Here are some of the things I was forced to say in my comments after “I Won’t Date in a Café”; since I’ve written them down, they’re now black on white, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Given that this is no small topic, I’m setting aside a new post here for the archive.
Later, my classmate Chern, who is even more evil than I am, said that mine was a “female philosopher cultivation plan.” That’s an interesting title, but it’s too liable to cause misunderstanding. My conspiracy is extremely complex: it is neither to seduce mm, nor to cultivate female philosophers, nor even to find an mm who will become a female philosopher. But it is indeed linked to desires of all sorts, and its most fundamental purpose has always been to perfect my own philosophy. Yet for all its complexity, it is actually very simple: I merely hope to open up some communication. If the object is a boy, then I do not deny that I harbor a militant desire, a desire for an opponent; if the object is a girl, then I also do not deny that I harbor the normal desires of a healthy young single man—this is only natural. Besides, for someone like me, who has fused philosophy and flesh into one, there is no such thing as “pure” scholarship; to enter my philosophy is to enter my life, and vice versa. Although I do not demand that the friends who converse with me also fail to separate philosophy from life, in any case, inviting someone into my philosophical world and inviting him/her into my life are one and the same thing to me. As for the highest realm of entering my life, for men that means a comrade-in-arms, and for women it means a partner; this too is only natural.
Chern often asks me: do you absolutely have to find an mm who studies philosophy? No, of course not. Although I do hope she has at least been exposed to a little serious philosophical cultivation, I certainly do not require her to specialize in philosophy. But if you ask whether I hope my lifelong partner will be a female philosopher, then the answer is yes. But one must be careful here: the “philosopher” in question is entirely a meaning I assign to it. That is to say, philosophy is a way of life, a life that is fulfilled in dissatisfaction, joyful in striving, rich, free, lively, splendid, stable yet exciting, full of meaning and color; in the most abstract terms, it is a “good” life. Of course I want my partner and me to live the best life, the life most worth living. If that is achieved, then she is a female philosopher. Must one insist on using the fashionable, masculine language to write complicated and profound, “virile,” rhetorically overflowing papers and bricks of text before one can be called a female philosopher? That would only fail to show women’s strength. Of course, if one does not storm into the academic and intellectual worlds, then the so-called female philosopher is merely an adjective that gives me a bit of self-amusement? Then fine—“I’ll translate it!” That is the highest goal of my conspiracy.
Although I must admit that if I know in advance that the further development of my relationship with a certain mm is limited, my enthusiasm will also be discounted to some extent, still, any communication is welcome to me. Moreover, what I call “evil” is nothing more than a way of adding momentum and morale for myself; although there is certainly philosophical deliberation involved in the wording, it remains, after all, only a matter of words, and will in concrete terms have absolutely no manifestation in actual behavior. On this point, I earnestly ask new friends whom I have met this year not to misunderstand; as for old friends, please do not panic either: I am still the same old character you know.
Below is a copy of an earlier comment:
……omitted earlier……
Gu Du 2009-02-19 21:51:15 [reply]
Basically speaking, I believe China is about to usher in a new era of philosophy. Perhaps my generation is lucky enough to catch it; perhaps we must wait several more generations. In any case, a batch of philosophers born in the Internet age and using modern Chinese will add a heavy stroke to the history of philosophy. This is my prophecy. In other words, perhaps this era will arrive even without my participation; if so, I would be standing outside the era. I am not satisfied with idle speculation, nor do I want to stand by and watch, so I want to take part in it.
There has never been a single great philosopher who truly “appeared out of nowhere.” That is to say, philosophers often emerge in clusters: within the same cultural soil, several quite major masters will appear at the same time or in succession.
In my prophecy, the new era of philosophy will certainly involve computer networks, it will also have the power of modern Chinese, and there is yet another thing: the power of women. For philosophy, women will be the greatest destructive force, that is, the revolutionary force. In this way, you will be able to understand why I so eagerly look forward to female philosophers,
Yunzi 2009-02-19 22:32:35 anonymous 124.205.78.236 [reply]
I don’t understand, because I don’t see why “for philosophy, women will be the greatest destructive force, that is, the revolutionary force.” Why destructive? And then in what sense is its constructive aspect reaffirmed?
Gu Du 2009-02-19 22:50:26 [reply]
Every new era of philosophy is created by great destroyers. Socrates demolished the tradition of the sophists, modern philosophy demolished the routines of scholastic philosophy, Kant demolished the edifice of old metaphysics, Marx vowed to abolish philosophy, Nietzsche and Heidegger overturned the entire history of Western philosophy, and Wittgenstein went so far as to denounce traditional philosophy as nonsense altogether… Aren’t these what are called “destructive” forces? A truly revolutionary, foundational philosophy is by no means merely a gentle continuation of earlier philosophy; rather, it often has to overturn traditional paths from places that are as fundamental as can possibly be, while still taking root in the soil of tradition, yet producing the feeling of a kind of nirvanic rebirth. In Hegel’s language, this is the so-called “thesis—antithesis—synthesis” development. My philosophy will begin from the classical. If “the classical” is the thesis, then feminism and postmodern relativism, and so on, will play the role of the antithesis; in the “dialogue” between thesis and antithesis, new possibilities will be opened up. This is the synthesis, this is Hegel’s dialectic, this is the so-called “sublation.” In my own words, it is more or less the same: philosophy is humanity’s self-critique of reason. Philosophy does not progress through accumulation, but develops through continual destruction and rebirth.
Yunzi 2009-02-19 23:07:57 anonymous 124.205.78.236 [reply]
In the past, philosophy had concrete persons as destructive roles, but that is not enough to show that a certain sex can serve as a destructive role.
Gu Du 2009-02-19 23:13:20 [reply]
Traditional philosophy is an activity with masculine traits, and I have mentioned this in many posts on my blog. As for what is meant by masculine traits and feminine traits, one can tell from the games little boys and girls play: boys often prefer games of struggle and competition; in other words, games of contest in which one must distinguish winners and losers. Little girls, by contrast, prefer gentler, more intimate things, such as role-playing. Ancient Greece as a whole was a cultural environment saturated with a homosexual atmosphere. The Olympics were the source of philosophy, science, and the spirit of democracy—that was masculine “competition,” a demand to win, to measure oneself fairly against others.
In addition, masculine and feminine traits are also reflected in language habits: men more often prefer and are better at public speech and debate, while women are more inclined toward intimate conversation. Public speech requires pursuing universal principles and strengthening the role of logic, whereas intimate conversation places greater emphasis on emotional resonance. And so on. Clearly, the whole of Western philosophy developed within a culture of public speech, and is a continual strengthening of masculine traits.
So the participation of women will be able to shake philosophy at its most fundamental level of taste. But if one important aspect of this new trait is resistance to the one-sided exaltation of public speech, then how can women establish their position on a public academic stage? That seems extremely difficult. Perhaps they need a mediator, for example a self-critical male philosopher, to translate for them in some sense, so that women’s gentle whisper, once conveyed, becomes thunderous in the philosophical world.
I have long had a saying that I am half a feminist. That is to say, although my philosophy is in character completely masculine—tough, fierce, and destructive—I have left half of it for women; sooner or later I will still have to borrow women’s strength, and only then can my philosophy possibly become complete.
Chern 2009-02-21 00:31:36 [reply]
Actually, why bother dividing into masculine/feminine, yin/yang…
Yunzi 2009-02-
24 19:50:25 anonymous 124.205.78.49 [reply]
It’s fine to say there is an opposition between the public and the private, but one should not then simply map the two onto masculine traits and feminine traits. I don’t think that what truly counts as feminine traits is intimate conversation. As for some gender traits that appear early on, one cannot so smoothly extrapolate them into differences in speech characteristics.
Gu Du 2009-02-24 20:30:35 [reply]
I don’t know what you mean by “true” feminine traits and the like; I agree with Tannen’s view—that gender traits should be seen as a kind of cultural trait. It is like saying how Chinese culture is, how Western culture is, and so on. These distinctions are of course historical, fuzzy, and not absolute or abrupt. They merely give a tendency-level description in general terms, but of course individual members differ enormously. But these distinctions are still meaningful, especially since every philosophy is rooted in its cultural soil. Even distinctions such as German philosophy and French philosophy are permeated by differences in the cultural character of the two countries, let alone Eastern philosophy and Western philosophy, or masculine philosophy and feminine philosophy? Do you deny the cultural differences between men and women? Then you can do as in cultural anthropology: go separately into male social circles and female social circles and observe the differences in their communication, behavior, etiquette, and so on. Do you think there are no differences that should be ignored? When a group of men gathers together and when a group of women gathers together, are their performances really not different in any directional sense at all? Don’t fantasize—use your eyes! If you still can’t see it, then I’ll have to admit defeat.
The distinction between the public and the private was not made by me; I got it from the American linguist Deborah Tannen: http://epr.ycool.com/post.2987469.html
As for my own distinction, fine, I’ll announce my terminology early on—though others have used it long ago. Remember that my philosophy is vulgar; the terminology below is somewhat evil. Those who don’t understand it are good children, hmm… that is “active” and “passive.” One is active and aggressive; the other is passive and inclusive. This distinction is really too basic, because it can be said to be a natural tendency determined by physiological characteristics. No matter how much you deny cultural and intellectual differences, you surely cannot deny the fundamental difference in the shape of male and female bodies, can you? Well then, active and passive are the beginning of everything, the most fundamental distinction. One particularly typical effect that the feminist perspective has brought to academia is the emphasis on “containers” in research on primitive societies. In the past, archaeology, which was dominated by masculine thinking, mainly focused on offensive tools such as sticks, stone axes, and bows and arrows; periodization such as the Neolithic and Paleolithic was also determined according to the evolution of stone axes. But once the feminine perspective entered, attention turned to tools that had previously not received sufficient emphasis, such as baskets, pottery jars, and other storage vessels… then I merely want to say: this is active and passive.
So-called public communication, and the whole Western tradition of philosophy and science, leans toward the “active” pole; its most typical slogans are conquering nature and controlling nature. Too much concern is given to how to seize the object, while how to feel, endure, and receive it is ignored.
Yunzi 2009-02-25 16:21:40 anonymous 124.205.78.106 [reply]
A splendid theory of active and passive. But when it comes to speech characteristics, then as long as one is speaking, one is basically being active. If women’s speech today is said to have passive characteristics, that doesn’t seem to have much to do with privacy either. So I think gender traits also cannot be so smoothly extrapolated into differences in speech characteristics.
Gu Du 2009-02-25 17:12:38 [reply]
I really don’t understand what you mean by “extrapolated”? Could it be that you study logic? Distinctions in characteristics are not extrapolated; they are “seen.” And then, further linking them to the distinction between the sexes is, at bottom, also an act of judgment, not a kind of extrapolation. Even if afterward one establishes certain relations that look like extrapolations (for example: because one is female, one often tends to…), that still was not obtained by “extrapolation.” What I am saying about the differences in speech characteristics between the sexes is, first of all, something seen with one’s own eyes, which is why I remind you not to fantasize but to use your eyes. These differences in characteristics are first of all a phenomenon, an immediate fact before your eyes, and then I explain it and use it to explain other things. If you insist that I extrapolate it for you, I cannot do that, but I can give examples, display things, offer hints, and so on.
I don’t know how you can say that “as long as one is speaking, one is basically being active.” I cannot imagine what kind of terrible language environment you live in! For example, if I say, “Wow, the weather is really nice today!” “Hey, this plate of fried noodles is really delicious.” “Mm, you’re really beautiful.” and so on, are these speeches all “active”? Active toward what? Of course not active, but rather the communication of my “feelings.”
The demand for “extrapolation” is a characteristic of public speech. “Extrapolation” means starting from a more “low-level,” more basic, more general premise, and deriving the conclusion one wants to convey. Only then can you persuade others more effectively; as long as those basic points are also acknowledged by the other listeners, and the logic of the derivation is clear and eloquent, then public speech is successful. But the same set of methods is not so effective in intimate communication; it may even backfire. For example, if a wife says, “This bowl of noodles is really delicious,” the husband cannot say: “Oh? What is the basis for your judgment? What kind of fundamental distinction can be extrapolated to distinguish yesterday’s bowl of noodles from today’s bowl of noodles in terms of taste? …” Such a conversation is obviously beside the point, and the husband’s response would be a serious failure. But in public communication, if someone says “democracy is great,” then the listener may well challenge them: “Oh? What is the basis for your judgment? What kind of fundamental distinction can be extrapolated to distinguish monarchy and democracy in terms of good and bad? …” In that context, such a response is forceful.
Obviously, intimate communication is more suited to discussing things that are individual, sensory, concrete, and based on private experience (such as the bowl of fried noodles in front of you), whereas public communication is more suited to discussing things that are universal, rational, abstract, and common among the public (such as science and democracy). According to the mainstream of traditional philosophy, philosophy of course seeks universal, rational, abstract laws or truth, so the public mode of speech naturally comes to dominate. To bring intimate speech into philosophy as well clearly requires overturning the entire spirit of traditional philosophy. This is not to deny the demand for universality and rational speculation, but at the same time one must supplement it with elements of individuality and sensory experience in order to be complete. After all, before philosophy becomes a public activity, it is first of all an individual pursuit, and all rational knowledge ultimately still derives from sensory knowledge. If one stubbornly clings to the mode and attitude of public speech, one may well always miss some of the most important things.
chern 2009-02-26 09:07:22 anonymous 219.234.81.66 [reply]
Don’t insult logic…
Not every person who says “extrapolation” is doing logic. Some people may simply be speaking nonhuman language and using certain terms to mystify things…
Gu Du 2009-02-26 11:23:36 [reply]
Why do I feel that “speaking nonhuman language and not speaking human language” is exactly a reference to the crowd that does logic… They don’t speak natural language and instead prefer symbolic language—that’s not human speech, is it… Forget it, I won’t argue with you about this anymore..
To add some further remarks on my active/passive theory:
The “active” mode of language is typically saying how and where the other person is wrong, or how and where I am right. The “passive” mode of language, typically, is saying how I feel, how your feelings gave rise to my associations, and so on. The former emphasizes the use of argument, rebuttal, and related means; the latter involves more emotional resonance or emotional touch,
Judging when it is appropriate to use the “active” mode of language and when the “passive” mode is appropriate does not depend solely on the object being discussed, but is determined by the context of the dialogue. For example, even when discussing “democracy,” if a couple is watching a film about the process of democratization and the girl sighs, “Ah, democracy is so great,” then the boy should absolutely not question or refute her; he should only express his feelings in a similar way, for example: “Mm. But despotism doesn’t seem all that bad either.” On the other hand, if in a parliament people are discussing the standard menu that is to be established, and someone says, “Fried noodles are really delicious,” then the others can also stand up and question the grounds for that claim. If in a public discussion someone says “XX is really great,” and everyone else also responds like a couple watching a movie:
“Mm, so great, so great.”
“Oh, I feel that too, it feels good too”…
then that would be inappropriate. Conversely, if in an intimate communicative setting everyone also starts mutually questioning and criticizing one another, that is also unsuitable. We can see that from the early years of New China to the period typified by the “Wenge,” Chinese society as a whole was precisely in such a state of “active/passive inversion”: in public discussions, everyone sang in chorus, raising mountains of cheers for long live the leader, while in private spaces people attacked and denounced one another, full of aggression. This was a complete reversal, which is why that was a “perverse” era.
So what kind of context is philosophical discussion, then? On the one hand, whether from the standpoint of academic discussion or of writing, it is undoubtedly, in the main, public communication; philosophy begins with questioning, that is, it begins with “attack,” and there is nothing wrong with that. However, if one completely ignores concrete, private feelings and refuses to talk about them, then if philosophy wants to say that some thing is “good,” what exactly can it ultimately rely on? Once it is cut off from private experience, once one forgets to feel these things from moment to moment, philosophy increasingly moves toward formalism and emptiness, loses contact with the lifeworld, and can no longer substantively discuss those questions of “good” and “bad”… These are long stories, so let me just give a brief hint for the moment.
It is very obvious that men have the upper hand in the communicative context of public discourse, whereas women dominate in private space. That is why at home it is often women who chatter away, while on the lectern it is often men who hold forth eloquently. This is a factual situation. I am a typical man, and perhaps I will never be able to grasp the female way of thinking; still, I also have a method that may allow me to experience the difference between these two modes of thought a little. That is the two modes of Standard Mandarin and Shanghai dialect. Having grown up in Shanghai, whenever I am in Shanghai I must use Shanghai dialect in any private communication, whereas when I am thinking, debating, and speaking publicly I must use Standard Mandarin. Then we find that, for us, Shanghai dialect becomes difficult to use for thinking and reasoning, while Standard Mandarin is completely unsuited to intimate contexts. In fact, when a person is speaking Shanghai dialect and suddenly “switches into Guoyu,” then most likely he has begun to reason or to express his viewpoint clearly. Although Shanghai dialect is also a sufficiently rich linguistic system, and of course enough to express thought, we find that we are in fact unable to think effectively in a Shanghai-dialect context. At the same time, when one’s Shanghai relatives and friends gather together, one must speak Shanghai dialect for it to feel like a warm and friendly atmosphere. I can feel that there seems to be a switch in my head like this, superficially used to toggle between Shanghai-dialect mode and Standard-Mandarin mode, while at a deeper level it is really a switch between intimate conversational mode and public-speaking mode; so I am able to feel that there is indeed a marked difference between these two modes of thinking. Although in recent years, because I have been in Beijing for too long, I have increasingly forgotten the intimacy of speaking Shanghai dialect, and can also carry on private chats in Standard Mandarin, still every time I go home I can sense the difference here — the switching of accents is not merely the switching of accents, but precisely the switching of public mode and private mode.
chern 2009-02-26 12:24:05 Anonymous 125.46.31.174 [reply]
When talking about people, speak human words; when talking about birds, speak bird language. That is perfectly normal~~
But if when talking about people you speak bird language, and when talking about birds you speak human words, then that is what I meant — not speaking human words but speaking bird language.
Yunzi 2009-02-26 22:48:26 Anonymous 124.205.78.172 [reply]
toboth: “Deduction” should count as a very everyday word, I suppose. Don’t we often say “derive” in conversation too? Maybe my argument is completely wrong, but I absolutely did not mean to be deliberately mysterious.
Really hurt. I hope I won’t be pinned down.
to Gu:
Then if we simplify it a bit, are you trying to express something like this?
Female mode of speech – privacy – expressing one’s own feelings -受
Male mode of speech – publicity – rational argument and promotion -攻
This simplified treatment may not be right, but the key point is that my view is that as long as one is expressing some kind of thing, whether emotion or a clear rational argumentative opinion, one is expressing outward, and therefore it all counts as 攻, so the two modes of speech do not differ essentially. Also, I have never denied gender differences, nor refused to look at differences.
Gu Cha 2009-02-26 23:23:24 [reply]
I did not “pin a label” on you; no need to mind chern’s “labeling” — he really does study logic~~
Your “expressing outward” did not quite hit what I mean by “攻.” First of all, “攻” and “受” are roles played within “communication”; so-called attack and receive, like male and female, first of all refer to the performance of a kind of “role” (you do know the basic meanings of these two terms, right?), and then from there come the corresponding personality traits of the corresponding roles, and so on. If one does not look at them within “communication,” if one does not take into account the role occupied by the speaker in a concrete communicative context, but simply looks at a sentence on its own, it is hard to comment on its features. The 攻 and 受 I am talking about, as well as public and private, are not about whether someone, in a solitary monologue, says a passage and what features that passage has; that still would not reveal the features. The key lies in what kind of environment the speaker is in, and what kind of attitude.
As for “expressing outward,” in my habitual metaphor it is simply “discharge.” Originally I focused on the part of the metaphor relating to the digestive tract; used here, that may actually be more apt. (All right, this is getting more and more XX, minors please read under parental guidance…) “Discharge” can be interpreted as the venting of desire, or as transforming an inner impulse to speak into a tangible outflow and venting it outward, while sometimes arousing resonance in the other party. Yet this “discharge” is not necessarily “attack.” A man’s “discharge” is what is “attack.” Women also have “discharge,” but it is not at all “attack”; its form and characteristics are all quite different from men’s. In fact, there is still much subtlety here to talk about, but it seems too XX, so I won’t say more for the moment.
Latest Comments
- Xiaoyue
2009-03-11 21:26:55 Anonymous 58.31.78.153
Actually, I had almost forgotten about the matter of applying, and just wanted to discuss philosophy-related issues with you in a purely simple way, but you keep bringing up the matter of finding some female philosophy MM, which is really depressing…
Of course, that’s your business; I can’t interfere… - Gu Cha
2009-03-11 22:14:54
Did I keep bringing it up? I only mentioned it a bit today… I have to hurry up and bury this article deeper…
- fog
2009-03-11 22:50:39
I am a person of faith.
A person’s ability may be great or small, but as long as one has even this bit of spirit, one is a noble person, a pure person, a moral person, a person divorced from low tastes, a person beneficial to the people.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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