Wei Zhengtong (December 1927 – August 5, 2018), male, from Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province. A well-known scholar, philosopher and politician in Taiwan, he was a university professor and one of the founders of the Cheng Society of Taiwan's ideological society. Wei Zhengtong has published more than 30 academic monographs on philosophy, thought and culture. In the early 1980s, Wei Zhengtong launched a nearly one-million-word "History of Chinese Thought" in Taiwan, which received widespread attention from philosophical circles on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. This article is from the speech delivered by Mr. Wei Zhengtong at the "Great Lecture on Humanistic Quality" at Southeast University.
I chose such a speech theme, the main hope is to cause young friends to think about this kind of problems such as life, hoping to provide you with a macro indicator of the meaning and value of life. The problems of life are complex and often concrete. Everyone's life situation is different, the goal is different, the family background is different, the social class is different, and the problems we encounter are naturally very different, so the specific problems of life are always solved by ourselves, and we can only solve them by ourselves. What I am talking about today tends to be general issues, and I hope that there will be some reference value for you.
1. What kind of life is meaningful
Today you may ask me, in my personal experience, an eighty-year-old man looks back on the past, what is my pursuit in life? To tell you the truth, when I was as young as you, I never thought about how big a house I would have, how good a car I would have, or how much silver I would have to save. When I was young, I thought that I would have to fulfill two aspirations in my life: first, I would have the money to buy any book I wanted to read; second, I would be able to go anywhere I wanted to go. This, of course, can only be achieved on the premise that there are no problems in basic life. Today, these two wishes of mine have basically been realized, which is also invisibly in line with the ideal of "reading thousands of books and walking thousands of miles" as the ancient Chinese said. For the ancients, it was very difficult to realize these two wishes, especially the "journey of ten thousand miles", but now it is much easier.
In today's day and age, we have many more opportunities than in the past, but the competition is also more intense than in the past. Some people say that the law of market economy and society is the "law of the jungle", and the competition is very cruel and fierce. When you set foot in society and really encounter difficulties, no one can effectively help you, and the difficulties in work, life, including feelings, etc. need to be faced by yourself. Therefore, there is an old Chinese saying: "Without a thing, there is no long wisdom." "Every human wisdom is honed from experience.
What kind of attitude should we take in the face of the difficulties that may be encountered in the "survival" stage? Nowadays, many young people want to enjoy it as soon as they enter society and as soon as they find a stable job. Such an attitude is more dangerous. I suggest a healthier attitude, that is, don't ask for anything at the beginning, we hope that next year will be better than this year, and the next year will be better than next year, and gradually better. The pursuit of extremely rich enjoyment at once is very risky. Once you have a problem with your work, or something else goes wrong, your whole being is in difficulty, and your life may be completely over. Therefore, in the process of pursuing economic independence, the attitude is very important, and we hope to gradually improve, and take the road of life in a down-to-earth and steady manner. It's also a life experience of mine.
In today's society, if we don't have too many ties regardless of our family background, then our range of choices is simply too wide. Most people attach importance to the economy, but with the in-depth development of the market economy, some people have a very contempt for materials. There are even girls in Taiwan who, after graduating from college, run to the mountains and forests to live a life like Tao Yuanming. Therefore, people today have too many possibilities, and they don't necessarily have to live that way. You can reject modern civilization, and not everyone is after money.
Is money really omnipotent? In fact, there are people who have wealth but cannot survive, and one of them is because they lack the meaning of life. So when we talk about the meaning of life, we hope that when we encounter setbacks in life, under the call of meaning or ideals, we can make our lives active. A person is alive, has more wealth, has a lot of fame, and at a certain stage, you have suffered setbacks, you may not live. If you have a sense of meaning, you are full of enthusiasm for the pursuit of the meaning of life, you will not feel despair of life, and no matter how difficult it is, you will survive.
2. How to realize the value of life
The second level of meaning in life is "life." This involves the question of meaning, close to the pursuit of a relatively high meaning of life. At the level of "life", our pursuit of life is still the ancient three categories, which are nothing more than: seeking truth, seeking beauty, and seeking goodness. As far as we can imagine at the moment, in a few thousand years, the pursuit of basic meaning in life may still be in this direction. There is infinite complexity here, but the general direction should not change.
The so-called "truth-seeking" is the most important function of creating knowledge. All human knowledge can probably be included in the three categories of natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Today we speak not from a professional standpoint, but from whether a person can maintain the interest and pleasure of "learning". Everyone is born with this curiosity, and if human beings do not have this curiosity, knowledge will not develop greatly. Whether a person's curiosity can be satisfied in childhood has a certain relationship with the strength and weakness of his ability to seek truth in the future. The more curiosity is satisfied in childhood, the more confident children will be in their future in their truth-seeking.
Here I would like to mention by the way the difference between two concepts, one is "knowledge" and the other is "information". Now the network is very rich in content, and the search is also very convenient, but the most important thing that the network gives us is a kind of information, that is, to give us a lot of indexes on knowledge. What is knowledge? Knowledge must have a process of argumentative reasoning, it must be systematic, which information cannot provide. Systematic knowledge is not much on the Internet, and important classics are even less common on the Internet. We must know that there is a difference between knowledge and information, and we must be familiar with some classic works. The so-called "classic" is the good thing that has been preserved after hundreds of thousands of years of accumulation, elimination and filtering of time. Such things are helpful for your curiosity and personality.
In addition to "seeking truth", let's talk a little bit about "seeking beauty". The important function of seeking beauty is to create beauty and enrich life. What is offered to us in this respect is literature, music, dance, opera, and so on. If we develop an interest in these aspects and develop a hobby all our lives, this is very noble. A qualified citizen must also be good in literature and art. A great city, a great country, must have a lot of theaters, a lot of music, a lot of theater, all kinds of dances. In the city we can visit various museums.
The so-called "seeking goodness" is the most important function of making people conform to the most basic moral norms of human society. Human society must have the most basic norms, without which the social order cannot be maintained. The norms representing religious morality in this regard are, in principle, there is no ancient and modern, new and old, and society and knowledge can change with each passing day, but the basic moral norms of human society are needed as long as there are still people. As the times progress, we will add some new norms, but some of the old norms will still work. For example, the "benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, and wisdom" that we Confucians talk about are collectively called the "four ends", and with a "letter", it is the "five constants". The norms that traditional Chinese society has been practicing for more than two thousand years are these five aspects.
In terms of personal goodness, whether or not we can abide by the basic norms of "benevolence, righteousness, wisdom and faith" has nothing to do with wealth, power, and learning, these are just the most basic principles of human beings. We can still see a lot of people who don't have much education and no money, who are very simple, very honest, very generous.
3. "Although it cannot be reached, the heart yearns for it"
The third level of meaning in life is the "life" stage. This level is far from most of us, isn't it unimportant? No. Precisely because it is the most important, we must raise the question of life to a high level. Jesus famously said, "I am the truth, I am the way, I am life." "This is raising life to the height of man's ultimate value. That's what I mean by "life" here. A great nation must have a great creative, creative, and great personality in the "life" aspect. Otherwise, it will not easily become a great nation. This creative great personality can be divided into two categories: moral religion and non-moral religion. In the category of moral religion, ancient history has an axial period of civilization, during which several great people were born in the world. Confucius in China, Shakyamuni in India, Jesus in the Hebrews, etc., all appeared in those hundreds of years and have been regarded as moral and religious greats for a long time in history. Creative great personality, is there any in modern times? In terms of religious morality, Theresa May, the Catholic nun of India, the nobel peace prize winner, was a great humanitarian, a modern saint who served the poor all her life. Mother Teresa spent her life there serving the poor, for the sick, for the disabled, and she did something ordinary, but her soul was too great. People like her have nothing in wealth, but her religious spirit has touched the whole world. There was a nun in Taiwan named Master Cheng Yan, and her influence in Taiwan was very large, with millions of believers, politicians visiting her, and some of them kowtowing to her. She is very ordinary in appearance, and she does not have the high attainments of Buddhism, but she embodies the Buddhist spirit of compassion, and her love knows no borders. It is a spiritual force. A great nation, different times always have to appear such a creative great personality, in order to continue the spirit of the nation.
There are many such figures as non-religious morality. If a nation wants to be great, it must have great artists, great writers, great musicians, and great philosophers. I think the most accomplished things about Chinese culture are literature and art. In terms of philosophy, we in China are relatively limited in terms of Western standards, because the difference between Chinese philosophy and Western philosophy is very large. Western philosophy favors precise conceptual definitions, clear logical reasoning, rigorous rational arguments, etc., while Chinese philosophy is weaker in this regard. Chinese philosophy is very different from western philosophy, which focuses on spiritual cultivation, whether it is Confucianism or Taoism, there is such a bias. Western philosophy has little to do with spiritual cultivation (with the exception of theology), focusing on abstract theories and logical thinking. Therefore, Westerners once believed that there was no philosophy in China, and Chinese Confucians and Taoists were not regarded as philosophies in the West. Most of the studies of Chinese philosophy are arranged in the East Asian department, not in the philosophy department. China did not produce philosophers with great influence throughout modern times, and it is relatively lacking in this regard. However Chinese in the fields of literature and art, his attainments are very high, he has his own characteristics, and he is also respected by Westerners.
For such creative great personalities, whether religiously moral or immoral, we must learn to respect them. While we respect them, we also invisibly improve ourselves. The identification with these creative great personalities will make our own lives different, and our realm will be improved, no longer vulgar. I hope that each of us will be able to do as Sima Qian said, "Although we cannot arrive, our hearts yearn for it." If there are two great creative personalities living in your heart, this life will make you constantly feel innerly moved, and can constantly inspire you.