After sending Chen Yuyi away, Wang Xiao walked out of the official hall and paced slowly in the yard.
It is early summer, most of the flowers have faded, and peaches, plums, and apricots are all covered with green fruits. The pomegranate flowers are in full bloom, and the small pomegranates also show their shadows.
The lotus in the pond bloomed, and a pink flower sprang out from the emerald green, swaying gently in the wind. A few red flies flew among the flowers, landing on the lotus buds from time to time, and remained motionless on them.
Wang Xiaolie walked to the sycamore tree and sat down, quietly looking at the scenery in the yard and meditating quietly.
From the Book of Songs to the Yuefu of the Han Dynasty, poetry contained less and less content expressing folk joys, anger, sorrows, and joys, until it developed into a literary genre for upper-class literati. This shows what? It shows that the artistry of folk poetry is declining, and it also shows that the upper class pays less and less attention to it. There are many reasons for the decline of art, such as the evolution of language, the growing gap between the upper class and the lower class, etc. It is worrying that the upper class does not pay attention to the lower class.
Just like a family, the father works hard outside, bears all kinds of pressure, and fights for life. After returning home, although there were happy scenes, there were also beatings and scoldings of the children. At this time, it is impossible for the mother to protect her child without saying a word of promise. This is equivalent to encouraging the father and making the foundation stronger. When a mother protects her child, in addition to protecting the child, she must also reprimand the father loudly.
Folk poetry, or other similar art forms, is the voice of the people's mother to the government father. This voice sometimes reprimands, sometimes praises. For the healthy growth of children, special attention should be paid to the sound of scolding.
Chinese tradition often compares those in power to fathers, the people to children, and the country to a family. A family should not only include father and children, but also the voice of the mother. Folk songs, ditties and other folk entertainment are often the voice of mother.
In Chinese, a country is often called a country. Treating the country as a family should not only be used to regulate the people, but also those in power.
Regarding the understanding of country and family, China and the West are different. This difference is not just a difference in wording, but will affect all aspects of politics and society. Clarifying these issues will give people a clearer political understanding.
Human civilization, from a large perspective, is about how people understand nature and themselves, so as to correctly treat, manage and apply them.
After the Revolution of 1911, Chinese literati gradually formed an idea that society progresses in one direction, and those that follow must be more advanced than the original, and those in the West must be more advanced than those in the East. This kind of thinking is wrong. It should be said that at that time, Western civilization was more advanced than Eastern civilization. But historically, this has not been the case.
In terms of the progress of civilization, Western philosophy is not the source that supports the progress of Western science. On the contrary, in the process of scientific development, we constantly break through the shackles of philosophical thought. If we adopt a comparative learning attitude, we should make choices in Western ideas.
Western philosophy and Chinese thought cannot be simply compared. Philosophy and thought are two concepts that should be treated differently.
If human thought is divided into two parts, one is thinking about nature, and the other is thinking about human beings themselves, these two parts are also out of sync. Naturally speaking, Western philosophy has no answer. Those who highly admire Western philosophy mainly do so because of the West’s achievements in natural science.
If civilization is considered as human beings' understanding of themselves, then Western philosophy's achievements in civilization are approximately equivalent to China's Tang and Song Dynasties. The status of Kant and Hegel should be compared to that of Lu Jiuyuan and Zhu Xi in China. The comparison with Laozi and Confucius is inappropriate. Therefore, Hegel's comments about Confucius were people of different levels forcibly commenting on the character. He could not understand Confucius, and his comments were ridiculous.
If there is an alternative in Western philosophy, it should be the bearded man. However, the big beard has made a start, but the West has not continued to develop.
So when it comes to studying philosophy, or studying thought in China, we have to go to the end of time and see where they started. Weights are made by humans to understand and study the world, so it is more appropriate to use weights as a metaphor. For a philosopher or thinker, one should ask how heavy the weight is. If the weight of the mark does not match the actual weight, the weight is wrong or the mark is wrong.
Western philosophers, whether materialistic or idealistic, have their thoughts restricted by God. Until now, no Western thinker has been able to break through this restriction, whether it is positive or negative, whether it is for or against. If we must forcefully compare the history of Chinese civilization, Western Kant, Hegel, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Descartes and others can be compared to the Confucian scholars of the Tang and Song Dynasties, and Sartre can be compared to Wang Yangming. Its status in the history of thought is roughly the same. Their specific thoughts may be different, but in fact they have a common thread.
China has five thousand years of civilization. Could it be that all five thousand years of civilization have survived to dogs? Time is a necessary condition for civilized understanding, and it is not that easy to skip it. Even if one or two otherworldly figures appear, they will not reach the general public. Because they either don’t understand what you say, or they don’t want to understand.
After the fall of the Song Dynasty, China actually regressed in terms of civilization and thought. Although Zhu Yuanzhang made great achievements in expelling the Tartars and restoring China, in terms of ideology, he actually inherited the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty. By the Qing Dynasty, it had even regressed to the point where it became the plaything of the world.
Wang Xiaolie once watched a TV series "Yongzheng Dynasty" and remembered that Yongzheng said something to someone, to the effect that I am the most powerful scholar in the world. This sentence is so arrogant that I always remember it. Of course Yongzheng was the most powerful scholar in the world. When he said this, either Yongzheng was ignorant, or the person who wrote this line in the TV series was ignorant. Scholars are not that cheap. Even though Yongzheng had read all the books in the world, he was not qualified to say this. It is nothing more than that some scholars came to serve as officials and were controlled by Yongzheng, and some did not come to serve as officials and were not controlled by Yongzheng. Even those who came out to be officials and were under the supervision of Yongzheng may not necessarily have what they thought in their minds.
By the Qing Dynasty, Chinese civilization had actually reached its bottom. What if the Qing Dynasty was not overthrown? It's nothing more than retreating step by step to the state of those nations you now despise.
During the Ming Dynasty, Wang Yangming appeared in China and proposed the theory of mind. However, Xin Xue did not become popular in China. Instead, it gained attention in the island nation of Japan. Because the Japanese pay attention to and admire it, a certain Chinese leader also admires it. Liang Qichao even proposed that there are only two semi-sages in China, namely Confucius, Wang Yangming and Zeng Guofan. It is ridiculous for Wang Yangming to be a saint, and it is ridiculous to say that Zeng Guofan is half a saint.
In Liang Qichao's era, China became the plaything of the great powers, and everything went wrong. It was understandable that scholars lost their minds and said some unreliable things. In fact, it is not just Liang Qichao. Some people have proposed using Latin instead of Chinese characters. Some people have suggested that everything in China is bad and that all learning from the West should be abandoned. Even Lu Xun made a career out of criticizing China's national character. In fact, what is the problem with China’s national character? It's just that the ruler is too bad.
We should not forget these critics. Some of what they said is right and some is wrong, but they are all good medicine to awaken the nation. It is with them that more revolutionaries can be awakened. We should not exaggerate the role of these critics. Many of them are just critics.
Nearly two hundred years have passed, and after the hard work of critics, revolutionaries, and builders, we finally have the opportunity and the conditions to re-examine the differences between Chinese civilization and Western civilization. At this time, not being able to correctly understand this point seems to be somewhat unqualified.
It is wrong to say that the sprouts of capitalism appeared in Chinese history. China may not have capitalism. It would not be wrong to say that the Song Dynasty was China's most prosperous period. This kind of prosperity is civilized, not simply economic or military.
It is said that Western philosophy is roughly equivalent to China's Tang and Song Dynasties in the journey of civilization. Many people are unconvinced. In their eyes, Kant, Hegel and Sartre were so great in their thoughts and so clear in their views. Some people even speak Kant and Hegel silently, pretending to be very profound. To be sure, he understands neither Kant nor Hegel. Just like when he criticized Zhu Xi and Lu Jiuyuan, they neither understood Zhu Xi nor Lu Jiuyuan. Precisely because you don’t understand, you can read these people’s books and pretend to understand.
After the Song Dynasty, Buddhism made its entrance in China at the ideological level. It shows that Chinese civilization encountered difficulties at that time, and scholars had to seek other methods to solve their own confusions. That does not mean the progress of Chinese civilization, but that Chinese thought encountered unsolvable problems at that time and had to temporarily escape from other people's thoughts in the hope of finding inspiration.
Nowadays, scholars who study Chinese philosophy like to study the mind and Zen Buddhism the most. There are even scholars who think that their research is very profound. When they are proud of it, they like to say, "When I go to a certain Zen master, I can ask him, have I enlightened?" I don’t know how Zen Master XX answered, but what is certain is that if you go to the Buddha and ask if you have enlightenment, the Buddha will definitely tell you that you have not.
Buddha is another civilization. If you study Chinese philosophy, ask monks or even Buddha, how can you possibly achieve enlightenment?
Anyone who studies the mind cannot escape this fact. Mind Learning was not popular in China. It was only after it became popular in Japan and spread back to China that some people picked it up. It’s not that there is anything wrong with the theory of mind. History has already given the answer. This theory is suitable for Japan but not for China. If you want to talk about the wisdom and great significance of mind-based learning, you can only use the Meiji Restoration as an example. The principal, who particularly admired the study of mind, had no choice but to go to the island.
People follow the laws of statistics according to probability distribution, which determines that the more correct it is, the fewer people will understand and agree with it. People's thoughts and understanding are all on a distribution curve. The closer you are to the center, the fewer people you understand. This cannot be changed and there is nothing that can be done about it.
But Wang Xiaolie didn't need to pay attention to this, because in the Song Dynasty, no one bothered him about the development of philosophy. After many years, after confirming that your thoughts are correct, just do it according to your own understanding.
Does Western civilization need to be studied? Of course you need to learn, and there is a lot to learn. It's not that China was defeated or bullied, but that many of their things are right.
Why is it said that Western classical philosophy is equivalent to China's Tang and Song Dynasties and there is still much to learn? This is the same as saying that the Song Dynasty was more developed than the Liao and Jin Dynasties, but why it could not defeat the Liao and Jin Dynasties. Why forcefully compare unrelated things?
The prerequisite for learning is to know what you are learning. Just like when teaching the history of philosophy in the United States, it is correct to teach Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates first. But when teaching the history of philosophy in China, it is absolutely incorrect to teach these three people first. Because this sequence shows that the teacher himself does not understand these three people.
The world is complex and cannot be simplified. If you simplify, you will make mistakes. The so-called grabbing the beard and eyebrows is not enough.
What should Wang Xiaolie do in this world? If we learn from history, how can we do what the West does? Of course that's not possible. The process of Western civilization has only reached this stage, where productivity has only progressed. Productivity only determines production relations, not civilization. Even the same production relations under different civilizations will inevitably have different appearances. Governance based on Western theories is even more fanciful, and they are not yet able to formulate clear theories.
This is a road that no one has opened, and Wang Xiaolie needs to go out on his own.
Is it necessary to do this just to be a capable minister, an emperor, or even a wise king? unnecessary. Even if you copy history, even if you copy wrongly, the progress of productivity can defeat everyone. It is not difficult to be a successful person who has flowers blooming, beautiful women in his arms, and being praised by people all over the world.
But if I just want to be a successful person, what do I need to do? Looking at this world, most people can do it. Now that I'm here, of course it's different.
If others can do it, just let others do it. I came into this world to be different. It is necessary to do it, and it will never work for anyone other than me. A person must have value, and this is my value to this world.
