Zhou Zuoren's articles are mainly based on criticism, critical perspective and critical words, but compared with Lu Xun's acerbity, Zhou Zuoren is more peaceful and even helpless. Zhou Zuoren's character is not the focus of my article. My point is that judging history should go back to history, and analyzing historical figures should be carried out under the background of that time. It is unfair to look at the past from the perspective of modern people through the wall of time and space. Of course, many people will disagree with me. In this case, let's put aside this easy-to-exist "difference" level and go back to the article itself to discuss the author's ideas and opinions.
The end time of ancestor worship is marked as "March of eight years", that is,1965438+March of 2009, the eve of the May 4th Movement. Mr. Zhou's view is that "you can't worship your ancestors, but you can't expect your descendants to worship", which is quite similar to Wang Xizhi's view of time and space inheritance of "looking back today, looking back today". Mr. Zhou is also a generation studying abroad, and there is naturally a belief complex in his thoughts and concepts. Who should we worship? The article gives the answer-self-worship, descendants worship. To some extent, "self-worship" is consistent with the elements of "small farmers, self-sufficiency, self-interest and practicality" in China's traditional values, while "worship of descendants" subverts the Confucian traditional view on genealogy. For this view, Mr. Zhou has his own view.
Mr. Wang started with the spiritual source theory of ancestor worship. "Primitive humans believe that everything is animistic, and the souls of ancestors are immortal and will not die with the destruction of the body. Ancestors will stay in the world, and future generations will worship their diet and daily life. If served well, ancestors will protect their offspring, otherwise disaster will occur. "According to Mr. Zhou's introduction, I understand that the essence of ancestor worship is self-accumulation and worship of life stability. In this way, worship is for future generations, which is in line with Mr. Zhou's argument, but Mr. Zhou refutes it from a scientific point of view. Science has proved that there are no ghosts in the world, so there is no need to worry about the disaster of our ancestors. At the same time, it also lists the superstition that men buy concubines and store women under the pretext of "unfilial having three sons", which corrupts human relations. From a humanitarian point of view, Mr. Zhou's views should be praised. As for the existence of ghosts and gods, we can't draw a conclusion at present, because we haven't seen them with our own eyes, and we can't say there are, let alone absolutely not. We can only say that science has not been able to make an accurate argument for this. In addition, I think it is not comprehensive to attribute "the greatness of three unfilial sons" to ancestor worship. " To a great extent, "passing on the family line" stems from the nature of species evolution and the inheritance of family property in paternal society.
Mr. Wang's second denial is based on his opposition to the theory of "repaying a favor by one's son", which is a challenge to "the sheep kneels graciously, and the crow feeds back". Filial piety is an eternal truth in China, just as Mr. Zhou quoted his supporters in the article "Return to Ben" as saying, "Where do you think you come from? Your parents gave birth to you, but it was the grace of heaven and earth. How can you not repay him? " Similar words abound in the history of China, such as "rich in skins and influenced by parents" and "lawless, no land; Without land, there would be no him; Without him, there would be no me ",as well as Xia Houdun's grandiose words," The blood of the father and mother should not be abandoned ",which shows that children are responsible to their parents. Of course, there are strange voices. The most famous one is Kong Rong, the governor of Beihai. He said that when a father marries his son, his intention is really erotic. What is a child to a mother? Is it also ridiculous? For example, if you send something in the middle, you will stay. This example of letting pears die is also an important reason. Mr. Zhou seems to have adopted Kong Rong's view that "when parents have a son, the son has no kindness, but the parents are in debt ... when parents have a child, it is the day when their (parents') obligations begin until the child reaches adulthood. Secular people generally say that dutiful sons pay their debts, but as far as I know, all sons are debt collectors, and parents are the ones who pay their debts-the ones who bear his debts. "To sum up, Mr. Zhou's point of view is that it is wrong for parents to lead their children astray. The child didn't want to die, but his parents forced him to. I really don't agree with Teacher Zhou. Life is only a hundred years for most people, but in this only life, we have experienced endless life, joys and sorrows, ups and downs, and some people will even go down in history for thousands of years, and have the opportunity to enjoy such a colorful life and win 3 thousand sperm, which is a gift in itself. Whose gift? Can be said to be the god of life. No matter who created our soul, our last step towards the world was really achieved with the help of our parents. In this sense, parents have created a lifetime experience for us, which is indispensable and should be repaid. It is said in the article that "all dutiful sons collect debts". Since it is a "debt", there is a head for grievances and a master for debts. What kind of debt do they want and what kind of creditors are they? Debt, as its name implies, is something owed to others, so what do parents owe their sons? Probably from the birth of the baby, parents have devoted themselves to it. In this case, I am afraid it is difficult to sort out the debt relationship marked by Mr. Zhou. At the same time, Zhou Zuoren did not give a clear answer on when the "debt" (not obligation) was settled, because according to Mr. Zhou's point of view, it is almost impossible for a person to give an answer while collecting debts from the previous generation.
Mr. Zhou established a top-down anti-worship, and Lao Zi worshipped his son. One thing in this chain is worthy of recognition, that is, the interpretation of "demeanor". "In order to repay my benefactor, we should work harder to be a man, make ourselves better than our parents, and earnestly fulfill our obligations-the debt to our children-to make our children better than ourselves", which is completely in line with the concept of species evolution. "Try to be a man" and develop yourself, which is the most effective way to repay kindness. Parents are selfless and seldom care about how much material help their children provide. "Let children live better than themselves" is the biggest debt to parents, not "owe children" or "owe society". This kind of life created by parents takes away the means of survival from society, which is a clear debt relationship. According to this chain, there should be a trend of "the waves behind the Yangtze River push the waves before", so Zhou Zuoren's anti-worship in this sense is extremely powerful in promoting social development. After such analysis, the boundary between debtor and creditor proposed in this paper seems to be blurred. Actually, there is no need to worry. There is no clear division in life. Good or bad, right or wrong, success or failure are all important factors in the colorful life. So there is a word in Chinese that embodies great wisdom-harmony. Adjust it to make it harmonious, and if it is not adjusted well, it will cause great harm.
I don't think that Mr. Zhou Zuoren's writing of this article is a denial of filial piety emotionally, and it is absolutely not allowed to be unfilial under the guidance of the article's arguments in real life. So what is the real writing intention? As I said before, judging historical figures should return to history and analyze them in the historical background at that time. This article was written in 19 19. After the rise of the "New Culture Movement" and on the eve of the May 4th Movement, there was a heated debate and discussion in the cultural field under the background of social thoughts. "Down with Kongjiadian" and "Down with the ethical code of eating people for three thousand years". Lu Xun once lashed out at the tradition of filial piety, arguing that filial piety made China culture respect the previous generation and neglect or even suppress the next generation, which violated the evolutionary principle of giving priority to the new generation in biology, so the race was aging, the culture was aging and there was no creativity. During the "New Culture Movement" and the "May 4th Movement", Zhou Zuoren was not only called the two great leaders in the literary world with his brother Lu Xun, but also called the "authority in the ideological circle" with Hu Shi and Chen Duxiu. In the anti-Confucianism movement, Zhou Zuoren called on intellectuals and young students to destroy "false morality" and build "new morality", which provided a theoretical basis for the anti-Confucianism movement with the ideological principles of humanism, humanism, individualism and "true Confucianism". [1] Since then, the trend of thinking of doubting the past, which began in the ninth year of the Republic of China (1920), has profoundly influenced Zhou Zuoren's attitude towards tradition and old knowledge. In the last few paragraphs of ancestor worship, Zhou Zuoren clearly wrote his intention. "With the ancient culture, there will be the present culture, with ancestors, there will be us. However, if the ancient culture remains unchanged and ancestors always exist, then there can be no present culture and us. Therefore, we are grateful that because ancient culture has come and gone, ancestors can leave the current culture and us-the current culture will come and go in the future, and we will also live and die, leaving a better culture and better people than us. " In a word, Zhou Zuoren is talking about cultural inheritance and development, especially cultural innovation, which cannot be equated with filial piety and cannot be confused. At the same time, Mr. Zhou opposes conservatism and insufficient knowledge innovation, while the two generations of "debt", "grace" and "ancestor" analyzed above are only symbolic means, and the essence is to affirm cultural inheritance (in terms of ancient culture, this also reflects the conflict and tension between intellectuals' words and deeds and their thoughts and feelings at that time.
In this article, Zhou Zuoren talked about the eternal topic of China people-how to treat their ancestors. Perhaps because the pre-Qin philosophers and the Han and Tang Dynasties created splendid culture, China people have always had an ancient love complex, especially under the slogan of "realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation", many people even had the idea of retro, so Chinese studies became "hot". Last year, I quite agreed with Mr. Wu Xiangdong's point of view in China's Marxist class. "Chinese studies can be learned, but not' hot'. Modern people study Chinese studies and ancient achievements. So what did we modern people do? What kind of cultural achievements our generation has created! " "Revival" is not "retro", let alone "gnawing at the past". The four great inventions are our proud chips, not family heirlooms. So I don't agree with the sentence "Pushkin is everything to us" and similar paraphrases in Russian literature. Pushkin is indeed the founder of modern Russia and the "sun of Russian poetry". Almost all the themes of Russian life can be found in his works, but after all, a Pushkin can't represent all Russian literature, at least Soviet literature has its own uniqueness. We have to admit that many themes in Pushkin's works are interpreted by future generations in combination with their own characteristics of the times. So I appreciate Zhou Zuoren's sentence "I don't believe there is a classic in the world that can be used as a lesson for thousands of years".
It is natural to pass on the things of our ancestors. It is not a rigid quotation, but a reference and application. "Searching for chapters and broken sentences will corrupt the world", which was clearly stated by Zhu Gekongming as early as 1700 years ago. History always coexists with the present, and tradition and reality also need to be reconciled. If "harmony" is not good, it will be weakened and lead to cultural fault. In the history of our country in the past 100 years, this kind of cultural tragedy happened more than once. How to reconcile in the future Personally, I think the most important thing is to build a core system of values and cultural concepts to cope with the changing reality, so as to keep changing, otherwise there will be cultural blocks, each with its own camp. Similar sources, but can't communicate with each other. Unified cultural belief is the core framework of this system. As for how to implement it, it needs the unremitting exploration and inquiry of several generations of intellectuals in China.