Enlightenment in the dark ages: Zhu
Author: Glass Village
On the sacred night, he traveled all over the earth. johann christian friedrich holderlin
As a cultural critic, cultural scholar, essayist, symbolist, professor, stylist, intellectual, etc., Zhu is in the whirlpool of controversy because of his vague, sharp and critical metaphor writing. Many appreciators tried tirelessly to imitate his language (Zhu Yu), but all failed, which was frustrating. This failure proved the impossibility and uniqueness of Zhu Yu from the opposite side. The annoying person can only use the word "gorgeous" to describe his writing style, but he can't understand his semantics at all, let alone enter his mind. Borges, who is deeply rooted in literature and engaged in writing, said, "Perhaps the keynote of history is the keynote of several different metaphors." This is all the views of readers as librarians of human history. I agree with him. In fact, the keynote of our nation's modern history not only exists in Zhu's text, but also the adopted text shines with loneliness and enlightenment in the dark.
1 language alchemist
Some people are doomed to be unable to cross the maze of Zhu language and find a boat to borrow. At present, imitators who claim to have spied on Zhu Yu's secrets and quoted Zhu Yu's critical terms only know a little about Zhu Yu. Because this is the easiest part of Zhu language to learn. They are just entangled in words, seemingly only borrowing Zhu-style words, thinking that they have seen through the mystery of Zhu-style words. This view and practice is obviously naive and ridiculous. Such as "aesthetic fatigue", "academic super man" and other analog words derived from the word "cultural lipstick". After all, these words are just imitations. These simulated words only float on the surface of the imitator's criticism of the text, and cannot constitute critical lethality with other words, thus showing a penetrating power to understand the essence of things. Why is this happening?
Because: "At the beginning of the distant world history, parrots imitated people's noise, while people tried to imitate God's perfection." "Replicas of these masters' external characteristics are not real vines. "(1) so where are the real vines? Curiosity drove me to stare at Zhu Yu. I look forward to the secret door opening for me. When this huge door of vision and hearing opened in front of me one day, I saw a deep tunnel of thought, and I heard the lonely footsteps of thinkers like Hong Zhong.
Obviously, when Zhu wrote The Burning Labyrinth, his language and thoughts had formed his own system. The author believes that the earliest formation of Zhu language stems from Zhu's strong dissatisfaction with the nationalist power discourse that can be seen everywhere in his place of residence. In the1980s, the main written languages were Luwen and Mao Wen (first proposed by Zhu). Zhu is an extremely rare genius who is extremely sensitive to language. He has long understood the relationship between language and power. As a rebellious thinker with highly original spirit, his thinking determines that his writing is an aversion to the secular and a resistance to power. He launched a war without smoke: the text was his fortress and the vocabulary was his ammunition. Frankfurter allgemeine zeitung once called Zhu "Benjamin of China". If both Zhu and Benjamin are compared to "deep-sea pearl pickers" who have sneaked into history, then Zhu has one more task than Benjamin: he must first dig a cave in the frozen age of nationalist power discourse, and then he can pick corals and pearls of oriental classical tradition and western modern tradition in the deep sea of history. The rebellion of language happened. He came, he saw it, he exploded the ice, he chose it, he renamed it. Some common and visible words in ancient Chinese and modern Chinese, the rubble piled high on the ruins, were secretly selected, refined and extracted by his words like a goldsmith, and made dazzling new reappearance in Zhu Shi's text with irony and Oracle, parody and subversion, metaphor and metonymy.
However, I want to point out that this is a maze of Zhu language. No matter who is entangled in the maze of signifier or signified in Zhu Yu unilaterally, Zhu Yu can't reach the truth he wants to express. The signifier and signified of Zhu language are split, alienated and ambiguous, so it is full of flexibility and vitality, and it is marked with personal style emblems everywhere. So different readers have different meanings. This is the result of metaphorical writing. Metaphorical writing is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it forms the writer's unique style, on the other hand, because of the existence of style, the interpretation of the works is also ambiguous. Kafka is an example of this. Similarly, Zhu's metaphorical writing, on the one hand, established his position as a unique stylist in China, on the other hand, hindered the spread, translation and interpretation of Zhu's thoughts. This is a dilemma that all people with strong personal writing style can't get rid of under the background of globalization.
Revealer of the ultimate truth
I just want to mention a title given to Zhu's identity by theologians, prophets, cultural cranes and other domestic media, which is what the late literary critic Hu Heqing called a "cultural dinosaur". Although this title is exaggerated, grotesque and proverbial, it touches the deep of Zhu's thought and tells three indisputable facts, which have to attract my attention: 1 Zhu has a wild temperament of an ancient philosopher, and this is the most precious part of his soul. Compared with our way of thinking, Zhu's thinking is wild. At present, this way of thinking only exists in a few excellent thinkers. Because of Zhu's unique way of thinking, it illuminates his own text and clearly reflects our sad face alienated by the so-called modern civilization.
At this point, I will briefly describe my understanding of wild thinking. I think wild thinking is a multi-valued logical axis thinking mode with sensibility, imagination and creativity. Levi Strauss said: "The characteristic of wild thinking lies in its non-temporality: it wants to grasp the world as a simultaneous and diachronic whole. And the knowledge it gets from this world is very similar to the two mirrors hanging on the opposite wall. It has established various mental systems similar to the world, thus promoting the understanding of the world. " ④ It is pointed out that LucianFreud's great talent lies in his mythical thinking. Mythical thinking is a tinker's job, and it needs to repair the welding myth on the basis of a huge and never alienated imagination. It was this non-temporal intuition that led LucianFreud to establish the discipline of psychoanalysis. Similarly, it is this non-temporal intuition that makes Zhu's text show a clear understanding of the world and establishes his "generalized hooliganism". ⑤ Some people laughed at Zhu's generalization of the word "rogue" as ignorance. Unfortunately, this is the truest portrayal of China society, which makes us very embarrassed. What he saw, we can't see. He understands, but we don't. When we lose our keen sense of the outside world, we lose our imagination and creativity. We only know how to cover up our paleness with memory accumulation, but we don't know how to observe, understand, create and imagine. ?
In the book The Birth of Faith, Zhu expounded his understanding of the Tao of Christ, Buddhism and Laozi, and classified each level of basic belief, intermediate belief and ultimate belief in Zhu style: (1) ultimate belief: absolute truth and its code of all metaphysical existence such as Tao and God; (2) Intermediate beliefs: mother, homeland, ancestors, nation, country, political party, power, all kinds of secular moral sources and their codes (such as dragons); (3) Basic beliefs: (also called instrumental beliefs) A. Reproductive organs, sex and its code; B. Currency, all objects defined by currency and its code.
What kind of belief is the ultimate belief? Someone once said that Zhu's ultimate belief is a vague belief. I think this is a misunderstanding of Zhu Shi's text. Obviously, Zhu Yu inherited the highly concise features of ancient Chinese. He never repeats his views, nor does he argue repeatedly. Zhu Yu is news about the future world. His "Song of Washing Feet", "Psychoanalysis of Rogues" and "Feast of Rogues" not only carry out cultural analysis, but also talk about these three values in the same strain. He is inspiring, but he doesn't judge. He guides, but doesn't make decisions. This is related to his concise temperament and profound insight into the word prophet: "In my opinion, those really great prophets, such as Jesus, Laozi and Buddha, have always been enlighteners, firmly providing people with real information and some ways to change this way. Only false prophets claim to be able to decide the fate of others and stride towards the glory of rapid decline. " ⑥
It is this that determines the essential difference between Zhu and Benjamin's texts. Benjamin belongs to Baudelaire's "idlers" in his own description. A good family environment in childhood, the awareness that the literati in the industrial age are going extinct, intentionally or unintentionally increasing the "production time" of their own words, and employers' lack of questioning about their products all lead them to spend a lot of time wandering the streets, observing the crowd, blending in with the crowd, and being lonely, noble and elegant leisure heroes in the crowd. 7 Zhu is obviously not. He walked at a fast pace, and wherever his eyes passed, he quickly captured the information he wanted to capture. He has no free time. He has a wider range of concerns. The only similarity between them lies in their poetic thinking and the establishment of a new genre in the field of criticism. When integrating into the crowd and observing the crowd, Zhu paid attention to the meaning of human existence and how to save himself and others in a harsh living environment. Benjamin thinks more about the significance of the existence of literati and the suicide gene implanted into urbanites in commercial society. Facing the traditional fracture and the huge ruins of tradition, Benjamin couldn't believe it, but Zhu was a true believer. Nietzsche announced that God had died and wanted to create another God: "The ultimate belief is that when there is only one person left in the world, he will draft a report on the future. It is this passion for self-help that helps believers overcome the limitations of existence and achieve the highest happiness described by individualistic theology. " Obviously, this is a new combination of existentialism philosophy and individualism theology, which not only contains the image of Sisyphus's tragic hero in Sisyphus myth, but also contains Zhu's great enthusiasm for individualism theology.
3 as an artist's critic
When Sontag recalled roland barthes, he once said that Bart was faced with a cigar box, and several viewpoints could be summarized. Zhu obviously has the gift of this kind of induction. As long as we are familiar with his writing, we can see that no matter what, who and what, in his pen, it is divided into two and three. If we say that the five inventions of the May 4th Newspeak Movement, the four basic principles of imperial violence aesthetics, the three historical semantics of women's breasts, and the power aesthetics of the pillars of the country are all handy, interesting and harmonious, they just have a unique perspective, clear organization and hit the nail on the head. Where does a person's powerful classification ability come from? I think it comes from his keen perception of beauty. Good aesthetics itself leads to the field of taxonomy. As a critic, his critical texts shine with rare artistic light, and as an artist, his works of art are full of roses. He made a double contribution to China's critical and literary circles. He blurred the boundary between critical text and artistic text, and established a new style for China literature. As an artist, I prefer to call him a critic.
For readers who can't interpret Zhu's critical texts, the Red Book of Memory published in 2007 is the best corridor to understand his artistic accomplishment. This book is full of wisdom and brilliance, with various genres: prose, essays, book reviews, avant-garde novels and poems. But they all involve a core, that is, the writing of Chinese characters itself. In the article War on the Bookshelf, Zhu talked about his views on China people's memory. "In this amnesia consumption paradise, memory is just a morbid reaction of strangers. But as time goes by, I realize more and more that an era that is simply misinterpreted needs to be repaired with my inner life experience. That's why I want to go back to history. " Obviously, in the face of a nation prone to amnesia and full of official literati who weave lace and sing hymns, Zhu tried to repair our riddled cultural memory system with his personal life experience. He used his rare writing skills to weave unique original Zhu-style prose: carving and reflection, lightness and heaviness, lyricism and speculation. This is an essay with explanatory power and wisdom. Just as Benjamin said Proust's writing characteristics, I must quote here: he "built a hive for his own thoughts in the hive of memory."
In the novel Beaker and Alchemy, we witnessed this novel written by Zhu for the first time. This wise man not only penetrated the secrets of language and thought, but also penetrated the openness and refusal to interpret fable novels. Handa miracle book is the novel that shocked me the most. In fact, it has surpassed some avant-garde works that were once called avant-garde novelists. The utopian place name "Handa" symbolizes a rare meaning. The novel is loaded with fable genre, but it shines with strange fairy tale brilliance. When the king holding Handa's secret leads his flying mouth step by step to the noose he wants to touch in prison, we will find that this story is anti-fairy tale. So what is the metaphor of "Handa"? Language? Society? Death? Redeem historical events? ..... It is open, but no one can explain it in detail. However, it is also related to national memory.
Sister is a group of poems that can be compared with Nie Luda's love poems. This group of poems is Zhu's deep appeal to the people he loves in China. In this group of poems, the rhetoric of lust and narration has reached a high degree of intertextuality. My sister's cry was long and piercing, shocking. Although he himself predicted the fate of China's "cecum" in the postscript, the eighth chapter of "Elder Sister", "My Brother's Evocation" reveals his existential heroic temperament like never back down and Sisyphus: "Sister, my eternal sister/you are sitting on the pillow, laughing like a flower". Obviously, the increasingly rubbish Chinese writing is the boulder he wants to move. I saw him pushing the boulder up the hill step by step, and his beloved "sister" was located in the depths of his soul and integrated with him. ?
4 Rebel against one's own rebels
An interesting fact can be seen from Zhu's current series of articles, such as Burning Labyrinth, Noisy Times, Lightning of Words, Feast of Rogues, Red Book of Memory and Analysis of Ancient Artifacts and Architectural Symbols: his language records the social changes in China from 1980 in Feast of Rogues. This change of discourse is obviously a slight compromise to readers for communication. His research objects range from ultimate value (a series of theological research texts such as the birth of faith, Asian pain and its resolution mode) to intermediate value (a series of intermediate value research texts such as Foot-washing Song and the Feast of the Prodigal Son involving country, homeland and power) to basic value (a series of research texts such as Yuling Psychoanalysis and National Column Power Aesthetics involving basic values). His voice is getting closer and closer, his words are getting clearer and clearer, and his thinking (from bottom to top) and research direction (from high to low) show interesting inverted images. I prefer to understand it as a self-sufficient balance of a more and more mature thinker, a retrospective reflection of a philosopher with a strong heart, and an external resistance to himself. In other words, this is the secret of Zhu's eternal youth in his writing: while deeply believing in the ultimate belief, he constantly adjusts his voice, language, viewpoint, posture and unfathomable way of thinking.
In an era when mediocrity dominates everything, most of the old pioneers of so-called knowledge, thought and literature either submit to ordinary people, or their creative vitality is exhausted and regressed to a surprising degree. Zhu, on the other hand, showed a reverse creation unique to talented young people, and became more passionate with the progress of the years. His thoughts are becoming more and more avant-garde and powerful, but he does not take the liberty of being radical, but always maintains an appropriate objective rationality. He is subversive, but not crazy. He simultaneously deconstructs and constructs. However, whenever people of the same age are faced with anything unprecedented, unique and far beyond their definition, they always like to go back to history and praise what they have found with a conventional sentence. If it is as beautiful as Helen, Balzac of China and so on. I don't admire this vulgar theory. I am waiting for such a day, which will be confirmed by people in the future: Look, this man, his works are like Zhu in China!
Excerpted from Zhu's The Burning Labyrinth.
Hannah arendt once praised Walter Benjamin as a "deep-sea pearl diver". See Arendt's Walter Benjamin.
See Collected Works of Hu Heqing.
See "Rhapsody" by Levi Strauss.
See Zhu's Feast of Rogues.
Excerpted from Zhu's The Birth of Faith.
See Walter Benjamin's Lyric Poet of Developed Capitalism.
Excerpted from Zhu's The Birth of Faith.