标签：autobiography
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Joining the Party Burdened by Guilt
Joining the Party Burdened by Guilt
On this special day today, I served as a Party introducer for the first time and signed the recommendation statement. Why am I not only willing to join the Party, but also willing to recommend others to join? I need to explain. Indeed, this is not only something I am willing to explain, but something I must explain. I joined the Party when I was in high school; if I had not joined then, I would probably be too lazy to apply now. But I would never simply attribute that decision to youthful ignorance. Certainly, as I have grown older, my life plan has changed enormously: from initially wanting to…
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The Left and Right, Chinese Style
The Left and Right, Chinese Style
Recently I’ve been mentioning the left and the right quite often, but always rather cautiously, always wanting to add a couple of lines: I don’t like taking sides, I only use labels because I have no choice, and so on. To keep on like that is not really a solution, so I might as well write an article and talk through my understanding of the so-called left and right. My first acquaintance with the concepts of left and right probably came in middle school political class, where the teacher explained that the left was progressive and reformist, while the right was backward and conservative. We children, brainwashed by China’s rote-learning…
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The Philosopher’s Profession, or the Professional Philosopher?
The Philosopher’s Profession, or the Professional Philosopher?
The occasion for writing this piece was yet another email discussion recently. Our class Party secretary forwarded a publicity push for the vote in the “2011 China University Student of the Year” selection, and our department’s 2009 undergraduate student, the “ticket-selling master” Pei Jiyang, had made the shortlist. But the comrade secretary, who has always been quite strong-minded, said that he himself did not support this publicity campaign, on the grounds that “(since Department Chair Wang Bo said) the philosophy department should cultivate philosophers,” and that “promoting him is more suitable for the Railway Institute than for Peking University’s philosophy department. If the Peking University philosophy department actively publicized that…
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“The Kingly Way” — The Road to the Supreme Good
“The Kingly Way” — The Road to the Supreme Good
You can read this article as a continuation of this earlier one: Freedom vs. Equality—I Am a Right-Wing Socialist In that essay I expressed a certain resistance to “equality”: equality in the sense of a condition for freedom, or equality as the rules that must be observed for the game of competition to unfold—those senses of equality I certainly support. But equality for equality’s sake, taking equality as a principle, is not something I agree with. So if one does not champion equality, must one necessarily tolerate “inequality”? Not necessarily. One reason for opposing “equality” is that it is an overly abstract concept; in fact, equality always requires a standard…
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Freedom vs. Equality — I Am a Right-Wing Socialist
Freedom vs. Equality — I Am a Right-Wing Socialist
Last month I posted an article talking about my impressions of the two Wu teachers’ gathering, and as a result a commenter who was criticizing Professor Wu Tong showed up and we exchanged several rounds in the thread below. It’s not that I absolutely had to defend Professor Wu Tong; after all, my dealings with him have mostly been public and not much private, and I wouldn’t dare pound my chest and guarantee that he himself is beyond reproach. But taking the matter strictly on its merits, and judging only from the circumstances presented by the accuser, I still couldn’t help wanting to defend him: not only Professor Wu Tong,…
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Love of Wisdom and Patriotism
Love of Wisdom and Patriotism
Yesterday the two Wu teachers had a gathering, and Old Wu [Bei Wu laoshi] got quite drunk and launched into a grand speech. Unlike when he is drunk in other settings, he said many things that he would only say in front of his disciples. Teacher Wu mentioned that, during his lifetime, he would certainly PUSH us; gold always shines in the end, but don’t count on Teacher Wu living too long—we have to make a name for ourselves within fifteen years… (Although Teacher Wu said drunkenness means speaking logically, in fact there were still some problems at the level of logic.) In the end, Teacher Wu came to the…
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The Difference Between Pirates and Heroes?
The Difference Between Pirates and Heroes?
The “hero” in the ancient Greek sense is roughly the same as a pirate, but the “hero” in the modern sense refers more to those warriors who possess great moral integrity, sacrifice themselves bravely, and save others. Although in my youth I of course also longed for heroes and sages, the “Pirate King” I now long for does not give me that feeling at all. What, then, is the difference? In the latest episode of One Piece, Luffy offered a perfect explanation. Although my philosophical reading of One Piece will have to wait at least until it ends before I begin, I can’t help but bring up this passage first……
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What Is Temperamental Compatibility and Scattered Association
What Is Temperamental Compatibility and Scattered Association
Phrases like “compatible personalities” or “incompatible personalities” are often used to comment on interpersonal relations, especially male-female relationships. This kind of concept sounds rather abstract and elusive, yet it also seems very concrete and tangible. I have also used notions like compatible or incompatible to describe my own relationships or those of others; as for what I meant by it, let me just jot it down here. When I wrote my post looking for a relationship back then, I did not include compatibility of personalities as any requirement anywhere. The reason is simple: this is something that cannot possibly be demonstrated in advance, before getting to know one another; it…
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The Problem of Degrees of Freedom in Love
The Problem of Degrees of Freedom in Love
This, really, is not even a true problem; I’m just using these two keywords to say a few things. First, there are two layers to the matter here: one is the problem of love, the other is the problem of freedom, and these two problems can often be discussed separately. For instance, sometimes a relationship runs into problems, and on the surface it seems that the conflict was caused by mutual interference with each other’s freedom; but in fact some act of interference or intrusion is at most merely the spark that set things off, while the more fundamental problem had already been planted long before. As for the more…
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