Wildfire Collection: Thirty Years Anniversary Edition

Chapter 7 Starting from "3" ([-])
I am also afraid of hearing people say "school honor", because I know that for such an abstract frame, how many "disobedient" and "unteachable" students will be brutally suppressed, and how many maverick individuals will be punished. Stuffed into the frame, unable to breathe or move.

I can't bear to listen to people preaching the virtue of five generations living under one roof.Beneath that harmonious surface, how many midnight sighs, shattered dreams, and disintegrated individual wills, all for an abstract ideal, a system that originally benefits individuals and often sacrifices individuals.

Legal system, country, society, school, family, honor, tradition—behind each majestic term is an extremely large and highly authoritative norm and system, which seriously requires individuals to accept and follow.

However, the rule of law, society, honor, tradition—the reason why they exist is not for that insignificant "person" who can bleed, cry, and fall?tell me.

America is not our home
Originally published in "China Times Human World" on February [-], [-]

Citizens, citizens, citizens, we need citizens in action.Going a step further than Difficult Situation, I began by saying that if "the government neither allows him to leave the country nor gives him the means to reform, he has no obligation to be a one-sided citizen who follows the rules."

There was a vague uneasiness in the air.Letters from readers continued to come in.A lot of people thought I had a foreign passport; I didn't.But there is no need to argue.

I have received dozens of letters from readers.The older one said: "Every time I read your article, I feel so excited and weep again and again." The younger college student wrote: "Before you become a cold 'social person', please tell us: We can help Taiwan. What does 'mother' do?" The younger one, a high school student, said, "It's useless to do anything anyway: I'm leaving college to go to America!"

The young people are excited and indignant, and the old people are sad and weeping. It is definitely not because my article is well written.This large stack of emotional letters should reveal two problems to those who are interested: the first is the seriousness of the situation itself; the poor living environment in Taiwan is no longer the mediocre yelling of intellectuals, but the pain of ordinary people.The second is personal powerlessness; if there is a smooth channel in this social system for ordinary citizens to express their wishes and realize their demands, they will not be smoldering to the point of exploding, and they will not need to rely on mere articles Unremarkable articles to vent his pain.

The second problem is much more serious than the first.No matter how bad the environment is, no matter how complicated the problem is, if an individual has an appropriate way to solve the problem and feels that there is something to do, he will always be positive, rational, optimistic and enterprising.On the other hand, even if the problem itself is not so bad, but a person feels that all his efforts are a dead end, and when his resentment is locked in a blocked pipe, people will explode.

Six months ago, a young man who loved to read broke into the house of the woman next door and killed her with a knife because he couldn't stand the woman next door chanting sutras in the morning and evening.There is no excuse for the violence, of course, but we have to ask why: Could this murder have been prevented if the young man had only to make a phone call and the police would come to crack down on the noise?In other words, if this young man pleads with the police over and over again, but the police don’t care, and he tries to persuade the woman who is chanting the scriptures again and again, but the woman ignores him, then, you say, he can move—don’t be kidding, where in Taipei can he move? Make people live in peace?So, suffering from noise day and night, with no possibility of improvement, what should he do?
After the old man Socrates was sentenced to death, he refused to escape from prison. He said: "When I am dissatisfied with a system, I have two options: either leave the country, or change the system through legal means. But I have no right to destroy it by rebellion." (See Dilemma)
Yes, old man Su is a model citizen who follows the rules, but have you noticed that there are two prerequisites for being a good citizen: first, he has the freedom to leave the country if he refuses to compromise; Channels to change the system he doesn't like.In other words, if the Athens government neither allowed him to leave the country nor gave him a channel to reform, he had no obligation to be a unilateral citizen who followed the rules.

So what about our situation?The living environment in Taiwan is harsh, and the choice faced by Xiaomin Shengdou is the same as that of Socrates: he can leave Taiwan, but there are too many practical difficulties.He can "follow legal channels" to change the status quo——

Do we have this legal channel and unimpeded channel?

A doctor wrote to describe his painful experience.An underground subway factory suddenly appeared in a residential area, and the noise and exhaust gas discolored the entire community.He tried everything from private pleas to public complaints, but the result was zero.This agency said the order was incomplete, that department said it was not his family's business, and the police even said that the people who run the factory are pitiful!The doctor asked sadly and desperately: "What is the government doing? Who is the law protecting?"

Even a 17-year-old high school student—the future master of the Chinese nation—said confidently: "It's useless anyway! I want to go to the United States!"

Are you not worried about our future?

Who caused this hopeless sense of powerlessness?
Many people might point the arrow at the government—Department of Construction, Environmental Protection Bureau, Department of Health, Police Department, etc., but I can't because my field of knowledge is extremely narrow; I don't know how to dispose of garbage, food How to control imports and how to allocate police force mobilization.I am not an expert, and I am not qualified to tell these incumbents how to do things.

But like you, I am a fully entitled citizen.The root of powerlessness may be a chicken-and-egg problem; you may think that the government is to blame for the lack of plumbing, but I think that you and I feel powerless because we ordinary people do not understand Fighting for our rights pampered those who did things for us.We are to blame.

Most Chinese people habitually obey authority—anyone sitting behind a counter or desk is an authority.I saw students go to the post office to withdraw money, fill out the wrong form, and get scolded by the lady behind the glass.The student was submissive and terrified.I also saw a big man in a suit go to the district office, and the clerk in glasses rolled his eyes coldly and waved his hand: "Go, go! It's almost twelve o'clock, why are you here?" The big man bowed his back and apologized, begging him to show his respect.I also know that the average college student, when faced with a teacher who "destroys the filth", either skips class to escape, or agrees to obey.

When you go to the post office to withdraw money, you get your own money, and you can fill in the wrong form again. Why do students think that the waitress has the right to dictate?The staff of the district office are supposed to work before the hour, why does the big man beg him?Students pay tuition fees to seek knowledge, and they have the right to ask teachers to perform their duties seriously. Why do students not care if teachers do not do well?
The so-called government—the police department, the Department of Health, the Environmental Protection Agency—is people like you and me who work hard and use tax money to hire people to do things for us.Logically speaking, when these people are not doing well, you and I should hold a whip in your hand, open your sharp eyes and ask them to improve; , We also asked him to put on a "parental official" appearance with a stern voice to scare us half to death, shrinking his head, and then sighed "powerless"!
We don't even know who we are, and we haven't even figured out the employer-employee relationship, so what are we still shouting about "democracy, ethics, and science"?
Every morning, tens of thousands of people in clean clothes pour into the train bound for downtown New York to go to work in the city.There is no heating in the carriage in winter, and the air conditioner fails in summer. It takes two steps to break down after three steps, and the fare is surprisingly expensive.But because it is a monopoly business, day after day, year after year, everyone complains, but everyone still gets on the car obediently every day.Until Steve couldn't take it anymore, he ran around every day, organized passengers, refused to take the train, and took a car instead.At the same time, as soon as the train was delayed, they went to court to demand compensation.He and the railway company "can't finish eating, just walk around".

Steve doesn't feel powerless.

Antoine's 13-year-old daughter was hit and killed by a drunk driver.Because it was manslaughter, the perpetrator was sentenced to a very light sentence, but Antony had only one daughter who could not be resurrected. This ordinary housewife began to gather the caring mothers to meet the governor. When the governor was gone, she was in the reception room. Here I sit from eight in the morning to five in the afternoon without lunch.After two years of hard work, the law on drunk driving was amended, and the police road inspection system was tightened.Other mothers, perhaps, kept their 13-year-old daughters.

Antony didn't feel powerless either.

I don't have the stamina of Steve and Antoine.Life is in a terrible hurry, and in the rush to reform society, I lose the time to enjoy life.Most of the time, I would rather be like the lonely Thoreau, looking at clouds, mountains, and buffaloes and herons in the fields.However, instead of being a big man, we can always be a little man of some use, right?A small individual, like you, like me, can still shine.It will be difficult, yes; there will be sacrifices, yes.However, you can't say "impossible" until you have tried it yourself!You can't talk about "powerlessness" until you have worked hard.Ask Steve, ask Antoine.

It is not shameful to talk about "moral courage", nor is it superficial to talk about "social conscience".Baptized by existentialism and war, modern people are proud of being complex and pessimistic, and proud of being deep and indifferent; just be a simple but sincere person!All it takes is a little courage and innocence.If you do more today, we will have one less 17-year-old saying: "It's useless anyway, I'm going to America!"

America, after all, is not our home.

Kindergarten University

Originally published in "China Times Human World" on March [-], [-]

One day, I went to the student cafeteria to have breakfast, and saw the principal standing there in person, checking whether the students came out wearing inappropriate slippers.So I decided to write this article.

This is at Chuo University. The girl with "tearful eyes" is at Tamkang University.

This is a class of junior students: smart, hard-working, well-behaved, good students who are standard "national universities".

After reading the final exam papers and approving the thesis report, I send out the total score and wait for the students to come to me: zero or one hundred points, they always have to look at the eyebrows of the papers, and confirm and discuss with me before they know why Score a hundred or zero.

The holidays are over, the new semester begins, and the semester ends again.

Students came to me to chat, eat supper, and talk about homework; but no one asked about grades.

There is a student whose grades should be very good, because the footnotes of the thesis are scattered and scattered, I deliberately lowered his score significantly, hoping to teach him a lesson when he comes to question: for research, footnotes are as important as the main text.

But he didn't come either.

After waiting for half a year, I couldn't help it: "Why don't you discuss the grades with the professor?"

The students looked at each other, surprised that I asked such a question.

"How dare we? The professor will be very angry, thinking that we doubt his judgment and disrespect his authority. To discuss, ask, or dispute grades is tantamount to challenging the professor. How dare we?"

So what if the professor took a nap and added the wrong grade?Or if you are not careful, what about Zhang Guan Li Dai?Or, a teacher in the game world really blows the test papers with an electric fan to determine the grades?

Gradually, I found that as a professor in Taiwan, I can really "get away with murder", and I can do extremely absurd and excessive things without being resisted by students, because students have been indoctrinated with the "respect for teachers" for 20 years. concept; he dared not.

One day, a teary-eyed female student stopped my car on the way: "A classmate sprained his ankle, can you send us down the mountain for a ride back to Taipei? I stopped three cars of passers-by, and they refused to help!" "

Ok!So the teary-eyed female student helped another teary-eyed person, limping, into my car.

It was only a few minutes' drive down the mountain, but the two people behind the car were crying and sniffing their noses desperately.The one who was hurt cried because her foot hurt and missed her mother; the one who was not hurt also cried because she didn't know how to deal with the situation.

In fact, this earth-shattering "situation" required only two phone calls: the first to the school doctor, the second to the taxi company, and that's it.

I was amazed to watch the two girls cry together.They are 20 years old and are receiving advanced university education.

Their ability to work independently is less than five years old.

At the beginning, when I asked students questions in class, I didn’t get an answer. I thought it was because the students were not listening well enough, so I slowed down my English and said it word by word. .I found that the problem of language is second, and the lack of thought is the crux of the problem.

Students work very hard.Most of the assigned novels or plays are read conscientiously before class.He can give a clear outline of the plot of the story.However, when I started to ask "why", he just stared blankly - I don't know, I haven't thought about it.

He can read ten Edgar Allan Poe's murder novels and understand each one, but he can't look at ten stories and sort out a coherent thread.He can understand why Socrates refused to escape from prison, and why Thoreau refused to escape from prison, but he doesn't know how these two events are related.He can tell the poet Eliot's theory on artistic originality and imitation, but he is asked to express his opinion on Wang Sanqing's imitation painting incident-he doesn't know, he has no opinion, he has never learned it, the teacher has never taught it, and there is no such thing in the textbook. .

I cherish my students; like yellow sunflowers trying to welcome the sun, they are intelligent, pure, and hardworking, and they especially have true affection for their teachers.However, they are also typical Chinese students: they lack independent personality, obey authority blindly, and what's more, they don't have—none at all—the ability to think independently.

Is it the students' fault?
of course not.The student is a lump of chaotic clay kneaded and formed in the hands of the educator.Leaving aside the various problems in the long process from elementary school to college entrance examination, let us see what kind of higher education these "dare not", "tear-eyed" and "no opinion" college students are receiving.

When a 20-year-old shows a five-year-old mentality, it is often because the educators adopt a "carry and go" parenting method for students.I often hear some university presidents say: "I treat students as my own children." It is kind.He also really acted like a strict father and mother: he stipulated that students are not allowed to wear slippers to walk in the school, they are not allowed to be late for class, they must sit upright during weekly meetings, they must sleep for eight hours, they must take a shower before turning off the lights, and they must get up at six in the morning to do exercises. , No food in the mouth when speaking, no shorts to class in summer, watching movies is harmful to studies, watching TV is harmful to eyes, washing hands before eating, etc.

(End of this chapter)