Born together with the E building, over the years the fountain with the rotating ball has become a familiar image to me every time I step deep into the campus of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities. The ball is an essential part of the overall architecture of the school's back palace. After so many years, the ball diligently rotates every time the school welcomes guests. And not only to welcome guests, perhaps sometimes when in a good mood, the person in charge of an unknown room turns on the electric circuit, not sparing on electricity and water bills, and lets it rotate. It rotates amidst the surrounding water jets, sometimes bustling and mischievous, sometimes languid and moderate.No matter how fast or slow the ball rotates, how high or low the water sprays, every time I enter the school yard and see the water tank in operation, I still like it. Water means life. Rocks rotate, water flows, that is movement. And movement means existence. Movement means development, signs of innovation and creativity. Every day when I enter the school yard and don't see the ball rotating, I don't get excited, I don't feel my chest pounding. Early in the morning when I go to class, I see the ball sleeping during the day, I stumble in my lectures, speak slowly, and easily offend others and ruin things. It turns out that the ball has become a symbol of the school for me, a second heart, closely linked, silently controlling my productivity. Then one day, when I enter the school yard, I'm startled to see many people surrounding the water tank. A strong man is carrying a stick and poking the water tank. Is there an accident or incident? I quickly walked closer, worried. It turned out that the ball was stuck and couldn’t be turned. I jokingly asked, “Is it on strike?” No one responded to my untimely and seemingly “unconstructive” joke. Everyone fumbled with the pole, looking for a fulcrum to lift the ball out of its nest. As if afraid that the pink heart would be damaged, the person holding the pole didn’t dare to use force. Without a decisive support, without a solid fulcrum, the work seemed hopeless. The ball with the logo of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities just stood there, like a provocation, challenging everyone. With no free time, I left, feeling confused.
That evening, a journalist friend, a classmate, from Quang Binh called me on his cell phone to ask me about something. Originally a very talented and active journalist for many years, he has now become a main writer on the topic of the Central region for many major newspapers. "What's new?" - he asked, I hesitated - "Is there anything impressive today?" I thought for a moment and then blurted out: "The water tank ball in our school is stuck". My journalist friend shouted: "Oh my god, I'm having a headache because of the official order to go to Truong Sa, all day angry about so many things, but you just sit around in the school yard. Oh, are you still teaching Nam Cao, the teachers are 'living a slow death'". Before I could counterattack, my friend hung up. He didn't care about his job. I was upset. With a cup of coffee drunk late, I couldn't sleep that night. The image of the school yard ball haunted me again. The mocking remark of my friend from Quang Binh made me wander with memories and silly thoughts. Doing social sciences and humanities nowadays is very difficult. Just like the image I saw this afternoon on the school yard. A very symbolic image. The University of Social Sciences and Humanities and social sciences and humanities in general must find a fulcrum to contribute to saving this life, saving this earth. In the past, when studying the principle of the lever, Archimedes made a famous statement: "If you give me a fulcrum, I will lever the whole earth." That was a confident statement based on a solid scientific foundation in theory. Also based on similar theoretical scientific achievements, an American scientist once proposed to the US President to dissolve the Academy. According to him, the most basic laws of the natural world have been discovered, the problem is to apply them. The age of technology has begun, which means that the Academy of Sciences has gone its entire way, fulfilled its function… That proposal is also confident in the spirit of Archimedes. But both statements are somewhat simple. A simplicity that comes from the simplicity of the research object itself. It is true that at some point, the laws of the natural world surrounding humans will be fully grasped. A detailed scientific picture of the material world will be built, reaching perfection. Concepts, categories, and scientific laws like “nets” will eventually become dense, covering the organic and inorganic world surrounding humanity. Only the “internal” world of humans will not be covered by any scientific net. Human social life is the research object of social sciences, human spiritual world is the reflection and research object of arts and humanities. As long as humanity exists and develops, the spiritual world will continue to open up as a vast, changing, complex, and infinitely expanding world. Research on the life of human beings themselves, social sciences and humanities appear as an act of self-observation, so it is difficult for them to escape subjectivity and misconception. From a general perspective, today's science is very different in direction from that of ancient Greek and Roman science. At that time, natural sciences and social sciences were unified in one view. Mathematicians and astronomers were also philosophers and linguists, many of whom were also poets. The development of science in the direction of specialization has increasingly fragmented the world. A deep gap has appeared between philosophy, history, sociology, etc. and natural sciences. Husserl and the phenomenologists of Tran Duc Thao's generation were startled to realize that philosophy and the exact sciences only went hand in hand until the Middle Ages. Before that, both were established on the basis of searching for the meaning of things, not pursuing the purpose of using things, using nature. Starting from Galileo, a new style of science was formed, dominating everything. The world was observed from a mathematical perspective, thoroughly digitized. Modern science only uses the world. Technological advances push human needs and living standards up, at the same time it also hangs humans on the abyss of destruction every day.
What will save humanity? A prophetic writer of the 19th century declared: Beauty will save the world. He placed his faith in the transformative power of art. But that was the 19th century's answer to the decay of morality. Today, we are facing not only the decay of morality but also the decay of the environment and the entire attitude of human beings towards nature and towards their fellow human beings. So where can we find the answer to the current threats and challenges? What will save humanity? In the 19th century, people still placed their faith in the laws of aesthetics. In this century, beauty has also been technologically transformed, and that faith has dried up. We have only one faith left, in the social sciences and humanities. It is the social sciences and humanities that will hold this earth together. The image of the stuck sphere and the cadres of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities struggling to find a fulcrum, to re-activate the sphere, came back to haunt me. Archimedes probably only thought of a single fulcrum, suitable to lift the earth. As for social sciences and humanities, they may have to find many fulcrums to save the eternal life and the future development of humanity. It must take on the responsibility of adjusting the pace and direction of science and technology. It must be cautious, wise and delicate to defuse the fuses of war, to ease religious and ethnic disputes. It must be skillful to avoid collapse, to seek stability and safety, like the person holding a pole by the water tank, trying not to let the sphere get scratched or injured. Right in the first years of peace in the North, the social sciences and humanities of Hanoi National University truly demonstrated its great social role. Patriotic intellectuals, scholars, veteran teachers and the young pioneering teaching staff, some on this side, some on that side, sacrificed themselves in the struggle called “Against Humanism - Giai Pham”. The right and wrong, the gains and losses in the struggle are all historical. The most valuable thing is that the young and old social scientists at that time truly lived their lives to the fullest, contributed to clarifying the most suitable direction for the country, forecasting and creating the premise for a long-term historical awareness process. The humanities at that time, the General University at that time were envisioned as a spiritual battlefield, an ideological fortress. During the years of fighting against the US, the social sciences and humanities also gloriously fulfilled their noble historical mission. But in that fierce war for national independence and freedom, the issues related to scientific methodology were too bright, even simple. The greatest goal of the struggle has allowed us to easily divide the world of things into two blocks: right and wrong, red and black, revolution and counter-revolution, light and darkness. Those who research and teach social sciences and humanities can leisurely walk on the already marked ideological highway, as long as they maintain their revolutionary faith and enthusiasm. That was a historical period in which social sciences, in terms of methodology, did not need to worry about choosing. Until today, when the country has been taken over, when the world system has changed, transformed from a two-sided state to a multipolar state, when international relations that once seemed as solid as a rock suddenly collapsed, changing unpredictably, social sciences and humanities really have to face information storms every day, and must face unprompted challenges in terms of choosing appropriate methodologies and information processing. More than ever, those who work in genuine social sciences must be responsible to posterity for the decisions of the Party and State today in all fields: economics, politics, culture. Whether a country prospers or declines, from a macro perspective, does not depend much on science and technology, but fundamentally depends on social sciences and humanities. It is social sciences and humanities that must make every effort to answer a series of complex questions that are raised every day revolving around issues ranging from national sovereignty, land security, environment, to personality degeneration, as well as the crisis of faith and life philosophy. Social sciences function as a fulcrum for life to be raised to the heights of democracy, stability and development.
The difficulty for teachers in the social sciences and humanities today lies in overcoming contradictions to achieve a harmonious combination between the status of a teacher and that of a scientist, between training and research, between educating immediate political consciousness and creating thinking methods and scientific worldviews. The expansion of professions and training fields (to meet the daily emerging demands of society) inevitably leads to dispersion in scientific research. A research university model of regional and international stature does not allow our school to live forever with the tradition of an ideological fortress, but must live in the proud position of a scientific castle... The first decade of the new century is passing. What is the most impressive image in the old year 2009? For me, the most impressive is probably the water tank in the schoolyard that day. I also do not expect the ball to always rotate in water. I do not romanticize the ball. Because it is so familiar to me that I consider it as a colleague: going to class, having meetings, also having to rest. The ball spins, when tired, then stop, rest, think. But even though it thinks differently from me (thinking like a ball), it also thinks: No one forced it to go to Hoa Lac.
