Chapter 7 "Before the Blade" - The Flower of Sacrifice

Until now, I still occasionally think, if the 1960s did not exist in the 20th century, would it be different, would it be better or worse?Will those who live through this experience be happier or bored? God knows, or more solemnly, more formally, only God knows. This time, in Bullock's book, we find a person who came out in the 1960s—in the novel, she is named Vera, tall and beautiful, and she is certainly not young in her early forties. She used to be a member of the "Progressive Communist Party" ( A member of a fictitious group), after events passed and the revolution ceased, Da Yin lived as a landlord on 51st Street in New York, renting out cheap apartments, and got acquainted with Matthew Scudder who came to "care" because of a homicide in the apartment.

Vera talked about the "Progressive Communist Party", saying that the party's abbreviation PCP is exactly the same as the abbreviation of the hallucinogenic drug "Angel Dust", which is quite self-deprecating. The 1960s was a time of revolution, but it was obviously different from other revolutions in human history--I don't remember any other revolution with so many fascinating (not the best, of course) discourses (think Think Marcuse, Adorno, Sartre, etc.), so many fascinating propositions (think antiwar, civil rights, black power, women's rights, sex, human beings, etc.), so many fascinating documents and manifestos ( Think Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech, and the Port Huron Declaration, etc.), there is so much fascinating poetry (think Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Joan Bates, etc.), there are So much glamorous rock and roll singing (think Woodstock), and, so much glamorous narcotics and youth (think marijuana and the faces of young boys and girls who dropped out to make the pilgrimage to Berkeley).

Milan Kundera recalled the spring-like but short-lived revolution in his hometown Prague in the 1960s. He once said that they were not so much fighting against tyranny as they were fighting against their own youth. "If you go to San Francisco, don't forget to wear flowers on your head." They sang like this in the sixties, what does it mean? These young boys and girls in the 1960s described themselves as the generation of flowers, the children of flowers—we know that human beings are actually very special in the entire biological world when it comes to sex.In terms of the external cultural mechanism, human beings usually regard the sexual organs as the most secret part of the body, just like Adam and Eve who ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, felt ashamed and were the first to want to cover it up; while in terms of the internal biological mechanism It is said that the estrous period of human beings is probably the most obscure and least obvious of all sexual reproduction creatures, even the other primates closest to us.Because mating and reproduction are the most important thing in the survival of biological breeding, it is reasonable in theory that they should be carried out with great fanfare. They either use the transmission of strong smells, or the attraction of bright colors, or the enlargement of sexual organs to make the target clearly identifiable, because in biological This is not a mistake in the competition for species protection.

Among them, flowering plants are exactly the opposite of human beings. When the time for mating comes, they let their sexual organs fully open in the most conspicuous position, and use all imaginable techniques, including the most beautiful color, the most tangy aroma, the most intense Sweet, in case you can't see, smell or don't want to come near, do anything to send a message: "Come on, I'm here." Humans, when it comes to sex, why can't they be so full and open like flowers? Twenty years later, where have all these flowers gone? As far as I know, it seems that the end is not so good-I once heard Mr. Liu Daren, a health care general in the six years, casually chatting about the whereabouts of some leading coquettish people, including who and who went to a small country in Central and South America, who became A primary school teacher, whoever was elected as a member of a small city in a small county but that's all there is, whoever turned the revolution into robbery and murder was sent to a federal prison and so on.

And of course, our tall Vera, who had mixed up in New York and started as a landlord. The bad fate mentioned here does not necessarily mean being poor or full of evil, but slowly withering and being swallowed up in the vast sea of ​​people-if we understand, these people were once the best qualified among their peers , the most ambitious people, without this scene, theoretically after the 1980s, they should be the most powerful people in all fields of society; if we understand, the biggest ridicule in history is It is to make them ordinary, to become people with blurred faces.If we think about the above two points at least, you have to laugh at the ending.

What happened? There are many, many things, but I suddenly thought of a sentence from Confucius, speaking of the first generation of disciples who lived and slept with him and traveled around the world: "From me to Chen Cai, they are all inferior." Thinking about it carefully, this is a very bitter sentence. In the past, the interpretation of this sentence, I thought Confucius was wronged by this group of loyal old disciples. They were scattered all over the place and thrown into every corner of their fate.At this moment, I realized that what Confucius felt distressed most likely included their psychological state, a certain psychological state that is hard to turn back.

There are tears in the sea and moonlight—a psychological state that is incompatible with the real society and the real system. Among the disciples of Confucius, in my opinion, in terms of talent, mind, and personality, these Chen Cai disciples are indeed much more interesting than the second-generation disciples such as Ziyou and Zizhang he received when he returned to Lu to concentrate on teaching. However, Zilu died tragically in the coup d'état, Yan Hui died early due to illness, Zigong became a big businessman, and if You Ruo couldn't take over the mantle of the second-generation respected teacher, he was embarrassed, and Ran You was even expelled from the teacher's school and beat him with drums. Isn't it all like this? ?

I thought it would not be difficult for us to detect such an incompatible mental state. For example, even in Taiwan today, there are still some people, even though it was thirty years and ten thousand miles apart, and only because of some accident in the past The opportunity was swept away by the trend of the 1960s (for example, I like John Lennon's people and songs, I have watched two James Dean movies such as "Giant" and "Adopted Children Don't Teach Their Faults", ignorant age is ignored The nationalism agitated and the head was overheated, or just happened to fall in love for the first time at that time and had a glorious empathy effect), so for decades, I ignored the vicissitudes of time and only concentrated on being a " people in the sixties".

People from the 1960s—watch old movies from the 1960s, listen to old songs from the 1960s, and look for things and symbols related to the 1960s. Even the songs that are drunk at KTV will always be "Imagine", It's "Blowing in the wind" and so on, and it always looks like weeping when it's lost in paradise.To be honest, there are a few of my friends who are like this. Out of public morality, it is not easy for us to mention their real names here. These people can't (and don't want to) come out of that time state, so they are naturally incompatible with today's thirty years later.

The inner psychological state is incompatible, and the outer skills of managing the world are of course also incompatible. There is an old Chinese idiom "The Skill of Slaying the Dragon". After showing his skills, he suddenly realized that dragons are extinct in this world, and there are no dragons to kill. And the dragon-slaying sword style, which looks like a rainbow penetrating the sun, may not be convenient for cutting the chopped green onion for dumpling filling. Revolutionary knowledge and skills have always been used to slay dragons. This is not only the case in the 6th century, but also in other revolutionary eras. The reason is simple. The goal setting is different, and the angle of thinking is different. The equipment and technology required to complete the goal are naturally It's also different, revolution, what you seek and sharpen all the time is a huge ax for cutting down big trees, never the garden scissors that can be conveniently used for pruning branches and leaves.

The revolution wants to overthrow privilege and redistribute social wealth, but it does not teach us to understand financial statements. The revolution wants us to recognize the nature of imperialist aggression, but it does not provide us with tips for traveling in Florence. The revolution requires us to learn street fighting, and does not require us to stand at intersections and calculate traffic flow per unit time. Revolutions are for all of humanity, or at least a large portion of humanity, and it's not advisable to talk to your teenage daughter. Vera, who has been away from the "Progressive Communist Party" for many years, is such a sample that is incompatible with the 1980s (at that time) in terms of psychological state and secular skills. She has learned combat skills, knowledge and skills related to poisoning (if the revolution requires it, one day may have to poison the tap water system in an urban area in Minnesota), and told Scudder, the name of the small French restaurant "Paris Green" is actually a poison containing arsenic and copper, which is used as an insecticide and as a wallpaper dye. She escaped by marrying a hippie covered in buckskin tassels in a hurry in order to escape from the organization, but what she talked about was still in the sixties. She still smoked unfiltered Camel cigarettes in the 1980s, because "the party encourages us to smoke. Now, everyone smokes and smokes, and there is an atmosphere of living and dying together." She said: "We're going to start a revolution ... we're going to eliminate discrimination across all age, gender, race lines -- thirty of us are going to lead the country to heaven, and I think we really believe that. a little." "The 'Progressive Communist Party' has given my life all the meaning over the years ... it's an opportunity to see yourself as part of something important, to be at the forefront of a new history," she said. "That's our most important anesthetic -- you have to believe that your life is greater than other people's," she said. Very typical revolutionary language.What I'm curious about is, what kind of situation (the word situation may be wrong) will make people still be attached to it after escaping, and still linger on it in the pain of failure?What would such a revolution look like? Like falling in love, or to be precise, a more pure form of love, which usually only appears in novels, movies and diaries-I have personally heard another old health care worker in the 1960s, Zhang Mr. Beihai said so, to the effect that it is better to fail in love than to never fall in love. Or it can also be like religion, for example, like the old Job in the book of Job, whose family was ruined, sick, and full of complaints, but at the same time he did not change his devout look to Jehovah. In fact, in this sense, revolution, love, and religion are a trinity. They all began in the apocalypse. The end of the world - according to the imagination - is a glorious place where there is no cold, no heat, no space, no time. In this world of the Trinity, death has a very special meaning. It is a reporting system for the voters to promise to the Supreme, a stamp of undoubted belief. What kind of person loves to talk about death? The answer is: people in love, people in religion and people in revolution.In love, it is called life-and-death promise; in religion, it is called martyrdom; in revolution, it is called generosity and dedication. Otherwise, how can you repay the favor of the Most High to your one-out-of-millions?If you don't sacrifice everything you have, including your final life, how can you boast about your purity? So, we still need to ask, where are the flowers of the burnt offering?