Year: 2008

Violent Sanctions Are a Helpless Compensation for the Limits of Reason

Culture & Public Commentary2008.09.09
Violent Sanctions Are a Helpless Compensation for the Limits of Reason
I once said, “Violent revolution is unreasonable”—because “violence” is always non-rational, and revolution is always illegal. Yet this gives rise to a still more severe problem: if violence may be lawful, then how is the rationality of law possible? We know that laws are made by the government (whether that so-called government represents God, the emperor, or all citizens), and the implementation of law often has to appeal to violence. It is hard to imagine a rule-of-law society maintained without violent institutions such as police and prisons. Even if a social order established without bodily violent sanctions is at least conceivable in theory, once a public “law” is instituted, it…
culture politics public sphere reason
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2008年9月9日
Why “ideals” cannot be crushed by “reality”

Life & Notes2008.09.04
Why “ideals” cannot be crushed by “reality”
(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…
philosophy autobiography knowledge pursuit
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2008年9月4日
What Is “Ideal”?

Life & Notes2008.08.31
What Is “Ideal”?
Today in the freshman group for the 2008 cohort, I mentioned this question (the 08 freshmen are really interesting): what is “ideal”? The concept of “ideal” is one I use fairly often, though I haven’t made many distinctions about it. In “Scattered Notes on Love and Hatred During the Period of Seclusion,” I brought up the connection between “idealism—subjective idealism—philosophy”; in an earlier article I probably mentioned it too (though I couldn’t find it); and more than two years ago, when I talked about “My Life Ideal,” I was using the word ideal entirely in everyday language; while two and a half years ago, in one of the articles that…
philosophy history autobiography knowledge
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2008年8月31日
Revisiting the Meaning of “Suixuan”

Site Matters2008.08.30
Revisiting the Meaning of “Suixuan”
On the meaning of “Suixuan,” I spoke about it once half a year ago, just before I was about to go into seclusion: https://yilinhut.net/2008/02/14/1850.html. Although the experience of seclusion and my return to blogging has not changed Suixuan’s positioning or style, I think I can now give a more comprehensive explanation of Suixuan’s meaning. The most basic point will certainly not change, namely that Suixuan is run entirely selfishly. The reason I make it public for everyone to see is to create an atmosphere more suitable for the development of my own thinking. The very existence of readers is, for me, a kind of spur and stimulus, and readers’ feedback…
philosophy history blog tradition
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2008年8月30日
A Fourth Talk on the Olympics—Assorted Remarks and Miscellaneous Commentary

Culture & Public Commentary2008.08.26
A Fourth Talk on the Olympics—Assorted Remarks and Miscellaneous Commentary
l In the previous few installments I kept rambling farther and farther afield, so in the end I might as well just say a few odds and ends. l What was I doing during the Olympics? Apart from the daily new anime episodes, I basically had the TV on all day watching the Olympics. In the first half, I watched the Olympics while paging through books, mainly getting through 《大问题》 once. In the second half, I watched the Olympics while pedaling a stationary bike, with pretty good results; in the last few days I exercised nearly three hours a day on average. Unfortunately the Olympics ended, and in these past…
culture China history sociology
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2008年8月26日
Re-reading “Big Questions—A Brief Introduction to Philosophy”

Philosophy & Thought2008.08.26
Re-reading “Big Questions—A Brief Introduction to Philosophy”
The second edition of *Big Questions* has been on the market for some time. During the Olympics, on a whim, I read it all over again from start to finish, and was filled with a thousand thoughts and feelings. The first Chinese edition of *Big Questions* came out in 2004. That was when I had just entered university, just begun taking philosophy courses, and was fortunate enough to encounter this book. I bought the book roughly in the second week of classes, the exact date being around September 20, 2004. Why do I remember it so precisely? Because in the forum for the “Introduction to Philosophy” course at the time,…
philosophy book reading notes Peking University
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2008年8月26日
This Issue’s Music: Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major, K. 219, 3 MOZART: Violin Concerto No. 5

Life & Notes2008.08.25
This Issue’s Music: Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major, K. 219, 3 MOZART: Violin Concerto No. 5
For five consecutive issues I haven’t posted any classical music. With the Olympics over, and as a sign that life is returning to normal, let’s bring classical music back to the blog homepage again~ Speaking of classical music, apart from Bach, the composer I’ve listened to most is probably Mozart. Maybe the total time I’ve spent listening to Mozart is even greater. But looking back, I realized that I’ve reposted Bach’s works here five times, yet not once have I posted Mozart. That seems a little hard to justify… So, a Mozart piece it is! Mozart’s Fifth Violin Concerto is a fine one, and conveniently there’s a complete, high-speed link…
everyday life music works
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2008年8月25日
A Third Discussion of the Olympics: Gold Medals and Patriotism

Culture & Public Commentary2008.08.25
A Third Discussion of the Olympics: Gold Medals and Patriotism
This “third essay” was begun not long after the “second essay” was finished, and then written fitfully until today, taking well over ten days in all. So there is no need to be surprised at the confusion of thought in this piece. Generally speaking, the faster I write an article, the more coherent and fluent its line of thought is — on the one hand, precisely because the thought is flowing smoothly, it becomes possible for it to pour out in a torrent; on the other hand, too many interruptions make a line of thought that was already not entirely smooth become even more fragmented. But in any case, since…
China human nature love Olympics
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2008年8月25日
[Repost] Yali’s piece about Liu Xiang’s withdrawal from the race is quite interesting~

Life & Notes2008.08.19
[Repost] Yali’s piece about Liu Xiang’s withdrawal from the race is quite interesting~
http://ariela.ycool.com/post.2927002.html I’ve also been a bit loquacious lately. After seeing Liu Xiang withdraw, once my own emotions had settled down a little, I thought: hmm, tonight I’m going online to look at the reactions from all sides. Sure enough, it was good reading. The Olympics are truly very good reading. Because we can infer that if Liu Xiang: 1 announced his withdrawal two days in advance. 1.1 He would be cursed to death by everyone, still betraying the 1.3 billion people and the 56 nationalities, still lacking sportsmanship, still being irresponsible; 1.2 He would be cursed to death by everyone, because he might fear he could…
everyday life Olympics
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2008年8月19日
A Second Discussion of the “Olympics” — the “Interestingness” of Games

Culture & Public Commentary2008.08.13
A Second Discussion of the “Olympics” — the “Interestingness” of Games
The “second talk” below is even less coherent, and in fact does not really talk about “Olympics” at all. It is simply continuing to talk about “games.” But since it nevertheless arises from the same occasion as the scattered essays before and after it—namely, the holding of the Olympic Games—I still name it “Second Talk on the Olympics.” Had I not written it at this moment, it might perhaps have been filed under the “nonsense” series. However, although it stands together in the title, the folder in which it is placed on the blog has been changed. The first piece, because it focused on the cultural style of ancient Greece,…
philosophy culture tradition human nature
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2008年8月13日