Chapter 23 no regrets in prague czech republic

one Prague exceeded my expectations. Before going there, I asked Kenny, a friend who is very familiar with Europe, which European city he likes the most. He said it was Prague, and the evidence is that he has been to it more than 50 times.At the time it was thought that there might be some special reason implied, such as whether or not a girlfriend was there.But when we really came to Prague, even if we didn't think it was the best in Europe, we began to admit that Kenny's appreciation was not unreasonable. A city is actually built on seven hills, with a big river winding through it, and a dozen bridges of various shapes on the river. The basic situation is beautiful enough, not to mention that it has so many classical buildings.

The alleys between the buildings are densely packed with handicraft workshops, the fires are raging, the hammers are clanging, the black iron is cold, the brass is bright, the swords are dark, and the door decorations are rough, which is not at all the exquisite beauty in other craft markets. , but firmly hooked the footsteps of travelers from afar. Not far from the handicraft workshops, there are large and small studios and art galleries. At the bridgehead, there are amateur troupes performing avant-garde dramas, and there are gorgeous tenors performing arts on the side of the road. Judging from their artistic standards, I really doubt the former Eastern European countries. Half of the top artists have flocked to Prague.

I have seen all kinds of cities, but it is rare like Prague, which reverberates with a festive atmosphere every day, stirring up the body and mind of travelers from far and near so excitedly, and so comfortable.When Paris and New York began to become international cultural centers, there must have been this kind of bustle of gatherings and hustle and bustle, right?We didn’t catch up, they have already accumulated too thickly, affecting the strength of the vortex; along the way, only Prague, when the notes, colors, flow of people and a reaffirmed free ecology vortex together, dripping and hearty .

The economic situation in the Czech Republic is not so good.Before entering Prague, we had wandered in many cities and villages far and near, and the situation was relatively sparse; the government officials at all levels we came into contact with were always lazy and irritating; why is Prague alone so prosperous?From this, I believe even more that an outstanding city can not be completely influenced by the overall environment of the country, such as beauties in back alleys and grass in decadent courtyards.Back then, the surrounding area was still chilly, but the spring in Prague had long been blissful and smooth.

That spring was crushed by Soviet tanks, and it was not only the Soviet Union, it was crushed from all directions, and there was no room for the beauties in the back alleys and the grass in the decadent courtyards.That kind of encirclement is just the opposite of its impressive demeanor, and the sound of rolling tracks seems so boring.At this moment, I am walking on the street where the most tanks passed by. An old man sat on a bench among the flower aisles in the center. He waved his hand to let me sit next to him, and told me a philosophy that belongs to this city: Our place is too small. Well, the city is too old and can't beat others, so don't fight; but Prague believes that external forces will always leave, and civilization will always stay. You can see that in a blink of an eye, all the foreign tanks on the street have become foreign tourists.

I don't know how I would have reacted to this temperless philosophy ten years ago, but it doesn't sound offensive to me now, especially among the bushes of flowers, just as the sun is setting, not far from the Old Town Square The old clock above is ringing again. This ancient clock is another topic.When the hour rings, there are always crowds under the clock, because a series of mechanical figures will be displayed on the clock dial, which is vivid and interesting, and it can be regarded as a landscape of Prague.Every time I go, I see weddings held under ancient bells, which makes people think about how many lives have been opened and closed by the bells for hundreds of years.

The ancient clock was built in the fifteenth century.Legend has it that because the clock was so exquisite that it was unparalleled in the world, the municipal government at that time was afraid that the craftsmanship would be leaked, so they stabbed the mechanical craftsman's eyes cruelly.The most primitive law of secrecy of human beings is implemented in such a barbaric way, which reminds people of the atrocities of ancient Chinese emperors who slaughtered all the workers who built the tomb in order to keep the tomb secret.It can be seen that although the bell can be disdainful to the roar of the tank, it also contains too much blood and tears.Later, when I arrived at the Prague Wax Museum, I entered the historical part of the city. When I looked up, I saw the mechanical craftsman, who was blinded by a white cloth, and was still groping around in the pile of machinery.

From the sound of this bell, I listened to the philosophy told by the old man on the side of the road, and suddenly wondered whether it was also like this bell, omitting the sad story in the joy of philosophy? two The ancient clock is located in the southwest corner of the Old Town Square. In the center of the square is the statue of Huss. To the south of the square is the Bethlehem Church that Huss presided over. Hus was the pioneer of the Reformation, the rector of the University of Prague, and was burned at the stake for heresy in 1415, which we all read about in our history textbooks as children.When Hus burned to death, the mechanical part of the ancient clock had been built, but the bell tower had not yet been repaired.Now the statue of Huss is showing his expression when he was dying. The flames engulfed his thin body, but the contours of his face and the shape of his beard are more elegant than the flames. I don’t know which sculptor it is.

The church did not wrongly condemn him as a heretic.Remember a medieval inquisitor who boasted that he could judge heresy and burn it to death on the basis of any two lines of any author, and Hus's statement against the exploitation of the church was unmistakable, please listen to this passage : Even the last pennies that poor old women hid in their headscarves are scavenged by shameless priests, and spent not on confessions, but on Mass; instead of Mass, on relics; not on saints If you don't spend it on relics, spend it on absolution; if you don't spend it on absolution, you spend it on prayers;

In our imagination, those who appeal to the people with such a strong tone will definitely be warmly supported by the people. Therefore, those in power dare not use cruel methods to reverse right and wrong before the public. What kind of rebellion would the burning of such a famous man as Hus produce among the populace? But the historical materials I read in Europe made my hair stand on end.A large number of facts prove that before the conscience of the people is enlightened, they are the participants and cheerers of many shameless atrocities.Usually, on the eve of the burning ceremony, colorful flags are hung all over the city, and the citizens hold a parade to celebrate. In the parade, there are a group of special figures wearing white hoods and fat robes to cover their faces.On the day of the execution of the fire, there were crowds of citizens watching the excitement. Many of them followed the instructions of the priest and insulted the prisoner under escort loudly. Relatives gathered around him to persuade him to repent for the last time.When the fire was lit, the most respected people among the citizens rushed forward to enjoy the right to add firewood.

The witness in Huss' case was his former colleague Stephen Paletz, and many of his friends also played the role of persuading him to repent.Therefore it was the perjurer that Huss stood in the middle of the woodpile and loudly denounced. So, have the ruling authorities considered the possibility of perjury and false accusations in such cases?considered.But they are convinced that interests are higher than reality and morality.For example, Emperor Sigismund, who directly intervened in the case of Huss, once said that as long as it was in the interest of the pope, he could break his promise.At that time, the Inquisitors of almost all European countries believed that even if perjury caused an innocent person to be burned to death, the innocent person should be happy because he also sacrificed for religion.As for slandering the reputation of an innocent person by framing, this innocent person should understand that the reputation in this world is something outside of him, and the world on the other side has prepared laurels for him. In short, you can frame them in any way, and you can burn them in any way. Of course there are referees above the inquisitors, and that is history.The rector of a Prague University was burned alive, and people took it for granted that the Holy See violated the Czech nation, which triggered a big uprising named after Hus, which wrote the prelude to the religious reform in the sixteenth century. Therefore, Prague still has a bit of a temper. three I haven't checked when Prague's artistic atmosphere began to flourish.But since this atmosphere has become a character that Prague is now known to the world, it is only a matter of time before this verification.Today I just take the easiest way to run directly to a world-renowned master and overlook the city from his height.This master is Kafka. Kafka's former residence is at an intersection close to the church, and it is exactly the same as the old photos I have seen before.I went in and turned around slowly, and sat on the stone steps at the door of the church for a long time after I came out.The place still looks a little stuffy today, the house and the road are not in harmony, and the church is not in harmony with the house.I began to think about the eyes of the thin, melancholy, deep-eyed and high-nosed insurance company clerk when he stood here. Unexpectedly, when I thought about it, my chest felt tight and I was out of breath. It's really strange that distant reading memory has such a strong effect.Where is the room where the clerk hides when he turns into a beetle?Where is the court that knows innocence but cannot escape?Where is the castle that I yearn for all my life but cannot enter? Kafka's Jewish community was hit by the anti-Semitic sentiment in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the hatred of Czech nationalism, and they were under pressure at both ends.In this atmosphere, his father's nervousness and brutality made him feel a kind of survival predicament without any escape route, and the expansion of this kind of survival predicament is exactly the common situation of human beings. He began to write in secret, and even his best friend Brod was kept a secret for several years.The will left to Brod when he died at the age of forty said: Please burn all the diaries, manuscripts, letters, sketches, etc. I left behind without reservation.Fortunately, Brod did not faithfully carry out this will. Kafka died at the University Hospital of Vienna, and his body was immediately returned to Prague.It was not clear to people at the time that what was brought back was an epoch-making writer who could be compared with Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe. Prague already had a world-class cultural weight. At the same time as Kafka, Prague also owned Hasek's "The Good Soldier Schweik". My friends and I went to the tavern commemorating him for a night of drinking.Thinking about how rich Prague was in the early twentieth century, I'm afraid Kafka was too gloomy, and he casually drew a plump and cheerful Schweik to accompany him. In fact, Kafka and Hasek were born and died almost at the same time. They have an indispensable complementary relationship: Kafka feels the absurd through serious deformation, and Hasek messes up the absurd with his silly humor .The emergence of such a complementary structure in the same city is enough to make the international intellectual and cultural circles envious, but decades later someone actually proposed that the significance is more than that, and this person is Milan Kundera. Kundera said that the absurdity that Kafka and Hasek lead us to see does not come from tradition, reason, or heart, but from history outside itself, so it is an uncontrollable, unpredictable, The incomprehensible, inescapable absurdity can be called the ultimate absurdity.It belongs not only to Prague, but to all humanity. Now everyone knows that Milan Kundera, who said these words, is himself a world-class novel master. He connected the literary cables after Kafka and Hasek, making Prague once again the most famous novel in world literature. Striking landmarks.Milan Kundera can’t describe it in a single word. I once saw a French generalization of his novel from an article by Chinese scholar Li Ping, saying it was a poetic meditation on existence, which I thought was more appropriate.Kundera has always been proud of Prague's literary status, but after the Prague Spring was suppressed and his works were banned, he had no choice but to emigrate to France, and his pride turned into sorrow. Four Today, Kundera should look at Prague with admiration, but it is a pity that he is too old to move again. What is remarkable about Prague today is that it has put a writer in the presidency.People who are presidents with a bit of literary talent can be found everywhere in the world, but President Havel is a really high-level writer.When he was first selected, I was really sweating for him. Now, more than ten years have passed, and he has done it smoothly, naturally and with great prestige.What's even more rare is that he deepened his thinking about the meaning of human existence because of his summit experience, and became a more philosophical author president.Reading his treatises published in recent years, I suddenly feel that Hamlet, who has been talking about life or death, has finally inherited the throne. Anyone can come and go freely in the presidential palace of the Czech Republic. I really wanted to visit him, but unfortunately the flagpole at the gate was empty, indicating that the president was not there. After inquiring, I went to the United Nations for a meeting. I walked around the courtyard of the Presidential Palace, thinking this was the latest chapter in Prague's cultural saga that began with Kafka.Regarding the living conditions of human beings, Kafka constructed a cruel fable, Kundera provided colorful symbols, and Havel devoted himself to political experiments. All three have reached heights that others cannot reach. Prague is really enviable. . But in comparison, I read more about Kafka and Kundera, but I know too little about Havel after becoming president, so I will not go out for the next few days and only read his articles in the hotel.Jot down some general ideas so that you don't forget that he said that the sick know better than the healthy what health is, and that he who admits that life has many false meanings is better able to find faith in life.Traditional optimism has set up many islands of meaning, tempting people to surge with enthusiasm, and then fall into the abyss of pain in a blink of an eye.Philosophers should not only be interested in islands, but whether these islands are connected to submarine mountains.This submarine mountain is the belief after abandoning the false meaning. The true belief does not look forward to victory, but believes in life and believes that all things have their own meaning, which creates responsibility.Responsibility is the basis of a person's identity. He said that fanaticism and blindness dust the truth, make life simple, and think that they want to save suffering, but actually increase suffering, but it is often too late to find out.Many political disasters in the world are related to this. He said that since he is in charge of politics, he must look at politics from a spiritual and moral perspective and strive for the return of humanity.A seemingly peaceful society is likely to be based on the confusion of good and evil, and a strict order is likely to be at the cost of spiritual numbness.To prevent all this, the premise is to fight against lies, because lies are the common basis of all evils.Political conspiracy is not politics. Healthy politics encourages people to live authentically and express life freely; successful politics pursues decency, rationality, responsibility, sincerity, and tolerance. The ultimate fruit of social reform, he said, is a change in personality.Without reform, one does not want to constantly transcend oneself, and life is bound to be stagnant; without openness, one does not want to constantly expand space, and one's life shrinks and shrinks, stuck in narrow personnel disputes all day long.If those in power stop social reform, the result will be the castration of group personality. He said that all unfortunate legacies are related to us, and we cannot transcend history, so we are all morally ill.We used to be accustomed to duplicity, mutual envy, and selfishness. Although we have shouted out about human love, friendship, compassion, and tolerance, we have lost their own depth.However, we should also believe that behind these moral illnesses lies a huge human potential.Simply by awakening these potentials, we can regain our self-esteem. He said that those dangerous international forces are not necessarily our main enemies, nor are those who have brought us misfortune. Our main enemies are our own vices: selfishness, jealousy, mutual loss ,emptiness.All this has eroded our mass media, which only encourage suspicion and hatred, support all kinds of looting, and political slander and slander are also related to this.Because of this, we should appeal to the great and dormant goodwill in society. He said that from a low level, culture includes all daily life styles, and from a high level, it includes people's education and quality. Therefore, good political ideals are related to culture.The decline in the culture and manners of a country's citizens is more shocking than a massive economic decline. Intellectuals, he said, have a broader context of thinking than others, and from this come more general responsibilities.That's all well and good, but the situation can also have the opposite effect.Some intellectuals think that they have penetrated the mysteries of the world and grasped the truth of the world, so they try to frame the world and criticize everything. As a result, they create terror and even seek dictatorship. Many ugly dictators in history were born as intellectuals.Such intellectuals, who are now having difficulty assuming power, but who have been making charming calls, or trying to attract attention with constant harassment, should be on our guard and rejected.Contrary to them, truly trustworthy intellectuals are always tolerant and open-minded. They admit the mysterious nature of the world and deeply feel their own insignificance and ignorance, but they uphold human conscience and pay attention to all good things in society. They can make the world Better Javier therefore also talked about himself. He said that he has too many shortcomings as a president. There is only one advantage, that is, he has no desire for power.It is this that makes everything turn around, so that all shortcomings will not be transformed into ugliness. It seems that he has been relatively detached in specific matters of power in the past ten years, so he can maintain these thoughts.But after all, these thoughts are very different from the nature of life, the meaning of absurdity, etc. that he used to discuss in the past. He has moved from that metaphysical level to social reality, and he does not regret it. I asked many Czech friends, and they did not regret choosing Havel.They said that culture made him a symbol, but he did not stay stuck in the symbol, allowing the Czechs to enjoy the beautiful thoughts and beautiful language from the peak of power all the time, and he and his wife can often be seen in the streets and cafes. Ordinary figure. Asked about his shortcomings, some Czech friends said that the literati may be too weak when they are in power, and they are not strong enough when they should be strong.But some other Czech friends disagreed, saying that when he was in power, many people suggested that he be tougher, and even specifically reminded him to pat the table occasionally. Havel replied that what the Czech Republic needs is not toughness, but education.