Xu Zhuoyun History of Chu Feng 2023-03-05
Xu Zhuoyun, a native of Wuxi, Jiangsu, historian, born in 1930, came to Taiwan in 1949, and received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1962. He has successively taught in many well-known universities in Taiwan, the United States and Hong Kong, and is a senior student in Taiwan's historical circles, and is known as "the behind-the-scenes promoter of Taiwan's reform and opening up".
He is good at using the theories and methods of social sciences to govern history, and his research interests are mainly in Chinese cultural history, socio-economic history, and ancient Chinese history. In 1999, Xu retired from the University of Pittsburgh. He began to devote himself to writing popular historiography.
"I think that since we ordinary people want to ask ordinary people questions about their lives, we should have an explanation for those who study history." This is his original intention for writing "Wangu River": from a cultural point of view, the formation of "China" is also the original intention of a series of "talking about China" and "talking history" books published in China in recent years - writing history for the common people.
I write history for people who have been obliterated by history
Text | Xu Zhuoyun, Luo Xiaohu Some texts are selected from the Economic Observer
History is the most relevant part of the humanities: literature, art, and music, stimulating and promoting inner feelings, while history is about knowing oneself and strengthening one's own knowledge. People must know the past, in order to know today, to know the future. Therefore, historiography should provide the average person with the basic knowledge of "knowing oneself". - Xu Zhuoyun
01 "I no longer have respect and illusions about great people"
"If he cannot live, neither the dead nor I will have hatred."
During the Anti-Japanese War, in the pine bush of Nanshan in Chongqing, next to an oil lamp, my father loved to read famous ministers to Xu Zhuoyun when he was a teenager, such as this Ouyang Xiu's "Takioka Watch".
At this time, Xu Zhuoyun's family was in exile on the road. Xu Zhuoyun, who was less than ten years old, experienced bombing and strangling again and again, and saw the cruel scene of the people fleeing. After the bombing of Wanxian County, on the way home from the bomb shelter, Xu Zhuoyun saw half a corpse on the power line, a thigh under the tree trunk, a headless female corpse and a baby nursing... Years later, Xu Zhuoyun, who has become a generation of historians, still can't forget what he saw as a teenager.
"Perhaps, because there were too many self-appointed heroes in the era when I was born, which caused countless sufferings to ordinary people, I no longer have respect and illusions for great people." He said.
Perhaps because of this, when Xu Zhuoyun pays attention to history, he is more interested in things related to the common people, such as the thoughts and lives of ordinary people, rather than things about the government, the country, wars and other things usually recorded in traditional history books. After his retirement, Xu Zhuoyun devoted himself to the works of popular historiography, becoming one of the most well-known popular historians in China.
02 Writing history for ordinary people
In 1930, Xu Zhuoyun was born in Xiamen, Fujian. The Xu family is a family of scholars, who moved from Fujian to Wuxi during the Qianlong period, and there have been readers for generations. Xu Zhuoyun's father, Xu Boxiang, graduated from the Jiangnan Navy Master School run by Zeng Guofan in Nanjing, and became the deputy chief of gunboats as soon as he graduated at the age of eighteen. Xu Zhuoyun was born because his hands and feet were not fully developed and could not walk, so he could not go to school, his father's study became his class, until the end of the Anti-Japanese War returned to his hometown in Wuxi, Xu Zhuoyun went directly to high school.
In 1949, Xu Zhuoyun was admitted to National Taiwan University and enrolled in the Department of Foreign Languages, but his results in Chinese language and history attracted the attention of the teacher who read the papers, so he showed it to Fu Sinian, the president at the time, who said: "I should go to the Department of History." A year later, Xu Zhuoyun transferred to the history department and has been working on history all his life. After graduating from National Taiwan University, with the help of Mr. Hu Shih, Xu Zhuoyun got a scholarship to study for a doctorate at the University of Chicago, under the tutelage of Gu Liya. Gu Liya was the first generation of American sinologists to study ancient Jinwen.
In 1962, at the age of 32, Hsu returned to Taiwan and worked at the Institute of History and Philology of the Academia Sinica and National Taiwan University. In 1970, Xu returned to the United States as a visiting scholar at the University of Pittsburgh, and then stayed at the University of Pittsburgh, devoted to historical research.
Xu Zhuoyun said to himself: "The framework of my academic thinking is a three-dimensional type with four corners and four triangular relationships. The structure of this relationship is a kind of system analysis, four small systems: cultural system, economic system, social system, political system, each system itself can be divided into several levels, all of which are dynamic. The key to my historical philosophy is dynamic, and history is always changing. The constant thing in the world is change. Therefore, Xu Zhuoyun compares his historical research to "making a facet on the timeline": "One slice is here, the next slice is here, the image of the previous slice is divided and combined, and the image of the next slice is divided and combined, and you know where the change occurs." ”
In 1999, Xu retired from the University of Pittsburgh. After that, he began to devote himself to writing popular historiography. "I think that since we ordinary people want to ask ordinary people questions about their lives, we should have an explanation for those who study history." This is his original intention for writing "Wangu River": from a cultural point of view, the formation of "China" is also the original intention of a series of "talking about China" and "talking history" books published in China in recent years - writing history for the common people.
Xu Zhuoyun said: The curriculum design of Chinese universities is learned from the West and taught by departments. In the past, China's "taixue" was not divided into subjects, but focused on the overall humanistic accomplishment. Today's university training is a sub-major, so the history learned in college is a sub-major; The history major is the basic knowledge and research methods of historical research. Therefore, historical papers are read for historians, not for ordinary people.
I do not subscribe to this approach to teaching. I believe that history is the most relevant part of the humanities that is most relevant to people: literature, art and music, stimulating and promoting inner feelings, while history is about knowing oneself and strengthening one's self-knowledge. People must know the past, in order to know today, to know the future. Therefore, historiography should provide the average person with the basic knowledge of "knowing oneself".
For so many years, especially after retirement, I did not have the professional pressure of professional disciplines to try to write popular history with my heart. Before I retired, I also worked in front of the public, writing editorials for newspapers and magazines. During the period of Taiwan's "reform and opening up", I tried hard to devote myself to the work of journalism, that is, I hoped to provide ordinary people with professional knowledge and understand the general trend of society.
03 "China" is a community that has evolved for thousands of years
The word "China" is not a country, not a political body, not a so-called sovereign state that can be defined today, nor is it a cultural system. It is a community of culture, politics, economy and society living together for thousands of years in a wide area, composed of countless people from different origins. This community is that everyone's lives are chained together, fate is chained together, and the future is also tied together.
To be able to form such a large group, it is not the word "sovereignty" that can be said, nor the word "blood", so I take four or five different factors and weave it into an interactive and intertwined network system, which is not temporary, but evolved over thousands of years. This system is quite specific to this day, because it has a core, and this core is something that has been honed, mixed, and fused over many years.
From left: Fei Xiaotong, Xu Zhuoyun, Kim Yaoji
Chinese culture, from the Central Plains of China, gathers the currents, goes to East Asia, goes to Asia, and finally converges into the sea, to the sea of the world. The world, the sea of human beings in the world, has always been the goal of Chinese. What Confucius said about the Anren and the Anren people is the ultimate goal of this community, not within national borders, but to the whole world.
The concept of "Tianxia" formed during the Western Zhou Dynasty indicates that civilization is common to the whole world and has no borders. Therefore, this cultural tradition, Chinese identify with the cultural body itself, should be in line with the ideal state of the Datong world. A world of unattainable, though difficult to achieve, is always a desirable goal: especially in today's globalized world, it should be a useful idea.
04 The spirit of Chinese philosophy: no collapse and no arrogance
Then, there are economic exchanges between everyone, there are concepts learned to tolerate and coordinate with each other between different ethnic groups, and culturally, a set of concepts has been bred for a long time, which is China's humanistic philosophical system, not relying on God, nor relying on various magical forces, nor relying on scientific reason, relying on people's own nature, and how people and people should get along in nature. Man is a gregarious animal, and the cultural system we Chinese is how to get along with people, and there is a positive aspect in this, which is Confucianism. Very plain, indifferent, not negative but indifferent, restrained direction, is Taoism. One outward and one inward, one positive and one retreating, one rigid and one soft, so coordinated, we advance and retreat freely a set of life concepts.
This set of (concepts) allows China to endure in the most difficult times, not to collapse, and not to be arrogant when it is most proud.
On the whole, has this community been seen before in the world? There have been similar. The Roman community, quite similar, but different, it is quite exclusive, and he Romans are superior to others. The British in the era of the empire of the sun never sets, there are his colonies everywhere in the world, there are different ranks, there are different dominions, there are different colonial status, it is also quite tolerant, but it is still different, the English are the masters of the British Isles. Christianity is a religion that everyone knows, looking at God, this is exclusive, other religions have no place in his system like Christianity, it is the religion of God, not the concept of man, so this British system is different from the Chinese system.
The world of the future is a globalized world, and China has been a great power in East Asia and the Asia-Pacific region for thousands of years, and it has already gained experience in how to get along with and live with other countries, other ethnic groups and other units in different relationships.
05 Invisible autonomy of the people
Therefore, in the big circle of China, we see that there are countries that do not go to conquest and do not go to war to subdue by war, clearly looking at the demonstrations, Taizu's so-called "countries that do not conquest", there are also countries that give tribute and make concessions and pay tribute as the relationship between the inner circle, there are also semi-autonomous units such as local toast, and there are also highly autonomous units such as Mongolia and Tibet. One big community living on the same earth. That's the main reason I wrote this book. It is to face China's return to the position of regional leader, and within this world system, China has to play a more important and broader role than the previous one.
So, if we want to maintain this position in China for a long time, there are two factors that are quite important. First, the central government is not centralized, and all provinces and counties all the way to the countryside have considerable autonomy at each level.
Civil, invisible autonomy. Where does this invisible autonomy come from? There is a group of educated local elites, they are not necessarily rich, not necessarily the children of official eunuchs, but because they have good character and good people, they have become local leaders, not today's local tycoons, nor the bullies of the past, or the so-called gentry respected by everyone in a place, and the gentry do not necessarily have official positions.
I (Xu Zhuoyun) remember that when I was young, in our hometown, these gentry basically managed all local social welfare, all the relief of the poor, the old-age and the young, orphanages, widows' halls, and shelters for the homeless. They have no money, and they combine with their credit to tell the store, whether you can contribute this money, do what you can, build credit for a long time, and industry and commerce are willing to pay. These people themselves do not receive a salary, but these people can say a word, quite valuable.
My (Xu Zhuoyun) grandfather, after the Taiping Army, the Taiping Army was in chaos, he recalled the past, from the Qing Dynasty entering the customs, killing in Jiangnan, to the Taiping Army, and the two armies killed each other, in the middle of more than 200 years, we have never seen soldiers in Wuxi, the shadow of soldiers has never been seen at all, and we have never seen soldiers in the countryside. He said that for two hundred years, people did not know soldiers. Fourteen states and counties, all so and so. It is not easy to achieve this realm, not relying on official families, but on civil autonomy.
So I (Xu Zhuoyun) feel that our past experience, can not be said to be the same world, but it is indeed more comfortable than a world prescribed by law, is a good custom, a good custom is that everyone from top to bottom, let everyone abide by a set of ideas, this set of ideas does not have no criminal law to manage you behind, no prison to lock you up behind, no church preaching, it is by taking older children from childhood to teach like this, the books in school, the textbooks you read can be brought in, to complete such a world.
To get out of the spiritual crisis, the most important thing is to find the spiritual resources from your own culture to Chinese and settle down. Where is the spirit of Chinese culture? Mr. Xu Zhuoyun pointed out that the spirit and humanity of the Chinese from generation to generation are mostly not in the four books and five classics and the twenty-four histories, but in the streets and alleys, mountains and villages, talking on the streets and talking together...
Mr. Xu Zhuoyun, born in the mainland, grew up in Taiwan, studied and taught in the United States (Wang Xiaobo's "my teacher"), is an emeritus professor at the University of Pittsburgh in the United States and an academician of Taiwan's "Academia Sinica".
Mr. Xu is a major scholar of Chinese history, and his research on the social history of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the Spring and Autumn Warring States and the Han Dynasty is unique in the world, but his more influential research is his general history research that connects China and the West, and throughout ancient and modern times. He sees China from the height of the world, not only from a commanding height, but also without losing his deep affection for Chinese culture.
It is not difficult for masters to write monographs, but few masters can write small books. And several of Mr. Xu's books are popular and popular books.
Xu Jilin, a professor of history at East China Normal University, said: "Don't think that this kind of reading is easy to write, only when the knowledge is perfect, the experience is clear, and the vicissitudes of life are seen, can we simplify the complex and express the deep wisdom of history in the vernacular." There are not many learned experts, but there are too few wise people, and Mr. Xu is one of the great wise men alive today. ”
These works of Mr. Xu are based on China's real crisis and reflect on Chinese civilization. Zhang Weiying once said: "Reading Mr. Xu's book helps us learn to see ourselves and the world with a normal mind, break through narrow racial prejudices, and embrace globalization with a positive attitude. ”
Xu Zhuoyun is a set of passwords that need to be saved and constantly written. His wisdom can help us think about where Chinese culture came from and where it is going.