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贵远贱近

貴遠賤近
guìyuǎnjiànjìn
idiom

Meanings

  1. 1 to revere the distant past and despise the present
  2. 2 to value the far away and look down on what is near

Examples

评价艺术不应贵远贱近。
Píngjià yìshù bù yīng guìyuǎnjiànjìn.
In evaluating art, one should not exalt the past while disdaining the present.
他研究学问从不贵远贱近。
Tā yánjiū xuéwèn cóng bù guìyuǎnjiànjìn.
He never values the ancient over the modern in his scholarship.

Tips

history
From Cao Pi's 《论文》 (Lùn Wén, 'On Literature', 3rd c. CE): '常人贵远贱近,向声背实' — 'ordinary people revere the distant and despise the near, chasing reputation while turning away from reality.' Cao Pi was complaining that critics over-praised dead authors and underrated their living contemporaries — a bias still working today.
usage
Common in arts criticism, scholarship, and any debate where people automatically defer to the old or the foreign over what's local and current. The opposite tendency is 厚古薄今's modern mirror — both flag the same intellectual bias.

Stroke Order

贵 guì
远 yuǎn
贱 jiàn
近 jìn