2019.8.5 日记摘选 -- 艺术哲学随想（希腊罗马差异）
另一个感悟是有关希腊和罗马的。according to 丹那的艺术哲学，希腊文明是一个艺术品，美丽但是太过精小，所以易碎。因为其只想获得思想精神上的精髓部分，追求个人精神的享乐。希腊人在他们限定的寿命里（大约六十年）尽可能地去充实自己：诗歌、雕塑、饮酒、诡辩、哲学、数学、戏剧、体育、肉体...... 他们发明的数学与科学不是为了实用，不是为了给后人铺路，他们都想以个人之力追求极致。consequentially, 他们的推理与理论是混沌的，不脚踏实地的。人们不愿意为大我牺牲小我，更不会为了国家和后世牺牲个人。希腊人的世界观是小的，他们在提到每一个城邦脑中可以浮现出其具体的轮廓和地貌；by contrast，罗马帝国绵延千里从横欧亚，任何一个罗马市民都无法走遍其帝国的疆土，所以他们的世界观里承认了有自己无法看到的伟大所在。罗马人承认了制度，信服于宗教；破坏了原本自我机体所持有的平衡，逐渐压抑与强化某些生活方式，为了整个社会更好的运转。从希腊到罗马的演变，让我们看到了从一个小民主到大帝国所需要作出的牺牲。当然，这两种文化各有各的美，我们想要过哪种生活也取决我们个人的选择。I don't know if the following thinking is too optimistic or naive, but I want to believe that humans can live on the bridge of both cultures, taking the advantages of both sides to some extent. May be that's how we can use our creativity built upon the history.
To connect such realization with more contemporary era -- the world based on the capitalist system. People work their ass off to earn money, they sacrifice many sides of themselves to pursue success, which is not even defined by themselves, but by the mass, by the power-holder of this capitalist society. What have we lost? The completness of each individual. The power and willness to feel who we are, how we feel and courage to pursue happiness. Those qualities are devalued in our society because we won't be that efficient if we proritize sensational experience. In another word, the evolution of our human civilization originates from a sensational world --composed by concrete objects and strong emotions-- to a more abstract one: full of big concepts such as asceticism, bureaucracy, mission and etc. Put in one word, we are in an over-civilized society, don't we?
So, are we going to miss that period of time as how i favor my interactions with those young adults? From my abovementioned words, you know that i don't want to go back. However, i am still amazed by some beautiful fictions of the past, which i don't own them any more. I know I won't go back, and I am going to figure out what's waiting in the later path of my life. And I believe that humans are facing a similar scenario at this historical point.
