We have heard a saying since we were young: filial piety comes first.
"Filial piety comes first, and all evil and adultery are the source." If there is always benevolence and filial piety, then all those who cannot do anything in the world will not tolerate it. "From the Qing Dynasty book "The Night Talk of the Hearth": Filial piety is the first of a hundred acts; if you have evil thoughts together, it is not difficult for those who do not want to do anything in life!
It can be said that among the traditional Chinese virtues, "filial piety" is the most important link. However, before and after the May Fourth Movement, a completely different version was spread: all evil filial piety was the head. We have no way to verify when this change occurred, but the reason why this sentence is impressive is that it has a great relationship with Chen Duxiu.
At the end of 1920, Chen Duxiu was invited to Guangzhou to preside over the relevant matters of the Guangdong Provincial Commission of Education. The rumor that "all evil filial piety is the leader" is already the second wave of attacks against him, and the first wave is the controversy over the "coeducational school" issue.
The real birthplace of rumors should be in Shanghai. On March 8, an article titled "Guangdong's Two Recent Undercurrents" was published in China New Daily, which pointed out:
People in Guangdong are very worried about the new culture proposed by Chen Duxiu, because its name is actually a beast theory, and Chen Jiongming has no knowledge, but talks about education. When he spoke, his mouth was full of some painless clichés, and he simply did not know the word education at all. Guangdong itself is not short of outstanding educators, and their achievements in running schools are obvious to all, but they have abandoned these people, and have sought out Chen Duxiu's advocacy of a new culture and vigorously promoted the fallacious theory of 'all evil filial piety as the first', which is simply a misleading person. ”
Although the author of this article describes the current situation in Guangdong in a vivid way, he actually has no understanding of the situation in Guangdong. For example, Xia Zhong, the director of the Guangzhou Morning News Agency, is Chen Duxiu's opponent, and in this article, he actually became the person who "echoed" Chen Duxiu.
The rumors really fermented at the Guangdong Provincial Assembly on March 9, when Wu Yaoguang and ten other parliamentarians attending the meeting used the rumors to issue a letter condemning the idea that "all evil filial piety is the first." However, there was only a day difference between the two, and it was clear that with the speed of newspaper delivery between Guangzhou and Shanghai at that time, the parliamentarians did not see the newspaper articles to make trouble. And behind the scenes of this rumor, someone should have carefully planned it.
In the next few days, Guangdong Qunbao and Current Affairs News published articles to refute the matter. However, on March 13, the Guangzhao Public Office sent a telegram demanding that Guangdong people expel Chen Duxiu, and rumors once again became rampant. On March 18, Chen Duxiu himself stood up and accused Zhonghua Xinbao of speaking up for himself. Chen Jiongming, on the same day, repeated what Guang zhaogong said:
"Mr. Chen Duxiu is a contemporary educator with high moral character, and is now improving the cause of education in Guangdong Province, and all parties are very eager for him.
Then, in the name of a reporter from the Liming News Agency, Chen Duxiu published "press releases" in various Major Shanghai newspapers to further expand the scope of dispelling rumors.
This is the general process of this rumor from its inception to the well-known one, involving a wide range of old and new schools of thought.
So, what is behind the rumors?
The following are elaborated in four points:
First, it involves the dispute between the old and the new.
The old-school figures here do not refer to the purely conservative "defenders", most of them are the new figures of the late Qing Dynasty, and their vision is extremely broad. They are well aware of many new knowledge of the world, and have studied the teachings and ideas of Darwin, Spencer, Tolstoy, etc., and they do not want to oppose freedom and equality, but they cannot accept the "fundamental abolition" of human relations.
It can be said that behind this dispute between the old and the new is an extremely profound problem. That is, at a time when the traditional political and religious order centered on the Confucian "Five Luns" is collapsing, they are all confused about this issue, whether our society should rely on what to re-establish order, whether to overthrow it all and then rebuild it, or to rely on the spirit of traditional Chinese culture to improve it.
Second, in addition to the dispute between the old and the new, we must also pay attention to the dispute between the new and the new.
Chen Duxiu spent most of his time in Guangzhou, and his identity was not only an educator, but also the chairman of the Guangdong Provincial Education Commission. This heavy identity has brought him many conveniences at the same time, but also hindered his behavior. After all, the anarchists, represented by Ou Shengbai, do not recognize the educator status of politicians. Moreover, Chen Duxiu is not a person who really studies education after all, and his theory of education is not deep. Therefore, the people are quite disappointed in their nominal "education".
Moreover, Chen Duxiu's big lecture on the "social revolution" that was too advanced for them was difficult for ordinary people to understand. The intellectual youth, on the other hand, resented that he did not speak thoroughly enough because of his official status. Therefore, Chen Duxiu was quite embarrassed at this time, and the average person thought that he was too "new", and the intellectual youth thought that he was not "new" enough.
Third, here we will talk about partisanship.
Guangzhou in 1921 was different from Hangzhou, and most of the new people here already had a partisan background. College students were either sympathetic to the anarchists or manipulated by the Kuomintang. When the Kuomintang members of Sun Yat-sen's line and Chen Jiongming's family fought each other, it was inevitable that it would affect Chen Duxiu, causing many parties to take this opportunity to seek benefits in muddy waters.
Fourth, the dispute between turf and rice bowls.
This source comes from the expansion of the power of the Guangdong Provincial Education Commission, and with the support of Chen Jiongming, the Education Commission has successively expanded its financial power and personnel power, almost covering the finance and employment of Guangdong education. This clearly moved the cake of many local old people, and it was only natural that they were fighting for turf. In this situation, Chen Duxiu, as a reader, is still a reader who has become a politician, and even more a reader who "he will always be himself", and can only be expelled by all parties in desperation.
Therefore, a reader who needs traffic up and down, long sleeves and good dance, left and right Fengyuan, full of ideals and an arbitrary style of reading is naturally incompetent, so that the rumor of "all evil filial piety is the first" will naturally follow.
Resources:
["Guangdong's Recent Two Undercurrents", "The Night Talk of the Hearth", "The Change of Chen Duxiu's Evaluation"]