Recently, Xu Ben, professor of the Department of English at St. Mary's College in California and adjunct professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences of Fudan University, wrote a new book, "The Internet of Humanities: Reading, Writing and Knowledge in the Digital Age", published by Peking University Press. In Xu Ben's view, Internet culture is another cultural transformation that may have great positive significance after the Renaissance and enlightenment. How people can effectively process information while maintaining choices about the value of freedom has become a key issue in our understanding of the Internet. "The Internet of Humanities" takes this as a focus, through the two contents of "Reading, Knowledge, Learning" and "Truth, Freedom, and Cognitive Equality", explores the humanistic issues involved in the phenomena and behaviors displayed by the rise of the Internet, emphasizing that reading, writing and knowledge in the digital age must be people-oriented, and the future outlook for the Internet must include universal values about free human beings, refusing to use people as tools and rejecting dehumanization. To this end, it is necessary to use enlightened humanistic education to enhance people's literacy and knowledge skills, and to reaffirm the concept of freedom and autonomy of humanistic education.
The topics covered in this book are grand and closely related to the real life of the present, and Zhang Hong, a special correspondent of The Paper, interviewed Professor Xu Ben and discussed some issues with him in depth. The interview is longer and published in two parts, and this article is the first part.
Professor Xu Ben
"Ignorance of schooling" and "Illiteracy of literacy"
The Paper: You distinguish between knowledge and knowledge in "The Internet of Humanities": you think that some people know a lot but have little wisdom, and emphasize that knowledge consists of three parts: first, a thing is real; second, a person believes that this thing is real; third, his belief is verified. For individuals in some places, you may often encounter such a dilemma: you absorb some knowledge through reading and thinking, but due to the limitations of the times, the knowledge you acquire is difficult to change reality, but it makes you more painful and anxious. Therefore, some people can choose to know without pursuing knowledge. In other words, "no thinking" and "no judgment" and "no knowledge" are the result of their choices and not limited or insufficient intellect.
Xu Ben: Many intellectuals have a cognitive split personality, on the one hand, they try their best to show how knowledgeable and learned they are, but on the other hand, they deliberately pretend to be confused on the issue of right and wrong, and flaunt that they are rarely confused. Pretending to be confused or pretending to be deaf and dumb is often no way to do it yourself, and there is no need to blame.
Self-deception can occur in a person's mind, but this does not mean that self-deception can get rid of the social environment. In fact, like hypocrisy, self-deception is also characteristic of the social environment. William Ruddick, a philosophy professor at New York University, argues in "Social Self-deception" that we associate with like-minded, similarly interested others and form our own social circle. The problems in this circle can only be detected when you step out of this circle, and "internal diagnosis and treatment is unlikely." If we do not go out of such circles, then "even if we 'open our moral eyes,' we may not be able to see what is wrong." The people we come and go, either out of sympathy or because of timidity, are always trying to keep the light to the minimum." In such an environment, it is not that everyone can see clearly together, but that everyone cannot see clearly and get lost together.
Hypocrisy is a more serious moral flaw than not thinking and not judging. It has nothing to do with a person's intelligence, and it can even be said that the higher the intelligence of the person, the more likely it is to be hypocritical.
"Read and Write" and "Knowledge"
The Paper: "The Internet of Humanities" said, "Knowledge is only understanding, learning is further understanding, and wisdom is poor reason." In terms of humanistic society, in some special places, once it enters the level of "knowledge" and "wisdom", it is not only difficult to promote and speak academically, but also encounters difficulties in dissemination. Therefore, when some scholars reach these two levels, they often avoid or consider it. On the other hand, once the "knowledge" and "wisdom" of the intellectual person cannot be freely created and studied, it often means that the intelligence is wasted and consumed. Once this happens, it also means that the creativity of a country or ethnic group is withering. What is your opinion on this?
Xu Ben: In the age of the Internet, knowledge is welcome, but knowledge and wisdom are indeed, as you say, "not only difficult to advance and speak academically, but also difficult to disseminate." My "Humanistic Internet" is a ready-made example. There are online comments on Douban that the articles in the book are not as good as the "public account articles", and the book has obviously encountered difficulties in promoting, speaking and disseminating. I checked it, and found that the popular public accounts have "portal", "micro-mouth gang", "what to see today", "love micro-gang", "look at what", I really don't know how I have a relationship with these public accounts, this may be the kind of internet public reading I discuss in the book. Many readers, accustomed to a certain kind of reading, are subject to what psychology calls the "law of familiarity" and the "simple exposure effect", and mistakenly think that the standard of the public article they are familiar with also applies to my book. Internet reading is often a habitual low-level reading, and the simple exposure effect tells us that people are a habitual animal, and for this habitual animal, even if it is the devil, it is as long as it is familiar. Therefore, I particularly emphasize in the book that we should strive to improve the level of reading and thinking. Both academic and intellectual, are higher than the official account articles.
The humane Internet is not intended for the average Internet user or smartphone user, who may be interested in some of the book' content, but most of the issues discussed in the book are outside of their experience and interests. In China, the intellectual interests of different reader groups are quite different. In the Internet era, this difference is even wider. Although some authors, including myself, have tried to narrow this gap, it must be admitted that little has been achieved.
The two main issues that my book is concerned with are "reading and writing" and "knowledge." I think that the people who are particularly concerned about these two issues are basically intellectuals and some humanists. There is overlap between the read-write problem and the knowledge problem, but it is not equivalent. Both of these are old questions, and the knowledge problem is a little older than the reading and writing problem. The problem of reading and writing only emerged after human beings entered the era of writing civilization, but then became the core of the problem of knowledge. Many of my books deal with the history of reading and writing, the history of books, the history of reading, the history of speaking and writing culture, and the history of knowledge and knowledge management. To the average Internet user or smartphone user, this content may be unfamiliar, seem distant, and detached from the internet reality with which they are familiar. Actually, I'm not a bookish author. What I'm trying to offer is not "specialized", but as deep as possible. I hope that thinking about problems can also be accompanied by the expansion of the breadth of problems. As schooling places more and more emphasis on general education and humanistic education, much of what seems to be "specialized" knowledge will gradually become common sense and knowledge preparation for many people. I hope that The Internet of Humanities will help drive this trend.
There are also some special problems related to reading and writing and knowledge in my book, such as reference books, encyclopedias, taking notes, what is learning, how to do learning and scholarly writing, the characteristics of university knowledge, and so on. Especially in the second part, the thinking of Internet knowledge rises to the discussion of many human issues, including reality, human free will, autonomous consciousness, skepticism and cynicism, cognitive equality, the relationship between man and machine, human fear instinct, the nature of artificial intelligence, etc., not necessarily within the experience or interest of the average Internet user. But interests can change, and some of them may one day become interested in these issues. To be honest, as far as I know, even among many intellectuals, these questions have not yet been raised or given sufficient attention. I hope that this book will lead to more attention to these humanistic issues. If most people's reading is limited to the level of public account articles, then, let alone knowledge or wisdom, even the general reading comprehension and thinking ability is very low and sad. Knowledge or wisdom is thought, and as Wang Dingding said, thought cannot be transmitted to those who do not think, and humanistic thinking can certainly not be spread to those who are not interested.
The Paper: In 2017, a Chinese intellectual elite couple in the United States was severely punished for being greedy and cheap, saying in court that they were "ashamed of the elite education they have received over the years." Their education and IQ are not high, and their education is not bad. But the facts that have happened are lamentable and at the same time have to ask, what is the problem? Some people call him a "refined egoist", what do you think of this phenomenon?
Xu Ben: Obtaining inside information, illegal securities trading profits, violating U.S. law. This is not so unusual in the United States, where people call it "white-collar crime." White-collar criminals are well-educated or elitely educated people whose tools of crime are not knives and guns, drugs, but their clever brains. They have decent jobs, they seem to be polite and educated, so they commit crimes, also known as gentleman crimes, Sven crimes. American criminologist Edwin Sutherland first proposed the concept in his 1939 book White Collar Crime. Most of the white-collar offenders have a high social and economic status, and usually use their positions to commit crimes, such as buying short and selling short, falsely reporting balance sheets, manipulating the stock market, embezzlement, fraud, fraud, bribery, personal income tax leakage, and selling economic intelligence. White-collar crimes in the United States are very serious, and the economic losses caused far exceed those caused by property violations such as robbery and theft in blue-collar crimes.
I think the problem with white-collar crime is the unbridled greed of human nature, not egoism. People are all egoistic, and whether egoism is harmful is not exquisite or not, but whether it is moderate. Illegal egoism is unbridled. As early as the early 18th century, the British writer Bernard Mandeville argued in The Fable of the Bee that if egoism is a vice, then "private vices can bring public good." Adam Smith also said in The Wealth of Nations, "We are able to eat dinner every day not because of bakers, not because of butchers, not because of winemakers, who love us, who are charitable, but because they are selfish and they pursue their interests." Whenever we do business with them, we don't say what we need, we say what they need." Man is selfish, and it is unrealistic to expect a man to become a saint who is not specifically for himself or herself. Moreover, Smith believed that those who were not selfish at all, who did not even love themselves, who were self-destructive, were not respected in society. But at the same time, he pointed out that people are not only selfish, but also have compassion, can obey the law, and do not do things that harm others or society. White-collar offenders have lost their moral character and done things that are contrary to public morality and professional ethics.
The Paper: The Internet of Humanities mentions that UNESCO's founders believed that ignorance and inability to read and write had helped to rise fascism and other totalitarian movements, and that literacy and education must therefore be established as a foundation for advancing world progress and establishing a democratic order. On the other hand, you emphasize that in the Nazis and other totalitarian movements, many schooled and well-educated people did not have the will and quality to think and judge independently, and thus became accomplices of Hitler's fascism and totalitarianism. Why is this happening?
Xu Ben: Successful totalitarian movements, including the German Nazis, were complex, and the reasons why the vast majority of people participated in them were diverse. During the Nazi period, why did ordinary Germans, including well-educated Germans, become complicits and accomplices of totalitarian rule? Do they embrace their own leaders and governments? How did Nazi violence and terror affect them? Are they satisfied with their lives? Feeling happy? Historians' answers to these questions vary widely, even greatly, and even in the same work of research, seemingly contradictory conclusions can be drawn from different aspects and perspectives. For example, Hitler's Nazi Germany: A History of Social Life in the Third Reich (China Market Press) shows us that daily life under Nazi rule has a calm and happy side, as well as a fear and anxiety side.
Life in Germans under Nazi rule was ostensibly peaceful and happy, and "for most Germans, the memory of the 1930s is not terror, murder and repression, but order, calm, employment and prosperity." Thus, in 1951, nearly half of those in the Federal Republic of Germany who were asked what they thought of the 1930s described the period between 1933 and 1939 as germany's best. A survey conducted in 1949 by the German Centre for Theory and Theory studies summed up the findings of several of its investigations: "The guarantee of salary, order, pleasure-power tour groups (Nazi recreational organizations), and a smoothly functioning political system ... Thus 'National Socialism' makes them think only about work, proper nourishment, joyous power tours and political life no longer in chaos'" (Editor's note: This is a superficial situation.) ）
But there is also a violent and terrifying side to German life. Himmler's SS "cast a shadow on the daily life of Nazi Germany" and "the Gestapo was the secret police responsible for hunting down dangerous elements and maintaining Nazi control with an iron fist, whose arrest power was completely unrestricted by statute." The Gestapo has many informants as their eyes and ears, for example, in a large apartment building, there will be Gestapo informants who live in it, responsible for monitoring the building's residents' every move. The Gestapo had 20,000 employees in 1939 and 100,000 informants in 1943. Once reported by an informant, it means detention, where officials have the right, by law, to confess by beating (a process that can last for several days at a time, and prisoners make mistakes between conscious and vague). The terrified prisoner was then sent to a concentration camp, and no one would ever see him again. The Gestapo maintained tight control over the country and the people through the use of intimidation and terror, and few people were unaware of this."
Because of the coexistence of these two aspects, different researchers' assessments of the relationship between ordinary Germans and totalitarian rule during Nazi rule have formed roughly four different emphases. The first was the belief that the Nazis were a police state, that surveillance and control were everywhere, and that the German people living in terror had no choice but to submit to and cooperate with and assist the Nazis.
The second is the belief that Germany in the 1930s and 1940s was a time of anti-Semitism and hatred, and that Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda and atrocities catered to the needs of ordinary people and received their positive responses and cooperation. The Nazis' desire to avenge germany's humiliation after World War I and restore the glory of the German nation was deeply popular, so the cooperation between ordinary Germans and the Nazis was voluntary.
The third is the belief that Hitler's personal charisma greatly united, inspired and mobilized the German people. It's a charisma that combines personality strength and political success. Germany had a well-educated populace whose admiration of Hitler was different from that of the illiterate Soviet peasants of Stalin. Hitler was charismatic not only because of Nazi propaganda and brainwashing, but also because of his obvious achievements and achievements (economic achievements, rearmament of Germany, territorial expansion, and the beginning of the war victory. During his time in power in Germany, Hitler developed the poor and weak Germany after the defeat of The First World War into a world power, realized the "German national revival" that the Germans could see, and realized the "German Dream" that had been lingering in the hearts of the Germans since the Bismarck era.
The fourth is the view that ordinary Germans cooperated and assisted the Nazis, voluntarily and actively, because doing so was beneficial, profitable and beneficial to them, regardless of whether they agreed with anti-Semitic ideology or feared the Gestapo's secret surveillance. Hitler allowed the populace to share in the material benefits he had stolen and stolen from the Jews and other countries, and enabled many Germans to share in the interests of the Nazis and become thieves who benefited from the happiness and satisfaction of the Nazis.
Totalitarian rulers such as Hitler and Mussolini are anti-intellectual in nature, and they want the people to be driven and enslaved by themselves, rather than independently thinking and making their own judgments. But on the other hand, they want to conquer the world through developed scientific research and industry as tools. So, where is the inherent contradiction between these two goals? Is it possible for a totalitarian ruler like Hitler to eventually achieve both fish and bear paws through modern ruling technology and the vast resources and state apparatus at his disposal?
Xu Ben: Anti-intelligence is not the same as anti-technology. Anti-intellectualism does not refer to the fact that the people are all fools, two hundred and five, or illiterate, but that they control their free will and thoughts, consciously or unconsciously, as the cogs and screws of the totalitarian machine. Nazi Germany had the most advanced science and technology of its time, and it was not a fool or two hundred and five that could be developed. Anti-intellectualism is an ideological foolishness project carried out by the people, and science and technology can also have a foolish effect, which is not only not contradictory, but can complement each other.
In my book "The Internet of Humanities", I particularly emphasized the foolish effect that science and technology education may play, that is, science and technology for the sake of science and technology, regardless of the good and evil purposes of science and technology, foolishly thinking that science and technology can be separated from politics and automatically become civilized and moral progress. Such scientific talents are very easy to become the kind of villains and evil experts that Arendt discussed in "Eichmann in Jerusalem". Today, we should have a far deeper understanding of technological evil than in the 17th century.
The 17th century was an era of scientific optimism, and the English philosopher Francis Bacon (1561-1626) firmly believed that science and religion were in harmony and unity. In his book Advancement of Learning (1605), he wrote, "A little or superficial philosophical knowledge may lead to atheism, but a deep study brings the human mind back to religion." In his science fiction novel New Atlantis, he depicted a utopia in which science created a perfect human society, ruled not by politicians, but by learned and conscientious scientists, astronomers, geographers, biologists, physicists, and chemists. In the ideal vision of scientism, science and politics are opposed, and noble science can replace dirty politics. Today, such a scientific utopia is long dead. Dirty politics domesticated noble science, making it as dirty and evil as it is.
Scientific utopia is a very harmful vision, and many people regard science itself as a wonderful ideal, which is wrong, because in the end, just as politics is the politics of man, science is also the science of man, and what kind of people have what kind of politics, and in the same way, what kind of people have what kind of science. Man can be an angel or a devil, in the same way, human politics can be noble or evil, and man's science can be used to do good or evil, including the science of the Internet, especially the science of artificial intelligence, which is a humanistic theme that I have repeatedly emphasized in "The Internet of Humanities".
The knowledge of science is contained in the knowledge of "knowledge". I believe that knowledge is a value and that ignorance and ignorance are always misfortunes and deficiencies. However, I also believe that knowledge, while always valuable, is not always used properly. Whether it's physics, computer science, or economics. On the one hand, knowledge is objective (called truth), subjective desires are regarded as the opposite of the truth of knowledge, and subjective desires are not only not truths, but often become stumbling blocks in the pursuit of truth; on the other hand, knowledge exists in social and political environments, is governed by power, and not all knowledge is allowed to exist. The use of knowledge is often dictated by power, and Internet technology can reveal the truth to the people, conceal the truth or falsify the truth. The enlightenment philosophers of the 18th century already saw that knowledge and improvement did not naturally go hand in hand, nor did they necessarily complement each other. If knowledge is to contribute to the benign reform of society, it is inevitable that knowledge and justice, knowledge and freedom, knowledge and the well-being of the people will be inextricably linked, otherwise knowledge will become an instrument and accomplice of power. This is an important legacy of the enlightenment view of knowledge.