From Wealth to Refinement

From Wealth to Refinement is a selected collection of lectures from the Phoenix Television cultural program Century Forum, compiled by Phoenix Books and edited by the scholar and host Wang Luxiang, and published by Jiangsu Literature and Art Publishing House in 2010. The book revolves around a central question: once the material life of the Chinese people has moved from mere subsistence to moderate comfort, how should spiritual life be settled? It gathers edited transcripts of lectures by scholars including Liu Zaifu, Gan Yang, Chiang Hsun, Wang Kang, He Huaihong, Zhu Dake, Gong Pengcheng, Zhou Guidian, and Tong Shijun. Topics range over the fate of the Chinese aristocratic spirit, the second emancipation of the mind, the passage from wealth to refinement, beauty in clothing, food, housing, and transport, the awakening of beauty in taste, the May Fourth Movement in a world perspective, thirty years of social moral change, the history and present state of popular culture, hidden worries about the revival of Confucianism, the distinction between righteousness and profit in modern society, and the spiritual predicament of contemporary China. The editors seek to point out that mere affluence is not enough for a civilization to win respect; the absence of an aristocratic spirit and the prevalence of utilitarianism have made "wealth without nobility" a hidden pain troubling the spiritual life of the Chinese people. The book reflects on the cult of money and rediscovers aesthetic taste in everyday clothing, food, housing, and transport, ultimately pointing toward a simple yet difficult proposition—making refinement a way of life. The book runs to about 120,000 characters and preserves the oral texture and immediacy of the lectures.