论中国民族思想力不足的问题

衡量一个民族的思想力足与不足，不是看这个民族实际拥有什么思想，而是看其思想的供给是否满足思想的需求。中国民族虽产生了许多思想家和思想作品，但就总体而言，其思想的供给相比其所要解决的问题来说是严重不足的。问题的症结在于传统社会中思想的生产与秩序的生产不可得兼，于是牺牲思想的生产以保证秩序的生产就成为统治者必然的选择。这样做的历史后果是中国民族几乎丧失了把握自己近代命运的思想能力。在这种情况下，只能通过思想进口来弥补缺口，由此又造成思想外贸的巨大逆差和对进口思想的严重依赖。更重要的是光靠进口思想，实际效果并不好。因此，检讨思想力不足、提高思想力水平，就成为我们民族当下的一项迫切任务。

On the Problem of Insufficient Thinking Power of the Chinese Nation

The measure of sufficiency of thinking power of a nation does not lie in what thoughts a nation actually has, but rather in the whether the supply of thoughts can satisfy the demand for thoughts. Though the Chinese nation has produced many thinkers and works of thoughts, on the whole, the problem of supply of thoughts is a lot worse than the problems it is supposed to solve. The crux of the problem lies in the fact that the generation of thoughts and that of order in the traditional society could not go together, therefore, the creation of order at the sacrifice of that of thoughts became the natural choice for rulers. The historic consequence is that the Chinese nation has virtually lost the thinking power to dictate its own destiny. Under this circumstance, the insufficiency can only be compensated by import of thoughts, which creates both a huge deficit in this foreign trade of thoughts and a heavy reliance on the import of thoughts. More important, a sheer reliance on import of thoughts has not been effective. Therefore, it has become an urgent task for our nation to examine the insufficiency of thinking power and increase the level of thinking power.