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Xi Muqing wore a blue and white cheongsam, and gave a speech on Capitol Hill in the United States, which was gentle and touching, and the "New York Times" and other media in the United States accompanied her speech photos and reported it on a full page. Many newspapers have discussed the decline of European civilization and the rise of Chinese and American civilizations, discussing which civilization represents the direction of human civilization in the future.

Before the First World War, Europe was undoubtedly considered the frontier of human civilization, especially after the Renaissance, and Europeans also regarded themselves as representatives of civilization. Especially in the 19th century, most British people were confident about the future. They have a complete belief in the progressive ideas that have been put forward since the Enlightenment thinkers, and that the future will be better than the present. Of course, the British are fully qualified and confident to have such an idea. The establishment of the "empire on which the sun never sets" caused the wealth of the world to flow to Britain, a superpower, similar to the United States today, dominating the earth.

The same is true for almost all of Europe, which, from 1500 onwards, became the center of the world at the beginning of globalization due to its growing military position and the miracles of the scientific and industrial revolutions. At that time, the entire world system was built around Europe. Such a position imbues Europeans with incomparable pride and self-confidence.

But since the outbreak of the First World War, as British Foreign Secretary Grey lamented, "The lights of Europe have been extinguished and will not be rekindled." ”

In the beginning, every country that started the war, Germany, England, France. Russia, Austria-Hungary, etc., their monarchs believed that they would be able to achieve victory in a short time, and that the war would soon be over. Mainstream society and the general public think the same way. So. At the beginning of the war, the people of all countries enthusiastically participated in the war. At the recruiting grounds, men flocked to the bar, fearing that the war would be over before they could join the army, and a joyous parade carried them to the front. At that time, a soldier wrote this poem to his friend:

When you get home

Please tell my fathers and folks

For their tomorrow

We are willing to dedicate ourselves to today

Such verses, how heroic and heroic! But when the war continued, Verdun in particular turned into a veritable "meat grinder". Hundreds of thousands of casualties were inflicted on Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Tsarist Russia, and other bloody and tragic sacrifices, especially Russia. In 1908 there were more than a million casualties. All kinds of weapons of destruction, beyond people's imagination. The huge number of deaths made them start to think about why they fought this war, and Britain and Russia launched a large-scale anti-war movement.

The Great War had a tremendous impact on the mentality of the entire intellectual class in Europe, leading to a widespread disappointment. Europe's elite and well-educated people began to reflect. Is European civilization really superior? When a thousand-year-old civilization can't withstand this bloody storm, something must have gone wrong with its culture! Are the science and democracy it claims to be flawless and good?

In the face of the tragic deaths, newspapers around the world invariably used the word "collapse" to describe the tragic situation. Those playful bullet casings and beautiful military uniforms used to be the innocent and romantic fantasy of a young man, but when his dream came true, he realized that war was not a battle between "good guys" and "bad guys" as he thought. The real war is brutal and explosive. Corpses, blood. Dead mothers and children, homes in ruins in the war, burned streets, and the bodies of children dug up from the rubble...... The young man's immature heart was slashed by the relentless reality of war. They witnessed the unprecedented massacre of mankind and found that war was far from the heroic cause they originally envisioned, running out of ammunition and food, killing each other, showing that human survival in extreme conditions was reduced to the cruelty of animal instinct, pushing the cruelty of war to the extreme, and the so-called "democracy", "glory" and "sacrifice" are all deceptive things. They are left with wounds in their hearts that cannot be healed.

Song Xiaofei reads the world's major newspapers every day, and he sees the criticism and reflection of European and American intellectuals on their own civilization, and he can't help but express his admiration for the critical tradition of European and American intellectuals. In the traditional Chinese political atmosphere, power is a blood-stained knife, and they are confined to the unspoken rule that "criticism is reactionary." Those opposing voices and different opinions that should not be said have become evidence of "smearing" and "attacking" have become evidence of the crime of "smearing" and "attacking", and the sprouts of fresh ideas have been covered by the "Yiyantang", and the sunshine of development and support cannot be seen. The motivation to continue to think deeply will be greatly inhibited. Over time, the vitality of thought, the enthusiasm of social development, and the wisdom of providing society with the spiritual strength to keep pace with the times may become empty talk, and China's 2,000-year-old traditional society has fallen into a dark swamp, unable to bloom the flowers of science and democracy, but power struggles, all kinds of mysterious and mysterious things, such as the five elements of yin and yang, are very noisy.

Song Xiaofei and Rong Rong then left Washington for a visit to Columbia University in New York. Columbia University's world-famous school with many great thinkers, and Rong Rong's alma mater, was founded in 1754 by King George II of the United Kingdom, which has a longer history than the founding of the United States, and aims to create the rulers of its colonies. This group came to be known as the "founding fathers" of the United States of America.

Columbia was originally founded near Wall Street in New York, near the financial district and city government, and is still home to the city government today. Later, when the school was expanded, it moved to downtown to the vicinity of what is now Rockefeller Center on 49th Street; In 1897, Columbia University finally moved to its present location on 116th Street on Broadway.

Before Song Xiaofei's visit to the United States, Rong Rong specially asked him to visit her alma mater and donated $500,000 on behalf of the Chinese government to fund the establishment of a Confucius Department at Columbia University. Let Americans understand China's traditional culture, Song Xiaofei felt that this was also a good thing, and agreed to her.

Columbia University has deep ties with China. At the turn of the spring and summer of 1901. A series of far-reaching events took place at Columbia University at that time, one of which was led by Ding Long, a Chinese worker from Guangdong, China, who was known as "Piggy" according to American custom. This poor Chinese worker, who never married all his life and was frugal, wanted to donate his life savings to a prestigious university in the United States, and begged it to open a department of sinology studies.

When someone donates money, American universities are generally happy to accept it, but this donation is conditional. It proposes to establish a department of sinology. In addition, how much money will be used to build a sinology department, this humble Chinese worker has no idea at all. He didn't go to school himself. The life savings were $12,000, which was a huge amount of money at the time, but it was far from being a big deal to establish an academic department at a world-renowned university. The third condition is even more important: it also depends on the person's character. Prestigious universities in the United States do not receive money from everyone who donates.

In order to use this donation to fulfill his wishes. Ding Long has been frugal all his life. Touched by his master, General Carpentier. Carpentier is an outstanding alumnus and benefactor of Columbia University, a trustee of Columbia University's School of Medicine and a girls' school, and he cherishes the commitment and friendship between master and servant.

In order to fulfill this wish of his servant, Carpentier mediated with the two presidents of Columbia University, and donated nearly $500,000 one after another, and even donated his own house in New York; When he established Columbia University's East Asian Department, he himself was dragged to the brink of bankruptcy and had to move back to his hometown in upstate New York to spend the rest of his life. This donation, which has lasted for many years, is unprecedented and even tragic. But at that time, Columbia University was still reluctant to name and set up a department after an unknown person like Ding Long. Carboniers insisted on naming the department after his servant Ding Long, otherwise he would have withdrawn his investment. The president of Columbia University compromised. As a result, Columbia University has always had Ding Long's Department of East Asian Studies.

Because Columbia University has a great relationship with Chinese, Columbia University welcomed Song Xiaofei's arrival. At Columbia University, Song Xiaofei also met with the famous American pragmatist philosopher, educator and psychologist John Murphy. Dewey. Song Xiaofei and this great philosopher, who is nearly 50 years old, had an in-depth exchange of the critical tradition and critical spirit of Western intellectuals.

After receiving his doctorate in 1884, Dewey taught at the universities of Michigan and Minnesota, and in 1886 he published the first textbook of psychology in the United States and Japan, which was very popular at the time. In 1894 he went to the University of Chicago for ten years, a period in which he had a major influence on psychology, and in 1904 he taught at Columbia University.

Song Xiaofei and Dewey met in a professor's office in the philosophy department of Columbia University. This office was assigned to Dewey by the academy, which was very ordinary, only about 20 square meters, and the two had an in-depth conversation, and Xi Muqing was also at the scene.

Song Xiaofei modestly asked Dewey for advice: "Professor Du, many Chinese officials now think that criticizing or criticizing China is to black China, what do you think of the critical spirit?" ”

Dewey said with a smile: "In fact, the critical spirit is one of the important signs of human civilization. Since human beings have possessed a critical spirit, it is as if they have mastered the fire of life stolen by Prometheus. It is this blazing fire that has powerfully promoted the continuous progress of human society. Whether a nation or a culture can establish a critical spirit in the true sense is the key to whether it can truly encourage innovation, social progress and development. Criticism is not quite the same as criticism. ”

Song Xiaofei asked: "You say that criticism is not the same as criticism?" ”

Dewey replied: "Yes, criticism is to stand on a higher level, to screen and examine history or reality, to analyze and dissect people or things, in order to discover and solve problems." Its ultimate goal is for better development, and its focus is on the broad future. Criticism also requires certain conditions. ”

Song Xiaofei asked, "What conditions?" Free speech? ”

"Yes." Dewey said: "Criticism also requires the intellectual's ideology, personality, and spiritual independence, and criticism must be logical!" We can't criticize indiscriminately. In fact, whether you admit it or not, the development of nature and human society is a grand process of criticism. Darwin's theory of evolution can be regarded as a critique of the development of biology on itself, but this critique has been naturalized and does not show its initiative and consciousness. The critique of human society is a relatively short process. The continuation of dynasties, the replacement of society, thank God, to this day is still a gradual process towards the high. Undoubtedly, all this is due to the existence of criticism. ”

Song Xiaofei said: "You have overtalked the meaning of criticism, right? No matter how great an intellectual is, his knowledge and experience are limited. It doesn't have to be the truth. Intellectuals often have some fatal conceit. ”

"Yes." Dewey said: "I did exaggerate the significance of the critical spirit just now, but criticism is the only weapon of intellectuals, and it is really an indispensable spiritual force in human society. Criticism has to confront both the high ruler and the ignorant ruled. The former holds the power of life and death, and the latter has a tidal wave of old-fashioned thinking and can also kill. This is how the difficult journey of criticism often begins. And these are not the most terrible enemies of criticism, the most terrible enemies of critics are the inferior roots of human beings, and there are many inferior roots of human beings, ignorance, jealousy, selfishness...... Sometimes prophets tend to be stoned to death. But human beings without a critical spirit are no different from puppets; A society without a critical spirit is a gathering place for sheep; A nation without a critical spirit is doomed to fall behind and be beaten; A person who does not have a critical spirit is not a person in the full sense of the word. ”

Song Xiaofei and Rong Rong listened and agreed with Dewey's opinion. After visiting Columbia University, Song Xiaofei felt that there were indeed many things in American culture, such as the spirit of criticism, which was worth learning from China, and he also began to consider the big issue of the innovation of Chinese civilization. He thought that science and democracy must be made part of Chinese civilization. He and Xi Muqing inspected the United States for a period of time to prepare for the reform after returning to China.

In this investigation, Song Xiaofei discovered a major flaw in Chinese civilization and modern society: because traditional Confucianism governed people almost everywhere in the form of rituals and other forms, several philosophical or intellectual histories, such as the Four Books and Five Classics, surpassed any other history, cultural history, economic history, and political history in the cultural and academic circles. However, people's modern life often needs law, economy, and civilized politics to reconcile various interests, and at this time, traditional thinking has moved towards abstract metaphysics far from the real economy. In other words, traditional Chinese civilization is not built from reality, but from the brains of so-called saints. To put it simply, the Chinese are accustomed to having an ideal society in their minds, and then using the so-called etiquette and morality to regulate all people's behavior, including economic behavior, in an attempt to establish a utopian moral society, but this moral society does not consider the various conflicts of interest of people in reality, and eventually becomes a source of water, a tree without roots, contradicting reality, everyone talks about morality and does not talk about the open rules of benefit distribution (often expressed in the form of law), and finally hypocrites prevail.

On the contrary, Americans are pragmatic, and people find that it is the real economy rather than ideology that leads the society, so that it dominates the driving force of politics, and economic activities have become the center of society and the focus of people's concerns, and the entire American culture comes from the norms of realistic interests, and it is a culture of rule of law, so American political science and economics are very developed. Everyone talks about open rules, and morality is greatly compressed in the personal sphere, and in the end, it is American culture, which proceeds from reality, and has a powerful power to absorb people's hearts. That's why Dewey's philosophy of pragmatism has been regarded as a benchmark by many Americans and shines!

In addition to Washington, New York, Columbia University, Song Xiaofei also went to many large companies, such as Mobil Oil Company, Ford Motor Company, headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, etc., the dense oil pipelines on the construction site, and the cars to be assembled on the assembly line in the workshop shocked Song Xiaofei, he strongly realized that modern industry, every screw, every assembly line, is the crystallization of human wisdom, and the industrial system is really not what those intellectuals can dream in their minds. We must emphasize the spirit of doing solid work. It's time to criticize the retreating tradition of Chinese traditional knowledge practitioners! (To be continued......)