Nihilism (a word coined by the author for this article, whose appropriateness is debatable) is not nihilism in Buddhism or Taoism, but an impetuous, empty and moaning style that adapts to social fashion. I have always been amazed at this amazing consistency in students' creation: gorgeous rhetoric and seemingly beautiful words, but in fact, they are carefully dissected, and there is nothing in them, which reflects the inner emptiness and impetuous mentality. It is either a fascinating prose or an emotional story of promiscuity. The beauty of prose is beautiful. When it is flooded and empty, it becomes monotonous and even disgusting. And emotional stories, to be honest, have become "disasters." Which magazine doesn't have these stories? You can almost guess the ending when you see the beginning. It's all the same, and it's really not worth seeing
Why are so many people writing articles, grandstanding, grandstanding? Because many people are watching. Why are so many people watching? Because of emptiness-the emptiness of the soul, they eagerly ran to read, and their desires were temporarily satisfied in reading. Occasionally, "sentimentality" meets "sentimentality" and produces tears. Too many tears, too much emotion. Of course, there are many people who are naturally indifferent. However, all this is a scam they created. Often when they "burp", a bigger shadow of emptiness comes to them, so they fall into a vicious circle and get deeper and deeper ... I think this is not much different from drug abuse. Looking back at the creators, most of them belittle their creative thinking level in order to cater to the appetite of the public, and even encourage this abnormal reading phenomenon. I am dismissive of such a young author.
There is no doubt that prose is lyrical, but I don't think those erotic stories are fiction. Formally, they are novels, but in essence, they are out-and-out lyricism, they are moaning lyricism, ambiguous lyricism and nihilistic lyricism ... China people have written lyrical articles for thousands of years, and no reform can change this traditional single mode? In the present campus, the situation is even worse, and more and more lyric articles have lost their due content value. I really hate the sigh that iron is not produced. Don't forget, we should not only inherit and carry forward traditional culture, but also develop it. Do the new generation of young people have such boldness of vision and sense of responsibility?
The other extreme of campus literature is pragmatism. This is still related to our tradition. Since ancient times, China's literature has almost lost its independence. Wang Guowei once pointed out in the Collected Works of Jing 'an: "Art (literature and art) has no independent value ... Poets of all ages relied on loyalty to the monarch and patriotism, persuasion of good and punishment of evil in order to save themselves, while works above pure art were often persecuted by the world." The ancients believed in loyalty to the monarch, patriotism, persuasion and punishment of evil. Not all people have lost their literary independence (or independent position). Most of them are hypocritical and artificial, because what they express is not what they really want to express. When they pick up a pen for these purposes, they don't need any inspiration, just pile it up mechanically. As long as they write well, they can leave no trace. This kind of creation against one's will, in Tao Qian's words, means "the heart is a service"!
The current literary creation environment should be said to be quite free, but young literature is still pushing pragmatism, with the aim of being naked and thorough or for secular interests. When this pragmatism enters the campus, it becomes very deformed under the influence of the special culture of the campus. On the one hand, students don't have this implicit cooperation ability, on the other hand, they don't have much energy to spend on lofty topics such as loyalty to the monarch and patriotism, persuasion of good and punishment of evil. As a result, students set their sights "low" and their tone became flattering. But this is not as rampant as nihilism in literary creation, but it is fully exposed in campus news reports.
Nihilism needs to be corrected, but pragmatism is not necessarily good. I saw an article on the literary blog of the new newspaper, to the effect that writing can't rely solely on feelings. This is a good point, but I'm afraid it will mislead people. Not relying on feelings is actually an appeal to deal with inspiration and add rational thinking elements, which has a positive effect on the promotion of students' empty articles, but it is easy to misunderstand that creation should justify a certain topic and a certain material, which is easy to push young creators to the wooden bridge of quick success and instant benefit, thus creating a new group of literary pragmatists, which is increasingly holding back literature. I don't know if such literature is still called literature!
In fact, what does it matter to take a step back and think about the problem and write it with your heart? Feelings are not necessarily vulgar and rough, but mature people's feelings are full of rationality. So, in the final analysis, it is the relationship between the creators themselves. To improve the quality of literary works, we must improve our own quality.
As a creator, he should have the mind and responsibility to save national literature. On the one hand, he wants to satisfy his desires (ideals, emotions and other spirits) through literature; On the other hand, he should try to reduce the influence of economic and political factors on literary creation, get rid of China's traditional utilitarian literary view, abandon his metaphysical creative view, and pursue the independence of literature, so as to make it closer to the essence of literature.
I am glad that some people still write to express their true feelings and entertain their hearts. I think this is worth encouraging, but we should not be too indulgent, otherwise we will lose our direction and control, and the two extremes will become more extreme. Who will be in charge then? This is not a logical contradiction. In a word, the expression of ideological content is freedom of feeling (not including whether the reader accepts it or not, whether the policy agrees or not), and the expression method is relatively free.
I hope that the passion and thoughts of young artists will remain in our campus and in our hearts.