Only when one can love the whole world and all people can one truly love a single person.

 Comment replies
  
Gu Bo

2008-06-01 22:14:46 [Reply]

By the way, let me mention the way philosophy addresses questions.  
I have said: philosophy is not political posturing. Regarding a certain issue, setting out a conclusion of “yes or no,” “right or wrong,” “do it or don’t do it,” is not what philosophy is primarily concerned with. Philosophy is “weaving,” it is building a network, it is establishing connections. What it attends to is the establishment of connections and the reflection on existing connections—between concept and concept, between viewpoint and viewpoint, between concept and life.  
Here, we see that there are three issues. If we say: “You should earn money yourself to support yourself; you should have more contact with people; you should keep improving your thinking.” To put forward these three demands in this way is straightforward, not beating around the bush, but it is not the philosophical way; it is the way of preaching.  
If we say, “A and B are interconnected, and B can promote C, so you should go to B for the sake of C,” then this is a philosophical way of attending to things. Philosophy must ask further: how exactly are A and B connected, how does C depend on B, and so on. Philosophical thinking can establish these connections, and it can also question ready-made connections.  
When I acknowledge A, B, and C at the same time, that does not necessarily mean I also recognize some connection among them. When I oppose the way some people connect things, that does not mean I oppose these isolated views themselves. Two people who both support A, B, and C may have completely opposite philosophical positions; and two positions and lines of thought that differ only subtly may also lead to utterly opposite concrete choices.  
I cannot question other people’s choices as such; other people are free. What I can question and oppose are the reasons why they make those choices.

  
Gu Bo

2008-06-01 21:53:23 [Reply]

Still, I can explain a little to the other friends. Of course I would not be a “parasite on one’s parents”; of course I would earn money myself to support myself. I would also keep in contact with people. What I am emphasizing is only this: contact with people, earning money oneself, and academic thinking are three unrelated things. I won’t contact people in order to make money, nor will I make money in order to contact people, and even less will I make money in order to change my thinking. I will only insist at the same time on earning my own money, having contact with people, and thinking independently; of course there will be differences in priority. I simply refuse to tangle these three issues together, to wind them up and wrap them around each other endlessly…

  
Gu Bo

2008-06-01 21:45:59 [Reply]

Heh, if I had seen this earlier, a few fewer ants would have died~ I can’t really respond to a reproach like that, just as when my mother criticizes me until she gets angry, I can only shut my mouth, mm.

  
Yiwu

2008-06-01 15:58:15 [Reply]

What time is it now? The 21st century? Is it wrong to support yourself? Am I asking you to go to the countryside for re-education by poor and lower-middle peasants? Am I asking you to leave your lovely profession as a scholar? The Cultural Revolution? Am I denying intellectuals? Can intellectuals make money without mental labor? Fine, that’s all good. Let me tell you, if you do not have your own economic life, you will never truly enter this society!  
Change your life and then change your thinking? Anyone can do that except Gu Bo, impossible—his thoughts are consistent throughout.  
Pay it back? You definitely can’t pay it back. Money is secondary; it is affection, and you can’t pay that back. Until you start a family, hehe, let me ask you, is a family formed like that your own doing?!  
But for now you should still settle down and first pursue your social and economic issues.  
Also, I am insisting on contact with real social people, let me say it again: this cannot be equated with what was said above about earning money oneself, and it is not beating around the bush!

  
Gu Bo

2008-05-31 17:01:54 [Reply]

So that’s the sentence you picked out. How could I not know that you like to emphasize “people”? It seems you also have something of a philosopher’s style: turning everything you want to emphasize into the same issue. But your ability to make connections is obviously weak; however one looks at it, it only feels like a forced fit.  
All right, in order to protect the ants, I don’t want to tangle with you any further. Of course, if you write again, I will write again too; let’s count that as training my endurance. If you don’t want to listen, then don’t read it.

  
UNIC

2008-05-31 15:55:14 Anonymous 124.117.19.238 [Reply]

If you’re unhappy about something, just say it directly. Don’t beat around the bush and drag in those seemingly profound things about “contact with people” and the like.  
Contact with people is also what I want to emphasize, not beating around the bush.

  
Biankongjing

2008-05-31 11:07:56 http://deleted [Reply]

Good heavens, luckily it was handwritten, otherwise who knows how much spittle there would have been, enough to drown how many ants, haha~~~ (pure entertainment, please don’t mind it; I still greatly admire your tenacious spirit)  
I’d very much like to know what the poster said to me after “if.”

  
Gu Bo

2008-05-31 08:50:04 [Reply]

As for the so-called “earning money yourself to support yourself,” “the source of money is your salary,” your wording keeps changing, but anyway what you mean is that you’re unhappy seeing me live off my parents’ money, right? If you’re unhappy about something, just say it directly. Don’t beat around the bush and drag in those seemingly profound things about “contact with people” and the like.  
Of course I would not keep asking my parents for money forever. My parents have long said they would support me until I start a family, and I truly look forward to starting a family sooner, so of course I would never rely on them indefinitely. But what my parents have given me, and the conditions they have provided for me, I can never pay back. I owe my parents no debt; if there is any debt, it is absolutely not in the monetary sense. Therefore I will continue to enjoy what my parents have already given me—for example, this house, which was given to me from the very beginning. Should I return it, or give it away? Should I first repay my parents’ kindness before speaking of independence? All of that is utterly meaningless.  
Many people are eager to break away economically from their parents, and this shows that people after all still think freedom and independence are good things. But some people, even after becoming economically independent, never really leave childhood in their thinking. As for me, I frankly say: I do not value economic matters at all. Philosophers are indeed related to a certain way of life, but this is neither a life of wealth nor a life of hardship; it is a life that regards money as something external, and does not entangle itself with it. What I care about is my independent thinking. As for where the money comes from, of course I will ask— for instance, I will point out that at any time, “money” is by no means entirely what you earned. The source of money is simple: it is printed by the money-printing machine, and then through layers of transmission it is ultimately handed out by someone (such as a boss, parents, etc.). I will not think that the source of money is my own labor; that is impossible in modern society. What Marx criticized was precisely this: “What the worker receives is not what his labor has created.” I will pursue and reflect on these questions, but I will not let my life revolve around money, nor will I let the question of making money dictate my life.  
Listening to you speak from time to time always makes me think of w-g. What did people do to intellectuals during w-g? Wasn’t it simply this: you must change your thinking, and the way is to change your life. People couldn’t stand intellectuals living without worries about their livelihood, and insisted on forcing them to be constrained by their means of subsistence, constrained by the burden of family, constrained by the burden of society, making them go experience the way of life of the lower classes, making them exhaust themselves physically and mentally in order to win safety for themselves and their families… Can changing one’s way of life change one’s thinking? It certainly can! Very much so! w-g proved that. The so-called “thought reform” movement was remarkably effective; of course, that is precisely w-g’s tragedy. The independent personality and free thought of several generations of Chinese intellectuals were distorted beyond all recognition.  
Of course you are not to such an extent, but what is the difference between you and the hot-blooded young people who promoted w-g? Only that you would not resort to violent means to coerce others, but in terms of your demands of others, isn’t it the same: “demanding that others change their thinking by changing their way of life”?

  
Gu Bo

2008-05-31 01:14:49 [Reply]

What I am emphasizing is also that you should not come demanding that I change in a direction that suits your wishes, just as I do not demand that you change according to my demands. But you are still entangled in putting forward requests that I make certain changes, while at the same time understanding my criticism of you as criticism of you demanding things from me. That is why I say you have not understood me—not in terms of the specific content, but in terms of the motive for my speaking.

  
Gu Bo

2008-05-31 01:07:24 [Reply]

My purpose is also not to make you change; I have said this repeatedly as well. I have always taken “never admitting fault to the death” as my conviction, and I insist on the consistency and unity of thought. I would certainly never demand that you casually “change.” When you were engaging in self-negation, didn’t I tell you that I hoped you would affirm and persist more, rather than negate yourself so easily? I don’t want to see you negate yourself so lightly; I hope you can face yourself bravely, reflect on yourself, and affirm yourself. Knowing is itself change; when your understanding of yourself gradually deepens, you will naturally change, you will become mature, and such changes cannot be forced. Whether others force you to change, or you force yourself to change, both are harmful and fraught with hidden dangers. “Know yourself”—only this is what I emphasize.

  
Gu Bo

2008-05-31 01:01:31 [Reply]

In other words, one of my purposes is precisely to make you clearly realize that you do not understand me, that you and I are completely different, that you are independent and free.

  
Gu Bo

2008-05-31 01:00:06 [Reply]

The reason I say you do not understand my first point is that you have never been able to understand this: the reason I criticize you and argue with you is not because I hope to obtain your understanding. I have already said this long ago. What I precisely hope for is to arouse your resistance, to arouse your independent thinking, and to make you clearly realize the differences between you and me. These are my aims.  
Understanding comes in degrees. Even I do not dare say I have any profound understanding of myself; by what right would I demand that others understand me? Moreover, if I really could become a philosopher of some accomplishment, then if what I said were so easily understood by you, I would actually feel disappointed.

  
UNIC

2008-05-31 00:42:48 Anonymous 222.82.79.211 [Reply]

The first sentence is ~ I finished reading it.

  
UNIC

2008-05-31 00:42:20 Anonymous 222.82.79.211 [Reply]

I finished reading it. Mm.  
Very entertaining.  
By “economic independence” I mean earning your own money to support yourself, not some issue of profession. I have no view that teachers/scholars are somehow lower than workers or anything like that. What I want to say is, you earn money to support yourself, whether through publishing books, lecturing, whatever—use whatever method you like. But the source of the money is your salary.  
Talk, don’t get too agitated. In these months of May and June, if I’ve been thinking about things, I haven’t thought much. Things like “you still don’t understand me” and so on—you can keep saying that, but right now I also don’t have the time to think much and make as big a change as you did after you finished speaking last time.  
The reason I keep emphasizing your age is basically because, for a person like me to understand your meaning so quickly, it takes time, it takes energy; it is impossible to be that fast. If you talk on and on like this… on and on… then I can understand?  
Communication requires rhythm.  
Also—mm, your hands are becoming more and more talkative.

I agree that understanding ultimately comes through intuition, but that is by no means to say that understanding also begins from intuition in the first place. To see a sentence or an argument and let some preconception seize it on the basis of a prior emotion, without further reflection or weighing, cannot really be called understanding.  
You can substitute other words, such as “insight” or “recognition,” but the word “understanding” itself cannot do without “reasoning” and “unpacking”; without rational sorting-out and explanation, it is hard to say that this is an activity of “understanding.”  
When you and your friend seek mutual understanding, when one party and another seek reconciliation, when one culture and another seek mutual understanding, is it enough for everyone to sit together and trade a line of poetry for a line of poetry? Art and life are to a large extent helpful for mutual understanding, but in the end understanding still has to converse through language. After all, what do you think with? Do you think in the language of poetry? I don’t think that’s very likely; in the end, you think in everyday language. Therefore communication and exchange in everyday language are the most direct path to understanding; philosophy, art, and the like are all auxiliary means.  
When seeking mutual understanding, empathetically experiencing the way of life the other person has lived is indeed important. For instance, if an anthropologist wants to try to understand the spiritual world of a tribe, he must personally participate in their tribal life and experience it. But this, from beginning to end, is a demand placed on oneself. Note that I have repeatedly emphasized, repeatedly emphasized, “a demand placed on oneself,” not a demand placed on others. We should respect the autonomy of different people. For example, some primitive tribes cannot understand modern culture, or Eastern people cannot understand Western culture; then we say: “As long as you also try living in our way, your thoughts will change.” Such a statement is not bad, but it is dangerous. Cultural diversity is flattened in just this way, producing the homogenized world we have now. And this tendency is precisely what my pluralism is resisting.  
If you cannot understand the other person or cannot make the other person understand, you should look for the reason in yourself, work on yourself, rather than demand that the other person change. At the same time, do not assume in advance that the other person is incapable of understanding you. Absolute understanding is of course impossible, but relative understanding is always attainable. After all, however different the way of life may be, it is still the way of life of “human beings,” and at the most fundamental level it is common.  
As for whether I am tired, there is no need to worry. In most cases, giving explanations, interpretations, and rebuttals is pleasurable, and it is of immense help in sorting out and clarifying my own thought. As for which comments I no longer need to respond to, I also have my own sense of proportion. I will certainly try my best to respond to anyone who challenges me with respect and equality; if someone faces me with contempt and mockery, I will return that with disdain. If you stand by as a bystander and point fingers, then if you raise certain topics, I may perhaps improvise a speech to satisfy your request. But if…

  
Bu Yan Kong Jing

2008-05-30 00:33:34 http://deleted [reply]

Understanding or not understanding is based on intuition, not on reasoning and argument! The more you say, the better it may not be; sometimes a hint, a poem, can suddenly make you realize a great deal.  
But sometimes, communication without a shared language is very exhausting. Even if you have a thousand words, or even if you use all your tricks and every bit of your gentleness and inducements, he still cannot enter your heart, cannot enter your world.  
OP, don’t make yourself too tired~~~~ The author does not bear the duty of explanation. Just write what you want to write; there is no need for you to explain and rebut every reader’s and critic’s evaluation one by one~~~

  
Gu Chu

2008-05-29 11:17:26 [reply]

Bu Yan Kong Jing: The above three comments are not aimed at you; you don’t have to read them if you don’t want to.  
Some things need not have been said so much, and still less need they have been stated so sharply. I have already repeatedly said things like intellectual freedom and so on, and that is also consistent throughout here. But it seems that if the sharp point of the argument is not directly thrust at certain people, certain people will remain bewildered all along, thinking only that this sounds good, that also sounds good, lacking their own judgment and unable to see the tension of contradiction between different statements. I privately had already given UNIC a lengthy critique and argument. Whether she accepts it or not is one thing; whether she understands it or not is another. Judging from the fact that she is still entangled in some accusation about economic independence, UNIC probably still cannot understand what I am saying. I can’t do anything about that. In the end, failing to make one’s own argument understood by others is one’s own responsibility; however, I am not insisting that everyone must come to understand me. For people like my mom and dad, for instance, out of respect, I would in fact not explain or argue with them too much; at most I would take on board their “advice” (“you should have more contact with people, understand society more, don’t just bury yourself in books and become a bookworm,” and so on). Some people are hard to understand because they are not good at understanding “others”; they only understand statements they like, and they do not insist on free and independent thinking, fleeing sharp conflicts. Such people not only find my statements hard to understand; they likewise find it hard to understand the statements of other independent thinkers, even though they constantly drag out certain big names to intimidate people—Fromm, Freud, Rilke, Yeats, Lu Xun, a whole group of revolutionary martyrs… enough to keep me scrambling, yet no matter how I answer, I still never see them themselves step forward and face me personally. But I’m afraid they have not truly understood any of the people they invoke either. If they really had understood them, then they ought to be able to turn those people’s lines of thought and reasons into their own language and express them naturally.  
In such a situation, I do not want to bore myself by droning on endlessly. Perhaps if one went to a university lecture hall and experienced the bearing of the great masters, understood what the university environment and scholarly life are really like, and at the same time heard them say similar things, then it would be easier to accept. But whenever there is a challenge to me on my blog, I will still answer each one seriously. If you do not come to the blog to ask questions, I will not say any more.

  
Bu Yan Kong Jing

2008-05-29 09:49:44 http://deleted [reply]

Rigorous argument always makes people look tired; it’s better to keep it simpler~

  
Gu Chu

2008-05-29 00:50:32 [reply]

Also, you seem to think of me as too stupid; would I really doubt the difference between contact with books and contact with people? Moreover, I don’t seem to have said that contact with books is contact with society. Perhaps what I said was that through books one also contacts society, or perhaps I only said that scholarly life has never severed contact with society. A book is a medium; through reading we can reach all aspects of society, just as through television and newspapers we also contact society. And contact with other people is of course another way of contacting society. Note carefully that contact with people is not itself direct contact with “society,” because society is not simply the sum of individual people. Rather, it is the huge system constructed from the complex relations between people and people, and between people and their living environments. You can never touch more than a small part of this society; you can only participate in a small part of its life. Do you think that so-called “economic independence” is contact with society? What is economic independence? Who can be economically independent? Is a person who relies entirely on working for wages to support a family and make a living economically independent? That’s a joke. At the very least, if you do not rely on the bank, the paper money you earn is just a pile of waste paper; if you do not rely on shops, the paper money you earn is still just a pile of waste paper. Under the modern division of labor, the work you perform itself is often entirely different from what you earn from it. Perhaps one worker’s job is tightening screws, while one scholar’s job is writing articles; which of these do you say counts as being more “economically independent”? How do you compare them? If tightening screws is to have economic value, it must rely on the entire social system from the central bank all the way to the corner shop. Then a scholar earns money by writing articles, and the economic benefits of writing articles likewise depend on the entire social system. On what grounds do you say that a scholar is economically less independent than a worker? Both scholars and workers draw a salary; on what grounds do you say that workers contact society while scholars do not contact society? How much “contact with real living people” do workers who face machinery and assembly lines all day actually have? Compared with a worker, isn’t a scholar who frequently attends academic conferences, frequently exchanges views and discusses with colleagues, and a university student who deals all day with different teachers and students, someone who has much more “contact with real living people”?  
From any angle, the “economic independence” you speak of and “contact with living people” seem to be positively opposed. The most economically independent is probably the self-sufficient peasant, but he is also the farthest from the modern social system. If you want to have the most contact with living people, then perhaps becoming a teacher is the best choice, because a teacher can face batch after batch of different people year after year, and the exchange between teachers and students is deep and rich. Or perhaps a prostitute would be another good profession? Constantly every day contacting all sorts of people from all walks of life! Is a prostitute economically independent? Is a prostitute more independent than a scholar?  
You may say, how can a prostitute count as “contact with real living people”? But that contact is surely the most intimate and unmediated. This shows that “contact with people” also depends on the manner of contact. Where is the difference? The way a prostitute contacts people is often only physical contact, but it does not go into each other’s spiritual worlds deeply; we can say that this kind of “contact” is after all superficial. Traffic police standing in the middle of the road, as well as beggars and the like, also contact countless people every day, but that is all just brushing past one another, even less so anything profound. It is clear, then, that “contact with people” also differs in degree. So what kind of person, and in what way, contacts others more profoundly? I think at least the scholar’s way of life is exemplary in this regard, because the scholar’s contact with colleagues, teachers, and students is not only extremely frequent, but also extremely profound; furthermore, the range of contact is also the widest, because apart from being able to make deep contact with another scholar, a scholar will also deal with leaders, relatives and friends, businessmen, men of letters, politicians, journalists, foreigners, and all sorts of people from every walk of life. Many of these are not people ordinary citizens can easily come into contact with. If the scholar is also a teacher, then his students will go into all kinds of industries, and if they remain in contact, the range of people he can contact becomes almost all-encompassing; compared with an ordinary worker, the diversity of people a scholar has contacted is probably far greater.  
In short, I do not see any positive correlation between “economic independence” and “contact with people” (a negative correlation would be more like it), nor do I see how scholarly life is in any special sense economically less independent or especially less in contact with others.

  
Gu Chu

2008-05-28 21:12:14 [reply]

The key point is: from what identity exactly are you speaking? Note that I have long repeatedly emphasized that I can by no means deny the decisive influence of social experience on theoretical development; after all, I have read some SSK as well. But are you speaking as an equal participant in the discussion, or as a later bystander? As a bystander’s commentary (or what SSK calls “second-order research”), of course you may point out that such-and-such an experience had such-and-such an influence on this person’s thought; that is also how historians of philosophy and biographers write. However, the commentator in the history of philosophy or the narrator in a biography stands on unequal footing with the philosopher himself. They have the duty to treat their object of study seriously and rigorously, but the philosopher who is the object of study has no obligation to deal with their criticism, much less to respond to demands like this: “Hmm, you should choose such-and-such a way of life instead, and then I’ll be able to write your biography in a more interesting way.” —If you don’t like studying me, you can go study someone else; you can also become a philosopher yourself. What right do you have to wag your finger at me as a bystander?  
When you are not speaking as a bystander or “second-order researcher,” but want to participate in the discussion in person and obtain the other side’s equal respect, then you too must participate as an independent and free individual; you too must acknowledge the independence of the other’s thought and challenge the other with the means the other might equally use to answer you back.

  
Gu Chu

2008-05-28 20:56:34 [reply]

Theory may be adjusted because of actual experience, but theory is even more likely to be adjusted because of deeper thought. Actual experience influences the development of theory; there is no doubt about that. To deny this is no different from opening one’s eyes and speaking nonsense as if it were truth. But this does not mean that scholars must proactively change their lives in order to adjust theory. These are two different things.  
Why are you so fixated on economic independence? What I am emphasizing is intellectual independence. If you genuinely try to think in this way, you will understand what I mean. And I do not feel that you understand it now.  
How is intellectual independence possible? In fact, just like economic independence, absolute independence is impossible. But independence refers to a kind of pursuit or a kind of conviction. Without such a conviction, you cannot truly sympathize with great thinkers, much less become a great thinker yourself.  
Thought is free, and life is free as well. I live for myself; I am living for myself to see, not living for you to see. If you have not seen a performance that suits your taste, I can only express regret; you may change the channel and watch someone else perform, or I suggest you direct and perform it yourself. If you are not satisfied with my theory, you can simply ignore it, or else raise targeted criticism. But do not mix attacks on theory with personal attacks; otherwise you must also allow the other side to strike back in the same way: you have likewise not lived through a life like mine—what right do you have to criticize me? Live according to my way of life first, then speak! Then if each person’s lived experience belongs only to himself or herself, there can be no discussion of issues between people, no mutual understanding. I have always treated your questions with respect, as an equal and independent individual; but if you insist on entangling yourself in other people’s experiences, then I can only respond in the same way: a teenage girl who has seen no world and does not know her place, that’s all; ignore her.  
As readers of Suixuan now, you will surely bear witness to the growth of my theory. In fact, that was one of the motives for creating the blog in the first place: because at the time I often said things like “I already said that…” or “I used to think this way; now I have a more mature view…” and some friends expressed dissatisfaction, feeling that I was being too lofty and self-assured. In fact, I was being honest, but there was no evidence for the things I had said and thought before. After opening the blog, and publicly archiving everything I wrote, I would have evidence, and I could display the whole course of my thought.  
But if you want to see how my theory has been adjusted, then if you cannot, and do not wish to, calm down and understand my current theory, how can you discover the changes in my theory? Do you expect me to perform self-negation, clearly telling you: “I admit I was wrong, I have changed…”?? I will not cater to your wishes. Looking across philosophers ancient and modern, apart from a few exceptions like Wittgenstein, which one did not insist on “consistency from beginning to end”? Which one would personally tell you: “I have changed…” ?  
That is to say, if you want to see how my theory has been adjusted, you undoubtedly need first to understand what my theory was like in the beginning. Through what do you understand it? With what attitude do you read? Is what you care about not my thought itself, but merely wanting to watch me “perform” as an individual? Why exactly do you want to see how my theory has been adjusted? What is it that you care about?  
To put it bluntly, right now you really “have nothing to say,” because you do not insist on the freedom of thought. That is to say, you are not speaking to me as yourself, standing personally before me, but are always hiding behind giants or some insurmountable shield to face me. Therefore, on the one hand, you have nothing to say; on the other hand, I also have nothing to say, because no matter what I say, you can always say: “You haven’t had enough experience.” Then, besides returning the sentence “you haven’t had enough experience” to you unchanged, I too have nothing to say.  
Philosophical discussion is not like this. If you still persist in such an attitude and look at my writing as if watching a performance, then I can only ask you to watch quietly. If you are dissatisfied with this actor, you may of course go to another theater and watch other actors; or you may strive yourself to become an actor, a screenwriter, or a director. But clearly, as far as I am concerned, you are neither a screenwriter, nor a director, nor a comrade performing on stage with me. You do not have the right to point fingers at me, and I have no obligation to perform for your demands. If you want to converse with me as an equal, please leave your seat, come up onto the stage, and speak with me in your own identity, standing on equal footing with me.  
If you are an “experienced hand,” and you once had views similar to mine but have now changed, of course I will listen seriously to your condescending instruction. But you have not had views similar to mine; yet you want to turn around and accuse me of not having “your” experience, and therefore of being unable to understand “you.” Then I can only admit that I really cannot understand “you,” just as “you” cannot understand me either. So what more can we say? What response do you still expect from me to your criticism? Besides answering disdain with disdain and contempt with contempt, what else is there to do?  
My arguments with others are all built on the premise that “communication is possible,” that is to say, mutual understanding between “different people” is definitely possible. If you do not accept this premise, then there is no reason to continue talking with me.

  
unic

2008-05-28 19:46:36 Anonymous 222.82.76.192 [reply]

What you said, I think I understood right from the very beginning. What you mean is that doing and knowing must exist simultaneously. In acting, thinking and decision-making are inevitably involved. 
But what I really want to emphasize, I think, has always been your actual contact with society; and then you say that contact with books is also contact with society. But I still want to emphasize contact with real living people. Then do you want to ask what the difference is between these two? I think there is a difference. 
And last time I wanted to emphasize how life after becoming economically independent is different from what you are like now; that may have a huge impact on you. And then you naturally say that your theory is in no way capable of being ruined by these things, and can only be adjusted accordingly, is that right? 
Then I really have nothing left to say. 
What I want to say now is just this: then go and truly live like that. I want to see how your theory adjusts.

  
Gu Chu

2008-05-28 01:40:40 [reply]

Apart from the rational pursuit of self-satisfaction, I cannot after all deny that I also have the desire to recommend my doctrine to more people, even to have it handed down to later generations. I think any philosopher would have a similar desire; otherwise, why would they write? And having written, why would they be willing to publish? Speaking to others is different from persuading oneself. After all, one’s own feelings cannot be directly conveyed to other people. Even if I truly feel satisfied and confident myself, others may still judge what I say to be hypocritical and dishonest. Suppose my philosophy were to talk at length about love, placing sexual love between man and woman at the core of the issue, but in life I were a lifelong bachelor like Kant—then what would later generations think of me? Perhaps before they can even settle down and read my words seriously, they would first greet them with disdain and contempt; this too is only human and understandable. Just as with my current credentials, even if I were to say things similar to those of Fromm, Rilke, and others, I would still be preemptively dismissed and scorned by those who claim to like what they said. That too is quite normal. Even I myself would have my confidence weakened somewhat by this, because after all I dare not guarantee how I will think several years from now. So in terms of the persuasiveness of a viewpoint, practical experience is a factor that cannot be ignored. But its significance is only post hoc corroboration. For example, if I say that I myself am an apple tree seed, then if I really bear apples several years later, my claim will of course become more convincing; but if I do not bear apples (for instance, if I die before even sprouting), that still cannot determine that my claim was wrong. Even if I were somehow to bear peaches, perhaps it was because, under some unnoticed circumstance, I had been swapped out or grafted; in short, perhaps I myself had deviated midway from the original direction, and one could not say that I was not then an apple tree seed. The reason I can proclaim that I am an apple tree seed lies in my self-reflection. Although self-examination is not always correct, it is certainly something that others cannot substitute.

  
Gu Chu

2008-05-28 01:00:05 [reply]

Of course this is “the unity of knowing and acting” in my sense, but by no means the sort of unity of knowing and acting that means “theory being implemented in practice” or “practice testing theory.” I have said before that that still treats knowing and acting as two different things. 
Cognition itself is enough to change the world; cognition itself is capable of creating the world. 
What I said earlier—that it is “awaiting practical verification”—may perhaps not have been quite appropriate. To call it “awaiting practical corroboration” might be better. For no specific experience can negate my thinking; its role is merely one of additional corroboration and support. It has an important role especially in the sense of “setting an example.” But if it is only with regard to myself, then even if I were to encounter a hundred romantic setbacks, I still would not doubt the possibility of my philosophy of love, because at least I can be certain that there is one person in this world who can adhere to this view of love—that is me—and then this view of love must be possible. Therefore I never need to prove this possibility to myself again. Moreover, this view of love of mine is truly pluralist; I do not demand finding another person who holds the same view as I do. Rather, from the very beginning I knew that there is absolutely no such person who is the same as me. If you discover someone whose worldview and values are exactly the same as yours, that can only mean that your intellectual independence is still not enough, or that you lack reflection. The thought of every philosopher is destined to be unique; only thus can one become a philosopher. Therefore, my search for love does not include any expectation regarding the other person’s views. As long as the other person is different from me, and as long as she is also fully aware of how she differs from me, that is enough.

  
unic

2008-05-27 23:56:39 anonymous 222.82.69.130 [reply]

Not easy—you’ve brought up the practical level. Isn’t it the unity of knowing and acting? Let me see how you prove this possibility.

  
Biyan Kongjing

2008-05-27 23:44:21 http://deleted [reply]

Sex is simpler than love. I am now a sexualist~~haha~~

  
Gu Chu

2008-05-27 23:18:20 [reply]

No, combining love and life together is not difficult; what is needed is only tolerance and understanding. But what you said is indeed right: “Not everyone has the courage to live together.” Some people say, “Marriage is the tomb of love”; living together will be the collapse of “ideal” or rather “illusory” love. But I believe that my ideal realism will be able to sustain ordinary yet ideal love. Of course, this still awaits practical verification…

  
Biyan Kongjing

2008-05-27 22:56:56 http://deleted [reply]

These are all ideal love. Not life! Each of us can possess love, and can give love to others very well. But we cannot give others a good life very well. Love actually isn’t that difficult; if you combine love and life together, then that is what is difficult! All great love may be worn away to nothing in the trivialities of life! 
So love is easy, something everyone has, but not everyone has the courage to live together!

  
unic

2008-05-27 21:21:27 anonymous 222.82.69.130 [reply]

Long-term sorrow can harm a person.

  
unic

2008-05-27 21:20:00 anonymous 222.82.69.130 [reply]

Sorrow does not necessarily harm a person.

  
Gu Chu

2008-05-27 00:05:32 [reply]

I don’t know how Uinc understands Rilke’s words. If one cannot express them in one’s own language, then one cannot say one has understood enough. Unless you are only saying that you like these words very much in terms of rhetoric, and do not care about the meaning they are trying to convey. 
Let me interpret Rilke’s words: 
What kind of feelings can enable one to concentrate the spirit upward? — love, being moved, pursuit, joy… What kind of feelings harm people? — sorrow, pain, resentment, self-negation… Keep the pure heart of a child; truth and the pursuit of ideals are beautiful self-enrichment, not a struggle against ugliness. Do not become intoxicated by idols or fantasies; do not be taken captive by melancholy; let joy, arising from the heart and consistent through to the end, fill your chest. 
It seems that this is precisely what I mean.

  
Biyan Kongjing

2008-05-26 16:02:04 http://deleted [reply]

Uinc on the second floor, the passage you mentioned should be in the ninth letter 
Talking about feelings: every emotion that makes you concentrate upward is pure, but it merely catches one side of your nature; the feelings that harm you are impure. Everything you could think of in childhood is good. Whatever can make you richer than you were at your most beautiful moment is right. All forms of elevation are good, if it is in all your blood, if it is not intoxication, not melancholy, but transparent joy all the way through.

  
Gu Chu

2008-05-25 23:13:18 [reply]

By the way, let me say that I am not preparing for any battle, and I do not want to battle anything; rather, I am preparing to write a long monologue. 
The meaning of Fromm’s book is very good, but it is indeed not developed enough, especially the sentence I quoted, which is not unfolded in much depth. Still, considering Fromm’s intellectual roots in Marx, Heidegger, and existentialism, I can roughly guess Fromm’s line of thought, 
but I will argue in my own way, although my line of thought should not be in much contradiction with Fromm’s.

  
Gu Chu

2008-05-25 23:01:39 [reply]

Rilke said it well; there is indeed something in common with Fromm. They both emphasize that the key to “love” does not lie in finding an object worthy of love. Love is first and foremost a capacity within oneself, a capacity that needs to be learned, trained, and brought to maturity. Do not blame others for not being worthy of your love; to keep demanding that others and the world conform to your fantasies while you make no effort yourself is to never learn love. 
But I want to say that love is not that difficult to learn either. It is not easy, but neither is it all that hard; what is needed is a kind of resolve, or rather, awakening. As long as one can bravely and firmly face oneself and reflect on oneself—that is to say, not always be both self-centered and self-forgetting, paying attention only to the surrounding world, hoping for and searching for lovable objects in the external world, but instead turn one’s gaze more toward oneself and realize that love is not about waiting for a world to cater to oneself, but about “completing one’s own world within oneself”—as long as one firmly recognizes this direction, love is not difficult, or at least one can say: learning to love will never plunge a person into pain; what it requires is resolve, not endurance.

  
unic

2008-05-25 22:41:07 anonymous 124.117.25.97 [reply]

Biyan Kongjing, the passage you thought of—I like it too. There also seems to be another passage, in the later letters, saying “whatever… whatever…” which is also good. 
My association for this question has always been Wang Xiaobo’s *Loving You Is Like Loving Life*, just as the title says.

  
unic

2008-05-25 22:37:42 anonymous 124.117.25.97 [reply]

Someone seems to be preparing for battle. Why is it that after glancing at the new articles a few times, they all seem to be preparing for battle… 
As for the article—what is said in it is about me. But at that time I think I was in first year of high school? Or just entering second year? Later I carefully read *The Art of Loving* twice, not many times. 
I also have my own doubts about that book, and I found that it seems to leave very important issues undiscussed. 
I haven’t shown up for quite a while; this is fine. There are so many new enthusiastic participants here, ah.

  
Biyan Kongjing

2008-05-25 20:24:14 http://deleted [reply]

It reminds me of a passage from Rilke’s *Letters to a Young Poet*: Love is good, because love is difficult. To love one’s fellow human beings—this may perhaps be the hardest and greatest thing given to us, the final test and examination, the highest work, for which all other work is merely preparation. Therefore all young people who are only just beginning cannot yet love; they must learn. They must learn with their entire life, with all their strength, gathering their lonely, painful, upward-straining hearts to learn love. But the period of learning is always a long period of concentrated attention. Love enters life for a long time and deeply—loneliness, the strengthened and deepened solitary life, is for the sake of the one who loves. Love has nothing to do with infatuation, self-sacrifice, or union with a second person. For the individual it is a lofty drive, to mature, to bring something to completion within oneself, to complete a world, for the sake of another person to complete one’s own world; this is for him a tremendous, uncompromising demand, setting him apart and summoning him toward the far reaches.