We Are Inclusive, So We Are: An Exploration On The Secret Of Meaningful Life Via Three Great British Humanistic Minds

2009 is a year during which many great Chinese minds left us, Ji Xianlin (1911-2009), Ren Jiyu (1916-2009), Qian Xuesen (1911-2009), to mention but a few. With the departure of Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002), Levi-Strauss (1908-2009), and Noam Chomsky (1928-) in his octogenarian, a threat becomes increasingly real that we shall be confronted with a time without great intellectuals. This makes it both urgent and necessary to investigate what contributes to the greatness of some master minds who have led a long life with enviable fulfillment. Accordingly, three great British minds, George Bernard Shaw (1856-1050), Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), and Joseph Needham(1900-1995), are selected as the subject of this research for their remarkable intellectual achievements and fame, longevity, great personality, and a grateful memory of their sympathy for Chinese people in their difficult time. In essence, it is also a research on the factors that make life satisfactory, especially to the intellectuals.Therefore, an investigation is made by means of description and comparison on their personality, life experience, achievements, influence, outlook and so on. And it is found that they, while having their respective individuality, have much in common such as longevity, great intellectual power and achievements, being strong and more or less eccentric in personality, being old but active and bravery in adversary, comprehensiveness and adaptability in intellectual pursuit, humanistic outlook, and visit and sympathy of China.Based on the findings of the investigation, analyses are made to find out the secrets for the success of their life, and the results indicate that purity of life goals, profundity of intellectual pursuit and inclusive mentality and experience are some major secrets for their satisfactory life. The three aspects are co-related to each other and support each other. Only with the purity of goal and inclusiveness, can one go very far and long, and make it possible to have remarkable accumulation of wisdom, which in turn provides strong support to retaining and attaining the goals, and renders the goals with more significance; the more significant one's life is, the more satisfaction one has. Such beneficial circle also goes to the relation between prolificacy, longevity and inclusiveness. Their lives are great because they are inclusive.In light of the secrets for their success in life, the discussion turns from particularity to generality, that is, focuses on the issue of inclusiveness related to the existence of human beings at large. At first, the nature of inclusiveness is explored, based on its distinction and interrelation with open-mindedness, tolerance and inclusiveness and it is found that inclusiveness is an attitude more positive than tolerance and open-mindedness. Then, manifest of inclusiveness is discussed via some citations from some celebrities such Martin Luther King Jr., Helen Keller. The quote from Howard Dalton Winters (1923-1994) is especially insightful; he manifests that civilization is actually a process of inclusion. And the author also discovers that modern institutions such as law, equality, democracy, political ideology or education are also manifests of inclusiveness, so are many other aspects of human beings such as creativity, productivity, and human values. As a result, the relation between inclusiveness and human values is explored in some aspects such as its relation with fear, freedom, morality and love. And it is believed that love as an inclusive power is hardly resistible. The discussion of the relation between inclusiveness and human existence is further extended to its significance on religion, thinking and distinction-making. It is derived that religion is a paradoxical manifest of inclusiveness, that nothing can be more inclusive than an inclusive mind, and that our life can be viewed as a continuous process of distinction-making which often causes fear, loneliness, alienation, stagnation and various limitation. To change such a situation, it is necessary to change our outlook of life and existence. So a new outlook of life is proposed that life either of group or individual is a continuous process of inclusion; if inclusion stops, life ends. And it is believed that change of our outlook can lead to the change of our existence. Some typical examples are given, the most important one is the Chinese endeavor of open-up and reform in recent years, which began with liberation of thought and have brought about enormous change in reality. A conclusion is thus made:we are inclusive, so we live.The last part of this paper provides further enlightenment of this research. It is assumed that inclusiveness can serve much function in solving important problems or settling conflicts either in domestic or international spheres such as the construction of a harmonious society and territory disputes, and acts as a bridge between our deal and reality. The last message is a warning:inclusiveness is based on tolerance and is able to accommodate difference; otherwise it is exclusiveness.