Do not let the wicked spread over the earth, and do not believe that there is an immortal light in the sky
In historical reality, or in fabricated literary and artistic works, such moral paradoxes always appear: “A moral person can only preserve the ‘weak moral’, ‘immoral’ and ‘immoral’ at self-sacrifice, and he Moral transformation or non-transformation is accomplished spontaneously by the latter; if the moral person is committed to self-preservation, he must go to his own opposite.”
The story of Rong Yi in “Lv’s Spring and Autumn Period: The Eighth View of Jun Jun” profoundly demonstrates this paradox. Rong Yi and his disciple Bitter Winter lived together outside the city. Only one of them gave his clothes to the other, and one of them could survive. . In the end, Rong Yi undressed his disciple and died in the cold night, but his disciple survived. Li Jing was attracted by the drama and created the play “The Clothes of Rong Yi”. What she wanted to find out was what would happen to the grain of wheat in Rong Yi when it fell on the saline-alkali land? How will the person who receives the cotton coat spend the rest of his life?
Today’s article is about the creation of “The Clothes of Rong Yi”, which is included in “I’m Afraid of Life” (5 volumes in total). In addition to explaining the origin of the play, Li Jing also shared the excitement brought to her by two real events, the Jiang Ge case and the debate between Liu Cixin and Jiang Xiaoyuan. Thinking about human nature prompted her to conceive Shi Xin – Shou Padded Clothes person’s character traits. Most of us are actually cotton-padded people, and this drama may be a wake-up call to today’s moral realities.
On the Creation of “The Clothes of Rong Yi”
Written by: Li Jing
At the end of 2017, I accidentally read Mr. Qian Mu’s “Mozi·Hui Shi·Gongsunlong” and was attracted by a story he quoted:
Rong Yi violated Qi as Lu, and the weather was so cold that he went back to the door, and stayed alone with his disciples outside Guo. When the cold got worse, he called his disciple: “My son and my clothes, and I live; I and my son’s clothes, and my son lives. I am a scholar who cherishes death for the world; my son is not good enough to be loved. The clothes!” The disciple said: “My husband is not a good person, and how bad is it to be able to match the clothes of the state officials?” Tai Rong Yi sighed and said, “What a sigh! It’s not good for the husband!” The disciple lived.
This is the story in “Lv’s Spring and Autumn Period: The Eighth View of Jun Jun”. I can’t remember what Mr. Qian’s original words said. People can’t save themselves.
I feel that I have not scratched the itch in this interpretation, but I am shocked that such a short story contains such a profound paradox: the adherence to the morality of self-sacrifice and others has achieved a “moral elimination”—— Those who died were righteous people, but those who survived were “unworthy people”, just like the plots that are often staged in historical reality.
But here’s the problem: it can only be so. If a righteous person survives because he is clothed, and an “unworthy person” freezes to death because of giving up his clothes, is the righteous person still a righteous person? Hasn’t he become a hypocrite in the name of a righteous man, worse than a “bad guy”? This is the paradox of morality—the moral person can only save the “weak moral”, “immoral” and “immoral” people by self-sacrifice, and let the latter complete the transformation of morality or not; Dedicated to self-preservation, you must go to the opposite of yourself. “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains a single grain; but if it dies, it produces many grains.” (John 12:24)
“Nostalgia” movie
The problem is: what if the wheat grains fall into the saline soil? Will it still produce grains? If so, what kind of particles are they? If not, how should I view the matter of “the grains of wheat die in vain in the saline-alkali land”? This view implies how one should behave, how to bear faith and doubt, how to view sin and righteousness. This is not a small problem.
Incorporating this question into the story of “Rong Yi removes his clothes”, I want to explore: Did the Rong Yi grain of wheat produce another Rong Yi grain on the saline-alkali land of the “unworthy disciple”? After this disciple survives, how will he spend the rest of his life? How will he respond to the cotton-padded coat that Rong Yi put his life on?
One person’s cotton coat and the rest of another person’s life are so tightly welded together. The drama here is unpredictable. I am attracted to it.
There are only two parties in the story: Rong Yi and his disciples. Rong Yi died, and the story was passed down. There is only one possibility: it was spread by the disciple. On what occasion and in what state of mind did this disciple tell this story?
No matter how the disciple spends his life, in the end, he still rests his conscience by publicly spreading the righteous deeds of the Rong Yi. Rong Yi’s sacrifice was finally lived up to. The grain yielded more wheat.
What a comforting story. The bleak reality needs this story.
So, I plan to write this: Fu Yan’s disciple – I named him Shi Xin – lived a life full of injustice, and at the last moment of persecution, the clothes of Rong Yi miraculously illuminated him, making him the ultimate Righteous deeds and storytelling repay the sacrifice of Rong Yi and complete self-redemption. A Hollywood bright ending.
TV series “Game of Thrones (Season 6)”
People often say: “Those who hold wages for everyone should not freeze to death in the wind and snow.”
But most of the facts are: the “salaried people” have “frozen to death in the wind and snow”.
Before meeting the story of “Rong Yi Jie Yi”, I would also be so generous and excited. After encountering this story, the model is very simple and irrefutable: we are all Shi Xin—wearing the cotton-padded clothes of the Rongyi who died for me, either helplessly or justifiably, living as we are. Or forget that person and that cotton-padded jacket, otherwise, how can we survive with a clear conscience.
But we may be able to do the next best thing: to condemn our own weakness, to get the compensation of conscience, and then to gain a little moral superiority – after all, there are people who don’t know how to blame themselves.
The best we can do. We cannot do more. We are nothing but slaves to sin and death.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t finish writing that “good soothing story.”
“Nostalgia” movie
There are two things that stimulated me to rethink the “Rong Yi’s Clothes”.
The first is the Jiang Ge case. In the early morning of November 3, 2016, Jiang Ge, a female student studying in Japan, was killed in front of her apartment by Chen Shifeng, the ex-boyfriend of her classmate, friend and roommate Liu Xin (now renamed Liu Nuanxi). The “culprit” in this case is Jiang Ge’s kindness. She originally rented a house by herself and lived in An Ran, but out of sympathy for Liu Xin’s unbearable harassment by her ex-boyfriend, she reluctantly took her in for two months. Out of sympathy, she accompanied Liu Xin from the subway station back to her apartment in the early morning of November 3. At this time, Liu Xin had received a threatening WeChat message from Chen Shifeng, but she did not inform Jiang Ge of the danger. The two met Chen Shifeng with a knife in the corridor of the apartment. Liu Xin walked in front and quickly hid in the house and locked the door. As a result, Jiang Ge, who was behind her to dissuade Chen Shifeng from entering the door to escape, was blocked in front of the door by Chen and cut him off. A dozen knives in the neck. Chen Shifeng fled. Jiang Ge bled to death. After the incident, Liu Xin did not meet Jiang Qiulian, Jiang Ge’s mother, and did not satisfy the latter’s wish to find out the cause of her daughter’s death from her. On the contrary, she was annoyed that her name appeared in the news, and threatened Jiang Ge’s mother that if there was more news about her, she would not cooperate with the police investigation. In the days after Jiang Ge’s death, Liu Xin never expressed gratitude or guilt. On the contrary, she cursed and teased Jiang Ge’s mother on Weibo from time to time. In 2019, Liu Xin changed his name to Liu Nuanxi, and continued to be an Internet celebrity who was enthusiastic and attacked Jiang’s mother. (On the morning of January 10, 2022, the first-instance judgment of the Jiang Ge case: the defendant Liu Nuanxi shall compensate the plaintiff Jiang Qiulian for various economic losses of 496,000 yuan and 200,000 yuan of mental damage consolation within 10 days from the date when the judgment takes effect, and assume all cases to be accepted. Fee. Liu Nuanxi refused to accept it and filed an appeal. On February 16, the Qingdao Intermediate People’s Court held a second-instance trial. Liu Nuanxi responded, believing that she was not at fault and should not be liable for civil compensation. The case was tried for 4 hours and the court was adjourned. , will be adjudicated at an optional date.—April 21, 2022, author’s note.)
One is the debate between science fiction writer Liu Cixin and science historian Jiang Xiaoyuan on the issue of “cannibalism”. In 2007, at the White Night Bar in Chengdu, Liu Cixin proposed a hypothesis to Jiang Xiaoyuan: if the world ends, only the two of them and a beautiful host at the scene will be left, “The three of us carry everything of human civilization, and we must eat it. Only she can survive, do you eat it?” Jiang Xiaoyuan said, he definitely wouldn’t eat it. Liu Cixin said, but all civilizations are concentrated in our hands, “Shakespeare, Einstein, Goethe… If you don’t eat, these civilizations will be completely annihilated with your irresponsible behavior. You must know that the universe is very cold. Yes, if we all disappear into darkness, there is no inhumanity in it. Only by choosing to be inhumane now will humanity be given a chance to re-emerge in the future.” Jiang Xiaoyuan responded: “If we eat her, we will lose our humanity. A human who has lost its humanity has already cut itself off from Shakespeare, Einstein, Goethe… What is the need for salvation?” Liu Cixin asked, then It can be summed up in a sentence from his novel: “Losing humanity, losing a lot. Losing animality, losing everything.” When I knew about this debate, it was 2019.
What Liu Nuanxi (Liu Xin) did and what Liu Cixin said made me reconsider Shi Xin’s moral character and Rong Yi’s action boundaries. Put this on record.
The movie “The Wandering Earth”
Paying attention to the reality around you often feels an amazing one-sidedness. The evil we witness is often unhesitating, consistent, simple and efficient. No conscience entanglement. All decisions are clearly and unmistakably based on self-interest, self-preservation and self-cultivation. Mu Xin’s poem “Cambridge Wai Bo Hess” has a saying: “One comes from the positive without the negative/The other comes from the negative without the positive”. This kind of simple, efficient and no-struggle evil may be called “no positives and negatives”.
In such a wicked man, one can never expect to see the Macbeth-style inner battle that just completed the murder: “I seem to hear a voice shouting, ‘Sleep no more! Macbeth has killed sleep’, that innocent sleep…” “What kind of hands are these! Hey! They’re going to gouge out my eyes. Can all the water in the ocean wash away the blood on my hands? No, I’m afraid the blood on my hands will stain the sea. It turned into a bright red.”
A self-judgmental Macbeth can only be born in a land that is drenched in the redemptive blood of Jesus Christ on the cross. The tradition of escaping “salvation” and blindly “being free” will only provide endless excuses for “evil”.
We need to have a clear understanding of the soil under our feet.
Don’t use such a three-dimensional conscience to condemn yourself to beautify the indomitable evil.
Do not let the wicked spread over the earth, and do not believe that there is an immortal light in the sky.
Maybe that’s the only thing I can do in Rong Yi’s Clothes.
Written on January 10, 2022
Revised April 21, 2022
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