The Silent Majority is a collection of essays written by Wang Xiaobo, first published in 1997, that contains most of Wang Xiaobo's knowledge of Chinese literature, art, science, and morality.
In the book, Wang Xiaobo analyzes social morality and ethics, sinology, neo-Confucianism, individual dignity, novels, art, etc., and has a profound rational cognition, and rational thinking is also a major feature of the book.
For the collection of essays "The Silent Majority", Wang Xiaobo once had a self-statement that revealed his heart, and through this self-statement, we can also see Wang Xiaobo's original intention for this book:
I live in the world just to understand some truths and encounter interesting things. If I can do what I want, my life will be successful. To this end, we must also discuss right and wrong, otherwise the truth will not be understood by you, and interesting things will not be encountered by you. I started too late, and probably couldn't do anything, but I always had to affirm my attitude, so I had this book—for myself, and for the silent majority.
Introduction to the content of "The Silent Majority"
Wang Xiaobo's collection of essays includes articles on ideology and culture.
For example, in chapters such as "The Pleasure of Thinking", "Chinese Intellectuals and the Legacy of the Middle Ages", "The Misfortune of Intellectuals", and "Moral Degeneration and Intellectuals", Wang Xiaobo's brushstrokes involve the situation and thinking of intellectuals, social morality and ethics, cultural controversy, sinology and Neo-Confucianism.
In chapters such as "War in the Belly" and "Su Dongpo and Dongpo Meat", Wang Xiaobo touches the perspective into daily life and extracts various insights from it.
In chapters such as "Life Science and Deception" and "Science and Heresy", Wang Xiaobo explores the problems of science and pseudoscience; in chapters such as "Dressage Dance Steps" and "Female Beauty in the Eyes of Men", Wang Xiaobo explores feminism.
For example, in chapters such as "My View on Novels", "The Art of Novels", "From Talking about the Art of Novels", "Calvino and the Future Millennium", "Gates's Tights", "About Style", "About Style", "About Claustrophobic Novels", "Civilization and Irony" and other chapters, Wang Xiaobo discussed the creation of talk and literary theory, such as the motivation for writing, the author's teacher, the author's views on the art of novels, the author's views on style, and his views on film and television.
Especially in chapters such as Hemingway's and George Bernard Shaw's, Wang Xiaobo's brushstrokes involve commentaries on literary classics and some views on the works of contemporary writers.
In the final expository chapter, Wang Xiaobo starts from food, clothing, shelter and transportation, etc., and discusses the miscellaneous feelings of life outside the territory and the evaluation of certain social phenomena.
The whole book ends with "Written to the New Year", which is Wang Xiaobo's message, which can be said to be a message to himself and his lover, and it is also his message to readers and the world.
Wang Xiaobo's essays are deep in thought and unique in style, and "The Silent Majority" is one of his classic essays, which confronts life with Wang Xiaobo's unique irony and humor, deconstructs the complex situation around him from a relaxed perspective, and expresses reasonable and interesting views.
Wang Xiaobo also said that he is "a liberal", in the book "The Silent Majority", it also reflects his moral pursuit of liberalism, and what runs through the book is Wang Xiaobo's cognition of rationality, freedom and tolerance.
First, Wang Xiaobo's cognition of "rationality"
Why does Wang Xiaobo promote rationality? Wang Xiaobo believes that the strengths of intellectuals are only to convince people with reason, and if they are not reasonable, they have no strengths, only shortcomings, and it is not interesting to live.
In the article "The Misfortune of Intellectuals", Wang Xiaobo once had a wonderful exposition on this: Intellectuals are most afraid of living in an irrational era. The so-called irrational era is the era when Galileo bowed his head and confessed his guilt and admitted that the earth did not turn, and it was also the era when Lavoisier went to the guillotine; it was also the era when Zweig committed suicide by poisoning, and it was also the era when Lao She jumped into Taiping Lake.
This unreasonableness will lead to a regression in the level of knowledge of the whole people. Irrationality is the sadness of people's lives, which will cause national disasters and social regression, so Wang Xiaobo advocates rationality.
Wang Xiaobo's advocacy of scientific rationality reflects his conscience as an intellectual and his sense of social responsibility. In the humanistic intellectual circles, where there are few advocates of scientific rationality, this effort has unique value.
Second, Wang Xiaobo's cognition of "freedom"
Wang Xiaobo's understanding of freedom is: True happiness is to let people consciously and voluntarily live under the constraints of social jurisprudence and public morality; to strive for what is needed; after the need is satisfied, let the family have to stop for a while.
In "A Maverick Pig", Wang Xiaobo expresses his nostalgia for the pig because the pig dares to ignore the setting of life.
In this article, Wang Xiaobo expresses in a black humorous way that maverick is not only a personal taste and way of life, but also a symbol of free thought.
Wang Xiaobo's respect and tolerance for people is not because they have lofty emotions and the ability to distinguish between right and wrong, but because they are living beings and have the same freedom as themselves, including the right to choose their way of life and the right to judge right and wrong.
Therefore, he resolutely defended the freedom of thought of the individual, rejecting the ignorance and blind obedience that arise from the behavior of freedom, rudeness and arbitrariness, and other acts of imprisoning thought. The pursuit of individual freedom, rather than group freedom, reflects the liberal orientation of his values.
Why should Wang Xiaobo pursue value and freedom? For freedom itself is valuable, and secondly, it is the means by which other things of value are attained. In China, there is too little individualism, and freedom is the fundamental condition for achieving self-realization and social progress, which is the reason why Wang Xiaobo advocates freedom.
Third, Wang Xiaobo's cognition of "tolerance"
Wang Xiaobo treats inequality caused by differences in intelligence or family with tolerance. For example, in "The Joy of Thinking", Wang Xiaobo mentioned that if I was deceived by the great adulterers and the evil ones, my psychology could still be balanced; and if I was deceived by the good and low-minded people, I could not forgive myself.
The principle of tolerance is to advise people to least interfere with the beliefs, opinions, or behavior of an individual or group of individuals towards another person. In essence, Wang Xiaobo's perception of "tolerance" is based on his respect for ideological pluralism, which inevitably leads to his recognition of the diversity of thinking styles. Wang Xiaobo's pluralistic moral realization is undoubtedly of great significance to the formation of a benign moral life.
From his own life experience and personal experience, Wang Xiaobo drew the conclusion that Chinese culture has a negative and patient attitude towards the hardships of material life and advocates a negative and patient attitude. This is a moral phenomenon in which the demands of socialization are overemphasized, and the demands of individuality are severely suppressed.
For "The Silent Majority", there was such an evaluation:
In China, the spread of liberal ideas still has a long way to go. Wang Xiaobo's novels have created his own beauty in the forest of world literature, which is like a strong light that pierces the barrier of time and enlightens the hearts of generations of young people who have just begun to read and read. This passage can be said to be an objective and pertinent evaluation of the book.