《中国人的精神》决赛书评 定稿
常湃
The Spirit of the Chinese People: the old and the new coexist
To be honest, I have never obtained any interest in those books with a strong feeling of academics. So inevitably I got puzzled, just as before. However, with the progress of reading, I found the book more and more fascinating after the initial feeling of tasteless. Probably this kind of bibliography is difficult to read, but it became really interesting after you cast yourself in it indeed.
After going through this book for the first time, I really respect Mr. Ku for his deep thoughts and the novel perspective. Beyond that, I admire his courage and sense of responsibility to write a book so that he can systematically introduce these facts and culture to curious foreigners.
I always assumed that if I were a foreigner, what would I think. The fact is that I could find more questions and think differently based on the "cultural gap". But I didn't become confused because Mr. Ku used lots of illustrations in Western culture to demonstrate a cultural phenomenon in China. He quoted the words of Carlisle, Goethe, etc. By doing this, he made these abstract cultural phenomena and social principles easy and plain for a zero-basis westerner.
What I feel most when reading this book is that Mr. Gu constantly compares the internal characteristics and spiritual styles of different nationalities, highlighting the advantages of Chinese spirit, which also indicates that Chinese spirit is the right way to redeem militarism, mob politics and frequent wars in the early 20th century. In addition to the theory of saving the West by Chinese culture, its introduction of Chinese civilization is very detailed and thorough, which provides a train of thought for thinking about what our nationality's essence is.
As Mr. Ku said, Confucianism is not a religion in the true sense of the word, but far superior to religion. It is difficult for any religion, like Confucianism, to exert a broad and universal constraint on the tremendous Chinese population in long-time span of several thousand years. Just as Mr. Ku concluded, westerners' sense of security comes from their fear of religion and criminal laws, while Chinese people's sense of security comes from their neighbors' internal compliance with public order and good customs. Every time I read this, I can feel my passion for our culture from the bottom of my heart clearly.
Among all those comments about Chinese civilization l 've ever read, statements in this book like comparing western countries' ability of understanding Chinese civilization and Chinese people give me much novelty. Without doubt Chinese civilization and Chinese spirit are brilliant but some of the author's opinions, I have to say, are confined by his existing knowledge and that binding-and-breaking times.
What we cannot deny is that Mr. Ku's point of view was still hemmed in protecting Chinese old culture and preaching that Chinese traditional culture is the best one which can save the world's chaos. But actually, at that time China should not just be complacent but had a lot to learn from the West.
I thought that Mr. Ku was just making a defense for old morality and nationalism. For example, Mr. Ku attributed the reason for the difference between China's concubinage system and Europe's to the "selflessness" of Chinese women. Frankly speaking, I did not fully agree with him. Although I cannot clear up a wiser viewpoint, I think Chinese women's attitude towards the concubinage system comes from their passive acceptance and numbness to this undesirable custom for thousands of years, rather than their own will. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Mr. Ku himself was a "user" of the concubinage system.
When I read this book again, I tried to excavate Mr. Ku's deeper thought. I found that the book was rich in self-analysis. For example, the statements about Confucianism in the Song dynasty were a bit narrow-minded. That is praiseworthy courage. And another example, Mr. Ku said if someone felt like encountering the grace and charm of Chinese women, it was better for him/her to go to Japan rather than in nowadays China. Under the background with the old scholars inclined to regard this as a great honor, it was rare and valuable to admit it frankly.
Though some of his opinions were branded by the times, there was still a lot of treasure in his thought. It can serve to improve citizens' pride of our culture. Some flaws didn't make it any less worthy of reading.
京公网安备 11010802032529号