What kind of people are the elite of the human race?

What kind of people are the elite of the human race? In the popular view, those who can become big officials, earn a lot of money, and become famous are the elite of human beings. Some of those who have become high-ranking officials have been proved to have bought their high-ranking positions rather than doing them, some of those who have made a lot of money have been proved to have obtained their huge wealth not from earning but by fraud during the anti-counterfeiting campaign, and some of those who have become famous have been proved to be not genuine but blown out of their extraordinary skills when they need them to show their true skills. At first, the public still sneered at such people, denounced and whipped them, but later found that no matter how they despised and criticized, such people still existed, and they emerged in an endless stream, constantly confirming the feasibility of their methods, and even later, "bad money drives out good money", and the practical and capable are not as good as running, cheating, and bragging, which further confirmed the necessity of their methods, resulting in these crooked ways themselves being regarded as a kind of skill, and those who master this ability are regarded as a kind of elite, and even more, Only those who have mastered this skill are considered elite. The quality of a country's citizens is largely determined by the country's elites. The meaning of the elite to the public is like the stars in the night sky, leading the public to choose what direction and where to go in the end. In view of this, it is extremely necessary to ask, who are the real elites? If it is said that due to the limitations of the industry field, it is impossible to unify and refine the criteria for all elites, then is it possible to find a general standard to measure what kind of people are the elite of the human race? That's the question that this article will answer.

1. Revelation from the history of human evolution: The difference between humans and animals is rationality

Judging from the history of human evolution and development, although the level of scientific and technological and cultural development of mankind has stagnated or even regressed in some time periods, it has been moving forward on the whole. What kind of people are the elite of mankind should be measured in the history of human evolution and development. The 18th-century French philosopher Holbach pointed out that the essential difference between man and animal is that "man has reason and intelligence, and this reason and intelligence make man superior to all animals, because animals only carry out activities under physiological stimuli that have no rational participation." The correctness of this assertion can be verified by reviewing and analyzing the history of human evolution. As we all know, human beings are an animal in their own right, but more advanced, and the evolution from pre-human animals to humans is not a fundamental change in species, but a major leap forward. This great leap forward is that man has become intellectual, or rational, compared to animals. From the small differences in the beginning to the huge gap now, human beings are superior to the entire animal kingdom in terms of intelligence or rationality.

2. Enlightenment from the history of human development: Development means the continuous improvement of rationality

Since rationality is the difference between humans and animals, what exactly is rationality at this level? Still looking to history for answers. So far, the progress of mankind can be divided into two aspects, on the one hand, the improvement and enrichment of instrumental rationality, and on the other hand, the establishment and expansion of value rationality. The so-called improvement and enrichment of tool rationality refers to the discovery and application of various objective laws by human beings, from the initial manufacture of simple stone tools to the invention and widespread use of various information tools. The so-called establishment and expansion of value rationality refers to the refinement and application of the laws of human interaction, from the very beginning of homomorphic revenge to the peaceful coexistence of the big family of people in the world. Through the former, man learns and makes good use of the objective world, and through the latter, man learns and makes good use of himself.

3. Promote the logic of instrumental rationality: make better use of the world outside of humans

Why do humans develop instrumental rationality? The simplest answer is for the better survival and development of human beings. In ancient times, it was difficult to overcome all kinds of invasions of nature with the strength of human bodies and survival instincts, such as the invasion of various large carnivorous animals and the temptation of various toxic and harmful substances, in order to avoid becoming food for other species, accidentally swallowing toxic and harmful substances, etc., human beings summarized and summarized scientific knowledge such as mathematics, physics, chemistry and other scientific knowledge through what they heard and saw, and invented and created various tools beyond the functions of the human body through the use of these knowledge. From the tools of passive defense to the tools of active attack, from the tools that only meet the needs of security to the tools that continuously improve the comfort of life, today, the rationality of human tools has been greatly enriched, and the tools that carry these tools and rationality have been highly intelligent, which greatly meet the needs of human security, development and enjoyment, and even become a source of new fear for human beings at some times - artificial intelligence may become the enemy of mankind. Nevertheless, looking back at the process of improving instrumental rationality, we can still find that this process is precisely the process of human beings surviving various disasters in the natural world, defeating various enemies of the animal kingdom, and finally getting out of the lower stage of human beings and developing to the advanced stage of human beings, so to speak, completely defeating all enemies other than human beings. However, the problem does not end there, and the conquests between human beings are endless, which on the one hand put forward new demands for the improvement of instrumental rationality in the military field, such as the development of cold weapons to hot weapons, and on the other hand, with this enhancement, it hinders the development of instrumental rationality in other fields of mankind, because if the products of instrumental rationality can be obtained by means of plunder, deception, and other improper means, those who are good at these means are always inclined to use these means. In the long run, such people are short-sighted, they can plunder the products that carry the instrumental rationality, but they cannot plunder the instrumental rationality itself, the talent who invents and creates these products is the most valuable, historically, they are the elite in the long history of mankind, it is they who have continuously improved the level of human instrumental rationality.

At this point, a new question arises, what kind of environment is more conducive to the development of instrumental rationality? More realistically, what kind of environment is most suitable for the survival of human beings who improve the rationality of human tools?

4. Shaping the logic of value rationality: forming a contract between human beings

To answer the former question, we need to go back to the evolutionary history of instrumental rationality. In the history of mankind, the progress of instrumental rationality has not developed at a uniform pace, but has advanced by leaps and bounds since modern times. The reason for this lies in the fact that modern times have things that were not available in ancient times: first, the freedom of scientific research. The progress of science requires "bold assumptions and careful verification", and the era of insisting that the "heliocentric theory" will suffer from the fire type is certainly not suitable for scientific research. The second is the development of the market economy. The progress of science is ultimately embodied in human practice, that is, in the application of an advanced technology to the promotion of human production or the improvement of human life. At this time, the development of the market economy is a medium through which science and technology can be widely used, and it is also an important channel for those engaged in scientific research and technology popularization to obtain material benefits. The third is the protection of private property rights. After the material benefits of those engaged in scientific research and technology promotion, if a country does not guarantee private property rights, expropriates and expropriates at every turn, or if the state at the institutional level has not been established at all, and there is no order in the public sphere at all, then science and technology in this place will not progress.

To sum up, putting together the factors that affect and even determine the progress of science and technology, they are the core content of value rationality - the recognition of people's right to freedom and property. The freedom of scientific research is a kind of human freedom, and the market economy is a natural extension of the recognition of private property rights. In this sense, value rationality is a condition for the development of instrumental rationality. Examples of this argument have long been found in history. The late economist Yang Xiaokai once analyzed and pointed out that in terms of objective conditions, Spain was superior to Britain 500 years ago, and one of the key reasons why the Industrial Revolution occurred in Britain and not in Spain is that Spain did not establish a new system before the Industrial Revolution like Britain - the protection of private property rights and the freedom of the open economy.

5. The elite of mankind: those who promote instrumental rationality and shape value rationality for human beings

What kind of people are the elite of the human race? According to the analysis and reasoning of the history of human evolution and development, it can be concluded that from a macro perspective, those who enable human beings to evolve and develop are the elite of human beings; From a microscopic point of view, those who discover new phenomena from the objective world, summarize new laws, and create new instrumental rationality, so that human civilization can develop, are the elite of human beings; Those who are committed to shaping human value rationality, making human beings respect each other's lives, freedoms, and property, and thus providing external conditions for human beings to engage in the study of instrumental rationality, are also the elite of human beings. According to this standard, scientists in the field of natural sciences such as Newton, Mendeleev, and Einstein, and theorists in the field of social sciences such as Tocqueville, Montesquieu, and Locke are all elites of mankind; In addition, those practitioners who are not directly engaged in the discovery of instrumental rationality and the construction of value rationality, but are committed to promoting instrumental rationality and disseminating value rationality, are also the elite of human beings, such as those entrepreneurs who can keenly grasp the new discoveries in the field of natural sciences and enable a wider range of people to benefit from such new discoveries, and those politicians who can effectively shape the consensus of human value rationality and enable a wider range of people to benefit from the value rationality of common recognition.

6. Necessary introspection: The state of our elite talent is not optimistic

Based on the above analysis, it can be concluded that the core indicator to measure the talent status of a country is how many people have the ability to discover and apply new tools rationally, or the ability to construct and promote the value rational consensus, and how strong this ability is. Judging by this, the situation in today's China does not seem optimistic. Qian Liqun, a retired professor at Peking University, once pointed out that some universities, including Peking University and Tsinghua University, are cultivating some "refined egoists". Professor Qian Liqun's critique has more moral judgments, and the picture behind it is actually more complex. According to the above analytical reasoning, the elite of mankind should be the ones who contribute to the discovery and application of human instrumental rationality and value rationality. As the old saying goes, "If you are poor, you will be good alone, and if you are good, you will help the world." Even according to the logic of the old saying, the distinction between benevolence and benevolence is not only a moral distinction, but also a judgment of ability. When some college students, especially those from elite universities, who are supposed to be elites, choose to be "refined egoists", it reflects not only moral indebtedness, but also lack of ability, which shows that "refined egoists" are very likely to have diplomas but not enough skills, and they learn most of the dictionaries of modern society in college, and regard these dictionaries as superior wisdom, in addition to trying to adapt to the old system. They may not have the ability to imagine a better world outside of the real world, and they may not have the practical ability to make everyone rich other than to exploit the shortcomings of the system to make themselves rich. The answer to the questions that may be encountered is that if these "refined egoists" really have the ability to discover and apply new instrumental rationality, can contribute to the progress of human science and technology, and if they really have the ability to construct and disseminate a rational consensus on values, and can contribute to the formation of a better community, how can they be willing to be one-dimensional "egoists"? Isn't this a waste of one's talents and a waste of one's life? Perhaps we should be soberly aware that many of today's college students are in fact defective products created by universities that lack modernity, and their own mediocrity is the key reason why they become egoists, and they do not have the ability to be altruistic except for self-interest. To a certain extent, this is a microcosm of our current talent situation.

Text/Li Xian