Dissimilation Of Humanity In Liu Zhenyun's Novel

Dissimilation of humanity, in fact, it's the dissimilation of human: the loss of self being transferred into "non-ego" under some external and internal forces. Generally speaking, the dissimilation of human is expressed through language, psychology and behavior, or in the third person's aspect. Or, we can say it is the contradictory community influenced by human natures: good and evil, lofty and low, kind and cruel, fawning and disdaining, optimism and pessimism, brave and cowardly, tolerance and parochialism. In the early period of the dissimilation, man still retained some original goodness of human nature, which had never stopped fighting against the evil in man's heart. It is undeniable that there is kindness, noble and glorious aspects in human natures. However, there is little such kind of figures in Liu Zhenyun's works, where he appears to relish a joust with man's bad behaviors. In Mo Luo's words, Liu is the life critics of China, which is a bit polite. In my opinion, he is the culture critics of China. Criticism is the largest force that can be used to express people's antipathetic feelings towards evils. Although direct criticizing is exciting, it won't be impressive. While, there is extremely intensive criticism in Liu Zhenyun's works. It seems that he can make clear those deeply thoughts within a few words.When we encounter problems, we always have tow kinds of reaction. That is, accept or abandon, love or hate, praise or criticize, surrender or rebel. Sometimes, we ourselves have doubts. To us, even though something seems right as it has the tendency to be good, it just complies with our aesthetic standards, or that of the mainstream. When there is something against the mainstream, we always say that it is wrong because it differs with our standards. Since it used to be the same with us, we say it is dissimilated now. In fact, true and false is relative. Just like the traitors in Liu Zhenyun's works, which are being described negatively all through the ages, has got the positive command by him."We're all offspring of the traitors"(in Liu's words), it is the impressive part of Liu Zhenyun. Because when we evaluate the traitors, the historical environment as well as our perspective has changed.From the dissimilation of humanity caused by the lack of material, spiritual confusion and natural disasters, Liu Zhenyun told us how to modify our values and how to build our lives."Literature of man", which was raised by Zhou Zuoren, regards humanity as the combination of brutehood and godhood. Setting aside the composition of idealism, in Liu Zhenyun's works, we should see that there are more distorted, nearly splitting metamorphosis where the humanity and brutehood coexist. The purpose of this deep criticism is to ascertain the truth of human nature.In fact, the dissimilation of humanity is mainly about man's personal contradictions. It's a matter of the soul and physical separation. And, it is about man who does things against his own values and moral standards under certain conditions. Removing the external environment, as a separate pure natural individual, we care little for good or bad, beautiful or ugly. However, we can not live in a vacuum; we must live in a certain social environment among people. To the external cause of the dissimilation, the article summed up as following: the lack of material, spiritual confusion and natural disasters, etc. Actually, there should be wars, social movements, and so on. The most fundamental level for the survival of man, first of all, is to meet material needs. Furthermore, is to have abundant spiritual beliefs—no spiritual beliefs is very dangerous because it is the survival pillars of human being. There are many this kind of examples around us, such as Xianglin Sao. The author only discussed the above-mentioned aspects because that they are highly representative and could cover that issue. The internal factors of humanity dissimilation, though, should cover the following three aspects: meeting the material needs of survival (including the physical and security needs), mutual harmonious relationship—meeting the meaningful interpersonal needs, and the needs for the growth of man (including the development of human potential, self-esteem and self-actualization). In view of the historical background of Liu Zhenyun's works, we only deal with the main part of his works in order to analyze his critical thought in the deep dimension: What he criticized is the power-society under some political system, and what he focused on is the traditional Chinese power-culture making a feature of official-standard.According to Marxist theory, culture should lie in the subordinate position under politics. Just like the intellectual metaphorized into Liu Zhenyun: in the face of authority (such as Cao Cao, Yuan Shao), he himself almost became a minion yielding to his fate. However, it didn't stop his comprehensive thinking of the power-cultural awareness which was deeply rooted in China."It's impossible for us to think about those serious things all the time,"he said,"most time man's thinking is wandering freely, which covers 95% of our life. In economics, this phenomenon is very backward. But, it is very important for the human spirit. On the terms of our memory, decades later, what remains is something legend and detailed but not thoughtful. Those overlooked is what I write."(Zhou Gang: Meditation between vanity and reality—interview on Liu Zhenyun) When he wrote《Hometown,World and Floret》, Liu Zhenyun said,"I think few commentators could understand it until now. They believe that it is another kind of real history, while what I emphasized is culture. That is, in the whole framework of the society, what kind of culture is more powerful and vital, the orthodox, the revolutionary ideological strength (There is process from informal to formal in revolution.) or the folk culture? In my opinion, I prefer the last one. The morality, customs and habits inherited along thousands of years in the folk culture is a linear power, while the dominant thinking of a certain time is partial. If we regard the linear power as a sward, the partial power is just a piece of paper which is easily to be pierced; If we regard the linear power as the sea, the partial power is just a rock which is easily to be submerged. Therefore, under the influence of the folk culture, the main stream of time will soon be distorted and monsterized. So does the religions. When the Buddhist and the Catholicism came to China, they were soon be eaten by the rural and became the family gossip. The digesting ability of Chinese folk culture is terrible."(Zhou Gang: Meditation between vanity and reality—interview on Liu Zhenyun) The power-cultural awareness is deeply emerged into our blood and being dissimilated unintentionally and unconsciously. It's contradictory being controlled by the power-cultural awareness. Man could not be dissimilated until ending the fight between self and dissimilated self.