Take economics as an example. Tens of thousands of books on economics are published every year in China. Many famous foreign economists think that China's economic miracle today provides excellent materials for the development of economics, but the fact is that China's economic research has not yet entered the international forefront.
A foreign scholar who has been actively paying attention to domestic academic trends for many years said that they basically no longer read the works of domestic scholars except the works of a few trustworthy scholars.
China scholars' academic works are regarded as low quality by some people in international academic circles, which really makes us feel ashamed and sad.
Academic atmosphere and academic norms need to be formed urgently, and the quality of academic achievements is not high. There are many reasons. One of the main reasons is that China failed to form a good academic atmosphere and establish real academic standards.
In the 1920s and 1930s, China had a brief academic prosperity, but it didn't last long, and soon it fell into war.
In the era of "China is too big to use a table", it is of course unrealistic to talk about academic construction.
After 1949, there are still many things to be done in China, and it seems that it is not an urgent matter to establish academic standards, so the progress is limited.
Since then, political movements have continued, and academic construction is of course impossible.
In the 1990s, with the change of social atmosphere, the aura hanging over academics gradually faded, and academics were regarded as a means of making profits by some people.
Without the formation and establishment of academic atmosphere and academic norms, this change has aggravated the deterioration of academic ecology.
In domestic academic works, although plagiarism cannot be said to be the work of most people, most of them are mediocre and shoddy, but it is an indisputable thing.
In these overwhelming mediocre works, many of them have been branded as "fine works" to varying degrees, which has brought great benefits to the parties.
Many "fine works" are already like this, let alone ordinary works! In the eyes of serious scholars, writing a book is a chore.
During the "Great Leap Forward" from 65438 to 0958, the famous scholar Hou Wailu said to those young people who were hot-headed: "Your enthusiasm for writing books in this Great Leap Forward was very high, that is, you lacked the scientific research process, that is, from collecting materials and research materials to proposing scientific research topics, from carefully reading materials to generating an outline for writing topics, and then engaging in research, writing, and revision and publication ..." Because writing books is too difficult, in the United States,
The only reason why writing a book is so difficult is that the author has high requirements for his own achievements, which is an academic standard based on a good academic atmosphere.
True Academic and Non-practicality In English, the interpretation of "academic" has two main characteristics: "related to college" and "non-practicality".
Why do westerners emphasize the above characteristics when defining the word academic? First of all, there is a close relationship between academics and colleges, because in a developed society, academic research can not be done by everyone and every place, and it can only be done after special training and under special circumstances.
Because of this, American universities can be divided into research universities and teaching colleges.
Even in the former universities, only some teachers were qualified to conduct academic research and had corresponding academic positions.
Secondly, academics cannot pursue practicality, because, as Liang Qichao said, if "learning is not an end but a means", those with noble motives will definitely use learning as a tool for political reform and restructuring; However, people with low motivation will also use knowledge as a stepping stone to gain fame. "If it is outdated, just throw it away."
Either way, it will lead scholars to shift their research focus to the outside of learning itself, thus making research leave the academic field.
Therefore, we can say that learning is the exploration of "learning for learning" carried out by scholars in the "ivory tower".
From what has been said above, we can draw two conclusions: First, the confusion in understanding the word academic is one of the main reasons for the overuse of academic in China today.
As we don't know what is academic, it's no wonder that everyone is required to do academic work.
It is said that in some places, even kindergarten teachers and government staff have to publish "academic papers" when they mention their professional titles.
I don't mean to belittle these research results here, but from two basic academic points, their work generally does not belong to academic work.
If the articles published in magazines run by academic institutions are academic achievements, what are the academic standards? Second, in the western understanding of the word academic, it is very important that it is purely academic rationality.
This is of great significance to the academic circles in China today.
Our opposition to the "pure academic" orientation in the past was justified in the specific environment of China at that time. But today, the situation is completely different. Few people are still "studying for academics", but real academics must have this spirit.
All the questions are very important, and there is a misunderstanding that needs to be clarified. We should understand that the value of academic achievements is not determined by the size of the research topic, but by the level of pure academic rational exploration.
People often think that some studies are important, while others are not so important or even irrelevant, and it is not worth the effort to study.
Yes, from the practical needs, the problems studied are indeed light and heavy, but from the purely theoretical exploration, all problems are important.
A building should have big parts like beams and small parts like nails.
If we only pay attention to the beams and ignore the nails, then the building will definitely not be built.
Not only that, the types and quantities of small parts needed by buildings are far more than those of large parts, and more manufacturers are needed to provide them.
In the same way, if we all study hot issues in time, it will inevitably lead to the surplus and waste of resources for research on some issues, the influx of a large number of incompetent forces, and the formation of a large number of waste products or fake and shoddy works; At the same time, a large number of problems to be studied are ignored, resulting in vacancies.
Every scholar should not look around and feel uneasy in his research, but should firmly believe that his work is of great significance.
Hu Shi once said that for researchers, finding a new word in the study of Chinese studies is as significant as finding a new star.
Only when scholars working in every field of knowledge have no distractions and devote themselves to pursuit and exploration can the whole society's academics really develop.
As far as major topics are concerned, not everyone can do it.
If you don't have a series of necessary conditions, you will end up with defective products or waste products; For most researchers, small projects that meet their own conditions can produce results as long as they really work hard.
It can be seen that only by truly understanding the meaning of the word academic and taking it as the standard of academic work and academic evaluation can we achieve high-level academic achievements.
(The author is the director and professor of Tsinghua University Institute of Thought and Culture.)