Professor Shih Tzu
On April 23rd, in the third "I Read Very Fierce" reading marathon public welfare activity jointly initiated by Sima Qian College, China Youth Development Foundation, Mutian Public Welfare and Fengma Niu Media, we conducted a live broadcast lasting more than 4 hours.
During the live broadcast, the four guests explained their views on topics such as "Reading the History of History", how to read books, and how to grow up in the workplace" and so on. In recent days, we will continue to share the wonderful views of the four guests in the live broadcast.
Previously, we sorted out some of Uncle Feng's Q&A in the live broadcast, and today, we will share some of professor Shi Zhan's Q&A content in the live broadcast to everyone.
01
Host: I'm curious when you first came into contact with The Chronicle of History?
Shi Zhan: The first time I came into contact with the Chronicle of History was when I was in college. Before I went to college, I grew up in a very small city and didn't have much exposure to anything other than textbooks. When I went to Beijing to study at the university, my eyes immediately opened up and I began to contact the "History of History".
Host: When you first came into contact with the "Chronicle of History", what kind of state, or mood, was it? Because many netizens may be like me, the content of the "History" that they know is a fragment of the textbook.
Shi Zhan: If you count this, I began to be exposed to it in middle school.
Mr. Lu Xun said that this is "the great song of the historians, the departure of no rhyme." When I first picked up the "History" to read, I was particularly surprised, I did not expect that the text was extremely beautiful, and I felt that the "History" really deserved such an evaluation as "the rhymeless departure". Again, the characters portrayed in "The Chronicle of History" are extremely vivid.
However, after all, I studied engineering and systems engineering as an undergraduate, so at that time, my ancient literary background was not very good, and I didn't understand it half-understood, more when the story was read, I didn't get too many "when I looked at the heavens and people, through the changes of ancient and modern times, into a family" Those more far-reaching ideas, I did not read it at that time.
When I went to graduate school and switched to history, because I was halfway from engineering to history, I might ask some very small questions that people from the class are unlikely to ask.
The first question I asked was "What is history?" If I don't know what history really is, I don't know how to read it. Because you can see a lot of history books, historical research is the same thing, it has a completely different perspective of interpretation, gives a completely different interpretation, a completely different meaning, and even contradicts each other, and it seems to be self-explanatory.
What is this history? Simply put, history is a little girl dressed up. But for me, it's the equivalent of avoiding the problem rather than explaining it. I wanted to figure out what history really was. After studying history, I gradually realized that the question of "what history really is" does not seem to be a historical question, but a philosophical question. So I put a lot of energy into philosophy, especially the philosophy of history, and it's answering the question of what history really is.
After spending a few years on the philosophy of history, I realized that there was a saying called "Confucius wrote "Spring and Autumn", and the thieves were afraid of the thieves." "Spring and Autumn" is also a history book. Why did Confucius write history, and the thieves were afraid? In the history books, Confucius will express value judgments and moral positions, and this moral position can actually praise and denigrate people in a specific history. If this praise is accepted by enough people, then how it may act and how it may choose for people in reality can actually constitute a strong external moral constraint.
In this sense, Sima Qian's "Records of History" is indeed writing history, and it is also a great literary work, "the departure without rhyme", but furthermore, through the writing of history, Sima Qian has found a coordinate on what is justice, what is goodness, what is morality, what is loyalty, and so on, as well as the sense of mission, purpose, and direction of our nation.
02
Host: Who are the characters you most admire in "Chronicles of History"?
Shi Zhan: There are many particularly vivid characters in "History", many of which are particularly liked, such as King Wuling of Zhao, Xin Lingjun, Han Gaozu, Xiang Yu, Li Guang, and so on, all of which are characters worth carefully tasting.
If you have to say a sort, in fact, this sort reflects everyone's different value preferences, so everyone will have their own ranking. If I sort by one of my preferences, my favorite may be Xin Lingjun.
When I read history myself, I especially like to read the history of those chaotic times, because when the world is chaotic, it is wonderful. Of course, if we live as individuals, we must want to live in a world.
Living in the world, you don't have too much uncertainty. But when you read history, the chaotic world is only enjoyable, and you can see all kinds of conflicts, struggles, contradictions. The most vivid things, the most extreme things, the most ugly things, the noblest things can all be released in the chaotic world, so the tension is strong enough to read, and it is enough to enjoy.
There have been several great chaotic times in Chinese history, one of which was the time of the Five Hu and Sixteen Kingdoms, of which the founding monarch of Later Zhao was called Shi Le, a legendary figure.
After becoming emperor, he chatted with his ministers and said, "Which emperor do you think you can compare with before?" The minister must have been fooling around, "You have done the Three Emperors and Five Emperors."
He said, "You guys are talking about this, I know this, I got up like this, I'm definitely not that bull." I can only compare with these people of the two Han Dynasties, I think if I meet Liu Bang, I am going to PK with Han Xin, I drive under Liu Bang's account, I will become a general under him. But if I met Liu Xiu, the founding emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty, it was possible that I would have to fight with him in the world, and maybe I could come to PK with him. As for these people in the Three Kingdoms and two Jin Dynasties, they are not worth mentioning at all."
Shi Le is a special god figure, but his big love bean is Liu Bang, and Liu Bang's big love bean is Xin Lingjun. That is to say, you find that this top figure has finally found a common big love bean - Xin Lingjun.
The image of Xin Lingjun in the TV series "Legend of the Tiger Rune". The deeds of Xin Lingjun are detailed in the "Biography of the Prince of Wei".
Xin Lingjun has feelings and righteousness, courage and strategy, full of passion, and at the same time can salute corporals, is a very magical figure.
In his time, there was no one in the world who did not know about Xin Lingjun, so that Liu Bang, a figure who was not afraid of heaven, would become his big fan. After Liu Bang won the world, he passed by the tomb of Xin Lingjun when he was touring the world, and specially arranged for five families to guard the tomb here.
Reading the story of this kind of character in the "Shi Ji" is really very enjoyable, before some people said that reading the "Book of Han" you have to drink wine, then reading the "Shi Ji" is the same, reading the story of people like Xin Lingjun, you have to read it with wine.
03
Host: What do you think a character like Xin Lingjun might be suitable for if he travels to 2022?
Shi Zhan: He may have been quarantined. Because this kind of person is not honest and runs around, this kind of person will definitely be isolated now. His kind of person, whatever profession he has, will make a very remarkable career.
In modern society, it is possible to become a big entrepreneur, or a great educator. It's all possible.
The charm of his personality, his heart is strong enough and strong enough, there is no need to prove himself through a certain position, but completely according to the heart and soul of the self, and then break out of the world.
This kind of personality is a bit similar to Musk, but he is different from Musk. Of course, Musk is very imaginative, courageous, adventurous, and so on, but in terms of personal character, this dude is a jerk. As can be seen in the media, Musk seems to have said that he is an Asperger's syndrome patient, and one of the characteristics of Asperger's syndrome patients is that they have extraordinary IQ, but their emotional intelligence is extremely low.
And Xin Lingjun is a special courtesy corporal, with an extraordinary IQ and extraordinary emotional intelligence. This kind of person is suitable for big entrepreneurs, because big entrepreneurs need to have imagination, have a sense of adventure, be able to unite people, and then have a strong sense of mission.
This is also particularly suitable for being a big educator. The best education must be one that shapes people's hearts. Of course, there are two parts to education, one part is instrumental education, and instrumental education is how people can obtain a craft. In addition, after obtaining the craft, it is also necessary to educate the mind and cultivate the human heart in a good direction. This requires strong enough emotional intelligence, good enough empathy ability, to know how to shape a good personality. Therefore, this kind of personality of Xin Lingjun, I think it is also a great opportunity to be a great educator.
Host: If Xin Lingjun came back to doing things with your team this year, can you imagine this thing?
Shi Zhan: I must have provided him with a drive, and Liu Bang had provided him with a ride.
04
Moderator: There is also a question about reading. You have a point about the way of reading, called "round lie" reading, can you talk about it again?
Shi Zhan: In the past, many people said that we should read critically, but the premise of critical reading is that you have to have the ability to criticize. When you don't have the ability to criticize, you read critically, it is nonsense, and you can only read yourself more and more narrowly.
Where does the critical power come from? The ability to criticize actually comes from those books that have been honed and eliminated by hundreds of thousands of years of history and are still recognized as classics.
Those books are to be read in a so-called "round lie" style. After hundreds of years and thousands of years of history, they are still recognized as classics, and there must be something very profound in them. And the most profound things are often contrary to your common sense and your intuition.
So the kind of book that is really a classic, when you pick it up and read it, you can't read it at all, and you think there is something wrong with what it says.
When I pick up this kind of book, I will force myself to assume that every sentence in it is correct, but there may be translation errors in foreign language books, at which time I will go to the English version to check it, to confirm whether it is a translation error, if not, I will assume that every sentence it says is correct. If I feel like it's not saying the right thing, it's not that it's wrong, it's that I'm wrong.
So I started trying to help it make sense of what I felt was wrong. This is a bit similar to the traditional cross-talk "Pickpocketing Horse Coat", which will tease a completely unreliable cow, and the other brother will try to explain to him what he doesn't make sense at all.
Similarly, when I read these truly classic works, I read things that I felt were wrong, and I tried to argue, like the stupid boy in "The Horse Coat", to make it clear for it.
And in the process of trying to make sense, we actually have to find all kinds of excuses, find all kinds of reasons. This process means that you have to remove the things that you have previously taken for granted, unconscious views, presets, and so on, and if you don't get rid of them, the excuse is not found. Removing those preset processes in your head is actually a process of helping yourself to improve continuously.
The reason why there are presets is because you are in a well, you think the sky is so big, and the process of you constantly tearing down your presets is actually the process of you constantly crawling out of the well. Reading in this way, in fact, I am not helping the author to lie at all, but he is helping me to improve.
In the end, I dare not say that I have read all the truly classic works, but at the very least, for myself, I can justify myself. At that point, when I turn back to myself before reading the book, I think it would be stupid for me.
Reading in this way, training for a few years, and then reading other books, I began to acquire a critical ability.
That is to say, the premise of being able to read critically must be that you first have this ability, and the acquisition of this ability needs to start with some kind of blind faith reading, and the object of this blind faith reading must be those books that are truly classic.
After reading blind letters, it is possible that you can justify yourself, and it is possible that the conclusions given by the big thinkers in the book do not agree, but the disapproval at this time is a real disapproval based on reason, not your disapproval based on stupidity. It's possible that I still don't agree, but I've been reborn myself. For me, a huge gain has already been made.
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Editor-in-chief| wang tao| consultant | Wang Shuqi, editor-in-chief wang tao, | chen runjiang