Today, let's learn Xi first volume of "Selected Readings" "Adhere to the People-centered Creative Orientation".
(October 15, 2014).
This is part of Comrade ***'s speech at the symposium on literary and artistic work
Socialist literature and art, in essence, is the people's literature and art. Comrade ** pointed out at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art: "The question of why people are is a fundamental question and a question of principle. * Comrade said: "Our literature and art belong to the people" and "the people are the mother of literary and artistic workers". * Comrade called on the vast number of literary and artistic workers to "create art in the historical creation of the people, and create artistic progress in the progress of the people." * Comrade emphasized: "Only by putting the people in the highest position in our hearts, always being with the people, and adhering to the people-centered creative orientation, can the tree of art be evergreen." ”
The people are not only the creators of history, but also the witnesses of history, the "people in the play" of history, and the "playwrights" of history. In order to reflect the voice of the people, literature and art must adhere to the fundamental direction of serving the people and socialism. This is a basic requirement of the party for the literary and artistic front, and it is also the key to determining the future and destiny of China's literary and artistic undertakings. Only by firmly establishing the Marxist outlook on literature and art and truly taking the people as the center can literature and art give full play to their positive energy. Taking the people as the center means taking satisfying the spiritual and cultural needs of the people as the starting point and end point of literary and artistic work, taking the people as the main body of literary and artistic expression, taking the people as the connoisseurs and judges of literary and artistic aesthetics, and serving the people as the duty of literary and artistic workers.
First, the people need literature and art. The needs of the people are manifold. To meet the people's ever-growing material needs, we must do a good job in economic and social construction and increase the material wealth of society. To meet the people's ever-growing spiritual and cultural needs, we must do a good job in cultural construction and increase the spiritual and cultural wealth of society. Material needs are the first, and eating is the most important thing, so it is said that "the people take food as the sky". However, this does not mean that the people's demand for spiritual and cultural life is dispensable, the biggest difference between human society and the animal kingdom is that human beings have spiritual needs, and the people's demand for spiritual and cultural life exists all the time.
With the continuous improvement of people's living standards, the people's requirements for the quality, taste, and style of cultural products, including literary and artistic works, have also become higher. Literature, drama, film, television, dance, fine arts, photography, calligraphy, folk arts, acrobatics, folk literature and art, mass literature and art and other fields must keep up with the development of the times, grasp the needs of the people, and create and produce excellent works that the people like to see with abundant passion, vivid brushstrokes, beautiful melodies, and touching images, so that the people's spiritual and cultural life will continue to reach a new level.
In addition, the international community is paying more and more attention to China, they want to know about China, want to know the Chinese's world view, outlook on life and values, want to know the Chinese people's views on nature, the world, history and the future, want to know the joys and sorrows of the Chinese, want to know about China's historical inheritance, customs and Xi habits, national characteristics, and so on. It is far from enough to rely on regular press releases and official introductions, and it is very limited to rely on foreign people to come to China to understand and experience them for themselves. Literature and art is the best way to communicate, in this regard can play an irreplaceable role, a **, a prose, a poem, a painting, a **, a movie, a TV series, a song, can provide a unique perspective for foreigners to understand China, can be used to attract, infect, and move people with their own charm. Peking opera, folk music, calligraphy, Chinese painting, etc. are all cultural treasures of our country, and they are all important ways for foreigners to understand China. Literary and artistic workers should tell Chinese stories well, disseminate Chinese voices, expound Chinese spirit, and show Chinese style, so that foreign people can deepen their understanding of China and enhance their understanding of China by appreciating the works of Chinese writers and artists. It is necessary to publicize and promote China's excellent culture and art to the world, so that foreign people can feel the charm in the aesthetic process and deepen their knowledge and understanding of Chinese culture.
Second, literature and art need the people. The people are the source of literary and artistic creation, and once they leave the people, literature and art will become rootless duckweed, diseaseless moaning, and soulless shells. Lenin said: "Art belongs to the people. It must have its deepest roots at the bottom of the broad masses of the working masses. It must be known and loved by these masses. It must combine the feelings, thoughts, and will of these masses and elevate them. It must arouse the artist among the masses and make them develop. "There are already mines of literary and artistic raw materials in people's lives, and people's lives are an inexhaustible source of creation for all literature and art.
The needs of the people are the fundamental value of the existence of literature and art. Whether or not we can produce excellent works is fundamentally determined by whether we can write for the people, express our feelings for the people, and express our feelings for the people. All literary and artistic works that caused a sensation at that time and were passed on to future generations reflect the requirements of the times and the voice of the people. China's long-standing masterpieces are full of compassion for the fate of the people, concern for the people's joys and sorrows, and demonstrate the profound feelings of the people with exquisite art. The "Dan Song" collected in the "Ancient Poetry Source" reflects the ancient hunting activities, the "July" which reflects the hard work of the farmers in the "Book of Songs", the "Cai Wei" that reflects the soldier's life in battle, the "Guan Ju" that reflects the love life of young people, the "Tianwen" that explores the mysteries of the universe, the "Song of Eile" that reflects the nomadic life, and the "Mulan Poem" that praises the heroic appearance of women, etc., are all produced from the people's lives. Qu Yuan's "Long Tai Rest to Hide the Tears, Mourn the Difficulties of the People's Livelihood", Du Fu's "Tens of Millions of Mansions, Sheltering the Poor People in the World Are Happy", "Zhumen Wine and Meat Stink, and the Road Has Frozen Bones", Li Shen's "Who Knows the Chinese Food, Every Grain Is Hard", Zheng Banqiao's "Some Xiaowu Caozhou County Officials, Every Branch and Leaf is Always Concerned", etc., are also works and good sentences that deeply reflect the voice of the people. The epic of Gilgamesh, the world's earliest literary work, reflects the mood and emotions of the ancient people of the two river basins to explore the laws of nature and the mysteries of life and death. The Homeric Epic praises the people for their bravery, justice, selflessness, and hard work. The main content of works such as "The Divine Comedy", "Decameron", and "The Legend of the Giants" is to oppose the asceticism and obscurantism of the Middle Ages, and reflect the people's ardent expectation for spiritual emancipation. Therefore, literature and art can only develop and prosper if they are rooted in real life and keep up with the trend of the timesOnly by responding to the will of the people and reflecting their concerns can we be full of vitality.
The people are not abstract symbols, but concrete people, flesh and blood, emotions, love and hate, dreams, and inner conflicts and struggles. We should not replace the feelings of the people with our own personal feelings, but should learn from the people with an open mind and learn from Xi and Xi from life, draw nourishment from the great practice of the people and the rich and colorful life, and constantly accumulate life and art, and constantly discover and create beauty. We must always put the warmth and happiness of the people in our hearts, pour the joys, sorrows and sorrows of the people into our own writings, eulogize the struggle for life, portray the most beautiful characters, and strengthen people's longing and confidence in a better life.
Speaking of which, I was reminded of one thing. In 1982, on the eve of my work in Zhengding County, Hebei Province, some acquaintances came to see me off, including Wang Yuanjian, a writer and screenwriter from Bayi Factory. He said to me, "When you go to the countryside, you should go deep into the peasant masses and mingle with the peasant masses, as Liu Qing did." In order to go deep into the life of farmers, Liu Qing served as the deputy secretary of the county party committee of Chang'an County, Shaanxi Province in 1952, and later resigned from the post of deputy secretary of the county party committee, retained the position of standing committee, and settled there in Huangfu Village, where he stayed for 14 years and concentrated on creating "History of Entrepreneurship". Because he has an in-depth understanding of the life of peasants in Guanzhong, Shaanxi, the characters in his pen are so lifelike. Liu Qing was familiar with the joys, sorrows and sorrows of the villagers, and when he introduced a policy involving rural peasants, he could immediately imagine whether the peasant masses were happy or unhappy.
Third, literature and art should love the people. Whether there is affection or not, and to whom you have feelings, determines the fate of literary and artistic creation. If you don't love the people, you can't create for the people. Lu Xun is full of love for the people, and the most famous poem that shows his heart is "Heng Mei coldly pointed at a thousand people, bowed his head and was willing to be a son of a cow". Jia Dashan, a writer I met while working in Zhengding, Hebei Province, is also a writer who loves the people. After his death, I wrote an article in his memory. What impressed me the most was his feelings of worrying about the country and the people, and "being far away from the rivers and lakes is worrying about his king". If literary and artistic workers want to be successful, they must consciously breathe the same breath with the people, share the same fate, and be heart-to-heart, rejoice in the people's joys, worry about the people's sorrows, and be the people's sons and daughters. This is the only right path and the greatest happiness of writers and artists.
Loving the people is not a slogan, it is necessary to have a profound rational understanding and concrete practical actions. To love the people sincerely, thoroughly, and lastingly, we must deeply understand the truth that the people are the creators of history, go deep into the masses and into life, and be the people's primary school students with sincerity. When I said that we should go deep into life, some comrades went down, but they just looked at the flowers and water, and did not carry their hearts and did not move their true feelings. To solve the problem of "for whom, who to rely on, and who am I", and to dismantle the wall of "heart", we must not only "enter the body", but also "enter the heart" and "enter the feelings".
In the final analysis, all innovations in literature and art are directly or indirectly to the people. "The insight of the world is all knowledge, and the practice of human feelings is the article. "Art can fly the wings of imagination, but it must have its feet on solid ground. There are 100 or 1,000 methods of literary and artistic creation, but the most fundamental, crucial, and reliable method is to take root in the people and life. If Cao Xueqin had not made a panoramic observation and microscopic analysis of the social life at that time, it would not have been possible to complete the writing of an encyclopedic masterpiece like Dream of Red Mansions. If Lu Xun was not familiar with the situation and mood of the people at the bottom before and after the Xinhai Revolution, it would be impossible for him to create lifelike characters such as Xianglin's sister-in-law, Runtu, Ah Q, and Kong Yiji.
Locked up in an ivory tower, there will be no lasting literary inspiration and creative passion. A Soviet poet described the writer's embarrassment of sitting in a room and digging out his mind and not being able to write "wringing his fingernails out of the water." We must go into the depths of life, understand the essence of life among the people, and understand the essence of life. Only by chewing life thoroughly and digesting it completely can it be turned into a profound plot and a moving image, and the created works can stir people's hearts. As the saying goes, "looking for sentences behind closed doors is not poetry, but just soliciting its own poems". All creative techniques and means are ultimately in the service of content, and they are all for a clearer, more unique, and more thorough way to tell people and reason. Deviating from this principle, techniques and tools are worthless and can even have negative effects.
Of course, life is not full of warblers singing and dancing, flowers and flowers, there are still many unsatisfactory things in society, and there are still some ugly phenomena. It is not a matter of not reflecting these phenomena, but of how to do so. The ancients said, "Happiness is not lewd, sorrow is not sad", "affection, stop etiquette". If literary and artistic creation simply describes the current situation and shows the ugliness in its original form, without the praise of light, the expression of ideals, and the guidance of morality, it will not be able to inspire the people to move forward. We should use the spirit of realism and romanticism to look at real life, use light to dispel darkness, and use beauty to defeat ugliness, so that people can see beauty, hope, and dreams ahead.
A good work should be a work that can stand the evaluation of the people, experts, and the market, and should put social benefits in the first place, and it should also be a work that integrates social benefits and economic benefits. Under the conditions of developing the socialist market economy, in order to realize the value of many cultural products through the market, of course, we cannot completely ignore economic returns. However, compared with social benefits, economic benefits are secondary, when two benefits, two values contradict, economic benefits should be subordinated to social benefits, market value should be subordinated to social value. Literature and art should not be slaves of the market, and should not be stained with the stench of copper. It is best to have excellent literary and artistic works that are both ideologically and artistically successful and popular in the market. It is necessary to adhere to the aesthetic ideals of literature and art, maintain the independent value of literature and art, and reasonably set quantitative indicators such as circulation, ratings, click-through rates, and box office revenues that reflect the degree of market acceptance. Some comrades said that the sky is the heaven of the world and the earth is the land of China, and only by paying attention to the most advanced aspects of mankind and sincerely facing the reality of the current Chinese people's existence, can we provide mankind with Chinese experience, and can our literature and art contribute special sounds and colors to the world. It makes sense. The 5,000-odd years of civilization and progress of the Chinese nation, the bloody struggle of the Chinese people for national independence and liberation in modern times, the great course of revolution, construction and reform carried out by the people under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, the profound changes in ancient China and the extremely rich production and life of the 1.3 billion Chinese people have provided extremely fertile soil for literary and artistic creation, and there are too many things worth writing. As long as we are with the people, we will surely gain infinite strength from Mother Earth, the motherland.
end**: Inspector Linxi.