鸭梨’s writing always feels pleasing to the eye~
Public opinion on the Fan Meizhong affair had two peaks. The first naturally came right after the incident; as far as I could tell,
One
When the incident first broke, I was also very confused: should this matter, and this person, simply be written off with one blow? I do not like Fan’s articles, especially that famous declaration, which began with his saying that he “pursues freedom and justice” and ended with his becoming a target of public reproach for not saving his mother, as well as the deep loathing he displayed in earlier writings toward his own country and people (to this day, no one seems to have explained this as a Lu Xun-style “the deeper the love, the harsher the rebuke,” because the curses he uttered were simply too venomous), and his bright-eyed yearning for the United States. His manner of writing gave me an extremely bad impression of him, though his reflections on and criticism of education in China do indeed contain some worthwhile points. After all, some of his students and friends spoke up for him, saying that in real life he was not so extreme or inhuman; on the contrary, he was kind to others, filial to his mother, and concerned about his family. I thought these people had after all come into contact with him in daily life, so what they said surely could not be too far off. Thus I withheld judgment, and considered that his problem lay more in his thinking than in his morality. In fact, judging from his earlier writings, his remarks were indeed consistent throughout.
However, now it seems to me that what is more worth attention in this matter is not Fan Meizhong himself, but the great debate it triggered. How many people jumped out in the middle of it to state their views on morality and on present-day society; how many people thereby found comrades-in-arms and formed a front of intellectual resonance; what kind of people spoke carefully, and what kind of people jumped and barked hysterically. This is truly an excellent opportunity for observing and working with ethics; there has never been a time when one could find so many specimens of naked moral self-disclosure.
At the beginning of the discussion, there was also a voice saying that there was nothing especially blameworthy about his running, that it did indeed fall short of a teacher’s duty, but could still be understood; what he should be condemned for was the “shameless” confession afterward. But later, this voice almost disappeared, and the great majority of the discussion focused on whether running away was, in the end, moral or not. This question existed from the very beginning, and it was precisely the point Fan himself and those defending him worked hard to argue. Their line of reasoning is still very familiar today: what he followed was the instinct of human nature to cherish life; there was no moral problem; and those who condemned him for running away were continuing the old culture’s moral strangling of human nature. They repeated this line of reasoning over and over, while the other side repeatedly insisted that what we were discussing was not Fan’s behavior but his words—yet to no avail. That was the first issue. The second issue at last concerned his words, and the pro-Fan camp insisted that such honesty and bluntness are now rarely seen. Thus, those who criticized his remarks as improper naturally came to be labeled hypocritical, timid, sanctimonious, and as suppressors of freedom of speech.
Half a month ago, the son of a certain famous poet even praised Fan Meizhong for daring to tell the truth, while at the same time criticizing the Ministry of Education for taking the collapse of school buildings in stride yet relentlessly pursuing a mere middle-school teacher; between the lines there was a clear insinuation that the authorities were trying to divert public attention. I do not deny that the Ministry of Education’s action seems to have been forced by public opinion, nor do I think it at all surprising that an official spokesperson denounced Fan as “shameless” (similarly, Peking University’s History Department’s “being ashamed of Fan Meizhong” was also quite unnecessary—truly a political misstep). But the two poles of this matter are not so sharply opposed. Being dismissive of the official position does not mean the weaker side must therefore be the pure and innocent lamb of suffering. Likewise, acknowledging that Fan and his supporters have problems does not necessarily mean that those who oppose them thereby hold the truth. A conversation is never simply a black-and-white contest between two sides, much less one as chaotic as this, which so fully embodies online violence.
Two
—Of course I cannot claim to possess the truth either. But since I had quietly formed my own view in my heart, that was effectively the same as taking part in the discussion in secret; and both sides of any dialogue will certainly think themselves the more correct.
So I want to say that, as for the matter of running, one really should not condemn him harshly. Confucius, whom Fan so deeply detests as a representative of traditional culture, happens to have a story that can offer him some support: in the state of Lu, there was a law that anyone who used private funds to ransom captured compatriots would have the ransom reimbursed by the government. Zi Gong bought people back, and refused reimbursement. Confucius, however, rejected this noble act, saying that if you did not take back the money you had paid, then in the future the people of Lu would no longer be willing to ransom captives. And regarding Zi Lu’s rescuing a drowning man and accepting the latter’s gift of thanks, Confucius said that after this, the people of Lu would surely become brave in rescuing those who had fallen into water.
This story appears in “Observing the Subtle” in the Lüshi Chunqiu, and has often been cited in discussions about donations since the earthquake. At least here, Confucius is not at all the old pedant who formulated a morality that eats people; rather, he appears remarkably clear-sighted and broad-minded, attuned to human feeling, and understanding of politics. He points out that using noble acts to raise the moral standard is not in fact a good thing, whereas widespread and sustained acts of goodness often need to be encouraged by benefit. This is precisely the consequence of the long-standing overpromotion of various sacrificial acts: on the one hand, it leads to improper imitation (which is why the state already no longer encourages students to rush to righteousness when they see injustice), and on the other hand, if accomplishing some good without harming oneself no longer receives moral affirmation, then doing good becomes even harder, and “morality” essentially turns into something that runs counter to human feeling. As a result, while some individuals reach upward, more and more individuals become oppressed by “morality,” and then—there you have it—one side turns anti-moral, while the other is accused of being moral zealots.
Therefore, a teacher who sacrificed himself to protect students can become a model for teachers; but if one were to make that the standard for teachers, it would probably be too harsh. One question repeatedly pressed by the pro-Fan camp is: if you were at the earthquake scene, who knows what you’d do! And before this question, almost everyone retreated to some degree; no one can say with certainty that I myself would definitely step forward. Human nature is to seek survival and avoid death, to preserve oneself; on this point, the line of reasoning put forward by Fan and his supporters, whether they want to admit it or not, has to be admitted.
So Fan Meizhong running first to the playground, even if the posture was not attractive, can be understood. Perhaps as a teacher, he was in the wrong. But he is also a human being.
Three
But the problem is, once we acknowledge human instinct, is there any possibility of going a step further?
Fan candidly said that fleeing was an instinctive reaction, and the pro-Fan camp kept labeling this as honesty and bluntness, using it to attack the other side’s hypocrisy, as though honesty were the ultimate value. Admitting that human beings have an instinct for self-preservation can indeed justify Fan’s behavior, but it cannot explain the sacrificial actions of Tan Qianqiu and the other teachers: are they not human, do they not cherish life? Aside from the explanation that avoids this problem, there is another potential danger in labeling the acknowledgment of instinct as honesty: it expands this instinct for self-preservation into a reason for legitimizing flight, treating the behavior as something only natural, thereby implying that everyone should just stay at this level.
In this way, not only is noble conduct left unexplained, it is also stripped of any possibility within human action. And then people can settle down comfortably within instinct.
This influence has a fresh example. In an early Tianya discussion after the incident first broke, someone posted to admit that when the earthquake struck she ran out with her colleagues and lingered in a nearby park, spending more than an hour without thinking of going home to check on her mother and daughter. It was only when she returned home in the evening that she learned they had been rescued by the neighbors. This mother spoke in a tone of self-examination, wondering why she had neglected her elderly mother and daughter for so long. But before long, one could see her tone changing; she began to feel that there was nothing for me to be ashamed of. This attitude drew some criticism, and in response to these criticisms there came people who vigorously defended and encouraged her. She herself finally became aggressive as well, resorting to every kind of abuse, and thoroughly joined the ranks of those who raise high the banner of human nature and shout support for flight.
Leaving aside whether this woman’s lack of concern for her mother as a daughter, and her lack of concern for her daughter as a mother, are instinctual. Fan Meizhong himself certainly loves his daughter, and probably in fact is filial to his mother as well. He later clarified that he did not say those words on the spot, but wrote them only in the article. Yet the remarks he made, and those that grew out of them, have in fact provided a rationale for not being filial to one’s mother and not caring for one’s children.
Going further, if Fan Meizhong, together with his honesty, is held up as a model for others to emulate, then what of Teacher Tan? What of all the teachers throughout history who were injured or died protecting students? What of those who, in rotten China and bright America alike, have never hesitated to face danger and insist on acting justly? Are they all hypocritical, all warped in human nature?
This is precisely the question in the debate between Mencius and Gaozi. Gaozi said, “Food and sex are human nature.” (Anyone who says this was said by Mencius, I’ll be angry with!) Mencius did not bother with that at all, and went straight to the issue of benevolence and righteousness. Yet this saying is now highly favored. Baidu Baike, though faithfully recording that this is Gaozi’s line, clearly thinks Gaozi is more correct, and that Mencius’s doctrine of the goodness of human nature is utterly illogical. The question of whether human nature is good or evil now seems to be traceable to genes, which sounds very scientific. But the way this question is framed is related to how people can act. Is it that I just eat and lust like this, and if you demand anything more of me that is to distort my natural being, teach me to be false, and alienate me? Or is it that, fine, I can still do some good things? Human nature may well be selfish, but that is not a reason to remain selfish and insist on selfishness. If insisting on selfishness is used to pressure people in the name of honesty and courage, can there still be any peaceful hope for a society that is not selfish? Even the contract theory Fan follows does not put it this way.
To swing the moral cudgel at people is alienation; could it be that encouraging people to mutter and groan in the low places under the pretext that “human nature is just like this” is not also a kind of alienation? “Dragging one’s tail in the mud” did not mean this.
Four
If Fan Meizhong did not actually say those “utterly treasonous” words on the spot, why did he write them into the article? (This question is so much like my own thesis topic: why did Jesus have to undergo the final temptation?)
According to the psychologist Wu Zhihong, he was, through rationalization and rationalizing efforts, trying to cover up his cowardice and the guilt that still in fact remained. I think that is possible. There are also those who read it through the lens of conspiracy theory; I think that goes too far. But this set of words of his, and what followed it, were indeed amplified and exploited, leading to a storm that he certainly could not have predicted when he wrote the article. It was indeed a storm: those who spoke with a certain extremity could successfully enter the mainstream of discourse, while the cautious and the neutral were denounced as empty chatter, so the whole discussion could proceed in an exhilarating, dizzying frenzy. Fan Meizhong suddenly acquired a large batch of followers who styled themselves idealists and liberals, and he himself became the hope of Chinese education and even of Chinese society.
As for -isms, I cannot say much; I only feel that this incident further discredited liberalism’s image in China, and at last also sullied idealism. But I think this is precisely the current state of these two -isms in China, and perhaps the state of all -isms: a certain -ism simply means insisting on a certain something. So affiliation with some -ism becomes shouting that certain something: freedom, ideal, democracy, Marx, Confucianism, and whatnot. How simple human thought is.
I wonder whether this is also the condition of some Chinese Christians. Mr. Fan is a Christian. And indeed some people praised him for risking his moral reputation in order to explore true morality, comparing him to Jesus voluntarily going to the cross. Back then, Jesus’ Passion inspired countless believers, and countless believers accordingly set out on the road to the cross. Fan’s aura of suffering likewise inspired many people; yet by the standards they were defending, Jesus was doing precisely something hypocritically distorted and anti-human.
I suspect this is exactly a certain state of affairs in the contemporary intellectual world, and Fan Meizhong in this sense is precisely the representative of some intellectual circles. He insists on some value or spirit, yet without probing the meaning and historical origins of that term, he begins to shout the term and to “pursue” that value with all his body and soul. More importantly, they all possess a prophetic self-consciousness, and are sensitive to, and intoxicated by, patterns of suffering (usually suffering at the hands of public opinion). As with Chinese Christianity, the more criticism and resistance one receives, the deeper the sublime feeling of suffering becomes, and the stronger the faith becomes. This was already so when Fan repeatedly ran into setbacks in his teaching career; after he fled, he kept elevating the motives behind his actions, going so far as to call himself “a thinker who bangs his head against the wall, thinking through practice,” and with the Ministry of Education taking the initiative to play the role of Athens or Rome for a moment, the passion play of Socrates or Jesus was complete.
What would Socrates and Jesus say about this politics of discourse?
Five
From this point of view, Fan is a typical case of someone poisoned silly by the Peking University spirit. Peking University has unfortunately for a long time been branded with the names of rebellion and freedom; how many people, under the instigation of that label, launch into unrestrained abuse, as if this were the sign of freedom, democracy, independence, and thought. So as for the Peking University spirit, we had better not talk about it.
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Modern ethics has already become terribly confused; ethics in the academic world is murky and ill-defined, not to mention the “ethics” used in public opinion. Whether it is those guardians of morality wielding the moral cudgel or those rebels for whom “the pursuit of food and sex is also a natural human tendency,” their understanding of ethics and morality is actually not all that different—the difference is only that the former uphold it, while the latter reject it. But in any case, this understanding itself has already plunged people into a quagmire.
Leaving aside the question of what ethics actually is, many of its core concepts have one by one been twisted and deformed, rendered obscure and indistinct, so that their original meaning cannot be seen; instead, they can be abused however one likes, used however one likes. For example, the Chinese “性,” “诚,” “德,” and so on, or the Western “freedom,” “human rights,” and the like, have all been abused to a shocking degree. This is something that philosophy still needs to clarify at the level of concepts.
Isn’t “诚” precisely the key term of the *Zhongyong*? “诚者自成” (“Sincerity is self-fulfillment”) and “诚，信也” (“Sincerity means trustworthiness”); it would seem that the character “诚” has something in common with the Western concepts of “reason—logos—freedom.” But neither “诚” nor “freedom” refers to the liberation of animal instinct. Animals are precisely what lack freedom. In modern people’s discourse, wild beasts are often seen as more sincere and freer than human beings, which shows to what extent linguistic confusion has already gone.
Oh, that sounds like your thesis topic is quite interesting~
“An aura of suffering” is indeed not uncommon; I see it very often among amateur scientists and amateur philosophers too. I can also very much experience the “sublime feeling” brought by suffering; after all, I too pride myself on freedom and independence.
Socrates was willing to suffer because he respected the institutions of the polis; Jesus was willing to suffer because of the universal love embodied in the idea of “love your enemies.” This is vastly different from those cynical, foul-mouthed masochists. Neither Socrates nor Jesus acted out of hatred and hostility, but out of love and respect.
The flame war on Tianya continued for three days without any sign of abating. Then there was a sudden silence, which should mean that attention had been shifted and people had returned to focusing on the disaster. The renewed discussion displayed a rational appearance; at the very least, the matter was given all sorts of -ist labels, with people from the intellectual world actively or passively expressing their views, and those outside the intellectual world also elevating the matter to the level of society, party, and state in order to voice opinions. This major earthquake here was beginning, in its first appearance, to reveal the potential to follow the Lisbon earthquake and become an earthquake of thought.
Only whether this rational appearance is merely an appearance, merely a presentation, remains a question.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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