Author: Xiansen
Mr. Qian Zhongshu's "Siege of the City" has such a passage describing the discrimination of disciplines in the Republic of China period:
Cao Yuen Lang expected that the German that Fang Hong gradually knew was similar to his own, and that he was a student of the Chinese literature department, and he would not be smarter - because in the university, science students looked down on liberal arts students, foreign Chinese literature students looked down on Chinese literature students, Chinese literature students looked down on philosophy students, philosophy students looked down on sociology students, sociology students looked down on education students, and education students had no one to look down on them, only to look down on Mr. in the department.
In fact, not only the Republic of China, but even now, many people are questioning the value of the liberal arts - to put it bluntly, how much money can be exchanged. What humanistic significance, what human care, what civilization trend and so on, do not matter, we only look at how much money you can make after graduation, whether you can quickly become a general manager, become a CEO, marry Bai Fumei, and embark on the peak of life.
Just like Jia Ling often complains about her fat body in the sketch, she can spit on herself and let others have nowhere to complain. Since the late Qing Dynasty, there have been intellectuals, and many well-known scholars and bigwigs have exposed their own shortcomings, created their own people's reactions, and constantly complained about themselves.
Let's see how intellectuals complained about reading people around the beginning of the Republic of China.
First, the reader's heart is the worst
In 1906, Zhang Taiyan could not contain his hatred for the readers in his heart, and wrote an article entitled "Revolutionary Moral Theory", which demonstrated the uselessness of the readers from the moral level, which at that time refreshed the new height of the reader's own anti-self.
First of all, Zhang Taiyan divided the occupations of people at that time into 16 kinds, such as farming, labor, peddlers, small merchants, and tongren (readers), and the standard of moral high and low was the amount of knowledge.
Secondly, Zhang Taiyan said that morality and knowledge are inversely proportional, "the more knowledge progresses, the farther away from morality", so the peasants who have not read any books have the highest moral level. Compared with the readers, although the workers and small traders and peddlers are a little faulty, they are not morally higher than the readers.
This is a strange standard. The more knowledgeable you are, the less moral you are. If peasants, workers, and petty traders become "good farmers, good workers, good men," that is, people with professional knowledge, morality cannot be preserved. Therefore, Zhang Taiyan said: Simple people are the best, and people with knowledge are the worst. Finally, don't forget to add a sentence to complain: readers are the most knowledgeable, and morally problematic.
Zhang Taiyan also combined with the hot topics of current affairs that had just abolished the examination system at that time, and scolded those who were still thinking of reading the four books as high officials as "taking wealth and wealth as their hearts", and none of them still wanted to get rich and become officials all day long, and it was best to expel these people from their "scholar" status.
It can be seen from this that the grumpy Old Zhang is indeed extremely disappointed in the reader, and he is actually the first person to propose that "the more knowledge, the more reactionary".
Second, learning literature is not as good as learning business
Even before Zhang Taiyan scolded the readers for having no morality, many readers in the late Qing Dynasty were already complaining about the old concept of "everything is inferior, only reading is high".
The first is to doubt the social leader status of the readers, and to vaguely put forward the new proposition that farmers, workers, and merchants are all "readers.". By talking about Westerners " whether they are scholars or workers , zeng guofan implicitly proposed that farmers , workers , and merchants should learn some knowledge and become literate people in their own professional fields " ; Guo Songtao and Liang Qichao pointed out that the four people should "have businessmen, workers, and farmers." ”
Since peasants, workers and merchants can become knowledgeable readers through continuous study, where is the unique status of readers for thousands of years? Isn't "everything" on the top?
At that time, Wang Minyun, who was the most conservative in his thinking, felt that this kind of idea would really bury the readers, and he took the "Analects" to speak, which violated Confucius's view that "the people can make it by reason, but cannot make it know", which is a great rebellious idea.
However, the advanced technology of foreigners not only makes some readers look down on the old knowledge of the Four Books and Five Classics, but also makes them see that learning literature is really not as good as studying engineering and business.
Zheng Guan should talk about "the vitality of the state of businessmen" and "all the way of businessmen and merchants" in "Dangerous Words of prosperity"; Xue Fucheng talked about "the principle of holding the four peoples of business"; Wang Tao even wrote a book "On the Essence of Businessmen for the Country", talking about the importance of businessmen in the development of the country. These remarks point to a problem – in this day and age, readers are really useless compared to businessmen.
To say that the era most despised the study of literature, complaining that just reading a few old books is useless, it is Yan Fu. He said that if the books you read cannot produce the effect of promoting the development of the country's productive forces, then it is best not to read them.
In 1895, he published the "Decision on Salvation", which devoted a great deal of time to the criticism of the readers as "the wandering people and the people's silverfish", and finally pointed out that the readers were "useless in a word". Later, Zou Rong also unceremoniously said that Chinese readers are "really dying and lifeless people." ”
Whether it is Yan Fu or Zou Rong, the objects of their questions are traditional, old books readers. In their minds, there is a high probability that learning literature is not as good as studying engineering and business. If you can't get rich from the books you read, you might as well go back to your hometown and sell sweet potatoes.
Third, it is better to read than to learn a craft
After the Qing government abolished the imperial examination in 1905, this tone about the uselessness of reading was also more and more straightforwardly told by readers.
At that time, song Shu declared that "scholars and doctors are far inferior to the right and wrong of farmers and people", emphasizing that "the poor people should determine the Tao system".
This is actually the same as Zhang Taiyan said, the peasants have no knowledge but have craftsmanship, and morality is the highest; the vernacular Taoist Lin Wei said more clearly in his vernacular newspaper, "Now Chinese readers, there is nothing to hope for!" "Readers" will only say big things and make big articles, but also curse people every day. Instead, it is hoped that "people who cultivate the fields and do craftsmen" are expected.
Interestingly, judging from the remarks of the readers, they are always building an antithesis for their own slots. Turn disappointment in one's own people into expectations for farmers, workers, and businessmen. The worthlessness of their own complaints has raised the status of skilled farmers, industrialists and merchants to a very high level.
These "useless" tones are not unrelated to the situation of the readers after the abolition of the examinations—the worse you live, the more useless you seem. The abolition of the examination almost cut off the future of most of the readers, because they could not enter the civil service.
Jiang Menglin said that all his young classmates who only knew how to take the examination were almost all poor in the end. Liu Dapeng of Taiyuan also told in his diary about his inner confusion and confusion, not knowing where he was going.
In the final analysis, in the eyes of those who have new ideas, those who will only hold the four books and five scriptures to read and read can of course not adapt to the development of society, in addition to useless elimination, what is left? It is better to learn a craft.
Fourth, it is better to study than to be a worker
After the New Culture Movement, especially when the cannon of the October Revolution reached the ears of Chinese readers, a new round of self-complaining by readers began again. This round of complaining comes from the more radical school of readers, who believe that instead of being a reader without the power of a chicken, it is better to be a worker who can create value and support himself.
After hearing the news of the October Revolution in Russia, Li Dazhao shouted in "The Victory of the Common People" that "we should be a worker in the world." O people! Let's go to work! Cai Yuanpei, the president of Peking University at the time, said more clearly, saying that readers are not called readers, but "educated workers", emphasizing that "we are all laborers." "This school of readers is very self-deprecating, and feels that the workers are the center of gravity of society, and the readers can only realize their own value by mingling with the workers."
In 1919, Fu Sinian, who was deeply influenced by Li Dazhao, said that if those of us who read books did not work and became a person who "ate without labor", we would become "thiefs" and wait for those laborers to "change our lives in the future".
A thousand words: Reader, don't be stupid to stand! Go to work, go to the "workers" to create value!
Don't call me an "intellectual"
These modern Chinese intellectuals, who like to overcorrect, do not deny the necessity of the existence of the reader group, but advocate that they should mingle with the workers, emphasizing that "without labor, there is no life."
And they don't like to call themselves "intellectuals", and they often scold those who can't work as "pseudo-scholars" and "pseudo-intellectuals".
This view is reflected in the slogans of "work-study" and "engineeringism" of many associations established during this period.
In June 1918, Wang Guangqi, a journalist who initiated the Young China Society with Li Dazhao, said in the plan of the society that the most promising people in reforming China were "Chinese laborers", believing that Chinese readers "are themselves laborers and part of the working class." ”
To this end, he also initiated the establishment of the Work-study Mutual Aid Group, experimenting with the ideal of combining reading and workmanship. After Mao Zedong entered the Young China Society, he launched the activity of "washing clothes for everyone and collecting one copper plate at a time", which fully embodied this proposition of calling for the combination of "readers" and "workers".
From the October Revolution to the May Fourth period, the tone of "labor sacredness" was fixed, and those who read with new ideas were afraid that others would call themselves "scholars" .
Here are two examples:
In 1927, after Wang Guowei sank, Gu Jiegang, who had always wanted to be a student of Wang Guowei, wrote a commemorative essay. After commemorating Wang Guowei fondly, he went so far as to criticize Wang Guowei for saying that he had cut his braids in his early years, but he had kept braids and even martyred the Qing Dynasty after the Republic of China, which was his "deliberate establishment and pretense to maintain the assurance of his dignity as a scholar and doctor", so "we absolutely cannot express sympathy." ”
In 1928, Yun Daiying criticized the Al-Shabaab Party for its grand propaganda of the "theory of saving the country by scholars"; but the Youth Party ridiculed Daiying and others as "scholars and doctors who seized the weapons of power." ”
In short, each side does not admit to being a "book reader."
Shi Cuntong, a young man in Hangzhou who boldly wrote the article "Non-Filial Piety" in the New Culture Movement, said a sentence that showed the complex mentality of the readers mixed with the sense of original guilt.
"I'm ashamed that I'm not a worker now."
bibliography:
1. Wang Fansen, Fu Sinian: The Individual Life of Modern Chinese History and Politics, Beijing: Sanlian Bookstore, 2017 edition.
2. Wang Fansen, Genealogy of Modern Chinese Thought and Scholarship, Changchun: Jilin Publishing Group Co., Ltd., 2010.
3. Jiang Menglin: "West Tide", Kunming: Yunnan People's Publishing House, 2016.
4. Liu Dapeng: Diary of Retreating Thoughts, Taiyuan: Shanxi People's Publishing House, 1990.