Freedom and Creativity: Finding the Zeitgeist of the 20s

"Leave us an estate without a will."

Arendt opened his reflections in his book "Between the Past and the Future" with this verse by the French poet Renéchar. The French version of the title, translated as "Crisis of Culture", may be more appropriate. As Arendt explained: "A will tells the heir what is legally his, and bequeaths the wealth of the past to future generations." However, modern people have found that all the achievements of civilization in human society, as spiritual heritage, have never been There is a will that specifies only who can inherit. Whoever has the will and ability to inherit it belongs to him. For the once self-proclaimed "legal heir", this is a cultural crisis, and for all mankind, this is a unique gift from the new era: "Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find."

Mr. Wang Junxiu proposed to "search for the zeitgeist of the 1920s". In the past, it was not that the Chinese did not "seek". The so-called "modern China" may be most appropriate to begin with the Chinese people "searching for" modern civilization. Therefore, this is also a "search" that has continued since modern times. More than a hundred years ago, the Chinese found "Mr. De" and "Mr. Sai". After the New Culture Movement, "Mr. De" and "Mr. Sai" became the common aspiration and modernization goal of the Chinese people, and even the most frenetic period of the 1960s was carried out under the name of "Mr. De". This enthusiasm did not subside until the end of the 1980s, although the content of the demands was completely different. The market turn in the 1990s made more and more ordinary people taste economic freedom directly, and a new wave of scholars gathered under the name of "freedom" began to appear in the intellectual world. Hu Shi, who had a major influence in the process of introducing "freedom" in China, has once again entered the general public's field of vision. However, after the concept of freedom was introduced into China, it once appeared in the form of "the ethos of freedom". What it actually inherited was not the "freedom" of modern civilization, but the "ethos" of local culture. The Chinese really try to grasp the strict sense of “freedom as freedom itself”—that is, neither the “ethos of freedom” nor the “knowledge of freedom”, but “what freedom itself is”—to grasp "Freedom", or something after entering the twenty-first century. The publication of Professor Huang Yusheng's book "Truth and Freedom" in 2002 can be seen as one of the landmark efforts of the Chinese to grasp what "freedom" itself is in a purely academic sense. Huang Yusheng's doctoral advisor is Ye Xiushan, a widely respected scholar of the older generation in China. After experiencing decades of political movements in the Mao era, especially the interference of ideology-guided academic research, Mr. Ye seized the gap in the decline of ideology in the post-Mao era, re-doing "pure philosophy" and returning to the pursuit of "truth" of the Greek philosophical tradition. To a certain extent, it can be said that it has set a model for the latecomers of Chinese academia to get rid of the influence of non-academic factors. In his own research, Huang Yusheng proposed to replace "truth" with "freedom" as the core concept of pure philosophy. After some discussion, Mr. Ye Xiushan later agreed with this point of view, and recognized that this is a "nuclear bomb-level concept". A "nuclear bomb-level concept" can only demonstrate its great effect, and the "freedom as freedom itself" argument made for this purpose actually has a far-reaching and solid impact. Because the so-called "freedom as freedom itself" argument, as one of the typical argumentation methods in the history of thought, separates "freedom" from all human subjective wishes, and stands on its own. Thus, no one can shake it anymore. Undoubtedly, the humanities and social sciences re-established on the basis of such self-established concepts, especially, will be the most solid and reliable compared to those "freedoms" that follow the trend with the change of the old and the new.

Since the concept of "freedom" has connected with the traditions of ancient Greek and Christian civilizations, it has gradually gained a firm foothold in the academic world. In 2016, young scholar Li Wenqian commented on a new book by Professor Huang Yusheng with the title of "Defending the Absolute Priority of Freedom", showing that the younger generation of scholars began to connect with the argument of "freedom itself" with a full consciousness of freedom. . In the story of Abraham, the "father of faith" of human civilization, God promised Abraham that as long as there were ten righteous people, he would not destroy the sinful city. Although the "ten righteous people" are few, in today's terms, they already have the generality of sociological significance, and they may be linked together forever. Similarly, Li Wenqian's article connects Huang Yusheng's "freedom" and is fully aware of the "absolute priority of freedom". Not only Li Wenqian, but a generation of outstanding young scholars are gathering under the "absolute priority of freedom", using this "freedom" in the absolute philosophical sense as the foundation for their different researches, so that "freedom" "Being able to take root in this land called China.

The world is changing, and the 1920s are in a trance. In the Sino-US trade dispute, "innovation" has become a hot word among the Chinese population, and it is also a lingering heart disease. In an era when the Chinese people want to innovate, what we should do is to ask the most fundamental question about "innovation" itself, just like asking about "freedom", which is the key to inheriting the spiritual heritage of human civilization.

In fact, "innovation" is far from a simple policy, or a social order issue that is more difficult to grasp, and even its origin itself gathers the essence of the heritage of several major human civilizations. We know that what people call "the West" today refers to the region that inherited the Greco-Roman civilization. Both Greece and Rome are located in the Mediterranean region, but the successors of their civilizations are not necessarily Mediterranean natives: "the heritage left to us does not carry any will", whoever tries hard to find it will get it.

"Innovation", as a social order, comes from the "creation order" that matured in the Middle Ages. Greco-Roman civilization merged with Christian civilization. In the early days of Christianity, there was a dispute between "power" and "will" over the nature of God. Rome's conversion to Christianity, and then its fall, hardly explains the "power" of God. Augustine believed that people violated God's "will" and did evil, which led to the plundering of Rome. Since then, Christianity has emphasized "free will" from God's "will", but in reality it has not reflected God's "power". Christian society was increasingly weak and was repeatedly looted in the first half of the Middle Ages. Later, the rise of Islam took the lesson of Christianity's lack of "power" and showed its power through "jihad". Spurred by Islam and infested by pagans, Christianity developed a scholastic theology that responded to the question of "mighty power." Unlike Islam's "jihad" which resorts to violence, scholastic theology relies on "order": the "order of creation." Since then, "individual freedom" derived from God's "will" and "creation order" derived from God's "mighty power" have provided Christian civilization more than everything else in the world at the micro and macro levels. Civilizations have the foundation of absolute superiority.

Academic circles have noticed that modern civilization does not have original ideas of its own, and all modern ideas can find their counterparts in scholastic theology. In other words, all modern thought is but a product of the secularization of scholastic theology. The highest achievement of scholastic theology is precisely "individual freedom" and "creative order". The "Freedom and Creation" that came through the secularized scholastic theology of the European Enlightenment is the highest spiritual achievement known to all human civilizations so far. Whether Mr. De, Mr. Sai, or all other modern achievements can be found in "Freedom and Creation" They can find their positions under the general framework of “freedom and creation”, so as to absorb and digest the achievements of the entire human civilization in one piece and one by one.

For more than 100 years, the Chinese have always been searching for the most precious heritage of human civilization, no matter how the regime changes. In the first half of the 20th century, "socialism" once became a trend in the world and was considered to be the most progressive direction. China introduced it; in the second half, "market economy" led the development of the global economy and was considered to be the victory for the United States. The magic weapon for winning the Cold War was introduced by China. Who can say that China is conservative? The spiritual wealth of all human civilizations has not been designated who can inherit it. A hundred years of "searching", the time has come. In the 1920s, when "freedom" has taken root in China, and in the 1920s when "innovation" opened the call of the times, "freedom and creation" are within reach, why not "see it"?