In a lecture, a student asked Luo Xiang, "Teacher, why are we still hesitant and overwhelmed about the key choice of fate after reading so many books?"
Luo Xiang said: "The most important way the law teaches us to think is not how to live this life well, but how to avoid the worst choices. ”
He also wrote this sentence into his new book, The Paradox of Law.
In this book, he lists many paradoxes of truth and falsehood that are more brain-burning than speculative novels, such as: Does the law talk about feelings, why can people be killed but not killed, and only by restricting freedom can freedom be guaranteed?
After reading this book, you will find that many seemingly opposing views, positions, and values can exist in the same thing without exclusivity.
Even good and evil are not absolute, because human nature is the most elusive thing in the world.
The contradictions and fickleness of human nature have caused many legal "blind spots" that cannot be judged when the normative laws are faced with human beings.
At the same time, it also reminds us that human reason is limited and cannot transcend the complexity of human nature.
Only by understanding human nature can we live our own lives well.
1
It's not the law that's really complicated, it's human nature
Seeing the title of this book, some readers said that the problem of legal paradoxes is too abstract and has no practical significance.
Some people also asked Luo Xiang: The law is full of "standard answers", isn't the law "how to judge it"?
Luo Xiang does not think so, in his view, the rule of law is a paradoxical existence:
"When there is only one answer to every question, the correctness of the answer is always questionable. ”
He tells a story in the book:
A baby suffers from a rare epilepsy and in order to keep her child alive, the mother has to go overseas to buy psychotropic drugs.
The mother saved the child's life, but also violated the law, which turned out to be strictly controlled by the state.
This case allows Luo Xiang to send out soul torture to readers,
"If your family member is seriously ill, will you risk a crime to treat him? If you do this and you don't hurt anyone, can people think that you are a bad person just because you broke the law?"
What is good and evil, what is good and bad, and who decides?
After discussing several controversies in the book, Luo Xiang showed his deep thinking about the law, and finally found that the law is a guarantee for solving social problems, but not all problems can be reduced to legal problems.
The reason why the law is not perfect is because it is not the law that is really complicated, but the people.
Do you remember that classic case about "Zhang San"?
Zhang San stood on a tall building, wanting to jump, wandering and hesitating between life and death.
At the same time, there were 800 cell phones pointed at him downstairs.
2 hours passed, and the people downstairs were waiting impatiently, so they shouted at Zhang San: "You can't jump yet, your phone is almost out of battery!"
Then there were complaints, heckling, and boos from the crowd.
As a result, Zhang San couldn't stand the cynicism, made up his mind, and jumped down.
"Bang", a life ended, the spectators dispersed in a hurry, and only Zhang San's family was left in pain.
In this regard, Luo Xiang said: "We are far more narcissistic and sanctimonious than we imagined. ”
Because human beings are complex, human beings have multiple thoughts, personalities, opinions, positions, and other factors, which make human nature more complex than we think.
Kind-hearted people can also become violent and wanton, and heinous people also have a gentle, kind, and sympathetic side.
Human beings, full of contradictions and two-facedness, make good and evil the product of different scenes.
Whether it is the paradox of the law or the paradox of life, it is all about making people examine the darkness of their hearts, realize the complexity of human nature, and always knock on the world:
Human beings are finite, rationality is always flawed, don't fall into conceit.
In the face of the complexity of human nature, what is terrible is not that you and I disagree, but that we lack patience and thinking, use "law" to get on the line, or use morality to kidnap reason.
Only by accepting the limits of reason and admitting your ignorance can you accept the paradox of the law, and thus see through human nature and understand the world.
2
Understand the complexities of human nature
in order to put away pride and prejudice
Keigo Higashino wrote in "White Night Walking": There are two things in the world that cannot be looked at directly, one is the sun, and the other is the human heart.
Luo Xiang thought so, he said:
No matter what case I see now, I am not shocked. For there is no end to the darkness of man, is this not man? What could be more terrible and worse than man?
In the book, there is a Hangzhou girl who has been lost since she was a child and has depended on her grandfather for her life.
Through her own efforts, she was finally admitted to graduate school.
On the day she got the admission letter, she came to her grandfather's hospital bed for the first time to report the good news, and took a photo to record this moment and posted it to social platforms as a souvenir.
Unexpectedly, because of her pink hair dyed in the photo, she was quickly bullied by the whole Internet: "A graduate student dyed her hair like a bar drinker." ”
The rumors became more and more ferocious, and even developed to the point that some people insulted her for being "improper" because they hated her hair color, and some people asserted that "old and young love" based on a photo, and even wantonly cursed grandpa's health......
The unprovoked attacks and constant harassment caused the girl to suffer from depression, and she even said to reporters in despair: "If I die, will public opinion be able to pay attention to cyberbullying, or will these people who speak be ashamed for a lifetime?"
Later, the difficult road of defending her rights became the last straw that broke the camel's back, and she finally chose to end her life at the age of 23.
But a photo, with pink hair, exposes the most evil and stupid side of countless people's human nature.
People think they know why, which is a manifestation of ignorance and unreasonableness.
Therefore, Luo Xiang often reminds students that legal people must not be arrogant, and this arrogance is just a manifestation of ignorance.
In his view: "A person does not automatically become righteous just because he engages in a righteous profession, but the opposite may be true, and the darkness of human nature tends to cast dust on the cause of justice." ”
It is not the righteous profession that determines whether a person is righteous or not, but whether it is a righteous act or not.
Luo Xiang once talked about a movie based on real events, "The Lamentation of Richard Jewell".
Richard Jewell, a security guard at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, was hailed as a hero for being the first to spot a bomb in the Olympic Park.
However, the FBI suspects him as a suspect, and surveillance and tracking are all out of every possible way.
In just 3 days, Jewell was besieged by rumors everywhere and became a "fake hero" that everyone crusaded against.
Jewell fought his lawyer for 88 days, and the FBI has been pushing the buck and unwilling to admit its mistakes.
Later, although Juveil was victorious, he suffered a severe physical and mental defeat and died at the age of 44.
You see, the "pink-haired" girl, facing a group of ordinary people, was finally "killed" by popular prejudice,
The enforcers that Jewell faced, even though they possessed natural justice and a noble profession, were inseparable from the darkness and complexity of human nature.
Cloaked in arrogance, everyone can use discrimination and prejudice as invisible weapons to besiege anyone.
Nothing in the world can be taken for granted. Many things can only be judged after in-depth understanding, and it is not appropriate to interpret them without understanding the whole picture.
Just like a blind man touching an elephant, we who are blindfolded, everyone thinks that we have touched all of the elephant, but in fact we have only touched a part of the elephant.
Only by always maintaining humility can we constantly touch the background of human nature in the midst of complexity and chaos, and feel justice and truth.
Only by not defining others by pride and prejudice can you become an undefined person.
3
Only by understanding and embracing human nature can we transcend human nature
In The Paradox of Law, Luo Xiang explores the controversies that followed several legal cases and then writes:
I can't provide answers to these paradoxes, I can only present the thought process. I hope that in the process of discussion and thinking, I can exercise my thinking, recognize the limitations of reason, get out of the hedgehog-style thinking arbitrariness, and accept the fox-style diversity and tolerance.
Tolerance does not mean recognition, but a mind that respects differences and embraces diversity.
With inclusive thinking, when we feel the difference in the world, we will not be resentful, we will not be arrogant, and we will live in peace with the world.
In the era of the Republic of China, Lu Xun and Lin Yutang were both giants in the literary world, but their thoughts, positions, and styles were very different.
A critic of the bad nature of the Chinese people, mourning their incompatibility and angering them.
One celebrates traditional Chinese culture, escaps politics, and advocates humor.
The two went their separate ways and had fierce arguments, but no matter how big their differences were, they always maintained their respect for each other.
Lu Xun once said: "I have never become friends and enemies because of a little thing, I still have old friends for decades, and the point is to take the greater of each other's small sections." ”
Lin Yutang also said, "I always respect Lu Xun, Lu Xun cares for me, I like him to know each other, Lu Xun abandons me, and I have no regrets." ”
The sign of a person's maturity is to constantly break through cognition, sublimate their bearing, and allow two seemingly opposing views to exist in their minds at the same time.
Even if they can't recognize it, they try their best to respect and understand the complexity and diversity of human nature, and believe that all human nature has its own rationality.
As Liu Yong said, understanding human nature is not to make you indifferent and ruthless, but to remind you to think positively about life and have greater courage to face the world.
Luo Xiang himself, as an "Internet celebrity" with tens of millions of fans, will inevitably be subjected to "cyber violence".
Some time ago, a photo of him attending a lecture was widely circulated, and Luo Xiang in the photo had a haggard face and gray hair, which caused the majority of netizens to speculate.
Why is Mr. Luo Xiang so old? What major changes have he encountered? Is it deliberately "eye-catching"?
Luo Xiang didn't want to respond, but public opinion made him unbearable, and in the end he had to go down in person to "refute the rumors":
"The light hit my head, because my hair was already thin, so it looked gray. ”
As for the old face, someone deliberately used aging software to process the photo and concoct a hot spot.
For this incident, he did not pursue responsibility, but laughed it off, but used it to popularize the law on portrait rights to the public.
He commented that the infringement of portrait rights makes people completely objectified, and people are dignified, "Respect for people is a moral precept, and moral laws make people become human beings." ”
Whether it is looking at the law or facing other events, dealing with the same problem, the results can be very different, and the difference lies in people's mentality.
The alleviation of contradictions between people is not only a compromise of all parties, but also a tolerance for each other and an acceptance of complex human nature.
The good side, the evil side, and even the vague side of human nature are all the real and flesh of human beings.
Constantly judging the rights and wrongs of others will only make people see the finite pattern and narrow-mindedness.
Entangled in other people's problems, you will only sink deeper and deeper into emotional internal friction, and let yourself be trapped in the paradox of life and entangled in anxiety.
The process of accepting human nature is also a process of stabilizing the heart, and only by being a person with far-reaching vision can we see a pure and clear world in our eyes.
▽
At the end of the book, Luo Xiang recalls an English class in college.
Everyone sat on the grass, and the foreign teacher asked everyone what animal they wanted to become, some said lion, some said tiger, some said elephant.
When it was Luo Xiang's turn, he said that he wanted to become an ant.
His answer was: We are as small as ants, and this meadow will take a lifetime to explore.
In reality, Luo Xiang is often disappointed by the flaws of the law and the complexity of human nature.
Whenever this happens, he always thinks of this meadow, and then regains his firmness.
Just because ants can't see the beauty of the whole meadow doesn't mean that the beauty doesn't exist. Although the law has various paradoxes, it does not mean that fairness and justice do not exist.
Although they know that perfection does not exist, countless people have never given up the pursuit.
And this is also the root of making our world better and more harmonious.
Like it, see human nature clearly but still have confidence in life, see through the complexity but still yearn for pure kindness, such a life is the ultimate meaning of our efforts.
Author: Insight North Youjia