Reread the Master (A sincere statement of a lie)

Author: Zhu Yong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1999-08-01
Features: The existence of masters obscures others and the collective, as well as history. They exist as the voice of humanity. The masses die, but only they live on. The immortality and greatness of thought only deepen the sense of the fleeting and insignificance of individual life. While people establish the discourse power of masters, they also lose their own voice. When people try to approach the original history through interpreting masters, they find that history has been monopolized by them. Masters are both peaks and chasms. What is a master? Each generation must answer this question, each generation adjusts the standards and quantity of masters, and each generation strives to maintain their own masters. Gods do not live forever, only the worship of gods by humans is eternal. Newton said he succeeded because he stood on the shoulders of giants. The existence of sages is indeed the ladder of human progress, but when you look around, the overwhelming number of masters can be dazzling. Generation after generation of masters, with their powerful thoughts and language, have meticulously constructed a series of predetermined cages for later generations, luring people to become their prisoners. Masters exist as the voice of humanity, and we become devout followers of the master. The Modern Chinese Dictionary defines "master" as "a person with profound expertise in learning or art, respected by the public." In short, to become a master, there are two conditions: expertise and respect. Thus, the existence of masters is not merely an individual existence but a sociological one. Their existence obscures others and the collective, as well as history. The immortality and greatness of thought only deepen the sense of the fleeting and insignificance of individual life. If we devote our entire lives to briefly glimpsing the spiritual landscape of masters through their footsteps, it is already a rare achievement. When standing by the bookshelves that stretch as far as the eye can see in the National Library, we feel a fear of reading. The more we read, the deeper the fear becomes, because we realize that all thoughts have been expressed and all emotions have been poured out. When writers face Cao Xueqin and Tolstoy, when philosophers face Zhuangzi and Nietzsche, when economists face Marx and Samuelson, they may all contract a kind of—speechlessness. As Confucius said, "I wish to remain silent." While establishing the discourse power of masters, we lose our own voice. The existence of masters can make later generations confused, like a young wife under the angry eyes of her mother-in-law, unsure of what to say and what not to say. "All new insights are merely uncovered repetitions, and all correctness is merely unawakened errors. We have lost the confidence and courage to challenge the world from one extreme, and we preemptively see the futility and absurdity of such a challenge" (Li Shulei). Because masters are peaks, masters are also chasms. A friend said, "The monument fills me with awe." This is indeed a paradox. The flowing thoughts of masters become classics, and these classics dry out into stiff dogmas over time. The reading of classics can never be an equal exchange. Before reading begins, the reader already carries obvious expectations and intentions, and this inequality often leads to misinterpretations of thought or the obscuring of the original meaning. Yet, most of us have gone through this—unconsciously completing the rewriting of masters in our self-assured readings. It is more of a reverence for authority than a yearning for truth—the names of masters become symbols, making us succumb to the fetishism of tradition. Perhaps, reverse reading is a good way to resist submission. In my impression, it was my friend Li Shulei who first proposed the concept of "reverse reading." If we go back two or three decades, "reverse reading" could only have been a naive assumption—in a long period, people could only interpret masters within prescribed contexts and according to unified ideologies. Reading, this pure spiritual activity, became a "prescribed routine" in gymnastics, and we thought this would bring us closer to masters, only to find the opposite. Fortunately, today's people live in an era of open thought and pluralistic values. The difference between past and present concepts allows us to use the conflict between narrative and reading stances to break free from the "hypnosis" of masters and liberate ourselves. "Smashing everything" may be extreme, but "doubting everything" is necessary. As mentioned earlier, the narration of masters records the history of human souls, and classics are the spiritual wills of masters. However, the effect of reading masters and classics depends not only on the quality of the original works but also on the quality of the readers. In other words, the flow of master's thoughts is relative, while the flow of time and readers is absolute. Viewing the relative through the absolute, we do not feel our own change but rather perceive the change in masters. Their position in the hearts of people is not only related to their "gold content" but also to the spiritual state of the readers, i.e., the master is, in fact, a master who has been interpreted—this involves the scope of reception aesthetics. Thus, it is not difficult to understand that what one generation reveres and worships may be worthless to another, appearing awkward and laughable in a later era. This statement may be extreme, but at least the "seasonal" changes of masters are inevitable. For example, people's views on figures like Gorky, Solzhenitsyn, and Eileen Chang twenty years ago are vastly different from today. Therefore, we say that masters are both an "objective existence" and a "subjective existence." When later generations look back at masters beyond the constraints of their time, masters are no longer individualized masters but cultural entities intertwined with complex historical information, undergoing a natural process of appreciation or depreciation over time. This gives rise to the concept of "re-reading masters." Re-reading masters is not just a "dynamic" but also a "normal"—such re-reading cannot be accomplished in one go, so it will not be a one-time event but should be an ongoing process. In re-reading, we understand the narrative of history, and in tradition, we find "corresponding power and wisdom." In this re-reading rich in "time difference," later generations not only "retrieve" and discover the departed spirits but also discover themselves, experiencing the joy of having the authority to judge the past and feeling the "victory of modern people over history." Re-reading masters can measure the intellectual level and social openness of an era, as well as the average value of cultural development. Thus, there are also two books: Re-reading Masters—China Volume—The Passionate Return and Re-reading Masters—Foreign Volume—A Sincere Account of a Lie (People's Literature Publishing House).