writer Wang Bin
Because I liked the film The Painted Bird, I started reading its original book of the same name, a classic novel by the late Polish-American writer Jez Kosinski. In the past few days, I happened to read the paragraph "The Painted Bird": a bird was painted with foul-smelling and colorful colors by the "bird catcher", and then let it fly, letting the flying birds sing The voice called to its "accomplices" hovering in the sky. This liberated and smeared bird, which burst into the flock with the joy of an arrow, has been imprisoned for too long, and is now finally reborn and free.
But what is waiting for it? Because of its smeared "skin color", it was regarded as an alien by the "partners", so the partners began to launch intensive turns of attacks on it, time and time again. They see it as an intrusive alien, so they don't share it, and they treat it like an enemy.
In the end, surrounded by flocks of birds, the smeared bird was pecked to death, and it fell to the ground. This scene is like an intriguing symbolic fable.
What is it alleging - this "painted bird"?
Poster for the film "The Painted Bird"
Birds are a part of the natural biota, and all of its attributes make it for the purpose of survival, living in an instinctive state, similar to the "libido" in the human unconscious - libido/instinct. In this libidinal desire/instinct, there are also quietly dormant the original wild purpose and various likes and dislikes of human beings, as well as the fear, rejection, contempt and even inexplicable hatred of aliens.
Yes, this is the innate desire and instinct of human beings, and it is also the essence of human existence. It has ontological reality and essential characteristics - it will instinctively breed discrimination against foreign objects or "others". even aggressive stance. From the point of view of libido and instinct, it is in line with the animal nature of us, just like the unprovoked attack and injury of the flock of birds to the smeared bird in the novel. All this happens naturally if we degenerate from human nature to ordinary biological nature in the species of nature.
Is not it?
However, from an evolutionary point of view, the evolution and education of human nature in us is enough to make us step by step away from the original state of nature, thus possessing the human consciousness of civilized people. Then, as a certain ethnic group of civilized people, how should they live in harmony with an alien ethnic group? We must admit that, as a human race, in the long evolution, the libido/instinct with "biological characteristics" is still present in the body, but it is suppressed by the "civilization's 'cord'" that we have acquired through education. unconsciously.
I originally believed that with the deepening and transformation of civilization consciousness, human beings can break the spell of "racial discrimination". At the very least, they can realize that this kind of discrimination is a curse and blasphemy on civilization itself, and even a kind of destruction. Now I finally realize that I am too ignorant. In many cases, the curse of libido/instinct is enough to shatter any dykes of civilization that humans seem to have built, and return people to primitive barbarism - whether white, black, or yellow. . Civilization is nothing but a mask that can be removed at any time. The so-called "civilized people" just go to "Masquerade Balls" one after another, and behind the masks, there are still savage faces. The Enlightenment thinker Rousseau was still too naive and romantic. He actually fantasized about the so-called "noble savages". These uncivilized "savages" were his idealized savages who were nobler than civilized people. Facts have repeatedly told us that barbarism is barbarism, and has nothing to do with upbringing and human nobility; as for civilized people, to what extent are they free from barbaric consciousness and habits? I am deeply skeptical. I even had a deep pessimism, which included a deep dissatisfaction and disappointment with myself - did I get out of my savagery?
Since the recent black movement in the United States, I seem to have suddenly gained a new dimension of self-examination. This was also something I didn't expect. But since it came so suddenly, I could only "stare" at it and ask myself.
For example, I liked the American TV series "The Walking Dead" so much that I even thought it had reached the height of the drama, and I have been following it for several years, although the latest season makes me feel that the standard has dropped. During the past few days of watching, I was suddenly shocked to see that there seemed to be something more in my heart. It is not about the plot itself, but both inside and outside it.
So what is it?
It's the faces of the actors in the play. This face, there are white, black, East Asian and Indian. In the past, these faces of different skin tones were just the character symbols that carried the flow of the plot to me. I have never paused on the "face ontology" and then stared at what it means; but this time, I found that I was subconsciously thinking about these faces of different skin tones , privately divided into three, six, and nine classes - white people look smooth and eye-catching, obviously at the high level of racial identity; black people are second, although they are dazzlingly black, but they seem to be culturally different from white people. The Chinese, Japanese, and Indians are somewhat awkward. Although the faces of the Chinese and Japanese people seem to me to have a kind of kinship, but in the "cultural flow" of whites and blacks, it highlights an indescribable separation and alienation, which cannot be integrated.
Even so, between whites and blacks, I have a "soft spot" for whites, and blacks always make people feel like they are inferior to whites.
As I watch the show, I think about my first reaction to "faces". Yes, I do have potential discrimination against non-white people in my subconscious, that is to say, under the action of the spiritual mechanism of libido, my instinctive reaction is also derived from biology "Authentic" in the sense. The question is, as a human being, does everything just stop at people's "first reaction"?
Man's departure from the original natural state (similar to the first reaction of man) is based on the result of civilization and education, and education, that is, the intake and naturalization of reason. Reason is rational because it overlooks, examines, and even critically makes a rational court ruling on our "first response" based on simple sensibility with the height of consciousness of sorting, analyzing, summarizing, and summarizing, and translates this "instinctive response". "Elevate to the height of speculative rationality, and place it in a larger causal law to weigh the pros and cons of its origin - the same human beings, the people of the earth, what right do we have to distinguish the high and the low according to the race?
I know that, as far as I am concerned, I need to overcome as much as possible some instinctive consciousness attached to me, which is also a kind of spiritual self-salvation. As Nietzsche said, "Man is a rope between the superman and the animal—a rope hanging over the abyss." Nietzsche keenly discovered that man is actually a species between animals and superman , it may slide to the animal nature of animals, or it can be promoted to superman, and more people may just stay in the middle, that is, the "ordinary person" defined by Heidegger, or a mediocre person in layman's terms . Therefore, another famous quote from Nietzsche comes into play:
- Man is something to overcome.
Overcome what? Nature is the animal nature dormant in human nature, an instinctive consciousness controlled by the demon of desire. People need to transcend, and then the light of the other side appears. But Nietzsche completely denied the God in the past on the other side, but affirmed that man has the possibility of self-sublimation and transcendence, that is, man can overcome the innate animality and use the flow of life The supreme being, to pursue and reach the superhuman transformation of the self.
Does human's awareness of racial discrimination also mean that we, as human beings, have not truly completed the baptism and evolution of modern civilization? Our consciousness, and a certain part of our body, remains in a relatively primitive state of savagery? Otherwise, the same people, why can they discriminate, despise and even hostile to each other just because of their different skin colors? Does this not mean that we are still not completely free from the barbarism that hides in us?
(Note: This article only represents the author's personal opinion. The author Wang Bin is a well-known writer, literary critic, screenwriter, and has served as the author of many films such as "Alive", "Heroes", "Speaking Well", "House of Flying Daggers" and so on. Planning and screenwriting, published "Stockholm Syndrome", "Bard Cafe" and many other novels and essay collections.
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