Chapter 72 historical honesty

The Pirate Museum in Oslo is built on the Beed Peninsula, separated from the central city by a fjord. It is mainly a building, not big, but as soon as you enter the door, you will see the pirate ship with its stern raised halfway up, and you will immediately feel refreshed.From the outside, this building should have two or three floors, but inside it is such a hall for the pirate ship to be arrogant, and if you look closely, you have wronged the ship, how wildly it should have stretched between the sea and the sky in the Northland. Pirates are pirates, and the name isn't meant to be humorous.So many bad deeds of looting, burning and killing have been done, and a large part of the earth has been terrified and frightened by it for a long time.Norwegians are neither ashamed nor honored about this period of history of their ancestors, but honestly recorded and presented fairly.This mentality is admirable, but a little foreign to us.

I watched the three pirate ships back and forth, hoping to gain a deeper understanding of the Norwegian mentality.When I entered the door, I heard from their curator that the total population of Norway is 4 million, but 400,000 people visit this museum every year, accounting for a full tenth. What do they think?Judging from various texts, they have no intention of recalling the souls of pirates, nor have they ever apologized to the victimized countries for the atrocities committed by their ancestors. How is this position of not being a moral value orientation established? I think of a statement made by American anthropologist Morgan.He said that human beings evolve in three stages, one is the period of ignorance, the other is the period of barbarism, and the third is the period of civilization.The academic joint worthy of our attention here is: barbarism is a kind of progress relative to ignorance, and it is also the predecessor of civilization.

Look at Norway. In ancient times, there were people fishing, hunting, and picking wild fruits by the sea. Later, they learned to plant and build ships. Their lifestyles were very backward and they could not cope with climate change and population increase.Piracy activities started in the late eighth century and committed great crimes against the plundered areas and residents. However, viewed from a long distance, they objectively promoted navigation, promoted trade, expanded immigration, and strengthened exchanges.This is going from ignorance to barbarism, and creating conditions for civilization in an uncivilized way.

Judging from the exhibits in the museum, the activities of pirates are not completely consistent. Some groups are more brutal, while others are more peaceful.Moreover, different routes have different emphases. For example, for England, France, and Spain, plundering is the main focus; for Russia, it is more about trade; some groups go to ice and snowy lands like Iceland and Greenland because Norway is difficult to make a living. Settled down.But even for robbery and trade, there were people who settled down there. Settlement is the entry into a civilization, and no matter what the initial status and attitude are, sooner or later they will be assimilated by the local civilization.Judging from their behavior patterns, the more they go to a rich area, the more they go to an area that has a big gap with their original ecology, the more arrogant their attitude is, but it is precisely such an area that has a higher concentration of civilization. The assimilation power to them is also greater.Thus the loser in arms soon becomes the victor in civilization.This is the environmental cause of the transition from barbarism to civilization.

Simultaneously with the environment is time.Some pirates with many misdeeds could not truly convert to a civilized ecology throughout their lives, but as long as he settled down in a civilized environment, his descendants would become a different kind of person.Putting down the butcher's knife and becoming a Buddha immediately, such a miracle may not necessarily happen in one person, but it is inevitable in the process of life reproduction. So, can all bad habits be transformed into positive forces sooner or later? wrong. Why didn't the war madmen, independent husbands, and fascists of later generations complete the transformation like the Norwegian pirates?This is like saying that humans evolved from apes. Why do apes in the world no longer enter this evolutionary process?

I think it is this profound difference that makes modern Norwegians not regard the age of piracy as an age of crime, and they are not ashamed of their ancestors' evil deeds, and they are willing to visit here again and again every year. With this profound distinction, there is a historical honesty to the appearance of the Norwegian pirates.Unable to make a living under the extremely harsh natural conditions, without knowing other ways of making a living, let alone receiving the minimum spiritual enlightenment, they boarded the boat with swords in hand.In other words, they stand completely on the ignorant and barbaric wasteland, and almost have no choice but to go to evil.

It is this honesty of history, this rough simplicity that gives them the greatest possibility of being redeemed.For them, the order of civilization is suddenly seen for the first time, and it is like enlightenment. In contrast, many evils of later generations have lost this historical honesty.Those war madmen, independent husbands and thieves, and fascists are often very educated, and even make up a set of grandiose reasons for their atrocities. This is not the natural order in the long-term evolution of civilization, so they can only be people who can no longer change. Ape, a thief with no hope of salvation.

This reminds me of a little thing.In recent years, piracy has been rampant in the cultural market in mainland China, and piracy was first called the pirate version, so the name has some connection with Norwegian pirates.I once thought in my heart that the behavior of these people might impact the ignorant age of the publishing system, and then enter the civilized age from the barbaric age. Therefore, I persuaded them in newspapers, saying that if they correct their evil ways as soon as possible, they may also become a A lively publisher.But it turns out that I was wrong. They don't have the historical honesty like the Norwegian pirates, but they are familiar with the norms of civilization, and they have to prove how the victim should kill the thief.Now that civilization has been pinched in their hands, they will no longer evolve towards civilization.

In contrast to them, the Norwegian pirates did not defend themselves much, so that era became silent and mysterious, almost ignoring its existence to future generations.For thousands of years, there must have been many such communities. Because they could not enter history in written language, history also deleted them.Fortunately, a small habit of Norwegian pirates inadvertently left an exact trace on history, that is, when the rulers of the small kingdoms died, they were often buried in coffins carried by ships, so that some beautiful sea ships were buried deep in the sand and obtained Saved in vacuum.The three ships in the Pirate Museum were dug out of the sand.Because there is not much other information, the official name of this pirate museum should add a word, called the pirate ship museum.

Immediately after it was excavated, it aroused widespread interest in high-level academic circles. This was not because of curiosity, but because it gained a fresh perspective to interpret history.Orthodox history is often too pretentious, while other angles lack the evidence of actual data.When the proof comes, of course, I am inexplicably happy.I understand this interest very well. Over the years, when I visited the footprints of Chinese history, I deeply felt that many vivid histories beyond written records were put aside and forgotten by people.At that time, I wanted to collect information on reckless culture, brothel culture, and beggar culture, thinking that it was a particularly precious cultural fringe area.Later, due to busy work, I couldn't spare time to study this area, and I still hate it to this day.

There are a group of scholars studying the pirate culture in Norway. Dr. Egil Mikkelsen, the director of the curator who accompanied me, is a professor at the University of Oslo. He said that there are more than ten scholars around him who specialize in the study of the pirate era.I asked him about his recent research interests, and he actually said that he was studying the relationship between Northern Europe and Buddhism in that era.This of course excited me, and I asked him what was the starting point. He said that a Buddha statue was unearthed outside Stockholm, and it was determined that it was brought from the East in the age of pirates.In addition, necklaces made of shellfish were found on pirate ships and underground, which are probably Buddhist beads.I suggested that he not spend too much energy on the latter research, because Buddhism is against killing animals, and shellfish are generally not used to string beads, and I often see this shellfish necklace in the relics of other primitive tribes. He also said that there is a lot of evidence for the communication between the age of pirates and Islam. I know that Mr. Curator has been focusing on religion in order to further analyze the external spiritual conditions from barbarism to civilization. This kind of research belongs not only to history and archaeology, but also to anthropology and philosophy. Therefore, the ferocious term pirate has a profound and gentle connotation here.This small museum supports the cultural contrast beyond people's conventional thinking mode, so it is very spiritual, and the tigers and tigers stand alive by the sea.