And so, we later witnessed another trend: a declaration against Reason, against intellect. Its traces remain deeply, physically, etched upon the inner ring wall of Wisdom City—that our final bulwark against any danger was personally nullified and dismantled by one of the Nine Sects. This is, one must admit, an irony, but also an awakening. A tragic rebellion against the intellect that accompanies life and fate.
This rebellion, as if the result of some prophecy, omen, or Secret Ceremony, began at the same time as the founding of Wisdom City and reached its zenith as the city flourished. Now, this rebellion seems to manifest in more ignoble forms. For example, there is the "mono-aether centrism" and "racial separatism" proposed by a dear kinsman of mine in issue #113 of the *Tower Water Mirror*. These ideas were refuted by many voices from the various sects (including, I regret to say, my own). Or, it is simplified into the sort of rhetoric common to militaristic Rational Civilizations: ’As the lowliest of individuals, one must renounce rationality.’
At other times, this rebellion can seem noble. For example, consider Power-Fence’s first lecture at Golden Leaf Camp. Did it not receive spiritual enlightenment during that speech, swept up by the emotional currents of the audience, rising to an indescribably awesome height before crying out, "I am the power of growth and the source"? Did it not, with infinite wisdom and courage, simultaneously deny the Myriad Spirits and praise them with fervent passion? The doctrines of Power-Fence, Red Stone Thirteenth, Silver Star and their twenty-three apprentices in their conjoined form, and Grayscale Aspect—these represent the noblest form this resistance can take. Nevertheless, no matter how much they proclaimed that intellect, reason, and rationality originate from a toxic fire and water, such ideas were supplanted by another: reductionism. These debaters call for time to be turned back, wishing to return to a past era when Classic Rationalism had not yet been subjected to doubt and scrutiny.
Of course, I suspect many friends will attack my judgment, believing it is utter blasphemy for me to place Classic Rationalism alongside militarism, aether-separatism, and anti-Rationalism. But I confess to the Myriad Spirits that if our starting point is to defend the intellect, yet we make no attempt to excise certain of its functions while opposing new knowledge and new forms of rationality and intellect themselves, then the end result will not be the return of Classic Rationalism, as they wish. Instead, it will be reductionism and the fallacy of appealing to purity.
Now, everything is all too clear. Rationality is being threatened by those who call themselves Classic Rationalists, while sapience is being killed by sapience-centrism. Some debaters are constantly clamoring: We have too much pseudo-optimism and pseudo-morality, too much false correctness and false justice. Too much pseudo-freedom is increasingly shrinking our living space; the scholars of Mr. Zu’s sect are drifting further from the Great Spirit, while their enclaves of secret tongue are being weakened and blasted apart by neighboring Rational polities. Too much childish dream-talk that leads to death is causing us to increasingly deny the existence of evil and misfortune, just as some new members of the Secret Alliance have begun to deny the historical reality of the Star-Burners. This naivety is stripping us of the power to resist it, leading us to a spiritual dead end.
This reductionism, advocated by figures like Storm-Whisper and Rain-Sibyl of the River of Rain, can be seen as a twisted form of Classic Rationalism. Rain-Sibyl in particular holds a purely retrogressive and reductionist stance, advocating a return to the past to attain an absolutely pure ideal. In truth, it is a fundamentalist regression to the worldview of Norn-Silver Radiance. The thought of Power-Fence is also merely a variation of Classic Rationalism and an inheritance of the concept of the Myriad Spirits: it no longer acknowledges the Myriad Spirits, attempting to deny and blaspheme them, but this very attempt at blasphemy is built upon the admission that the Myriad Spirits are the essence of the world. In reality, although the aforementioned ideas may seem menacing, they contain many self-negating concepts and thus still, in fact, celebrate certain sublime values we possess in the material world, the spiritual world, and all other exalted realms. But all this will become a thing of the past, replaced by those ignoble and inferior voices I mentioned earlier. No, the truly terrifying one is not Power-Fence, nor is it calling for or creating fences. The ones truly weaving fences between us are those who whisper of the Myriad Spirits’ coming death in shadowed corners where the voice of the Secret Ceremony cannot be heard; they are the rumors spreading everywhere about how we are incompatible with sapience and Rationalism; they are the voices that glorify violence, slaughter, and racism.
Yes. When love, sincerity, and sanctity can no longer change the living conditions of sentient beings, then law, rules, and morality will create many innocent victims—and today, those victims crowd our streets and alleys. The Strict Moon is plotting another ideological struggle, while the Merciful Moon plans to domesticate us into beasts of the moon. Central City remains silent, and the spire of the Silver Radiance Tower is rarely lit. Power-Fence surely never imagined that today we would face such a dilemma, with seemingly only two paths left. Either we face extinction and war against each other until death, or we endure suffering and are resurrected, bearing the weight of our sins and our dead.