As we all know, China's feudal society is unique in the world, and its degree of dictatorship is so deep and the time span is so long that no one can stand out from it. To achieve these ends, apart from the system of violence, Confucian culture is the greatest aid.
Confucian culture is good at forcibly instilling unfair and unjust things into the so-called "morality", so that people's spiritual world has nowhere to escape. Just to be a good person, to be an ordinary person accepted by society, people have to be consciously and voluntarily enslaved.
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, **ism continued to strengthen, and the oppression of individuals and the distortion of human personality reached an unbelievable level. In contrast, there is the germ of humanist thought.
Cao Xueqin is erudite, talented, uninhibited, and cynical, very similar to Li Bai, who compares himself to a Dapeng bird. He spent his life painstakingly creating "Dream of the Red Chamber", not just to record his youthful years, but to express his humanitarian thoughts, denounce the darkness of society and the decay of culture.
Humanism, as a bourgeois ideology, arose during the European Renaissance and advocated equality of personality and mutual respect. By the time of the French Revolution, it was concretized as "liberty", "equality", and "fraternity". These words have long been familiar to us as the mainstream culture of today's world. But I don't know if readers have noticed that these three points are precisely Jia Baoyu's character traits.
Let's start with freedom. Jia Baoyu is not a person who does not learn and has no skills and takes sound and pleasure as his life goal, compared to most of the men in the book, he is obviously a literary and artistic young man. The talent displayed by Daguanyuan when he raised his forehead can be regarded as erudite and versatile at the age of thirteen or fourteen.
However, he was "afraid to read" the "sage books" such as the "Four Books", so that "most of them were sandwiched" and "could not be memorized", and even if he was repeatedly whipped, he would never repent. This shows that he does not refuse to learn, but refuses to learn those things for the purpose of pursuing fame and fortune, which is the greatest liberalism!
What you learn, what kind of life you have. Baoyu hated the Confucian culture that poisoned the soul, resisted the study of examinations, resisted the life path of traditional scholars, and would rather have no future than study the "book of sages".
He tried his best to escape the socialization of scholars and doctors, hated the feudal officialdom, and wanted to live a free and idle life away from officialdom. For marriage, he pursues heart-to-heart and mutual affection, rather than reciprocity and alliance of interests, which are the embodiment of humanitarianism and respect for people's free will.
In particular, he praises women and belittles men, and there is a lot of ink in the book, but unfortunately later generations rarely understand the author's profound intentions. You must know that the family is a microcosm of society, and the promotion of the Three Principles and Five Constants, emphasizing the class differences of family members, and making family relations also based on inequality, can destroy human nature to the greatest extent. When the relationships that are supposed to be emotional are branded by class, people are of course accustomed to social inequality and will consciously defend it.
Therefore, the superiority of men and the inferiority of women is the cornerstone of all unequal systems in society, and Baoyu has done the opposite, proposing that women are pure and men are turbid. In his eyes:
"The two words of this daughter are extremely noble and pure, and they are more noble than the two treasures of Amitabha Buddha and Yuan Shi Tianzun! You foul-mouthed tongues, don't be abrupt with these two words, it's very important! ”And men are all "bearded eyebrows", which seems to be a child's willful nonsense, but in fact it points to the core of consciousness on which feudal society depends.
Looking at the world, the process of civilization is a history of mankind's continuous struggle for freedom and equality. In particular, the degree to which equality is realized is the degree of civilization of a society. However, the long feudal history of our country is a long history of enslavement, and the consciousness of equality must not be allowed to appear. Since the emergence of Cheng Zhu Lixue in the Song Dynasty, equality has been vigorously curbed and abused, and the pursuit of equality is a great disrespect and a heinous crime.
But in Jia Baoyu's eyes, people are not naturally high and low because of men and women, rich and poor, and families from different families, only the difference between beauty and ugliness, good and evil, which is really commendable and rare in the era when people are numb to each other's oppression! Let's talk about fraternity. In fact, fraternity is an extension of the consciousness of equality, if you can treat every life equally, you will inevitably be able to love your own life and pity other lives, Baoyu is very prominent in this point. He has no career pursuit, and it is his life's work to be a flower messenger.
Although he was restricted by the environment, he could not really take care of those youthful lives, but it could not be denied that he had a sincere wish. He said, "Live, let's live together; If you don't live, let's turn to ashes and smoke", although this is said to Daiyu, it is pointing to all good lives.
He showed heartfelt human concern for many slaves and maids, and once imagined releasing all the slaves and maids in his house to liberate their slaves. For those who make mistakes, only if conditions permit, he will take the mistake on himself and block the punishment for them. Grandma Liu entered Jiafu for the second time, and the noble ladies either despised or teased her, and during this period, Baoyu did a total of two things, one was to remember to give her the Chengyao cup to live, and the other was to remember how the girl in Grandma Liu's story would settle down.
Ling Guan painted Qiang, he himself was drenched in the rain but worried about her. He shouted at her back, "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone!."This was an attempt to reassure her, and when she found out that Mingyan didn't know how old she was, Baoyu was annoyed and said, "It can be seen that he knows you in vain......."The list goes on and on.
He "saw the swallow and talked to it."When he saw a fish in the river, he talked to themWhen I saw the stars and the moon, I either sighed for a long time or muttered. However, he was full of love and cherishment for all things in nature. Even in a picture of a beauty in Ning Guofu, he was worried that she was lonely, "I have to visit him to comfort him."
According to Fat Yan Zhai's disclosure, there was originally a love list in the book, Daiyu was "love", and Baoyu was "love". The so-called love is for Daiyu's dedication (affection), which means that Baoyu's love is general, uncaused, and in today's words, it is fraternity.
The word love is used the most in the Dream of Red Mansions, different people have different feelings, and even the title of the book was "Love Monk Record". In fact, all kinds of emotions written by the author are expressions of human nature, some are good, some are evil, some are pure, and some are complex.
Mr. Ye Lang, a professor at Peking University, once said, "Cao Xueqin wants to seek" the world of love ", to seek spring, to seek a beautiful life. But there is no spring in the real society. Therefore, he fictionalized and created a "sentient world", which is the Grand View Garden. ”
The so-called world of love is the world of fraternity, and Baoyu's love is the love of fraternity, which is the spiritual world that the author really admires. He looks different from ordinary people, almost stupid, called "obscenity" by the police fairy, and called "peerless infatuation" by Fat Yanzhai, but in fact, he flashes with the most dazzling brilliance of human nature.
Nowadays, some female readers criticize Jia Baoyu for not trying to be motivated, not responsible, and full of feelings, and a scumbag. As everyone knows, the times are different, and the background is different.
In the era when Cheng Zhu's science was highly rampant, the character of Jia Baoyu had anti-era advanced significance. China's modern humanitarian ideology is embodied in Jia Baoyu. It's just that this trend of thought lacks a sufficient social foundation and does not have any opportunities for development. People with advanced ideas cannot find a realistic way out, and can only wait to be stifled.
Just like Baoyu in the book, he wants to get rid of the shackles of the aristocracy, but he has to rely on the aristocratic class. He seems to be enviable, but he is just a pet that can't help himself. He tried to protect the beauty of the Grand View Garden, but he had no power or power, and he couldn't do anything in essence, and he was very powerless.
Cao Xueqin's Baoyu is not a revolutionary soldier or an ideal man, he is a tragic figure, and he can only become disillusioned with the real world and give up in the end. Therefore, readers do not have to be demanding of this role, they should see Cao Xueqin's creative purpose and see the brilliance of humanity that he pinned on Baoyu.
Jia Baoyu's thoughts are very pure, and his pursuit is too beautiful, which is still too idealistic today, such as his rejection of exam-oriented learning......However, after another two hundred or even two thousand years, it will be difficult to say, when the progress of civilization is deepening, maybe people will understand him more and find him more valuable.
This is the meaning of "Dream of Red Mansions" beyond the times, a great work that will inevitably stand the test of history and still have a guiding role for people thousands of years later.