Weber 1895' s inaugural speech "Nation State and Policy" at the University of Freiburg began to talk about Germany's eastern border, economic migration and national survival competition, which led to how big Germany should be. As we all know, Germany's situation is to survive between Britain, France and the United States in the west and Russia and Poland in the east. Weber pointed out that the key to Germany's problem is that it can't be a country that just wants to be well-off and comfortable, but a big country with world ambitions to survive and seek. This is his basic judgment on Germany's national conditions. But in such a speech about nation-state and economic policy, Weber attacked economy or such a lifeless concept from time to time. After reading this speech carefully, we will find that Weber, as a professor of national economics, really cares about culture and values, which is the meaning of life in the unfashionable words. The concept of freedom Weber's speech is sharp, and his language is full of passion for debate. It is worth noting that the connection between specific economic policy issues and existing politics is not a collective and prescriptive category such as national interests, traditions and cultural identity, but a concept of freedom. When talking about German farm labourers who were forced to leave their homes because of immigration competition and economic pressure, Weber wrote: In the deep heart of farm labourers, there is always a vague yearning for the distant horizon; Behind this yearning is the primitive impulse to freedom. People who can't see this, of course, can't feel the magic of freedom. In fact, the spirit of freedom has rarely entered the silent study today to ask our hearts. The once naive ideal of freedom has declined. Many people become precocious and even too smart; I think that the most basic impulse of human heart to this freedom has been brought to the grave by lifeless concepts such as politics and economic policy. Weber pretends to be the spokesman of the civil class, but he sees the original impulse of freedom in German farmers who may become slaves to other people's land forever. At the same time, Weber also clearly saw that under the condition of modernity, the most basic impulse to freedom in human heart has been brought to the grave with the harmony of economy and the lifeless and poetic concept of life. Weber, who speaks from this standpoint, can't be a professional expert who is value-neutral and only abides by his academic vocation. He is not the ancestor of today's university professionals, because what inspires him and bothers him is, in the final analysis, the issue of values. Reading Weber's thoughts carefully, we can find that they are full of profound impulses and intense, from Kant's profound moral concern to Nietzsche's theory of breaking idols. He also actively participated in real politics and talked about social phenomena. So his so-called social norms, value-neutral academics, comparative religion and so on. It must be seen in his own practical problems and in the historical conditions and factors that determine his thoughts and feelings. In a sense, reading Weber means reading and grasping the cultural and political concern and ideological and emotional intensity behind his academics. This is the way to enter the historical situation of Weber's thought. Why does Weber say that, in fact, the spirit of freedom rarely enters the silent heart and asks our hearts? Why did Weber start with freedom? Aren't modern people freer than ancient people? Isn't the foothold of the whole modernity freedom? The problem here has become complicated. On the surface, I think he refers to a universal state of modernity. Nietzsche has repeatedly said that modern people are premature and aging, and they are all too smart. Smart enough to feel that there is no basic impulse in people's hearts, which is also pointed out by Weber. In Weber's eyes, under the superficial freedom, modern people have lost their real free impulse and passion. Therefore, to talk about freedom under the condition of modernity, we must redefine the historical essence of the concept of freedom and talk about how it is inspired by the conflict between values and human political life. In this sense, it can be said that Weber's thought has Nietzsche's side. Nietzsche's educated layman became a political dwarf or political mediocrity in Weber's place. This kind of person first thinks that no one really cares about freedom, equality or the self-realization of spiritual culture. What is the dominant concept? Interest, order, and daily politics that serve interest and order. The politics here is not the kind of politics we are talking about or the cultural politics in Weber's sense, but the so-called politics of daily life operation: canvassing, who will be suppressed, who will come to power and how to allocate resources. Politics in the daily sense of the citizen class is this kind of politics. In the final analysis, this is an economic politics. Everything has become an economic problem, and everything has become a technical problem. Once you believe this, no one will feel that people-themselves, individuals or groups-have any real and hard-to-resolve deep-seated impulses. Weber said that this is the biggest danger. Interestingly, this reveals Weber's basic understanding of the concept of freedom. Contemporary vulgar liberalism often interprets freedom as something that dissolves freedom, such as safeguarding private interests and rejecting the will to act and utopian ideals of social collectives. However, Weber showed us that freedom is first and foremost a kind of free will. While creating and maintaining free space, we must constantly ask the connotation and significance of this freedom from the life world. In other words, freedom should not only be guaranteed by external system and order, but also have its internal argument and basis. This is why Weber emphasized not the concept of freedom of modern parliamentary politicians, but the so-called primitive impulse to freedom. This primitive impulse is not mysterious and non-historical, but a path that leads the question of freedom to its historical conditions. From this point, we can see that Weber's view of freedom is not opposed to Hegel's and Rousseau's, but has internal continuity. Hegel's view of freedom emphasizes the country and history; Rousseau's freedom is a passion for liberation. What they have in common is that freedom is a free action, so fundamentally speaking, it is a positive political choice. This is in stark contrast to the position of contemporary vulgar liberalism that emphasizes the protection of private rights, especially economic rights. The concept of freedom in German classics reached Heidegger and Schmidt after the turning point of Nietzsche and Weber, and became a concept of freedom that openly rejected the superficial and procedural liberal democracy of Anglo-American liberalism and emphasized the essence and existence. In Heidegger's view, freedom is not stipulated by external interest compromise and procedural arrangement, nor is it something that comes with the maturity of a nation, but a transcendence of this existence, which is the basis for laying the foundation and struggle for existence. In this way, the concept of freedom is not metaphysical, but has become an almost pure political concept. However, such a free political concept still needs a place in the life world and a cultural self-definition or concretization. Only within this framework can freedom be the main body. This is very close to the concept of sovereignty defined by Schmidt. Because freedom in definition can't be given to you by others, and it doesn't come from outside free will. Freedom can only grasp itself, possess itself and gain itself from itself. Freedom can only accept that it is freedom. In the words of Jean-Luc Nancy, an interpreter of contemporary Heidegger, it is not that people can start to become free, but that freedom is always unfolding itself, and freedom always keeps itself as a starting point and a beginning. This tradition that freedom is the foundation of existence and the essence of self-identity is not contradictory to the concept of liberalism in Britain and America in the abstract level, but once it is restored to the specific context of history and politics, different problems appear. This is a train of thought hidden in the modern German ideological tradition. It laid the foundation in the works of Kant and Hegel, gained cultural and political certainty in the works of Nietzsche and Weber, and gained unprecedented political clarity in the thoughts of Heidegger and Schmidt. Weber is in a particularly contradictory and ambiguous position in this ideological tradition, because Germany at that time needed further self-confirmation in culture and politics on the one hand, and modernization or rationalization in social politics on the other hand, so that Germany's interests and identity could play a role in modern politics and technology. This not only serves the cause of the empire with democratic politics, but also serves the historical planning of German modernity with the order and power of the empire. From another point of view, this is to show the collectivity of the German nation in the form of modern individualism. Of course, there is another layer in Weber's exposition, which implies that the establishment of German collective politics will become the decisive foundation of German modernity and personal happiness. All this can not be simply described as dialectics or sophistry between nationalism and liberalism, but Weber's thought is indeed shaped in such tension. This is also the reason why Weber's thought gained unprecedented attention after the Cold War. On the surface, Weber's social theory seems to be beneficial to deal with the contradiction between contemporary nationalism and liberalism. However, the more critical driving force comes from an inherent requirement in the history of thought, that is, overcoming the challenge of German thought in the twentieth century to the political order and cultural interest of the bourgeois society in the nineteenth century, returning to the naive and pure state of the so-called civil society and public space in imagination, reintroducing the concept of permanent peace from Kant step by step, and inventing a teleology and universal genealogy for it. This pedigree certainly ends in the contemporary neo-liberal ideology and the global capitalist market economy without structural rivals. But the trouble is that this seemingly subjective universalist ideology always exposes the special power groups that it is attached to and effective. So everything went back to politics. This new political culture and political consciousness will inevitably be involved in this debate about the material, category and conceptual framework of conceptual history. How to read these materials is really intertwined with how we think about contemporary issues. All the history Croce said is contemporary history, which is a straightforward insight. But we can't make a simple and cynical understanding of this slogan. We should see the other side of it: without a critical grasp of history, there will be no basis for contemporary consciousness; Without history, there is no contemporary history. Contemporary history requires us not only to reflect on China's modern and ancient times, but also to read world history as our own. Because how to read the history of the world and how to read the pedigree of western learning is related to the interests of contemporary China culture, and it is also the basic premise to form the cultural and political identity of contemporary China. From existence to politics, before entering this issue, there is another problem worth considering. The idea of reinterpreting freedom as collective self-affirmation, self-confirmation and self-realization seems to be inherent, which easily leads to differences in nationalism and even racial superiority that emphasize national essence and cultural uniqueness. However, after reading Weber, we will find that the context of this exposition is basically in the context of international relations, geopolitics, political realism, comparative social theory and comparative cultural theory. The so-called internal discourse often corresponds to the external environment of a nation, even the internalization of the latter, and is a subjective representation or construction of the objective environment. This is very important for understanding Weber's comparative religion. Why did he study Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism and put forward the proposition of Protestant ethics and capitalist spirit? From this perspective, we can find a different answer from the mainstream academic circles. On the contrary, those seemingly external, formal, procedural and international system construction issues, such as parliamentary democracy, freedom of speech, public discussion, constitutional rights, overseas colonization and so on. It seems that it only competes horizontally with Britain, the United States and France, but it is fundamental to the German state and the fundamental decision of the German national cultural and political self. Weber's ideological passion and undeniable cultural impulse when talking about political and legal issues fully illustrate this point. No matter how technical and aesthetic Heidegger's philosophy is, its essential direction or ambition is to realize the unity of the ideological world and the life world in a political concept. However, this political immanence is only expressed by Schmidt in the clear language of political philosophy and legal philosophy. At the beginning of Weber's inaugural speech, he talked about very specific issues: the land issue and whether the eastern border should be closed. This is a very specific and realistic political and policy issue for any country, but from here Weber raised a big question, that is: what is the overall and long-term interests of the country? How is the leadership represented? In the era of economic rationality and private interests, do we still have the desire and ability to grasp this impulse? This question directly led to the following discussion. Only by raising this issue can we talk about the issues to be discussed later, otherwise concepts such as the national economy can be lifeless and purely technical. Talking about freedom in the original sense is to break through the formalism and materialization tendency of contemporary liberal democracy myths. Weber's exploration of a positive and self-confirmed concept of freedom did not lead him astray in metaphysics or mythology, on the contrary, it brought him back to a concrete and realistic world, that is, a world full of conflicts of interest. In fact, we can imagine that Weber described the objective environment of his free spirit with a very classic concept of free competition. In other words, Weber used the realistic theory of classical liberalism about survival competition to oppose the ideological order of old imperialist countries such as Britain, America and France. By denying liberalism's idealization of reality, it is pointed out that Germany is still in the stage of not idealizing in its national development history and relations with other big countries, and must safeguard its own interests with harsh national will. What he challenged was actually the unequal universal order that the world powers tried to impose on Germany at that time. In this way, Germany's own particularity is pointed out, although the way to point out it is not to reject the inherent provisions of western modernity, but to put it back into the historical concreteness and re-describe it. Weber's argument skills often take a step back, because what he wants to express is a very tough position: everyone has his most fundamental impulse, which cannot be dispelled. You have to admit this impulse, such as what is a Christian, what is the West, what is Germany, what is German culture and what is German. These are some very basic impulses, and you can't write them off with a set of fashionable theories about the construction or invention of the so-called nation-state. This is not a purely theoretical game. In fact, all kinds of deconstructive forms of neo-universalism are not pure theoretical games, because they all presuppose a new universal platform, a new subject after the subject, and a new global culture against national culture. However, as long as we analyze the material, social, political and ideological forms of this new cosmopolitan culture, people will not have any unrealistic illusions about its universal rhetoric. Because the life world it corresponds to and depends on has never given up its special position in political and cultural identity. In this sense, if you say that people are not necessarily Germans or China people, wouldn't it be nice to be a universal citizen of the world? Then you are just expressing a specific attitude towards life, which is itself the appearance of a specific lifestyle. You can also say that post-modern people are diverse, people are random and accidental, and so on. You don't have to include yourself in the grand narrative of nation-state, class or history. Why obey a basic narrative? Wait a minute. You can tear it down from various angles, but this attitude is what Gellner, a Czech-born British sociologist, called a universal and atomic attitude. It wants to destroy all kinds of collective barriers and all kinds of romantic and community outlook on life with the least common divisor. Geller is not talking about the contemporary era, but19th century, which is a problem faced by German romantics in the industrial and commercial society. Weber's problem can be traced back to this crossroads, which is a relatively recent manifestation of the inherent contradiction of modernity. The question he asked was simple, that is, what kind of people we want to be. What is our basic impulse as Germans? Do you want this thing? The first is whether it is available, the second is whether it is needed, and the third is how to handle it. As we optimists think, the result of natural selection doesn't always make the more advanced or economically minded countries win. We just saw this. There are many examples of the victory of inferior nations in human history. When a human society appears in a social organization or cannot adapt to the environment because of its national characteristics, its knowledge or spiritual light will disappear. This sentence can't pass the standard of political correctness of contemporary western colleges, but what is Weber trying to say? There are a series of rhetorical questions: who do you think is the more powerful economically, who is better and more advanced in production technology, who knows how to do business, who is the greater nation and who is the winner in the ultimate historical sense? No. First of all, higher civilization is often defeated by lower civilization. We can find many examples in the ancient history of China. Some economists have made a very general observation, that is, before the revolution, the advanced nations were generally backward-the advanced nations were too noble, elegant and decadent to beat the people on horseback; However, after the industrial revolution, the more civilized a nation is, the more it can defeat those so-called barbaric nations. You can't beat the United States, a high-tech war machine that is fully armed and underground as if the whole earth is in its encirclement. You can't beat it with those spears on horseback now. What Weber is talking about here is nothing more than the cruelty of survival competition-this is something that Weber's powerful people should never forget. Don't think that now that everyone is civilized, there will be no real cruel competition for survival in business. In fact, contemporary people are faced with the same cruel competition for survival, but the rules of the game are different. It used to be fighting and killing. Whoever is stronger will win on the battlefield. Now it has become an economic war, then a political system competition, and then a national cultural competition. This does not change the fact of survival and competition, but the gameplay is different. This is the first meaning. The second meaning includes the following contents: As we can see, the struggle between ethnic groups has never stopped, and this kind of struggle will not be different just because it is carried out under the appearance of peace. The struggle in a peaceful environment is essentially the same as the struggle in a state of war, but this essence is often not recognized in peacetime. This is also similar to the view of German legalist and economist carl schmitt, that is, a sovereign country will only show its political essence in an extraordinary state. In eastern Germany, German farmers and short-term workers were driven out of their land by politically disadvantaged enemies, namely Slavic immigrants, in open conflicts. On the contrary, they are living for the daily economy and fighting for inferior nations, and this silent and tragic struggle is getting worse and worse. Webber sounds like a racist here. He believes that Poles and Russians are backward nations and can survive by eating grass. The Germans, on the other hand, are a nation with high culture, and have higher requirements for production technology and cultural life, so they cannot compete with them. But he said this mainly to highlight the silent and very tragic struggle for survival. They left their homes for a dark future. In other words, there will never be peace in the life-and-death struggle of politics. Only those who are confused by the appearance of peace will believe that our descendants will live a peaceful and happy life in the future. As we all know, vulgar political economy takes it as its responsibility to constantly cultivate recipes for universal happiness. According to this vulgar economic view, the only understandable purpose of political economy is to promote the happiness and balance of human existence through modification. If you look at these two paragraphs together, you can see them clearly. The vulgar political economy that Weber opposes is the illusion of universal happiness, the rhetoric of universal humanity and the universal ideological order. This is still his discussion strategy. But then the second step put forward a so-called cruel survival competition strategy, which is cruel in nature. Then, in the next step, he criticized this happy appearance and this vulgar political view. He actually raised such a question: from a country's point of view, can its economic interests and its economic policies be equated? Are its economic interests consistent with its political and cultural interests? Weber's answer is of course inconsistent. Weber also gave an example. He said: a single population problem-as long as you think about the population problem, it is difficult for everyone to become a truly happy person. There is no way to imagine that such a large population in the world will really realize the fantasy of peace and universal happiness advocated by happiness theorists. No Incredibly, legitimate happiness will wait for us somewhere in the future. I can't believe that there is any other way to create opportunities for human beings to move freely in this city life except the cruel struggle between people. There is a Latin sentence from Dante's Divine Comedy: lasciate ogni speranza. This is what Dante said when Virgil led him into the gates of hell. What he means is that the present situation of the world cannot accommodate such a pure hedonist and the hope of so-called universal happiness. Here we go back to the original question of freedom once again. Weber's opportunity to move freely here is a very clear and popular statement. The question of what is freedom immediately leads to the question of whether we still have the pursuit and impulse of freedom; In other words, what is freedom is reduced to what we really want; Freedom in Germany becomes how we become Germans and what it means to be Germans. The pursuit of freedom is to create freedom and create opportunities for free action. He will say later that the real historical mission of all nations is not to leave future generations with much property and wealth, but to leave future generations with much room for free action. Weber wrote bluntly: When we think beyond the graves of our generation and our own graves, what excites us is not how people in the future will be well fed, but what kind of people they will become. From here on, Weber really fell into his own problems, just like Nietzsche's. Nietzsche thinks that the question of who we will become is the whole problem of culture, so he thinks that the core of culture has no history; It is ridiculous to talk about how this culture is more advanced than that culture and how to make cultural progress. Weber believes that this issue is also the cornerstone of all the work of political economy. What we yearn for is not to cultivate well-fed people, but to cultivate those great qualities that we think are noble enough to constitute our human nature. The direction of this sentence in the historical context at that time is unmistakable: 1895, Germany has made rapid progress in the 30 years since its reunification, and in Marx's words, it has kept pace with Britain and France on the road of capitalism. After reunification, Germany quickly became the largest country in Europe, second only to the United States in the world, and was in an all-round competitive relationship with the western world. This is a thriving and unprecedented best state in German history. But Webb has a deep sense of crisis. He considered a deep question, that is, what kind of people do we want to be? This does not mean that we Germans have achieved a well-off life. Our next goal is to be as rich as Britain, as decadent as France, as free as Americans and as noble as Swiss. What he said is very simple. He asked why the rise of Germany was so difficult. Why do the political enthusiasm and moral courage shown by the Germans in the struggle for reunification seem out of place today? Wouldn't it be better if Germany fell apart and split into ten small countries under the pressure of big countries, and ordinary Germans were relieved of the burden of big countries? Isn't it more comfortable to live like Denmark, Austria, Luxembourg and Switzerland? What Weber said about how Germans live is not asking how much Germans earn per capita, who lives in a big house and drives a good car, but what kind of people Germans will become. This is his biggest problem. This problem is obviously beyond the reach of vulgar political economy. This is the so-called value question: what kind of person do we want to be?