Until now, I have always liked a male singer who was not popular eight hundred lifetimes ago. Personally, he is closer to a bard.His name is Don McLean, and for over twenty years, the first time I saw him on TV was at the Grammys for his eight-and-a-half-minute song "American Pie." , bitterly criticized the pop music scene at that time.Interestingly, the pop music scene, which he regards as depraved, accepted him with open arms. The Grammy Award nominated the song for a string of awards including "Best Single" and invited him to sing live.Don McLean came out smartly with his guitar, and delivered another famous song "Vincent", which is also four or five minutes long. It is dedicated to the madman painter Van Gogh. Known great painter: "This world doesn't deserve someone as beautiful as you."

This world really doesn't deserve someone as beautiful as you—— The reason why I mentioned Don McLean was because I occasionally thought of him when I read Bullock's Matthew Scudder series. This time, I vaguely felt that I should find a song as the opening, and I like Sad young McLean, wandering aimlessly on the streets, looking for something that should be long gone. , which is a 1976 novel, the debut of the Matthew Scudder series. Scudder was really alone in 1976.Without Jane, without Elaine (the Elaine of that later relationship), without Mickey the Butcher, without Danny Boy, and without Applejack, the world had only just begun, and nothing had a name yet.

Not even abstaining from alcohol (do you remember which novel he started with?), Scudder, as we drink coffee, still lets us glaringly drip into corn-based bourbon, we notice. We may also notice that this series of novels is the closest to classical reasoning. I mean: the structure of the story is relatively closed, the plot is relatively concentrated, and the characters on the scene are generally directly related to solving the case. The clues later proved to be "useful", unlike Scudder's vision in the future, so he could do whatever he wanted, and a small boat could be used in the rivers and lakes.

But it's not really a classical mystery, because he asks some real questions - let's just say, it's a little stiff, maybe because Mr. Scudder is new here, and it's a bit strange to meet everyone はじめましてPoints (even though he was old New York to begin with). What's the problem?In the book, the most striking thing is probably that Scudder sat in the church and asked a big question: which is worse, the right goal and the wrong means, or the wrong goal and the right means? This great topic, which is both the topic of a high school debate contest and the rhetorical self-justification of scholars behind closed doors, is not what I call the "real problem"-although it is not so bad, if we try to make it The problem is the real experience of human beings in the past one or two hundred years. For example, if we have read Hayek's famous book "The Road to Serfdom" and remembered his prophetic warning that "the road to hell is often Paved with good intentions", we may think sadly that the right goal and the wrong means seem to be quite typical socialist mistakes, which bring socialistic disasters to mankind; while the wrong goal and the right means are common in capitalist society. , Bringing capitalist-style injustice and helplessness to mankind.Which is worse?It's hard to say, but the former mistake is more embarrassing, we have to remind ourselves to always be awake.

The "real problem" I'm talking about is far less big than this, and it's just the opposite of such a big and reduced problem. Instead, it questions the absurdity and inaccuracy of this conceptual classification.I thought this was the most interesting part of the book, including: 1. Is Wendy, the murdered girl in the book, a prostitute? 2. After Scudder subdued a trail cutter on Columbus Avenue, he confiscated a roll of about two hundred dollars from the robber. Is this considered robbery? In addition, if necessary, we can add: 3. Is Scudder a private detective?Or is he really just doing others a favor, and then (or before) people send him some gifts in return?

4. We should also notice that since then, Scudder has been paying the so-called "hat money" ($25) or "coat money" ($100) to the police. Does this constitute bribery? Obviously, all on the margins, ambiguous. Among them, Scudder's guest role as a robber actually happened twice, and it happened again in the future. In addition to lamenting the corruption of New York's law and order, we have to notice that Bullock really wanted us to notice it. . Wendy's situation is the most interesting: in the book, this is a young girl who is programmed to have a serious Electra complex, so in her nature, she would have taken the initiative to hook up with some older middle-aged Men don't need money as an intermediary; and these old men who are fortunate to be favored, it is quite humane to be grateful afterwards, so they want to buy her some gifts as a souvenir or return.There is nothing wrong with this, but firstly, it is too late to prepare gifts beforehand; secondly, when we meet by chance, I really don’t know what to buy for a while (this is the most difficult part of most men).Therefore, the simplest solution is to send the so-called "currency" that economics says has the widest circulation, the greatest exchange elasticity, and the most barrier-free transformation into other goods-commonly known as cash, cash.Put it on the bedside table (maybe a little embarrassed), and she can pick and buy what she likes to thank her for her hospitality.

Following this logic, there seems to be nothing wrong with it, and there seems to be no difference in the story of exchanging jade pendants in the garden after a private meeting with a young master and a beautiful lady—who stipulates that the young master can’t be older?Who stipulated that the jade pendant of love cannot be discounted? Here, the first clear gap may be that Wendy, who came to New York alone, does not have a job, but has more than enough food and clothing, and there is no shortage of brand-name leather bags, etc. Doesn’t this prove that she is a “practitioner”?It makes sense, but things can still be so simple, after all, we know that at least Wendy didn't plan to make a living on it at first, and she might even seriously plan to find a "proper job", so we don't It can be said that as life goes by, she finds that the generous gifts of her "old lovers" are enough for her. She doesn't want higher material satisfaction, and would rather spare more time to deal with her spiritual insatiability lack of paternal love in her father’s house—would we blame an heiress for being “wrong” for not looking for a job because she has enough to eat?

Wendy's second clear gap may be that she perseveres in entertaining these "fathers" and accepting gifts. Therefore, unknowingly, Wendy has slowly stepped into the ranks of pure prostitutes from pursuing fatherly love Well, isn't the so-called "degeneration" in the world all coming from this way?However, Bullock does not intend to let it go. In the book, he arranged for Marcia, a former roommate of Wendy, to appear. " game, so where should the line between amateur and professional be drawn?How many times or how often does it count?Or is it not counted as long as there is another serious professional income?So, we know that Scudder's prostitute girlfriend, Elaine Madai, has a long career in practice and a more stable and substantial income from real estate rentals, can we just roll our eyes and say she's not?

Speaking of this, some people may be annoyed, thinking that the problem lies in the basic definition of a prostitute, and want to go back to determine "what is a prostitute"-here, let's talk about it first, the trouble comes from the basic definition, yes, according to "Webster The Encyclopedia, "prostitute" means "a woman who exchanges sex for (material) reward", which obviously can't help us.Because, if this explanation is limited to the premise of "whatever it takes" and "somewhat against free will", then Wendy's enjoyment of it is obviously not; Worse, I think of the famous Japanese novelist Ishikawa Tatsuzo's famous book "The Boundary of Happiness". "is the title of the novel.In this way, not only Wendy is of course, it is very likely that most of the women (or men, including the former provincial government spokesman surnamed Huang and myself) on this earth must be included in it. No other female primate can escape.Biologists have long discovered that in patriarchal primate communities, when the estrus comes, the female orangutan, female baboon or female monkey will suddenly rise to the highest status and have the privilege of being the first to enjoy food , but such a good scene will end as soon as the estrus period passes.So, isn't that what the simple words in "Webster's Dictionary" mean?

Therefore, it is not a question of whether we are willing or not to find a precise definition, but that a sharp break in the definition will inevitably cut off the continuity of the development of real things, so that we may lose our ability to observe and reflect on "why things have evolved to such a point." "The valuable process. Let us also use biology as an example.In the biological classification of "Kemenidae, Genera and Species" that we all learned in junior high school, for a long time, taxonomists were quite keen to set up a so-called "species" under the smallest taxonomic unit "species". The "subspecies" of the same species in order to more delicately capture the subtle differences of the same species.Therefore, the human species that we call ourselves the spirit of all things is subdivided into Caucasian species, Australian species, Mongolian species, Indian subcontinent species, Cape species, Congo species, Western Hemisphere and colonial species and so on-I believe that today we learn history Or people in the humanities, when they look at the names of these subspecies, it is easy to get bloody on the spot and all kinds of physiological reactions come up. After all, the various unjust tragedies in human history derived from these classifications make you unexpected. difficulty.

Here, let's harden our hearts and not talk about various misuses outside of biological taxonomy. Let's talk about it purely in the category of biology. What do we say? ——Now, more and more biologists are questioning the necessity and cost of such a classification. Among them, I personally think that a very interesting claim lies in the differences in human form, including skin color, hair, facial structure and body proportions, etc. , it turns out that it is very likely to be the result of adaptation and evolution in different geographical regions and different environments. For example, according to Bergmann's law, warm-blooded animals will be larger in colder climates and environments. The reason is that the surface area can be relatively reduced. , thereby reducing the body surface radiated heat. If we simply deal with such differences with the concept of fragmented classification, the most likely result is to arrange and file them, and then label them with a Latin scientific name. Please note that such a process does not require much thinking; And our possible loss is that we lose the opportunity to watch the arduous and complicated adaptation and evolution of human beings at different times and in different geographical environments, and we also lose the opportunity to perceive some truths and essences hidden in such an evolution process. The same can be proved: The former is: Wendy is a whore.she was killed. OK, it's all right. The latter is: Is Wendy a whore?We're in trouble, but at the same time our minds are officially mobilized— Well, is Wendy a professional prostitute? If I had to answer, my thoughts are this: Often, we need jobs to support our families, jobs that are not very enjoyable, that are not what we really want, that are not in line with our true beliefs and values. Call it a career; a few of the more fortunate states are that this job of supporting a family happens to be in line with what we have learned and aspirations, and is in line with our beliefs and the path of value practice, so we put such a beautiful happiness ( But it is not necessarily pleasant, because it may fail, and it is often harder) work is called calling. If such a career/vocational distinction is generally correct, then we may say that prostitution, for Wendy, is not only a profession, but also a kind of vocation.It is a pity that such a short-lived happiness turned out to be a tragedy in the end.