In fact, most of the previous studies on the history of thought were close to the history of philosophy-it was only because the foreign word "philosophy" was incompatible with China society that it was gradually changed to "the history of thought". In other words, this path of the history of thought focuses more on abstract philosophical thoughts than on their social influence; But in the tradition of China, people always pay attention to the former rather than the latter. As a person who has studied the history of thought for decades, Wang Fansen certainly knows this, so when he put forward that "thought is a way of life", he first made a self-defense: "Before entering the text, I want to ask some possible questions: Am I defending China for not developing abstract philosophical thinking? Do you tend to turn ideas into life? Is it promoting an idea that only the idea of life can be valuable? Do you think important and original thinkers are worthless and don't need to study hard? The answer isno. "
Of course, he doesn't even need to make such a defensive defense, because his early works are proof. Paying attention to "the life of thought" or "the ideology of life" is by no means to deny the importance of abstract speculation. Instead, Wang Fansen bravely opened up a new direction of the history of thought, began to pay attention to the actual form of thought in the historical development, and correspondingly expanded the life level of the history of thought, in order to reflect on the past tendency of paying too much attention to thought itself and ignoring its practice. This is important because China's traditional thought originally attached great importance to practice, and Confucianism itself can be said to be a kind of practice, while rejecting the deduction of pure theory became an unrealistic fantasy, and its far-reaching influence continues to this day. The so-called "ungrounded" has always been a serious accusation. Whether this is good or bad, it is an unavoidable fact when we discuss the history of China's thoughts.
He found that there are many influential popular texts or ideologies in history, which are often transferred from original ideas; However, some original ideas that we value now are hard to find out how far-reaching they have influenced the society, so that people sometimes wonder: if this idea is so important, why didn't it play a role in promoting historical development? When reading history, it is easy for future generations to "mistakenly think that the ideas that thinkers have had will be baptized by them and forget that there may be serious faults between them." On this basis, he put forward the problem of "levels" in the history of ideas, that is to say, the spread and influence of ideas may be divided into many vague levels due to the limitation of social technical means or organizational ability at that time. Even if an idea is later proved to be original and important, it is far from being accepted naturally by ordinary people as soon as it comes out. On the contrary, the real situation in the life world is much more complicated.
This is actually not difficult to understand, because as future generations, when writing history, they will inevitably pay more attention to those materials that are more "profound" in the eyes of future generations. If Croce's famous saying that "all history is contemporary history" is understood in reverse, it means that "only people with contemporary historical significance will be written into history"-just like China's history of science and technology will trace ancient alchemy back to the pioneers of modern chemistry, but ofuda and spells will be swept into the garbage. Although this situation is not uncommon, it is usually more serious in the study of the history of thought, because people naturally look for, filter and dig out ideas that are more in line with modern imagination, or try to read "modernity" from history. Many thinkers in the late Ming Dynasty, especially Li Zhi, although a radical heresy that few people followed at that time, are highly respected in modern times, thinking that he represents a possibility of being lost. It is easy for us to forget that he had limited social influence at that time and could not leave an institutional legacy, so that it took hundreds of years to see the light of day and meet a social environment suitable for growth.
Thought is a way of life: reflection on China's history of modern thought.
Wang Fansen/Zhu
Peking University Press
2065438+March 2008
Moreover, in the process of spreading ideas, the acceptance process itself is subject to the original social conditions. Bao Junya, an American sinologist, studied four famous book printing bases in western Fujian in his book Cultural Trade, and found that the market strategy of folk printed books from Ming and Qing Dynasties to modern times was no different from that of modern times-focusing on those books with large market and absolute bestsellers. Although poems and anthologies can reflect the highest cultural value, they are not directly practical for most people, so only well-funded bookstores will invest in publishing such books; The novels of Ming and Qing Dynasties, which were highly regarded in the New Culture Movement, were rarely published and circulated in Bao Si, which showed that people didn't attach importance to them at all and only regarded them as entertainment. The etiquette manual, family letter and imperial examination book with the largest circulation are generally considered as the lowest value in later historical research. This means that in a "market of ideas", those ideas that prove to be profound and valuable later may not win quickly and be widely known. On the contrary, a series of mechanisms are needed to ensure that they are not lost.
Wang Fansen therefore stressed: "If thought is a way of life, then there is the question of how thought becomes' actionable' in life." In other words, only through popularization, concretization and visualization can ideas penetrate into people's daily lives and influence and promote social change. Of course, there are many such examples in China's history, but as he also realized, until the modern "depersonalization" movement, Confucianism rarely made such efforts, and the so-called "courtesy can't stop Shu Ren". However, it is worth adding that this downward infiltration movement in modern China often showed the color of pan-politicization and pan-moralization-the most prominent example was the New Life Movement of the Republic of China in the11930' s. It is worth noting that, as a country of words, these movements paid special attention to words in their expression methods, so there were slogans and banners painting walls everywhere, unlike the western image tradition which evolved from icons and heraldic traditions.
It is very important to understand these mechanisms, because as he pointed out, it involves a big question in the history of thought: "For many years, I have been puzzled why thoughts can't affect reality." In the final analysis, if thoughts want to influence reality, they must have their own communication mechanism and even social mobilization mechanism. He found that "to put ideas into practice, it is often necessary to put' a standard' in places like articles and aphorisms", thus popularizing relatively complex and profound ideas. Of course, this is not difficult to understand. After all, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is far more popular than The History of the Three Kingdoms. Therefore, the role of the bottom intellectuals and the media deserves attention. However, he didn't mention the distortion, vulgarization and extremism (the vague and rich meaning became the decisive tone) or unexpected negative effects, nor did he respond to Max Weber's idea that it should not be used to guide political practice, which is another specific field of practice. In China society, it seems that there is no concept of strictly dividing different fields as in Germany.
From historical materials, what he saw was how to make thoughts alive, especially how people were unconsciously infiltrated by Neo-Confucianism from concise aphorisms and followed them in daily life. However, it is worth noting that this Chinese-style concept pays special attention to the "practice" of life level, but does not pay attention to the interpretation and deduction of life concept, which is actually due to China's ideological inertia of emphasizing synthesis over deduction. The same is true of Zen thought, which likes to "stick to one thing and maintain the doctrine of the mean" to deal with complex reality, even the best panacea. Therefore, people often rely on a few simple creeds to seek the best results at any time, but they don't pay attention to the logical unity of behavior.
Wang Fansen is keenly aware that many new ideas have infiltrated into the bottom society for the first time in modern times, but there is uncertainty when new ideas interact and merge with life, "or it is a vague thing, an ideological atmosphere and an ideological air". This is also the "wind direction" he often mentioned, emphasizing that "many times the so-called' influence' comes from all directions and blows like the wind". He didn't specifically analyze this mechanism here, perhaps because he felt that the existing materials were not enough to support such an analysis, but strictly speaking, this seemingly vague "wind direction" is not mysterious, and there must be a corresponding influence path, but in the era of lack of public opinion, it is difficult to see the literature; But in modern China, which is mainly discussed in this book, after all, there are traces to follow. Lewis coser, an American sociologist, listed eight institutionalized environments for intellectual activities in early modern western Europe in his book Ideal Man, including salons and cafes; Scientific associations and monthly or quarterly magazines; Literature market and publishing industry; Political factions; Finally, there are Bohemian places and small literary magazines. Wang Fansen's interest is obviously not how to outline the propagation path of these ideas, which may be a problem of communication and sociology, so he made a feint and focused on the change of ideas.
Here, we can see a new challenge: with the rise of modern mass media, the spread and debate of "invisible" ideas in the past can be displayed on a visible platform, which then enables researchers to use literature to grasp the changes of the times more comprehensively. Michael Freeden, a British political theorist, attached great importance to the study of mass media in the19th century, which proved that the political thoughts at that time were no longer just the thoughts of a few thinkers or political elites, but the elucidation of the views and positions of all people with political consciousness. He was dissatisfied with the traditional standard list of "great thinkers", thinking that it limited political thoughts to those "professional" thinkers, which led to excessive emphasis on abstract thoughts. He believes that "political thought" is different from "political philosophy", which exists at all levels of political action with different complexity and is directly related to the operation of the political system. Therefore, a higher level of political theoretical thinking should be combined with dedicated and enthusiastic participation in "practical" politics.
According to this, Wang Fansen undoubtedly put forward an important turn in the study of the history of thought, but it also means that the boundary between the history of thought and sociology, communication and even politics becomes more blurred, because such an orientation focusing on life rather than abstract thought used to be more of a garden of historical sociology, and it may no longer be a "history of thought" if we go forward. He saw that in the modern changes, individuals often get bored after leaving the original social organization, so that they finally regard "ism" as the key to solving the country, society and individuals; It is also found that in this process, there is a phenomenon of "human decline", that is, in the process of social restructuring, people no longer believe that individual will can change history. However, when he talked about these issues, he paid attention to abstract thoughts and tried to grasp the hidden context of historical changes, but he didn't mention that the "individual" in modern China itself was constantly changing-both the modern individual side and the anti-social radical characteristics of vagrants who were outside the traditional patriarchal society.
If compared with modern Britain, the difference is quite remarkable: as shown in the book "British Progressive Thoughts", the changes of British social and political thoughts in the19th century were carried out in an active public space, with different ideological factions arguing endlessly and the public actively participating; But in China, although there is a certain degree of participation, but more is not discussion and persuasion, but through local intellectuals to infiltrate new ideas into the people layer by layer, and driven by a strong sense of urgency, in the form of political organizations to promote exclusive and irrefutable ideas. This is a completely different "communication mechanism", and the role played by individuals in this process is also very different, which is followed by a question left over from now on: how can society and individuals deal with themselves in the face of an inhuman Leviathan? But this question cannot be answered by the history of thought alone.