Chapter 14 Title Fifteen Tradition Can Be a Deception

Lao Xia: What do you think of ancient Chinese traditions, such as those of Confucius? Wang Shuo: I really didn't read it carefully, so I just flipped through it. Old Xia: How do you feel? Wang Shuo: I think it looks like a collection of aphorisms.If you look at it one by one, paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence, there is truth everywhere, and the truth seems to be very reasonable, indeed very reasonable.But when I sat down and thought about it, I felt that things in China were bad because they pointed out the truth about everything, what should be done, what should be done, what is right, and what should be done to make everything go round.I think our words and deeds in daily life have been stipulated early on what is right and what is wrong.This may have caused us Chinese to be very good at being a human being and have a set of rules for being a human being, which is very beneficial to your personal life.

Old Xia: This little clever ancestor has already said it through. Wang Shuo: I think that with this thing, it doesn’t matter whether one behaves according to one’s conscience or not. Maybe one should behave according to the rules. It depends on who is smart and who is not. This is called playing with the mind and showing great wisdom.Everything can't be rigid, it can be flexible.By analogy, I think that as a human being in China, one must thoroughly understand these things, integrate them into the blood and kidneys, and be smart when bleeding and urinating, and it is possible to be a perfect person everywhere.

Such a person, of course, is meaningless. He lives only to be "right", and it is tiring to be "right" all the time. Old Xia: I don't know if it means being a human being or not being a human being. Wang Shuo: Later, I found out that following its principles, most of them are anti-human. You have to restrain yourself and follow the scope given by it before you can choose something.If you do it according to your own temperament, it will often conflict with its principles and cause harm to yourself.My standard of being a human being is as long as I don't cheat others, and don't cause great harm, I will let my temper go. I don't care about any small discomforts or conflicts.Because I think Confucius is too oily.Of course, I don't know much about his experience. How and where did he learn this?Didn't we all learn from him?Who did he learn from?Can you dig out the roots? This person is said to be an illegitimate child, according to his own principles and etiquette.Standard, his family is not a good person, or was he also stimulated like Lu Xun when he was young?Of course, he may be unsuccessful in his life. If he does not do some things, he will suffer. If he has nothing to do, he will just think about it. How can he be a person?I realized some sayings like "Threesomes, there must be my teacher" to please everyone.I feel that whoever tells all the truths in life is a liar.

Old Xia: It can explain everything, but in fact it means saying nothing.A truth that encompasses everything is a fiction that encompasses nothing. Wang Shuo: The things Confucius said were all asked by students.Teachers probably have this kind of mentality. When a student asks, the teacher has to tell you the truth. Maybe... there are some truths that hang on the lips and cannot be said, but when someone asks, whether you can tell the truth or not Speak out.If you can't speak out, you will disappoint the respectful students, and you will lose face as a teacher.Sometimes I have the feeling that when someone asks you, you actually don’t have an answer at all. You are forced to go by the questioner. After he asks you all the way, you want to talk now and then think about it, and talk to yourself.Some of the principles of Confucius may have come from this way.He created a "moderate" principle, which I think is very suitable for him, neither extreme.The two extremes are two temperaments. If you can tell the difference between good and bad, right and wrong, and you are in the middle, it makes sense.

Old Xia: Chinese people talk about "the mean" and the sentence pattern of "both...and...". Liu Zaifu's double combination theory has harmed many talented artists, such as "The Great Eunuch Li Lianying" shot by Tian Zhuangzhuang. Poisoned by the theory of duality of personality.How Li Lianying writes, it should be written as a Chinese slave.The supreme genius of eunuchs.The Empress Dowager Cide is too difficult to serve as a tricky woman, and such great power makes her perverted, and she is terrified every day.Many personal eunuchs were successively abolished by her.Only Li Lianying stayed and served to make Lafayette obedient, treating him as his only confidant and confidant, and going back to the harem to complain to him about any troubles.Do you think Li Lianying is a genius among slaves, the pinnacle of slaves?And the Zhuang Zhuang film made Li Lianying an unbearable person. After throwing Concubine Zhen into the well, he was asked to turn his back on his back, squat down, cover his face with his hands, and pretend to be in pain and guilt.fart!From the moment he made up his mind to cut off his own thing, on the first day he entered the palace, he had to be a person under one person and above ten thousand people.You don't even want that stuff of your own, and you still care about the life of a concubine whom Lafayette hates so much?How many people did Li Lianying kill? He had seen too many cruel and bloody court struggles, so killing a concubine Zhen was nothing.Does he have compassion?Big joke!

Wang Shuo: If you shoot like this, people will say that you lack a deep grasp of human nature and simplify complicated things. Lao Xia: People like extreme things. In fact, many excellent literary works are extreme, including those modernist works.From Shakespeare's expansion to the extreme Macbeth's ambition, to the extreme venomous love and hatred in Emily, and Camus' "outsider", an extremely indifferent person, to his mother He is indifferent to the death of his lover, dispensable to his lover's love, and has no enthusiasm for his own life. He has killed someone by mistake, and he doesn't want a lawyer to defend him, or a priest to pray for him.So he was sentenced to death and executed.

Camus pushes his indifference or numbness to extremes.Lu Xun's "Ah Q" is also an extreme character.Once it reaches a certain extreme, it will be infinitely rich and inexhaustible. Wang Shuo: I think it is difficult to go to extremes, but it is not difficult to learn from Confucius.But I have to learn it for a clear purpose, for example, I want to be an official, or a dinosaur in academia, or I want to flatter, so I learn this. I don't have a purpose, so I don't need to learn, just flip through and it's over.Of course, I am going to read his book when I get old.Now I think this book is too reasonable, so I won't read it.Afraid of being taken away by someone else, I would never be able to find myself again.I believe that there is no one reason in the world that can be said to be perfect and universal.It seems that there is no unified field theory in physics, and there is no unified field theory now..." Old Xia: No.

Wang Shuo: Einstein pondered for a long time but failed to figure it out.I think this... There shouldn’t be any unified field theory in thought, but in fact there are many things that pretend to be unified field theory. When it appears, I have an instinctive reaction: I am a person with low IQ and limited ability , so I can only refuse first.When I get older, I'll take a closer look. Of course I am happy to think that this is where I am different from those students, and it is my superiority.When they went to college, they went to take a bath and went to learn from others. Old Xia: Then what is the prerequisite for you to accept knowledge?As if age is the premise, which is a bit weird.

Wang Shuo: There is a prerequisite for me to accept knowledge. I have to be able to break you. I have no ability to break you.I think the worst things or knowledge are those that put the truth first, such as some popular current articles, such as Yu Qiuyu, some big articles of the academic school, and those editorials in newspapers. To suppress people with great principles, and to suppress people with big words, in fact, the more such things are, the more unreasonable they are. Lao Xia: Born in this land, I also hope to find resources that can enable people to live with dignity and honesty from the accumulation of their own traditions.For this reason, I returned to the pile of old papers many times, but each time I was more disappointed, and finally I was desperate.Now I believe in Lu Xun's advice to young people: read less or even no Chinese books.

Wang Shuo: I think Confucius... I bought the "Four Books and Five Classics", black leather.I don't really like reading that kind of book. There are a lot of annotations in it, and the text is cut into pieces. Every few larger texts are surrounded by dense annotations, which is very tiring.Looking dizzy.The general feeling is that there is a lot of reason there, and if you pull it out, it will make sense to you.I learned a little classical Chinese in middle school, and it was quite difficult to read this kind of stuff. Lao Xia: You mentioned how you feel about Confucius. There was an article comparing Confucius and Socrates.Both are talking to people, but in completely different ways.Confucius is a sage of China, and Socrates is a sage of ancient Greece. The similar words they said were only about "knowledge and ignorance".Confucius said: "Know what you know, what you don't know is what you don't know, that's what you know." Socrates said that the highest wisdom of a person is to be aware of his ignorance.It seems that the two are the same on this point.But it is different in the attitude towards others.

Wang Shuo: My daughter often said this sentence of Confucius, and it was taught in her school: Know what you know, know what you don’t know, and know what you don’t know.But this sentence made me feel that it was because the disciple asked him a question, and he couldn't answer it, and he couldn't say that he didn't know.His principles are to teach people how to smooth things over. Lao Xia: The way Confucius talks to people is that he regards himself as a teacher and condescends, while others regard himself as a student and looks up humbly; he always answers questions when others ask questions; he understands when others are confused; he understands everything when others don’t understand; Socrates’ method is just the opposite. No matter who he is talking to, he is always a questioner. He knows the limits of human intelligence. He keeps asking until you run out of words and can’t answer. This is considered complete.As for whether he had an answer himself, he had no answer either.He just wants to tell you that people cannot be arrogant and think that they know everything. The highest wisdom is not omniscience, but the awareness of what one does not know.It was the tradition started by Socrates that led to the epistemology of modern and contemporary masters such as Hayek and Popper—compared with human society and the universe, it must be admitted that human ignorance is absolute and human knowledge is relative , truth must be falsifiable, and society must be flawed.However, the tradition created by Confucius has made the subsequent scholars arrogant from generation to generation. It is the feeling you mentioned. Wang Shuo: Socrates used this method of questioning to refute all rational views, even if he used sophistry?It's also kind of dark. Old Xia: He does not teach you the truth, but only allows you to realize the limits of your own knowledge through the failure of the debate. This is great wisdom.And Confucius's "teaching others tirelessly" is a little cleverness, and you have to show off your little cleverness, and you have to pretend to be a mentor to others.Rather than saying that he has friends coming from afar, he enjoys it, it is better to say that he "teaches people tirelessly", and he enjoys it so much that he tires out those who are being taught. The Chinese way of cramming education, Self-proclaimed greatness, glory and correctness are all learned from Confucius. Wang Shuo: The way we do it here is called "teaching people tirelessly". Old Xia: When you know that the person you are teaching is tired, if you keep teaching tirelessly, you will feel a little bored. Wang Shuo: Exactly.Where did he learn it?Does he have a teacher, Confucius? He said that three people must have my teacher, but I have been with so many people, and I haven't seen who he worships as a teacher. Old Xia: Zhuangzi said that he asked Laozi about "Tao", but after researching, there is no way to prove it. Wang Shuo: Were there any books at that time?What are they looking at, those big bamboo slips moving around?Where is he going to see it?Did Confucius save any other books? Old Xia: It is said that he edited and edited. After his deletion, there are only 300 poems that can be seen today, and the remaining 80% are destroyed by his little reasoning.Without Confucius, we might still see a few more Qin poems today.Books compiled by each dynasty and generation in China have to be deleted and revised. The most ruthless one is the "Siku Quanshu" compiled by the Qing Dynasty. How many heritages have been destroyed is not clear to people nowadays, but the number will not be small anyway.It is said that Confucius also compiled "Spring and Autumn", the chronicle of the state of Lu.In fact, Confucius deleted and revised the ancient books, which is no different from Qin Shihuang's burning of books.The deleted ones can never be retrieved again, it is just like burning them.The changed face is beyond recognition, and it has all become the subjective will of the tamperer. It is better to burn it with a fire, and it will less poison today's people. Wang Shuo: How did the poor children at that time know how to read?Who taught this word? Confucius' family is not too rich either.Whoever taught him to be so energetic, opening his mouth is a wise saying. Old Xia: His self-expectation is very crazy. At 30, he will stand up, at 40, he will not be confused, at 50, he will know the destiny, at 60, his ears will be compliant, and at 70, he will do whatever he wants without breaking the rules.It's crazy, you can do whatever you want, but also behave well, this is only for the gods. Wang Shuo: "It's all about estrus, it's all about etiquette" is what he said.It's all self-deprecating words, with a wicked heart but no guts. We should rewrite it in vernacular for him and recreate the sentences. Lao Xia: The arrogance of Chinese scholars began with Confucius.No matter what you ask, it won't bother me, I have a set of arguments.Therefore, Chinese intellectuals have never been self-aware and have no boundaries.People dare to snatch anything if they call their names. Literary critics can go to music seminars, painting seminars, and economic seminars. There are really some people who like to be arty and courteous, and he is shameless when he asks for it. Wang Shuo: This is called a generalist, nothing can be difficult. Old Xia: I was abroad and asked them such questions.They said that if you hold a seminar on physics, you must invite Yang Zhenning, because he is an expert and authority in this field, and he must be able to speak insightful words.But if you want to hold a seminar on economics or political science, it is impossible to think of inviting Yang Zhenning.When Yang Zhenning came to China, he was asked to talk about everything, and he dared to talk. Wang Shuo: It's not just our place.Once a person becomes famous, he opens his mouth with a motto. Old Xia: Sometimes when I look at the mottos of those great people, I feel ashamed when I look at them.For example, Wittgenstein and Russell are both great philosophers in the West, and Wittgenstein only focuses on philosophy, which is extremely pure.After Russell became a great philosopher, he wanted to get in the way of everything and comment on everything.In fact, in fields other than philosophy, he never said a few shocking words, which were quite ordinary, but just because he was famous, he became an adage. Wang Shuo: Wouldn’t it be nice to have a friend come from afar? Anyone can say this kind of vernacular, but once he said it, it became a proverb. Old Xia: Not only aphorisms, but also these vernaculars, the Chinese have interpreted them for thousands of years, and Chinese wisdom has been wasted on such pedantic interpretations.I call this "annotation paranoia", a mental illness or academic dementia.The words of celebrities are aphorisms or classics. They can make irresponsible remarks in any field, and even a fart is heavy. Wang Shuo: If we wiped out all the teachers, no one would know who his teacher was before Confucius, and Confucius would become a master.Now, teachers, ancestors, and masters have all gone down smoothly into a system. Old Xia: Han Yu in the Tang Dynasty ranked "Orthodoxy", and Zhu Xi, a Neo Confucianist in the Song Dynasty, also ranked them. The rankings of the two are not the same. Wang Shuo: In fact, he just thought it through and explained it clearly, so it didn't take so much effort.Then you say, including Western academic norms, it is the same.For example, when I write a doctoral dissertation, I don’t cite a single work, and there are no annotations. It’s all my own opinion, isn’t that okay?no.You have to make it clear where your foundation is, what people have said about the thing you study before.I said that I have no foundation, I just thought of it by patting my head, and everyone firmly refused. Old Xia: Not necessarily.It is difficult to measure Nietzsche’s books by academic norms, but his books are also Western classics. Original ideas often appear without established norms. People can only find him when his back is almost wiped out.The fate of many original great philosophers in history is lonely in life and glorious in death. Wang Shuo: I heard that Schopenhauer was on the same line as Nietzsche. There should be a continuous relationship between them, right? Veteran: Yes.But there is a big difference between the two.The structure of Schopenhauer's book is completely in accordance with Kant's division of the phenomenal world and the thing-in-itself. Representation belongs to the phenomenal world, and power and will belong to the thing-in-itself.But Nietzsche is not. His book has no system, and he can’t find any annotations in his works. He just said it when he thought it out.Similar to aphorisms.Look at his "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", a god wakes up on the mountain, talks to himself while walking down, and finally reminds his listeners and readers, don't take what I said seriously , you will discover yourselves from this reading.Listen to me, discover yourself, and that's it.Nietzsche is sometimes unreasonable, but his unreasonable words are extremely wonderful.Didn't he say "God is dead"?How does he prove it.He said: There is no God in this world, if there is a God, how can I endure not being a God.Nietzsche conquered the western intellectual world by relying on this sudden power. He almost cut off the rationalism tradition of two thousand years and opened up a brand new value.Like him saying "why is he so smart", most people will think it is crazy.But Nietzsche's uniqueness is that compared to Socrates' original rationality, he is crazy.The intoxicating dance of life.For a geek like Foucault, his intellectual archeology and genealogy were influenced by Nietzsche, and Nietzsche greatly shocked him.Too many people have benefited from Nietzsche's genius.He is indeed a bit crazy. Before that, who dared to declare that he would abandon the rational tradition starting from Socrates and replace it with the drunkenness of Dionysus! Wang Shuo: He is too crazy.I think there is still a difference between a thinker and a scholar. A thinker creates, while a scholar imitates.You mentioned that some people said that in the 1990s, "thoughts faded out and academics became prominent", which makes me feel a little boring.What we lack here are thinkers, but there are piles of scholars, so crowded that some people can't hold their jobs. Old Xia: The arrogance of Westerners also has a tradition.Theology is crazy.Bacon is also wild.He had a wretched personality in court struggles. When he wrote, he thought he had discovered a new world of knowledge, and scolded Aristotle and others.The title page of his book features the sails of Columbus discovering the New World.He believed that the new tools he provided could solve the mystery of human cognition.This arrogance is also expressed in Descartes' "I think, therefore I am".It was not until Hume's "skepticism" that the arrogance of Westerners was hit for the first time.Hume gave me a lot of shock. Reading his "Treatise of Human Nature", he said that skepticism is fatal, it is a kind of confusion, a kind of disease, and it can never be cured.He doubted Descartes' rationality, Bacon's experience, causality, human self and free will.Kant, who later dealt a fatal blow to the arrogance of Western philosophy, learned from Hume his contempt for intellectual arrogance and his respect for people from Rousseau, so he was able to draw the fatal boundary.Others use their own cognitive tools to test everything. Kant’s strength lies in: before you use wisdom and knowledge tools, you must first check the wisdom itself and the tools themselves. Before using them, you must understand their limitations.Your knife can only cut so far, and if you go any further, it will curl or break.Later Western philosophy, even creative philosophy, could not get around Kant. Wang Shuo: Listen to what you say, the ideals we believe in since we were young are very arrogant. It claims that its principles are universal, and its ideals are the destination of mankind, or the last home. Old Xia: After Kant, the earliest arrogance started from Hegel, who lacked basic intellectual honesty and moral responsibility.He made the Prussian spirit the pinnacle of the evolution of all nations in the world, and his own philosophy is the pinnacle of the Prussian spirit, so he is the pinnacle of the pinnacle, and like Confucius, he "sees all the mountains and small things at a glance".Popper said: The absolutely perfect paradise on earth promised by the aesthetic passion, arrogant and beautiful idealism in history all went to its opposite, creating the most terrifying hell on earth for human beings. Wang Shuo: Then my rejection of ideals, especially those ideals or principles that use big words to suppress people as soon as they come up, is wrong, and I am stunned.Thinking about it this way, reading less is not necessarily a bad thing.As long as you treat what you hear and see honestly, so that everyone can realize this truth, you will all be disgusted with Confucius's book that is full of truth. I think the rejection I realized is more authentic and simple than the rejection I learned from books. Old Xia: Some intellectuals in China have never made progress, and they are always unable to find the object of criticism. They should resist and reject criticism. They intentionally or unintentionally let go or avoid it. They should not criticize.Behind this dislocation, vested interests still play a role.Writers like Liang Xiaosheng, who claim to have a conscience, taught Clinton all the way across the Pacific Ocean, and said a few words to the shameless and coquettish people around him. This is so safe and has a sense of morality. All safe moral outrage is calculated cleverness.I think Zhang Chengzhi also belongs to this category. The new book "Not Letting One Go Away" is even more down-to-earth, looking for some little shameless singers, hosts, and movie stars who are not painful, but let the shameless big stars go. Wang Shuo: In fact, Liang Xiaosheng's lesson to Clinton also reveals a kind of double coquettishness, which is both coquettish to Clinton and mainstream consciousness.He first talked about how he defended Lao Ke in the scandal of Lao Ke's affair, and then he talked about Lao Ke's injustice, and started practicing with his buddies.It seems that the admonishers who have existed since ancient times in Chinese history first talk about how to be loyal to the emperor, and everything is for the sake of the emperor, and the criticism of you is also out of loyalty.A mother beating her son is still maternal love, a loyal minister criticizing the emperor is still a loyal minister, and I, Liang Xiaosheng, teaching you, Lao Ke, is still the same Liang Xiaosheng who spoke out for you in the scandal.Anyway, I'm your old Ke's buddy, and I criticize you for you.What a rare generosity!