In the human world, the rank of career is determined by official rank, the level of wealth is determined by the amount, the rank of doctors is determined by curative effect, the level of stars is determined by dissemination, and the level of literature is completely different.
The hierarchy of literature has nothing to do with factors such as official rank, wealth, curative effect, and dissemination, and is determined only by something that has no obvious signs, which is called taste. Other industries also talk about taste, but that's just an addition, not like literature, which is unique.
In short, taste determines the grade, and the grade constitutes the context. However, all the processes in between, there is no clear road sign. At this point, things are in trouble.
Looking around, more and more "successful people" now want to show off themselves with literature, and even use literature to train the world, and the results are worrying.
In order to create a "corporate culture", some "Confucian businessmen" forced employees to recite the Mongolian dialects of ancient times with a low cultural level; some TV people are always telling the cultural residues that should have long been withdrawn from public memory.
Some contemporary "celebrities" are even infected with the ancient "scab addiction", as Lu Xun said, the redness and swelling of the distant years are praised as "like peach blossoms".
What is quite disturbing is that some cultural relics appraisal and auction programs on television at present, as long as they involve Ming and Qing dynasties and modern paintings and calligraphy, will infinitely raise the cultural status of the author.
At first glance, it is understandable to praise the ancients, but this kind of thing is constantly repeated and subverts the basic hierarchy of culture. Just like a ten-story tower, originally clearly outlined, suddenly the bottom few floors have to become their own roof, then the upper layers can only collapse.
Just imagine, if Tang Bohu and Qianlong had become "first-class poets in ancient China", then we could only quietly burn the entire "Quan Tang Poems".
The same is true of calligraphy, a staggering sky-high price for a medium-grade pen and ink, like a pile of gold crushing the balance of Chinese calligraphy history.
In the face of this situation, I once sighed deeply: "The context is hidden, the hill is called the peak; the wings are far away, and the residual feathers are full of peng." "Logically, cultural relics experts do not understand the context, and billionaires do not understand culture, which is very normal."
But now, the penetration of modern media and the strong misleading of auction funds have made it difficult for many people to accept this unprecedented "cultural rewriting", and the result is really a bit terrifying.
Some people say that literature should be freely accessible to people, and there should be no division between high and low. This is typical of "literary populism", paradoxical.
Personally, how can one be free to access without basic education? The sight of the rat and the frog looking at the sky are exactly contrary to the original meaning of "freedom".
On the whole, if there is no distinction between high and low in spiritual culture, then the national road and human dignity will be lost, and everything will be uncontrollable in the clamor of the crowd.