Professor Qian Liqun has been talking about Lu Xun for fifty years, speaking in different eras, different places, and different contexts, and each lecture often has a clear sense of the problem, and every lecture pays sincerity and enthusiasm, hoping to benefit young listeners. For himself, reading, studying, and explaining Lu Xun is an endless spiritual dialogue between him and Lu Xun, and he has integrated his own life experience and insight into it. In addition to consciously constructing the system of "Qian-style Lu Xun", Qian Liqun encouraged young researchers to have the ambition to establish their own and creative "Lu Xun View". However, even if we are not researchers, this advice applies to us as ordinary readers. Only when more people read and study can they find more aspects of Lu Xun, complement each other and even correct each other, so as to better approach the "Lu Xun ontology".
Lu Xun (September 25, 1881 – October 19, 1936)
Before approaching Lu Xun's ontology, it is necessary to take the lead in dissolving a certain image inherent in Lu Xun. Lu Xun was not just a "thinker, revolutionary, and writer" on the top, he was first and foremost an ordinary person full of contradictions and confusion, a person who sought both a personal value position and was accustomed to self-doubt in the face of the strange situation of society at that time. We approach Lu Xun like we approach a strange friend; we read Lu Xun not to listen to the teachings of the "teacher" and receive answers, but to read a living and complex soul. However, this soul is special after all, at least he has more courage than ordinary people, and he is more willing to "open his eyes" to the world. After "looking" can you really think about it, and then write something.
However, is the "momentary fashion" that Lu Xun saved with articles still valuable today? Do I still need to be read? In the recently published "Qian Liqun On Lu Xun", Professor Qian Liqun gave his views with the section "Lu Xun Living in China today"; and in "Selected Readings of Lu Xun's New Works edited by Qian Liqun", he read them one by one to help readers more easily enter the original text.
The original author | Qian Liqun
Excerpt from | Zhang Jin
"Qian Liqun Talks about Lu Xun", author: Qian Liqun, edition: Movable Type Culture| Contemporary World Publishing House, January 2022
What does Lu Xun have to do with each of us?
When I am engaged in university education, participating in the reform of primary and secondary school education and the youth volunteer movement, and speaking about Lu Xun to the younger generation, I will encounter a question: "What does Lu Xun have to do with each of us in China today?" I remember that one year when I opened the "Lu Xun Research Class" at Peking University, there was a debate among the students: some students believed that Lu Xun should enter the museum and become a respectable but unrelated historical figure; other students thought that Lu Xun was still alive in china today, living around people. I support the latter opinion; I have said that Lu Xun is not a writer and thinker of the "past tense" but a "present tense", and that he is still "living in the present China".
Behind this is actually a problem of understanding Lu Xun's literature, especially Lu Xun's essays. On the surface, Lu Xun's essays have specific pertinence, then, with the passage of time, with the passage of Lu Xun's era, the disappearance of the object of his criticism, in today's society completely different from Lu Xun's era, Lu Xun's essays will naturally lose their practical significance. It seems that this is reasonable, but there are two problems: First, history does not move forward in this way, there will be repetition, that is, the so-called "return of the ghost", and more importantly, Lu Xun's criticism not only has a strong practical pertinence, but also transcendent thinking. His essays thus have the characteristics of the unity of "this one" and "this category", the unity of "concreteness" and "universality"; and the "universality" of "this category" in Lu Xun's thinking is to go deep into the depths of Chinese history and culture, the depths of China's national nature, and the depths of human nature. Therefore, the criticism of his essays also has a forerunner, with many future factors that transcend the times, and can cross time and space to dialogue with today's people. Some people have done such an experiment: the republishment of Lu Xun's essays criticizing urban culture in the 1930s, entitled "Lu Xun on Chinese Thought and Culture in the Nineties", readers strongly feel that Lu Xun is speaking in the face of the current China.
In this way, Lu Xun Thought has become an ideological and theoretical resource with explanatory and critical power for both Chinese history and reality. When we face many problems in reality and feel anxious, confused and confused, re-reading Lu Xun's works, we will suddenly find many wonderful expositions of Lu Xun, which will make your eyes light up, Mao Sai suddenly open, and trigger a lot of thinking. I once gave a lecture on "Lu Xun Living in China Today", trying to use Lu Xun's relevant expositions to discuss the seven problems encountered at present: What is China's basic national conditions? What is the crux of China's problem? How do you view China's reforms? How do you view nationalism and patriotism? Where is China's hope? What are we going to do? In what spirit should we do things? Revisiting Lu Xun's discourse, my audience and I were greatly inspired and moved to feel that Lu Xun was "worrying, observing, thinking and exploring with us." We even felt his sharp, warm, expectant gaze. So, we have a little warmth in our hearts, a little strength." This reading experience of thinking with Lu Xun is very beautiful.
I also gave a lecture on "Why Do We Need Lu Xun", in which he talked about Lu Xun's "always being a minority and an outlier" in the entire Chinese cultural tradition and discourse structure, "another existence, another voice, another thinking, and therefore another possibility". In this way, when you are convinced of established education and established concepts, you do not need Lu Xun; and once you are accustomed to listening to your own words, getting used to the routine, normality, and conclusion, you are dissatisfied, you have doubts, you have broken the established order, you have broken through the almost predestined environment, and you need your own desires, then you need Lu Xun. And you can also read and argue with him at the same time, Lu Xun himself is constantly questioning himself, he never tries to absorb us, but only to promote our independent thinking, expect and help us grow into a free-thinking, independently creative person: this is lu xun's main meaning to us, the most important reason we need Lu Xun today.
Professor Qian Liqun
Moreover, such interactions and dialogues with some of Lu Xun's expositions due to the stimulation of practical problems are endless and occur at any time. Recently, I had such an association. The changes in the world situation brought about by the results of the US election in 2016 have aroused extensive discussion, and I myself have been paying close attention and thinking intensely. I noticed that the Shanghai "Exploration and Controversy" published two consecutive issues of the article "The Conflict of Values Behind the US Election" by Mr. He Huaihong, a professor in the Department of Philosophy of Peking University, in which an important aspect of the conflict occurred "between independence and freedom and equal welfare": "The faction that favors freedom with independence as the core believes that it should be their main responsibility to get rid of poverty and live a 'decent life' and even get rich, and that expanding the power of the government will damage the economic freedom of individuals." Thus, they argue politically for small government, in favour of tax cuts, against the state welfare policy that they see as going beyond the realm of those who really need help, who they will see today as a minority, infringing on their economic freedom, and opposing the enjoyment of the welfare of their own country by immigrants, especially illegal immigrants"; and "those who are more in favour of equal welfare" are "in favour of the imposition of high taxes on the rich and the expansion and advancement of the welfare policy of the state, This includes promoting compensatory care and preferential treatment for minorities and vulnerable groups for a period of time in favour of the admission of migrants". The controversy over "independence, freedom and equal welfare" that occurred around 2016 immediately reminds me of a passage that Lu Xun said in 1928, that is, more than ninety years ago, in the inscription of "Thoughts, Landscapes, and Characters": "I myself, I think that Qu Ti (according to Heine) said that freedom and equality cannot be sought at the same time, nor can they be obtained at the same time, but they are more insightful, so people have to choose one first." "The reason why I was able to make immediate associations was because I had already noticed this passage and never understood it. I once discussed with Mr. Wang Dehou that some of Lu Xun's expositions are incomprehensible to those of us who are researchers for a while: in addition to the contradiction between "freedom and equality" mentioned here, there is also Lu Xun's statement in "On the Intellectual Class" that "there is still a conflict between freedom of thought and survival", "The ideas of individuals are developed, the ideas of each person are different, and the national thoughts cannot be unified, so the order does not work, the strength of the group decreases, and it gradually becomes extinct." It now seems that the reason why we cannot understand is because the "freedom", "equality", "survival", and "unity" in our minds are all an absolute state, and we cannot see their own limits, and we consciously or unconsciously ignore or avoid the contradictions between them; and Lu Xun adopts a far more complex analytical attitude toward all issues, forming the contradiction and entanglement of his thought of "both affirmation and questioning". This is also an important manifestation of the advanced nature of Lu Xun's thought: many of his thoughts and assertions cannot be understood by his contemporaries, or even by later generations, or can only be understood one-sidedly, and can only be awakened by later generations after the complexity of history is gradually revealed. And this situation of "not understanding" or "thinking we understand but not really understanding" determines that there are still many "mysteries of Lu Xun" to be solved. The never-ending nature of Lu Xun's research is precisely the charm of its ability to always attract the most creative researchers.
The above has roughly formed my "Lu Xun's facet view." To use an analogy, studying Lu Xun is like entering a magical park, observing and taking pictures along the way. Every time you go anywhere, you will find a strange scenery, and under the surprise, you will "click" in a hurry, and under the illumination of the flash, you will record this scenery, as well as your own instant feelings. Further on, there was another surprising discovery, another flash, and then a video. Along the way, all aspects of the park's landscape have been gradually presented, giving people a sense of beauty, and the viewers and photographers of the scenery have also harvested the joy of endless discovery. Finally, it is assembled into a beautiful photo album, which shows the aspects of the park scenery. In addition to enjoying it, it also arouses people's desire and desire to carry out new explorations, discover more hidden landscapes that have not yet been seen, and embark on the road of continued exploration.
Selected Readings of Lu Xun's New Works by Qian Liqun, author: Qian Liqun, ed., edition: Movable Type Culture| Contemporary World Publishing House, January 2022
Introduction to "Small Miscellaneous Feelings"
Small miscellaneous sense is a kind of miscellaneous style created by Lu Xun. The earliest collection of essays, "Hot Wind", wrote a lot of "random feelings", and later there were "miscellaneous feelings", "small miscellaneous feelings", and "miscellaneous words", which were included in the "Huagai Collection", "And only the collection", and "the collection outside the collection".
Lu Xun's son Haiying once recalled Lu Xun's essay writing: If there were no guests during the day, he would read various newspapers and magazines in his study. Stimulated during the reading process, some ideas began to brew and write articles. The most memorable thing about Haiying was the way he looked when he conceived: he often squinted his eyes, lay down or leaned on a wicker chair to play the script, pondered repeatedly, did not speak, and no one dared to disturb him at this time. Thinking maturely, I often write in the middle of the night. Some important articles are often written overnight.
This made me curious: what was Lu Xun thinking when he squinted his eyes, lying down or leaning on a rattan chair to write his belly? We find that his thoughts are triggered by newspaper reports and real events in life, but also far away, galloping in the vast world of society, history, and human nature, painstakingly pursuing the truth hidden behind the phenomenon, doing incisive thinking and summary; he looks at the world more coldly, sees through the obscured world life, and does ruthless revelation. His "sense" is extremely "miscellaneous", extremely "wide", and extremely "deep", but it must be expressed in extremely "short" and extremely "simple" words, and extremely "small": this has a "small sense of miscellaneousness". And the effect of words is very magical: because it hits the point, it makes those present in history sweat in a cold sweat; because of the transcendence of thought, it makes today's readers think deeply.
Look at his observations and revelations on the changes in China's reality and people's attitudes and choices: "Those who have been generous should be retro, those who are being generous should maintain the status quo, and those who have not been generous should be innovated." That's pretty much it. probably! ”
Look at his perception and display of Chinese politics: "All those who are 'condemned' by the authorities have 'sinned'"; "Liu Bang removed Qin's harshness, 'covenant with his father and elder, the three chapters of the law.'" Later, there were still clan curses, books were still forbidden, and qin laws were still enforced. The three chapters of the Law, the words of the ear. ”
Look at his exposé of the virtues of certain Chinese: "Those who claim to be thieves do not need to be guarded against, but they are good people; those who claim to be upright gentlemen must be guarded against, and those who oppose them are thieves"; "The dog is often more severe than its owner."
Look at his feelings and scrutiny of Chinese relationship: "Downstairs a man is very sick, and the family in the wall is singing a phonograph; opposite is a child." There were two people upstairs laughing wildly; and there was the sound of cards being played. There were women crying on boats in the river about her dead mother. The joys and sorrows of human beings are not the same, I just think they are noisy."
Look at his discovery and description of Chinese imagination: "When I see short sleeves, I immediately think of white arms, I immediately think of full nudity, I immediately think of genitals, I immediately think of sexual intercourse, I immediately think of hybridization, I immediately think of illegitimate children." Chinese imagination can only leap forward at this level."
Readers and friends can't wait to read it themselves, so they stop here.
"Little Miscellaneous Feelings"
The thorn of the bee loses its own life when it is used; the thorn of cynicism prolongs its own life when it is used.
They are so different.
John Mueller said: "Despotism turns people into cynicism."
And he didn't know that the republic had silenced people.
To go to the battlefield, it is better to be a military doctor; to be revolutionary, it is better to go to the rear; to kill people, it is better to be an executioner. Both heroic and stable.
Talk to celebrities and scholars, and pretend not to understand what he says. Too ignorant to be looked down upon, too ignorant to be disgusted. Occasionally, if you don't understand something, you are most suitable for each other.
The world probably only knows the command sword, so it commands the samurai, but it does not think that it can also command the literati.
It's a transcript of a speech, and it's a transcript of a speech.
But unfortunately, it is not explained why he is different from before, nor is it explained whether he really believes his words when he speaks.
Broad and wise people are like dying yesterday.
The fools of all kinds died yesterday.
Once generous to retro, is being generous to maintain the status quo, not to be generous to innovate.
That's pretty much it. probably!
Their so-called retro is a return to the years they remember, not the Yuxia Shang Zhou.
A woman's nature is motherly, daughterly; unwifeed.
Wifehood is forced, just a mixture of motherhood and daughterhood.
Prevent being deceived.
Those who claim to be thieves do not need to be defended, but they are good people; those who claim to be righteous gentlemen must be guarded against, and those who claim to be righteous are thieves.
Downstairs a man was dying of illness, and the family in the wall was singing a phonograph; opposite was a child. There were two people upstairs laughing wildly; and there was the sound of cards being played. There were women crying on boats in the river about her dead mother.
The joys and sorrows of human beings are not the same, I just think they are noisy.
Every time a person in torn clothes walks by, the dog barks, but in fact, it is not the dog owner's intention or provocation.
The dog tends to be harsher than its owner.
I am afraid that one day it will be forbidden to wear rag shirts, otherwise it will be the Communist Party.
Revolutionary, counter-revolutionary, non-revolutionary.
The revolutionary were killed by the counter-revolutionaries. The counter-revolutionary was killed by the revolution
target. Those who are not revolutionary or are killed as revolutionaries are killed by counter-revolutionaries, or those who are killed as counter-revolutionaries, or those who are not killed as revolutionaries or counter-revolutionaries for nothing.
Revolution, leather revolution, leather revolution, leather leather ....
When man feels lonely, he will create; when he feels clean, that is, without creation, he has no love.
Creation is always rooted in love. Yang Zhu has no books.
Although the creation expresses his heart, he always wants someone to watch it.
Creation is social.
But sometimes just one person looks at it and is satisfied: a friend, a lover.
People tend to hate monks, nuns, Muslims, And Jesus, but not Taoists.
Those who understand this principle understand most of China.
People who want to commit suicide will also be afraid of the ocean of the sea and the fragility of dead bodies in summer.
But when he encountered a clear pool and a cool autumn night, he often committed suicide.
Anyone who is "condemned" by the authorities is guilty of a "crime."
Liu Bang removed Qin's harshness and "made a covenant with his father and the elder, and the three chapters of the law" were heard.
Later, there were still clan curses, still forbidden books, or Qin law.
The three chapters of the Law, the words of the ear.
When I saw the short sleeves, I immediately thought of white arms, I immediately thought of full nudity, I immediately thought of genitals, I immediately thought of sexual intercourse, I immediately thought of hybridization, I immediately thought of illegitimate children.
Chinese imagination can only leap forward at this level.
September 24
〔Notes〕
Cynicism, originally referred to the ancient Greek philosophers of Cynicism. This school of scholars was poorly clothed and fed, and was ridiculed as "big" at the time. They are worldly, pretentious, and see everything in a cynical manner. Henceforth in the western Chinese. The term "cynicism" (e.g., Cynic in English, Zyniker in German, Cynique in French) also refers to people with these characteristics.
John Mill (1806-1873), British philosopher and economist, author of "Logical System", "Freedom", etc., his works were translated by Yan Fujie into China, and had a major impact on Chinese intellectual circles.
At that time, bookstores in various localities published and sold collections of speeches by Chiang Kai-shek, Wang Jingwei, Wu Zhihui, Dai Jitao, and other Kuomintang dignitaries.
On August 18, 1927, the Guangzhou "Republic of China Daily" published an editorial on Wang Jingwei's launch of the "July 15th" incident and his alliance with Chiang Kai-shek to oppose communism, saying: "In the past, such as yesterday's death; in the future, such as today's life; the responsibility to be borne in the future is great and difficult, and this really requires our sincere and uncompromising non-speculative comrades not to think of the past and to truly unite."
Yang Zhu did not leave a complete work. His remarks are scattered in books such as Mencius, Zhuangzi, Han Feizi, and Lü Shi Chunqiu. The Yang Zhu Chapters compiled in the Liezi are generally considered to be forgeries.
Refers to several famous figures who committed suicide because of social changes since the Republic of China. For example, in November 1918, Liang Juchuan committed suicide by throwing himself into the Jishuitan Lake in Beijing; in June 1927, Wang Guowei committed suicide at Kunming Lake in the Summer Palace in Beijing.
In 206 BC, Liu Bang led his troops into Xianyang and told the local father and elder about the three chapters of the law: "The murderer dies, the wounded and the thief atones for the crime." He also announced the abolition of Qin's harsh laws, such as "slanderers, occasional speakers abandon the city" and so on.
The original author | Qian Liqun
Editor | Zhang Jin
Introduction Proofreader | Guo Li