Zhou Zuoren: The Literature of Man

Wen \ Zhou Zuoren

The new literature that we should now advocate is, in short, the "literature of man." What should be rejected is the inhuman literature that is opposed. The name old and new, originally very inappropriate, in fact, "under the sun, is there something new?" "There is only right and wrong, and there is no new or old. If it is new, it is only a new discovery, not a new invention. The "New World" was discovered by Columbus in the middle of the fifteenth century, but this ground has existed for a long time. Electricity was discovered by Franklin in the middle of the eighteenth century, but this thing has also existed since ancient times. No one before, can not know, met Columbus and Franklin only to see him. The same is true of the discovery of truth. The truth is eternal, and there is no time limit, but because we ourselves are ignorant, we hear the Word too late, and we are still close to the time of discovery, so we call Him New. In fact, he was originally a very ancient thing, just like the New World and electricity, as early as this universe, if you treat him as a fresh fruit, a dress of the times, it would be a big mistake. For example, now when we say "literature of man", this sentence is not also fashionable. But he did not know that there were people born in the world, and at the same time he gave birth to humanity. Helplessly, the people of the world are ignorant, unwilling to understand the will of mankind, and take this right path, but they are lost in the path of the beast, and the emperor has been around for many years before he can come out. Just as a man runs around in the daytime with his eyes closed, and only when he opens his eyes at the end of the day does he realize that there is such a good sunshine in the world; in fact, the sun is shining, it has been like this for many years.

The first European discovery of this "man" truth was in the fifteenth century, which resulted in the Reformation and the Renaissance. The second became the French Revolution, and the third was probably the unknown event that would follow after the European War. The discovery of women and children did not sprout until the nineteenth century. The position of the ancient woman was nothing more than a man's utensils and slaves. In the Middle Ages, the church also discussed whether a woman had a soul or not, whether she was a person. The child is only the product of his parents, and he does not recognize him as an undeveloped person, but when he is a specific and micro-adult, he does not know how many family and educational tragedies have been played. It had been since Froebel and Madame Godwin that there had been light. By now, the two major studies that have led to the problem of children's schooling and women's problems are expected to produce excellent results. When China talks about such problems, it must start from scratch, and the problems of people have never been solved, let alone women and children. Now the first step is to start with people who have been born for more than four thousand years, but now we still talk about the meaning of people, and it is also ridiculous to discover "people" from the new and to "break away the shortage of people". But learning again when you are old is better than not learning. That's what it means to start with literature and promote a little bit of humanitarianism.

If we want to talk about human literature, we must first explain this character a little. The people we are talking about are not the so-called "most expensive nature of heaven and earth" or "round skulls and square toes" in the world. It is to say, "Man who evolved from animals." There are two main points, (i) "evolved" from animals, and (ii) "evolved" from animals.

We recognize man as a creature. The phenomena of his life are no different from those of other animals, so we believe that all human instincts for life are beautiful and good, and deserve to be fully satisfied. Any system of habits that violates human nature and is unnatural should be rejected and corrected.

But we also recognize that man is a creature that evolved from animals. His inner life is more complex and advanced than other animals, and gradually upward, it has the power to transform life. Therefore, we believe that human beings take the life of animals as the basis for survival, and the life inside them is gradually distant from animals, and they can finally reach a state of high peace. All remnants of animal nature and ancient rituals that can hinder the upward development of human nature should also be rejected and corrected.

These two main points, in other words, are the dual life of human spirit and flesh. The thinking of the ancients was that human nature has a duality of spirit and flesh, coexisting at the same time and always conflicting with each other. The flesh side is the inheritance of bestiality; the spiritual side is the beginning of divinity. The purpose of life is to develop this divinity; its means are to destroy the constitution in order to save the soul. Therefore, most of the ancient religions practiced asceticism and had all kinds of asceticism to resist human instincts. On the one hand, there are no happy people who do not care about the soul, and only want to "bury me when I die". In fact, both tend to be extreme, and cannot be said to be the legitimate life of people. In the recent world, some people have seen that this spiritual flesh is two sides of the same thing, not a duality of confrontation. Animal nature and divinity, combined, are only human nature. The English eighteenth-century poet Blake said it best in "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell":　

(i) Man does not have a body separate from the soul. For this so-called body is only a part of the soul that can be seen by the five senses. (ii) Force is the only life, and it occurs from the body. Reason is the outer realm of force.

(3) Force is eternal joy.

Although his words had a slightly mysterious smell, they were very capable of saying the essence of the unity of spirit and flesh. The proper life of human beings that we believe in is this life of unity of spirit and flesh. The so-called people who have evolved from animals also refer to people with the same spirit and flesh, and they are nothing more than other words.

What should be the ideal life of such a "person"? The first is to improve human relations. Each is human, but each is a human being. Therefore, it is necessary to engage in a kind of self-interest and altruism, and altruism is self-interested life. First, with regard to material life, we should do our best to meet the needs of personnel. In other words, everyone can work hard in exchange for proper food, clothing, shelter and medicine, so as to maintain a healthy survival. Second, with regard to moral life, we should take the four things of love, wisdom, faith, and courage as the basic morality, eliminate all rituals that are inherited below humanity or above humanity, and enable everyone to enjoy a free and true happy life. This ideal life of "man" is put into practice, and there is no disadvantage to anyone in the world. Although the rich man feels that he has lost his so-called dignity, is it not a great happiness that he has to be rescued from his inhuman life and become a complete human being? This is truly the new gospel of the twentieth century. It's just a pity that few people know about it and can't implement it on the spot. Therefore, we advocate a little in literature, and we also slightly do our human meaning.

But it must be explained but that the humanitarianism I am talking about is not the so-called philanthropism of the world, "compassion for the people" or "bosching for the masses", but a kind of individualistic humanism. The reason for this is, first, that man is in humanity, just like a tree in a forest. The forest is flourishing, and the trees are flourishing. But if the forest is to flourish, it is still necessary to rely on the flourishing of each tree. Second, the individual loves mankind only for the sake of mankind having me and being related to me. Mozi said, "The lover is not outside the self, and the one is in the love", which is the most thorough words. The above-mentioned self-interest and altruism, altruism is self-interest, which is exactly what it means, so I am talking about humanitarianism, starting from the individual. To preach humanity and love humanity, one must first make oneself qualified to be human and occupy the position of man. Jesus said, "Love your neighbor as yourself." If we do not foresee self-love, how can we love others "as we do" we? As for selfless love, pure altruism, I thought it was impossible. People can have acts of devotion for the sake of the person they love, or the doctrine they believe in. If you cut flesh and feed eagles and devote yourself to feeding hungry tigers, that is superhuman morality, not what human beings can do.

The text that records and studies the problems of life on the basis of humanism is called the literature of man. Among them, it can be divided into two items, (one) it is positive, writing about this ideal life, or the possibility of reaching it on earth; (ii) it is sideways, writing about the ordinary life of man, or the life of an inhuman person, which can be used for research. This kind of work is the most important and the most important. Because we can thus understand the real situation of life, and compare the difference and improvement method with the ideal life. In this category of literature, which writes about inhuman life, there are always misunderstandings in the world, and it is different from non-human literature, but in fact, it is very different. For example, Maupassant's novel "Une Vie" (a life) is the literature of people who write about animal desires in the world; China's "Meat Futon" is inhuman literature. Kuprin's novel Jama in Russia is literature about people who live as prostitutes; China's Nine-tailed Turtle is inhuman literature. The difference is only in the attitude of the writings. A serious, a game. One wishes for the life of man, so he is sad or angry about the life of the non-man; one is content with the life of the man, so he feels satisfied with the life of the man, and has more signs of play and provocation. To put it simply, the difference between human literature and non-human literature lies in the attitude of writings, which is based on human life and non-human life. Material method, nothing else. That is, articles advocating the martyrdom of women, that is, martyrdom, are not superficially "maintaining the religion of the wind"; but forcing people to commit suicide is precisely inhuman morality, so it is also inhuman literature. In Chinese literature, there are very few local human literatures. Almost all the articles that came out of Confucianism and Taoism were unqualified. Now let's just take a purely literary example:

(1) Pornographic pornographic pornography

(2) Superstitious ghost and god books ("List of Fengshen Gods", "Journey to the West", etc.)

(3) Immortal books (The Wizard of Oz, etc.)

(4) Monster books ("Liaozhai Zhiyi", "Zi Bu Whisper", etc.)

(5) Slave books (type A theme is the emperor and the prime minister, and type B theme is the sacred father and husband)

(6) Robber books ("Water Margin", "Seven Heroes and Five Righteousness", "Shi Gong Case", etc.)

(7) Talented And Beautiful Books ("Three Laughs marriage", etc.)

(8) Inferior humor books ("Laughing Forest Guangji", etc.)

(9) Shady category

The above kinds of ideas and the old drama of the crystallization of these are all things that hinder the growth of human nature and undermine the peace of mankind, and should be rejected. This work is extremely valuable in the study of national psychology. In literary criticism, there are also several kinds of permissible. But in terms of doctrine, everything should be rejected. If you understand the truth, those who have already determined their knowledge may wish to look at it. If we can study criticism, it is more beneficial to the world, and we will welcome it.

Human literature, when based on human morality, this moral problem is very broad, and it cannot be elaborated on for a while. Now I will only mention a few in terms of literary relations. For example, the love of the two sexes, we have two propositions about this matter:

(1) It is the equality of both men and women.

(2) It is the marriage of love.

The writings of the world, which play out this meaning, are the literature of the best people. Such as Ibsen's plays "Et Dukkehjem" and "Fruen fra Havet", The Russian Tolstoj novel Anna Karenina, the British Hardy's novel "Tess" and so on. The origins of love, according to the Fendia scholar Westermarch, are due to "man's love for my happy one." However, as Lucke said, due to years of evolution, the feelings of the high level have gradually changed. Therefore, true love and the life of the two sexes must also have the unity of the spirit and flesh duality. However, because of the social situation in this world, there are inevitably many people who are biased to one side. This must be recorded and studied in the light of humanitarian thought. But do not take such a life as happiness or sacred, praise and promotion. China's pornographer's obscene books, needless to say. The old Christian idea of asceticism, I cannot admit that he is. Another example is the Russian Dostojevskij is a great humanitarian writer. But in a novel, he says that a man loves a woman, and later the woman loves someone else, but he tries his best to mediate so that they can cooperate. Dostoevsky himself, although his words and deeds are consistent, we can never admit that these kinds of behaviors are within human feelings and outside of human beings, so we are reluctant to promote them. Another example is the novels of the Indian poet Tagore, which always praises Oriental ideas. There is a story about the life of a widow, describing the right "Suttee of the heart" (Sati is an old Indian saying that refers to the custom of the widow being burned with her husband's body), and another about a man who abandoned his wife and did not marry in England, and his wife also sold gold and jewelry to help him forever. If a person has the freedom of body and mind, he chooses freely, makes love with others, encounters the separation of life and death, and commits acts of his own sacrifice, which is a commendable thing. But it must be entirely free will, and it must not be reconciled with the actions forced by the tyranny of etiquette. The Indian Sati, known to the world as an inhumane custom, has recently been banned by the British. As for the Sati of the human heart, it is only a disguise. One is the death penalty and the other is life imprisonment. According to the Chinese saying, one is martyrdom, the other is to keep the festival, and the original word Sati, it is said that in Sanskrit, it is exactly the meaning of the festival woman. Indian women have been "Sati" for thousands of years, and they have developed this deformed chastity. Talking about Orientalization and thinking that it is the essence of the state is actually just the evil result of unnatural institutional habits. For example, Chinese prostrate his head habitually, and when he sees someone, he will ask Ann to bow his hand for no reason, and he has the intention of kneeling, can this be said to be his modesty and virtue? We see this deformed so-called morality, just as we see a man who was raised in a jar and his body is like a rob, and he only feels terror, disgust, sorrow, sorrow, anger, and all kinds of feelings, and should not promote him and praise him.

The second is like parent-child love. The ancients said that the love of parents and children is "based on nature", which is the best said. Because he was originally a natural love, there was no need for those artificial restraints to hinder his growth. If someone says that a parent gives birth to a child, it is all due to selfish desires, and the world may say that he is not righteous. It is now fitting that he should be changed by nature. According to biological phenomena, it is the will of nature that parents give birth to children. With sexual life, nature has the continuation of life, with the effort of breastfeeding, which is all the case with animals. In human beings, for the integration of love, the extension of self, more conscious, so the parent-child relationship is particularly strong. The rights of children and the obligations of parents, as spoken of by the intellectuals in recent times, are deduced from this natural truth, and are not new. As for the ignorant parents of the world, they regard their children as all their products, and they are raised like cattle and horses, thinking that when they are raised, they can be called to ride him at will, which is a degenerative fallacy. The British educator Gorst called them "ape-like", which is not an exaggeration. Volume I of Yoshiyoshi Tsuda's "Studies on The National Thought in Literature" says, "The concept of filial piety, which is not based on parent-child love, is contrary to the universal facts of biology in which ancestors live for their descendants, and the actual state of human society in which man strives for the future, but he recognizes that his descendants live for their ancestors, and so morality obviously contains unnatural elements." Ancestors live for their children, so parents should love their children, and children should love and respect their parents. This is a natural fact, and it is nature. Literaryly speaking of this parent-child love, the Greek Homeros epic poemS Ilias and the Euripides tragedy Troiades say that the two partings of the death of The Hektor couple and their son are the most beautiful in ancient literature. The recent "Gengangere" by Norwiy, the German play "Heimat" by Sudemann, and the novel "Ottsy idjeti" by Turgenjev in Russia are all available for our research. As for the cruel and superstitious behaviors such as Guo Ju buried er and Ding Lan carving wood, of course, they should no longer be praised and advocated. The matter of cutting off the stock is still a legacy of magic and cannibalism, and naturally it is not moral, and there is no need to ask him to blend into literature, let alone say.

As mentioned above, we should promote and reject literature, which can be roughly understood. However, on the matter of ancient and modern China and foreign countries, it is necessary to add a sentence of explanation to avoid misunderstanding. For literature with opposite doctrines, we do not do historical theories like Hu Zhitang or Qianlong, and only according to their own prejudices, they rank ancient and modern figures in the forefront. When we make a theory, we should hold the concept of "the times" and divide criticism and propositions into two things. To criticize the writings of the ancients, one identifies their time and gives him an upright evaluation, corresponding to the position. As for propagating our ideas, it is also determined that our times cannot be accommodated and compromised with opposing opinions, but only a method of exclusion. For example, in primitive times, a person who originally had only primitive thoughts and performed magic cannibalism had to be caught and sent to a mental hospital. Secondly, with regard to the issue of China and foreign countries, we only need to hold the concept of the times and do not need to draw any other boundaries. Geographical history, there have been various differences, but the world is convenient, the air circulation is fast, human beings can be expected to gradually approach, the same era of people, can coexist. The unit is me, the total number is an individual. You don't have to think that you are different, morality first, and draw a lot of fields. Because man is always related to human beings, just like each other, so Zhang Sanlisi suffers, and Peter and John suffer, and if they have nothing to do with me, they have nothing to do with me, and if they say that they are related to me, they are also related. Carefully speaking, it is only for me and Zhang Sanlisi or Peter and John, although they have different names and places of origin, they are one of the same human beings and have the same sensual disposition. He who thinks he is bitter, and I will think it is bitter. This suffering will fall on him, and it may not be impossible to fall on me. Because the fate of mankind is the same, I have to worry about my fate, and at the same time I have to worry about the common fate of mankind. Therefore, we can only talk about the times, and we cannot distinguish between China and foreign countries. When we occasionally create, we are naturally partial to the more accurate Chinese side, and most of the rest still need to be translated into foreign works, expanding the spirit of readers, seeing the human beings in the world, cultivating human morality, and realizing human life.