Reading and business are not contradictory, and the pursuit of knowledge and the pursuit of wealth are not antagonistic. The two are not interchangeable, we do not need to pre-bundle them in the same value chain than a high and low victory or defeat.
Knowledge seekers should be confident, because he gained the return of knowledge, even if the last penniless, the businessman should be confident, because he gained the return of capital, even if the last word does not know.
A Returnee’s Observations of a Dinner Party The rich man in business and the educated man with a doctorate are not confident, why? Wen Tao Lixing Source Marketplace of Ideas
A Returnee’s Observation: Why are rich businessmen and educated people who have studied for a doctorate not confident?
A Returnee’s Observations
The rich businessman and the educated man with a doctorate.
Why don’t they have confidence?
Wen Tao Lixing Source Marketplace of Ideas
Some years ago, I returned to China after completing my studies in the United States. When I first came back, I had no idea what I wanted to do in the future, but I just wanted to look around and see what opportunities there were for me to show my skills. My friends were considerate and kept an eye out for me, so they invited me to all kinds of dinners, big and small.
I don’t have a good feeling about dinner parties, I think they are a waste of time. A large number of people who have never met each other before toast each other and call each other Mr. Zhou and Mr. Huang to get close to each other, it seems as if they have known each other for a long time, but in fact, they have not. Most people have only just sat down for a short time, and are still in a state where they can’t even call each other by name.
I understand the significance of this business, that is, to make friends with a group of people who already have a social base, through them to obtain some resources that they can utilize, and use them as a tool to create a platform for themselves.
I’m not opposed to this kind of free association, but as a Kantian, neo-Kantian, neo-neo-Kantian, I’m naturally disgusted by this kind of stuff, since Kant advocated treating people as ends rather than means.
Of course, I’m too unsure of myself to be afraid I’m missing something. Even with the hat of a returnee, this society does not particularly need me. When I first returned to China, I was too uncertain and needed to land on my feet. So I accepted a friend’s invitation to a dinner party, expecting to gain something. After a bike, subway, cab and other means of transportation, I entered the hotel box.
And I imagined not too different, once I entered the door to see the table piled up all kinds of bottles and cans, full of all kinds of men and women filled with the smell of alcohol. When I came across this scene, I naturally wouldn’t take the initiative to open my mouth to say anything. Of course, I would not show a face full of impatience either. I am willing to watch the drinking in front of me and listen to the whispers in the room.
After my friend had exaggerated and embellished my experience of studying philosophy in the United States, Mr. Zhong, the owner of a large Taobao store who had started out as a trader and was already worth more than a hundred million dollars, asked me directly What is the use of studying philosophy? He came with an unfriendly tone. I’ve heard this question a thousand times and knew what he would say next, so I tried to pinpoint the topic.
I said straight out that it was of no use. But he followed up by asking, “Do you go to a good university in the United States? I said: “Not really, but the teachers are all okay, and they all graduated from old and famous American schools”. He then asked how much do your teachers earn per year. I answer public universities, liberal arts is not much, the official website, assistant professors about 50,000 dollars before taxes, associate professors 60,000 or 70,000, professors 80,000 or 90,000 dollars.
Finally, he came out with a Do you believe, I walk on the road with your teacher, ask ten girls, at least eight, well, at least six girls will choose me.
The rest of the people in the room were dumbfounded, fearing that I would make a shocking move and embarrass the scene. I understood what Mr. Zhong meant by his words; I think he was swearing sovereignty over me, but it was really more of a fear. He was afraid that I would look down on him and call him a profiteer. In fact, I will not do so because I firmly believe in the concept of pluralism when it comes to the question of what is the best.
Steve Jobs’ dropping out of school was a choice of direction.
Everyone can choose and stick to his or her own values, and under the guidance of his or her own values, choose his or her own path or do what he or she likes. Some people can read all the way up from small, undergraduate master’s degree, doctoral degree, while others can leave the campus early, enter the shopping mall to fight, and finally make a name for themselves. I maintain that there is no hierarchy here, only direction.
I responded to what you were trying to say, and you could have been more direct.
He didn’t know how to say it, he was too embarrassed to say directly What’s the use of studying, you guys don’t earn as much as I do after reading so many books, what’s the use of being educated , even if he thinks so in his heart. I am willing to let him express his true thoughts with great elegance. In my opinion, he can actually be more confident in insisting that there are eight girls, or even nine girls, and there is no need to change his mind.
My friend rounded up and muddled the issue. Of course, this didn’t make Mr. Zhong feel any relief, and I suspect he was still uncomfortable. Maybe he’d feel better if I told him that no matter how much we read, we weren’t as successful as Mr. Zhong, and punished himself with three glasses of wine in his honor.
In fact, he seemed to want to announce his own successful life and the triumph of capital to everyone in the room by putting me down. But what’s interesting is not the exchange of words, but the fact that a billionaire boss, without relying on his family’s resources and able to make a big success in a certain field by his own efforts, is still unable to reconcile with himself, still not so confident, and still longing for the approval of others, even if this person is insignificant in his eyes.
This lack of self-confidence pervades the entire society today, and no individual can avoid this trend.
A presidential class in progress
We think that if we have money and our pockets are full, we can be confident, but in fact, this is not the case. It’s not enough to have money. To be confident, you need to be cultured and have some knowledge. Otherwise, how come there are all sorts of people in suits attending presidential classes, spiritual classes, and etiquette classes in universities on weekends?
I have read a few years in the philosophy department of a school in China, our department is on the seventh floor of the school building, and the eighth floor belongs to the School of Economics. Every weekend, there were all kinds of presidents coming to the class. The most lively part is between classes, these people like to talk loudly on the phone in the corridor. The person on the other end of the line would probably ask where you were, so the person on the other end of the line would always say loudly I’m at the University of X taking a class in Music Appreciation and Economics.
The sound is so loud that they are afraid that others can’t hear them. Maybe they think that saying how much money they have earned is a common thing, but saying what they are studying is an elegant thing. They probably think that a little knowledge and culture will give them confidence.
But we can ask the other way around, a little knowledge, a little culture will really give people confidence? I do not think so.
There is a bakery stand at the back door of our school. The stall is so famous and prosperous that it has not only appeared in newspapers and television, but has also been publicized as an example of the Chinese dream. The owner is more confident than Mr. Zhong whom I mentioned earlier because he is frank.
One day a few years ago, when a doctoral student of my department went to buy bak kwa from him, he was teased by the owner of the store. The owner said, “What is the use of studying so much? Can you afford to buy a house? Can you afford a house? I have four suites, can you afford them? After a few years, it was said that the boss’s house had become six suites and two luxury cars. People tend to get inflated when they are successful, but of course there is nothing too wrong with that. I like his candor.
I am not saying this here to criticize the owner of the bakery stall, what I want to say is about that departmental friend of mine. He was very angry after hearing the boss’s words and felt so battered that he could not lift his head. Because he was very upset by the boss’s words, he criticized the boss vigorously in his department, saying that the boss looked down on readers and intellectuals, and then magnified his personal situation to the decline of social values in society as a whole. He tried to defend the sovereign status of the readers in this society.
Whether social values are in decline or not is another matter, but at least, this departmental friend of mine was ashamed of himself because of his boss’s words. You went to school and studied, and you have both knowledge and opinions, but it seems that it has not given you any backing, and you still feel ashamed of yourself because people say that you have no money.
Why would someone who chooses to follow an academic path be so bothered by an outsider’s comments? Studying philosophy for so many years still doesn’t seem to have made him confident enough to feel like he made the right choice in the first place.
Of course, the boss was not absolutely confident when he said this, because according to the source, he still paid for his son to be sent to the School of Continuing Education of our university to receive a correspondence course in business administration. I am not going to talk about the quality of the correspondence course, but at least there is one thing that we can know. He still wants his son to be a bit educated, and money alone is not enough.
But the question is, can culture and money complement each other?
We often hear parents say to their children that they have to study hard so that they will be successful in future, or else they will not even be able to find a job. What parents say is true, because studying is linked to academic qualifications, and academic qualifications are linked to employment and even income. Although we always criticize capitalism verbally, we are honest in our actions and we have inadvertently injected a certain spirit of capitalism into education.
By assuming that reading is a process of capital accumulation, the discourse that reading is a way to make a good living has been formed. Because reading is a form of cultural formation, know-it-alls call the deposits that come from reading cultural capital. It’s a popular term, but popularity doesn’t mean justification. Why should we allow capital to be tied to culture?
When we say that a person is cultured, in addition to saying that the person has some knowledge, we also mean that the person is cultured, has taste, and possesses some kind of good quality. Here, culture is more of an aesthetic thing, but aesthetic things are not quantifiable.
Capital is not like that. The main characteristic of capital is that it is replaceable and accumulative, for example, money can be used to buy houses, houses can be sold for money, money can be more and more, and houses can be more and more. When we refer to a person as rich, we will say that this person has economic capital, and there is nothing wrong with this because economy and capital are often synonymous, and the nature of money is a quantifier.
When we understand knowledge and culture as capital, we actually kidnap culture with the concept of economics, or, in other words, downgrade culture into a quantifiable object. By turning aesthetic plurality into utilitarian monism, culture and economics become mutually commensurable. In the end, it is assumed that culture and money can complement each other. Mr. Zhong The owner of the burrito store has an inferiority complex because money can’t buy culture, and the departmental friend also has an inferiority complex because culture can’t be cashed out.
The Fifth Solvay Conference, billed as the most lavish gathering in physics
I thought that when a person is confident, he is in a state of total freedom. On the one hand, he is free to choose what he likes, and on the other hand, he is willing to bear all the consequences of his choices.
If one chooses to follow the academic path, one must realize the early poverty that academic research brings. If one chooses to go into business, one must also bear the limitation of not being able to improve one’s knowledge in all aspects due to time constraints.
It is not easy to run a number, appreciate the support
Appreciation
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