To write a long essay on the idea of “love,” the conception of this project began at least three years ago. But because of fluctuations in my thinking and other factors, I could not bring myself to start. Only just before my period of seclusion did I finally set down an “introductory note” and begin formally brewing this essay. What I post below is a tiny germ produced in the course of that brewing. The formulations here mainly come from the opportunity to exchange views with UNIC, and those exchanges also led to her distancing herself from me. Of course, all contextual information has been cut away; in any case, roughly speaking, I was hoping she would recognize my starry-sky philosophy and was recommending to her: “Love, do not hate.” Although the excerpted text is no longer continuous, it does at least include the main threads. Since my dedicated essay will not be written very soon, and when it is written I will mainly revolve around romantic love between men and women rather than, as here, speaking more broadly about human love in general; and since some of the formulations may yet be subtly adjusted, then as a witness to the period of incubation, the following text should, as usual, be archived for the record.
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People often say that love is “union,” “fusion,” and the like. I think this can only be used symbolically in poetic contexts; philosophically, it should not be said this way. Two people cannot become one person; a person is always lonely, one by oneself. Love in fact should more properly be some kind of “tolerance,” a mutual accommodation of difference and a forgiveness of shortcomings. If you cannot learn to contain what is different from you, then you will forever remain only “narcissistic.” Even if you occasionally “fall in love” with someone else, at most you are treating the other as an “superego.” In the end it is still only “narcissism,” and there is no “human love.” Only when you are capable of loving “other” people do you really deserve to be said to possess love. Before loving others, one must first love oneself; and this loving oneself is not “narcissism,” but rather means forgiving oneself. One could say that one must accommodate the tension between the “id” and the “superego,” not hating either one, preserving your own contradictions and tensions, yet using the “ego” to contain the “otherness” between the id and the superego—that is to say, within yourself you first encounter “otherness,” and then learn to endure it, to contain it; only then can you learn to face the “other” encountered outside yourself, and only then can you possibly love “other people.” If you never see “otherness,” or cannot contain “otherness,” how can you possibly hold “others” in your heart?
Besides “human love,” are there other forms of “love”? What comes to my mind is “Platonic love”—although at present I am probably not a genuine follower of Platonic love, this kind of love is nevertheless one possible path, and you can take it into consideration.
The original, authentic Platonic love differs greatly from current popular usage. Although it of course refers to “spiritual love,” it is by no means especially romantic. If “spirit” is set in contrast to the body, then it would be more appropriate to call Platonic love “love of the idea.” “Idea” stands in contrast to reality.
I seem to have mentioned before that the typical Platonic lover is a bodyless homosexual relationship, but there is another element as well: Platonic love is not “exclusive devotion,” still less “from first to last.” That is because the object of Platonic love is not some specific, living, concrete real person, but that abstract idea. For Plato, the real world is changeable and impure; only the world of ideas is eternal, absolute, and spotless. Therefore a pure love of pure ideas cannot be directed at some particular real person; rather, through these perfect ideas’ copies as intermediaries, in and through them, it seeks the perfect idea. A living person, his handsome body will age, his intelligence will decline, his character will change; therefore for a being with such defects there can be no perfect, ultimate love. Platonic love is not affected by changes in the object in reality, because at the outset what was loved was never this real person in the first place. Platonic love hopes, by approaching one after another real-world ideal copy, to approach that perfect idea.
As for me, I believe I possess both “human love” and “love of the idea.” But I would not take real people as intermediaries for approaching the idea; the intermediary for approaching the perfect idea is philosophy, my own thinking. Apart from philosophy, art can also become an intermediary for approaching the idea (Plato detested art and poetry). This is where I differ from Platonism. As for you, you can choose and decide for yourself. If you convert to Plato, then you will no longer be hurt by the ugliness or betrayal in the real world either.
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In the real world, that which someone entrusts as his “superego” is his “idol,” a doll he has made with his own hands, a child’s toy.
When a person unfortunately mistakes another living person for his “idol,” once the idol shatters, he will cry and make a scene, and his tender little heart will have been hurt.
But a living person cannot make a competent idol. If he always remains lofty and out of reach, then that is one thing; but if he is right before your eyes, living together with you, then after you have played with him long enough, he is bound to break.
Immature love is idol-love, dependence on a doll; in the final analysis, it is still only a child’s narcissism.
Mature love does not treat the other as an “idol.” Rather, it falls in love with a living person, with blood and flesh, with beauty and ugliness, with brilliance and flaws… with a lonely other person who no longer belongs to you, no longer submits to your control.
To fall in love with a person of blood and flesh means knowing for certain that he is by no means your perfect idol, but rather an autonomous existence that does not belong to you, imperfect reality. Only when you have learned tolerance, learned to take the other as a complete person—accepting him whole, together with all his strengths and all his defects—only then have you learned love.
The modern Chinese word “idealism” of course also comes from Western languages. I have mentioned before that the Western term idealism simultaneously means “mind-only doctrine” and “doctrine of ideas.” Modern English ideal has the meaning of “perfect,” but this is derived; moreover, the perfection of ideal differs from the perfection of perfect, complete, and the like. Ideal tends to refer to a perfection that is ultimate and unrealizable. So idealism cannot simply be lumped together with “perfectionism.”
Ideal of course comes from idea: thought, notion, concept.
Then why was idealism originally supposed to be called “conceptualism” or “ideationalism,” and how did it come to take on the meaning of “idealism”? In fact, this sense of “idealism” comes precisely from philosophy, and from philosophy’s most far-reaching and fundamental source.
This depends on Plato’s achievement. Plato’s “theory of ideas” linked thought, concept, and the perfect world together. In Plato, the “idea” or “form” (the same Greek word is translated as idea or form) is eternal, perfect, and transcendent, while the changeable, flawed real world is a copy of the world of ideas, or the “ideal world.”
Plato truly opened the tradition of Western philosophy, and from that point on Western thought genuinely extricated itself from “childhood,” from the age of myth. The “world of ideas” can be said to remain a kind of “fairy-tale world,” a perfect idol. Plato’s way of moving out of “childhood” was not, as ordinary people do, simply to smash the “fairy-tale world” and throw in his lot with the real world, but rather to preserve it in a transcendent, sacred way. Yet Plato of course did move out of childhood. I mentioned earlier that the sign of moving out of childhood is to distinguish the fairy-tale world from the real world. Plato also completed this task. Only, unlike ordinary people: ordinary people side with the real world and regard the fairy-tale world as something people have compiled and imagined; whereas Plato sides with the “fairy-tale world” and regards the real world as an imitation of the ideal. As “adults,” philosophers and ordinary people alike no longer expect fairy tales in the real world; the difference is that the latter surrender to the real world, while the former continue to insist on pursuing the fairy-tale world, and thought is the medium for pursuing the world of ideas.
That is why I say the philosopher is closer to the “child,” because the child need only take one step forward and he will be a philosopher, whereas the ordinarily “mature” person has to first step back one step and then advance one.
That is why I say “philosophy = idealism.” For the entire history of Western philosophy is just a footnote to Plato (in Whitehead’s words). Of course, here “philosophy” is philosophy in the narrow sense of Western classical philosophy, excluding Eastern philosophy and postmodern philosophy.
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Marx can be said to be the terminator of classical philosophy. The “philosophy” he opposed was classical philosophy—that entire long lineage of footnotes flowing from Plato onward, that is, what we have just called “idealism,” or “mind-only doctrine.” This philosophical tradition places the “fairy-tale world” in a ruling position higher and more fundamental than the “real world.” Marx called this way of thinking “standing on one’s head.” Marx emphasized that the “fairy-tale world” is ultimately a fabrication in the human mind, a “superstructure,” and not some sacred or absolute existence.
However, Marx did not side with vulgar materialism. Marx said that good idealism is closer to truth than vulgar materialism. What is called vulgar materialism, in terms of the line of thought we have been following, precisely represents the thinking of the ordinary adult—stopping at “asking questions,” surrendering to reality.
Then what exactly is Marx? Hard to say. Marx’s own philosophy contains enormous tensions, and therefore it can be used by later generations in such radically different ways. In a sense, Marx is a bit like Socrates as well: he once again pulled philosophy down from the heavens to the earth, once again emphasized doubt and critique, reconstructed in a new guise the “dialectic” originating with Socrates, and through his own actual activity rather than merely his speech became an immortal exemplar… And like Socrates’s fate, Marx’s students also interpret him in completely opposite ways.
In any case, Marx still retained a strongly classical philosophical temperament, and Marx still had a powerful attachment to “idealism.” “Communism” is an “ideal.” Yet Marx himself more often used exposition and projection of the ideal world to strengthen the force of his critique of reality.
At the same time, one can also note that Marx’s critique of reality was not driven by “hate.” Marx did not hate the capitalists, because capitalists, like workers, are both products of this social machine. Marx also did not hate capitalism, because capitalism is an indispensable link in the historical process. All of Marx’s sharp critique and his projection of the ideal rested on “love,” on his love for human nature.
Yet it cannot be denied that dangerous omens are hidden within Marx’s philosophy. When the “ideal” of “communism” is interpreted by those obsessives who have failed to move out of childhood as a “demand” rather than a “pursuit,” when the driving force for people to transform the world deteriorates from “love” of human nature into “hate” of class enemies, then everything becomes utterly terrible.
In my view, philosophy, no matter what, can neither surrender to reality nor retreat into childhood and confuse ideal and reality. One must keep “ideal” always opposed to “reality,” and let that contrast become the power of critique and the impetus of pursuit. At the same time, one must insist on not allowing the ideal to degenerate into expectation, not allowing pursuit to deteriorate into demand, and even more not allowing the emotions of hate to overwhelm love and become the ruling force.
What I mean by “real idealism or ideal realism” also contains this layer of meaning: the core is “love, not hate.” I do not need ideal because I hate reality, nor do I side with reality because ideals have been shattered. Rather, I love the ideal, and I love reality; I love this ugly world, and I also long for beauty.
However, human love in a certain sense is indeed still an escape from loneliness, but why call it “escape”? Why not say it is “taming”? I can fully affirm and persist in my own loneliness, yet fill my heart with love and not feel empty—how can that be called escape?
I am not trying to give an objective standard by which one can accurately measure who is a perfectionist and who is an idealist; rather, I am drawing the distinction between them so that people can become aware, so that they can choose which side to strive toward. If you can remind yourself at every turn to love more and cling less to hate, then I will have achieved my purpose.
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Actually, the “fairy-tale world” itself is not simply the “perfect world.” In the fairy-tale world there is good and there is evil; but good is absolute good, good people do not do bad things, and whoever does bad things is certainly a bad person, while evil is identical with ugliness. In the fairy-tale world good will certainly defeat evil; the bad person will either be defeated, even destroyed, or ultimately become a good person (only in comparatively sophisticated fairy tales will there be the latter, more complicated ending). In short, in the final ending there are no bad people anymore, all the bad things are resolved, and “they all lived happily ever after…”
Yet a world with no bad people, no bad things, where everything goes exactly as one wishes, where everyone is happy and content, does not exist even in the fairy-tale world. Only at the very moment a fairy tale ends does the perfect world exist. Writers have no way at all to describe such a world. In a world without evil, how do you tell of justice? In a world without ugliness, how do you praise goodness? In a world without setbacks, how do you depict fulfillment? Once the moment of perfection is written, the fairy tale can no longer continue; it can only end.
That is just how it is: if you want to see the “all-good” little white rabbit, you must set up the all-evil “big gray wolf”; if you want to see the “happy ending” of a complete reunion, you must set up the old witch who obstructs happiness; if you want to see the warrior of justice, you must set up the evil arch-villain. Without these negative roles, you have no way to “see” goodness and justice.
Why is it that in reality you cannot see an “all-good” person? Precisely because in reality there is no “all-evil” great villain. “Good people” and “bad people” are both figures from fairy tales. In reality there are neither “good people” nor “bad people”; there is only “good” and “bad,” and the “archetypes” of this “good” and “bad” are precisely what fairy tales provide. Fairy tales provide perfect archetypes—complete good and complete evil—and real people “imitate” them, “participate in” that good and bad. So unfortunately, in reality you cannot find perfect good; but at the same time, fortunately, in reality you also cannot find perfect evil.
Why do I say you cannot distinguish between the fairy-tale world and the real world? Because you use the way you watch fairy tales to watch this real world. You see the real world as a world of big gray wolves and little white rabbits—anyone who is a little bad is a bad person, but then you discover that everyone has flaws, so you cannot find a “good person.” Even if you may gradually manage to shake off the perspective that “anything not all-good is a villain,” you still cannot shake off the attitude you had when watching fairy tales—clear-cut love and hate: love is all love, unreserved love; hate is all hate, unreserved hate.
You long for the ending in fairy tales, for the world that fairy tales once promised you. You discover that the real world has no way to fulfill this promise, and so you feel pain and dissatisfaction. Yet you have not noticed: this world cannot be fulfilled not only in reality, but equally cannot be fulfilled in fairy tales. This world was impossible from the very beginning. It is merely a way of evading the issue devised by the author who tells the fairy tale in order to bring the story to a halt—once it is said up to here, the child is satisfied, the child falls asleep sweetly, or asks to hear the next fairy tale, and no longer asks how exactly the princess and the prince live happily ever after. If they do ask, they will discover that the grown-ups have no way to continue telling it; and even if the grown-ups try to describe those concrete trivialities of a happy life, the child will find them dull and uninteresting—tell the next story.
But the real world is a world, a continuous world; it will not end for the time being, and you also can never wait for a “next one.” This is precisely the real reason why in the real world you cannot see “fulfillment” and “a complete reunion” — it is not only impossible in reality, but logically impossible as well!
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Where does the difference between “pursuit” and “demand” lie? It certainly does not lie in “placing everything one pursues completely outside reality.” I have said that I am a “real idealist”—what does that mean? It means placing the ideal within reality. I said before that idealism and perfectionism alike both have an urgent desire to change reality; the difference is only in their motives: one is driven by love, the other by hate. When one changes reality out of love, reality’s positive changes will bring tremendous encouragement, while negative changes will on the contrary also bring encouragement, because the greater gap between reality and ideal will inspire you to act. But perfectionism does not rely on encouragement, it relies on stimulation, on mutual injury. Perfectionism is in an adversarial position vis-à-vis reality: you punch me, I kick you back. But they forget: what is one of the major sources of the ugliness of this world? It is hostility, it is violence. People cannot cherish one another and insist on being enemies; people cannot calmly reason things through to resolve disputes and insist instead on using violence and force to exclude dissenters. This is one aspect of the ugliness of the world. And the perfectionist no longer takes this as ugliness; on the contrary, he joins in it himself. This shows that the perfectionist is in fact less sensitive to ugliness than the idealist. The idealist cannot tolerate himself surrendering to ugliness. The idealist’s enemy is ugliness, not some thing in reality. In reality there is no existence of supreme good and no thing of supreme evil. The enemy is only the evil in human beings, not the “evil person.”
The literal difference between “to pursue” and “to demand” is that the former calls forth an active, positive kind of “throwing oneself into something”: if you pursue it, you have to devote yourself to it, strive for it, throw yourself into your ideals, throw yourself into reality, do something, and take responsibility. But “to demand” is a passive and negative emotion: your emotion in the first place comes from external negative stimulation, not from the hopes within your own heart, and you are more often making “expectations” upon reality than taking responsibility. To “pursue” a change in reality is to regard oneself as part of the real world and to act positively and responsibly; if this “pursuit” fails, one does not blame the real world, because the responsibility lies with oneself. This is precisely what “let every man share the responsibility for the rise and fall of the realm” means, or “to take the rise and fall of the realm as one’s own duty.” What does that mean? It means that when the realm rises or falls, do not go blaming that “realm”; unlike ordinary people, who can only complain and sigh when society turns rotten, but never think about what kind of mission they themselves have. Idealists do not complain; or rather, after sorrow, they immediately throw themselves into this world with a more positive, more active emotion.
Reality will indeed not crush idealists, because no matter what kind of reality they are in, they will never despair. The harsher the reality, the stronger their fighting spirit, and the more they want to do something. By contrast, if reality can crush perfectionists, then it is clear that their minds are not, after all, firm enough.
I have never said that I want to eliminate hate or eliminate pain; rather, it is precisely the opposite: I hope that you face hate and pain squarely, and do not let them numb you. You say that sometimes you think in order to feel pain, and in that case
“pain” instead becomes the thing you pursue? You may even take it for granted that one should suffer, one should hate, and that not hating is wrong. But then what, exactly, is your hate? And what, exactly, is it that you love? I can say firmly: I love this world because this world has love; I hope to sow love throughout the world. But what is it that you yearn for? Adding hatred to the world?
What I am saying is: do not let hate and pain numb you, do not let them enslave you, do not let yourself become their prisoner, do not let yourself instead take hate and pain as good things, do not let yourself become a “masochist.” Masochists are often sadists as well; many of the world’s tragedies stem from psychological pathologies and distorted souls of this sort. A sound mind will not be shaken and warped by hate.
Why is society always so vile, why are people always so violent? Why can’t people love one another properly, but instead must they destroy one another? My conclusion is this: “hate” dominates their souls, “hate” twists their thinking, “hate” drives them to hurt others and hurt this world. Once I understood this, I knew that I could no longer allow myself to join them. I must contend against ugliness, I must contend against those who destroy beauty, I must contend with love against hate. I must shoulder my own mission, starting from myself, and to let love fill this world full of hatred, first I must let love fill my own empty heart. I must set an example, offer a demonstration, and tell the world: people should cherish one another, people should love this world, should love those beautiful lives, and should not destroy one another, should not hate one another. This is the mission I have received.
As for how, in an ugly world, it is possible to let love fill one’s own heart? That is not something one can be taught; love cannot be transmitted, it can only be discovered by oneself. And I am merely setting an example, offering a case in point—I tell you: I can do it, I can live sincerely and responsibly, and yet not let hate occupy my heart. I cannot tell you how I did it; I am only telling you that I can do it, and that I have indeed done it to a certain extent.
As for the accusation that “love and hate in life are by no means as simple as you say,” that sort of criticism can be directed at every philosopher: one can always say that “XX in life is by no means as simple as you say.” Once the multifarious real world is described and discussed with concepts, simplification is inevitably always involved. And philosophy is precisely engaged in this work of simplification. The key is not that simplification is somehow bad; in fact, simplification itself is a high-difficulty technique. Modern science is also a way of viewing the world through extreme simplification; despite the risks involved, one cannot deny that it has achieved tremendous success. The key lies in whether the mode of simplification you adopt can truly discern the crux of the problem.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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