As the director of the Center for World Political Studies, the Center for the Study of the History of Thought and a professor at East China Normal University, Dr. Liu Qing is close to the people and embraces the Internet and mass media. If you didn't see him, he not only got the App manager, but also was the mentor of the seventh season of Qipa last year. Although he will appear in the camera, he is a guest. After all, his main business is scholars, and his academic achievements are quite rich and influential. Recently, his two new books have set off a wave of Liu Qingchun. These two works are The Age of Disputes and Liu Qing's Speech on Modern Western Thought. Let's briefly introduce Dr. Liu's Lecture on Modern Western Thought.

First of all, the coordinates and categories of this book are western modern ideas, which belong to the theme of handouts, so it is academic. Therefore, under the introduction of Dr. Liu Qing, we can know 19 thinkers from a modern perspective, discuss the advantages and disadvantages of instrumental rationality extensively and systematically, and how to face nihilism, consumerism alienation, fairness and justice of wealth distribution and globalization. Among them, 19 is a thinker, and only the representative thinkers are Weber, Nietzsche, Freud, Sartre and Bowman.

At the beginning of this book, the author explains the characteristics of modernity and modernity with simple and clear examples, such as the old saying that "marriage is the grave of love" and the significance of the western aristocratic love court in the past. In ancient western countries, marriage used to be a spiritual responsibility. Marriage was to protect property and family continuity, and it had little to do with love. But the reason why modernity is modern is because it is different from the previous ideas. Now marriage and love are closely related. This is the progress of modern society. In this respect, the author also explains the dilemma of modernity. After all, change and challenge are related to the meaning of personal life and the order of social life. Therefore, the part of the great western ideas discussed and accepted in the next book is inseparable from how the modern western society handles the game of modernity between individuals and society.

The reason why the author puts Weber's thought theory in the first chapter is because Weber, as the "father of organization theory" and the advocator of modern sociology, represents the adulthood of modern thought. How do you say this? Listen and say it in detail. Weber's existence represents this modernity, and there are four important conclusions: the first is the disenchantment of the world, the second is the struggle between the gods, the third is the expansion of instrumental rationality, and the fourth is the modern cage. The disenchantment of the world is only that human beings don't believe in religion, but when they wake up, they bring human beings into modern society. The dispute between the gods means that modern people's values are diversified, and the expansion of instrumental rationality is the unbalanced development of instrumental rationality and value motivation rationality, which leads to the modern society where means overwhelm purpose moving in a bad direction. It is the phenomenon that this means overwhelms the purpose that leads to the modern iron cage. What we mean here is that every individual of human beings has become a part of the social machine, without personality, and is an individual without humanity.

Finally, the author draws a clear conclusion with four conclusions: Weber represents the adulthood of modern thought. After all, in Weber's theory, we read that we can get rid of pessimism, gain clarity and achieve a calm ideological realm. "There is only one kind of heroism in the world, and that is to love life after seeing the truth of life." This is the most obvious way to show the greatness and maturity of Weber's thought.

In the second chapter, about the spiritual crisis of modern people, the author typically lists voluntarism and the theory of superman philosopher Nietzsche to teach everyone how to understand and deal with this dilemma. "God is dead" is the premise of Nietzsche's thought theory, so what? It has triggered the spiritual crisis of modern people, and Nietzsche's positive nihilism is very inspiring in how to deal with the crisis and predicament. In the final analysis, this positive nihilism is actually the characteristic of superman. Nietzsche's superman refers to the symbol of life ideal, which is the ideal goal and realm of life pursued by Nietzsche. It is worth noting that in this positive nihilism, the author also cited an example of Sisyphus pushing stones to illustrate that Sisyphus created meaning with his own choices and fought against nihility with endless fighting spirit. As Camus said, "the struggle to reach the peak is enough to enrich people's hearts." This is a good acceptance of Nietzsche's positive and superhuman philosophical significance.

After that, we can read Freud's unconscious theory and psychoanalysis theory to understand people's spiritual activities, including personality structures such as desire, impulse and thinking, and explain people's natural desires from three parts: ID, ego and superego, thus explaining the essence of desires in the western spiritual crisis. After that, you can read Sartre's philosophy "Being is nothingness". The author explains this philosophy from the maverick characters of Sartre and his wife Beauvoir. It turns out that Sartre and his wife Beauvoir are a legendary couple. They are not attached to each other or live together. They all live in separate apartments and keep their own space. But emotions are still flowing. This is one of the beautiful love realms we are pursuing. It is this maverick that forms the great existentialism theory of "Being is nothingness". The author also tells the story of Sartre's "invention" and "being is nothingness", and gives examples of cups and waiters. It turns out that human nature is not fixed, but can be changed and not yet formed, so human existence is nothingness and not yet formed, which deviates from the idea of looking at problems from the perspective of development. Therefore, Sartre's existentialism has brought light to the spiritual crisis of modern people, and it is an indomitable spirit of struggle to see the truth clearly and continue to fight.

After that, we can read the lessons of the 20th century in the third chapter. For example, we can see the real reason why Jews were massacred. In the author's view, it supports the modernity of the Bowman Massacre. It turned out that the Jews were massacred at that time, not because of hatred, but because of the influence of bureaucracy, which led to that under the German system at that time, every German became a member of society without emotion, morality and conscience. Everyone just performs tasks without mind and soul, and that's the truth. There is also a saying that Arendt's mediocrity and extreme evil contributed to the massacre. Because at that time, the Germans did not regard Jews as enemies, as human goals, or even as their own work and means to achieve their goals. It seemed that Jews were worthless, so Nazi behavior was even more evil and extremely mediocre. Of course, in this class, we can also read the great philosophical theories of Popper, Hayek, Berlin and Marcuse.

In the fourth chapter, we talked about liberalism and its critics, and here we analyzed the reasons why liberalism will be constantly challenged. The article also discusses Rawls' realization of social justice in a free society through veil of ignorance's method. Dworkin's equality with reasonable relationship is also mentioned here, especially in view of Weber's dilemma in chapter one: how to deal with the unbalanced development of instrumental rationality and value motivation rationality. The clever Habermas uses the way of "talking" to deal with this kind of game and contest. What is expounded here is the importance of human interaction and communication on earth. Of course, the author also analyzes the function and conditions of dealing with the above problems, and communication should be carried out effectively on the premise of equality, trust and respect. In addition, it also shows that this communicative rationality has established the principle and foundation of rational norms for our living world, so as to resist "systematic colonization".

Finally, the author lists the debates in the post-cold war era. It quoted Fukuyama's "conclusion of the end of history", which was originally aimed at liberal democracy. This is a bit like the "long separation" of our three countries, but the author is skeptical. After all, as far as the development of China is concerned, it will take time to explain things. But as far as western thought is concerned, Fukuyama's "conclusion of the end of history" also has some influence. In addition, Huntington's "clash of civilizations" is an inevitable situation. After all, "if it is not my race, its heart will be different" shows the changeable and multifaceted situation of the world. Finally, regarding the post-cold war debate, the author also stated that long-term gathering is only a temporary thing, and long-term gathering is the unchanging trend. This is how China developed, especially in the West and the world. After all, everyone loves peace and wants to pursue a better life with the same initial heart.

In this heavy lecture on modern western thought, in the ideological mansion, Dr. Liu Qing used simple words to let our readers face many problems in personal life and social fields, thus playing a lot of warning roles, from which we can get cautious and sincere answers.