Fight violence with humanity

Let me tell you a story.

A few years ago, I worked as a teaching assistant for undergraduate students. Just started to do this kind of thing, with little experience but with endless ideas and enthusiasm, I have done a lot of "social experiments" that can be regarded as performance art, of which what makes me feel the most is an iron box.

in the first class of the semester, I asked the students to think about the question "Why read the classics". Write down the answers by hand, write them down and put them in the iron box I prepared in advance. I solemnly sealed the box in front of them, tied it with a red ribbon, and promised them to bury the box in a safe place and dig it up and give it back to them at the end of the semester.

time usually passes much faster than we expected or expected. A few papers countless coffees passed, and when I was experienced enough to realize how naive this kind of "experiment" seemed, the semester was coming to an end. I found the box (I didn't bury it. The sense of ritual is very important, really important, but I am more afraid that the school will accidentally dig the lawn and destroy it. I will answer back to the students. In the last class, I asked them to tell me that after going through thousands of difficulties and dangers, after losing love and escaping from class and failing to pass the prize, after spending so much time pulling my hair in the library, I can't see why this classic is a classic. What do you think of the original text after spending so much time pulling your hair and failing to see why this classic is a classic?

can you guess what the most answer is?

"soft heart".

some people talk about how to experience a painful lovelorn and understand the painful but calm tone of a poem for the first time, saying that reading is always unable to see the need for many details, and it is only after emotional twists and turns that they find that time and space will indeed grow bigger and bigger, coupled with the repeated carving and construction of memory, the details can not be too detailed. Some talk about how reading allows you to look at things from a different perspective and understand people who have previously been ignorant or emotional. What impressed me most was the story of a girl. Her brother was killed in a car accident during the semester. She found his diary when she was packing up her belongings. She bought all the books listed in her brother's diary and wanted to read, and installed more than half of the cabinets. Every time you are in pain, you take it out to read one book, and every time you read one, the pain in your heart is reduced by one point.

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everyone says that classics come in all sorts of strange forms, some are concise and some are obscure, and some have pulled out their hair and can't see why it is a classic, but the more you read it, the softer your heart seems to be. the more you can perceive things and emotions that you can't perceive, sensitive, gentle, broad.

this is not a chicken soup story. I don't want to persuade you to believe in the beauty and tenderness of the world at all. On the contrary, the world is full of injustice and humiliation, misery and anger, full of violence: in the information age, artificially distorting information and forcing a carefully concocted map of the sea of fire into the hands of the helmsman, how can the ship not sink? In the police society, public power and self-interest are combined into a vicious circle, which is interlinked and repeated, and individual rights are like thin ice in the sun. "Quis custodiet Ipsos custodes", who will supervise the "Watchman"? In the post-totalitarian era, Leviathan has broken through the paper line of defense set by Hobbes in an all-around way.

in such a world, I need to participate. I can't degenerate into an indifferent or extreme existence in a cramped environment, but I don't want to become a violent person in the struggle. Nietzsche said, "Don't fight with monsters, or you will become monsters, too." When you stare at the abyss, the abyss stares at you. "I don't want to be a violent person.

it seems impossible to talk about softness in a violent environment; words such as humanistic classics that improve people's souls sound like vulgar platitudes. We have too many urgent difficulties to solve, under the heavy pressure of survival, where can there be room for a "soft heart"? We are faced with television, movies, newspapers, and magazines, drooling culture, vigorous consumerism has become a pervasive "white noise" in every corner, who cares about the "soft heart"?

some people say that talking about humanities is a scholar-style mistake to the country. "Revolution is not a treat to dinner, not writing articles, not painting embroidery, not so elegant, so leisurely, so gentle." this is true of whoever revolutionizes his life, conservative or free, and the idealists are never afraid of bloodshed and sacrifice. Others joked, "it's too late to explain getting in the car." the boat missed the night voyage, and the blind man was blind, unable to vote with his hands, not with his feet. The "national" identity is originally a random distribution of reincarnation, how can there be moral obligations and ethical restraint, in exchange for a blue sky and clear water, life still has to go on.

but where can you escape?

you say, "I'm going to another country, another coast",

find another city better than here.

whatever I do, it always backfires.

and my heart is buried, like a dead thing.

how long can my exhausted thoughts last in this place?

wherever I turn, no matter where I look,

all I see are the black ruins of my life. Here,

I have wasted a lot of time, and many years have been destroyed by me.

you won't find a new country, you won't find another coast.

this city will follow you forever.

you will walk to the same street, aging

in the same residential area, white-haired in these same rooms.

you will end up in this city forever. Don't expect anything else:

there is no boat carrying you, and there is no way for you.

since you are here, wasting your life in this little corner,

you have destroyed it anywhere in the world.

("The city

Aristotle has long said that a good city-state makes a good man, and an evil city-state makes an evil man. (C)

Aristotle has long said that a good city-state makes a good man, and an evil city-state makes a bad man. We are accustomed to the fact that our souls are full of water plants before we are sane. Many people go through the pain of peeling skin and cutting bones to root out the marks of totalitarianism reflected on themselves one by one, and there are many scars; many people even do not know that their souls are already overgrown with weeds, but they are still "alive and lively" and think they are living a chic and unrestrained life. You and I must be one of the two diseases embedded in evil politics.

what should I do? What kind of experience should it be if we are willing to choose a path that confronts violence but avoids becoming another source of violence in the process of fighting violence? Let's re-examine our souls. In this stable, prosperous, and violent era, stop and look at and reflect on it from a different perspective.

this is not an inspirational story. I don't want to tell you that doing so will create the pinnacle of your life, win you more money and more honor. On the contrary, it means choosing to fight the cruelest evil with the softest heart, which is very difficult, very tired, very painful, and most of the time, like me, you may feel that you can't hold on any longer, want to be angry, want tit for tat, want to criticize everything. Want to give up.

but if we are willing to give ourselves a chance to choose an alert, attentive vision, a sober, painful but real world, and a "soft heart", we may be able to find a little bit of freedom and dignity in a society where the space is so cramped that there is no backbone. If we are willing to "fight violence with humanity", then we may be able to break into the starry blue firebug cave in the long and difficult process of exploration, allowing the long-curled soul to stretch out wantonly.

I don't want to be a violent person, and I hope you're not.

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