Perhaps, on this planet, French literati are the most heterogeneous, and they have the taste of "language is not surprising and endless". This is not to say that they like to play with rhetoric, gimmicks, or go astray, but pay attention to the key commodities that ordinary people turn a blind eye to, and they are full of colors. From Zola, Balzac, Sartre, Bonda, Foucault to roland barthes, they are all figures of this school. Take out any one, so far it has a selling point. Zola's selling point is "I accuse", Balzac's is "miser", Sartre's is "others are hell", Bonda's is "betrayal of intellectuals" and Foucault likes to talk about "micro-power". Unfortunately, these "great men" are all dead and have been repeatedly "bombed" by good people. Fortunately, France is rich in such literati, and Antoine Gombani Weng is one of them.
So, where is the selling point of Gombani Weng? I think the word "reactionaries" is out of order. In the past, "Left-leaning" thought was in power, and "reactionaries" were "bad guys" just like "counter-revolutionaries". For example, in China before the reform and opening up, there was a saying that "Futian was anti-rightist" and "counter-revolutionary" was "counter-revolutionary". At present, there is no "counter-revolutionary crime" in our criminal law. In fact, in the history of the concept of "reaction", the word "reaction" in western languages was originally a neutral word, meaning "opposition" as opposed to "action"; Even in politics, it only refers to opposing political or social changes, not derogatory terms. However, in the French Revolution, "reaction" became synonymous with "counter-revolution", which gradually became derogatory. Therefore, the French Revolution became a historical watershed of the concept of "reaction". Before that, whether it was "reactionary" was only a theoretical question, and it was criticized by enlightenment thinkers at most. However, after the French Revolution broke out, it became a matter of life and death.
However, Gombani Weng is very clever. Although he is a university professor, he doesn't cover up the anti-modernism (that is, modern reactionaries) from De Meister to roland barthes like writing textbooks. The anti-modernist view is not exclusive. Even on the topics of counter-revolution, anti-enlightenment, pessimism, original sin, sublimity and criticism, these anti-modernists have different views. As a master of French literary history, Gombani Weng is really familiar with their lives and works. He wonderfully weaved their views, contacts and anecdotes into a historical background network, which made their various views and tendencies stand out vividly and interestingly, and repeatedly proved that these anti-modernism schools are actually "free modernism schools" and "two sides of one body" with modernism schools. In his own words, "anti-modernism is the opposite of modernism, its repression, its indispensable wrinkles, its reserve and its source." Without anti-modernism, modernism will go to extinction. "
Interestingly, Gombani Weng's conclusion is no longer literary or historical, but philosophical or metaphysical. At least, after reading Anti-Modernism carefully, I feel the irony from the depths of history. The irony is that modernism and anti-modernism are tit for tat, but at the same time, there is also an accomplice relationship. De Meister, for example, is not a simple anti-modernist. He also opposed autocratic monarchs and carefully read Rousseau's On Social Contract. However, "he refuted Rousseau in Rousseau's language and criticized the Great Revolution with the arguments of the Great Revolution". In his view, counter-revolution is not retrogression, but belongs to the same historical era as revolution and is the next stage of revolution. He even thought that the Great Revolution might serve the monarchy, that is, "once the revolutionary movement was established, France and the monarchy could only be saved by jacobins". However, people have to accept that history has just confirmed this collusion between the great revolution and counter-revolution.
Judging from the pedigree of Gombani Weng's "anti-modernism", De Meister was the first person to establish the "anti-modernism" program. In short, anti-modernism means taking Pascal as a spiritual mentor, opposing Descartes' great rationalism, emphasizing wit, intuition, irony and profundity, and opposing concepts, machinery and order. All this gradually evolved into an anti-modernist tradition through chateaubriand, Lenan and Breuers. But interestingly, at the beginning of the 20th century, because Bergson emphasized life experience and impulse, he once became Pascal's contemporary incarnation and was used as a tool to criticize the modern world by Becky, Maritain and others. However, from the beginning of drama, Bergson's philosophy of life has changed. Becky and others like Bergson's two early philosophical works, On the Direct Material of Consciousness and Matter and Memory, and praise Bergson for discovering a new eternal world, some of which are just stretches, events and organisms. However, since Bergson published The Evolution of Creation, Becky and Maritain felt that Bergson had turned and began to cater to modernism and advocate an increasingly progressive concept. 1965438+In February 2004, when Bergson was elected to the French bachelor's college, Becky wrote in a letter to a friend: "Bergson entered the bachelor's college because he reconciled with Sorbonne University." The subtext seems to be "Bergson was finally bought by the modernist system."
However, this is not the case in history. According to the memory of Bova and Mero-Ponty, the Sorbonne University, represented by the modernist General Bloom Schwick, never stopped attacking and mocking Bergson. However, no matter how Bergson defended himself, he became the target of anti-modernism. Among them, Julian Bunda, who attacked the most, was a little neurotic. If De Meister's anti-modernism views can be consistent, Julian Bunda's attitude towards the modern world will often be "deformed". Perhaps he is suffering from left-wing mania, and Bunda often loses his pace and changes his views because of "changing scenery". Incredibly, he used to be a Bergsonist, but later he became a rationalist. In his view, Bergsonism is the core idea of the modern world, while anti-modernism is the defender of classicism, rationality, universal values, tradition, order and authority. This completely subverts the anti-modernist plan since De Meister. The only explanation is that great changes have taken place in the early twentieth century. Bergsonism and other fashionable ideas have pushed modernism since Descartes into tradition and dressed themselves as the latest modernism.
Writing here, I can't help but be a little dazzled. However, a pen battle between literati is "talking without hands" after all. If you turn to politicians, revolution and counter-revolution, progress and reaction are not easy topics, but life-and-death issues. For example, in 1938 "Moscow trial", the famous Bolshevik theorist Bukharin was accused by Stalin of being a "counter-revolutionary" and a "foreign spy", and instructed Kaplan, a social Democrat, to assassinate Lenin and Kirov. It is hard to understand that Bukharin admitted these trumped-up charges in court. At that time, many people in the west thought that Bukharin could not stand torture and finally confessed. Today, documents show that he repented against his will in order to protect the lives of his young wife and son.
In fact, whether it is torture or family, Bukharin is not an innocent victim. As a Bolshevik, like Stalin, he wanted to build the Soviet Union into a powerful socialist country. In this respect, he and Stalin are comrades and "accomplices". However, in terms of how to build a strong socialist country, he opposed Stalin's policy of rapid industrialization and collectivization, insisted on continuing to implement the "new economic policy" and built a strong country by revitalizing agriculture.
Therefore, accurately speaking, he is only a political opponent, not a "counter-revolutionary" or "reactionary". However, the mystery of history is that it only chooses one and the other must be sacrificed. From 1928 to 1938, with the increasing popularity of fascism in Europe, the national security of the Soviet Union became very serious. As a result, people began to believe that Bukharin's economic policy weakened the national strength of the Soviet Union. It is very likely that Bukharin confessed against his will in this atmosphere. However, Bukharin only "endured for the country" for his common cause with Stalin (communism). In fact, he doesn't think he is guilty. Just before his arrest, he begged his new wife to remember her will "a letter to the next generation of the party". In the letter, he firmly believes that history will prove his innocence. He was not a "traitor" and never assassinated Lenin.
Incredibly, it is still this period of history, which really excused Bukharin 50 years later and finally showed the world that Bukharin was just; It was Stalin who objectively destroyed the socialist cause of the Soviet Union, and Bukharin's agricultural policy was more conducive to the strength of the Soviet Union in the long run. Unfortunately, the justice of this period of history came late, and soon history turned a new page. The Soviet Union became history and can only mourn for people.
Bukharin's unjust case, from finalization to rehabilitation, also shows how he changed from a political opposition to a political reactionary and counter-revolutionary, and finally became a victim and victim by history, which just marks the construction process of the meaning of the word "reactionary" from neutrality to derogatory meaning.
From this perspective, Gombani Weng is right. "Without anti-modernism, modernism will go to extinction", and so is the relationship between revolutionaries and reactionaries. Because history is not a simple accumulation of individual practices, but a process in which all individual practices are constantly intertwined. To understand the meaning of history is to find out how people's different views on historical events are intertwined, staggered and opposed in historical situations. No one's choice is isolated from others' choice, and its significance and responsibility depend not only on his own goodwill, but also on the views of others. Therefore, for everyone in historical events, the future is uncertain, and any choice is inevitably risky; For politicians, they are risking their lives. The French Revolution, Bukharin's unjust case and McCarthyism have made footnotes for all this many times, which shows that reactionaries are closely related to revolutionaries or orthodoxy.
However, it is not enough to just distinguish the word "reactionaries" and restore them to "opposition". Because it cannot guarantee that people will not belittle the word "reactionary" and vilify the opposition as "reactionaries" or "counter-revolutionaries". Even if time and space change, people will "heal the scars and forget the pain." I remember Socrates saying, "People in other places will not tolerate me more than people here." This is a wise saying. Therefore, in my opinion, after Gombani Weng's anti-modernism, there really should be another book to study how to ensure that the opposition will not be derogated from in system and education.