中国人的精神（决赛作品）——朱航 E40
Generally, I don’t think much of this book. Though it has a deep insight into the soul of a civilization, Confucianism and religion, sinology and many other aspects, the exaggerated historical interpretations and illogical or unobjective explanations through the whole book and the far-fetched “the religion of good citizenship” are important factors that I cannot enjoy reading it. (Apologize for not mention its merits.)
The first is about the exaggerated historical interpretations and illogical or unobjective explanations.
The Boer War mentioned when it comes to the illustration of German’s worship of might, is a war between the Great Britain and the Boers in which German wasn’t involve. The Germany only indicated support for the Boers and provided little help, completely far from the words like their instinctive intense hatred for the mob, the mob—worship and the mob—worshippers in Great Britain made the German nation willing to make heavy sacrifices …with the hope to put down the mob, the mob—worship and the mob—worshippers in Great Britain. …This worship of might in Germany created by the hatred for the Religion of mob worship in Great Britain, thus created the enormous monstrous German Militarism which everybody now hates and denounces.
When it comes to interpreting the validity of concubinage in China, he says, I would say that to me the Chinese mandarin who keeps concubines is less selfish, less immoral than the European in his motor car, who picks up a helpless woman from the public street and, after amusing himself with her for one night, throws her away again on the pavement of the public street the next morning. Just as the saying goes, “The pot calls the kettle black.” It’s ridiculous to judge one’s morality and validity by merely comparing two same immoral phenomena which is worse, instead of demonstrating where exactly the validity lies.
The unobjective explanations are mostly from the comments on the spirit of the Chinese people. For example, Mr. Ku says, this true human intelligence, I said, is the product of a combination of two things, sympathy and intelligence. It is a working together in harmony of the heart and head. In short it is a happy union of soul with intellect. Words like “heart” “head” “soul” “intellect” are of rich meanings and hard to define. The abuse of such words makes the passage look marvelous and elegant seemingly, though the words have examples to illustrate, actually left a vague impression on me. So later in that passage, things that the sentences like “the conflict between heart and head in Confucius’ Time” refer to are far beyond my comprehension.
Such various kinds of mistakes lead to various kinds of lame conclusions and mask flaws of the religion of good citizenship that he promotes. Exaggerations make the opinions persuasive but unauthentic, the vague and unobjective interpretations bring about a marvelous surface as well as an unsolid root. W.S.Maugham once expressed his feelings after visiting Mr. Ku that, philosophy is a matter of character rather than logic, philosopher’s belief is not an evident ground but a concomitant of his own temperament, his thoughts are what his instincts believe reasonable. However, theories must be built upon truth, exactness and thorough study, especially when talking about such serious subjects, the spirit of the Chinese people and World War I.
The second is about the far-fetched “the religion of good citizenship”.
Why the religion of good citizenship is far-fetched? Because the suggestion that carrying out the religion of good citizenship and the new Magna Charta of Loyalty is the only solution to World War I is based upon Mr. Ku’s misunderstanding of European history and his strong support for feudal ethics. Its basic logic is that Europe falls into war and chaos due to the worship of mob while China achieved 2,500 years’ lasting peace due to the religion of good citizenship, so Europe ought to learn from China the religion of good citizenship to keep peace and order. However, unfortunately, this is one of those various kinds of lame conclusions. In that case, I’m afraid Europe may set back the wheel of history for hundreds of years.
The third is about my personal opinions.
I do agree with the opinion that the value of a civilization lies in what type of humanity it has been able to produce, I also agree with the word “gentle” which can be used to describe the real Chinaman. Gentleness do means sympathy and intelligence but never ever equals “a domesticated animal”, loyalty and obedience, which is the key of the religion of good citizenship.
After reading the whole book, Mr. Ku’s saying makes me feel that the character and temperament of the real Chinaman-gentle, viz. a happy union of soul and intellect, cannot be found anywhere else besides China at that time. Actually, I think most countries, more or less, are definitely able to produce such kind of humanity then and now. The spirit of gentleness (in normal sense, not related to loyalty) is not specific to China only. That’s what we pursue and there’s nothing to be proud of.
The three reasons mentioned above together brings me heavy doubts, even denials to some of writer’s opinions and interpretations, thus losing my appetite for reading this book gradually.
(PS: Again apologize for not talking about the merits of the book, for not judging it under the history background of that time. And what we should write is the comments on the book rather than on the author, however, it seems that someone has commented on the book according to what the author is rather than what the content really is.)
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