Author | Nanfengchuang
"It always takes countless time to pass by in vain before we can wait for a truly historic moment - a moment when human stars shine."
- Zweig
01
1898, the Reform Movement of 1898 fail.
Liang Qichao fled Japan overnight. The blood of the Six Gentlemen was spilled at Caishikou.
Cai Yuanpei, who was an editor of the Hanlin Academy, was disappointed with the Qing Dynasty and resigned and returned to his hometown in Shaoxing.
At that time, Yan Fu was translating Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations". After hearing the news, he wrote with grief and indignation, "It is a crime to seek treatment" and "Don't be discouraged."
The intellectuals who have changed their thinking have completely become disillusioned with the old empire and no longer trust it.
In the depressing environmental atmosphere, they crave change. Soon, they will all be drawn to a new worldview.
This world view was brought by Yan Fu.
21 years ago, in 1877, Yan Fu studied at the Royal Naval College in Greenwich, a suburb of London, England. At that time, he was 23 years old. He had already been an intern on a warship for five years, and had been to Singapore, Japan, and Taiwan.
In the UK, he came into contact with Darwin, Spencer, Bentham, Adam Smith, and Mill. He was deeply impressed by the fairness and seriousness of the British rule of law. Guo Songtao, the minister to the UK, lamented that the gunfire in Europe was here.
After returning to China, Yan Fu translated Huxley's "Evolution and Ethics", removed the ethics, and translated the title of the book into "On the Evolution of Heaven".
"Survival of the fittest, victory of the fittest."
From then on, Hu Siruo was no longer in the world, but Hu Shizhi was.
Lu Xun was studying at the Mining Road School. He ran to the south of the city on a Sunday and spent 500 yuan to buy a copy. Only then did I realize, "It turns out that there is actually a Huxley sitting in his study who thinks like that, and the thought is so fresh? After reading it in one breath, 'The Competition of Things' and 'Natural Selection' also came out, as did Socrates and Plato." Now, Stoicism has also come out."
After Yan Fu, an even more surging tide of Western learning came in. Science, democracy, freedom, and civilization all came in one after another.
Wave after wave of new knowledge washes away the cognition of young people.
action, aroused.
02
1919, May Fourth.
The students were so angry that they walked out of the school and took to the streets.
Cai Yuanpei stopped him at the school gate. "The students refused, so he got out of the way," leaving only a thin figure.
One night a month later, 41-year-old Chen Duxiu stuffed his pockets with the "Beijing Citizens' Declaration" that he wrote and financed the printing of. He also took to the streets like an angry student, handing out leaflets.
The first time, he succeeded. The second time, he was arrested and imprisoned by agents of the National Police Agency, and was imprisoned for 98 days.
"When you leave the laboratory, you will go to jail." He practiced his teachings to young people.
Before and after the May 4th New Culture Movement, it was the most glorious period in Chen Duxiu's life.
When he founded "New Youth", he was not only a reporter, but also a main writer and editor-in-chief, supporting a publication by himself.
"New Youth" was published on January 1st, each issue has about 100 pages, and the 6th issue is a volume. From its inception in 1915 to August 1917, there were a total of 3 volumes, 18 issues, and 1,800 pages, all written by Chen Duxiu. .
In less than two years, "New Youth" was eagerly sought after by new youths, and Chen Duxiu became a youth leader.
"Diary of a Madman" was published in "New Youth", Volume 4, Issue 5, May 15, 1918. Lu Xun was born out of nowhere.
At that time, Lu Xun, who felt that "no one came to agree or oppose" in the early days of "New Youth" and was particularly "lonely", was still hesitant about submitting articles:
"If it is an iron house, it will never be the same." The windows are extremely difficult to break, and there are many sleeping people inside, who will soon be suffocated to death. However, from sleep to death, they do not feel the sorrow of death. Now you are shouting, startling a few people who are more awake. , Do you think you are worthy of making these unfortunate few suffer irreparable dying pain?"
Qian Xuantong answered him: "However, since a few people have risen, you cannot say that there is no hope of destroying this iron house. ."
Lu Xun got up and said, "From now on, he can't take back his words."
He used his pen as a knife to carve a pair of hard and tough bones.
03
In 1923, the most sensational thing in the intellectual world was a great discussion called the Science and Metaphysics Debate.
On February 14 of that year, Zhang Junmai gave a speech on "Outlook on Life" at Tsinghua University: Can science solve our outlook on life?
His conclusion is negative: "No matter how advanced science is, the solution to the problem of outlook on life is definitely beyond the power of science." It only depends on each person to give the answer.
"Since China started promoting reform and reform, no one who claims to be a new figure has dared to openly slander 'science'" (Hu Shi). At this time, Mr. Sai was openly questioned. When the
debate was in full swing, Liang Qichao was recuperating in Cuiweishan, Beijing, but he "couldn't help but feel itchy" and wrote two articles in succession to participate in the war.
His main idea is that human emotions are super-scientific. In a society where science is omnipotent, the weak can eat the strong, desires are inflated, and competition is fierce, people's spiritual world will face desolation.
Four years ago, Liang Qichao went to Europe. When the intellectual community collectively looked westward, he did not see hope from Europe.
On the contrary, he saw:
"The material progress in one hundred years is several times more than what was achieved in the previous three thousand years. Not only did we humans not gain happiness, but it brought many disasters, like a lost traveler in the desert. Seeing a big black shadow, I rushed forward desperately, thinking that I could rely on it as a guide. However, after a few miles, the shadow disappeared, so I was infinitely sad and disappointed. Who was the shadow? It was this 'Mr. Science'. The Europeans did A great dream of scientific omnipotence has now led to the bankruptcy of science. This is a major key to the recent changes in ideological trends."
It was also around this time that socialism and Marxism, a kind of socialism, were very important to people at that time. It is said that new doctrines and practices that can be called hope were introduced to the East and took root.
04
After being imprisoned, Chen Duxiu, according to Hu Shi, received some kind of religious inspiration and gradually moved towards communism in the 20th century.
He, Cai Yuanpei, Li Dazhao and others initiated the establishment of the Beijing Work-Study Mutual Aid Group Movement to carry out utopian socialist practices, but they all came to nothing in a short period of time.
When Chen Duxiu returned to Shanghai with "New Youth" again, he completely parted ways with Hu Shi, who advocated talking about practical issues and pragmatism.
After the May Fourth Movement, Chen Duxiu transformed from the leader of the May Fourth New Culture Movement, an intellectual and scholar who edited and published, to the leader of the new Communist Party of China and a life-threatening revolutionary.
was imprisoned several times because of this.
But after that, he devoted his life to revolution and ideals.
While men were thinking about where China was going and reimagining China's place in the world, He Yin Zhen showed no interest.
Her thinking is not carried out within the traditional framework of the dualism between China and the West, enriching the country and strengthening the army, and revolutionary reforms.
She and her husband Liu Shipei, a well-known anarchist, maintained an ideological and emotional distance from the mainstream power structure.
He Yin Zhen’s own thinking bears a strong imprint of Marxism. She focuses on how industrial capitalism systematically produces a poor proletariat.
is based on the original concept of "livelihood". The world He Yinzhen sees is the alienation of human beings by exploitative structures dominated by capitalism, colonialism, nationalism, and imperialism. In these unequal structures, capital and Uneven accumulation of wealth leads to social injustice.
Thus, thinking and criticism must also be carried out at the global level. Nation-states are nothing more than producers and protectors of social hierarchies.
Due to this logic of thinking, as early as 1907, she criticized European and American human rights for pursuing "pseudo freedom" and "pseudo equality." She also understood that gender is a social construct 42 years earlier than Beauvoir.
05
In an era when metaphysical issues are fully considered, there are also people who are doing concrete things.
Tao Xingzhi, one of the earliest advocates of civilian education, also had the experience of abandoning medicine to pursue literature. He was also obsessed with modern science and technology and social and political philosophy. He also initiated or organized various speeches, movements, and exhibitions. .
However, his contact with the working people made him deeply realize that without real civic education, there can be no real republic.
Tao Xingzhi took off his suit and taught knowledge to coachmen, fishermen, begging children, and restaurant cooks. He also provided education at work, on the streets, and in prisons, held summer schools, and advocated co-educational education for both men and women.
In his view, "life is education and society is school." An education that only teaches students to work hard but not hard is a "cannibal education."
Through civilian education, he wants to break through the "horizontal classes" of the rich and poor, and eliminate the "vertical classes" of the three religions and nine schools, so as to realize the universal and comprehensive connection of society.
Fei Xiaotong is also working in the countryside.
Behind him were the embers of the revolution, and in front of him were endless new problems. At that time, Chinese society was facing unprecedented changes.
In Jinxiu Yao Mountain, Guangxi, he showed the social characteristics and national culture of the Hualan Yao people; in his hometown, Jiangcun, he recorded the process of drastic changes caused by external shocks; in Lucun, he discussed the land system issue.
's systematic summary of China's rural social structure was written in "Rural China". In this book, he refined the "differential pattern".
"In the differential order pattern, social relations are gradually pushed out from one person to another, which is an increase in personal connections. The social scope is a network composed of private connections. Therefore, all social ethics in our traditional society Meaning only occurs in personal relationships."
In the process of modernization, although the original order of rural society has been strongly impacted, a society full of vitality and future also needs to be based on rural ethics.
In his later years, Fei Xiaotong cared about the "cultural consciousness" of sociology and returned to traditional Chinese culture to re-find his own position and sort out the past again. He hoped that through himself, he could "bring the May Fourth generation of intellectuals into the big topic of cultural consciousness." Go inside."
06
In 1988, one month before his death, Liang Shuming told reporters that his expectation for Chinese culture "is to conform to the trend of the times."
Liang Shuming, the "last Confucian" and a staunch guardian of the unique values of Chinese culture, did not feel that China was lagging behind when the logic of natural selection and survival of the fittest deeply dominated the minds of a generation of Chinese people. Looking for opportunities for rebirth of Chinese tradition.
In his eyes, Chinese culture matured prematurely, which led to its stagnation and also caused it to skip scientific thinking.
But this is a characteristic of Chinese culture, not necessarily a weakness. China's specialty is "people versus people", while the West's specialty is "people versus things". This is where the two cultures develop in different ways.
In the future, Chinese culture should add ethics to the IQ of "benevolence, justice, propriety, wisdom and trust", and the mutual relationship of "group to individual" and "individual to group". The two should respect each other, thus cultivating a democratic atmosphere.
clock back. In 1903, when Yan Fu translated Mill's "On Liberty", he translated it as "On the Boundaries of the Rights of the Group and the Self". Together they sensed something China needed.
In China for a century, there are many people who love deeply.
Their anger, unwillingness, forbearance, and stubbornness are all about their love for the country and the nation; their love for society, their love for mankind; their love for women, their love for the weak; their love for culture, and their love for ideas. like. And, love for yourself.
Their love comes in all forms. Or it is expressed as rebellion, such as Chen Duxiu, Lu Xun, and Cai Yuanpei;
Or it goes deep into the countryside and poor people, such as Fei Xiaotong and Tao Xingzhi;
Or it strives to connect Chinese and Western civilizations and combine new civilizations, such as Yan Fu, Liang Qichao, Hu Shi, and Liang Shuming;
Or those who are deeply engaged in professional fields, such as Lin Huiyin and Zhao Yuanren;
Or, they can transcend the country and nation and have a profound sense of introspection, such as Yin Zhen.
Looking up into the distance, these resounding names are like shining stars illuminating the night sky.
Editor | Mingting
Typesetting | Leyan
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