《中国人的精神》书评决赛作品

18E21   2020182670  180200930   姚晴童

From Gu Hongming's View on "The Spirit of the Chinese"

      Since the late Qing Dynasty, the image of China has been seriously distorted. Gu Hongming, who is a well-versed and independent scholar in China and the West, published the Chinese Spirit in English in 1915. He used his pen to safeguard the dignity of Chinese culture and change the prejudice of some Westerners towards China. The Spirit of the Chinese People has elucidated the value of Chinese traditional culture to Western civilization, especially when Chinese culture faced discrimination and the Chinese nation suffered bullying.
      At the same time, he also had his unique perspective on the solution to the threat posed to human existence by the militarism triggered by human passion in the West at that time. He believes that the solution lies in the East, in China, an ancient and peaceful country, which has no internal conflict between mind and mind for 2500 years, in a nation where Confucianism replaces religion, believes in the law of monarchy and lives a childlike spiritual life.
      In my opinion, this superman, who has learned Chinese and Western, mastered nine languages and obtained 13 doctoral degrees, is far more powerful than the passive resistance to the new culture as a pedantic feudal guardian when he waved the banner and shouted for the Oriental culture. To some extent, it is one-sided to blindly say how high Chinese morality is. However, under the historical condition where Gu Hongming is almost totally negating Oriental culture, in view of an extreme trend of thought, perhaps only by resisting it with another extreme can a real balance be achieved.
      As Mr. Gu said, one of the first things that touched foreigners in the ancient Chinese style of human nature was that the real Chinese were neither barbaric, cruel, nor vicious. The Chinese "gentle" is not fierce, not harsh, not rude or cruel, there is nothing to stimulate you. "The real Chinese may be rough, but there is no roughness in it. The real Chinese may be ugly, but there is no ugliness in ugliness. "Maybe only maybe, but the real Chinese will not make you disgusted even if they have shortcomings in body, mind and character.
     The Chinese are "gentle", but "gentle" is not possible, nor does it mean that the Chinese are resigned, weak in nature and passive. And it is the Chinese people who are just right, just when they are not stunned, not humble or arrogant, not fierce, not harsh, not brutal and not tyrannical, the Chinese people calm, calm, trained, with a tenacious body, proud and resolute heart, self-reliance and perseverance!What he says in the book is that only with compassion and genuine human wisdom can the Chinese-style humanity and genuine Chinese have indescribable meekness.
     In conclusion, the Chinese people in Gu Hongming's works live a spiritual life, an emotional or human love life. There's nothing you hate. Therefore, we do not care about the lack of beautiful and not very clean living environment. With such an easy stroke, the ugly acts depicted by Mr. Lu Xun all his life can be attributed to the product of a beautiful mind. It can be seen that Mr. Gu's love is deep.