The Complete Works of Xu Zhimo's Classical Prose

Chapter 45 Laughing at Life's Hibiscus Bird (17)
Bringing a living being into the world and raising a child into adulthood, the responsibility of being a parent is great enough; but in fact, parents, especially us Chinese, are so confused!The Chinese nation is called "There are three kinds of unfilial piety, and it is great to have no offspring"; "giving birth to a son" is the first major event in life, so many crimes and ugly family phenomena all come from this of.Affecting individuals and society is equally unhealthy.The picked fruits, for example, are all half-green and unripe, with a prickly skin wrapped in a loose core. The taste is bitter and astringent, and it is too thin to make sauce. No wonder the result is the size of sixteen characters. The couplet is "Panpan is old, but the corpse is still alive; Pianpian is young, weak and windy"!Especially the so-called "scholar" class, which should be the core of society, is the most poisoned by the Confucian "filial piety" theory, and one generation after another has become the only weak species in the world; who said that today's Chinese society is sick and centrifugal Can't we attribute the phenomenon of the phenomenon (the original retreat period did not compete with foreign races, so the disease cannot be seen by itself, although the root cause of the disease has been thousands of years old) to our most absurd "male-only chauvinism"?It is inherently weak, and there is no power to remedy the day after tomorrow; is it not the special task of Chinese mothers who have absolutely no knowledge, absolute superstition, stubborn bad habits, and care for their children?Taking care of the children is a matter within the husband's control, except for being famous, asking the three dynasties to be one year old or reporting the death of the child to be famous!The family is the crystallization of the bad nature of our nation. It is crueler and darker than a prison, and more unsanitary than a pigsty; but this is the environment in which our little angels are destined to grow up. "Anti-life" forces?This situation makes people tremble when they think about it!I am not saying that our parents are inhuman and do not love their children; no, in fact we love too much.Unfortunately, primitive feelings alone are not enough for everything in the world. What's more, behind the Chinese so-called love for sons, there is an indescribably most selfish motive of "propagating seeds": having sons and looking forward to grandsons, and having grandchildren Look at the great-grandson, no matter if he has sores and ringworm, a thief or a robber, as long as he is old enough to marry a daughter-in-law and pass on the seed!Fertility and reproduction are the will of creation, but the dignity of human beings lies in the ability to use the power of the heart to go beyond the scope of natural law and create another concept of life that other creatures cannot. The primitive outlook on life like ours is not too ironic ?The only purpose of having children for us is to pass on the lifeblood of our ancestors, so the interests of children themselves have absolutely no place.Oh, I know you want to refute that the Chinese family doesn't want to cultivate their children and want them to be promising. "Promising", yes!The old family wants their children to become rich as officials; the new family wants their children to become rich and become officials (now, because of the misery of wage arrears, parents gradually feel that being an official is boring, except for being a military officer, which is a new profession), motivation Isn't it the same to satisfy the vanity and benefits of the old, how many parents have hesitated for half a minute to consider the mission (non-utilitarian) of their children?There is no irony (Ellennee) that is more vicious, colorful, and profound than saying "China is a spiritual civilization"!We now have people who have learned to laugh at the ideals and customs that Victorian England represented.Well, this is Ellen too; we are far less civilized than the so-called "Philippines"!We have learned at least one lesson from the experience of the past few decades, that is, the new must never compromise with the old, just as science cannot compromise superstition, and truth cannot compromise error.Our innovation work must start from the root; all values ​​must be reassessed, the basic concepts of life must be redefined, and all educational policies must be redesigned according to the former, otherwise our nation will have no hope of renewal.

Yes, hope lies in education.But education is the most general term, and the core of importance is what the goal of education is.Ancient Sparta rewarded children to be thieves in order to develop the skills of being spies; the medieval church was to train the church’s slaves; the education of modern imperialism was to invade weak nations; the old Chinese education was to maintain laziness Life.However, although Western education has its own mistakes and absurdities, it still has a certain amount of respect and calculation for human personality, which cannot be denied.Therefore, the first concept we have to confirm is that man is an individual, and he bears direct responsibility for his own life; human life is not a tool that can be used and controlled by the class in power arbitrarily.The problem of education is how to help an educated person behave reasonably.Here we have to assume several important premises: ([-]) people can do good, ([-]) a reasonable life is possible, and ([-]) education has the power to form character.The education I mentioned in this article is almost limited to the cultivation of character, because instilling knowledge is only an education in a very narrow sense and is a practical issue, which is relatively obvious and simple.The progress of modern life disciplines has given us a lot of discoveries and inspirations in education. One thing is to make us pay special attention to children's education, because the most important period of character development is from the time a child is born to the school age. .Before human intelligence can't realize the ideal of "eugenics", we can only use our educational ability to guide children to approach the direction of preparing "ideal people".This is really revolutionary work to get rid of the evil roots of human beings that have been accomplished or even prevented, and hope to realize a reasonable future of group life.It is not the student handing out leaflets, the soldier with the bullet, the preacher or the teacher who holds the revolutionary authority; In our daily life, we expect real revolutionary work activities!

Regarding the nature, principles, and methods of carrying out this revolutionary work, Rousseau has given us great light and hope in his new book "On Education".I heard that Mr. Chen Baoe has begun to translate that book, which is excellent news. We hope that the book will be publicized as much as possible. Parents who really love their children should be close to the wisdom in the book, because in proper children's education Liyin has the most unmissable news to transform society.I may continue to write another article next time, briefly describing the general idea of ​​Rousseau's book and my own feelings.

Originally published on May 1926th/5th, 10, "Morning News Supplement"

Tagore comes to China

In China, Tagore has not only been widely known, but also widely admired.Ask him whose English poems he likes to read, and the elementary school student in his teens will confidently answer Tagore.In the world of new poetry, apart from the most famous personal disciples of Tagore who is Bi Xiao, at least eight or nine of the ten works are directly or indirectly influenced by him.This is an astonishing situation, a foreign poet can have such a popular attraction.

Now that he is coming to China soon, the young admirers of him have heard it. Needless to say, it is the most gratifying news. They are not only looking forward to it every day, but also the color of their dreams. I guess there must be more Added a bit of charm.The present world is a depraved and silent world; when we usually ask for one or two great and holy personalities to give us spiritual comfort, we often have to go back to the past history and form karma with deified scholars, philosophers, poets and artists. Represents a unique genius of a nation and an era; the poor Chinese, who have only lived in spiritual poverty for thousands of years, real life is just a dream with incomplete memories, and real personality is just like the reflection of flowers and plants in the pool water at dusk. Between falsehood and reality, who doesn't miss the prosperity of wisdom in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States, who doesn't always admire Qu Zi's tragic song, Sima's loud voice, and Li Bai's fairy voice;Every time I think about the glory of the past, I can't help but wonder if the current phenomenon of people's desperation and death is just a nightmare. Otherwise, why there was such a huge tide in the spiritual sea of ​​our nation, why is it so silent now?The regular tree planted by Zigong in front of the Confucian Mausoleum and the juniper tree planted by Confucius in the holy temple are credible as the rumors passed on. After two thousand and hundreds of years, after several catastrophes, there are still new branches growing from the old roots from time to time. Hair growth; the vitality of our Chinese geniuses, isn't it like this regular script?
What is freedom?Freedom is the expression of unceasing mental activity.From the founding of the country to the mid-nineteenth century, the Slavic nation was just a huge, dumb monster living in the dull air, but in the past six or seventy years, it has been exhausted, and the sudden loud noise not only awakened itself, but also awakened all dreaming neighbors .The terrible discovery of the soul of Slavic Vio was one of the greatest events in the history of mankind for a hundred years.The Chinese often compare themselves to sleeping lions, which reveals the depravity of our imagination; those who expect a nation to recover or to obtain violence that cannibalize animals are only believers in the most vulgar "rich country and strong soldiers religion". We hope that the meaning of culture in the future will be the same as After the purpose of human beings is clarified, such fallacies can gradually disappear.

Spiritual freedom never needs to be compromised by political, economic or social systems. Let's look at India.Isn't India our so-called dead country?We often refer to India, North Korea and Poland together, as a precedent for subjugation.I dare say that when we met Indians, we did not feel pity, but contempt (I think India is the most misunderstood nation, even though it is in Asia; most people think that Indians are the same as red-headed people on the road) Three are the same thing!) From a political point of view, it is barely fair to say that we are freer than they are.But when it comes to spiritual freedom, we are just like Russia in the past, a huge dumb monster living in a lightless atmosphere, but they (India) have achievements in spiritual activities, which proves that their superficial political slavery has not been overwhelmed, And excited their dormant genius.During this period they produced a religious political leader, Gandhi, and a practical Tolstoy; two great poets, Kalidasa and Tagore.The names of Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore alone are the iron proof that the Indian nation is immortal.

Orientals who can gain ordinary admiration and fame with their personality and deeds do not come from Japan, which is "rich and powerful", or from China, which has an independent political power, but from India, a subjugated nation. This is not something that should be reminded. fact?

We are still not sure what position Tagore occupies in world literature, whether his poems can be regarded as independent contributions, whether his thoughts can represent the undercurrent of Indian revival, his philosophy (like other philosophies) Whether there is a unique realm of these questions, we do not have the ability to answer.But one thing we can say for sure is his immortal personality.His poems, his thoughts, and everything about him may be forgotten and lost time, but the personality formed by his passionate career is a memorable memory for us. [The history of Tagore's life, I always feel that it is not the East, maybe India is not the East. I hope that it is not that he promotes his poetic influence, nor that he preaches his religious, philosophical or even metaphysical ideas, but that his lovely personality shows us a great and profound sense of spirit when we see his youth.The path he walked in his life is the inevitable direction of our modern youth who are devoted to literature and art.His whole life is just a constant and passionate effort to open up his natural talents inwardly and naturally absorb the nutrients he deserves.Although his situation is first-class and smooth, the simplicity of his material life does not reflect the hardship and danger of his spiritual life.We know that the lives of poets and artists focus on the inner realm that outsiders cannot grasp.There may be famous people in history who have not suffered material suffering in their lives, but there is absolutely no one who has not experienced the storm and gloomy dark period in the spiritual world.Gerd is an example of not worrying about food and clothing all his life, but he told his friend at the age of 76 that he had never had four weeks of happiness in his life, and his life was only in trouble, pain and labor.Tagore is a prominent example in the East, and his scars are all in the mysterious spiritual palace.

We doubly welcome Tagore to come to China, because his superb and harmonious personality can give us immeasurable comfort, can develop our original and stagnant spiritual springs, can indicate the direction and standard of our efforts, and can correct modern times. Unrestrained and unrestrained abnormal behavior can soothe our worries about seeing the ancients, calm our nervousness during the transition period, expand our sympathy and love, and lead us into a complete dream.

For example, the problems of one period can be synthesized into one, and the modern problem is just "how to be a person"?In a situation similar to ours, Tagore has solved his personal problems very noblely, so he is our mentor and role model.

He is a poet, especially a man, a pure being; his greatest work is his personality.This is a very common saying, so I repeat it here for fear of misunderstanding.People are not afraid of being worshiped, but they are most afraid of being misunderstood.Gerd said that the most uncomfortable thing is the unconscious worship.Tagore himself often mentioned it.He was only a poet and artist at first and finally, if you like, even if he has religious or philosophical thoughts, they are only the occasional expression of his poetic heart, and he never talks about philosophy for philosophers, or teaches religion for religion's sake.Some people like to compare his thinking with this or that Western philosophy, thinking that he is showing the fusion of the Eastern spirit of the times with the West; It may be interesting for those who prefer it, but there is absolutely nothing invented for Tagore.For example, someone saw the morning prayer he used in the Santiniketan school in Nicotine
"Thou art our Father. Do you help us to know thee as Father. We bow down to Thee. Do thou never afflict us, O Father, by causing a separation between Thee and us. O thou self revealing One, O Thou Parent of the universe, purge away the multitude of our sins, and send unto us whatever is good and noble. To Thee, from whom spring joy and goodness, nay who art all goodness myself, to Thee we bow down now and for ever.”

When the Christians saw this prayer, they must have pulled Ben’s family, saying that Tagore must have converted to Christ, but they heard their evening prayers later.
“The Deity who is in fire and water, nay, who pervades the Universe through and through, and makes His abode in tiny plants and towering forests—to such a Deity we bow down for ever and ever& ever& ever .”

Isn't that the most obvious form of pantheism?There may be Lucretius, there may be Spinoza, there may be Upanishads, but it is definitely not a monotheism like the Father, anyone can see it.Looking back at Jietanjali's poems, I found that Lia was neither Christian nor pantheistic.As a result, those who are usually good at controlling everything with seals and inscriptions are absolutely confused. When they see that this is not easy to handle, they say that Tagore's religious thoughts are not thorough, and so on.In fact, the only explanation is that Tagore was a poet, not a religious man.Nor are they specialized philosophers.Whether there are one or two gods or countless or none, the standard of the poet is only the truth of the poetic realm; in the eyes of ordinary people, conflicts that cannot be tolerated (because they only see the words) seem to him to be just one body. Harmony (because he can understand reality beyond words).

Similarly, in terms of philosophy, some people have studied separately, saying that his theory of personality is close to falsehood, and that his theory of art is influenced by falsehood... This is also futile.Ever since there were university professors, especially those in the United States, students have been busy with: comparative studies, comparative constitutional studies, comparative ethnology, comparative religious studies, comparative pedagogy, comparing this and that. I think it would be more interesting to come to a comparative university professor to study the pure art of thought!

The reason why thoughts are not dross and what makes art not ordinary is that they are complete, independent, and purely unanalyzable.If they are different, there is no comparison. Comparing a Western school of religious philosophy to a creative artist is like comparing Tang Caizhi or Wang Yufeng to a purely creative musician.

As long as we can appreciate the personality in Tagore's poetry and appreciate his personality-filled poems, that's enough. Other things will be taken care of by special nerds, so we don't need to bother.

(End of this chapter)