Chapter 40 Section 2 Self-Confession After Learning from the Pain: "Capricious Thoughts"

Since the end of 1978, Ba Jin opened the column "Capricious Thoughts" in Hong Kong's "Ta Kung Pao". From December 1, 1978, he wrote the first article "Talking about "Looking at the Hometown"" to August 20, 1986, when he finished the last article, which is the first. One hundred and fifty articles in "Remembering Hu Feng" (every 30 articles were compiled into one collection successively, and a total of five collections were published, followed by the first collection of "Capricious Thoughts", "Exploration Collection", "Truth Collection", "During Illness" Collection" and "Untitled Collection") 8 , which lasted eight years.After writing this 420,000-word prose masterpiece, for Ba Jin, who is in his eighties, it not only means hard work, but also a ruthless torture of his own soul by the old man. A painful self-repentance that gradually deepens after a huge conflict.

Ba Jin's starting point for writing "Caprice Records" is very clear, that is, to make a personal reflection on the "Cultural Revolution", just as he said in the new notes of the bound volume of "Caprice Records" written later: "Pick up a pen, even though I I was exposed to various topics and talked about various things, but my thoughts were always in a circle. That is the so-called "Cultural Revolution" of ten years of catastrophe... I have lived in the "cowshed" for ten years, and I have the responsibility to expose that. It is a heart-stirring deception, so that future generations will not suffer from disasters." He truly recorded the physical and psychological devastation brought by the Cultural Revolution to him, his family and friends in "Caprice Records" (such as those very touching articles His famous chapters "Remembrance of Xiao Shan", "Remembrance of Comrade Lao She", etc.), revealing that the vicious power and influence of the "Cultural Revolution" did not disappear with its end (such as ""Poisonous Weed Disease"", etc.). The scene of fighting ghosts and ghosts in the movie constantly reminds himself, or repeatedly calls for "the establishment of a 'Cultural Revolution' museum" (), to leave a testimony of this national disaster for the world.In fact, the entire "Caprice" can be regarded as a personal "Cultural Revolution" museum built by Ba Jin with paper and pen.

The uniqueness and depth of "Thinking" is that the reflection on the Cultural Revolution was combined with Ba Jin's "confessional consciousness" from the very beginning, instead of simply putting all responsibility They all pushed it to the "Gang of Four", so they believed that smashing the "Gang of Four" would solve all problems.Ba Jin's introspection accommodates greater worries about history and the future.This introspection in "Caprice" is not completed all at once, but has gone through a gradual and in-depth process.In "The Comedy of a Peach Pit", Ba Jin asked himself this way: "I often think like this: We can't blame Lin Biao or the 'Gang of Four' alone, we have to blame ourselves too! We 'eat' the set ourselves. Feudal goods, Lin Biao and the 'Gang of Four' sell them to prosper. Otherwise, how can a random 'order' make people ruin?" Then he talked about a thing that troubled him all his life , This is the scene when he saw the prisoner in his father's yamen being beaten and thanking the county magistrate when he was a child. This childhood impression first appeared in his first novel "Destroyed", and it resurfaced at this time , becoming the general image running through the whole book of Caprice.In the following chapters, Ba Jin constantly reflects on the connection between his experience of the Cultural Revolution and the consciousness of slavery. He found that in the early days of the Cultural Revolution, he also willingly bowed his head and confessed his sins like a slave, and took the initiative to reform his thoughts. In "A Dream in Ten Years", he Painfully yelled out such self-condemnation: "Slave, I used to think that I had nothing to do with this word, but I have been a slave for ten years!... I am a 'slave in my heart', and I have a determined spirit Slave. This discovery makes me very sad! My heart is struggling, and I feel that the philosophy of slavery is tightly bound to my whole body like iron chains. I am not myself." As his introspection deepened, Ba Jin re-recognized the life path he had traveled with great courage, so he had another self-discovery in "Remembering Brother Feiying": "Only after the anti-Hu Feng and anti-rightist movements Among them, I have written such irresponsible articles, saying that it is to draw a clear line, isn't it just "throwing a stone into a well"?" The following "Remembering Hu Feng" is his last and most emotional essay. In the article, he dissected in detail the pain he felt when he wrote an article to express his opinion at will in order to protect himself during the anti-Hu Feng campaign. ,shame.Obviously, what Ba Jin is confessing here is not only slave consciousness.The so-called slave consciousness still presupposes the belief that one is guilty, and pinning the hope of self-help on the savior is essentially a manifestation of ignorance.However, Ba Jin’s reflection on some of his behaviors in the 1950s digs into a deeper level of thinking: that is, under the rule of despotism, he was forced to sacrifice justice and friends in order to protect himself. He was an accomplice to despotism, and behind this act, he knew right from wrong, so his conscience was also tormented by it, and as a result, in the increasingly desperate living environment and the great pain of physical and mental difficulties, In the end, he lost his sober will little by little, gave up his consciousness and ability to think independently as a modern intellectual, and fundamentally violated the free spirit and humanistic ideal that he once enshrined as his life; The psychological basis of becoming a spiritual slave during the Cultural Revolution.

This can't help but remind people of the "Juexin character" portrayed by Ba Jin in the "Torrent" trilogy: a character who voluntarily gives up individuality and self-awareness under the pressure of the environment and constantly compromises.This was originally the content of Ba Jin's criticism from the standpoint of advocating independent personality and free spirit during the "May 4th Movement". Later, he discovered that he also had a terrible "juexin personality", which really made him heartbroken.Thus, from the introspection of his participation in criticizing Ke Ling's play "The City That Never Sleeps" in the seventh chapter of "Following Thoughts" ""Following Orders"" to the final confession about the anti-Hu Feng movement, Ba Jin struggled to complete a long Self-discovery and liquidation from shallow to deep.Its significance should not only lie in Ba Jin's personal reflection, because what he reveals about his own mental journey is a typical reflection of the cultural mentality experienced by modern Chinese intellectuals.Especially after the 1950s, the cause of the tragedy of a whole generation of intellectuals undoubtedly included that they gradually gave up their criticism of absolutism and their defense of the "May 4th" spiritual tradition under the pressure of the environment. And the ensuing constant compromises, succumbing to strong pressure, and finally stamped the shameful brand of "juexin character" in the spiritual world of a generation.

When Ba Jin revealed the deep content of all these personal and national disasters with the courage to open the wound, he actually completed the criticism of himself and the entire intellectual group for betraying the "May 4th" spirit.The real strength and encouragement of "Caprice" is that it re-proposes the conscience and responsibility that intellectuals should stick to, and re-advocates the return of the spirit of the "May 4th Movement" from the confession of intellectuals.For example, Ba Jin first talked about the issue of creative freedom, repeatedly proving the importance of independent thinking for writers (such as ""Following the Order of Literature", ""The Will of the Chief", "The Role of Literature", "Whether to Formulate "Literary Art" "Law" and other articles), in the later several random thoughts on the topic of "exploration", it was clearly pointed out that people without "independent thinking" and "exploratory spirit" have no real vitality like robots, but only insist on "independent thinking". Only those who can "think" are entitled to enjoy their own lives. By expressing his support for the "scar literature" at that time, he also directly mentioned the social responsibility of writers many times, and praised the critical spirit of the new generation of writers.From the writing process of "Capricious Thoughts", we can also see Ba ​​Jin's gradual awakening of the "May Fourth" realistic fighting spirit. He quoted Zhao Dan's last words: "To me, there is nothing to be afraid of." (""Nothing" Terrible") This kind of rekindled courage made him maintain a vigilant and critical attitude towards various real social problems, and mercilessly exposed the feudal consciousness remaining in contemporary social forms. In the last few essays, such as "Official Qi", "Aging", "Remembering Hu Feng" In ", the volcanic eruption of social passion spewed out from his pen again. The old man really opened his heart, without hesitation, shouted loudly, and completed the reshaping of the "May 4th" personality with sharp social attacks.It can be said that this "confession", which is as heavy and profound as a "will", has regained the long-lost social conscience for contemporary Chinese intellectuals, and also established the contemporary spiritual tradition of intellectuals with personal bloody soul narration. Consciously inherit the "May 4th" new cultural tradition, consciously become a sober critic of the real society, and use modern culture to overcome all kinds of ugly, backward and dark things in society.