Interview with "Ant Colony" author Tang Qing thorn: "super stable" and "chaotic"

Feng Zhou

The fictional novel "Ant Colony", published at the end of last year, has been hanging at the top of Douban's "Science Fiction Fantasy Weekly Hot List" for a long time.

For Ant Colony, the classification of "science fiction fantasy" is too general, and it actually belongs to a literary category that has a long history and has been quite popular in popular culture in recent years- dystopian novels.

In the 1950s, the term "dystopian" entered the mass realm. Between the 1930s and the 1960s, the smoke of the Second World War and the long Cold War and the rapid advances in industrial technology plunged people into a perpetual fear, and some of the most important dystopian novels were born and popular among such fears: Yevgeny Zamyatin's "We" and Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World", as well as the most famous, George W. Bush. George Orwell's 1984. The rapid advances in computer technology after the 1970s turned the spearhead of fear to a future in which technology was paramount and individual freedoms were systematically deprived, giving rise to Philip Dick's "Will Bionic Humans Dream of Electronic Sheep?" to William Gibson's Neuromancer.

In today's information explosion, our fears are particularly diverse and huge: from comprehensively upgraded surveillance, technology-solidified society, gender imbalance to the collapse of the future ecology... All of this is also reflected in the dystopian novels of our time. As Margaret Atwood, author of One of the most important dystopian novels of the era, The Handmaid's Tale, wrote, "Dystopian is a sad commentary on the times." We need these "sad comments" to deal with our fears concretely. Shortly after Trump's election, "1984," published seventy years ago, topped Amazon's sales charts. This may be one of the reasons why dystopian novels, including Ant Colony, are so popular.

The second is that dystopia has become a rather popular element in popular literature, especially for teenagers. Both The Hunger Games and The Divergent provide the confused "lone wolves" in the crowd with psychological comfort to find someone in the story who can understand themselves and become heroes who change society. Traditional dystopian protagonists simply want to escape from social homogeneity and try to escape (often fail), but the current dystopian protagonists tend to take care of the reader's "coolness" more, they will learn the cruel strategies of that homogeneous society and achieve their own victory and the collapse of the old society through violence. This is not a bad thing, of course, and in such an extremely strong "(social) history and (personal) biography and the relationship between the two" can be found in a sense the more alternate and prominent "sociological imagination" of what C. Wright Mills called.

We can see both in the popularity of Ant Colony, which not only responds to fears of a "hyper-stable society" of full surveillance, technology solidification, and gender imbalance, but also the protagonist who has escaped the "lone wolf" situation, a brutal victory that leads to the collective understanding of all mankind, may provide some explanation for its initial popularity in the network. In the end, of course, we should leave the author with the final interpretation of all these questions.

Tang Wenxuan, the author of "Ant Colony", has a background in both life sciences and ancient literature. "Ants are perfect social animals, and each individual completely eliminates his personality, prohibits and organizes." The name of "Ant Colony" symbolizes the pursuit of a "perfect" society. This is a "super-stable society" that is "artificially and precisely planned", but "does not leave room for the 'contingency' of nature", which leads to its stagnation and rigidity. "This is because 'man' is not as good as 'heaven,'" she quotes from the Taoist doctrine that from the point of view of "heaven," chaos and accidents are the source of life, just as the greatness of nature in the life sciences is that it has no "purpose."

| interview |

Feng Zhou: You wrote in the afterword that "Ant Colony" was inspired by a science fiction outline that was brainstormed in the dormitory. The current "Ant Colony" has obviously deviated greatly from the setting of the collective monster fighting. I wonder if the genre consciousness of writing a "science fiction novel" still exists as the story evolves. When did the idea or transformation that most amazed you in the evolution into a story like this come about? Are you satisfied with the final level of completion?

Tang Qingxuan: The background of the story is set in the future, which has not changed in the process of evolution, and everything else has changed, so there should always be a sense of "I want to write a science fiction".

As for the most important changes, they should have been produced when the second draft was written. I originally wanted to write the protagonist as the leader of the resistance, but suddenly I didn't want to write it. Then I conceived the "bait plan" in the book, and after writing it, I found that the relationship between the two groups of characters Han and Rou, Soft and No. 109 actually formed a kind of secret care, and Han and Chaos also formed a mirror image, which was beyond my own expectations. However, I know that this book is still very naïve, especially the part that solves the crisis softly at the end, which has been changed many times and is still unsatisfactory, and it can only be said that the author cannot write something beyond his own experience after all.

Feng Zhou: You have studied life sciences and ancient literature, and what kind of influence has the two disciplines that seem to have been withdrawn from the north and south, and how have they affected this novel? In addition, you claim to be deeply influenced by Lao Zhuang's thought, is this infused into the structure of the novel's worldview?

Tang Qingxuan: The life sciences have a great influence on my ideas, and these ideas may be more or less embodied in this novel: I think that the ultimate in beauty is like nature, which is both gentle and cruel; creation, protection, and destruction are all part of the world, and it cannot be said that it is right or wrong; the greatness of nature is that it has no "purpose", and the "social engineering" that human beings try to incorporate into precise design is rigid and fragile; the set of vulgar social Darwinism that we have introduced in modern times is not scientific, because nature does not exist The concept of "strong" and "weak".

When it comes to literature, after all, the literary works I am most familiar with are ancient literature, so when I write with a pen, it is inevitable to be affected by them. It may be a bit paradoxical to say, but I think this science fiction is born out of some Chinese literary tradition. For example, I still hold the stereotype that literature should have "wind bones"; for example, I yearn for the "History" kind of writing about "extraordinary people".

Of course, the most profound influence on me may be the ideological culture of the late Ming Dynasty, I have read Li Zhuowu's "Book Burning" many times, and I like "Jin Ping Mei" more than "Dream of the Red Chamber". The first time I read "Jin Ping Mei" was in high school, I borrowed it from the school library, and I secretly watched it in Chinese class, and there was a plot that particularly touched me at that time. That is, after Pan Jinlian's death, Pang Chunmei went to the grave to hang her, crying, "Unfortunately, you are smart for a while, and you are buried in the soil today", which made me cry. These two women are hateful from the point of view of secular morality, but the confidant between them is sincere, and the most noble and beautiful confidant actually happened to two bad women. The author's way of writing, this perspective of looking at the world, and the style with a little sarcasm and a little compassion, left a deep impression on me.

After all these years, I feel more and more that when I write a novel to the end, I should transcend the author's own value judgment and reach a state that can understand all right and wrong, and feel like "nothing is nothing", which is also a rare bliss for the author in his life.

Taoists believe that the value judgment of man is limited, and "man" is inferior to "heaven". This was criticized by Xunzi as "hiding in the sky and not knowing people", but I agreed with it. The society I depict in my novel is a "super-stable" society in which everything is under precise planning and precise management of man, but such a society does not leave room for the "contingency" of nature, nor can it tolerate any "variables", so it is stagnant and rigid. The opposite of this hyper-stable society is its opponent, code-named Chaos, which means "chaos." From the perspective of "people", of course, the more orderly, more stable and better, there are many philosophers in ancient and modern China and abroad who have tried to build an ideal country that is completely controllable, orderly, and never conflict-free; but from the perspective of "heaven", chaos and accidents are the source of life. As the protagonist of the novel, Han Han, said: "Life itself is dirty and chaotic, and only death and nothingness are spotless." ”

There is a detail in the novel that Rou's sister Qiu initially wants to "customize" a child with black eyes, but in the end, the child she gives birth to through natural combination is blue eyes. This is the accident, the accident, and the masterpiece of nature. I have always believed that the "extraordinary people" in this world cannot be "customized", just as it is impossible to cultivate the ideal philosopher king through some precise educational program, because such people are "divinely gifted" and there is no template to refer to. Trying to accurately design people can only suppress human nature and stifle the possibilities given to people by God.

Feng Zhou: If I follow my personal opinion, your novel should be put into the category of utopian/dystopian novels. But the problem is that at the end, humanity reaches the group mind, which may be the ultimate harmony in some sense, and one of the protagonists refuses to join and dies on the ice sheet, and it is a little difficult for me to speculate on your personal attitude as an author towards this "group mind" utopia. In general, as an author, what is your assessment of such a "group mind" society? Is this a bad or good vision for human society?

Tom: You're right, I also think it's a dystopian novel. And as I said before, by the end of the writing, my personal attitude has been blurred. I myself do not know how to evaluate this "group mind" society, only that with a soft character, she is definitely not willing to accept. Of course, when I retreat from God's perspective to the position of an ordinary person, I can also talk about my shallow views on it. I myself would definitely like to experience such a society, because I have always been curious about others and eager to understand all of them. And for human society, at that point, what we now call "civilization" has come to an end, "civilization" has become another form, human beings themselves have become another kind of existence, and perhaps even the two adjectives of "good" and "bad" have become history forever, so it is difficult to evaluate in the existing language.

Feng Zhou: In a sense, the gender situation in your novel is a bit like a flipped version of The Handmaid's Tale. As a female author, do you think it's a proper meaning to discuss gender issues in texts? Or does this lack of gender-based predecessor resources create some difficulties for you when it comes to getting into a literary category where there are far fewer female authors than male authors?

Tang Qingxuan: Because this book involves the setting of family ethics, it must start with gender issues, which is determined by the idea of writing. Of course, this setting of gender situation also has a certain joking element, ironically using people as tools of logic. Some self-proclaimed "rational" people use this "for the sake of society as a whole" logic when assigning positions to women. This is just a crude version of efficacyism, which has nothing to do with "reason", and it would seem ridiculous to exaggerate, right?

As for whether female authors should discuss gender issues, I think it's their freedom. Isn't it remarkable to write a "Guns on August" like Tuchman did? This issue is often debated now, perhaps only because some people deliberately emphasize that "I don't care about gender issues", but the subtext is "this issue is too small to compare to the grand proposition of life in the universe". Just like in the field of literary studies, you only engage in gender research, and it is easy for your peers to feel that "your research direction is a bit narrow." In fact, it is not necessary to think so, as a sexually reproducing organism, the issue of gender is directly related to the nature of our human existence, how can it be said to be a small matter?

I did not encounter any difficulties in the process of writing, in fact, as long as I truly faced my heart and truly expressed myself, everything was a matter of course.

Feng Zhou: Speaking of predecessor resources, there are some settings in your novel, and you can faintly see the shadow of some quite outstanding and influential science fiction works. For example, the struggle between two powerful AI systems powerful enough to control society, one of which is the protagonist who is finally integrated into the setting of the victorious system, it is difficult not to think of the machine and root of "Suspect Tracking" (2011); and the existence of the social integration system is reminiscent of "Good Land" (2016); as for the robot companion who can meet all the requirements and the existence of a fairly real "virtual city" and even a "worm" as a "deviant", of course, it will also be reminiscent of "The Worm" Westworld (2016). Specifically, do you learn from the outstanding science fiction works that existed before? As a creator, how do you control how much you learn from it? What do you think is the most unique understanding of the system and big data plot that has been widely discussed and set up in your work?

Tang Qingzhi: I haven't seen the first two works, and I watched a few episodes of "Westworld" and didn't finish watching it. I think the main thing I borrow is reality and history, and the science fiction setting is just an extension and exaggeration of the logic of reality. For example, the saying of "catching insects" actually comes from the programming debug; the integral system has long been ubiquitous in our lives, and now there are KPIs used to quantify the "contribution value" of employees to the company, and many religions in history have also quantified the good and evil of people, and the ancient Chinese also have "merits", which are all primitive integral systems. As for how the correctional center in the text treats children who do not like to learn, I believe that readers will be able to smile when they read this, which is actually something familiar to all of us.

"Unique understanding" does not dare to be, for the philosophy of technology, technology and human relations, there are many experts in the study, I am just a layman. Personally, I don't think the problem of technological alienation is terrible, because I remember that before industrial society, human beings were not much better. I'm more concerned about whether technology will exacerbate some of the inherent human tendencies. For example, will advances in technology make humanity's long-standing desire for a hyper-stable society a reality?

There is an ideal blueprint for the "World of Peace" in "Han Feizi Dashu", a society with no war, no crime, no Haojie, no history, everyone is simple, it looks a bit like the Confucian Datong society or the Taoist small country and widow, but it is achieved through the prohibition and precise control of the Qin system. We know that historically, this kind of blueprint is difficult to achieve, because human beings cannot reach such an organizational level, and they cannot maintain such management costs for a long time, but what if the technical means are more and more mature? Is it possible to achieve a "cyber Qin system"?

Feng Zhou: We can easily find that all the contemporary literary works mentioned above that depict the mysterious future are actually discussing the "justice" (or morality) and "human nature" issues of the future. For you, what kind of "justice" or "human nature" is your work trying to discuss? Or how are these "meta-questions" discussed in your novel?

Tang Qingxuan: Regarding human nature, what I want to express is first of all the suppression of some people by a super-stable society, just like the protagonist Han in the text, who lives in this seemingly perfect society, but always feels deep pain. The image of "killer whales locked up in the aquarium" appears repeatedly in the text, which symbolizes this kind of person. In addition, there is both the pursuit of stability and order in human nature, and the instinct to destroy order, and it can be said that human beings themselves are the biggest enemies of the "world of peace", which is called "if you want to eradicate crime, unless you eradicate human beings". Although human beings are social animals, this sociality is imperfect. The perfect social animal should be an ant bee, and each individual completely eliminates his personality, which can really make the prohibition orderly. That's why the book is called Ant Colony, symbolizing the quest for a "perfect" society. But after all, human beings are not ants, and the root of human suffering lies in the fact that they are both social animals and have too strong individual consciousness; they must be stable and free.

It is not that stability and freedom cannot coexist, but it is inevitable that the two will clash. Lu Xun said, "There is no freedom if you are greedy and stable, and if you want to be free, you will experience some dangers." There are many such contradictions, and beautiful ideas are sometimes difficult to reconcile.

Just like the world in my novel, it is painful and repressive for Han, but ordinary people like Qiu can live a stable and happy life, which shows that the good or bad in the eyes of different people may not be consistent, and the "justice" of different people may even be completely opposite. I have never found a good answer to this question in various books, and perhaps it has no answer in the first place. Is it just a matter of going with the flow? After all, different positions will eventually merge in conflict, forming a river of history that transcends human intentions.

Feng Zhou: As one of the countless possibilities for exploring the future of mankind, the novel has to some extent assumed the function of reflecting, alerting or correcting reality, which is why "The Three-Body Problem" and "The Handmaid's Tale" are extremely popular in Eastern and Western societies, respectively. For you, do you expect this novel to be a wake-up call or have any possible effect on our real society (or the real society of the future)? Do you say you like to write stories of "monsters", and is such marginal writing a self-amusement for you, or is it an expectation of being called upon and complemented by the center?

Tang Qingxuan: I don't know if this novel can bear any responsibility for realistic criticism, but I can only talk about my personal gains from another perspective. Once received a letter from a reader, she said that she read the book in high school - I hope not to peek at the class - at that time did not know what major to choose, and finally by the influence of this book, the university chose the computer major, and now in the direction of artificial intelligence development, she also feels like it. I didn't think that my words would really affect a person's life, and I was very happy and moved. If there are more expectations, I just hope that more female authors can bravely express their true selves, create a variety of female characters, and let these girls who read our books see more possibilities in life.

The "monster" I wrote is actually a person who has a particularly strong sense of life and does not want to be restrained and suppressed. As mentioned earlier, such people are actually dangerous because they may not pursue things differently from most people. These people are spoilers, but a lot of great creations are also done by them. This ferocious beauty, like a feline, fascinates me. I write "monsters" because they are beautiful, and aesthetics are personal, so it is probably a kind of self-pleasing.

Feng Zhou: I saw that on the back of the signature page of "Ant Colony" was printed Anna Peters's poem "I Am Not an Elegant Man", which and its fictional song of the same name are important threads that drive the storyline. In your opinion, what kind of existence does art, and its sensibility, exist for the cold future of science fiction and the rationality it constructs?

Tang Qingxuan: First of all, I did not find the original source of this poem, and I still do not know the identity of this author, but the first time I read it, I was deeply moved. I think it fits well with my feelings about "monsters".

Sensibility and rationality, now we are more and more aware that their boundaries are not so clear, and human emotions themselves are also the evolutionary products of survival "rationality", such as people without fear are certainly not long-lived. Today's some "hard science fiction" seems to be relatively cold, may be only focus on scientific and technological imagination, writing human feelings is relatively thin, but we can not always ask people to do everything; the second is that this scientific and technological imagination is more pessimistic, this is actually the characteristics of our times, there have been optimistic periods before, and now the cold is the author's emotional outpouring in the atmosphere of the times, it is an emotional color.

Feng Zhou: As far as I know, your novel was first circulated on the Internet. The emergence of fan fiction websites such as Archive of Our Own has given literature a new way of growth. How has the spread on the Internet influenced the finalization of your work? When your work moves from "enclosure to self-germination" through publication to a more popular group, will there be some kind of dissatisfaction?

Tang Qingxuan: Because I wrote the full text before posting it on the website, I did not experience the feeling of being affected by the reader's evaluation in the process of online text serialization. However, before the final publication, some netizens gave me advice and pointed out some details that they thought were inappropriate, and I was sincerely grateful.

At first, I used the network disk to spread this novel for free, and there were many enthusiastic readers to help me recommend it, but our personal strength is limited after all, and it is not the same as the attention after the official publication. Literature and art can allow more people to participate in the discussion, in any case, it is a good thing, even if there are more criticisms. The author is free to create, the reader is free to evaluate, this is the ideal state in my heart. Readers are more tolerant than I thought, and even many older readers, including my mother, gave very positive feedback and even seriously discussed the themes in the book with me - this is something I did not expect, I thought they would say that I was extreme.

In fact, there are many excellent works in the small circle of network subculture, and they are often quite pure, but young people write for love, write for expressing feelings, and do not seek fame and fortune. I think the reader actually craves this pure breath because we are so lacking in sincerity. In the past two years, the retiree Ms. Yang Benfen's "Autumn Garden" has achieved such a high evaluation – and I like it too – which is proof of how much people call for such literary works. Then the expression of young people in cyberspace "enclosure" is sincere, that is, valuable, and I believe that more and more people will realize this.