My Spiritual Homeland -- Selected Essays of Wang Xiaobo (Commemorative Edition): Selected Essays of Wang Xiaobo (Commemorative Edition)

Author: Wang Xiaobo
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-02-01
Features: Have you ever been told that there are some more important things in life worth standing out and being experienced? When I was young, I read George Bernard Shaw's play Major Barbara, and there was a scene that left a deep impression on me: The industrial tycoon, Mr. Andreev, met his long-lost son Stephen and asked him what he was interested in. This young man had no talent in science, literature, law, or anything else, but he said he had one strength: the ability to discern right from wrong. The old man harshly criticized his son, saying that this was something that even scientists, politicians, and philosophers found difficult. How come you know nothing but how to discern right from wrong? When I read this passage, I was only in my early twenties, and I immediately resolved that I would do anything in life except become a person who could discern right from wrong without any other skills. For this reason, I became part of the silent majority. The people I knew when I was young only grasped some superficial (and to say the least, absurd) principles and thought they knew everything, making arbitrary judgments about the world, as a result of which the whole world suffered greatly. Only when I reached the age of forty did I realize that Mr. Shaw's perspective was somewhat biased; but that's a story for another time—in any case, Mr. Shaw's remarks are always a cure for the shallow and the arrogant. Mr. Shaw said that discerning right from wrong is difficult because these issues all fall within the realm of ethics. As the saying goes, "What is poison to one person is meat to another"; one thing that benefits a person may inevitably harm another...