The first article in this book is the title of the book "The Silent Majority". I think Wang Xiaobo took this article as the preface of the whole book, because this article wrote why he was silent, and the whole book was what he thought after he was silent.
The theme of "Cultural Debate" is about how to treat traditional philosophy, specifically how to treat Confucius and Mencius, and how to treat "Jun Jun, ministers, father and son".
Firstly, the article leads to Russell's view that "Confucianism in China has the power of monks". What does the monk's power mean? Look at the daily life of monks in China, fasting and chanting Buddha for the benefit of all beings. To put it bluntly, it is to preach Buddhism and teach people to do good ~ do good in heaven and do evil in hell. In a word, it gives people a spiritual belief.
Confucianism also tried to give people spiritual enlightenment, which was a means for ancient emperors to consolidate their rule. Look at "the monarch is the minister, the husband is the wife, and the father is the child." They tried to instill the concept of obedience into the people in order to maintain the order established by the ruling class.
So Confucianism has the power similar to that of monks.
But it doesn't mean that spiritual education must be bad. All kinds of famous sayings popular in school are based on someone's example, and I think they also belong to the category of spiritual belief. It's just that this spiritual category is more about encouraging individuals to forge ahead, which is the positive role of spiritual education.
Then, the difference between science and Confucianism is discussed. In Confucianism, the ancients embarked on their official career by reciting the quotations of sages, that is, the so-called "learned officials", and also mastered the magic of rule and became people's spiritual beliefs.
However, science is completely different. Science does not pursue knowledge, but also seeks to prove knowledge. Therefore, science has become something that everyone can master. With the ruling magic of Confucianism, science suddenly paled a lot.
The ruling magic of Confucianism has not disappeared even in the contemporary era. It just changed the original Confucianism into national policies and regulations, but there is no difference in essence, all for ruling the people. With the progress of society and the change of the ruling class, the concept used by the ruling class will of course change.
What remains unchanged is people's pursuit of official career. The ancients recited all kinds of sages' quotations in order to embark on their official career, while modern people just turned sages' quotations into various policies and regulations.
Science, no matter how you learn it, is for survival at best, and it can't be the spiritual belief of human beings. It is not difficult to understand that some people think that programmers with an annual salary of several hundred thousand are not as good as civil servants, and the genes developed since ancient times have determined all this.