Author: wenbolingsource: wenboling2020 (id: wenboling2020)
Boling said:
Praise is right, and criticism is also right.
But praise without criticism,
Or it is wrong to criticize without praising.
01
Yesterday’s article “Henan should also be rectified!” After it was sent out, many friends responded strongly and told me a lot of strange things.
Some of my friends left messages urging me:
“It’s not easy for everyone now. Don’t stare at the dark side of the government and society, talk more about positive energy, and cheer everyone up.”
These friends suggested that I talk about positive energy. My understanding is to praise achievements more and criticize reality less.
In the field of literary and artistic creation, there are those who specialize in positive energy and those who specialize in negative energy. For example, the great writer Mo Yan once said:
“If anyone wants to whitewash reality with literature and praise a certain society with literature, I think the quality of this work is very questionable. I have a prejudice that literature and art will never be a tool for singing praises. Literature and art should expose darkness, including the dark side of the human soul.”
Mo Yan always criticizes reality and never praises achievements.
Praise and criticism are the two extremes of literary and artistic creation. Which is the right one? What kind of view should we use to look at the world?
In my opinion, neither extreme praise nor extreme criticism is correct. The core logic of literary and artistic creation is to record reality. Our position on the world should be to recognize reality.
02
Bai Juyi, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, wrote many critical poems.
He wrote “the man who sells charcoal” with a poor coat and a poor heart. He deeply criticized the dark side of the Tang Dynasty. It is like criticizing the red code in Henan and the underworld in Tangshan. It is not positive, right.
However, Bai Juyi also wrote the seven virtues dance in praise of Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty:
“The Emperor Taizong’s eighteen righteous soldiers, the white dragon and the Yellow axe, set the two capital cities. There are four achievements in capturing and killing Dou sihaiqing. There are nine in twenty, that is, the throne. There are five in thirty, that is, to achieve peace. The reason for success is how fast you can push your heart and set your stomach.”
Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty was half the founding emperor, who laid the foundation for the prosperity of the Tang Dynasty and made great contributions to the country and the people. Therefore, Bai Juyi spared no effort to praise the merits of Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty.
These poems are so passionate that the people of the Tang Dynasty may be eager to go back and lead a horse to Emperor Taizong and follow him to make contributions.
Praise and criticism are integrated in Bai Juyi. Is it contradictory?
There is no contradiction at all.
Society is neither completely dark nor completely bright. Every generation will see the brilliant achievements of the country and society, as well as the indifference and injustice around them.
So special praise or special criticism is one-sided, narrow-minded and one-sided.
If you want to have a healthy three outlooks and a complete personality, you must abandon the extreme position, put down the values of either left or right, or black or white, and look at the whole of things with an inclusive perspective.
In this way, you can see the great achievements of the country and society, as well as many dark ones. You can write positive energy praising achievements and negative energy criticizing reality.
This is to record the reality and recognize the reality.
03
Praise and criticism are our personal judgment standards. Is that useful to society?
Of course it’s useful.
When people do good deeds, they are eager to be recognized by the people around them. This is an instinctive positive feedback mechanism. Otherwise, they will not have the motivation to do good deeds next time. They think, “if you do it for nothing, you won’t do it.”
National and social achievements naturally require a sense of identity, which is nothing more than material and spiritual.
Too many people from all walks of life in China are fighting on the front line. It is impossible for them to get material satisfaction. Besides, there is no standard for material satisfaction. How much is enough for a house or a car?
Therefore, spiritual identity is the greatest encouragement.
This requires each of us to praise the achievements, such as yuanlongping, xiaosiyuan and other heroes. We can’t give them too much material, but we can give them the highest respect at the spiritual level.
If we don’t celebrate our achievements, we can’t even give them a spiritual sense of identity. Other colleagues will lose and feel that the world is not worth it.
The significance of praising achievements lies in promoting goodness.
The significance of criticizing reality lies in improving the deficiency.
Our society can make progress bit by bit because every time a bad event occurs, it will cause a great discussion in the whole society.
We should do what we can and make a sound. We should find out the reasons for these bad events, put forward suggestions, and urge the relevant parties to make rectification under the promotion of public opinion.
After criticism one by one and rectification one by one, our society is what it is today.
Even today, our society is still imperfect in terms of law and morality, so we need to continue to criticize bad events and promote social progress.
Praise is right and criticism is right, but it is wrong to praise without criticism or criticize without praise.
So Bai Juyi wrote “the man who sold charcoal” and “the dance of seven virtues”.
So the teachers wrote “serving the people” and “in memory of Bethune” to praise the people’s heroes. They also wrote millions of words of editorials criticizing the Kuomintang and US imperialism.
This is seeking truth from facts, and this is the concrete analysis of specific problems.
We should all put aside the extreme position of “black or white” and “left or right” and be a noble man, a pure man, a man who is free from vulgar tastes and a man who is beneficial to the people.