International Business School Economics Class 3 06307 142 Zhao Xianyong

I read a book during the holiday. Of course, it's on the list posted by official website. I have to say that the title on that strange list is not only unheard of by most people, but also very hard to find … and the contents of many books are … very "strange". For example, this one, Hayek's fatal conceit. This book is hard to come by. I found its electronic version from the internal resources of a university library, but after reading it, I found that the only thing that attracted me was its name.

Fatal Conceit is Hayek's last book before his death. Unlike our textbooks, it is a mild, systematic and pure academic work. This is a controversial book, which is filled with unfriendly smoke from beginning to end. A book review vividly described this language style as "a violent way of argument beyond empiricism" and "destructive criticism". Although "the weapon he criticized itself is constructive and original", I really don't like this rude way of speaking. And his long, complicated and philosophical theoretical argument really disgusted me. Of course, I think nine times out of ten I misunderstood him. Perhaps this way of speaking is a profound academic skill that thinkers have been using, or it is written to increase the majesty and criticism of their own theories. But from the perspective of a mortal who has no knowledge and experience in this field at all, when a powerful man flies in the sky with six wings on his head, his image is extremely tall, his breath is extremely majestic, and he is extremely far away from all sentient beings on the ground ...

Hayek, a powerful and beautiful man. He is not only a thinker, but also an economist. He has studied sociology and biology. When most intellectuals demonstrate ideological problems with tedious metaphysics, he uses his own economic knowledge and simple interest analysis to achieve his goal. At that time, the idea that "socialism is the only way to build this new world at present" has been circulated for a long time and deeply rooted in people's hearts. Since the Enlightenment, countless intellectuals have tried to prove that they seem to have obtained conclusive evidence. In the eyes of many people, the ontological part of this proposition has been recognized as true. At this time, he can put forward such a firm and overwhelming opposition theory. In any case, this thinker is very powerful.

This book is a work that criticizes "constructive rationalism represented by socialism". I couldn't believe it when I saw the content. Although the teacher who helped me find this book explained to me how classic this book is and how necessary it is to read, I feel that the theme of this fate should belong to the category of harmony anyway, hehe. Although people didn't write this book for China in the East, nor for any other socialist country, nor to suppress me living in the shadow of make-up and re-examination, they just responded to the voices from within capitalism.

Evolution, expanding order, egoism, altruism, traditional morality. Every sentence in this book is complete and rich in meaning. It can be used as a theorem or something else, which can fully explain the views it represents. But what I admire most and agree with only is Hayek's forceful refutation of anti-superstition and even hostility to religion. I have never seen such a strong argument about the importance of religious existence, and I have tried it many times before (but it is impossible).

"Premature loss of beliefs we regard as untrue will make mankind lose a strong support in the long-term development of the extended order we are enjoying. Even today, losing these beliefs, whether true or false, will still cause great difficulties." The author emphasized this point at the beginning of chapter 9.

Whether a rule is reasonable or not should continue to exist depends on how it was produced and how it was preserved for a long time. The law is like this, and so is religion. Hayek explained the rules of small groups for the first time in his book. People have lived in such a small group for hundreds of thousands of years. People are familiar with each other, meet each other's needs and pursue the same goal. "These restrictions on individual behavior may initially be used as a sign to identify group members. Later, the belief that the gods would punish violators retained these restrictions. "

When culture develops, society replaces small groups, and people play different roles in society and pursue hundreds of different goals. Among these people, people who follow certain customs gain advantages, win and survive in the competition of survival of the fittest. "The benefits of some customs are not known to those who abide by them. Only when these customs are supported by other strong beliefs can they be preserved for a long time to increase their selection advantages; Some supernatural or mysterious beliefs can easily play this role. "

In other words, religion is actually the result of natural selection and evolution. "There is no reason to think that support from religion is intentionally cultivated, or that there is often a' conspiracy' in all these things." Doing so will make you stronger and you will win. Successful ancestors want their descendants to take the right path, that's all. In fact, Hayek also explained the inheritance of religious creed itself, and natural selection also played a role. He mentioned that some religions disapprove of private ownership and family. But only the creed that supports private ownership and family has survived, because it is really conducive to survival.

In a word, religion believes that morality is determined by a process that we can't understand, which may be more true than rationalism's deceptive empty talk. There is no evidence that religion was deliberately invented by some people in order to enjoy special rights in the group; It is even more nonsense to say that religion is a minority elite, seeing its unknown benefits with a far-sighted vision and calmly calculating its advantages and disadvantages behind the scenes. For a long time, religion has been used by rulers to maintain their own dictatorship. The author puts forward the view that "secular rulers also intentionally mobilize religious support from time to time, sometimes even to the point of cynicism-but this often involves only a temporary dispute, which is almost insignificant in the long evolution period." In this long evolution process, whether the recognized rules have promoted the development of the same body is better than which ruling group favored it in a certain period.

For the attacks from materialism and atheism, Hayek put forward such a rebuttal that religion is actually just a way to maintain moral rules. "When many people talk about God, they may just mean the embodiment of moral traditions or values that maintain their identity." The reason why God should be humanized may be because in the process of preaching, "perhaps most people can only understand abstract tradition as someone's will." There are different opinions about the disadvantages of religion, but without religion, we can clearly see its consequences-moral decay. "Those missionaries are said to have doubts about the correctness of their teachings, because they are worried that the loss of faith will lead to moral decline, so they continue to preach."

A cat has never seen such a classic exposition. In this description, it gives me a greater feeling than I do in a church or temple.

"In most cases, the winners are often those who insist on' blind habits' or learn the concept of' honesty is the best strategy' through religious teachings, so that they can beat smarter peers who have other' rational' views. As a survival strategy, obeying rules corresponds to flexibility, both of which play an important role in biological evolution; Morality in the form of rigid rules may sometimes be more effective than variable rules. "

"Superstition is of great help to mankind. It provides people with the motivation to act correctly, even if the motivation itself is wrong; It is certainly more beneficial to the world for people to do the right thing for wrong motives than to do the wrong thing with good intentions. What matters to society is behavior, not opinion: as long as our behavior is correct, no matter whether our opinion is wrong or not, it will not have the slightest impact on others. "

"Long before artificial reason and philosophy appeared, religion, even in its most primitive form, had promulgated moral rules." (Adam? Smith) "

"'Some insensitive people always curse what they love.' (Bernard? Mandeville) "

"We see light, but you see shadows." Reading the same book, some people gain strength and some people gain comfort. Even if there is a person with poor knowledge and poor skills like a cat, when others see its brilliance and strength and gain infinite strength from it, I only see an unparalleled magic man with language violence ... Forget it, it seems that I have to reread this work if I have a higher reading level-

I wonder if others will fantasize for a long time after reading this shocking work. For me, the only revelation this book has given me,

God, please don't abandon us