I don't want to sink with such a reality

Dead Poets Society

It seems that in these years, young people no longer choose to rebel, just like "hope to make the world a better place", which sounds more and more like an anachronistic wish. It's not because there are fewer difficulties we have to face in life right now, but maybe more. Rather, in the face of all kinds of injustices and disappointments, it seems that there is really no choice but to get used to it and accept it.

Of course – and everybody must have had some impulsive moments, and every time that injustice, inequality, injustice happens again, we subconsciously think, can we do something about it? But at the same time, there will be a voice in your ears: "Don't be stupid, be realistic! You still have to live." Such voices may come from the environment, or from the people around you, and a lot of them from yourself.

But there are still people who don't care so much, or they care more. Like Christopher Hitchens. In the form of letters, he shouted to the younger generation and wrote "Letters to the Young Rebels", exhorting them to arm themselves with the weapons of independent thinking and to be vigilant against all threats to free will.

When these sharp and piercing voices sound again, you will find that the heat that has accumulated outside of the failures of daily life is not dead, and if the mind is penetrating enough, they can still be awakened and protect the mind that you do not want to give up. Here are a few examples of life advice from Hitchens' book, and maybe they're just what you've been looking for.

Recommendation 1

It takes a little courage

While courage is not the most important virtue, without courage other virtues cannot be practiced. So the discussion is not limited to "intellectual". Galileo's discoveries may have overturned the complacent cosmology of the Christian tradition, but as soon as the tools of torture were revealed, he immediately abandoned his claims. The sun, moon and stars are naturally not afraid of being abandoned by him, and no matter what the Vatican says, the planets still revolve around the sun. (Galileo finished reading the statement, probably adding in a low voice: "epur si muove.") - "It's still turning." ”）

I often think of a late friend, Ron Ridenhour, who fought in the Vietnam War and was once famous for collecting and disclosing evidence of the March 1968 Male massacre. It is difficult for anyone to face the conclusion that "one's" side has done something wrong in the war. Silence and collectivism are real pressures, because once dissent is expressed, it is quickly accused of cowardice or treachery. Vicious phrases like "stab in the back" and "provide ammunition to the enemy" were originally born in the context of such a choice, and can always be used to make people dare not break the unanimity.

Dead Poets Society

Lydenor resisted this pressure and insisted that American soldiers and civilians alike abide by the prevailing laws of war, and many people who had fewer worries than him should be ashamed of this. He once told me that he grew up in a poor white family in Arizona, and that the honest children of the family, less bookish, and without the sentimentality of a scholar, may have shaped his temperament. He recalls lying in bed as an uneducated recruit when he overheard a few comrades planning how to bully the only black soldier in the barracks at night, which was the beginning of all things. Ron sat up and listened to himself, "If you're going to do this, you've got to put me down first." "In many cases, individual determination can defeat the so-called courage that rabble instigates against each other. But don't forget that he had no idea he would act that way until the moment of truth came.

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The "baptism" of a future dissident is often the result of a subconscious rebellion against bullying or prejudice, sometimes a challenge to the ignorance of a teacher, and this reaction is not so much indoctrination as it is more reason to believe that it is an innate instinct: when the moment of crisis comes, Nicholbe himself does not know that he will stand up for Mik. Chomsky recalls hearing that Hiroshima had been ruined overnight as a young man, and he just wanted to walk away and be alone because there was no one around him to confide in. It's natural to think that this kind of reaction is inspiring, because we can be sure that it will continue to happen, regardless of whether there is an example or a story of admonition to spread.

Perhaps you, dear X, have read your own shadow in these examples, or perhaps there has always been some resistance in your character to arbitrary authority and blind masses, or perhaps some free mind has polished a subtle statement that makes you feel relatable. If so, then let's continue to correspond, and while you compliment me and hope to learn from my experience, I can actually learn something from your experience as well. Now, I just want to remind you that it may not be entirely meaningless for cynics to look down on those who "say 'no' for food". Being an opponent is not believing in nihilism. There is no decent way to make a living from this. It's not something you do or don't do, it's about who you are or aren't.

Recommendation II

Had to write

Rilke's advice to young people who aspire to write may be too embellished, but it's insightful: you only need to do one thing. Go deep into your heart. Find the reason that drives you to write, see if it's ingrained in your heart, and be honest with yourself about whether you'd rather die if you're forbidden to write. This is the most important thing, and in the stillness of the night, ask yourself: Do I have to write? dig deep into my heart to find the answer. If the answer is loud and affirmative, if you can say "I must" forcefully and simply in the face of this question, then build your life around this "must"...

It's not as flowery as the rhetoric, but that's what I've told my writing class students over the years. You have to feel like you're not trying to write, but having to. It makes sense to emphasize this distinction, because the inner desire to be a banisher, a dissenter, a decision to make life and society at a steep angle, is all related to that desire and need—a hazy connection, of course, but still a connection.

Frances Ha

Recommendation 3

Be skeptical

I am very heartened by your reply. Indeed, the odds of ignorance, superstition, and unfettered power are so high that they are suspicious, and they have been so common throughout history that it seems that these forces have never been truly challenged. But it is also undeniable that people also have an indelible instinct, that is, they can see through these tyranny and tyranny, and see the vision beyond the current situation. It can also be said that injustice and irrationality are inevitable elements of human existence, but they are also destined to be challenged.

On the monument to Sigmund Freud in Vienna is inscribed the words: "The voice of reason is small, but very firm." Philosophers and theologians have considered and interpreted this phrase in different ways, either to say that we are inspired by the "conscience" that God has placed in our hearts, or, as Adam Smith put it, to say, that we carry an invisible man with us on our backs, witnessing our thoughts and actions, and we are trying to win the favor of this noble beholder.

"Theatre in Paris"

We don't have to believe either of these statements, it's enough to know that this inner mind really exists. But we must also add the restriction that while it may be assumed that this spirit lurks in the hearts of each of us, many times it is just that—hidden. Its existence does not necessarily lead to any change, and in order to catalyze a reaction or create a Promethean moment, one must decide not to be a passive listener of this voice, but to be its spokesperson or demonstrator.

Wilde said that a map of the world without utopia was simply not worth opening. This sentiment is noble, and it is Ger (the character in Dickens's novel "Hard Times" refers to a person who only talks about benefits and sees life as a relationship between buying and selling for cash. The elders and utilitarians were a resounding rebuke. But you must also remember that utopia itself is also an autocracy, and the ideas of eliminating suffering and no more struggle are much more sinister than they seem. These ultimate and absolute are the pursuit of the supreme good, and the supreme good is an underlying authoritarian idea here. (You should peruse Brian Victoria's excellent book called Zen at War, written by a Buddhist monk, but exposes how terrible Zen obedience and discipline played in the formation of pre-war Japanese imperialism.) ）

In rejecting the "supreme good", I also don't want you to fall to the other extreme, which is to take a wrong attitude towards human nature. My friend Basil Davidson, who has a terrific memoir about his years as an anti-Nazi fighter in the Balkans, summed it up as a lazy opinion, don't agree with it. He saw with his own eyes a change in human nature—for the worse. Can it also be deduced from this that since it can be transformed, it can also be changed for the better?

Recommendation IV

Understand that there will be some tough days

In the late Victorian era, Wilde – who was a master of this gesture, but by no means a postural – decided that he was not living under the rule of hypocritical morality. In the heart of the American South in the early '60s, Rosa Parks (a modern black civil rights activist (who had worked hard many times in private) decided to sit down on a bus "as if" it was the most normal thing for a hard-working black woman after a hard day's work. In Moscow in the seventies of the twentieth century, Solzhenitsyn's writing was "like" that a scholar could investigate the history of his homeland and publish his work.

Each of them is "doing things according to the rules", but in fact maintains an ironic attitude. And we can now see clearly that in each case, the authorities have no other way but to deal with it roughly, and then expose their brutal nature, and in the end, without exception, they will be spurned by future generations. It's just that these are by no means inevitable endings, and there will be extremely difficult days to maintain the posture of "just as".

So, (in addition to studying these and other examples) I can only suggest that you try to develop some of these attitudes. On an ordinary day, you are still likely to encounter some kind of bullying or intolerance, or buying public sentiment with clumsy rhetoric, or a slight abuse of authority. Everyone can invent their own set of coping strategies, and trying to show that these things are not natural and do not have to be tolerated.

Recommendation 5

Don't be afraid to supply the enemy with ammunition

Don't expect to change human nature, or change what is called common human nature, which may be a little synonymous, but there is no big problem, because nature is a given. But even if this premise is accepted, no one would agree that human attitudes or behaviors cannot be changed. Others are more subtle in tempting you to passivity and acquiescence, because they want you not to forget humility. Who is in a position to judge others? Who asks your opinion? If nothing else, is it a good time to take sides? Shouldn't you wait for a more opportune moment? And—to the point—— aren't you afraid to supply the enemy with ammunition? 

In his 1908 monograph, Microcosmographia Academica, F. M. Conford, a Edwardian and mindful Cambridge scholar who was accustomed to hearing all those euphemisms and deliberate confusion in the banquet tables and faculty lounges of British universities, dissected them in his 1908 monograph, Microcosmographia Academica:

The principle of "dangerous precedent": even if an action is right, avoid it at this time, fearing that you or someone as prudent as you will not have the courage to do the same right thing in the future, and the situation in the future will be fundamentally different from the present, but there may be similarities on the surface. Any public act that is unconventional, is either wrong or, if it is true, a dangerous precedent. To sum up, anything that is done the first time is wrong.

Another method of judging is called "the time has not yet come": the "time has not come" principle refers to the action that you think is right at a certain moment, and do not practice it at that moment, because the moment of practice that you think is right has not yet come.

I can guarantee that you will inevitably encounter some combination of these arguments and excuses later in your life. Maybe you don't have the energy to fight them every time, or maybe you find yourself saving and storing up your strength to take on a better opponent on a more opportune day. Beware of this tendency. And even more alarmingly, at some unbearable moment, you hear from your own mouth such a self-comforting and self-depraved expression, even if it may be said subconsciously.

"Theatre in Paris"

(Neither the sacred nor the vulgar can help much in this matter, by the way.) Although sometimes I find it useful to scold me by saying, "Fuck, I can only live this life, and I don't want to waste a moment of it on a pathetic compromise," but there is an uninvited thought: since life is limited, isn't it also time to avoid this little battle?, I suspect that those who look forward to the afterlife face the same temptation, albeit in different terms, and many questions of principle sub specie aeternitatis [compared to eternity] After that, it becomes less important. ）