Chapter 3 Section 2 The Enlightenment Process and Essence of Chinese Literature

The enlightenment consequences of Chinese modern and contemporary literature are clearly manifested in various aspects of concepts and forms, from Chen Duxiu's "On Literary Revolution", Cheng Fangwu's "New Literature Mission", Guo Moruo's "Our New Literature Movement", Zheng Zhenduo's " The Beginning of the Bright Movement", Mao Zedong's "Speech at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art", Guo Moruo's "Repudiation of Reactionary Literature and Art", Zhou Yang's "New People's Literature and Art" to Jiang Qing's "Comrade Lin Biao Entrusts Comrade Jiang Qing to Convene The Minutes of the Symposium for Artists and Artists of the Army", the obvious main line is to use clear rationality as the criterion for judging all concepts, laws, art and texts, constantly express unique forms of interpretation, doubt and overthrow everything in the past, and completely deny other people's harmony Everything in history must be overthrown and restarted in all things in the whole world. My own form of explanation is to put things under the absolute laws of mechanics and mathematics, thoroughly stipulate, absolutely quantify, and absolutely do not tolerate spiritual or compromise. or hazy ideas and expressions.At the first Literary Congress in New China, when Zhou Yang announced that the direction of literature and art in the new society was that of Chairman Mao, and that subjects, characters, language, and forms were all definitely standardized, people felt compulsion and literature. People even said that the overly strict regulations seemed to make the development of literature deviate from the theme of the "May Fourth" enlightenment, or that the main body of the "May Fourth" enlightenment was interrupted.But in fact, as far as the inner essence is concerned, extreme rationalism, negation of everything, and adherence to a single mechanical standard are completely the basic ideas of Enlightenmentism.Zhou Yang said, "Chairman Mao's "Speech at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art" stipulated the direction of literature and art in New China. The literature and art workers in the Liberated Areas consciously and resolutely practiced this direction, and proved this direction with all their own experience. It is absolutely correct, convinced that there is no other direction than this, and if there is, it is a wrong direction".How to grasp "new themes, new characters, new language and forms", Zhou Yang said, is to thoroughly implement the new "propaganda policy", become a tool to achieve new goals and tasks, use literature and art to cooperate with political struggles (15), completely Unanimous point of view, completely unified standards, and no sloppy single-mindedness.

Guo Moruo's is actually a typical Enlightenment preaching, "Tengu" said, "I am a Tengu", "I swallowed the moon, I swallowed the sun, I swallowed all the planets, I swallowed the whole The universe is coming to swallow", "I peel my skin, I eat my flesh, I suck my blood, I gnaw my heart, I'm going to explode", which basically means that I want to sweep everything, including sweep myself. "Phoenix Nirvana" said, "The vast universe is as cold as iron! The vast universe is as dark as paint! The vast universe is as filthy as blood." There is no good place in the whole world. The west is a slaughterhouse, the east is a prison, and the south It's a tomb, and the north is hell, so let's just burn it down.This kind of "self-aggrandizement", which has been mentioned with affirmation and appreciation by almost all posterity and researchers, (16) Complete skepticism leads to complete nihilism. Race is to put out fire with fire, cure water with water, and quench thirst with doves.

At the end of the Cultural Revolution, the "Tiananmen Poems" appeared in the process of transition from the old to the new, which made many people happy and encouraged. However, from the perspective of inner spiritual quality, "Tiananmen Poems" only runs through negation, hatred and struggle. Use fire to put out fire. The Cultural Revolution was not only a political movement, but also a vigorous movement of literary and artistic thought. It had similar internal logic to the revolutions in Russia, Germany, and France in which Enlightenment thoughts pervaded.The gestation and flow of Enlightenment thoughts finally formed the breaking point, which is the big action of society.The poet appealed passionately and set the old world on fire.The poet said, to struggle, to destroy, to subvert, to die.A poet is only a poet, he only makes a sound, only there to shout.A politician came out, and he said, well, set the old world on fire, fight, destroy, subvert, and die.Politicians said that the struggle should be talked about every year, every month, and every day, and a vigorous revolution sweeping the whole country should be carried out.Politicians say that we can’t just talk about it, but according to the plan, every province, every county, every commune, every major brigade, every production team, every family, every individual will set the old world on fire. To get rid of old buildings, old people, old ideas, old books, and everything else, we must mobilize the masses extensively, burn them thoroughly, fight brutally, attack mercilessly, struggle, destroy, subvert, and die.Politicians are not shouting or calling, but convening meetings to make careful arrangements, printing red-headed documents and distributing them to all functional departments, and urging all agencies to implement them, but taking real actions , and a movement is ten years.

I suggest you delete this paragraph! For many revolutionaries, faith is not important or can not exist.For the pioneers of the Chinese Enlightenment, God is dispensable and can even be negated or should be negated, because they seem to want immediate material results, and they want quick success by whatever means, because they seem to feel the absolute truth The rejection of relative standards seems to feel the resistance of infinite truth to limited interests, and the rejection of eternal faith to do whatever one wants.Therefore, in the Chinese enlightenment pioneers, it is more clear to deny religious beliefs.Relatively speaking, the actual Western Enlightenment "advocates freedom of religious belief, rather than rejecting or abandoning the belief in God, ... the fact that most of the Western Enlightenment maintains their belief in God gives us a lot of enlightenment, in addition to explaining the face of Enlightenment True darkness is not just the 'ignorance' of fideism, it also reminds us of an important fact in the Age of Enlightenment, that is, the attitude of Enlightenment thought towards religion or belief is not opposed to it, but advocated Freedom of belief or religious tolerance." (17) While avoiding the fact that Western enlighteners did not give up their beliefs, Chinese enlighteners tried their best to promote lawless secular ideas in their own enlightenment actions, with more material care and less Conservation of the soul; more practical interests, less faith; more rebellion, less obedience; more criticism, less praise; more negation, less affirmation; more destruction, less construction.The connotation of the essence and the fulfillment of reality are endless chaos, disorder, no principles, no truth, and a vicious circle in which thoughts, reality, and life are constantly rushing to disasters and escaping disasters in despair and nothingness.

In the 1920s and 1930s, works on modern Chinese literary trends appeared. Sun Xizhen’s Modern Literary Trends and Xu Maoyong’s A Brief History of Literary Trends mostly explored the influence of Western trends of thought on China. Cai Zhenghua’s Chinese Literary Trends of Thought, Zhu Weizhi's "A Brief History of Chinese Literary Trends of Thought" only began to study the status of Chinese literary trends of thought itself.Li Helin's "On the Trend of Literary and Art Thought in the Past Twenty Years" discusses the trend of literary and artistic thought in China from the "May Fourth Movement" to 1936, briefly stating the main spiritual source, flow and general situation of literature at that time.It was not until the 1990s that a large number of comprehensive discussions on Chinese literary trends of thought appeared. Shao Bozhou's "Research on Chinese Literary Trends of Thought" published in 1993, from 1915 to 1949, covered four periods—the germination period of Chinese modern literary trends of thought, Initial development period, pluralistic development and intense debate period, and unified formation period—discusses the important trends of thought in modern literature, "examines the development process of modern Chinese literary trends vertically; Various literary and artistic trends of thought --- humanism, classicism, romanticism, realism, modernism, and Soviet socialist realism in my country's translation, dissemination and influence process, while emphatically analyzing their respective The ins and outs of entering our country, its manifestations and their interrelationships, etc.” (18) Such monographs on ideological trends have a basic characteristic, which is to list the main events of literary ideological trends, sort out "objective" literary concepts, genres, origins, and complete knowledge system information, but focus on the positive value of social life There are not many points, there are not many discussions on the original meaning of life, and there are not many calls and expectations for the nurturing significance of related thoughts on healthy life.Similar to the characteristics of the ideological trend itself, the so-called rational knowledge analysis and overview are persuasive, but the connotation of the soul is relatively weak.It seems to be paying attention to the society, but it seems to have a rejection of the important foundation of real life, and it seems to be separated from the most important source of human health.

The journey of Chinese contemporary literature is bumpy, and the basic situation of Chinese contemporary literature and the ideological trend of Chinese contemporary literature can be summarized as a catastrophic situation of impermanence, chaos, and mental disorder. The trend of contemporary Chinese literature and art thought was criticized and struggled at the beginning.Two typical bad characteristics of contemporary society are: one is the destruction of people's hearts, and the other is the destruction of the living environment.The society does not respect the principles of heaven, does not adhere to the eternal principles, does not abide by the absolute truth, does not cherish life, does not defend love, social hatred spreads, and people are full of deception and struggle, which ultimately destroys people's hearts.After the heart is broken, people will do whatever they want to destroy the environment.In the hands of such people, nature is covered with bruises, forests have become barren mountains, grasslands have become deserts, pollution is everywhere, and the living environment has become a disaster-type environment.In an overwhelmed and disastrous environment, when it rains, there will be landslides and torrents, if there is no rain, there will be a severe drought, when there is a wind, there will be sandstorms, and geological disasters will come and go. Such a life lacks happiness.

From the perspective of cultural psychology and life construction, contemporary Chinese literature has too strong a rebellious complex, overthrows it too frequently, rationalizes struggle, rationalizes and heroizes chaos and doing whatever it wants. This kind of literature and related concepts actually show obvious Symptoms of Pathology: "The Crisis of Mental Disorder."The patient's symptoms are that he was wronged and suffered in the past, but now he is liberated and has the right to do whatever he wants. Now, others' attitude towards him should be infinitely laissez-faire.Psychologist Frank lived in Hitler's prison for ten years. After he was released from prison, he fully saw such symptoms in his fellow sufferers: "I once went to a concentration camp with a friend, and I passed a wheat field on the way. Naturally, I took a detour, but my friend grabbed my hand and dragged me across the wheat field. I stammered that the crops should not be trampled, but he became very angry, glared at me and growled, "Needless to say , have we not been deprived enough? My wife and children all died in the gas room, and of course nothing else. Now, you forbid me to trample on a few stalks of wheat!'" Frank said: "This kind of It is only through earnest persuasion that one slowly learns the most mundane truth: no one has the right to do evil, not even the most bullied” (19).

If we sum up the trend of contemporary Chinese literature thought in the following aspects, first, based on the method of creation, it can be divided into five types: Romantic literary thought, realist literary thought, modernist literary thought, classicist literary thought, postmodernist literary thought 2. Taking cultural connotation as the standard, it can be divided into "humanism (enlightenment) literary trend of thought", "nationalist literary thought trend", "popular literary thought trend" and "liberal literary thought trend"; Divided into progressive and reactionary; 4. Unsystematic names, such as revolutionary literary trends, worker-peasant-soldier literary trends, war literary trends, liberal literary trends, left-leaning literary trends, nationalist literary trends, humanitarian literary trends, Scar literature trend of thought, reflective literary trend of thought, reform literary trend of thought, root-seeking literary trend of thought, humanistic literary thought trend, avant-garde literary thought trend, new realistic literary thought trend, new historicist literary thought trend, feminist literary thought trend, etc. (20).

As far as the inner essence is concerned, there are three points worthy of attention concerning the ideological trend of modern and contemporary Chinese literature: 1. The inner spirit of modern and contemporary Chinese literature originates from the enlightenment thought; Among them; 3. The root cause of the disaster is that there are only dialectical, relative, impermanent, and impermanent principles, and there is no eternal and absolute truth;