Fake Intellectuals, People Who Pretend to Be Intellectuals But Are Incompetent and Useless

The whirlwinds hit the fate of each character. This is a work that deeply reflects the image of people being swept away by the whirlwind of material desires in a market economy with countless temptations. They were swept away by trivial desires, whirlwinds of desire in a powerful way. Faced with that reality, many people have lost their personality and character.

Ma Van Khang focuses on reflecting the phenomenon of intellectuals being degraded, losing their own value in a vivid way with a sad mood. The worship of money becomes a crazy race to chase trivial daily material benefits. After years of arduous war, people return to a peaceful life but also have to face many difficulties. Facing all the temptations of money, if they are not steadfast in their consciousness because of losing direction, falling into the darkness of degeneration is natural. The image of the characters in "The Wedding Without a Marriage Certificate " shows us a colorful picture of the paths that lead the personality of intellectuals to the mud. We see there the figures of Xuyen, Trinh, Quynh, Thanh, and teacher Thuat. For Ma Van Khang, besides praising intellectuals who are raised to become models of value, he also focuses on dissecting the personality of intellectuals who are degraded, losing their own ego. The cadres, teachers, and students in his description are mostly immersed in a cold, inhumane lifestyle, a way of living that is indifferent and irresponsible to their own status. Ma Van Khang realized and sadly exclaimed a heartbreaking truth: “Students are now mixed with hooligans. They can strip their teachers naked and play the red paint game” [21, p. 299]. The student Tuan - the son of Secretary Lai, relied on his father's power to be rude and slanderous to his teacher in front of his friends. When teacher Tu punished Tuan with a slap, he said: Your life is now miserable. Besides, the female student Trinh, who was originally a good person, was abandoned and poor because of illness, and lost faith in

life, became cunning, crooked, snatching to take revenge on life. As for Xuyen, Tu's wife, originally a librarian, due to excessive material desire, she became a woman full of instinct, with a desire to be rich and happy.

The character of Mr. Thuat in “ The Wedding Without a Marriage Certificate ” analyzed above is also a character that is both pitiful and blameworthy. He was dragged away from the noble values of life by material benefits. Thuat gradually sank into a life of lost faith and was dragged away by a reckless and arrogant lifestyle. Thuat’s talent declined due to jealousy and the oppression and obstruction of Cam and Duong. He became depraved, becoming an “arrogant, contemptuous and vicious person”[21, p. 266], he “abused the prestige of a good teacher, rushing like crazy into extra classes, escaping from poverty”[24, p. 256 - p. 257], and “only focused on making money to get rich, causing so much bad reputation for the school, … causing sorrow for many students’ families”[21, p. 273]. When he was restrained too much, Thuat lost his value and talent as a good teacher and went crazy in a short time. It was painful and regrettable for Thuat, from an intellectual with courage and passion for his profession, to become a victim of the changing and turning world.

2.2.3. Fake intellectuals, people who pretend to be intellectuals but are incompetent and useless

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Taking advantage of power to oppress and cause countless tragedies for people with small status and no power is one of the contents that is truly reflected in modern prose. In “The Wedding Without a Marriage Certificate” , Ma Van Khang stated: “The exchange of values for petty interests and the manifestation of the ultimate degeneration of human dignity, hooliganism is becoming a characteristic of the historical era”. The arbitrariness of those in power has violated democratic rights, destroyed the talent and trust of intellectuals. That is the type of fake intellectuals like Principal Cam, Party Secretary Duong, and City Party Secretary Lai.

Cam is a type of ignorant and mean pseudo-intellectual, with only a seventh-grade education and little knowledge, but thanks to luck, he took advantage of the loopholes in society and was able to wriggle his way to become legitimate. “Cam is the product of a time when three generations of poverty were used as the sole measure of a person’s worth, using tons of green manure and manure as the sole measure of value…”[21, p. 133]. “Cam’s three generations of history are beyond reproach. His grandfather, paternal grandfather, and father were all village crier, the lowest class at that time”[21, p. 133]. Having been a principal for a long time, “Cam is still a bad person. He still cannot erase the village crier character of his family line”[21, p. 133]. Furthermore, Cam is a literature teacher, but he cannot teach students because he lacks the ability and aesthetic sense of literature. Explaining wrong words, forcing students to correct the phrase "Dong A's heroic spirit" into "Southeast Asia's heroic spirit", more specifically, in each literature class, Cam turned the essay into a silly political, logical, and moral essay. Not only was he an ignorant intellectual, but Cam was also lazy to improve his knowledge and was very afraid of reading books. "Books turned out to be both a luxury and a useless product. For Cam, at best, they only played the role of a sleeping pill" [21, p. 132]. As a literature teacher, Cam had never read the Tale of Kieu , so when students asked him the meaning of the verse "Who split the moon in two/ Half printed on the lonely pillow, half illuminated the long journey", he could only give a general answer: "That's good...that's what is called poetry". When students did not understand the meaning that needed to be explained, he blamed: "This guy is so stupid, that's what is called the great poet Nguyen Du" [21, p. 115]. Despite being so ignorant, Cam's path to advancement was extremely fortunate. Cam was nominated to be the principal because he was the only party member. Because he came from a family of crier-makers, Cam had a very clear crier-maker nature: "He was insatiably greedy and mean, reckless, sometimes even in love... he had suffered many times because of women" [21, p. 124]. With his greedy desires, he caused scandals with women. Being inherently mean, ignorant and mean, he was always jealous of others. When he had power in his hands, thinking that everyone was blocking his path to advancement, Cam did

Tu, Thuat was miserable and falsely accused Mr. Thong of making him disabled. Cam did not give up any plot to strip Tu of all his titles: the title of excellent teacher, class leader, head of the professional group. Cam earnestly wished Tu would be expelled from the school. The fate of Thuat and Mr. Thong also fell into a tragic situation when Cam sabotaged. He lured Thuat into falling, causing Thuat to go crazy and have to go to a mental hospital. Cam accused Mr. Thong of slandering him while he was the one who did the wrong thing by changing the students' scores to avoid being branded as a school that taught poorly, causing Mr. Thong to have a high blood pressure attack and fall unconscious.

Besides Cam, Duong also stands out as a dangerous type of pseudo-intellectual. Duong held the position of Party Secretary for 15 years with 30 years of Party membership, always proud of himself as the pinnacle. Although he often talked about Marxism-Leninism, Duong had no idea who Lenin was, whether he was one person or two people. His educational level was “first grade two”, but Duong graduated from advanced theory, so he was sent by the Ministry of Education to work as a political teacher. Therefore, he was nicknamed “short-cut official”, short-cut intellectual because “he did not have an elementary school degree but was a high school teacher”. He also knew how to take advantage of the words of famous people to deceive people: Duong “cited Chairman Mao’s definition of knowledge, and said that revolutionary practice was the greatest university, his revolutionary practice was richer than all the knowledge of all universities combined”[21, p. 156]. Duong lived by rigid principles, everything was attributed to ideology and political stance. Duong looks at life and everything in a very absurd and harsh way, always saying the catchphrase: "From a comprehensive point of view", "considered from a comprehensive point of view", familiar as a universal treasure in theory to criticize others "Duong considers himself a wise leader of the collective". In reality, "Duong is deceived by his position. He identifies himself with his position and the longer he holds that position, the further he is from a natural, normal person. Or is it a characteristic of

uneducated people. Putting on airs and exaggerating one's role is a habit of the mentally underdeveloped. Being mentally underdeveloped, lacking breadth and depth of understanding, in reality, Duong betrayed his intentions: He carried out party work in an extremely vulgar and mundane manner"[21, p. 159]. Duong's personality was exposed by Ma Van Khang to the very core of his nature: "Principles and mechanical habits, dogmatism, blind faith in superstition. Persistence and stubbornness, conservatism, opposites, unfortunately coexisted, hiding in each other's shadows, intertwined and confused, in Duong"[21, p. 158]. "Two phenomena belonging to two opposite poles occurred in each of Duong's actions. Duong considered himself the wise leader of the collective, but in reality he was secretly despised by the collective. Always thinking of himself as a commander fighting on the political and ideological front, but in reality Duong was just Don Quixote fighting windmills and sheep: He had no opponents. Unfortunately, Party work, the great driving force of life, the living soul of development, through Duong, turned into a series of trivial, silly tasks... Duong, sometimes was an old, ignorant man, sometimes played the role of a cruel stepmother, sometimes appeared as a policeman who only wanted to fine pedestrians, and sometimes acted like a cunning secret agent. And finally, in this group of experienced intellectuals, he was a ridiculous joke"[21, p. 159]. To emphasize more deeply and specifically, Ma Van Khang further affirmed: Duong, the speculator of other people's political lives, he can only do the brutal work of a jailer, which is to whip prisoners, to submit or to cruelly destroy holy souls full of aspirations. Duong cannot create around himself the slightest spiritual attraction. Duong is only blatant or unconscious oppression, or a gentle suffocation. Although ignorant, studying is hateful to Duong: "Duong and Cam are like twins with the same nature and this ignorance has destroyed many lives and intellectual talents of the high school.

This secondary school education. Duong lacked breadth and depth of knowledge. For decades, he had been superficially complacent about his role as the leader of his department, and he never thought about cultivating and studying further…”[21, p. 239].

Ma Van Khang not only painted a portrait of a person wearing a Party uniform, acting in the name of the Party, abusing power and using foul language to find every opportunity to oppress, insult and humiliate his subordinates, but also revealed the despicable nature of their ignorance. A typical example of this type of character is Secretary Lai of the City Party Committee. He is a humorous, scribbled sketch of a type of cadre who always has a grudge against intellectuals. He wears the uniform of a dignitary but in essence is ignorant, incompetent, uneducated, rude, greedy for fame, jealous of the talents of others. Because he is too ignorant and the more ignorant he is, the more he cannot stand people who are more talented than others. Therefore, he has found every way to mock and ridicule his opponents. This is Lai's inherent, chronic disease. Once, on the occasion of the opening ceremony, he raised his voice and turned the opening ceremony into a very funny-sounding lecture: "Today, our town opens a high school. Then we will open high schools, high schools, and high schools. Just like our province currently has a fat Muong Khuong pig breed, then we will have a hybrid pig breed that is economical, lean, and gains weight quickly”[21, p. 107]. He ruined the solemnity and dignity of the ceremony, threatening the students: “Hey, students…don’t be so arrogant. And be careful, don’t be arrogant, relying on a few knowledges to be arrogant…remember that”[21, p. 108]. Turning to the teachers sitting on the seats of honor, he also threatened and slandered them with impolite language: “You all bow your heads, embarrassed and sad”… “Teacher! Let me tell you. You petty bourgeois intellectuals are nothing more than genitals, that is, the genitals of men…”[21, p. 109]. Finally, the opening ceremony became a time for Lai to slander everyone, causing the teachers to "be impatient" and "ask for opinions".

The "golden" contribution of the City Party Secretary. City Party Secretary Lai himself used his power to launch revenge attacks on the intellectual class, mainly targeting teacher Tu because he had slapped his son, student Tuan, in the face. Relying on Lai, his assistants such as the police and the City Party Committee's Organizing Committee violated human rights and tried to run amok. Tu's lessons were distorted and falsified by them, and the high school was considered a place of chaos. Tu's books and house were exposed, they falsely accused him of arson, he was chained like a criminal, and had his desk and chair smashed to threaten him, causing Mr. Tu to sometimes be unable to bear the vile and deceitful behavior of Cam, Duong and Lai, who had degenerated to the point of losing their humanity.

In the novel“Against the Flood”, Ma Van Khang described a cultural agency but there existed a number of officials with authority but low culture, greedy like Pho, Dieu, Lieu and opportunistic flatterers like Phu, Khoai, Ty Hoi who were always lurking, taking advantage of opportunities to harm others. For them, this agency was “their kingdom of arbitrary power and for the sake of interests, they could sell out their conscience and friendship”.

The most typical is General Director Nguyen Van Pho in "Against the Flood" with the degradation in personality that we analyzed above. Besides Pho, Ma Van Khang also saw through the darkness of those who were greedy for fame and profit to the point of "drying up their hearts" like Duc, Hien, Quanh Le... When he learned that Khiem was pushed out of his position by Pho, Quanh fawned over Pho in hopes of being considered for the position of director to replace Khiem. This sycophant followed his master and betrayed Khiem without hesitation. That incompetent and meaningless crowd, built by Pho with his power and personal motives to keep his seat, Pho built around himself a devilish alliance of ignorant and immoral people to oppose Khiem and consolidate his position.

Hien (Against the Flood) was originally a driver who fell asleep and caused the car to crash, causing his eyes to go bad. He was transferred to work as a Youth Union cadre, but was found guilty of peeping at a female worker changing clothes. He was despised by everyone. However, because he was good at flattery and opportunism, Hien was given a new coat of paint by Pho with a rewritten resume and promoted to the position of Chief Executive Officer. Taking advantage of his position, he always suppressed and demoted talented people, even though they were the people who had once guided and supported him.

In the novel “Lonely in the Middle of Life”, Ma Van Khang clearly saw the portraits of the authorities of the time. They had no sense of serving the people. On the contrary, they took advantage of their power to exploit and oppress the people. The sole purpose of the authorities in “Lonely in the Middle of Life” was to plunder as much money as possible for themselves, no matter what tricks they had to use. Mr. Luong - Chairman of Ngoc Sinh Ward, who lived in a house “closed with high walls, only entering the yard could be done through three layers of iron doors. Sharp pieces of glass were scattered on the wall of the wall, above that was barbed wire woven into a high mesh net. He had a bunch of twenty-one keys… to enter the bedroom, he had to go through seven doors with locks and deadbolts”[23, p. 35] were such people. Ma Van Khang let the ten-year-old Duy look back at his childhood and realize with horror: “So that’s how people are, he, he himself is often the culprit causing so much injustice and pain to his fellow human beings. People are called human, but how can they be so cruel and mean?”[23, p. 134]. Not only Mr. Luong but Hung also did not hesitate to use any means to rob the property of three grandmothers and grandchildren who were living in a sad and desperate situation. When an old woman nearly 70 years old was forced by circumstances to take care of and raise two orphaned children. The lives of the three grandmothers and grandchildren had to go through dangerous and desperate days, having to sell all their belongings, eating vegetables and porridge one day, going hungry one day and full the next… Indeed, anyone who has read and witnessed this tragic situation cannot help but feel sorry and hurt. So

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