Is Chen Xiying good or bad?

In fact, he is a person who is cold outside and hot inside, and has deep feelings for his family. Although he studied in the West since he was a child, China's ethics has remained quite profound in his mind. He is filial to his parents and loyal to his friends. If he is not responsible for his friends, he will be responsible to the end, no matter what difficulties. These are two different comments made by his contemporaries. It seems hard to say whether this is a good person or a bad person, but such a character should be more or less interesting. However, this person has always been characterized as an ugly and boring bad guy. He is famous, but his fame makes many people disdain. Lu Xun is the first opponent in the history of pen warfare. Generally speaking, I know the name Chen Xiying because he was scolded by Lu Xun. According to the common understanding of China people, fighting with a good guy is definitely a bad guy, so all kinds of reading materials and even middle school textbooks regard him as a bad guy. This is the origin of Chen Xiying's "reputation". Fu Guangming, a researcher at China Museum of Modern Literature, feels "sorry" for this. He said: "It is really a pity that the bad guys' articles are not worth reading, not for Chen Xiying, but for those who don't read his articles because of this." Some people think that thanks to his deep understanding of English prose, the only book in Chen Xiying's writing career, Xi English Gossip, is enough to make him among the 18 schools of modern prose in China. His friend Liang Shiqiu said that Xiying's works are like running water and have a leisurely interest; The talented woman Su praised her writing style for being crystal clear, and there was no dust around the pen. In Fu Guangming's view, Chen Xiying's writing style is very unique. What ordinary people take for granted, after his embarrassing remarks, seems absurd and unfair. A social phenomenon that everyone hates and tries hard to eradicate but fails for many years, and its hidden roots are dug up by him with a few strokes. In short, "his book is really beautiful"! But there is another sound. Yan Jingming, a scholar, thinks that there are many self-contradictory views in Westward Camp Gossip, which is hard to justify. From the perspective of the article, Chen Xiying's writing style has not fully entered the stage, so his "scandal" has embarrassed him. The more substantial problem is that many years of studying abroad have made Chen Xiying accustomed to the rationality and order of British culture and biased against everything in China. He was very dissatisfied with the bad habits of China people, but he was qualitatively different from Lu Xun's attitude of "lamenting their misfortunes and angering them". There is little love in his attitude. His rational attitude and arrogant expression between the lines lack the enthusiasm of the times, which is unacceptable. Therefore, in the debate between Chen Xiying and Lu Xun, he was a loser, whether in the end or morally. He is an "unsympathetic loser", and as a result of his failure, he is still a "villain" in the history of China's new culture movement. Yan Jingming's evaluation of Chen Xiying was too "rational", which made him slip into people's impression of "reaction", that is, Lu Xun's satirical "gentleman" and "gentleman". But Chen Xiying also has his own temperament. There is a so-called "irony" in his bones, but what makes people wonder is that this man is famous for his one-liners and his eloquence is actually not so good. Although he doesn't stutter like Sima Xiangru, he always looks forward to speaking, and it takes a long time to say a word. When his mother died, he was in a mess and cried like a child. It is difficult for others to comfort him. Su said with emotion, "I didn't expect that a professor Chen Yuan, who usually has deep feelings and is used to cynicism, would show his childlike innocence at this time. "He himself is a contradictory person. Chen Xiying loves Jane Austen, a British woman writer, as described in his contemporary doctoral dissertation on studying in Britain. His words and deeds have a lot of "reason and emotion", and there are also a lot of "arrogance and prejudice" about people's views on things. According to contemporary researchers, Chen Xiying was indeed an "alternative" among modern intellectuals in China in the first half of last century. Some scholars have studied "Lu Xun and the People He Scolded" and lamented: Nowadays, readers often think that Lu Xun's miscellaneous feelings are only articles attacking individuals, or some young people don't know much about the resumes of people like "Chen Xiying" and feel less interested. In fact, names such as "Chen Xiying" can be interpreted as common nouns in Lu Xun's Miscellaneous Feeling, that is, they are regarded as typical in society. However, more and more people believe that characters in writing and history should not be just "ordinary nouns", and their resumes, their respective faces and temperament are quite worthy of attention. Gossip on the West Camp is Chen Xiying's main work during the May 4th Movement. As a professor in the Department of Foreign Languages of Peking University, his essays are really "gossip", but he can't help commenting on current events, which makes these articles a topic of right and wrong, not a word of "leisure". What articles have nothing to do with the overall situation in the collection? For example, he introduced western drama and commented on China's "civilized drama" (small theater experiment, Guanyin and China drama); A concrete comparison between eastern and western cultures (eastern and western cultures and their conflicts, tearing apart stoves and building a canopy, China Foreign Hospital); Wait a minute. These articles are very similar to the impressions written by scholars returning from overseas inspection today. Although full of "petty bourgeoisie" sentiment, it is not boring or dazzling. But Chen Xiying's "gossip" content is far from these, and he often can't help talking about the current situation in China. Because of our understanding of Chen Xiying's political attitude formed over the years, we always thought that he was on the side of warlords politically. The West Camp Gossip tells us that Chen Xiying is full of hatred for China, where warlords are fighting, and his criticism of warlord rule is also sharp. He saw that the warlord's war was actually "grabbing jobs" and opposed China people's participation ("eating and fighting"); Criticize the corruption of warlord rulers (fishing for oil and water); He criticized the corrupt government for "pleasing foreigners" and washing away slogans such as "abolishing unequal treaties" before the arrival of "members of the National Assembly". This is the spirit of the times reflected by his words and deeds as an intellectual in the New Culture Movement. " Gossip is not idle, it is out of concept and social responsibility. Chen Xiying's Gossip is not famous for these reasons, but because of his argument with Lu Xun, the leader of the New Culture Movement, which attracted the special attention of people at that time and later generations. The debate between Chen Xiying and Lu Xun and its final outcome proved that Lu Xun was a loser both morally and in the result of the struggle, and his failure was hard to sympathize with. Therefore, he is still a "villain" in the history of China's new culture movement. Chen Xiying is used to seeing the order and rationality of British culture, but he is indifferent to everything in China. He saw foreign news in China newspapers and was despised by many fallacies in these news. China translators regard Italian "composers" as "literary masters"; The news about "British Foreign Secretary" from Berlin was regarded as "German Foreign Minister"; Luther, a German politician, is regarded as Britain's Russell. He thinks that "there is not a day when news in China newspapers is not a joke or a fallacy" (news in China newspapers). We should believe that these mistakes he pointed out are true, but the rational attitude and disapproving expressions in his articles make people feel that the May 4th youth have little blood. He thought that there were very few "literary publications" in China, which were only equivalent to 1 12 in Britain, but he seldom thought that China culture at that time had just embarked on the road of modernization, and there was no encouragement but disdain ("literary publications"). In a word, he saw many problems of China, which were not untrue. However, in such a special period as the May 4th Movement, his overly rational attitude showed that his enthusiasm for the New Culture Movement was not high and it was difficult for people to accept it. Chen Xiying is, after all, an intellectual in modern China. Whether it is "gossip" or "gossip", it is impossible for him not to feel the pulse of the times, and it is impossible to become a bystander completely. As a British doctor, he talked about state affairs and current affairs, and often opposed imperialism and feudalism at the same time (as he did), which was different from the main theme of the New Culture Movement at that time. He is very dissatisfied with China people's bad habits, but it is qualitatively different from Lu Xun's attitude of "lamenting their misfortunes and angering them", and there is almost no love in his attitude. He believes that "the citizens of China are really' not enough'"; Naive at the national level, some people even advocate fighting with foreigners "; China's futility is still the responsibility of ordinary citizens. "(Intellectuals) should say that he saw the essence of some problems, but he didn't have a plan or even a little sympathy, and only a disdainful gesture was unacceptable. It is precisely because he saw the sadness of the national character that he did not advocate an accidental fire with foreigners and let others kill our "last man", but he did not want to see the imperialist butcher's knife around the neck of China people. What to do, Chen Xiying himself has no answer. Chen Xiying really made a mistake, or 1925 female normal university agitation and the "March 18th" tragedy. This became a watershed between him and the May 4th commanders such as Lu Xun. In fact, it seems untrue to say that Chen Xiying hates students and defends reactionary warlords. But he did pour cold water on the student movement under the banner of "justice" and "justice" Reading "Westcamp Gossip" will make you feel that there is something wrong with Chen Xiying's position, because he always wants to comment on current events as a British doctor and a professor at Peking University. So when he saw students making trouble, the first thing he did was, "We just think this trouble is too shameful." "If we pass the headmaster, we will change it immediately. If we pass the students, we will severely punish them. We must not continue to perfunctory, so there is no way to rectify it in the future. "Words are fair, but full of dissatisfaction with students. He doesn't like the "Seven Divisions Manifesto" initiated by Lu Xun and others to support the student movement, and thinks that "it is too partial to allow". He regards the student movement as a kind of destruction of school order, not a kind of reaction to reactionary forces, which determines that his "justice" and "tolerance" are at least shallow, if not hostile. This is why he thinks that the student trend is that "people we have always respected will secretly find fault" ("Painting Mao Toilet"). In the face of the tragic deaths of two female students, Liu Hezhen and Yang Dequn, Chen Xiying not only showed no sympathy, but also reduced their revolutionary enthusiasm and impulse to defend themselves, and regarded their deaths as meaningless deaths. He talked about such an important event as "Gossip", thinking that Yang Dequn was not keen on sports such as "meetings" except studying hard, and she didn't want to go to "March 8" that day, so she was dragged away on the way back. His remarks aroused the indignation of Yang Dequn's classmates and schoolmates. They jointly wrote to Chen Xiying to clarify and question. Chen Xiying didn't admit his mistake. He had the courage to publish students' letters in Modern Review, which he presided over, and insisted that "many' thoughtful' and' promising' young people don't take part in any sports at all" (Ms. Yang Dequn incident, No.70, Volume III of Modern Review). Coupled with his dispute with Lu Xun and his moral failure, he finally retired from the trend of new culture. As for his feud with Lu Xun in other aspects, most of the topics are constantly mentioned by him, such as "plagiarism", "bureaucracy" and "borrowing one system" and so on. Finally, he was defeated on these topics, so that his good friend Xu Zhimo had to run out halfway to stop the fight and shout "Stop it". Editor's note: "When I was a child, the name Lu Xun was sacred and protected by politics. Attacking Lu Xun' is a felony and will be won on the spot. " (Wang Shuo's "I See Lu Xun") "Later theorists said that in this rebuttal, Chen Xiying was always in a passive position and had no strength to fight back. This was an over-emphasis on Lu Xun's combat effectiveness. If Zhen Chen is such a timid opponent, Lu Xun can't tell how clever he is. Hu Shi was quoted as saying that "Lu Xun will never forget this hatred". Although it refers to plagiarism, it cannot be said that it has nothing to do with Chen Xiying's mental injury to Lu Xun in the whole debate. In all fairness, plagiarism should be a deadly enemy, but when it comes to that, you gnash your teeth at the mention of Chen Xiying, rather, Chen Xiying's shock, impact and lethality to Lu Xun in the whole debate is too great. In Lu Xun's life, Chen Xiying was no better, at least an equal opponent. " (Han Shishan's "Little Don't Read Lu Xun, Old Don't Read Hu Shi")