CHAPTER3 The Fall of the War
In the hearts of many fans, Jay Chou's "Dark Trilogy" is an insurmountable peak. The first two songs of the "Dark Trilogy" are "In the Name of the Father" and "The Seventh Chapter of the Night", and the third is "The Death of the War".
The trilogy should be three works whose content is independent and interrelated. "In the Name of the Father" and "The Seventh Chapter of the Night" are both written with a focus on narrative, long and gorgeous, and gloomy in style, which is indeed suitable for calling "dark sister pieces" - probably because both words are Huang Junlang. On the other hand, the three tracks of "The Fall of the War", "Nocturne", and "Fort William" are different from the first two in terms of style, content and writing techniques, so it seems inappropriate to call any of them a "dark trilogy".
This is not to say that "The Death of the Dead" is inferior to "In the Name of the Father" and "The Seventh Chapter of the Night". If the latter two with a long narrative are regarded as a novel, then "The Death of the War" is undoubtedly a poem. The lyrics begin with three crisp and neat sentences: "Light, as light as paper; light, scattered places; light, in between applause it hurried..."
The poetic expression throughout is the most obvious difference between "The Death of The End of the War" and the "Dark Sisters". The deeper difference is that In the Name of the Father and Chapter Seven of the Night are intended to tap into the loneliness and desire of human nature, while The Death of The End of the War looks to the present world, albeit as an "extraordinary" one—a thoroughly anti-war song cloaked in pop music. It begins with the adults "quietly watching in their seats how time abandons this theater" on the eve of the war, the simple wishes of the children to "wake up with bread for breakfast" and "sugar in their pockets", and finally split into the rebellious ending of the farmers " burning the land and the village and finally taking up the gun" and the obedient ending of the storytellers "slowly getting used to giving up resistance", clearly outlining the cruelty of the war and the unfortunate fate of the weak people who are wrapped up in the war.
However, "The Death of The War" still has an unfinished meaning. Poetic sentences can often express different imagery and even meaning through different sentence breaks, and the Tang Dynasty poet Du Mu's "Qingming" was interpreted into words, songs and even scripts by later generations without changing a word, while "The Death of The Cessation of War" left room for this from the beginning of the title. Is the cessation of war the "death of war" or the death of "cessation of war"? Judging from the appeal of the anti-war song, it is obvious that it should be against the death of war; but from the perspective of the history of human war and anti-war, it seems that the death of the "anti-war" event itself seems more real, because -
For human beings, anti-war is a concept that seems natural and confusing when analyzed in detail.
Stop the "Fall of War"
Etymologically, war predates anti-war, and indeed it does. Since the age of mythology, human beings have been filled with images of war: the seizure and killing of several generations of gods in Greco-Roman mythology, the rebellion of one-third of the angels involved in Christian mythology, the change of the solar age in Aztec mythology full of bloody smells, and even the Central Plains competition between the Yellow Emperor, The Yan Emperor and Xuan You in Chinese mythology... It can be said that human civilization has come out of the war heap.
Putting aside myths, the history of human faith is still full of wars. Sumer, Babylon, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ancient India... The most stunning epics about these ancient civilizations are all related to war. Behind the familiar imperial name is the uniform Jingo iron horse, compared with the strict anti-war history, which did not become clear until after the Age of Great Navigation. In the 18th century, the parliaments of European countries gradually began to reflect on the expansionist movements that had been enthusiastic for centuries, and more and more parliamentarians voted against the war, although they never denied that it was the long expansion movement that created the glory of the European powers.
These macroscopic histories seem to remind humanity that war is older, more distant and more natural than anti-war—more like an accidental product of war fatigue than war. In the face of war, do human beings really love peace more? Regardless of the depth of time, judging from the degree of development of war and anti-war disciplines, we may also be able to find the answer.
The science of war, or military science, is a theoretical science in the strict sense of the word, and for thousands of years, the military experts of various nationalities have polished it into a grand concept. Starting from the Spring and Autumn Period's sacred book of military science, "Sun Tzu's Art of War", the writings of the chinese dynasties are like relays: "Wuzi" in the Warring States Period, "Taibai Yin Jing" in the Tang Dynasty, "Ji Xiao New Book" in the Ming Dynasty... In modern times, European militarists have created a new climax of military development, clausewitz's "Theory of War", Mahan's "Theory of Sea Power", Sokolovsky's "Military Strategy", Duhei's "Air Supremacy"...
grandson
In these ancient or new works of military science, military experts interpret war rigorously and enthusiastically. Sun Tzu's so-called "soldier, the great affair of the country, the place of death and life, the way of survival, must not be unaware", clausewitz said that "war is not a pastime, not an impulse to take risks and win, nor is it the result of laissez-faire enthusiasm, it is a serious means to achieve serious results" - although the two authors lived in a gap of more than two thousand years, the importance of war is not bad.
If military experts exaggerate the significance of war because of their professional preference, what is the scene of war in the eyes of non-professionals?
Shortly after the birth of Sun Tzu's Art of War, the Qin State at that time circulated an inspiring war song. This poem was later included in the Book of Verses and thus passed on to later generations, and it is the famous "No Clothes":
"Are you shirtless?" Robe with the Son. Wang Yuxing, repair my spear. Enmity with the Son. Are you shirtless? With the son of the same ze. Master Wang Yuxing, repair my spear. With the son of the work. Are you shirtless? Dress with the Son. Wang Yuxing, repair my armor. Travel with the son. ”
"No Clothes" is capable and impassioned in rhetoric, and the words are filled with enthusiasm for fighting for the country. According to the Zuo Biography, "No Clothes" was written in the fourth year of Lu Dinggong (506 BC), and more than two hundred years later, the people of the country will be led by the new king to throw themselves into the war of unification and establish the first great unified dynasty in Chinese history: the Qin Dynasty. After nearly a thousand years, the poet Li Bai still remembered the great cause of the unification of the King of Qin, and wrote down an imposing ancient style: "The King of Qin swept the Liuhe, and the tiger looked at He Xiongya!" Swinging the sword to break the floating clouds, the princes will come to the west..."
When the land is lost and the mountains and rivers are broken, people also hope to restore the glory of the past through the war, so there is Lu You's "the remnants of the tears are in the dust, and the south looks at the wangshi for another year" or the Zodiac Zhou's "old ministers squeeze out a cavity of blood, and will see the Central Plains return".
In Qianlong's eyes, years of war were his way to the altar. After being surrendered to Gorkha, Qianlong proclaimed himself the "Ten Complete Old Men" and wrote with great interest the "Ten Complete Records": "Pingzun Gar II, Dinghui Department One, Jinchuan as Two, Jing Taiwan as One, Burma and Annam one each, that is, now the Gurkha descent, combined into ten." ”
From the "No Clothes" sung by the soldiers in the pre-Qin Dynasty, to the Wang Shi in the eyes of the Tang and Song poets, to the "Ten Complete Martial Arts" written by the emperor, the enthusiasm for war spanned time, space and class. The pride of resisting foreign invaders, the resentment of returning my rivers and mountains, the ambition to open up the territory and expand the territory... These emotions piled up into towers, eventually creating a collective human frenzy for war.
From a dialectical point of view, this kind of fanaticism may be the best way to pursue peace, because when the war is carried out until there is no war, and it is also when peace comes, and stopping the "death of war" becomes the best reason for war.
The "cessation of war"
In contrast to the elaborate and enthusiastic science of warfare, anti-war can only be barely counted as an empirical science. It does not have a rigorous theoretical system and sufficient generalization, and most of the emergence of every anti-war trend is due to the after-the-fact reflection of the war that has occurred, although this reflection is difficult to prevent the outbreak of a new war, and eventually enters the cycle of "posterity and mourning for future generations".
Anti-war can also be divided into two ends. At one end, anti-war and war are synonymous: "Sun Tzu's Art of War" promotes "soldiers who surrender without fighting", Cao Wei Qunchen in the Three Kingdoms era stopped Cao Pi's southern conquest on the grounds of "Ruo Suizhi (Shu Han) with Wende and change", and the British Parliament voted 262 votes against before the Opium War.
On the other hand, anti-war is against the cruelty of war itself, which is the real anti-war. From this perspective, some scholars have traced the starting point of the anti-war movement to the anti-war trend in Europe and the United States after World War I, but this timeline may be extended to the time before the American Revolutionary War. Faced with the growing call for independence of the North American colonies, the British House of Commons began to oppose further war against the United States, paving the way for the "Paris Peace". Before the American Civil War, the anti-war wave in the United States began to ferment, and pacifism and non-interventionism prevailed, during which the American Peace Association, an anti-war organization and many anti-war literature represented by the Book of Peace, were born.
The First World War left an indelible shadow on the world, especially in Europe, so the anti-war movement finally began to take shape after the war. In 1927, the Cambridge Union organized a debate on "Lasting peace can only be ensured by unswerving pacifism"; in 1933, the Oxford Union presented a debate that "the House of Representatives will not fight for its king and country under any circumstances", both of which were told by the victory of the anti-war faction. However, this anti-war doctrine in the absolute sense seems to have become a booster to the policy of appeasement, which in turn indirectly led to World War II. Anti-war and war have in a sense formed a complementary echo, which may have been unexpected by anti-war activists.
After World War II, the echo between the anti-war wave and the war became more pronounced. From the Vietnam War, the South African Border War, the Afghan War, the Iraq War, the Donbass War... Almost the first war was preceded and followed by a well-targeted anti-war movement. However, the anti-war activists, like their predecessors, failed to prevent the war from happening, and their greatest achievement may have been to produce a large number of anti-war literature and works of art.
In the world of fiction, there is Remarque's "No War on the Western Front" or Günter Glass's "Tin Drum"; in the music world, there is Sarah Brightman's "War Is No More" or John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance"; in the world of painting, there is Picasso's "Guernica" or Dalí's "Omens of Civil War"... And Jay Chou's "The Death of The Cessation of War" may also become a small bright light in the bright stars of the anti-war sky.
In fact, if the focus is only on the anti-war human feeling, the anti-war works can be more profound - for example, while Li Bai sang praises the merits of the Qin King, there was Du Fu's sadness that "the side court bleeds into seawater, and the Emperor Wu opens the border without hesitation". These anti-war works are undoubtedly excellent and even great. However, while they indict the war, they also indicate why it is difficult for the anti-war cause to really improve: "No War on the Western Front" is a story about a group of young soldiers, the protagonist of "Tin Drum" was born in an ordinary village, and Du Fu's anti-war poems are mostly recruiting husbands and wives, old women and sick mothers. Back to "The Death of the War", the protagonists of the song are also the children, farmers and storytellers who have been wrapped up in the war.
There are no princes and generals here, all the protagonists are ordinary little people, and the accusations of war by these weak people are bound to be only all kinds of intuitive feelings about the cruel society, and lack of rigorous logical reasoning. In the materialized world, the little people can't fight the big people. In the spiritual world, feeling is not logical. Between the anti-war and the war, the anti-war was defeated from the beginning.
Therefore, in "The Death of The Cessation of War", whether it is a storyteller, a child or a farmer, they are just the background of the war, just like "the candlelight is lit in the night, the sky is broken and the war is broken, the song is spread for thousands of miles, and the hometown is starved".
After all, the death of the "cessation of war" is only an inevitable tragedy in human history.
epilogue
The fruits of the war are too visible. Territory expansion, economic rise, heroes, the glory of all great nations comes from the tempering of war, and the pain of war is often just a number, only existing in the world of the small people of the times. When posterity flipped through the history books written by the victors, it was really difficult to taste the details of the little people, but it was easy to be attracted by the heroic martial arts in the imperial narrative, and the occasional Appearance of a Du Fu would also be drowned in many Li Bai, Lu You, and Zodiac Zhou. And Li Bai, even though they occasionally have the expectation of "good people strike the expedition", they still have to take "He Riping Hu Yu" as the premise.
The death of the cessation of the war, perhaps the death of the "cessation of the war" is more appropriate.
Xiong Peiyun once concluded with this passage in "The Morning of the Rose": "Civilization is like a river with banks. The blood flowing in the rivers is the result of people killing, stealing, and fighting each other, which is usually what historians record. What they don't notice is that on the banks of the river, people build homes, love each other, raise children, sing, compose poetry, and even create sculptures. ”
The pain of the anti-war people, the militants are all in the eyes, but never in the heart.
Author: Jiang Yinlong
Editor: Li Siwen