(This article is chaotic; not recommended reading.)
We often see people who are so-called “idealists” — university students, for example — who, after they “step into society,” are struck by all the cruelty of “reality,” eventually give up their “ideals,” throw themselves into the embrace of “reality,” and become yet another “petty bourgeois.” We then say that an idealist has become realistic? But what does that mean? What exactly is idealism? And what is it that drives them to “become realistic”?
The issue I mentioned last time in the 08 undergraduate freshmen group is precisely this. The previous article did not finish it, so let me start over.
Speaking of “idealism,” I recall that at some class meeting around the beginning of sophomore year, Lao Yang mentioned that he was comparatively idealistic, and also pulled me in as a fellow idealist, while holding up student lwz as the negative example. But I did not appreciate it; I immediately echoed lwz’s remarks on the spot, which probably left Lao Yang somewhat embarrassed.
Ironically, by the end of junior year, during our social-practice exercise, Lao Yang, in his nonstop moralizing, turned around and praised lwz instead, and then treated me as the negative example, criticizing me for not understanding the complexity of society, for not being versed in the ways of the world, and so on. I, too, resisted on the spot: Do you still remember how I once sang a different tune from you before? (See Brief Notes from the Shanxi Trip — July 6, Return)
I think it was not that Lao Yang changed his own self-identification in these short two years. His social experience was already fairly rich, and his attitude toward dealing with people ought long ago to have stabilized. The problem was the change in our circumstances over these two years: when we had only just entered university, the petty-bourgeois attitude did not fit the image of a university student; and when we were about to “step into society,” so-called “idealism” no longer fit this society. In short, Lao Yang, like many well-meaning parents, always instills “ideals” in their children when they are young, telling fairy tales, but when the children grow a little older they remind them of society’s “reality,” lest they “take a wrong turn.”
However, quite apart from the fact that this style of education sacrifices the quality of “sincerity” — the quality most crucial to a person’s thought, or, one might say, consistency — merely in terms of practical effect, this kind of sermonizing contrast may more easily lead children to “take a wrong turn,” causing them to lose their bearings.
How exactly was lwz being “realistic” back then? Very simply, perhaps: studying philosophy also means you have to think about money. I remember him asking me how much it would cost to buy books. I said that, indeed, my family’s finances were relatively comfortable, and only for that reason did I dare spend money like this. I also reminded my classmates that they should take into account the matter of money, the actual circumstances of whatever career they might later pursue, and even anticipate the complexity of this society, and so on. Is that what “realistic” means? It is indeed realistic. But does so-called “idealism” mean precisely turning a blind eye to “reality” and avoiding any mention of it? If so, I would rather call myself a “realist.”
According to petty-bourgeois thinking, the reason those “intellectuals” are unconventional, the reason they are out of step with “ordinary people,” is that they “don’t know any better,” are “naïve about the ways of the world,” “study dead books and are divorced from reality,” “don’t understand the complexity of society,” and so on. This is because petty bourgeois people always think they alone have seen through society’s reality, and that common sense is beyond dispute. They can hardly imagine that people may have radically different ways of understanding the same phenomena.
Both petty bourgeois people and many people labeled “idealists” merely take “idealism” to be a synonym for the naïve innocence of childhood. These so-called “idealists” have simply never learned to distinguish the fairy-tale world from the real world; they mix fairy tales and reality together.
It is said that learning to distinguish fairy tales from reality is the sign of leaving childhood behind. But do children really not know the fictional nature of the fairy-tale world? In fact, they have known that for a long time; they have long been able to distinguish truth from fiction.
But the distinction between fairy tales and reality is not limited merely to the difference between truth and fiction. In fact, children may distinguish truth from fiction through the difference between the “world already in hand” and the “world not yet in hand.” They are always still waiting for that fairy-tale world to enter reality. Although they already know that the “little white rabbit” and the “big bad wolf” in reality do not speak, they still believe that in reality there are such roles as “little white rabbit” and “big bad wolf,” roles in which good and evil stand in stark opposition; although they already know that the real world has not been devastated by a great demon king, they still believe that the “hero of justice” will bravely go to war with evil. Children also keep waiting for the arrival of the “dream lover” or the “prince charming.”
Love is often the final chapter of a fairy tale. Fairy tales always end at love, end with “from then on, the princess and the prince lived happily ever after,” and will absolutely never continue writing beyond that. The messy married life that follows never becomes part of a fairy tale. Hence people say marriage is the grave of love; in fact, marriage is not the grave of love at all, but rather the grave of “fairy tale.” The intimate life of marriage will mercilessly shatter that last “idol.” From then on, people must face up to the flawed real world.
The reason I brought “fairy tale” into the discussion of “idealism” is, first, because these words are ready-made, and second, because the “idealists” many people habitually claim to be or assign to others are precisely those who linger in the fairy-tale world. What I want to say is that at least this is not the whole meaning of the word “idealism.” This concept, which comes from Plato, can also mean something else as the name of philosophy, as “idealism.”
Actually, the “fairy-tale world” is not itself a “perfect world.” In the fairy-tale world there is good and there is evil, but good is wholly good: good people do not do bad things, and whoever does bad things is surely bad; evil is identical with ugliness. In the fairy-tale world good will certainly defeat evil; the bad person will either be defeated or even wiped out, or will ultimately become good (only in relatively advanced fairy tales will there be the latter, more complicated ending). In short, in the ending there are no bad people left, all the bad things have been resolved, and “everyone lived happily ever after…”
And yet a world with no bad people, no bad deeds, where everything goes as one wishes, a world of happiness and joy — even in fairy tales, such a world does not exist. Only at the very moment the fairy tale ends does the perfect world exist. Writers simply have no way to describe such a world: how can one tell the story of justice in a world without evil? How can one praise kindness in a world without ugliness? How can one depict fulfillment in a world without setbacks? When it comes to the moment of perfection, the fairy tale can no longer go on, and has no choice but to end.
That is simply the way it is: if you want to see the “wholly good” little white rabbit, then you must set up the wholly evil big bad wolf; if you want to see the “happy ending” of reunion and perfection, then you must set up the old witch who obstructs happiness; if you want to see the righteous warrior, then you must set up the evil demon lord. Without these negative roles, you have no way to “see” goodness and justice.
Why do we not see “wholly good” people in reality? Precisely because there is no “wholly evil” big villain in reality. “Good people” and “bad people” are both figures from fairy tales. In reality there are neither “good people” nor “bad people,” only “good” and “bad” — and the “archetypes” of this “good” and “bad” are precisely what fairy tales provide. Fairy tales provide perfect archetypes — complete goodness and complete evil — while real people “imitate” and “partake in” that good and bad. So, unfortunately, one cannot find perfect goodness in reality; but at the same time, fortunately, one cannot find perfect evil there either.
What does it mean not to distinguish fairy-tale world from real world? I mean using the way one looks at fairy tales to look at this real world. Treating the real world as a world of big bad wolves and little white rabbits — anyone who is a little bad is a bad person, but then you find that everyone has flaws, and so you cannot find a “good person.” Even if you may gradually be able to escape the perspective that “if it’s not wholly good, it must be a villain,” you still cannot escape the attitude you had when reading fairy tales — love is total, unreserved love; hate is total, unreserved hate; truth is absolute, error is absolutely wrong; love-hate, true-false, good-evil, right-wrong… all these binary oppositions remain, just as with the little white rabbit and the big bad wolf, “at a glance,” clear and unmistakable.
These people long for the ending of a fairy tale, long for the world that fairy tales once promised them. They discover that the real world has no way to cash in on that promise, and so they feel pain, dissatisfaction, and that they have been “cheated”… In the end, once they see through this “swindle” and thereby surrender and compromise with reality, they are said to have “become realistic,” to have “entered society.”
Yet they rarely notice this: this world cannot be realized not only in reality, but also in fairy tales. This world was impossible from the very beginning. It is merely a convenient escape clause designed by the author telling the fairy tale so that the story can come to a stop — once it is said up to this point, the child is satisfied, falls asleep sweetly, or asks to hear the next fairy tale, and no longer asks exactly how the princess and the prince live happily ever after in concrete terms. If pressed, they will discover that the adults have no way to continue telling it, and even if the adults try to describe the concrete trivia of a happy life, the child will feel it is dull and boring — tell the next story instead.
The problem is that the real world is a world, a continuous world, one that will not end for the time being, and you can never wait for the “next one.” This is the real reason why you cannot see “fulfillment” or “happy reunion” in the real world — not only is it impossible in reality, it is impossible in logic as well!
In the discussion in the group, someone said: if an “ideal” that cannot be realized (made real) is still called an ideal, then what is it? I asked in return: is something that conforms to reality still called an ideal? Is an ideal called an ideal precisely because it is “unrealistic”? In fact, before playing with these word games, one should first clarify what “cannot be realized” means here. If the possibility in question refers to logical, or so-called “theoretical,” possibility — that is, whether it can be coherently conceived — then that is precisely the literal meaning of “ideal” — an “idea-level conception.” Therefore those who expect the perfect world promised at the ending of a fairy tale, that “great reunion,” can under no circumstances be called “ideal,” because such a conception is ambiguous even in logic.
When we speak of the “possibility of ideals in reality” — a somewhat odd concept, which reminds me of an earlier related discussion, “Actuality and Possibility,” — the “possibility in reality” here does not mean its factuality or predictability; rather, the main term is still “possibility,” and so-called “possibility” always comes from “theory” or “conception.” What we are discussing is the extent to which this conception is grounded in observation of reality and related to it, not the prediction of how likely it is to become real — although in many cases, the more deeply it is tied to observation of reality, the greater the chance that a certain conceived possibility will be realized, this is not an intrinsic requirement.
In addition, I have always distinguished between “pursuit” and “demand.” For example, an idealist pursues ideals out of love for what is beautiful, whereas a perfectionist demands perfection out of hatred for defects. Here, for instance, you may take a certain kind of character or conduct as your “ideal.” Such an “ideal” should be based on reality; that is to say, all conceptions of character and conduct are based on observations of actual human activity, and are conceivable in reality. For example, if you set up as your “ideal” a “person” with a halo floating above his head, wings sticking out of his body, and the ability to travel through time and space and control all things, then of course it lacks reality. However, this reality merely guarantees that such an ideal can become a reasonable pursuit of yours, and it cannot therefore become a reasonable demand on others. In other words, no matter how “realistic” your ideal may be, you have no right to use it to demand that others realize it for you. An ideal concerns one’s own pursuit or aspiration; the existence of this “ideal personality” provides a direction that can be pursued. But there is no need to actually find a living, breathing person in reality and have him play the role of this ideal personality before you can pursue the ideal. That latter attitude is precisely what I have always called the attitude of an “idol”: the mentality of not having left the fairy-tale world.
So the truly idealistic are impossible to be crushed by reality, because from the very beginning they make no demands of reality, but instead always treat the ideal as a kind of pursuit or aspiration. The ideal is a rational conception based on reality; the beautiful and perfect nature of this conception precisely stems from the ugliness and defects of reality. It is precisely because of dissatisfaction with reality that people long for, and are able to construct in imagination, perfection.
By the way: under no circumstances should “dissatisfaction” be confused with “resentment.” Dissatisfaction is a sense of deficiency in the finitude of the beautiful; in short, it is the feeling that many things are lacking, which gives rise to the emotions of “wanting” or “love.” Resentment, by contrast, is the feeling that certain nasty things are superfluous, which leads to the impulse to destroy and eliminate them.
If there is anything that distinguishes “ideal” from “fantasy,” it is indeed its “reality,” as noted above. Here “reality” means the extent to which the imagination is rooted in contemplation of reality. In this sense, the more extensively and deeply one understands the cruelty and ugliness of reality, the more one is in a position to possess ideals. So it is suspicious when someone, after experiencing all kinds of cruel reality, ultimately gives up ideals, because ideals ought to become further strengthened and confirmed through precisely these contrasts. People often say, “Only when you lose something do you know how precious it is.” If reality cruelly takes away your fantasy, then this is precisely the chance for you to confirm ideals from the fantasies of childhood. Reality can shatter “idols,” but it cannot shake “ideals.”
At that social-practice session, after Lao Yang was rebutted by me, he had no choice but to say that I indeed had an understanding of the complexity of society, but that it did not show in my actions. I did not continue responding. Of course that is so. In fact, in the moment I contradicted the teacher, even making things awkward for him, such behavior obviously “did not show” so-called “understanding” — that kind of style is not easy to get by with in society, and I certainly know that. If I had no idea that such behavior was out of step with society’s “reality,” then I would have no qualification to call myself an idealist; in that case I would merely be a naïve child. The reason I can say I am “idealistic” is precisely that, even knowing full well the reality of this society and the difficulties I may encounter, I still go my own way. That is to say, what my behavior attempts to “manifest” is my pursuit of ideals rather than my compromise with reality. If I were truly to “manifest” fully in my actions the actual circumstances of society, then I would really become a completely secular realist. So what is Lao Yang’s idealism all about? Does he mean that one should surrender to the secular both in understanding and in action? Then where on earth can “idealism” still exist? Only in speech and in writing? Or is it only muddle-headed children who can be called idealistic?
This is what I call “idealistic realism” or “realistic idealism”: the ideal is not a blindfold used to evade reality. On the contrary, the very establishment of ideals can help us see reality clearly — although binary oppositional habits of thought often cling to us like a shadow, the design of opposing concepts after all helps us to contemplate the real world from a richer perspective.
I’ll stop here for the moment; it is still not sorted out clearly.
September 4, 2008
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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