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Nowadays, many rich people send their children to aristocratic schools in England, hoping that they can also become aristocrats after graduation. But when they find that even the best schools in Britain, Eton students, sleep on hard beds, eat light meals, and receive very rigorous training every day. It's even harder than students in civilian schools. They could not understand how these ascetic lives had anything to do with the aristocratic spirit.

In fact, this is not surprising, because the aristocratic spirit advocated by the West is not the nouveau riche spirit, but an avant-garde spirit with honor, responsibility, courage, self-discipline and other values as the core.

Aristocratic spirit, first of all, means that this person should self-control, self-restraint, self-dedication, and serve the country. There is no doubt that Prince William and Prince Harry of England are aristocrats. The British royal family sent them to the military Academy to study. After graduation, Prince Harry was sent to the front of Afghanistan to work as a machine gunner. The British royal family knows the nobility of Prince Harry and the dangers at the front. But they recognize that it is the duty of the aristocracy, or their duty, to dedicate themselves and take risks for the country.

The aristocratic spirit of Europe: refers to the control of material pleasures and the cultivation of body and mind with culture and art in a flashy society; even if they hold power, they are braver to take responsibility, stick to the honor and morality in their hearts, and remain free and independent in the face of money, power and even life and death. Reading and appreciation of American articles

On October 28, 1910, an 83-year-old man, in order to save his suffering soul, decided to distribute all his possessions to the poor. Then he left his vast manor and left with Nekhludoff-style repentance. He finally died like a tramp in a small barren station. He was the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. Years later, when commenting on Tolstoy, the famous Austrian writer Zweig lamented that this unglamorous and humble final fate did not detract from his greatness. If he had not suffered for the rest of us, Leo Tolstoy would not have belonged to all mankind as he does today. Although the above protagonists have different destinies, they all share a common identity: aristocracy.

The true aristocratic spirit should have three important pillars: first, cultural upbringing, resisting the temptation of materialism, not taking pleasure as the purpose of life, and cultivating noble moral sentiment and cultural spirit. Second, the responsibility of society, as a social elite, strict self-discipline, cherish honor, help vulnerable groups, and assume the responsibility of the community and the country. Third, a free soul, with an independent will, dares to say no in front of power and money. Moreover, it has intellectual and moral autonomy, can transcend fashion and trends, and is not enslaved by political power and the opinions of the majority. Because if there is no cultural upbringing, social responsibility and the freedom of the soul, it can not be called the aristocratic spirit.

The aristocracy, whether in terms of appellation or in essence, must be consistent with its moral character, knowledge and behavior. Otherwise, even if he is powerful and rich, he cannot enter the ranks of the aristocracy.

The true meaning of aristocracy refers to its possession in spirit and noble behavior. The nobility of the aristocratic spirit is to live with cleanliness, elegance and dignity. He will not be treacherous and unscrupulous for the sake of some immediate practical interests. In this sense, there should be no relationship between the spiritual aristocracy and the so-called rich. Spiritual aristocrats are not necessarily rich, and rich people are not necessarily aristocrats. Because this aristocratic spirit can not be bought with money.

Chinese people have become strangers to the aristocratic spirit. Although many villa communities are now named aristocratic courts, aristocratic manors, proud cities, and so on; although most people today advocate the so-called aristocratic life, unfortunately, their understanding of aristocratic life is to live in villas, drive high-end cars, and play golf. They spend a lot of money, and their children go to aristocratic schools and study abroad. In fact, this is not called aristocratic spirit, this is called nouveau riche spirit.

Sometimes it can be said that the aristocratic spirit has nothing to do with material conditions. As Zhang ailing said at that time, the elevator worker in the old Shanghai apartment must be neatly dressed and neatly worn before he was willing to come out and drive the elevator for customers, which also reflects a kind of aristocratic demeanor. For example, Professor Xu Jilin said that there was a laid-off rickshaw driver who supported dozens of orphans on his meagre income from riding tricycles and sent them to school one by one. We can also say that this man has a certain aristocratic spirit. Therefore, the aristocratic spirit is far away from us, and it is also very close to us. Each of us can become a spiritual aristocrat.

Aristocratic spirit is not necessarily monopolized by aristocrats, as long as civilians continue to study hard and insist on shaping their own personality, they are also aristocrats with aristocratic spirit, and what we want to emphasize is the aristocracy of spirit. However, today's domestic understanding of the aristocracy is not reflected in people's pursuit of spirit and aesthetics, but in the supremacy of money. The nobility in the aristocracy is gorgeous, magnificent, illustrious, luxurious and so on. The media gives us an illusion that this form of vanity and childishness has nothing to do with the true aristocratic culture.

The reason why the aristocracy is an aristocrat does not lie in how much wealth or power, but in having a noble spirit, which is called aristocratic spirit in history books. People who lack aristocratic spirit, even if they are rich, are nouveau riche with the nature of hooligans; even if power can pour over the country, they are still thieves with the nature of hooligans.

Aristocratic spirit promotes the development of human civilization. There is a battle between human nature and bestiality in everyone, so he wanders between nobility and meanness all his life: God calls man to nobility, the devil tempts people to meanness, or that is to say, those who are near aristocrats worship nobility, and those who are close to hooligans worship meanness. The Chinese call this phenomenon: those who are close to Zhu are red, and those who are close to ink are black. This is the eternal truth in the world.

By extension, there is also a war between human nature and bestiality in a nation, which is essentially a war between civilization and barbarism, as well as between aristocrats and hooligans. If a nation is dominated by aristocrats, it will bring about the progress of civilization; if it is dominated by hooligans, it will regress to barbarism, not to material productive forces, but to humanistic spirit, culture and morality. This has long been proved by human history.

The story of Comrade Niu Yuru, former secretary of the Hohhot Municipal CPC Committee, spread all over the Great Wall, and his thoughts and actions were deeply moved. Based on serving the people, he consciously cultivated noble moral sentiment and cultural cultivation. In particular, his noble behavior of being honest and unprivileged reflects the selfless and noble feelings of a Communist Party member.

I believe everyone already knows about the movie star Chow Yun-fat's naked donation of 5.6 billion yuan, but he has always kept a very low profile and is very close to the people. although his income is very high, Chow Yun-fat and his wife Chen Huilian have no material needs. Chen Huilian family is a wealthy businessman in Hong Kong. And Chow Yun-fat devoted his career to acting all his life, and every role he played was deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. He was fascinated by his noble temperament and superb acting skills. He, who earned a lot of money from his salary, could have been rich and rich, but he still chose to live a frugal life. Chow Yun-fat's status and fame made it unnecessary to hype the reputation of Boxian. Therefore, Chow Yun-fat and Chen Huilian donated money purely out of love, which is the embodiment of the typical aristocratic spirit!

Gu Tianle is one of those stars who do good deeds anonymously. He has not participated in charitable activities very much, and he may also want to keep a low profile, but he has persisted in action for many years and has helped build more than 100 Hope primary schools, but these have never been mentioned in public. There is no way to calculate how much money you pay.

Other stars who are keen on charity are Han Hong, Huang Xiaoming, Yao Ming and Yuan Li, who send roses with fragrance in their hands. Their good deeds help to shape their positive image and improve their character and ability.

Confucius said: rich and expensive, people's desires also; do not get it by its way, there is no place (benevolence in the Analects of Confucius). It can be seen that there is no absolute relationship between wealth and wealth, that is, those who are rich but not expensive, the so-called wealth is not benevolent. As for how to be not rich but expensive? Chen Duxiu said that those who are independent and brave are called aristocratic morality ("warning youth"). There have always been aristocrats and people with aristocratic spirit in China, which is commonly referred to as the spirit of a gentleman and a gentleman.

Shanghai, December 21, 2019