[Announcement] The Xindao Salon Will Continue to Be Suspended Tomorrow
Resumption time to be determined. But if anyone wants to chat with me on Saturday, you can make an appointment (I will definitely reply)
阅读全文Author: 胡翌霖
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A Cultural History, Technological History, and Intellectual History of Bathing
A Cultural History, Technological History, and Intellectual History of Bathing
Now there are many people, especially urban residents, for whom bathing has become an indispensable part of daily life. Some people can scarcely imagine going three or five days in a row without bathing, let alone several months; to speak of people who do not bathe for months sounds almost like talking about aliens. Various things, once they become part of everyday life, are endowed with one or another sort of legitimacy, and thus become things that ought to be. Bathing, for example, is closely linked to the concept of “hygiene”: on the one hand, bathing is a natural thing—after all, isn’t bathing the expression of the “desire for cleanliness”…
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zz Sender: SMG Solar Eclipse Live Broadcast Shockingly Absurd Quotations (Repost)
zz Sender: SMG Solar Eclipse Live Broadcast Shockingly Absurd Quotations (Repost)
Sender: AvenueQ (Traveler on the Chang’an Road), Section: Joke Title: SMG Live Broadcast of the Solar Eclipse: Outrageous Quotes (Repost) Posted from: Peking University Weiming Station (Wednesday, July 22, 2009, 18:06:44), forwarded 【 The following text is reposted from the Triangle discussion board 】 【 The original was posted by AvenueQ 】 http://www.douban.com/group/topic/7351690/ 1 At one observation point, clouds made it impossible to see the total solar eclipse. Male host: “There are clouds now, so we can’t see the solar eclipse. When the sun is completely covered later, we should be able to see the stars, right?” Professor: “You can’t see them.” Male host: “You should be able to, though….
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Ji Xianlin: “Miscellaneous Memories from the Cowshed”
Ji Xianlin: “Miscellaneous Memories from the Cowshed”
Ji Xianlin: Memoirs from the Cowshed (manuscript edition), Zhongguo Yanshi Publishing House, 2006, 9787801288799 The ritual of mourning for Old Ji can be considered complete. By comparison, the book I would still recommend is *The Archive of Shuxingbei*, though *Memoirs from the Cowshed* has its own distinct flavor. If *The Archive of Shuxingbei* is a downright tragedy, then *Memoirs from the Cowshed* is more like a farce—dark humor, of course. How was the Cultural Revolution possible? This was the last question posed by Old Ji. The Cultural Revolution was a miracle; it gathered together every favorable condition of time, place, and people, and only then did it blossom in a…
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[Archive] Ji Xianlin: Preface to Miscellaneous Recollections from the Cow Shed
[Archive] Ji Xianlin: Preface to Miscellaneous Recollections from the Cow Shed
http://vip.book.sina.com.cn/book/chapter_38306_22059.html Ji Xianlin: Preface to Miscellaneous Recollections from the Cowshed Miscellaneous Recollections from the Cowshed was written in 1992. Why, after six years, was it only now, in 1998, brought out for publication? This rather violates the usual conventions of book writing. Readers are bound to suspect that there must be some explanation. Their suspicion is justified: there is indeed an explanation, and it is not mysterious at all. It arises merely from a bit of personal selfishness—my own petty “judging a gentleman’s belly by a small man’s heart.” I had already been trampled on by the “revolutionary” youngsters—though in fact they were not necessarily all young—by a thousand feet,…
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Ji Xianlin: “Ji Xianlin on Translation”
Ji Xianlin: “Ji Xianlin on Translation”
Ji Xianlin: “Ji Xianlin Talks about Translation,” edited by the Ji Xianlin Research Institute, Contemporary China Publishing House2007, 9787801705952 When Mr. Ji Xianlin passed away, Peking University set up a memorial hall for public mourning, but I did not go. Of course I very much identify with such commemorative rites; feelings of admiration, humility, reverence, remembrance, and so on are all contained in the ritual of condolence. Still, I myself did not go to pay my respects, because for me there are more fitting rites with which to remember this elder. The reason to come and pay tribute to Mr. Ji Xianlin is not because I feel any grief….
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When the End Seeps into the Process, So That the Means Too Become Ends
When the End Seeps into the Process, So That the Means Too Become Ends
If doing certain things does not achieve the intended purpose (and doing something else might achieve it), then one may well regret it. And if doing certain things does achieve the intended purpose, but later one discovers that this purpose is not what one truly wanted, then one may also regret it. But there are some things one will not regret doing afterward: namely, those whose very process is the purpose, or, to put it another way, those whose purpose can be obtained on the spot in the course of the process itself. The most typical examples are games, and communication. Of course, you may regret becoming addicted to games,…
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On “Benefiting Others by Serving Oneself”
On “Benefiting Others by Serving Oneself”
“Wei ji li ta” is a concept that Wang Haiming loves to talk about, his eureka moment, the core term in Wang Haiming’s ethical system… For some reason, these few words suddenly came to mind, so I might as well write a little about them. As for Wang Haiming and his philosophy, I certainly have no fondness for them at all; I can’t even bear to read his books, and I don’t want to spend much time evaluating them. But on the other hand, I feel a certain sympathy for him—“new philosophy,” “new ethics,” unifying and integrating the doctrines of all schools, ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, and founding…
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zzA once-in-a-century astronomical feast: July 22 · the Yangtze River total solar eclipse
zzA once-in-a-century astronomical feast: July 22 · the Yangtze River total solar eclipse
A Centennial Astronomical Feast: The July 22 Total Solar Eclipse along the YangtzeSteed posted on 2009-07-05 16:20 On July 22, the moon’s huge shadow will once again sweep across our country, and the spectacle of a total solar eclipse will once more pay a visit to China. Although it has been less than a year since the last total solar eclipse, these two eclipses could hardly be more different. The total solar eclipse of August 1, 2008, occurred in the evening, when the sun was already slanting low in the western sky at totality, and the duration was only a little over two minutes. This eclipse, by contrast, will occur…
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How to Reason with Emotion
How to Reason with Emotion
Feeling and reasoning seem to be two utterly opposed things; many people would think that a good argument ought not to be mixed too much with private feelings, and that the intrusion of subjective feeling will make a paper bad. Of course, broadly speaking, that is not wrong. Good papers at least seem cold; apart from the opening and the closing, they rarely contain any lyrical sentences. Still, leaving aside scientific and technical papers, as far as philosophy is concerned, I believe the best philosophical papers must be saturated with the author’s personal feelings. The key lies in how to infuse feeling, and absolutely not in how to drive feeling…
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