Writers are social insights, often able to sharply expose the problems existing in society in one word. In Liu Zhenyun's view, the problem of our nation is that there are too many smart people and too few stupid people. He has expressed this view on many occasions.
In the novel "Ten Thousand Sentences in One Sentence", he wrote: "There is a great river in the world that is particularly choppy, drowning many people, called smart. In a speech at Peking University, he said: "The most important thing for this nation is smart people, and the most lacking is stupid people." And admonished the students to be stupid. In interviews, he reiterated this view several times.
In real life, we often confuse some concepts, mistake cleverness for cleverness, and mistake for being pragmatic as clumsy. As a result, some people seem to be smart, but in fact there are only some disgusting little shrewdness. Some people seem clumsy, but they are actually working the ground.
The intelligence that Liu Zhenyun speaks of is not really a kind of great wisdom, but a kind of short-sighted and selfish shrewdness. This kind of intelligent person is what Mr. Qian Liqun calls "exquisite egoists": "They are highly intelligent, worldly, sophisticated, good at acting, know how to cooperate, and are better at using the system to achieve their own goals." ”
Liu Zhenyun does not deny that such intelligent people can also succeed, they rely on the road to speculate, most of them have achieved success in the secular sense. But their success belongs only to themselves, only to their own benefit, and to the detriment of others and society. In the long run, this success is mostly temporary, and in the end, it is often the guests who scatter and the high-rise buildings collapse, leaving a mess.
Compared with these smart people, the stupid people liu Zhenyun said would not cut corners, but would only bury their heads in hard work. They seem clumsy, but in fact, they are taking one step at a time, doing what they will do well and moving towards long-term goals.
Liu Zhenyun's grandmother was an ordinary peasant woman, short in stature, but she cut wheat faster than the big Han, and was the local head sickle. Liu Zhenyun asked her why she was faster than others, but she said that she was a stupid person, and she never straightened up when she bent down. Because once there is a straight waist, there are countless times, she is when others are straight waist, cut faster than others.
Liu Zhenyun also has an uncle carpenter, who is praised by the local carpenter. He said that the reason why he became a good carpenter was because he loved this job and worked slowly. He would spend twice as much time doing the same thing as any other carpenter. Everyone knew that he was serious, and when he made good things, they all came to buy his things, and gradually, the carpenters around him lost their jobs.
Becoming a head scythe or a good carpenter is nothing to many people, but they do live their best lives. Liu Zhenyun wants to illustrate the preciousness of stupid people, pragmatism and foresight through these two small things.
What our nation needs is more of such stupid people, who have a long-term vision, who work hard, who are not fooled by the immediate interests. In his speech, Liu Zhenyun mentioned the pioneers of Peking University, who are also the pioneers of the nation. Their thoughts are like searchlights, illuminating not only the past and the present, but also the future.
Our nation needs such long-sighted people, who must be taking a stupid road.