Hello everyone, I am Anthony
Welcome to my channel
Today I want to talk to you about the topic of enlightenment
I was chatting with a friend a few days ago
This friend also likes to watch my channel
She said my show is to enlighten others
Open wisely
I am grateful for her compliment.
But I don't think that was my motive.
It's not because I'm humble.
But because I expect
Communicate and discuss with peers on an equal footing
Rather than inspiring or educating others
That's just right
I recently reread some new novels after the May Fourth Movement
I have a new idea about this topic
So this video
Let’s discuss the dilemma of enlightenment in China.
Before the video starts, let me say
If you have anything you want to discuss with me
And consulting topics
You can contact my email to make an appointment
So let's get back to our topic today.
We say
The word enlightenment is completely from the West.
This meaning does not exist in Chinese.
The word "Qi" comes from Confucius.
The Analects of Confucius says: If you are not angry, you will not be enlightened; if you are not frustrated, you will not speak out.
When students still can't figure it out,
Then inspire him and enlighten him
The inspiration here
It is an external inspiration from teachers to students.
What does the word Meng mean?
It is the pure, innocent and confused state of a child.
so
The two words "enlightenment" are combined
To enlighten the uncivilized
Treat them as children and educate them
But this translation is different from the original meaning of enlightenment.
For example, English enlightenment
Literally means to illuminate
French and German enlightenment also have light
The meaning of light
It is the light of reason that illuminates my soul
It does not necessarily mean to inspire others.
It's more about self-inspiration
Self-Awakening
As Kant believed
Some people are the guides of others' thoughts.
and guardian
Enlightenment is to get rid of this immature state.
That is, not daring to use one's own intellect independently.
Although the enlightenment process of human beings
necessarily involves learning from others
Communicate with others
But in the final analysis
This light
It comes from your own soul.
It comes from what everyone has.
Transcendental and practical reason
The Chinese word for enlightenment
It seems that there is always a need for an inspirer
and the inspired
Teachers and students
Subject and Object
Enlightenment in this sense
A guardian
Top-down enlightenment of the ward
This is exactly contrary to the original spirit of the Enlightenment.
This is clearly reflected in the 20th century
China's largest enlightenment movement
That is, during the May Fourth Movement
At that time, a large number of intellectuals and young people
Sharply criticizing China's social system,
Culture and History
Including Mao Zedong himself in his youth
Can also be regarded as an enthusiastic enlightenment youth
This was quite pioneering at the time.
The spirit of liberation and progress
Later it was gradually transformed into
Part of the official ideology
Until the Cultural Revolution
Although there is nothing left of the Enlightenment thought
But in name
It can still be traced back to the May Fourth Movement
Then the progressive and liberating ideas of the past
How did it deteriorate little by little?
I recently watched some of that era
Novels about awakening thoughts
I found that many writers were
There is an obvious commonality
That is, I particularly like to describe teacher-student love
To be precise
It's a love story between a male teacher and a female student
Although
They are not necessarily teachers or students.
But their interaction fits the pattern of teacher-student love
The male protagonists are basically scholars and intellectuals.
They attract women mainly through knowledge and talent
The heroines are also very beautiful and gentle.
Pure and clear
They also have some culture and pursuits
But encountered difficulties
So in love
Mainly the object of enlightenment and education by men
For example, in Yang Mo's "Song of Youth"
The growth of the heroine Lin Daojing
Always being chased by one man after another in her life
Driven and awakened
In the contradictory novel Creation
The protagonist Junshi
Want to take his wife Xianxian
Transformed into an ideal woman
So I arranged for Xianxian to read various Western works.
For example, materialism, evolutionism, Nietzsche's philosophy, etc.
In Lu Xun's short story "Sorrows of Death"
The love between the male protagonist Junsheng and Zijun is also a chat
Of course, this kind of chat is one-way.
Zijun always keeps her beautiful eyes open
Smiling and watching Junsheng talking
Various writers and philosophers
Finally, I said: I am my own
They didn't interfere with my rights.
Junsheng immediately felt
Chinese women are not hopeless
I feel that my enlightenment has finally paid off.
There is also Ye Shengtao's novel "Ni Huanzhi"
It is also a similar relationship between male teachers and female students.
In summary, we can find
The relationship between men and women as conceived by intellectuals during the May Fourth Movement
Often based on one-way enlightenment
Their love seems very pure.
It is to report the title of the book, make a list of books, and give lectures.
Or promote progressive ideas
Then the woman is saved spiritually by the man
And fell in love with a man
This kind of love between men and women based on enlightenment
Of course, it is also a microcosm of the relationship between intellectuals and the masses.
certainly
The ideological levels of these novels are also different
Let’s start with Yang Mo’s “Song of Youth”
Song of Youth describes the 1930s
A series of love stories that happened at Peking University
This book has sold millions of copies.
Translated into more than a dozen languages
Today
It has also been officially included in the reading guidance catalog for primary and secondary school students
The novel is based on the heroine Lin Daojing
The main clue is the love affair with three men
It shows Lin Daojing's transformation from an individualist,
Liberal intellectuals
The transformation process into a communist fighter
The story begins with a description of Lin Daojing's image
A simple, lonely, beautiful girl of seventeen or eighteen
Sitting on the train
This girl is wearing a short cheongsam, white socks, and white sneakers.
Holding a white handkerchief in hand
All white
The men around her began to notice and talk about her.
novel
Why is the heroine set to be all white?
White brings a sense of purity,
A gentle and untainted feeling
There is also a sense of fragility and vulnerability
Like a blank sheet of paper that has not been written on yet
It implies Lin Daojing's uncivilized and naive mental state.
The novel begins
Describe the prying and staring of the men around you
It also highlights her subsequent growth
The difficulties to be faced
she
It seems to be the object of desire of men one after another
At first, Lin Daojing escaped from the dark family of origin
Suffering from various misfortunes in society
finally
Met a man who could help her find a job
However, I unexpectedly learned
The other party just wanted to give me to the county magistrate as a concubine.
She was desperate.
Want to commit suicide by jumping into the sea
She was rescued by Yu Yongze who had been watching her from the side.
This is the first man in her life.
Yu Yongze is a student at Peking University
A liberal intellectual
What attracted Lin Daojing to him was mainly his literary level.
Yu Yongze talked to him about Tolstoy's "War and Peace"
Hugo's "Les Miserables" Byron's Poetry
We talked about Cao Xueqin, Du Fu and Lu Xun in China
then
Lin Daojing opened her eyes wide
Listen
The beautiful words that flowed slowly from her mouth
Yu Yongze also encouraged her
Praise her for being an independent woman
She was also very touched
I like this young man
They soon started living together.
This is a typical May Fourth youth love
However
The passion after living together quickly faded
Lin's life is full of washing pots and dishes.
Shopping, cooking, washing, sewing, etc.
She felt dull and suffocated.
Although Yu Yongze said that women should leave the kitchen
But I still hope Lin can stay at home and do things
Lin Daojing is eager to go out and find a job
Yu Yongze was not very happy
After Lin Daojing encountered difficulties in finding a job
Yu Yongze was secretly happy again
He always thinks about how to find a job after graduation.
I plan to study textual criticism in order to find a job.
Lin Daojing finally discovered
Yu Yongze is a selfish, vulgar, and petty person
The novel obviously intends to use this
Criticizing the narrow-mindedness of liberalism and individualism
So as to
The heroine's move toward communism
However
The novel creates the character Yu Yongze
It's just to cater to the red ideology
A target set
It is a metaphor for the 1930s
Left-wing intellectuals
Hostility to so-called individualism and liberalism
But this is precisely the stigma against liberalism.
Yu Yongze's personality
Rather than being Western
It's better to say it's Confucian
His ideal life is to marry, have children and live a good life
Men are out there pursuing their careers
Woman washing clothes and cooking at home
At the same time, men rely on their knowledge
You can make women worship you forever
This is actually
Closer to the traditional Chinese model of a talented scholar and a beautiful woman
This is far from the Enlightenment ideology of advocating freedom and equality.
Because of the novel's negation of Yu Yongze
It is distorted in itself
therefore
The heroine's next growth is also very suspicious
The next man Lin Daojing met
It was Lu Jiachuan, a Communist Party member who was also a Peking University student.
The two gradually fell in love
Lu Jiachuan doesn't care much about the details of finding a job.
He always speaks in an indignant and inflammatory tone.
To talk about revolution, country, history, politics
He said passionately:
We first seek the liberation of the Chinese nation
Then there is our personal way out and liberation
This gave Lin Daojing a sense of grand vision.
and new growth
She felt this was her destiny.
It transcends the mediocre philosophy of the petty bourgeoisie.
However
Is Lu Jiachuan really more "progressive" than Yu Yongze?
They met for the second time
In an apartment in Beijing
Lu Jiachuan said to Lin:
"perhaps
This is because you have lived in the ivory tower for too long
Xiaolin, in this stormy era
You should get out of your own little circle as soon as possible.
Look at this big world
How miserable this world is
But how beautiful it is
Come out and have a look!"
then
Lu Jiachuan asked her again:
You haven't read any books on social sciences, have you?
You can read it
Soviet literature is also very good.
You like literature and art
You should read "Iron Flow" and "Destruction"
And Gorky's "Mother"
It can be seen
Lu Jiachuan and his relationship
It is still a one-way book list and preaching
Just this book list
Different from the Western book lists that Yu Yongze likes
All Soviet books
The principles he talked about were all revolutionary principles.
In the communication between two people
Lin Daojing is still the passive listener
She often feels
I know nothing about national affairs.
And every word of Lu Jiachuan
It can open a trick for her mind.
Lin Daojing
Once again I felt myself being shaken by the surging passion
Feel unprecedented satisfaction and happiness
Lu Jiachuan represents the Marxist theorists
In the official ideology
Marxism
It is a negation and transcendence of liberalism
However, theory cannot save China after all
Therefore, the novel is finished.
After Lu Jiachuan completed his enlightenment to the heroine
He was arranged to be killed by the Kuomintang
Lin's third man is Jiang Hua, the county party secretary.
Jiang Hua likes to guide him
Focus on the practical problems of the Chinese revolution
If the first two men like to make book lists
Talk about the truth
Then Jiang Hua prefers to be an examiner
The novel describes a conversation between them during their passionate love period.
Jiang Hua suddenly asked her: "Dao Jing
Let's talk about something else -
You know
What is the fundamental problem of the Chinese revolution now?
The heroine couldn't answer
Jiang Hua then asked: What do you think of China’s revolution?
What path will the company take in the future?
Lin Daojing could only fiddle with her handkerchief back and forth.
Can't answer
She feels that she reads a lot of books.
But it involves the specific issues of the Chinese revolution
I can't answer a single question.
Jiang Hua corrected her mistake again
then
She listened to the other person again with full concentration
A feeling of reverence arises spontaneously
Finally, Lin Daojing swore
We must strive for the communist ideal all our lives
At this time, she completely got rid of her girlishness.
Started organizing demonstrations by Peking University students
Become a leader of a mass movement
The story ends here
The heroine finally completed her growth
The author obviously wants to use these three men
Representing Chinese intellectuals
Three Choices after the May Fourth Movement
And use this to reflect the progress of the heroine
However
Whether it is enlightenment from the perspective of the left
Or enlightenment from the right-wing perspective?
We can easily find
Under these superficial differences
There are some consistent things
That is, they didn't really see each other.
From beginning to end
They are all condescending to enlighten and educate each other
Although they also listened to the heroine telling her own story
But it just presupposes a set of inherent ideas.
Then give the other party a typified diagnosis directly
Guide the other party to realize that women's independence
The idea of national liberation
But it didn’t create a space
Let the other person think freely
Free to draw conclusions
As we said before
This imagination of the relationship between men and women
In fact, it was also the 20th century
Metaphor of the relationship between intellectuals and the masses
When intellectuals regard themselves as the enlighteners of the masses
Trying to promote it through external propaganda
When truth is imparted to the masses
This enlightenment is also destined to be fragile and unstable
He did not experience a
The stage of truly reflecting on and reconstructing one's own values
Didn't realize
These beliefs are actually the inner nature of each person.
Instead, they simply use the most popular slogans and theories in the West
Use directly
So once you feel it is not useful
It is easy to think that this cannot save China
Immediately turn to other theories
on the other hand
Because many awakened people
In fact, I have not really established a self
He just got rid of the old father
Identified a new father
Then he can easily be in front of the older father
Give up yourself again
As
What we said in this video on November 9 last year
Facing the pressure and inducement of power
The ideas they originally held
Easily transformed and infiltrated
A small number of people are crushed by the power machine
And most people
Become a screw in the power machine
Their personal subjectivity
The so-called "literature and art should serve politics"
Swallowed easily
Out of weakness and fear
They actively crush others
Integrate oneself with the power machine
In exchange for survival
However, this is only temporary.
After 1949
They still cannot escape the tragic fate of being oppressed
When we pay attention to their psychological structure
We will also find that they believed in freedom and equality from an early age.
Until it is transformed and tamed little by little
Without consciously
There is something unchanging behind it.
Let’s stop here for today
We will continue to discuss this topic in the next video
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