From "Serve the People" to "Serve the Renminbi" — A Tremendous Leap in History!

2006/4/1 23:28:02

All pan-moralists will probably blow their tops at such a title. But history has nothing to do with morality; the development of history has even less to do with morality. Before "Serve the People," the position occupied by the word "people" had been filled by all sorts of things: God, morality, reason, and so on. All of these share an isomorphic basic logic — they are nothing more than non-real, ethereal concepts, one after another.

"The People" is likewise such a concept. Especially for certain individuals, "the people" is not only defined, but is arbitrarily and constantly redefined by those who define it according to their own whims. "The People" is no different from clay. Like the gods arbitrarily invoked by ancient priests, playthings like morality, reason, and "the people" all require priest-like figures to preach them. Different slogans, same game — all nothing but playthings of clay.

Later, the game of growing tired of this game — indistinguishable from self-gratification — began, and the Renminbi appeared. Dollars, pounds, Renminbi; what isn't called Renminbi but is Renminbi, what is called Renminbi; gold, silver, copper, paper; game digits — all the ethereal vanished into thin air. "Serve the Renminbi" — so realistically, so amorally, so unpoetically, yet so normally — became the normal.

"Serve the Renminbi" appeared just like that, naked and continuing, impervious to any moral, religious, or political criticism. Here there are no fairy tales, no heavenly kingdoms — only the stench of real-world clay. Yet this is the first time in human history that anyone has dared to directly face this stench. This is a tremendous leap forward in human history, and all who curse this progress are themselves cursed by history.

History has nothing to do with morality! Those who toy with history are forever toyed with by history. Truth has always existed in the form of non-truth. The history of truth has non-truthfully become history; non-historical truth has always been nothing but a game — including this game itself!

Whether the ugly "Serve the Renminbi" represents the end of history — such a topic holds little practical significance. But humanity can no longer return to the era before the Renminbi; all fantasies about this can only remain fantasies. Even if humanity is to have some so-called brave new world, it can only emerge after fully serving the Renminbi.

Ugliness has become so ugly that it is beautiful; history is being historicized in this thoroughly amoral way!