New Shun 1730

This year is destined not to be a stable and peaceful year. The clouds of war have filled the sky over the world.

After quietly completing the preparations for war and mobilizing Dashun, the emperor visited Songsu in the south and reviewed the fleet.

Friction between Britain and France in the North American colonies was intensifying day by day.

Prussia was expanding its army.

Russia is expanding its military.

Sweden is expanding its military.

Austria began to build the first formal military academies and was also expanding its army.

Spain finally established a foreign exchange and silver control bank, the government intervened in direct control of precious metals, and expanded the warship shipyard in Cadiz.

However, above the clouds of war, the most ardent sun of this era called enlightenment is still shining brightly.

Even this year, there were flashes of manic flares, like fetal movements before the star's expansion period, surging manic energy, hidden under the clouds of war. When the clouds fade away and people look up at the sun called enlightenment, they will definitely remember several major events that happened this year.

Things other than war.

Geneva.

Rousseau, who fled here and took refuge here, was finishing his essay for an essay competition at the Dijon Academy of Sciences at the University of Burgundy.

The title of the essay call for the Dijon Academy of Sciences is very interesting.

[What is the origin of human inequality? Is human inequality recognized by natural law?

The pen, soaked in ink, quickly slid across the manuscript paper, leaving a series of characters. Meaningless gestures are given meaning by humans, and the spirit that the author wants to express is put on paper.

“…With the establishment of private property and law, inequality finally became so entrenched that it became legitimate. Furthermore, we may assert that mental inequality, which is recognized only by positive law, is no longer the same as physical inequality. When there is a disproportion, it is contrary to the law of nature. This disproportion fully determines what we should think of the inequality that prevails among all civilized peoples. For a child commands the elderly, and a fool guides the wise. A small group of people possessing a lot of surplus while a large number of hungry people lack the necessities of life is obviously contrary to the law of nature, no matter how one defines inequality.”

Rousseau, who wrote the last period, was still unfinished. With a high spirit, he put aside his completed essay, picked up a recently published drama, and wrote on the title page of this drama booklet: A paragraph prepared to return to the author of this play.

The name of this drama is "Chinese Orphan".

Rousseau picked up his pen, and in his excited spirit, he directed sarcastic words at the author of this drama.

"Mr. Voltaire believed that the happiest and most respectable era in the world was the era when the laws of Confucius were followed."

"Mr. Voltaire respected Confucius and considered himself his disciple in Europe."

"However, it is obvious that the Confucius that Mr. Voltaire respected was a Confucius that he imagined and existed in his head, just like a porcelain worker fabricating it according to his own preferences."

"Mr. Voltaire thought he understood Chinese morality and the beauty that Chinese people understand. So he wrote a drama that uses love, tolerance, morality, and the kindness of a king and father to solve all problems."

"However, as far as I know - of course, I am based on the account of Mr. Chen, who was exiled here twenty years ago for offending the current Duke of China - we can know that this story about the orphan expresses The aesthetic views of the Chinese people are not the love, tolerance, morality and inspiration that Mr. Voltaire believed.”

"On the contrary, the beauty recognized by the Chinese, or in other words, the beauty recognized by the real Confucius respected by Mr. Voltaire, is [repaying evil with straightness and repaying kindness with kindness]."

"About the story of the orphan, the beautiful ending as understood by the Chinese is that justice defeats evil and violence avenges cruelty."

“The beauty recognized by the Chinese is the revenge [today the three hundred innocent souls of the family have their own owners]; it is the loyalty to adhere to the feudal contract between the monarch and his subjects, and extending this loyalty to the contract to a broader social level; It is a resistance to the atrocity of killing hundreds of babies; it is the struggle of the weak against tyranny; it is the pursuit of self-sacrifice and self-realization.”

"Mr. Voltaire believes in love, tolerance, morality, and the kindness of the monarch and father, and spares no effort to promote the monarch-father system. This is the most perfect, happiest, and most respectable era. So, Mr. Voltaire The China we think of does not exist in this real world.”

"Mr. Voltaire preached that love will win, civilization will defeat barbarism, and good morals will make rulers submit - a tyrant would actually be mentally subdued by the virtue of a woman because of a favorite woman."

"I think that if the Tatars had not been driven away by the Chinese a hundred years ago, Mr. Voltaire would have spared no effort to prove the great achievements of the Tatars: Look, the rough and barbaric Tatars were driven away by good customs and virtues. Conquered and influenced, this is the power of virtue and love.”

"Although I don't know where Confucius came from, as Mr. Voltaire believed, and who believed in love and influence, I can be sure that he was not a Chinese Confucius."

"In this regard, I must give a word to Mr. Voltaire, a true, unmodified, undistorted word by another Chinese philosopher: The saints will not die, and the thieves will continue. "

"Here I am not referring to M. Voltaire's "The Orphan of China," but in fact to all existing plays."

"Drama is the reproduction of the status quo. People are no longer spectators, but affirm the status quo together - to some extent, drama at this time is teaching people to be a [good person] under the current situation."

"Just like Catholicism, they are guiding people to be a [good believer]."

"The so-called 'Enlightenmentists' try to guide people to be a [good person] as they define it, and hope to convey their definition of a good person in the form of drama."

"However, obviously, it is important to make people a [good citizen]."

"A [good citizen] who is neither a [good believer] nor a [good person]."

This is the first time that Rousseau, the "junior", has publicly fired at his predecessors. Historically, he will soon welcome an "anonymous" book "The Sentiments of Citizens", which morally exposes Rousseau's moral corruption, chaotic private life, abandoned babies and many other problems, and defines Rousseau's book as a "new work against humanity".

Now, with this book and the public criticism of Voltaire, the already vigorous Enlightenment movement has exploded like hot oil falling into cold water.

The debate became more intense.

Monarchy? Morality and love? Citizen riot? The unity of the monarch and the father? New religion? Rational worship? Encyclopedia science?

When the Enlightenment also had disputes and they were already incompatible, it proved that the foundation of the old era was already shaky, the foundation of the new era had already appeared, and the pioneers had begun to argue about the contradictions of the new era.

In the past, they were on the same path and tore the old era apart together.

And now, they are one step ahead and have begun to tear up the new era that has not yet arrived.

Eastern learning spread to the West, and Western learning spread to the East. With the Dashun initiative to open up foreign trade and exchanges, it finally tore off the veil of the East and the West at the same time, and trampled all the imagined beauty underfoot.

The scriptures that the Dutch and the British tried to construct, which were imaginary and aimed at the freedom of commercial capital, were strangled in the bud by the Dashun's massive cotton cloth before they were landed. Choosing eternal truth or choosing cruel reality has become a serious issue like whether to eat fish on Friday.

The China that Voltaire imagined, constructed, and fabricated for the sake of enlightenment was also replaced by the real, complex, and violently rebellious China that did not need to be fabricated.

The Orphan of Zhao is China; The Orphan of China has nothing to do with China except the Chinese character in the title.

The spread of Eastern learning to the West was just like the deconstruction, fragmentation, and re-establishment that was happening in the Songsu area at this time. The complete system was shattered, and only fragments of sages such as "Do not do to others what you do not want others to do to you", "The thief will not stop until the saint dies", "The thief of virtue is the hypocrite", and "The emperor is chosen".

To some extent, because sailing ships connected the East and the West more closely, and Dashun took the initiative to open up trade exchanges between the East and the West.

A form of the Enlightenment, or a special state, was temporarily suppressed.

That is, Voltaire's special form of accelerating the Enlightenment by constructing an illusory country based on a real and wealthy country, regardless of the facts, imagined an ideal country.

Or they invent a real foreign country and use its wealth to prove the irrationality of their own country.

…………

The Enlightenment is not only happening in Western Europe, but also in Eastern Europe, especially in Russia, which was a wild land a few decades ago. It is unfolding in a very awkward form that is completely different from Western Europe and Dashun, and is sandwiched between Dashun and Western Europe.

If we have to find a similar but not very similar story for this awkwardness, it can be roughly understood as the "Russian version of the New Culture Movement".

What happened this year is an acceleration of the subsequent dispute between Westernization and localism, as well as the issues such as "the value and necessity of Russia's existence, the self-definition of the Russian nation, who am I, am I part of the civilized world, Europeans don't want me, Asians don't want me, where am I, and whether Russia has sociological particularity".

And with the rise of Dashun, this issue has become more complicated.

The root of the division between Dashun and Russia on this issue is that the changes that Liu Yu brought to Dashun over the years destroyed the concept that civilization is equal to Western Europe, and tried to disguise the universal as national through the universality of industrialized civilization, and has been trying to smash the old era with universal class struggle.

At the same time, the particularity of Dashun culture, religion, and tradition, as well as the systematic knowledge mastered by Liu Yu, clearly differentiated between practical learning and Western learning, avoiding this confusing problem that the brain can't turn around.

But Russia obviously didn't have such an opportunity.

So, in the Russian court, Tsarina Elizabeth Petrovna took over two letters from Lomonosov, who had played with thunder and lightning kites a while ago, from her new favorite Shuvalov.

One letter was titled: Standard Russian grammar, and a request to clarify the occasions for the use of ancient Slavonic and vernacular standard Russian.

The other letter was titled: A request for approval to establish Moscow University without setting up a theology department.

However, in fact, the first petition, at the very beginning, created an extremely distorted contradiction on the issue of "practical learning or Western learning" similar to the Dashun period.

This contradiction, in a more intuitive way, is roughly similar to the issue of "Latinization of Chinese".

That is: we are backward, there must be something wrong, and it may even be that our culture and language are wrong from the beginning... This is a common situation encountered by nations that are temporarily backward and have the intention to make progress.

However, Russia at this time was not too backward.

But it was sandwiched between Dashun and Western Europe, and it was unreasonable to say that it was not backward.

It was precisely because of this backward but not too backward situation that Lomonosov's first letter naturally could not take the extreme idea of ​​"Latinization of Chinese".

In addition, in recent years, Western Europe and Dashun have been developing rapidly, especially the frequent achievements after the establishment of Dashun Academy of Sciences, and the amazing achievements of some cramming education of the new practical learning system established by Liu Yu, which made a weird "rational" thinking begin to spread in the world.

Whether it is the French Encyclopedia School, Scientology, or some new ideas generated by the Dashun practical learning system.

Lomonosov studied in Western Europe for a long time, and as an academician from the Academy of Sciences, he naturally came into contact with people from academies of sciences in various countries.

Because of the reality that Russia was backward but not too backward.

He had planted the seeds of the future contradiction between radicals and conservatives in Russia in this memorial on "marking Russian grammar".

He took a conciliatory route.

Because this was an era of rationalism, Lomonosov created a division in grammar similar to the "practical learning and Western learning" of the Dashun period.

That is: grammar, in the world, there is a universal, common grammar that exists in all languages ​​and is the universal grammar of human language.

And: grammar, in addition to these universal grammars, there are also special, national, grammars that are distinguished from other ethnic groups, must be nationally pure and cannot be polluted by foreign things.

Standard Russian must ensure that it conforms to the universal grammar of languages ​​in the world, similar to mechanics and mathematics; it must also purify its particularity and nationality and not be polluted by foreign national styles.

Because of its backwardness, Lomonosov was worried that Russia would be abandoned by the civilized world.

Because it was not so backward, Lomonosov hoped that Russia would still be Russia.

This extremely awkward idea should be said to have been running through the hundreds of years since Peter I started the reform. Including Natasha Rostova in "War and Peace", who speaks French and uses French etiquette to westernize, and dances the most traditional Russian dance without a teacher, all of which are extremely awkward.

Or, if we put it into the mentality of the twenty years before and after the Reform Movement of 1898, it is still easy to understand.

It's just that this place was too backward at that time, and the old era was smashed after the establishment, so it didn't last long; while Russia was awkward from Peter's reform to later generations.

Of course, this twisted and tangled thing was solemnly placed at the forefront of the memorial by Lomonosov; but it was also the one that the empress stayed on for the shortest time and frowned.

She didn't quite understand, what was the meaning of these things?

But the content after these awkward thoughts made the empress's eyes light up.

The several ideas proposed by Lomonosov are very practical.

First: Church Slavonic has lost its dominant position among the people. People do not speak Church Slavonic, but vernacular Russian, so Church Slavonic should not be the official language.

Lomonosov's idea was due to Russia's backwardness. He believed that a standard Russian grammar should be created to facilitate logical thinking.

The Queen's idea was that this would greatly strengthen the imperial power and reduce the church's interference in secular power, which was very good.

Second: The purity of Russian should be maintained, and words should not be borrowed from external languages. To maintain purity, we should find words from Church Slavonic on the premise of perfecting the logic of annotating Russian grammar. Instead of directly inserting Western European languages ​​after deformation.

Third: Article genres and language usage should be divided into three levels.

Elegant, ordinary, and low-quality.

High-quality words are exclusive to Church Slavonic.

Ordinary words are common words between Church Slavonic and Russian.

Low-quality words are the words of the vernacular spoken Russian.

For example, odes, heroic epics, and things that describe major themes should use high-quality words.

For example, pastoral songs, elegies, elegy, letters, satirical political commentaries, government documents, etc., use ordinary words.

For example, novels, dramas, essays, etc., use low-quality words.

Lomonosov's idea is naturally to take a compromise and make peace with the mud, or to try to use official power to divide levels, reconcile contradictions, and let traditional written language and current vernacular coexist.

The result is that reality will soon slap him in the face.

The contradiction is not resolved, but suppressed.

It is futile to try to solve the material backwardness on the spiritual level.

On the contrary, if it is materially advanced, then sometimes the shit that is obviously wrong can also smell good.

In history, almost as soon as he died, the reformists and conservatives started fighting because of language issues.

The reformists believed that Slavic was a low-level language and the root of backwardness, and it must be eradicated, otherwise Russia would always lag behind.

Traditionalists believe that Slavic is a means of demonstrating national spirit and awakening national self-awareness, and is also the basis for social unity.

Reformists believe that Russia is so backward and is about to die, why is it still considering clinging to tradition? If the people are gone, will there still be Russia?

Traditionalists believe that if Russia is completely westernized, then where is Russia? If Russia is gone, who are we? If Russia is gone, are there still Russians?