中文字的产生内涵 The Ideas of Chinese Characters

据传说，中国文字是传说中的黄帝的官吏仓颉(c. 2650 BC) 所创造。据说，仓颉在打猎时看到龟而被它的纹理所吸引。由于认为龟纹可能有合理的关系，他再观察世上动物、地球山水与天上星月，因而发明了中国文字符号系统，就叫做字。
听说文字发明当天，人们听到鬼泣号，农作物由天降下。不知是好是坏，反正文明就这样开始了。所以在华人的想法里，写字就被看成开天辟地一样，包含了统治生命的原理。
中文字的基本元素是点划。简言之，点划就是以各种工具不停运动所产生的痕迹。点划可分为点、线与勾，还可进一步以书写的方向来加以描述，起笔、收笔与外形。
不同的线条可以在生动书写中以势造势，给与每条线条完美的形与法。
每一个字都是始于第一划，并由此统领其他笔画。这就反映了宇宙始于太一的概念，而这正是华人几千年来所演变出来的思想。
写字也有笔顺。每个字笔画沿着一定的方向，顺着既定的次序书写。由左到右，由上到下，由外到内之类的法则就决定了顺序。笔画的运动就应由此而达到平衡，这样每个字就给人一种暂时均衡的印象。
我们可以说，中文字的产生内涵就是：和谐、自然与合而不同。每个可见的方格内的字都强调流势、平衡与视像。
.
According to legend, Chinese characters were invented by Cangjie (c. 2650 BC), a bureaucrat under the legendary emperor, Huangdi. The legend tells that Cangjie was hunting when he saw a tortoise whose veins caught his curiosity. Inspired by the possibility of a logical relation of those veins, he studied the animals of the world, the landscape of the earth, and the stars in the sky, and invented a symbolic system called zi, Chinese characters.
It was said that on the day the characters were born, Chinese heard the devil mourning, and saw crops falling like rain, as it marked the beginning of civilization, for good and for bad. In Chinese thought, the act of writing a character is therefore seen as parallel to the universal process of creation, and an embodiment of the principles that govern all life.
The basic units of Chinese characters are the strokes that, simply stated, are the marks produced by a single continuous motion by various writing instruments. The strokes can be categorized into dots, lines and hooks and can be further described by the direction in which they are written, their beginning and ending characteristics and their contour.
The different types of strokes are codified as forces (shi) in dynamic composition, each with a perfect form and method (fa).
Each character originates from the first stroke, the one that preceded all others. This reflects the concept that the universe was created from an original oneness – a central idea in Chinese thought as it developed over the centuries.
There is a proper sequence to follow when writing characters. The strokes are always written in the same direction and there is a set order to write the strokes of each character. Rules such as writing left to right, top to bottom, and outside followed by inside dictate order. The flow of the strokes should move in such a way that they achieve balance giving the characters the impression of a temporary equilibrium.
One can state the ideas of Chinese character as ‘harmony, naturalness and variety within unity’. The flow, balance, and visual imprint are also emphasized by the invisible square framework within which each character is set.

智与知 Wisdom and Truth

有关中西哲学之不同的一个普遍描述指向哲学省思本质上的基本不同。
中国哲学是智慧的著述，意思是指它主要由故事与语录所组成，指引其读者采用某种生活方式，或肯定其所采用的生活方式。
西方哲学是有关知识真理，强调有系统的辩证与学说。据说是始于希腊哲学家，他们主张人类理性能产生永恒普世的真理，因为这些真理阐述现实。
令人感到兴趣的是，西方哲学一字源自希腊文，意指爱智慧。由爱智慧到爱真理，自有其理由。古希腊人住在一个由信仰神话所支配的世界；这些神话提供拥有无常力量、好坏参杂与明暗相间的天神的狡猾故事。当狡猾无常达到不可靠点时，希腊人以真理之名来转向清晰与驱除不可靠性。
一般来说，中国人从来就没有承继有系统的神话遗传。因此，在哲理上并不需要以真理来补偿。华人的大传统只关心智慧，就是精明与果断地应用对社会有价值的知识。从这点来说，华人并不觉得他们需要企图控制一切的真理，而趋向于发展一套任何处理情况的集体智慧。
.
One common portrait of the difference between the Chinese and western traditions posits a radical incommensurability on the very nature of philosophical inquiry.
Chinese philosophy is ‘wisdom’ literature, which means it composes primarily of stories and sayings designed to move the audience to adopt a way of life or to confirm its adoption of that way of life.
Western philosophy is about truth, which emphasises systematic argumentation and theory. It is said to have begun with the Greek philosophers, who claimed that human reason produced truths which were eternal universals because they described reality.
It is interesting to note that the word philosophy is originally a Greek word which means ‘love of wisdom’. There are good reasons for moving from love of wisdom to love of truth. The ancient Greeks lived in a world dominated by religious mythology which offered shifting stories of gods with ambivalent powers, good mixed with bad, light with dark. At some point, the ambivalence advanced into an ambiguity which the Greeks attempted to dispel by turning to the clarity in the name of truth.
It is said that China, on the other hand, never had a developed or systematic mythological heritage. Therefore, it had no need of a philosophical drive for truth as compensation. Its grand tradition was concerned with wisdom, which is the judicious and purposeful application of knowledge that is valued in society. In this sense, China experienced no felt need for truth, which tries to control all situations, but rather moved towards the development of a collective wisdom about how situations might be handled.

美国总统就职演说语录 Inaugural Addresses of the US Presidents: Quotable Quotas

美国第四十四任总统奥巴马的就职典礼于2009年1月20日举行。奥巴马的就职典礼时自1981年雷根就职总统以来最多人观看的典礼。在美国东部时间早上10时到下午5时之间，17个电视台的观众有3千7百80万人，这还不包括互联网上观看的人数；虽然，电视观众比1981年观看雷根就职的人数的4千1百80万略少。
据说，奥巴马的就职演说时美国史上三个最伟大的就职演说之一。其他两个伟大的就职演说是1961年的肯尼迪与1933年的罗斯福。
以下是这三个伟大演说的语录：
奥巴马：2009年1月20日，星期二，面对美国金融大风暴
我们今日所要问的不是我们政府的组织大或小，而是它能不能运作，它能不能让我们的家庭找到像样薪金的工作，获得担当得起的照顾，过个有体面的退休生活。
肯尼迪：1961年1月20日，星期五，面对东西冷战大挑战
我的美国同胞们，不要问你的国家能为你做些什么，而是要问你能为你的国家做些什么。
罗斯福：1933年3月4日，星期三，面对世界经济大萧条
我们唯一恐惧的就是恐惧本身 - 莫名、无理、毫无根据的恐惧，它把人转退为进所需的种种努力化为泡影。
.
The inauguration of Barack Obama as the forty-fourth President of the United States took place on January 20, 2009. The Obama inaugural events were the most watched since the inaugural events of Ronald Reagan in 1981. Viewership for the Obama inaugural events achieved an average of 37.8 million viewers (not including online viewers who watched live streaming video of the event) across the 17 broadcast and cable channels as measured between 10:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. EST. Television viewership was lower than that of the 1981 Reagan inaugural festivities, however, which averaged 41.8 million viewers.
The Obama’s inaugural address of said to be one of the three great addresses in the US history. The other two were delivered by John F. Kennedy in 1961 and Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933.
Here are the quotable quotes from them:
Barack Obama on Tuesday, January 20, 2009，facing the US financial crisis
The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works, whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.
John F. Kennedy on Friday, January 20, 1961, facing the cold war crisis
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.
Franklin D. Roosevelt on Saturday, March 4, 1933, facing the world economic recession
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

现代主义：理性至上 Modernism: The Supremacy of Reason

在西方，现代主义始于文艺复兴（16世纪至17世纪中）而初尝果实于启蒙运动（17世纪中至18世纪）。文艺复兴以前，强烈的个人主义并不存在。在这个充满责任感的社会，人们为上帝与国王而生活。
文艺复兴期间，个人成为哲学的焦点。现代哲学之父笛卡儿 (1596 – 1650) 视个人为观察客体世界的主体。这个理解正好符合新的科学质询方法，在这个方法中，观察者考察与客观地寻求测量地球上所发生之事物。
启蒙运动是一个强调理性高于宗教启示或祖宗传统的欧洲哲学与科学运动。现代主义把世界看成是一个可以用观察与推理来了解的客观现实。
18世纪末期，怀疑主义者哲学家如休谟 (1711 – 1776) 对自我能客观地了解现实的能力提出了强烈质疑。为了回应怀疑主义者，康德 (1724 - 1804) 主张知识取决于人脑的构造。他对知识要符合客体这个旧看法提出了反驳。相反的，他倒反过来，认为客体要符合知识。这就是他所谓的哲学上的哥白尼式的革命。
康德要为对客观真理的持续信仰提供根据。可是他的哲学带来了一个明显的问题：‘我们如何知道人脑所有的知觉真正的会符合现实呢？’
康德没有对这个问题为我们提供一个妥当的答案，最后由此导致了后现在主义的兴起。
.
In the west, modernism started with the Renaissance (16th century to mid 17th century) and achieved its early flowering under the Enlightenment (mid 17th century to 18th century). Before the Renaissance, a strong sense of individualism did not exist. People lived for God and king in a duty-filled world.
During Renaissance, philosophy itself became focused on the individual. Descartes (1596 – 1650), the father of modern philosophy, thought of individual as a subject observing the world as an object. This understanding nicely matched the new scientific method of inquiry, in which observers view and objectively seek to measure what is happening in the world.
The Enlightenment was the European movement of philosophy and science which stressed the supremacy of reason over religious revelation or ancestral tradition. Modernism perceives the world as possessing an objective reality which can be discovered through observation and reason.
During the late 18th century, sceptical philosophers such as Hume (1711 – 1776) raised serious questions about the ability of the self to objectively comprehend reality. To respond to Hume’s skepticism, Kant (1724 - 1804) argues that knowledge depends on the structure of our mind. He rebuts the old believe that our knowledge must conform to objects. Instead, he reverses it and says that objects must conform to our knowledge. This is so-called his Copernican Revolution in philosophy.
Kant wanted to provide a basis for a continued belief in objective truth. But his philosophy raised the obvious question: ‘How do we know if the perception generated by the mind truly corresponds to reality?’
Kant did not provide us with an adequate answer to this question, which ultimately led to the rise of postmodernism.

艺术与有意味的形式 Arts and the Significant Form

我们注意到康德说过：适当地讲，美的判断只和形式有关。可以说，这是形式主义者的陈述。
形式主义的概念是说艺术最重要的就是它的形式。换言之，它被制成的方法和它纯粹的视觉外观，而不是它所陈述的内容或它与可视世界间的关系。形式主义者强调色彩、线条、形状和纹理这类的构成元素，而不是现实、背景和内容。
所以，在绘画，形式主义者会专注色彩、笔画、形式、线条与组合。
1914年，克 莱夫•贝尔提出了‘有意味的形式’的学说，把物体的真实形式与‘有意味的形式’分辨开来。他说：
‘唤起我们审美情感的所有对象的共同属性是什么呢？圣索非亚教堂（Sta.Sophia）、加特斯 的窗户、墨西哥的雕塑、一个波斯碗、中国地毯、乔托在帕多瓦的壁画、普桑（Poussin）的杰作、皮耶罗•德拉•弗朗切斯卡和塞尚的作品共同的属性又是什么呢？可能的答案只有一个 — 有意味的形式。在每件作品中，以某种独特的方式组合起来的线条和色彩、特定的形式和形式关系激发了我们的审美情感。我把线条和颜色的这些组合和关系，以及这些在审美上打动人的形式称作“有意味的形式”，它就是所有视觉艺术作品所具有的那种共同属性。’
对贝尔而言，以一件物体的表象来辨认艺术品并不比捉住这件物体的‘有意味的形式’或真正的内在本性来得重要。
.
We noted that Kant says that judgment of beauty ‘should properly concern merely form.’ One can say that this is a formalist a statement.
Formalism is the concept that the most important aspect of a work of art is its form, that is, the way it is made and its purely visual aspects, rather than its narrative content or its relationship to the visible world. Formalism emphasizes compositional elements such as colour, line, shape and texture rather than realism, context, and content.
In painting therefore, a formalist would focus exclusively on the qualities of colour, brushwork, form, line and composition.
In 1914, Clive bell further propounded the theory of ‘Significant form’ to make a distinction between a thing's actual form and its 'significant form.' He said:
‘There must be some one quality without which a work of art cannot exist; possessing which, in the least degree, no work is altogether worthless. What is this quality? What quality is shared by all objects that provoke our aesthetic emotions? What quality is common to Sta. Sophia and the windows at Chartres, Mexican sculpture, a Persian bowl, Chinese carpets, Giotto’s frescoes at Padua, and the masterpieces of Poussin, Piero della Francesca, and Cezanne? Only one answer seems possible - significant form. In each, lines and colours combined in a particular way, certain forms and relations of forms, stir our aesthetic emotions. These relations and combinations of lines and colours, these aesthetically moving forms, I call "Significant Form"; and "Significant form" is the one quality common to all works of visual art.’
For Bell, recognition of a work of art as representational of a thing was less important than capturing the 'significant form', or true inner nature, of a thing.