Civilization Is the Beacon That Lights the Road to Humanity's Future

Starting at age seven, when I entered school and learned the phonetic alphabet, under my grandmother's half-coaxing, half-urging encouragement, I used the pinyin to help her (my grandmother was illiterate but an extremely devout Buddhist) recite the Diamond Sutra, the Zhang Gong Hundred Patience Sutra, the Heart Sutra, and other scriptures widely popular in that era, which she had brought back from various temples.

Because my father, my uncle, and my older brother all loved collecting books, although I was born in the countryside I was fortunate to have many books to read from childhood. After I learned to read, I read widely; by the first year of middle school, my teacher told me privately that, in terms of sheer reading volume, he himself felt he could not compare with me. In high school, I was carefully cultivated by enlightened teachers, and my horizons opened wide.

After the college entrance exam, knowing how hard my parents struggled to make a living away from home and how often they were harassed and humiliated by government officials, I was filled with indignation and resolved to follow Sun Yat-sen in launching a revolution to transform society. In my early twenties I ventured to the capital, attempting to carry out a democratic revolution. Alongside making a living, I gathered like-minded companions and used my pen as a dagger to assail current politics and critique the ills of the time. But the so-called companions I met in reality were mostly political opportunists whose integrity was highly questionable.

As the years passed, my hot blood cooled. I then hoped to save the nation through culture, striving to advance a more civilized, philanthropic, and tolerant society, and again gathered many companions. Unexpectedly, those companions either, through honorable men betraying their principles, fell into disgrace; some even ended up in prison; some had already returned to the netherworld; and some had become money-grubbers whose every third sentence was about cash.

After decades of reform and opening up, almost all Chinese people have fallen. Restless utilitarianism has seeped into every cell of this society. Twenty or thirty years ago, only some in power abused their offices to pursue private gain and oppress the people. Today, every profession is preying on its own kind. Is this the evil of human nature, or the flaws of the system? I think it is both.

Today social scandals follow one after another, and human evil is visible everywhere. China today is worse than the China I resented in my middle-school years. I am nearly forty; I have read much and seen much of the world! In my early twenties I believed that, by raising my arm and shouting, striving together to overthrow the government and change the regime, I could thoroughly transform China. Now I know that worldly affairs are far from that simple, and that bloodshed cannot buy an ideal society.

Seeing that conscience has all but vanished in politics, religion, finance, medicine, education, and the people's livelihood, I sometimes cannot help weeping. Who among us can change this state of affairs? How can it be changed?

From age twenty to forty, twenty years have passed. I have made many efforts; looking back now, they all seem like drawing water with a bamboo basket, ending in utter emptiness. I myself once fell into a life drenched in material desire. The phenomena I once fiercely criticized have, in these years, grown exponentially in society; even I myself once waded into the muddy waters. At forty, must I still be a radical youth, still expending this useless effort?

My life has been short, and more than half is already gone. Between seeing patients, I put down my phone and read for half a day. As I read, I reflect for a long time, deeply feeling that the world is hard to change and human nature hard to conquer. All we scholars can do is devote ourselves to learning, leave behind a few seeds of civilization to sprout slowly and nurture later generations, just as the wise of past ages did for us.

Politics, ethnicity, the nation, religion, and even humanity itself will one day perish. But since humanity's birth, the longing for civilization and peace—spurred by the suffering born of our struggle against nature and our mutual slaughter with our own kin—will never change.

I do not want to churn any more, and I do not have much time left to squander. From now on, I will keep away from the noise, speak less of ideals, stop blowing my own horn, and devote myself single-mindedly to scholarship.

I feel that the name my father gave me (Zhiyuan, meaning lofty ambition) and my courtesy name (Qingmin, meaning upright and quick) have influenced my life too deeply. The name and courtesy name have always spurred me to achieve something, but unfortunately my ambitions are great while my talents are meager; every effort I have made has ended in failure, and I have accomplished nothing to this day. It is deeply sad.

I only hope that in the second half of my life, after thick accumulation, I can leave behind something of value—rather than coming into this world, apart from constantly producing feces, having no effect at all.

Democracy, the rule of law, philanthropy, tolerance, equality, and civilization—locking human evil in a cage—this path of social governance was attempted by our early ancestors, only to go astray again and again.

In every dynasty there have been dedicated people who, at any cost, strove to reform society. But unfortunately, as Will Durant said, after just one or two generations of peace, all manner of human evils rise like settled dregs, corroding the whole society. Selfishness, greed, and wickedness gain the upper hand.

Religious thinkers have tried to transform human nature, but the ridiculous thing is that they relied on fabricating false threats to frighten people, finally reducing religion to a tool for later clergy to control believers' souls, amass wealth, and chase women—and making religion a laughingstock to the irreligious.

Humanity, small as dust, cannot overcome the great limits nature has set for us, nor can it overcome its own weaknesses. Civilization is the only light that can illuminate the road ahead. All things have their time of decay; only civilization can accompany humanity to the end.

But what is civilization? Civilization is, first of all, relative to barbarism. Humans evolved from animals, and the barbaric genes we carry have always been deeply rooted. Civilization is the accumulation, forged by all humanity through suffering, of all the knowledge, skills, and experience by which we conquer nature, conquer our own weaknesses, and live in peace with our fellow human beings and with nature.

Civilization is constantly evolving; as humanity's survival experience grows richer, civilization becomes more developed.

Civilization is also exchanged, absorbed, and fused among different peoples. We humans have paid a great price for the development of civilization. Those fellow humans who died in war, hunger, disease, disaster, and political persecution are all sacrifices in the evolutionary process of our human civilization.

Civilization is the crystallization of humanity's collective wisdom; it was not invented by any single sage. People who superstitiously trust authority always believe that some sage created a supreme civilization, but history can tell us the truth.

Every worship of authoritarianism eventually develops into narrowness and obsession, and even triggers cruel war. A rational modern person should be able to understand this.

Broadly studying the civilizations of all humankind helps us open our hearts and broaden our horizons, and helps reduce the arrogance and prejudice that come from narrowness and ignorance.

And narrowness, ignorance, arrogance, and prejudice are precisely the root of the great majority of the difficulties humanity suffers.