-criticism continues, because it has its own elites, and the elites can use free standards.The measure of religion and the measure of conscience provide the standard of criticism for society.Where is the depth of criticism of Westerners?The reason is that his criticism is first aimed at himself, and he borrows some resources from oriental culture for self-criticism.He puts himself in the critique of reality, and it is not only others who should be criticized, but also himself.It is not like the Chinese intellectual elite, who make themselves clean and transparent when criticizing.American money and system firmly support the soul of the United States, and the mind of the United States. The majority principle only works in elections for the public good of society, but when it comes to speech, spirit, and creativity, the American system firmly defends the rights of minorities.The quality of freedom and tolerance of a free society is not that it listens to the voice of the majority and protects the interests of the majority, but that it listens to the voice of the minority and protects the rights of the minority.That is to say, the West has a healthy ecological balance between the masses and the elite.Other people's foundations can write a book for a scholar and give money for the past ten years.For ten years the scholar can shed everything else and concentrate on research.What about China?Rich people invest their money only in profitable mass culture.Chinese mass culture is sick because there is no elite culture that can balance it.There is no cultural ecological balance.Plus Chinese elites have no self-esteem, neither in front of mass culture nor power.Moreover, in China, if the elite want to have self-respect, first of all, they should not maintain self-respect for mass culture, but firstly maintain self-respect for power. Without self-respect for power, self-respect for mass culture is purely hype in disguise, and finally they are criticizing the masses At the same time, it becomes mass culture itself. Wang Shuo: I think there are quite a few Chinese intellectuals, their greatest shame is not to join forces with popular culture, but once they have a background, they scold others with a straight face when they speak.It seems that ideals are wrong in heaven and God, but right in his hands. He is the embodiment of ideals.In my experience, this is the impression that many people give people, especially when facing the society.