1989年 崔健在天安门 来源：Patrick Zachmann（玛格南）/摄

作者：余晓平

编辑：钟然 校对：熊辩 翻译：吕峰

我们六零后听着崔健的《一无所有》走过了年轻岁月，尤其是走过了那个具有历史意义的1989年春夏之交。如今我想问现代的年轻人一个问题：如果对方一无所有，你还愿意跟着走吗？

在如今大陆的年轻人当中，可以说，为了理想而放弃物质诱惑的人已经越来越少了。这二十多年来，另一种价值观的长期灌输，使得物欲横流，也造就了在精神层面相对匮乏的一代年轻人。我不是说所有人，而是说大多数人。

其实，我们可以很容易从概率上判断：为了精神上的东西而宁愿一无所有的人，到底能占多大比例？而把物质财富作为主要判断标准的人，又能占多大比例？当物质与精神不可兼得的时候，人们到底会先放弃哪一个？

举一个大家都知道的例子：梅兰芳在日本占领时期蓄须明志，拒绝为日本人登台演出。这就是为了精神世界而放弃物质利益。再比如，当年唱《一无所有》的崔健，因为在天安门献唱被封杀多年，后又因不愿接受当局审查，拒上春晚舞台。这些人完全可以选择合作，那样财富会源源不断地到来。

但这样的人，在中华民族的历史中一直都是凤毛麟角。现实社会里，大多数人都会选择合作。几乎所有人都会说：“那也没办法，要不你来救救我，别在旁边说风凉话，要办实事。”

在这些人眼里，直接把好日子准备好，把钞票点好放在手里，或者干脆把绿卡发下来……这些物质上的东西都叫“实事”，而精神上的追求却被称为空话。这样的人，真的能过上真正的好日子吗？

好好想一想，这样的人在社会中究竟占了多大的比例。这个民族两千年的历史，很大程度上就是一部被侵略和被奴役的历史：不是外族打进来，就是内部不断折腾自己。更滑稽的是，当一部分人欺压另一部分人的时候，欺压者往往还会大谈“稳定”的好处。

于是，越来越多的人为了蝇头小利出卖自己的灵魂。人们都希望不要一无所有，却没有真正分清物质与精神之间的区别。灵魂如果没有了，其实就是一种更深层的、一种精神上的一无所有。

还记得当年谷歌离开中国的时候，很多人认为他们放弃了中国这么大的市场，会损失天量的财富。人们看到的只是物质上的一无所有，却很少有人去思考背后的价值选择，这其实正是价值观的问题。

我们年轻的时候，资讯不畅，而且长期受到单一叙事的影响。那么，到底有什么是今天的年轻人所缺乏的？在我看来，是一种在精神上追求自由的激情。也许正是因为曾经受到长期的压抑，而改革开放初期那短暂出现的思想松动，让一部分年轻人像井底的青蛙突然跳起，看见了一片蓝天。那种对自由的渴望和追求，可以说是奋不顾身的。

而那个时代，也正是崔健的《一无所有》红遍大江南北的时候。

那种精神，也促使了大量中国年轻人远赴海外，通过艰苦的勤工俭学去追寻外面更自由的世界。那种艰难，是很难用语言完全描述的。事实上，很多能够出国移民的人，在国内完全有能力通过违心的合作获取更高的物质利益。但他们选择了承受一切从零开始的压力，在国外一无所有重新奋斗，最终换取精神上的自由。

而如今，很多人出国，追求的已经不再是精神上的东西，而更多只是物质环境上的改善。同时，在国内的很多人，则在追求物质的过程中逐渐放弃精神追求，失去了独立思考的能力，过着只要有吃有睡就满足的生活。

如果一个社会越来越多的人只满足于这种状态，那么最终的结局，往往就是被人随意摆布、任人宰割。

最后我们再来听一遍《一无所有》

我曾经问个不休

你何时跟我走

可你却总是笑我，一无所有

我要给你我的追求

还有我的自由

可你却总是笑我，一无所有

噢……你何时跟我走

噢……你何时跟我走

脚下这地在走

身边那水在流

可你却总是笑我，一无所有

为何你总笑个没够

为何我总要追求

难道在你面前

我永远是一无所有

噢……你何时跟我走

噢……你何时跟我走

脚下这地在走

身边那水在流

告诉你我等了很久

告诉你我最后的要求

我要抓起你的双手

你这就跟我走

这时你的手在颤抖

这时你的泪在流

莫非你是在告诉我

你爱我一无所有

噢……你这就跟我走

噢……你这就跟我走

噢……你这就跟我走

Listen to “Nothing to My Name” Once Again

1989: Cui Jian at Tiananmen. Source: Patrick Zachmann (Magnum Photos)

Author: Yu Xiaoping

Editor: Zhong RanProofreading: Xiong BianTranslator: Lyu Feng

Abstract: Cui Jian’s Nothing to My Name once symbolized a generation’s pursuit of ideals and freedom. This song and the reflections around it criticize the materialistic values of contemporary society, arguing that when people abandon spiritual life and independent thought in favor of material gain alone, society gradually loses its dignity and freedom.

Those of us born in the 1960s passed through our youth listening to Cui Jian’s Nothing to My Name, especially through that historically significant spring and summer of 1989. Today, I want to ask younger people a question: if someone had nothing to their name, would you still be willing to follow them?

Among young people in mainland China today, it can be said that fewer and fewer are willing to give up material temptations for the sake of ideals. Over the past two decades, the long-term indoctrination of another value system has fueled rampant materialism and also produced a generation of young people who are relatively impoverished at the spiritual level. I do not mean everyone, but the majority.

In fact, we can judge this quite easily in terms of probability: what proportion of people would rather have nothing materially for the sake of spiritual values? And what proportion take material wealth as their primary standard of judgment? When material and spiritual values cannot both be kept, which one do people abandon first?

Take an example everyone knows: during the Japanese occupation, Mei Lanfang grew a beard to show his resolve and refused to perform for the Japanese. That was a case of giving up material benefit for the sake of the spirit. Another example is Cui Jian, who sang Nothing to My Name. After performing at Tiananmen, he was banned for many years, and later, because he was unwilling to submit to official censorship, he refused to appear on the Spring Festival Gala. These people could easily have chosen cooperation; had they done so, wealth would have flowed to them endlessly.

But such people have always been exceedingly rare in Chinese history. In real society, most people choose to cooperate. Almost everyone says: “There’s nothing I can do. Why don’t you come save me instead of standing there making empty comments? What matters is doing something practical.”

In the eyes of such people, handing them a comfortable life directly, counting out cash into their hands, or simply issuing them a green card… these material things are what they call “practical matters,” while spiritual pursuits are dismissed as empty talk. Can such people truly live a genuinely good life?

Think carefully: what proportion of society do such people make up? Much of this nation’s two-thousand-year history has, in large part, been a history of invasion and enslavement: either foreign powers invaded, or internal forces endlessly tormented their own people. Even more absurdly, when one group oppresses another, the oppressors often speak grandly of the benefits of “stability.”

As a result, more and more people sell their souls for petty gains. Everyone wants to avoid having nothing, yet few truly distinguish between the material and the spiritual. If the soul is gone, that is in fact a deeper kind of nothingness—a spiritual nothingness.

When Google left China, many people thought it was giving up such a huge market and would lose an astronomical amount of wealth. What people saw was only the material sense of having nothing; very few reflected on the value choice behind it. But that is precisely a question of values.

When we were young, information did not flow freely, and we lived for a long time under the influence of a single dominant narrative. So what is it that today’s young people lack? In my view, it is a passion for spiritual freedom. Perhaps it was precisely because of long years of repression that the brief ideological loosening in the early years of reform and opening up made some young people feel like frogs suddenly leaping out of a well and seeing a patch of blue sky. That yearning and pursuit of freedom could truly be described as reckless and wholehearted.

And that was exactly the era when Cui Jian’s Nothing to My Name swept across the country.

That same spirit also drove large numbers of young Chinese to travel overseas, pursuing a freer world through years of hard study and labor. That hardship is difficult to fully describe in words. In fact, many people who were able to emigrate or study abroad were fully capable, back in China, of gaining greater material benefits through compromises against their conscience. But they chose instead to bear the pressure of starting from zero in a foreign country, to have nothing materially and struggle anew, in exchange for spiritual freedom.

Today, however, many people who go abroad are no longer pursuing spiritual things, but mainly seeking an improved material environment. At the same time, many people who remain in China gradually abandon spiritual pursuits in the process of chasing material gain. They lose the ability to think independently and live lives in which having food and sleep is enough to satisfy them.

If more and more people in a society are content with such a state, then the final outcome is often that they can be manipulated at will and treated as prey.

So let us listen once again to Nothing to My Name:

I kept asking without end,When will you come with me?But you always laughed at me, for having nothing.I want to give you my pursuit,And also my freedom,But you always laughed at me, for having nothing.

Oh… when will you come with me?Oh… when will you come with me?

The ground beneath my feet is moving,The water beside me is flowing,But you always laughed at me, for having nothing.Why do you keep laughing without end?Why must I always keep pursuing?Could it be that before you,I will forever have nothing to my name?

Oh… when will you come with me?Oh… when will you come with me?

The ground beneath my feet is moving,The water beside me is flowing,Let me tell you, I have waited a long time,Let me tell you my final request,I want to seize both of your hands,And you will come with me right now.

At this moment your hands are trembling,At this moment your tears are falling,Could it be you are telling meThat you love me with nothing to my name?

Oh… now you will come with me.Oh… now you will come with me.Oh… now you will come with me.