Literature, Art, and Ultimate Concern

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, exploring how predecessors thought about and addressed these problems. This is the most valuable element in literary art and the eternal soul of classics. This book is a marginal literary critique, with fluent 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 thinking and research on human spiritual life, more care for the emotional world of human hearts and souls, and more research and exploration 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 toward 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 people, between people and nature, between people and society, as well as issues of life value, life meaning, and human fundamental dilemmas. All these issues are not only subjects of philosophical and religious discussion but also of literary and artistic reflection. Since the birth of literary and artistic creation, writers and artists have been contemplating these innate and inherent ultimate questions through their works. From Homer's epics to the Gesar, from Cao Xueqin to Tolstoy, a history of literary and artistic works fully proves that, alongside real-world concerns, ultimate concern holds significant spiritual value for literary and artistic works. The development of the times has placed new and higher demands on literary studies, requiring it to focus on the deep spiritual life embedded in literary phenomena since ancient times, to attend to the profound spiritual calls within the human soul and respond appropriately, and to emphasize more ultimate spiritual care for humanity.
First, the proposal of ultimate concern value issues a call for the elevation of people's spiritual life under market economy conditions. 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 modern people's spiritual conditions: one is nihilism,,; the other is materialism,,. In this context, the proposal and emphasis on ultimate concern can provide a broader perspective, preventing people from sinking into the vortex of modern labor and consumption and giving their spiritual life a higher direction and orientation. That is to say, at the social level, it helps to restrain the prevalence of nihilism and pragmatism. The deep reasons for negative social trends such as nihilism, pragmatism, consumerism, and hedonism are the lack of spiritual belief and the lack of inner 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 meaning, particularly ultimate concern, is an important aspect of such efforts.
Second, the proposal of ultimate concern issues a necessary counterbalance to the Confucian cultural tendency to prioritize practicality over spirituality. A prominent feature of Confucian culture is its emphasis on practical value, even in its philosophy of life, which primarily discusses how to conduct oneself, how to handle interpersonal relationships. It must be admitted that this theory has its merits and aspects worthing. However, its drawback is that it tends to focus solely on the present world, lacking self-discipline in the sense of an absolute command. The proposal of ultimate concern helps Chinese people raise their awareness of spiritual value and deepen their spiritual life.
Third, the proposal of ultimate concern is conducive to reminding writers and artists to pay more attention to ultimate concern awareness. Influenced by the above traditional cultural tendencies, the attention of Chinese writers is generally concentrated on the level of real-world concern, emphasizing the social, political, ideological, ethical, and moral role of their works. This should be fully affirmed and can be considered an excellent tradition. However, it should not be absolutized, otherwise it will lead to vulgar sociology, replacing literary works with political. This lesson must be taken seriously. The proposal of ultimate concern will, to pay more attention to ultimate concern awareness and focus more on people's inner spiritual life. At the same time, it can also enhance readers' ultimate concern awareness, reminding them to delve deeper into the deeper spiritual meaning of the works.
"Ultimate" always exists above or ahead in the realm of human spirit, playing an uplifting or guiding role in preventing people from sinking or regressing. "Ultimate" and "reality" form two tension fields—upward and forward—in human spiritual space, where humanity carries out extensive and grand social practice. Without either support, human life would lose balance. The spiritual homeland that humanity seeks actually lies in the harmony and balance between the two. Modern life leads people to indulge more in material and desires while neglecting or losing the end of ultimate concern, which has caused certain distortions, alienations, and disasters in modern life. In this cultural context, the proposal of ultimate concern is essentially a call to re-establish the "ultimate" end, allowing words like "spirit" and "soul" to regain their sanctity and holiness, and attempting to re-form a tension field through its existence to give people's spiritual life a noble goal and add an important element to the composition of spiritual civilization.