Why Are We Indifferent to Evils

Why Are We Indifferent to Evils

Xue Mo

Before Carl Jung, a psychologist in the West, the world knew nothing about collective unconsciousness, and people didn’t even know that sometimes human beings are indifferent to crimes and evils and that this indifference is a kind of collective unconsciousness. Even today, “collective unconsciousness” or “group unconsciousness” is not rare in human society. For example, many of us still deem Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Zeng Guofan and the like to be heroes. Zeng Guofan’s work sells very well nowadays. Are these people really heroes? Yes and no. But in my opinion, they are not heroes, because I don’t understand how human beings can worship those who slaughtered their own kind.  Christians killed non-Christians and they called the killing “Crusades.” The Crusades had taken place for numerous times in a land that was in pursuit of universal love. In Jerusalem, the Crusaders stabbed infants to death and displayed the bodies on the spearheads. What’s more, such deeds have been lauded by the Christian world as a major accomplishment. Even today, Christians are still talking about “holy” wars. How absurd! Today, some people are still butchering other people, and the butchers are held by the likes of them to be martyrs, who can go to Heaven in bloody clothes. Murderers going to heaven‽ Genghis Khan

wiped out nearly 40 countries. How many people were slaughtered in the course? You can’t tell. I have a metaphor about it. The mud-like substance formed by clotted blood was so thick that horses’ hoofs could get bogged down in it. As long as the Mongolians encountered any resistance from a city, all the inhabitants would be massacred and soon there would be an ocean of blood. The sound of crying was echoing in the sky at that time. But today we are still worshiping Genghis Khan and we praise him as “God’s favored one.” Our TV series still praise him this way.

Even today, Jin Wuzhu is still respected in his nation as a national hero. Likewise, Yue Fei is respected as our national hero. These national heroes tried to kill each other. The more people he killed, the more heroic he would be. Killing one person, he would be a murderer; killing a million, he would be a hero. At present, we still think and act in the same way. Read human history, and you will find that all the so-called heroes in history are killers. Nobody tells us that it is a sin, because they all think that heroes are like that. This is collective unconsciousness. Human concepts have corrupted human soul. Who has bred these concepts? It is our culture. Countless men of letters have been praising the butchers and countless books have been praising massacre. The result is that people all think that such killings are good. Today, the TV screen is still filled with violence and killing; in video games, the more people a player kills, the higher scores he gets. The coming generation will be better at killing, because they have atomic bombs, which enable them to eliminate the human race in a minute. Do you call this a heroic act?

How severely has human civilization corrupted human beings? Mankind has been degenerating. The culture of Western China doesn’t advocate all this; it says no to the act and the culture of killing. Mao Zedong spoke very highly of Zeng Guofan; “I admire no one else but Lord Zeng Wenzheng,” said Mao. He admired Zeng more than others. But Chinese western culture says no to Zeng. The common people called him “Zeng the Haircutter,” because he killed as many people as a barber cuts hair. What kind of hero is that? Zeng Guofan competed with Hong Xiuquan, another butcher, to see who could kill more lives. What kind of hero is that? But according to our history books, Hong is a hero and Zeng is a hero, too. The most horrible thing is not the butchers, but the cultures that worship them. For a butcher can hardly live to be a hundred years and then everything about him will disappear: his power will be gone, his dynasty will be replaced by another. But the culture has extended from the Spring and Autumn Period through Qing, Han, and the Three Kingdoms Period till today. When every generation regards such killers as heroes, human beings, as a race, degenerates.

Western culture has a different opinion about it. Let me give you an example. In my hometown, Liangzhou, all killings are considered to be sins. They look down upon butchers of any kind. There was a girl in my novel White Tiger Gate. When her family wanted to marry her to a butcher, she preferred to commit suicide. She would rather die when faced with a butcher’s culture. There is a saying in my hometown, “A butcher’s son doesn’t count.” It means that a butcher’s sons don’t count as humans but are merely numbers. So far, no peasant uprising has taken place in Liangzhou. Now, there is no other place like Liangzhou in China, and there will be no more.

There is a story that I’ve told many times. Once, there was a tyrant in Tibet who forced monks to marry, ordering that those who disobeyed would be killed and their monasteries would be torn down. This tyrant had committed countless crimes and he was hated by everyone under the sun. One day, a monk went to make obeisance to him with bow and arrow and he shot the tyrant dead before he escaped. The monk put an end to the darkest rule in Tibet. From then on, the dawn of civilization reappeared in that land. But the monk felt guilty about his deed and didn’t consider himself a hero, even though the person he had killed was a tyrant. Later, a lot of monks asked the hero to be their master that grants the precepts (Buddhist disciplines, i.e., no killing, no lying, no stealing, no adulterous misconduct, and no alcohol). But the monk said, “No, I am not qualified, because I have killed a man and therefore have broken the vow of no killing.” He didn’t readily agree to grant precepts because he had killed a tyrant. Even if he had killed a rabbit, he would think that he hadn’t been benevolent toward other beings. He thought that every being deserved respect. This thought still prevails in today’s Western China.

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我们为什么对罪恶无动于衷？

雪漠

有一个心理学家叫荣格，在他之前这个世界竟然不知道集体无意识，竟然不知道人类有时候会对罪恶无动于衷，变成一种集体无意识。今天，人类照样有这种“集体无意识”、“群体无意识”。举个简单的例子，直到今天，我们很多的朋友，依然把成吉思汗、拿破仑、曾国藩这些人当成英雄。曾国藩的书卖得多火。那么他们是不是英雄呢？不知道。但是我觉得他们不是英雄，因为我想不通我们人类居然能够把屠杀自己同类的人当成英雄。信仰基督教的人竟然去屠杀不信基督教的人，还把这个叫“十字军东征”。西方那块追求博爱的土地上居然还出现了许多次的“十字军东征”。他们在耶路撒冷用长矛戳死婴儿，还挑起来，并且居然把这种行为当成基督教世界的一个战功炫耀。直到今日，基督教中仍然有所谓的“圣战”之说。荒唐！今天仍然有一些人去屠杀另一些人，并且杀人的人被他们的同类认为是殉道者，认为可以穿着血衣上天堂。屠杀人类可以上天堂？！成吉思汗灭了将近40个国家，他屠杀了多少人？说不清。我有一个比喻，他屠杀人类的时候达到了什么地步，就是人类的血流形成的泥浆，可以把他的马蹄陷下去。蒙古人所到之地，谁要是一抵抗，就会遭到屠城，血成汪洋。哭声在那个时代的天空一直回荡着。而我们今天竟然赞美成吉思汗，并把他称之为一代天骄。比如，现在的电视剧还是在这样赞美。

就是这样。金兀术直到今天还被他们的民族认为是民族英雄，岳飞也被认为是我们的民族英雄。这些民族的英雄互相杀，杀的人越多越是英雄。杀一个人是杀人犯，杀无数的人就成为英雄。现在人还是这样。你们翻开人类的历史，人类的历史记载下来的英雄都是这些杀人者，都是这些“英雄”。但没有人告诉我们这是罪恶的。因为人类认为这就是英雄。这就是人类的“集体无意识”，这就是人类的概念把人类的心灵毒害了。谁造成了这种概念呢？是我们的文化。因为，无数的文人在讴歌这样一种屠夫，无数的书籍在讴歌这样一种屠杀，大家都认为这种屠杀真的很好。直到今天，电视上还是演着血肉横飞的剧情，游戏中杀的人越多可能得的分就越高。下一代的孩子将来杀人更厉害，因为他们有原子弹，一下子就把全人类毁灭。这就是“英雄”？

你想人类文化对人类毒害到了什么地步？人类在群体地堕落。西部文化不提倡这些，它对那种屠杀行为和文化说“不”。虽然毛泽东对曾国藩有非常高的评价：“独服曾文正公”。他最佩服曾国藩。但西部文化对曾国藩说“不”。老百姓叫他“曾剃头”，就是他杀的人像剃的头发那样多。这算什么英雄？他和洪秀全两个屠夫比赛谁杀的人多，这算什么英雄？直到今天的历史书上，洪秀全也是英雄，历史上的曾国藩也是英雄。最可怕的不是这些屠夫，最可怕的是对这种文化的讴歌。因为，屠夫活上不到一百岁就死了，他的一切都会消失。比如他的权力会消失，他的王朝会被另一个王朝取代。但这种文化却从春秋战国、秦、汉、三国一直延续到今天。当我们每一代人都把这种杀人者当成英雄的时候，我们人类就群体堕落了。

西部文化不这样认为。我给大家举一个例子，我的家乡凉州，那儿的人认为所有的杀生都是罪恶。他们看不起任何屠汉。我的《白虎关》中有一个女孩子，当她的家人想把她嫁给一个屠汉时，她宁愿选择自杀。当她面对这种屠夫文化的时候她宁愿死亡。我们的家乡有一个俗语：“屠汉养儿子充数儿”。就是你一个屠汉养上多少儿子都不算人，就是一个数字而已，不算人。凉州直到今天没有爆发过任何一次农民起义。中国历史上这样的地方已没有了，再也找不到了。因为大家觉得杀人不好。

还有这样一个故事，我经常讲：西藏有一年出现了一个暴君，他逼僧人娶妻，谁不愿意就杀谁。然后把寺院推倒，做了无数罪恶的事，弄得天怒人怨。这时候，有一个僧人带着弓箭去朝拜他，借机把这个暴君射死了，之后他骑着马逃了出去。这个僧人结束了西藏最黑暗的统治。从此，人类文明的曙光又开始在那块土地上出现。但是这个僧人一直认为自己是罪恶的，他并不因为他杀的是一个暴君而觉得自己是英雄。后来很多的僧人想让这个英雄作授戒师（戒是佛教的戒律，就是不杀生、不妄语、不偷盗、不邪淫、不喝酒）的时候，这个英雄说：“我不配，因为我杀过人，犯了杀戒。”他并没有因为他杀了一个暴君就会得意洋洋地去给别人授戒。哪怕他杀的是一个兔子，他也认为自己是不善待生命。他认为任何生命都值得尊重，这种理念直到今天仍然在西部流行。

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