Demon Box

F: No. Not a revision, a continuation. Volume five. It is an attempt to examine the Cultural Revolution, a task for which I fear I am woefully inadequate. But I feel that these last fifteen years must be examined and understood.

D: These last fifteen years? I should say! Boy, we will all be very interested in reading that. That’s terrific. Isn’t that terrific, you guys?

Much agreement, and more slurping of tea and rattling of cups on saucers. Then more silence.

D: This tea is very good. What kind of tea is it, anyway?

F: Chinese.

See? Embarrassing. Disquieting, even before this chance to review the tape. Back at the hotel that very evening the Big-time Writer couldn’t get the humiliating encounter off his mind. Unable to sleep, he dug the borrowed book from the bottom of his luggage. He opened it beneath a bed lamp and found himself immediately captured by the clarity of the prose; it had been swept as clean as that bald yard…

Two hours later, the Big-time Writer lays the book down and bows his head, finally beginning to get some inkling of the stature of the mind he had found in this far-off keep.

He discerned that Philosopher Fung had arbitrarily fashioned four views of man, as a means of observing the gradations of evolving ethical human awareness. These four views, or “realms” as Fung calls them, are (1) The unself-conscious or “natural” realm, (2) The self-conscious or “utilitarian” realm, (3) The other-conscious or “moral” realm, and (4) The all-conscious or “universal” realm.

The first two realms, according to Dr. Fung’s canon, are “gifts of nature,” while the second two are realized only as “creations of the spirit.” That these two conditions must sometimes necessarily be in conflict was taken for granted by the old Doctor; that either side should ever completely triumph over the other was considered the most dangerous of folly.