Ge Lixiong
There are quite a few articles in the media about reading books, but a considerable part of them are misleading. For example, some people advocate happy learning and Xi, in general, reading is happy, but reading cannot only be happy, some boring books should also be read. Some people also say that books should be written so that everyone can understand, but this view is also not correct, some scientific principles or esoteric ideas are difficult to write for everyone to understand, and Yangchun Baixue is destined to be a minority.
Literary history says that Bai Juyi writes poems that are easy to understand, even old ladies can understand them, and "The Charcoal Seller" may be understandable.
Can you understand "Song of Long Hatred"?
Some people say that the development of disciplines has changed from complex to simplified, and now it is an era that requires erudition, which is not true
How should we read books? If you want to be knowledgeable, you must first be clear about the field and level you are looking for, and then you should go to find the most suitable book, and don't read the all-encompassing book, that time has passed. Nowadays, the number of books, whether on paper or digital, is far beyond the capacity of an individual, even if you have the ability to read a thousand lines. In the past, "five cars of learning and wealth" was used to praise a person for being good at learning, but now I am afraid that fifty cars are not enough. In ancient times, the carriage was a horse-drawn carriage, an ox cart, and a small board cart, and the book was a handwritten copy of silk pieces and bamboo slips. In the past, literature, history, philosophy, mathematics, physics and chemistry were divided into many branches, so we should learn to choose when reading.
It's not just about the choice of type, it's about how much you want to know yourself. Some people say that the development of disciplines has changed from complex to simplified, and now it is an era that requires erudition, which is not true. Erudition is not rambling, but knowledge of other disciplines as needed on the basis of a comprehensive and thorough grasp of the major. Now some people blame "PhDs are not PhDs", which is a misunderstanding of the goal of doctoral training. In fact, "doctor" only uses the existing term in Chinese history to translate "PHD", which does not mean that the doctor really wants to "doctor". Ph.D. should specialize, go and look at the topic of the doctoral dissertation, you will know that the Ph.D. all over the world is doing very detailed topics.
Nowadays, some papers are not at the level of research, but simply repeated
The second purpose of reading a book is research. Nowadays, some papers are not at the level of research, but simply repeated. A student once told me that he had made a new discovery, but in fact he had already seen it. There is nothing wrong with this kind of research as academic training, but there is a problem with it as a research result. In the past, we did some research that was duplicated with foreign countries, and there was a high-sounding reason - we couldn't read their books. But you can't say that now, because it's all available online. If you don't check but boast that it's a new discovery, it's plagiarism. Therefore, the first thing I ask graduate students to do is to collect the work of their predecessors and write clearly in the introduction or preface what they have done. This requires us to read a book exhaustively. Not only to look, but also to try to find the original version, and with the new version to pay attention to what additions or revisions it has. Some people have studied a book for a long time and have formed prejudices, but the author actually revised it last year, and some mistakes have long been corrected.
In the process of reading, opportunism often has consequences. Some people will perpetuate academic mistakes for a long time, and some people will consciously or unconsciously violate academic norms. There is a professor in Fudan who was criticized by a gentleman in Beijing for plagiarism and academic misconduct. I disagree with some of them, saying that he plagiarized himself, and that some of the content came out today and tomorrow. I think it depends, and if society needs it, it's right, and of course he should write it clearly. There is evidence in the article that he indirectly quoted an article and wrote that he cited the original text, and the problem arises: the book he quoted mistakenly translated "Dover Strait" as "street" and translated it as "Dover Street". If he honestly quoted it from secondary sources, there would be no problem, but he had to lie, so he was asked, "Is your English level so poor as a doctor from Fudan University?" But at least you should check the original text, and you don't check the original text, and you deserve to make mistakes.
The real skill lies not in reading books, but in understanding the social facts behind them
It is often said that you have a great ability to study history, and you can understand all ancient texts. But I will tell him that the real skill is not to understand the book, but to understand the social facts behind the book. No matter how difficult it is to understand the literal texts of ancient texts, the level will be the same, but why can someone see through some social phenomena through words and come to conclusions that no one expects but thinks are reasonable? This depends not only on reading books, but also on whether he can read society. For example, now that Chiang Kai-shek's diary is open, it records that he once wanted to go to a brothel when he was young, but he couldn't help but go there, and his problems are still written fairly and fairly, and now I feel very real when I read it. But is Chiang Kai-shek's diary really 100 percent true? Some people have compared the diary with history and found that sometimes important events happened in history, but he did not write a word in the diary. Therefore, in the study of history, it is not enough to rely on books alone, but also to examine society.
It is impossible to go to ancient times to investigate the study of history, but if you understand today's Chinese society, it is easy to understand the traditional Chinese society. I studied population history and found that "population" involves many strange phenomena. During the Song Dynasty, the average number of people per household in the country was only 2.65 at most, and only 1.4 at the lowest. 1.4 people are simply unable to form a family, and the average person is single, is this possible? Later, after careful study, it was found that this data was reported to the central government as the basis for paying taxes, so of course the smaller the population, the better. But when they applied to the central government for disaster relief, each family had more than five people. At present, at every census on the mainland, the State Council will also issue a circular urging everyone to seek truth from facts, and those who voluntarily declare their household registration will not be punished again. In this way, there is no difference between ancient times and present. Therefore, reading books should also be combined with society and understand society. The ancients said that "reading 10,000 books, traveling 10,000 miles", you have to go out to understand the society, and reading will be useful.