The London Olympics are over, and I should also turn my jet lag back to the timezone of my graduation thesis. This essay can count as a bridge between what came before and what comes after~ Let me give a heads-up first: this should be a fairly loose, freewheeling conversation, not entirely centered on the title.
During the Olympics there were obviously two kinds of people on Weibo: those watching the Olympics, and those not watching the Olympics. Among the latter were a considerable number of people who were either cursing the Olympics or using the Olympics as a pretext to curse the system.
Basically speaking, the left in China tends to like watching the Olympics, while the right’s “public intellectuals” often do not. That is not surprising. In fact, China-style left and right are, in a certain sense, inverted. What is called the left carries a fairly strong nationalist element, and on Western political coordinates it may be closer to the right, even the far right—although on the surface it is concerned with the poor. But because since Mao-era China there has formed a kind of “anti-superiority” theory of origin, in which the poor and humble are regarded as superior, while wealthy and noble families are regarded as inferior, this produces the paradoxical phenomenon of an “ultra-left fascism.” As a result, many of the features of what the West calls the far right—conservatism, authority, aggressiveness, statism, especially nationalism—are more often embodied by what China calls the left. Conversely, many features of the Western left are more easily found among what China calls the right. Of course, since China’s right is actually a complement set, a set of “bad people,” it contains both left and right, and its positions are more complex.
So it is also understandable that among those Chinese right-wingers who do not watch the Olympics, there is this actually very left-wing rhetoric. A typical expression is:
“@苏小和： After Auschwitz, writing poetry is barbaric. When the mother of an 11-year-old girl forced into prostitution is still locked up in a reeducation-through-labor camp, for any Chinese person to talk about the number of gold medals is also barbaric.”
No matter what position Su Xiaohuo himself takes, at least many of the right-wingers or public intellectuals I pay attention to are basically expressing this line: either they are ashamed to talk about the Olympics, or they use the Olympics to criticize the whole-country mobilization system and other social problems, and so on. Especially after this sentence was forwarded by Teacher Wu, who was at the same time publishing travel blogs about Greece and constantly invoking Greece in speech, I felt I had to take a position. My comment at the time was:
Then what about talking about travel? Should entertainment be banned before the reeducation-through-labor system is abolished? To wield the moral cudgel by borrowing from others’ suffering—that is even more shameful! If the ancient Greek city-states all believed that sending athletes to the Olympics to compete for championships while war and injustice had not yet ended was shameful, then there would have been no Olympics, no Greek miracle. One half Apollo, one half Dionysus; tragedy and ecstasy coexisting—that is the complete Greek spirit.
A few days ago, when chatting with someone, I happened to mention that the Greek spirit emphasized by Teacher Wu also has the suspicion of being overly idealized: it sees the Greeks’ pursuit as too pure, too idealized, seeing only their pursuit of truth, their willingness to reason to the death, their transcendence of profit and fame, their unworldly, otherworldly quality. But real Greece was rich and varied. Pythagoras, Plato, and the like—rational philosophers—were only the most prominent figures on a small side of the whole, and may not necessarily best represent the spirit of their culture. What is more, those philosophers themselves were double-edged. Pythagoras was both the most rational of mathematicians and the most fervent of religious men. Plato’s intuition of the Forms also carried a certain fervent emotionality. More crucially, those philosophers were not shut away in their rooms researching truth; they went out into the streets, into the agora, into the stadium, to preach and debate. Plato set up a closed Academy, but I believe the Academy itself must also have been full of struggle, and as for his Socrates, he was even more of a loafer, drifting around all day and arguing with people everywhere.
What was Socrates pursuing? Pure truth? Why did he have to go bother those ignorant youths? Was he simply taking it upon himself to help others clarify knowledge? Or was it actually to make a name for himself, or even because he really wanted to seduce young men? … In fact, it was not that complicated. Constant disputation was simply the general atmosphere of the time; first there was an atmosphere of debate, then there was philosophy; first there were the sophists who sought fame, then there were philosophers. Socrates rejected the sophists’ attitude of putting debate above truth, but he did not reject their way of life.
Debate is only one form of the struggle for honor; war and the games are two other forms. Philosophers set everything aside and immersed themselves in intense argument; athletes, too, threw themselves single-mindedly into the fervent Olympic competition. This is the Greek spirit: seriously striving over useless things in order to attain immortality.
We know some stories about Greek philosophers. For example, Thales, absorbed in gazing at the sky, fell into a ditch and was mocked by a maidservant: you haven’t even figured out the things on the ground, so what are you doing worrying about the stars? But does that mean Thales was incapable of handling earthly affairs? Another story says that Thales foretold a bumper olive harvest, stockpiled olive presses, and made a fortune, proving that philosophers can also make money—if they cannot, it is only because they do not choose to. These two stories are usually interpreted as showing that philosophers transcend utility, disdain wealth, and only seek truth, as a “pure” moral disposition. But on the other hand, “the affairs on the ground” are not just harvests and making money; they also include danger and disaster. They include not only dangers like falling into a ditch oneself, but also all kinds of other things worth worrying about. For example, we could ask those philosophers: why don’t you spend more time thinking about the livelihood of your wife and children? All day long you idle about, loafing and neglecting your proper work, putting on airs and counting stars—shameful or not? If Thales could predict a bumper harvest, then surely he should also be able to predict disaster; so shouldn’t he use his talents for the public good of disaster prevention and relief? Socrates’ wife ultimately became a synonym for a shrew, so she must have complained quite a bit in daily life. Socrates neglected his household affairs and spent all day outside flirting with youths—shameful or not? Archimedes could devise many devices for defending the city, but why, when the city was in mortal peril, did he not devote himself wholeheartedly to defense, and instead keep drawing circles in the sand? Shameful or not? Likewise, we can criticize those ancient Greek athletes who took part in the Olympics. When we say that when the Olympics are held the city-states spontaneously cease fighting, it seems we are emphasizing how lofty and pure the Olympic spirit is. But we can also ask the athletes: when the flames of war are raging and your homeland is in crisis, how can you still be thinking about throwing the discus and such? Even if the other side has ceased fighting, should our side not take this opportunity to recuperate and do more construction? At such a critical moment, if you do not contribute to your own city-state, which has a hundred things to rebuild, but instead insist on traveling thousands of miles to the Olympics to run a few steps, jump a few times, or wrestle a few rounds, the best outcome is merely to bring back an olive wreath. Shameful or not? And there are even more spectators who go just to join in the excitement: the affairs at home are not yet settled, the ditch at the door has not yet been filled in, and yet they travel far and wide to watch a bunch of athletes run, jump, and bounce around naked. Shameful or not?
People, like that maidservant who mocked Thales, jeer at the Greeks: jeering at Thales, who failed to see the ditch on the ground; jeering at the spectators and athletes who traveled over mountains and rivers just to see whose head a few olive leaves would fall on; jeering at the disputants who wandered the streets arguing about some invisible, intangible first principle; jeering at the athletes who left a homeland where the flames of war had not yet gone out to run and jump for spectators far away. If there were only these maidservants who knew how to mock, there would be no Greek spirit.
But is the Greek spirit only a kind of “mindless spirit,” only madness that ignores reality and makes a scene? Clearly not. The Greeks were more attentive to worldly affairs than anyone else. In the democratic voting of the city-state assembly, what people focused on and decided certainly was not abstract topics like whether the origin of all things was water or not, but the practical, immediate, underfoot problems, crises, or everyday affairs.
The key is that they cared about real affairs, yet were not burdened by them. No matter how wide or deep the ditch on the ground may be, it cannot cover up the starry sky above my head.
We say transcending utility is a kind of free spirit, but what is utility? We often impose a certain moral depreciation on it, as if utility meant selfishness, as if those who transcend utility were morally purer and more lofty. That is not the case. Utility does not necessarily mean private selfish gain. Being public-spirited and selfless, thinking of the interests of others or the collective in everything—that too is utility. Utility is concern for the practical effectiveness or benefit of the affairs of the “here and now,” whether that benefit is public or private. The utilitarian person finds it hard to take his eyes off the urgent matter right before him.
This is not to say that those who go beyond utility must be cold and unfeeling. On the contrary, they must be the best at controlling and releasing feeling. Toward urgent or painful matters, they are not indifferent, but they will also never let these things bind their feelings and pursuits forever. Contemplation and argument, revelry and pity—human beings are originally contradictory beings, and freedom is not being bound. No trouble right before my eyes can completely capture me.
Of course, I do not dislike those saintly people who dedicate themselves selflessly, just as I also respect those scientists who immerse themselves in truth and ask nothing of worldly affairs. But I want to emphasize that these are different roads; different roads have different virtues, and it is not as if one type of person must bear the stigma of moral baseness. The pirate path chosen by Luffy is different from the path of his revolutionary father or his navy-hero grandfather, but it is not a more shameful or less shameful path. Every path has its own glory.
I can’t help but quote Luffy’s line distinguishing pirates from heroes in the modern sense: “For example, suppose there’s a piece of meat here; pirates would use that meat to throw a feast, while heroes are those guys who share the meat with others. But I want to eat meat!”
Is Luffy a cold-hearted, unfeeling person? He knows full well that along the sea routes, and deep within the mainland, there are surely many starving people suffering harassment from other pirates or from the navy, yet he ignores them, does not give them meat, does not exert himself to save them, and instead, while gorging and drinking to his heart’s content, goes in pursuit of the elusive great treasure? Shameful? But anyone who has read the manga would never think Luffy is cold-hearted or unfeeling. Of course, if a person on the verge of starvation were to collapse in front of Luffy, whether enemy or friend, poor or rich, I believe Luffy would without hesitation share his meat with that person. But he would never abandon his feast for those distant people and things, and even less would he give up the search for treasure because of the bitterness of the times.
Of course, one should have a certain guilty feeling, especially when living a life that benefits from others’ suffering; one should maintain a certain reverence, even a certain sense of shame. But “shameful” is entirely another matter. Shameful means worthy of mockery and denunciation. Moreover, guilt is one’s own feeling, whereas “shameful” expresses a moral judgment, with someone else waving the moral cudgel. In particular, those who transcend utility and pursue glory, or those who are being moved by glory and excellence, being denounced as shameful by other moralists, is simply unacceptable.
We know that the phrase “After Auschwitz, writing poetry is barbaric” comes from Adorno’s famous saying, but Adorno’s original words did not use the term “shameful”; instead they used “barbaric,” and Adorno later also expressed doubts and reflections about this sentence. Even if Adorno had not withdrawn it, his meaning would still not completely coincide with the Chinese translation “shameful.” In fact, “barbaric” is not always a bad word. Human beings can always have, or rather need to have, a wild, untamed, natural side, which stands in tension with the modern, calm, and rational side. Meanwhile, modern people lock themselves inside highly compressed cities, busy themselves with the practical affairs right before their eyes, and grow ever farther from barbarism, farther from the free wilderness, farther from the ecstatic rites of the tribes. If after Auschwitz, writing poetry is barbaric, then this precisely means that writing poetry has become even more important. What happened during Auschwitz and after Auschwitz? What was carrying out the massacre was not a wild ritual, but an indifferent engineering. Indifference, coolness, the Cold War… Auschwitz was not excessive barbarism, but the utmost civilization. Adorno also said: “Auschwitz concentration camp incontrovertibly proved that culture failed.” If culture failed, then what about barbarism? What if modern culture failed precisely because it had so decisively excluded barbarism?
Participating in the Olympics is not shameful, but if you want to talk about barbarism, then perhaps you are right.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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