Literature, Art, and Ultimate Concern: Reading Classics from the Perspective of Life

Author: Hu Shanlin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-01-01
Features: "Literary Masterpieces" and "Life" are two eternal and immortal interests in the hearts of literary enthusiasts, especially young people. This book closely combines the two, selecting over twenty deeply beloved and profoundly influential literary masterpieces. It extracts life issues from them and explores how predecessors thought about and addressed these problems. This is the most valuable element in literary art and the ever-living soul of classics. This book is a marginal literary commentary, with smooth and lively writing, strong readability, and great infectivity. The construction of socialist spiritual civilization is a comprehensive and integrated spiritual and cultural project that requires coordinated efforts from all cultural fields, especially the social sciences and humanities. As an important part of the humanities, literary studies should also actively and consciously undertake a glorious mission. Currently, there is a particular need for more thought and research on human spiritual life, more care for the emotional world of human souls, and more exploration and discussion of the spirit of ultimate concern. The ultimate value of human life existence is a spiritual question that only humans relentlessly question among all things in the world. It is an inherent need in human spiritual life. Ultimate concern points to fundamental issues of human existence, such as the problem of self-awareness: Who am I? Where do I come from, and where am I going? The problem of human circumstances: the relationships between humans, humans and nature, humans and society, as well as issues of life value, life meaning, and the fundamental dilemmas of human existence. All these issues are objects of concern for both philosophy and religion, as well as for literary and artistic works. Since the birth of literary and artistic works, writers and artists have been contemplating these innate and inherent ultimate questions through their creations. From Homer's epics to the Gesar, from Cao Xueqin to Tolstoy, a history of literary and artistic works fully proves that while being concerned with reality, ultimate concern also holds a very important spiritual value for literary and artistic works. The development of the times has put forward new and higher requirements for literary studies, demanding that it pay attention to the deep spiritual life that has always been embedded in literary phenomena since ancient times, focus on the deep spiritual calls in the human soul and respond to them appropriately, and advocate more for the ultimate spiritual care of humans. First, the proposal of the value of ultimate concern issues a call for the elevation of people's spiritual life under the conditions of a market economy. In modern society, survival competition is fierce, and people, especially young people, often face conflicts between spiritual pursuits and survival competition. This leads to two characteristics of the spiritual situation of modern people: on the one hand, nihilism, manifested as a loss of faith and spiritual emptiness; on the other hand, materialism, characterized by greed for material desires and the pursuit of enjoyment. Against this backdrop, the proposal and emphasis on the issue of ultimate concern can provide people with a broader perspective, preventing them from sinking into the vortex of modern labor and consumption and giving their spiritual life a higher direction and positioning. In other words, at the social level, it helps to restrain the prevalence of nihilism and pragmatism. The deep-rooted causes of negative social trends such as nihilism, pragmatism, consumerism, and hedonism are the lack of spiritual belief and the lack of internal spiritual support and soul cohesion. The construction of socialist spiritual civilization is a comprehensive project that requires multifaceted efforts, but undoubtedly, emphasizing the role of deep spiritual significance, primarily through ultimate concern, is an important aspect of such efforts. Second, the proposal of the issue of ultimate concern is a necessary counterbalance to the tendency of Confucian culture to prioritize practicality over the spiritual. One obvious feature of Confucian culture is its emphasis on practical value, even in its philosophy of life, it mainly discusses how to conduct oneself, how to handle interpersonal relationships. It must be admitted that this theory has its merits and has aspects worthing. However, its flaw is that it tends to focus solely on the present, lacking self-discipline in the sense of an absolute command. The proposal of the issue of ultimate concern helps Chinese people improve their understanding of spiritual values and deepen their spiritual life. Third, the proposal of the issue of ultimate concern is beneficial in reminding writers and artists to pay more attention to ultimate concern. Influenced by the above traditional cultural tendencies, the attention of Chinese writers is generally concentrated on the level of realistic concern, emphasizing the social, political, ideological, ethical, and moral role of their works. This should be fully affirmed and can be said to be an excellent tradition. However, it cannot be taken to an extreme, otherwise it will lead to vulgar sociology and replace literature with political. This lesson must be taken to heart seriously. The proposal of the issue of ultimate concern will make up for the shortcomings of the above tendencies, remind writers to pay more attention to ultimate concern, and pay more attention to the inner spiritual life of people. At the same time, it can also enhance the awareness of ultimate concern in readers, reminding them to delve deeper into the deeper spiritual significance of works. "Ultimate" always exists above or ahead in the spiritual realm of humans, always playing a role in elevating or drawing them, preventing them from sinking downward or retreating backward. "Ultimate" and "reality" form two tension fields of up and down, front and back in the spiritual space of humans, and humans carry out fully and grand social practice in these two tension fields. Without either of these fulcrums, human life will lose balance. The spiritual homeland that humans pursue actually lies in the harmony and balance between the two. Modern life makes people more immersed in material and desires, neglecting or losing the end of ultimate concern, which has led to some distortions, alienations, and disasters in modern life. Against this cultural background, the proposal of the issue of ultimate concern is essentially a call to re-establish the end of "ultimate," allowing words like "spirit" and "soul" to regain their lofty and sacred status, and attempting to re-establish a tension field through its existence, giving people's spiritual life a lofty goal and adding an important element to the composition of spiritual civilization.