Generation Z Artists

Chapter 117 I am my own God

For the first time in his life, Zhao Yao witnessed the true value of the mainland's top writers.

The verbal battle is sharp, the pen is like a knife, it cuts out the heart and lungs, and it shakes the soul.

It’s not that there are no quarrels in Hong Kong. On the contrary, there are quarrels in newspapers and on the radio every day. But people who watch them regularly know that the language used is the most vulgar and vicious in the world. But anyone with a discerning eye can see that it is petty.

Fang Xinghe was different. The more Zhao Yao thought about it, the more he could appreciate his grand and sharp side.

The perspective is grand, the knife technique is sharp, pressing down heavily and then cutting in precisely, it is simply irresistible.

So Zhao Yao was shocked and angry, happy and panicked. For a moment, he was overwhelmed with mixed feelings and couldn't sit still.

The air was silent for a long time.

Fang Xinghe saw that Zhao Gulas's face turned pale and blue, and he was obviously furious, but he was reluctant to express it, so he picked up the teacup and raised it to the other party.

It was a friendly gesture, but when the 15-year-old did it to the 45-year-old Zhao Yao, it seemed like a new kind of humiliation.

Tea, please.

It’s okay if you can’t speak in my home court. I’ll give you some time to calm down.

Zhao Yao's head buzzed again. Fang Xinghe's movements were graceful and relaxed, and his strong sense of rhythm reflected an indescribable demeanor. It was hard to explain what was beautiful about it, but it just looked good.

However, this kind of coolness of being in complete control of the situation was based on crushing himself, which made him even more defensive.

and so……

Zhao Yao suddenly made up his mind to do his best in this interview.

Arrogance, superiority, looking down on the mainland, and being proud of having received elite Western education are all manifestations of personality, not ability.

In terms of real ability, Zhao Yao is not only not bad, but also extremely clear-headed.

What supports a strong sense of professionalism and the ambition to climb up the career ladder?
It's the results.

It should be presentable and have real achievements that can be seen above.

Any grievance without any real results is a useless emotion that is not worth mentioning.

So, while being angry, he tried his best to keep up with Fang Xinghe's rhythm, using the other party's humiliation to ask more profound questions.

"Ouch...it hurts."

Zhao Yao rubbed his cheeks and exhaled, showing weakness in order to establish a communication atmosphere of "dealing with the matter, not the person".

"As much as I hate to admit it, there is a small part of what you said that is absolutely correct.

According to statistics from the people I have personally come into contact with over the years, it is true that the background characters of Chinese people born in the mainland, Hong Kong Island, and overseas are really different.

Every overseas Chinese who has grown up to a certain age in the mainland generally has some deeply rooted cultural imprints.

For example, when I am not speaking Cantonese or English, or when I am writing, I particularly like to use idioms.

Now if we think about it carefully, idioms are also a kind of cultural force that is unique to us. They are more concise and clear than Western slang and colloquialisms, and are more penetrating and impactful.

My colleagues from Hong Kong Island speak in a more wild and friendly style with their colloquial dialect.

This is a very obvious difference, a difference in cultural core.

Fang Xinghe, you are more talented than I thought. I suddenly began to place higher hopes on today's interview."

The whole paragraph is an echo, albeit a limited one, but the meaning conveyed is very clear.

Fang Xinghe perked up and felt that things were starting to become interesting.

There is no doubt that Zhao Gulas is a typical elite of the current era.

His vision is limited by the times and his character is full of prejudices, but his personal qualities are not bad and he can clearly distinguish the priorities.

Only by talking to such people can you come up with the most interesting things.

"I'm sorry, I like to tell the truth."

Fang Xinghe apologized sincerely, then smiled easily: "Then shall we continue?"

"OK, go ahead."

Zhao Yao nodded very seriously, then got back to the point word by word.

"The distinction between the essential differences between Eastern and Western civilizations based on the core idea of 'man can conquer nature' is indeed insightful and thought-provoking.

There are many good points in Western religious beliefs, but there are also some awkward points that are difficult for us mainlanders to understand. When I was studying at a Christian school, I often thought about a question:

What is the practical value of faith?
Yes, I don’t like to think about grand ultimate philosophical propositions such as “the meaning of faith”. I prefer to be pragmatic.

And this question happens to correspond to the idol remarks you made some time ago.

So I would like to ask you to talk about this issue. How do you view faith? Where is the foothold? How to combine it with your own behavior in reality? "

Fang Xinghe raised his eyebrows and asked instead of answering: "Why did you avoid the more natural revenge speech and ethnic topics?"

Zhao Yao responded calmly, "Because there are some established facts that are difficult to discuss from that perspective. You know, Time is ultimately just a business magazine. I'm not sure if we should publish your more extreme answers, and whether the response will be good or bad after publication, so I decided to leave it for later."

This attitude is very frank. With overly hateful remarks, Times does not want to take the risk of eating into that kind of heat.

Fang Xinghe was completely certain with this answer that Zhao Yao really wanted to do a good job in this interview - even if it meant throwing his face under his feet, but making money was not shameful.

"Okay, I understand. Let's do it one by one."

Fang Xinghe cleared his throat, glanced at the 75 points of speech skill on the panel, and decided to restrain his desire to perform.

Calm down and have a deep conversation instead of being passionate.

"Times" is not a magazine for ordinary fans. Fang Xinghe also wants to influence those elite readers who have a broad influence.

“My understanding of faith is relatively broader. If you separate the two words, what you believe in and what you admire are generally the conventional interpretations of this concept by ordinary Chinese people.

In fact, for us Chinese, what we believe in and what we admire is a very free thing, right?
Believe in Buddhism or Taoism.

Worship any god in the world you want.

So I see that the West is criticizing us Chinese for having no faith. Many public intellectuals always praise Hegel, who wrote that Chinese civilization is in its historical infancy, with only pragmatic morality and a lack of "transcendent religious beliefs", and is therefore a low, stagnant and backward civilization.

This has led to many outrageous remarks, which continue to this day.

A few days ago, I read a new article by Lie Yanshan in the newspaper, saying that the Chinese are too secular, materialistic and calculating, and seriously lack the spiritual power for social change, which is why they are beaten back step by step by the higher powers of Europe, America, Japan and South Korea in the cultural field. It is ridiculous and sad.

It all comes down to one thing: Chinese people do not have devout religious beliefs.

The word "faith" in English comes from the original text of a certain scripture: "the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." I can't remember which book it is, but the meaning is the same.

Other sects also strictly define faith as "wholehearted acceptance of God and doctrine", which is both the essence of piety and the biggest difference between Eastern and Western civilizations in the core of philosophy.

The essence of this matter is very simple - the seemingly democratic, free and civilized West has deprived its people of the "basic human rights" to believe and admire whatever they want due to the long-term rule of monotheism.

It's counterintuitive, isn't it?
Human rights in the West are not innate, but are given by God. You can only take what God has promised to you. If you want to fight for the freedom that God has not promised you, then you are the fallen angel Lucifer, a devil who will sink in hell forever.

Now let's take a deeper look. Why? Why is this happening?

Because Europe before the Middle Ages was vast and sparsely populated, transportation was inconvenient, information was difficult to transmit, and the people were all illiterate, there was no basis for establishing dynastic rule. Therefore, the famous feudal system was born, which used the method of sharing power to ensure the most basic rule.

But the fiefdom was still not enough. The lowest-level viscounts and barons still found it too difficult to manage the villages and towns under their jurisdiction, and the highest-level dukes and kings were also troubled by various management difficulties.

As a result, the religion that had already been born gradually became the most handy management tool for the rulers.

You don't have to look at me like that, you heard me right, yes, that's what I meant -

It was never God who created Western civilization, but the rulers of Western civilization from generation to generation created their own gods..."

The light sound hit Zhao Yao's chest, causing his breathing to stop, his eyeballs to bulge out, and he almost fell out and rolled away.

I'll beat your lungs out!

How can you be so wild? ! ! !

Zhao Yao didn't understand, but was greatly shocked.

Of course, he just didn't understand where Fang Xinghe's courage came from, but he could understand the logic behind it - he didn't completely agree with it.

So Zhao Yao calmly asked back: "First, the feudal system in the West originated from ancient Greece, and Greek mythology is not a monotheistic system.

Second, our ancient times also had a feudal system and a polytheistic system, and it was the unified imperial power that broke the process of religious belief contraction.

Third, similarly, the West also once gave rise to a long struggle between royal power and divine power, but it eventually formed a balance different from ours.

Fourth, the idea of rulers creating gods is a very subversive idea. Marx and Engels once said that the ideological function of religion is systematically used by rulers to consolidate the power structure. You are even bolder and make speculations without actual evidence on this basis, but I doubt whether you understand the seriousness of this offense. "

Fang Xinghe burst out laughing.

offend?

When they offend our culture, land, beliefs, dignity and even lives, is there anyone who stands up and speaks a fair word?
Fang Xinghe was a little angry, but he did not rush to vent his emotions. Instead, he responded to the question slowly.

“First, there is no evidence to prove that the ancient Greek mythology system existed as a substantial belief in medieval Europe. It was just a bunch of half-true and half-false myths. The Iliad and Theogony that recorded them were neither serious nor authoritative. The Greek gods never really influenced European civilization.

Second, our religious beliefs have not converged naturally, but have continued to expand and merge. If there had been no imperial power and intervention, would those diverse folk beliefs have merged into a new monotheism?
No, in my opinion it is impossible.

The humility and tolerance of Chinese civilization are at an unprecedented level. Any religion has its fixed and broad soil for survival, from Chu Ma in the Northeast to Mazu in Chaoshan, from Donghuang Taiyi in Chu to the professional rebel Bai Lian Shengmu. There is no unified demand for faith itself, and believers do not have extreme xenophobia.

Believing in Mazu does not interfere with worshipping the God of Wealth. When the spirit medium doesn't work, burning incense in a Buddhist temple will also work.

This kind of pragmatism is exactly the "pragmatic morality" criticized by Hegel. Well, it is not transcendent enough, has no uniqueness, is low, vulgar and shallow.

But an interesting paradox emerges from this:

We are a unified dynasty civilization that has lasted for thousands of years and the only ancient civilization in existence, while they are still in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.

Is Europe's geographical environment bad?

It is so good, but it just cannot achieve great unification. It has no dominant nation, no master ideology, and no leading civilization. That is why the Renaissance is called the European Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution is called the European Industrial Revolution, but the whole of Europe is still scattered like a plate of sand.

Third, the struggle and balance between royal power and divine power.

In the early years, as lords, their royal power was firmly suppressed by theocracy, which allowed a completely unproductive rentier class, the church, to carry out hundreds of years of dark rule.

Now, as aristocrats and capitalists, they in turn use theocracy to fool the lower classes of people, calling it faith, but in reality it is shepherding.

So I think they have indeed formed a dynamic balance, using compromise as the means, but the essence is that the upper class band together to suck the blood of the lower class, with only tacit understanding in their hearts, and no guilt at all.

At the same time, we have also formed a balance - are kings, princes, generals, and ministers of different species?

If they can't survive anymore, they will rebel, turn the world upside down, mix the upper and lower classes into one, and stir them thoroughly. All divine authority and imperial power will be burned to ashes in the fire of revolution.

Which one is better?
Depends on whose side your butt is sitting.

So what do we believe in and admire?
If you want to answer this question, you don’t need to ask anyone, just ask yourself and you will have the answer.

This kind of freedom does not need to be granted by God, nor does it require imperial authorization. It is not the rampant liberalism of the West, but the romanticism unique to the Chinese nation.

Fourth, I really can't find strong evidence to prove my "Western rulers' deification theory", but I didn't originally think about proving it. I just need to say it out loud so that as many people as possible can see it and then make them think about it. That's enough.

Enlightening the people is a long systematic project that requires tremendous perseverance, strong wisdom and absolute enthusiasm. I have none of these. I am just a willful and wild child. After lighting this fire, I will turn around and look for other fun.

As for who was offended, the new religion, the old religion, the ancient religion, the Mo religion...

I do not care.

Perhaps there really is an omniscient and omnipotent God in the vast universe, but no matter how great He is, He is only their God, not my God.

My God is here and only here."

Fang Xinghe bent his right index finger and tapped his temple lightly, once, twice, then withdrew his hand and served the tea, completely ending the first topic.

Gudong.

Zhao Yao picked up the teacup tremblingly, and swallowed hard before he started to drink.

No matter how elite he was or how good he was at psychological preparation, he was already on the verge of chaos at this moment.

He looked at Fang Xinghe's face that was so handsome that it didn't look like a real person, and suddenly an extremely absurd but reasonable idea popped into his mind - there is definitely no omniscient and omnipotent God in the world, but there might really be demons and fairies.

Otherwise, how can you expect me to accept that he is just a 15-year-old boy?

The office fell into absolute silence for the second time. The only sound was the sound of Fang Xinghe sipping his tea, enjoying himself.

The value of the cheat is still increasing.

**************
These chapters are too difficult to write, and this is all I have for today.

(End of this chapter)