Culture and Social Transformations in Reform Era China

Culture and Social Transformations in Reform Era China

Ideas, History, and Modern China Edited by

Ban Wang, Stanford University Wang Hui, Tsinghua University Geremie Barmé, Australian National University

VOLUME 2

Culture and Social Transformations in Reform Era China Edited by

Cao Tianyu, Zhong Xueping, Liao Kebin

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2010

These articles were translated into English from the original <<文化与社会转型>> (Wenhua yu shehui zhuanxing) with financial support from China Book International, supported by the General Administration of Press and Publication and the Information Office of the State Council. * Chapter 10 originally appeared as “Who Is Afraid of Lu Xun? The Politics of ‘Debates about Lu Xun’ and the Question of His Legacy in Post-Revolution China” in the book, China’s Literary and Cultural Scenes at the Turn of the 21st Century, ed. Jie Lu (Routledge, 2008). * Chapter 21 originally appeared as “The Cold War, Imperial Aesthetics, and Area Studies,” in Social Text 3 (Fall 2002): 45–64. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wen hua yu she hui zhuan xing. English Culture and social transformations in reform era China / by eds. Cao Tianyu, Zhong Xueping, Liao Kebin. p. cm. — (Ideas, history, and modern China, ISSN 1875-9394 ; v. 2) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-17516-7 (hard cover : alk. paper) 1. China—Civilization—1976–2002. 2. Social change—China—History—20th century. 3. Social values—China—History—20th century. 4. China—Social conditions—1976–2000. 5. China—Politics and government—1976–2002. 6. Political culture—China—History—20th century. 7. China—History—Cultural Revolution, 1966–1976—Influence. I. Cao, Tianyu. II. Zhong, Xueping, 1956– III. Liao, Kebin, 1961– IV. Title. V. Series. DS779.23.W4413 2010 951.05—dc22

2010003658

ISSN 1875-9394 ISBN 978-90-04-17516-7 © Copyright 2010 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

CONTENTS Acknowledgments ....................................................................... List of Contributors ....................................................................

ix xi

Introduction ................................................................................ Cao Tianyu

1

PART I “Consider the Other More Important than the Self ”: Liang Shuming’s View of Confucian Ethics ......................... Chen Lai The Basic Form, Actual Form, and Potential Form of Neo-Confucianism: Considering the Historical Function and Practical Significance of Neo-Confucianism .................. Liao Kebin Individual Identification and the Realm of Moral Character ................................................................................ Liu Dong Classical and Modern Readings of Laozi’s Ziran ...................... Liu Xiaogan The Isomorphism of Family and State and the Integration of Church and State: On the Differences between the Confucian Political Tradition and Democratic Politics ......... Shih Yuan-Kang Confucian Experience and Philosophical Discourse: Reflections on Some Aporiae in Contemporary Neo-Confucianism .................................................................. Joël Thoraval

21

45

65 75

97

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contents PART II

“Westernization” vs. “Sinicization”: An Ineffaceable Paradox within China’s Modernization Process .................................. Yu Keping Contradictions within Enlightenment Ideas .............................. XU Jilin Rural Reconstruction, the Nation-State and China’s Modernity Problem: Reflections on Liang Shuming’s Rural Reconstruction Theory and Its Practice ...................... LU Xinyu Who is Afraid of Lu Xun? The Politics of “Debates about Lu Xun” (鲁迅论争 Lu Xun Lun Zheng ) and the Question of His Legacy in Post-Revolution China ............... Zhong Xueping Progress Theory: The Constraint on China’s Cultural Renaissance ............................................................................. He Qing

153 197

235

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PART III “One and Three, Three and One”: The Impact of the Cultural Revolution on Chinese Modernity .......................... Tang Shaojie Why Did the Cultural Revolution End? .................................... Han Shaogong

299 315

A Unique Transcendence: Deng Xiaoping’s China and Mao Zedong’s China ................................................................ Gong Yuzhi

329

The Impact of the Cultural Revolution on Reform Era Political Culture ...................................................................... Roderick MacFarquhar

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The Influence of China’s Cultural Tradition of Revolution on Reform-Period Conceptions of Modernity ............................ Cao Tianyu

355

The Chinese Revolution and the Self Identity of the Chinese Nation ..................................................................................... Lin Chun

359

Comments on Gong Yuzhi’s “A Unique Transcendence” and Roderick MacFarquhar’s “The Impact of the Cultural Revolution on Reform-Era Political Culture” ....................... Lin Chun

371

China’s Social Transformation and Two Types of Modernity ............................................................................... Gao Like

375

Confucian Marxism and Its Implications in the Current Age of Globalization .............................................................. Chen Weigang

385

The Cold War, Imperial Aesthetics, and Area Studies ............. Wang Ban

409

Themes for China: Modern Arts, Modern Conflict ................. Marshall Berman

433

Index ...........................................................................................

437

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This volume originated from two conferences as part of the “Culture and Social Transformations in Reform Era China” project which was conceived and has been carried out by the editors in collaboration with Wang Ban of Stanford University and Lin Chun of London School of Economics and Political Science. The first conference was hosted by the Department of Philosophy at Tsinghua University in 2004. The second was hosted and funded by The Li Hesheng Center for Culture and Economics Studies and the School of Humanities, at Zhejiang University, in 2005. We would like to thank conference organizers, all the participants, and translators. Thanks also go to Zhejiang University Press for publishing the Chinese collection of essays Wenhua yu Shehui Zhuanxing in 2006. We are especially grateful to Matt Kawecki at Brill for his support of this volume and for his painstaking efforts in transforming the Chinese collection of essays into an English one. Cao Tianyu, Zhong Xueping, and Liao Kebin October 20, 2009

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Throughout this volume, Chinese names are always ordered according to standard practice in China, with surnames preceding given names. To clarify this ordering, surnames are in all small capital letters in the following list of contributors. Marshall Berman, Department of Political Science, City University of New York. Cao, Tianyu, Department of Philosophy, Boston University. Chen, Lai, Department of Philosophy, Qinghua University. Chen, Weigang, Department of History, University of Macau. Gao, Like, Zhejiang University. Gong, Yuzhi, former vice president of the Party School of the Central Committee of CPC. Han Shaogong, writer. He Qing, School of Humanities, Zhejiang University. Liao, Kebin, Chinese Department, Beijing University . Lin, Chun, Department of Government, London School of Economics. Liu, Dong, Department of Philosophy, Qinghua University. Liu, Xiaogan, Department of Philosophy, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Lu, Xinyu, Department of Television and Broadcasting Studies, Fudan University

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Roderick MacFarquhar: Department of Government, Harvard University. Shih, Yuan-Kang, Philosophy Department, National Chung Cheng University. Tang, Shaojie, Department of Philosophy, Qinghua University. Joel Thoraval, Centre d’études et de recherches sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, France. Wang, Ban, Department of Comparative Literature, Stanford University. Xu, Jilin, Department of History, East China Normal University. Yu, Keping, Central Compilation and Translation Bureau, the Central Committee of CPC. Zhong, Xueping, Department of German, Russian, and Asian Languages and Literatures, Tufts University.

INTRODUCTION Cao Tianyu Translated by Adrian Thieret The rapid social changes of modern China, in particular the Reform and Opening of the past thirty years, have given us a bountiful cache of experiences with which we can investigate the relationship between cultural and social transformations. To better grasp the implications of these experiences, including the nature and impetus of China’s transformation, its mechanism, and its future direction, we held two research conferences. The first was held in July of 2004 at Tsinghua University, and the second was held in July 2005 at Zhejiang University. These two conferences began our exploration of China’s transformation. This volume was compiled from the essays and discussions of those two conferences. Without the logistical support of Tsinghua University and Zhejiang University, the conferences could not have run smoothly. For that, we express heartfelt thanks to everyone who assisted us at those two institutions. When we began to plan the conferences, we were confronted by the question of whether there was any need, after the late 1980s “Cultural Craze,” to discuss these topics once again. The “Cultural Craze” occurred in the context of the thought liberation and the New Enlightenment, and its leading figures drew inspiration from two main ideas. First, they thought that Chinese society could realize modernization only with the transformation and modernization of culture. Second, they thought that the only way to modernize Chinese culture was through the importation of foreign culture. As long as it somehow contradicted the Mao culture that had formerly dominated China, all foreign thought—no matter where it came from, Nietzsche and Heidegger, or Popper and Kuhn, or the economic liberalism of Hayek and Friedman, or post-modern and post-colonialist cultural criticism—was considered important for the modernization of Chinese culture and therefore worthy of aggressive importation. In contrast, we at the conferences were concerned with the various major ideological resources (traditional, modern, native, and foreign) contributing to the conception of modernity in China’s reform period. We were concerned with

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the interactive relationship between culture and social transformations, and we set out to analyze the experience of contemporary China using a particular conceptual framework. I. Conceptual Framework A social life is the sum of an individuals’ activities as conditioned by cultural norms and institutional structure, which in turn are regulated according to certain rules. These restrictions on social life appear as the external restraints of laws, regulations, public opinion, customs, and norms. They also appear as internal motivations such as our ideals, convictions, values, and expectations. The active individuals’ understanding of the external restraints and internal drives depends on their grasp of the meaning of these restraints and drives. “Meaning” here refers to all the aspirations, values, norms, and expectations (which may be rational but not necessarily so) that render life comprehensible and worthy of living. Consequently, every particular social life is defined by the structure of meaning attached to it. In other words, a social life is created by active individuals in accordance with a particular structure of meaning. Culture, as the sum of human responses to reality and anticipations of the future, is a collective body of meanings. It is an objectified subjectivity that has transcended both the subjective and objective. If we equate culture with humanity, which is contrasted with nature, then it is universal, absolute, and hierarchical. Yet, because every culture arises from the particular conditions of a particular society, cultures manifest a certain fundamental particularity. Distinctive cultures, each originating from particular social circumstances, cannot be ranked as better or worse than one another. Moreover, as a collective of meanings, culture is intimately related to practice. Practice, as a social activity with the goals of assimilating nature, structuring the environment, and organizing society, is possible only under the inspiration of internal meanings and values. External factors and constraints can influence practice only after gaining internalized meaning. The main content of culture is its grasp of the current circumstances and its expectations for the future, both of which are obtained via a particular structure of meanings. Aside from this expressive role, culture also functions to construct and regulate social life. Sometimes it defends the status quo and through feedback mechanisms maintains

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the existing social order. Other times it grows dissatisfied with unfulfilled promises and progresses to develop an internal criticism of the status quo. This kind of criticism is a necessary precondition for breaking away from the status quo of a particular tradition. It is also the first step toward restructuring the social order and creating new meanings, a new culture, and a new life through reform or revolution. Therefore, the primary social function of culture is to provide the ultimate justification for the legitimacy of social life and social ideals. This implies that culture is fundamentally plural. In all societies, groups of different social status view the status quo in different ways. They have different conceptions of the future, and their different cultural conceptions lead to conflicts of practice. These conflicts are routine rather than exceptions. In other words, culture at its core provides many varied possibilities for social life. This is the basic reason for the critical importance of discourse struggle. Social transformations here refer to fundamental changes in the social order (as delimited by ethical norms and popular customs) and (economically, politiccally, and legally coersive) social structures that define human social relations. If the social order and structure, mediated by rules and their meanings, originate in culture and practice, then the interpretation of those rules for determining their meaning, constraining action, and forming the basis of practice, is of decisive significance to our understanding of social transformations. All rules, because they arise from open-ended human practice, are themselves open-ended and can be interpreted in different ways. In fact, the rules that control our actions are frequently and incessantly subjected to reinterpretation. Autonomous individuals’ interpretation of rules is a reflective self-guidance. It is in fact a constant reconstruction of the rules (and the social structure built upon them). China’s three decades of Reform and Opening have been a process of reinterpreting Marxism and socialism. Likewise, the modern history of the West can also be considered a process of reinterpreting liberalism. The understanding of meaning is conditioned by the preexisting structure of meaning and preexisting cultural resources. This is the foundation of cultural continuity. Any reinterpretation or reconstruction of rules cannot be detached from the conventional understanding of existing rules. This forms the basis for the historical continuity of cultural and social life. The uncertainty characteristic of human social history is rooted in the openness of autonomous individuals’ expectation structure in the face of reality. Practice driven by this kind of

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expectation structure creates history and advances social progress. No determinism exists in which the future is dictated by the past, nor is there any teleology or fatalism in which the past and present are merely preparation for the future. Rather, we should pay attention to the temporal structure of human history. Within it, the past constrains the present, and from the present arise varied possibilities for the future. In the discussion of social forms, the focus is frequently put on the decisive social forces (such as the elite party or the market) that constitute the leading structure of the society, and view culture as merely an expressive epiphenomenon. In examining social transformations, the focus is usually put on the social forces (such as the workers, the intellectuals, the officialdom, or the wealthy) that impel social reform. Yet in actuality, without the meaning structure provided by culture acting as intermediary, no social force could possibly mobilize and organize itself. Nor could any social force clearly articulate its expectations, ideals, and platform, and obtain public acceptance and legitimacy for them. Thus, without the mediation of culture, no social force could alter society or create history. No social transformation can succeed without the participation or at least the consensus of the majority. However, during the period of transformation, the demands and expectations of different social groups necessarily differ. In the democratic revolution, the peasants wanted land, the party wanted to come to power, and the capitalists wanted to expand their business. The rebels of the Cultural Revolution and the reformers afterward, or today’s liberal and rflectionist factions, have many different demands and expectations within their own factions; this variation also exists within today’s liberal and reflectionist factions. Without a cultural integration and expression to incorporate various heterogeneous demands and expectations into a seemingly homogeneous program and forms a hegemonic discourse, such as socialism or modernization, then the masses could not be mobilized to form a majority and realize social transformation. Here cultural expression is in fact a prerequisite for hegemony in politics and. Without this condition, transformation cannot be realized. If we want to understand transformation, we must focus on the formation and evolution of discursive hegemony.

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II. Analysis of the Chinese Experience “Doctrines underlying fundamental social arrangements” are the focus of discursive struggle during transformations. With the Reform and Opening, Chinese society entered a course of rapid change, which can be traced back to the mid-19th century. In the decades after the Opium Wars, the aggression of foreign powers caused the Chinese elite to strive to strengthen China’s military, in order to protect themselves and strengthen the state. This was the beginning of China’s social transformation. The transformation was characterized by a persistent sense of internal crisis (in response to external pressures), and the severe disagreements when it came to how to respond to Western influences and pressures on the level of regulating social life (social system and ideology, or doctrines underlying fundamental social arrangements), although on the instrumental level, there was a consensus on introducing Western science, technology and industry into China. The past three decades of Reform and Opening mark a new period in the transformation process. The reforms began from the premise that traditional Soviet and Maoist socialism had failed, and China needed to seek a new path. Under the condition that China has comprehensively and actively participated in globalization, what does this new path mean? Did it mean entering the international division of labor, joining tracks with the capitalist West, and being integrated into the capitalist world system? Or does it mean to somewhat adapt China to the West while retaining certain Chinese characteristics economically, politically, and culturally? But if we want to discuss Chinese characteristics, then we must first consider the specific contents of these characteristics and the basis of their potential. Discursive battles over doctrines underlying fundamental social arrangements have been especially fierce. Various ideological resources have been mobilized by their respective social forces, and now they clash; some falling as others grow stronger. The conceptions and practice of the Chinese people have been profoundly influenced by the ideas of unity, statism, and egalitarianism within traditional culture; the ideas of liberalism and socialism within May Fourth culture; the idea of opposition to class exploitation within revolutionary culture; and the ideas of party rule and ideological control. Aside from these “native” resources, the influence of imported foreign culture has been growing daily throughout the reform period. The liberal ethical and socio-political theories based on individualism,

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the economic doctrine of neo-liberalism, and the political concept of procedural democracy are all currently working to pull China closer to the West. At the same time, radical anti-mainstream cultural criticism, socio-historical theories critical of capitalism (such as worldsystems theory), and the “core-periphery” theory critical of existing international economic relations and capitalist globalization, which are popular in some academic circles in the West, provide various inspirations to the people seeking a non-Western path. No one can deny that the interaction between native and foreign culture constitutes a major feature of China’s political and cultural landscape during the reform period. The discursive struggle in China since the Reform and Opening has developed primarily around the issues of traditional culture, May Fourth culture, and Mao-era culture (“socialist culture”). For instance, some people seek to use traditional Chinese cultural resources at odds with the modern individualistic cultural logic of the West to conceive of a kind of modern society worth pursuing. Despite the difficulty of reconciling Confucianism with liberty, democracy, and the individual, can Confucianism nevertheless provide intellectual resources for the conception of a communalist republic? Do the Daoist sayings of “the Dao imitates that which is naturally so” (道法自然) and “governance through inaction” (无为而治) imply a scientific attitude of naturalism and a liberal sociopolitical orientation? The Great Learning (大学) says, “once the people are cultivated, their families will be ordered, once their families are ordered, their states will be properly governed, once their states are properly governed, all under heaven will be at peace.” Is this merely a premodern form of governing the state and the world based on the family model? Is it not an alternative path to forming a social consensus and social cohesive force different from that of modern Western society? Intense debate continues over these important questions, involving the function and status of nation’s cultural tradition in the modernization process. Next, May Fourth culture also exerts an immense influence on conceptions of modernity in the reform period. The so-called New Enlightenment refers to the use of May Fourth culture to define modernity as a social ideal. Yet, is the backbone of May Fourth culture an individualist and liberal reading of science, democracy, and human rights, or is it a reading in terms of national revolution, social revolution, and socialism? If Chinese culture during the May Fourth period was enlightened by Western culture and thereafter in its actual historical

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development turned from liberalism to socialism, then how should we evaluate the new cultural shift from the revolution and socialist ideals of the revolutionary period back to liberal modernity during the reform era (the New Enlightenment)? Closely related to this is the question of how to view the guiding ideology and practices, successes and failures of the Mao era. What is the relationship between Deng Xiaoping (and the reform era) and Mao Zedong (and the revolutionary era)? In discussing these questions and evaluating history and reality, where do we begin? Where should we begin? Debate over these problems has been especially fierce. No matter what the focal point of the debate has been, the Reform and Opening has gradually pulled China’s mainstream discourse in a new direction. Criticism and negation of traditional culture has given way to praise and continuation; praise of May Fourth and Mao era culture has turned to questioning and rejection. For example, in the 1980s, people advocated a return to the May Fourth movement. Even though it emphasized science, democracy, and individual liberty, it remained to be considered the spiritual origin of contemporary Chinese nationalism and revolutionary modernity. In the 1990s, however, under pressure from the tides of globalization, the discursive struggle opposing nationalism and negating national self-determination and its cultural and moral foundation soon led to a reevaluation of the May Fourth movement. By rewriting history, the nationalism and revolutionary spirit of May Fourth culture began to be questioned and even criticized. This negative reflection on the May Fourth movement originated from Western Sinology, but spread to the Chinese intellectual world. It is based on three value judgments. First, this view considers the May Fourth negation of traditional culture to have been excessive. Second, it believes that the excessive regard for May Fourth culture has obscured the historical function of other imported modern ideas during the late Qing and early Republican eras that diverged from those of May Fourth culture. Third, it affirms the non-revolutionary and non-nationalistic nature of these divergent ideas. Under the direction of these value judgments there arose a trend in both Chinese and Western academic circles to reevaluate May Fourth and reevaluate Lu Xun. Viewed within its late 20th-century globalized political and academic environment, this trend immediately stands out as a product of post-Cold War ideologies such as “post-revolution” and “globalization.”

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To understand why mainstream Western ideology can guide the orientation of China’s mainstream discourse, we must examine the social changes of contemporary China. A. The Cultural Revolution and the Reform and Opening The rapid societal changes of the past 30 years can be summarized in several different ways. Some people say they are the transformation from a command economy to a market economy, a closed country to an open country, empty ideals to practical matters, autocracy to democracy, feudalism to capitalism, and the traditional to the modern. Other people consider them transmutations from idealism to hedonism, collective-based society to individual-based society, and socialism to capitalism. Yet no matter how they summarize these changes, everyone agrees that these changes were induced by the thorough negation of the Cultural Revolution. Although the Cultural Revolution was quite complex, its basic theme nevertheless cannot be mistaken: it was a continuous revolution under the conditions of anti-revisionism and a dictatorship of the proletariat. Its main target was capitalist roaders in the party; its main tactic was “rebellion” via sudden and violent mass movements. As for its positive aspects, because of its severe criticism of Soviet communists’ revisionist theory of a state of the whole people and a party of the entire people, Cultural Revolution provided a theoretical basis for confronting the class conflict and struggles within socialist society, and also for confronting the possibility of the party elite transforming socialist society into a new form of oppressive and exploitative society. Furthermore, “it is right to rebel” (造反有理) opened a vast space for mass participation in politics, turning the masses into a powerful mechanism preventing the degeneration of the party elite into a new oppressive and exploitative group. As for the negative aspects of the Cultural Revolution, due to faulty appraisal of the circumstances and exaggeration of the enemy’s power, those in political power did not address the ideological problems in the society and disputes within the party, wich in their natures belonged to the internal contradictions among the people, in accordance with respect for human rights, civic rights, and democratic and legl processes. Rather, all problems, however innocuous, were considered on the plane of principle in terms of capitalist roaders and class enemies. These enemies were then attacked with the relentless large-scale use of mass violence and state violence. As a result way too many were injured, and what was once a reason-

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able and insightful politic strategy lost the support of the public and lost its legitimacy. The root cause of the Cultural Revolution lies in the dual character of political power in China after the success of the revolution in 1949. On one hand, the CCP led by Mao Zedong and supported by the working masses, who were the masters of the country and society, struggled exhaustively for the realization of a socialism characterized primarily by public ownership, a planned economy, and distribution according to labor. On the other hand, the elite, unrestrained by democratic institutions, held a monopoly on power and fully controlled social, economic, political, and cultural life. These elite became a massive administrative and bureaucratic group that lorded itself over society and caused the socialist nature of the relationship between the party and the masses (equal among comrades) to lose its institutional guarantees. In reality, the nature of the relationship between the cadres and the masses was to a large extent dependent upon the individual character of each cadre; thus it contained various potential social contradictions and conflicts. The most explosive among these contained antagonistic elements, such as exploitation (appearing in the form of “special privileges”), oppression (appearing in the form of wanton persecution of individuals in political campaigns), discriminations and some others. The articulation of concepts such as the “privileged stratum” and the “capitalist roaders” during the Cultural Revolution revealed existing social conflicts. Furthermore, the advocacy of “it is right to rebel” caused the originally repressed social conflicts and contradictions to quickly explode in antagonistic ways, thereby inciting huge and horrible social upheavals. On one side of this upheaval were the capitalist roaders among the elite in power. In order to protect their own interests and privileges, they incited fightings among the masses, changing the target of the struggle to the five sinister proups (landlords, rich peasants, counter-revolutionaries, bad elements, and rightists), their descendants, and even to ordinary intellectuals. Thus the capitalist roaders protected themselves while cruelly suppressing those who rebelled. On the other side were the rebelling cadres and masses supported by Mao. The most violent among them were those who had been oppressed the longest. The Cultural Revolution gave them a rare opportunity to resist, and the fear of what would result if they failed drove them to extremes. As an extreme form of mass political movement, the Cultural Revolution severely damaged social order and injured the various social strata to different extent. It thereby caused the political movement,

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the most effective social control mechanism for the maintenance of the existing system of power, to lose popular sympathy and its political legitimacy. The smashing of the Gang of Four and the end of the Cultural Revolution were fully supported by the people; this evidences that changes were contemplated among the people and people’s desire to escape from political movements and reorganize social life. This is the internal logic of China’s political development, and one reason why the early reforms (the abandonment of “taking class struggle as the key link” and the change of focus to economic development) received such widespread support from society. However, the real target of the reforms was Mao’s theory and practice, especially the traditional socialist political, economic, and social system that Mao established after the victory of the 1949 revolution. We should note that this system contained profound internal contradictions. The aforementioned issue of the relationship between the party cadres and the masses is one. Another is that power over production, including the power of real control and hence the power to allocate benefits, was concentrated in the hands of a small number of cadres, and therefore in economic life the nominal public ownership did not really eliminate the possibility of economic inequality. At the same time, the complete rejection of markets and the lack of distinction between government and enterprise caused various abuses such as soft constraints and a command economy subject to the whims of officials. The result was that the national economy to lose its internal impetus and had to rely on the external drivers of political power and political movements. Thus economic life under the original system had neither the vitality of a market economy nor the order and balance of a Soviet-style planned economy. Errors were rampant and many resources were wasted. As for the aim of production, external pressures forced policy makers to concentrate on the defense industry and the heavy industry connected with it. Furthermore, the mentality of a backward people to catch up with advanced nations led to high rate of accumulation and the Great Leap Forward. Consequently the promise to “satisfy the ever-increasing material and cultural needs of the workers” was never truly fulfilled. Rather, the attempt manifested as a kind of crude and inefficient developmentalism. Culturally, class analysis was vulgarized and dogmatized, and all ideas, opinions, and tastes different from what was canonized by the party were rejected and then falsely exaggerated to be the manifestations of class struggle in a society almost devoid of class. This led to an increasingly closed and

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ossified cultural life. Under these circumstances, changes were contemplated. As soon as the Cultural Revolution ended, the reforms began. The leading force or primary driver of the reforms was the “old cadres determined to reform” who had been lashed during the Cultural Revolution. The slogan was the self-improvement of the socialist system, but judging by their actual actions, their true motivation was self-protection and the expansion of their power. The first step of the reforms was political: the thorough rearrangement of intra-party relations and the large-scale redress of wronged persons and mishandled cases within the party. Next came constitutional revision, the elimination of mass movements, the elimination of the “four greats” (the rights to speak out, to cast aside traditional and oppressive restrictions, to debate, and to use large-character posters) and the implementation of rule by law. In other words, it was a change from rule by mass movement to rule by law, which is a more effective and safer way to control social life and prevents the masses from interfering with the overall situation. After the old cadres guaranteed their personal safety and power, they soon readjusted social relations comprehensively. They dismissed altogether the cases in which some intellectuals wrongfully bore the brunt of many political movements, and reinstated them to positions of high responsibility. These intellectuals then became the primary allies and co-strategists in Deng’s reform movement. All the political reforms, including elimination of the “four greats” and turn to rule by law, were pieces of a plan to protect the old cadres and party elite. This goal was the beginning and the end point of the reform. As to the economic reforms, the main theme was to transfer power downward through the ranks of the cadre. The steps enacted, such as the household contract imposed in the name of bringing peasants’ initiatives into play, the dual-track system, and the change of ownership, all served to expand the economic power of cadres at all levels. Thus the national interest, which had previously appeared under the guise of the “citizen’s interest” and had been controlled by the central government, gradually became regionalized, departmentalized, and eventually privatized. The hegemonic discourse that has directed the social transformation of contemporary China began to take shape with the thought liberation movement led by Deng’s faction. From 1978 to 1979 Deng led a thorough criticism of Mao’s theory and practice, in particular of the Cultural Revolution and the use of “taking class struggle as the

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key link”. This criticism focused on denying the existence of capitalist roaders within the party, and hence denying the possibility of party elite turning into an oppressive and exploitative group. This was the main theoretical justification for the rejection of continuous revolution, the amendment of the constitution, and the elimination of the “four greats.” Speaking more broadly, this also involves different interpretations of Marxism. Here, this primarily refers to the diluting and draining the meaning Marxist doctrines about class analysis, class struggle, and class liberation. Marxism thus is reduced to a doctrine according to which productive force is the only determining factor of human societies, and the Marxist conception of history is radically simplified to a stage theory of history according which each historical stage is wholly characterized by the development level of production forces, which is also the only determijning factor for the transition from one stage to the next. At the same time, socialism was reduced to the development of these forces. These particular interpretations of Marxism allowed the economic reforms, which in reality were intended to develop capitalistic economic relations, to gain a certain legitimacy from the theory of the so-called early stage of socialism, rendered the economic reforms ideologically palatable, and provided an articulated program for integrating heterogeneous demands for reform, first within the party and in the whole society. This program, namely, the replacement of Mao’s anti-revisionism with modernization through the development of productive forces, thus became the leading principle of China’s politics. If not for the leadership of the Deng faction with modernization as their banner, the post-Cultural Revolution changes in Chinese society would certainly have been quite different in both direction and content. B. International Background As the Soviet Union collapsed, Marxists, socialists, and leftists in China and worldwide began to reorient and relocate their values and objectives. This process was primarily a struggle for hegemony between Marxism and liberalism. The focus of the debate is on the nature of capitalist modernity. According to Marxism, the development of capitalism based upon science, technologically, and large scale industry is a huge advancement in human history. It provides the necessary economic, cultural,

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political, and social preconditions for human emacipation. However, contradictions and conflicts inevitably arise under capitalism due to its exploitation of wage laborers and the alienation of labor itself. Human emacipation can only be realized through revolution, suppassing capitalism, and transition to socialism and communism. Thus Marxism does not simplistically reject capitalist modernity, which is characterized by its orientation to the future, its basis in rationality, and its quest for liberation, but then Marxism deems that capitalist modernity will necessarily be superseded by a higher form of modernity—socialist modernity. That is to say, socialist modernity also faces to the future, bases itself in rationality, and seeks liberation. Yet in socialist modernity, individual liberation is replaced by collective emancipation (class liberation, national liberation, and human emancipation realized through workers’ struggles, anti-colonial struggles, the construction of socialism, and world revolution). Furthermore, in socialist modernity, individual rationality and instrumental rationality have to serve the ends set by collective rationality and axiological rationality. However, within the discursive structure of modernization theory, the structural contradictions of capitalism disappear, leaving only the linear expansion of production forces, individual rationality (serving the self-interest), and individual freedom. Revolution and socialism, due to their “irrational” restriction of individual freedom (i.e. individual wealth), are either a deviation from the normal course of modernization and eventually have to return to the mainstream of human civilization that is modernization, or they are mainly usable tools for reaching a certain stage in the modernization process, and once they have served the teleological ends and the stage has reached and passed, they ought to be thrown away. The collapse of the Soviet Union seems to have in the end vindicated this assertion. Then, in the end, what is modernization? Simply put, modernization is Americanization. In the 1950s, modernization meant market economics, representative democracy, and a welfare society styled after the United States under Roosevelt’s New Deal. Yet by the post-Cold War 1990s, Roosevelt’s New Deal style of neoliberalism had already been replaced by the neoliberalism of Bush and Clinton, which is in fact a market fundamentalism. The welfare society of modernization was thereby supplanted by the thorough privatization of all aspects of social, economic, and cultural life. This is the end of human history, and manifests in the form of globalization. It encompasses everything without exception.

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Modernization theory has become the de facto hegemonic discourse within the CCP. As such, its bearing on the CCP’s historical view, current practices, and future plans must not be underestimated. The fundamental reason why the early reforms enjoyed widespread societal support rests in two great inherent pitfalls of the tradition system that the reforms targeted. First, the traditional system had excessive numbers of political movements, excessive numbers of individuals being criticized and punished, and did not properly deal with the internal contradictions among the people. Second, it lacked an effective stimulus mechanism, and thus could not bring into play the intitiatives of the masses in production and other areas of social life. Real differences of interest existed between ordinary people and cadres loyal to socialist ideals on one side, and the alliance of elite inside and outside the party pushing the reforms ahead on the other side. However, both groups were dissatisfied with the traditional system. Thus, despite the differences of orientation, this mutual dissatisfaction made possible the elite’s political mobilization for the purposes of reform and moreover provided them the chance to lead the reforms. To turn the possibility into reality, the alliance of the elites needed the aforementioned cultural integration and articulation. A hegemonic discourse was necessary. C. The Ultimate Formation of the Hegemonic Discourse of Reform China’s modernization program, packaged in theories of the early stages of socialism (based on the revisionist interpretation of Marxism as having productive forces as the only important factor in haman society and human history), but really only representing the interests of a certain social group, reintroduced capitalist mode of production and the corresponding doctrines underlying fundamental social arrangements to China. However, in terms of political and social mobilization, the Deng faction successfully convinced the people that modernization, in the form of the Reform and Opening, geared mainly toward economic growth, represented the interests of all Chinese people (“if the cake is made larger, everyone will get a larger slice”). Relying upon this and with particular emphasis on “reforming the traditional system and opening to the world,” Deng and his supporters then redefined political and social identities. The Cultural Revolution “capitalist roaders versus rebels” distinction between enemy and friend was replaced by a distinction between “conservative versus reform” factions in the

introduction

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reform period. Thus resistance to Deng’s reforms not only was politically impossible, it also lost all social and moral legitimacy. At the same time, with the support of the international hegemonic discourse (libertarianism in ethical-political discourses premised on the notion of selffishness being human nature and on individualism, neoliberalism and market fundamentalism (there is no alternatives) in economic discourses, and hedonism in cultural areas), China politically, economically, and culturally, wrote socialism off as a utopian ideology. Modernity was established as the new objective, as universally beneficial to the Chinese people and as the only worthwhile way to realize a humane society. This process occurred through monopolistic interpretations of such phenomena as “state owned enterprises are inefficient” and “planning equates to issuing arbitrary orders;” through the repeated instillation of cnotions such as human rights, rationality, efficiency, marketization, liberalization, privatization, globalization, developmentalism, and consumerism, and the accompanying vilification and complete rejection of the the Mao era and the traditional mode of socialism (deficient, lopsided, ugly, inhumane, etc.); and through the banning, repression, criticism, and misleading use (by additing “with Chinese characteristics”) of concepts such as collectivism, class struggle, class liberation, cultural revolution, planning, state owned enterprise, nationalism, and socialism. Thereby a new hegemonic discourse arose, centered on “modernity,” and replaced the “continuous revolution” of Mao Zedong. Under the guidance, mobilization, organization, and pushing ahead of this hegemonic discourse, Chinese society in the late 1970s entered a new period of great change. China was quickly incorporated into the capitalist world system, and its society transformed. III. Implicationos of the Explorations Interacting domestic and foreign cultural resources also interact with a rapidly transmutating society. The two kinds of interactions reflect various problems within the process of social transformations, and also influence the process and direction of the transformation. The major implication of exploring these interactions is to reject fatalism and to affirm the historical possibility for peoples to select their own developmental path based upon their own cultures.

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Different cultural resources have different origins. Their functions are conditioned by particular historical circumstances and at the same time condition the next step of historical development. Comprehensive reflection on these resources can help us understand contemporary Chinese history, and also can provide us with an essential prerequisites for guiding the current social transformation. As for the Mao system and the Deng reforms, what is important is not the official version of what they are, or the subjective motivations and wishes of those involved. Rather, what is important is the objective conditions and the potentials implicit within the actual actions. Mao clearly saw that the system he created inherently had the potential to alienate and degenerate into a system with exploitation and domination. He tried his best to prevent this from happening, but failed. The main reason for his failure lies in the objective conditions, namely, he was unable to separate himself from the party elite against whom he was fighting. Mao’s paradoxical situation explains why he wavered between the proponents and the opponents of the Cultural Revolution, missed the right moments to act, and in the end, after his death, the changes that he had desperately wished to prevent became reality with the reforms of Deng Xiaoping. When Deng started the reforms, he did not necessarily intend to creat the situation we see today. Yet his program and actions, viewed objectively, created the conditions for the current transmutation of Chinese society. The events that Deng in his last years of life had desperately wished to prevent from happening became reality after his death through the work of an elite alliance of some officials, intellectuals, businessmen, and media people. We must note that the result of the reforms, namely the post-socialist society characterized politically by the pervasion of nepotism and the rapid penetration of the capital into the power structure, and economically by the wage slaves losing all their rights, already existed, in a form of potential, in the early cultural conceptions of reform. Conditioned by historical circunstances and particularly by the existence of dominant transnational capitals, what Chinese society pulled by the reformers into the global capitalist system has obtained is not the Western style of modernization but rather a modernity of “dependency.” China has developed an export-oriented economy, and while its GDP has rapidly increased, its workers have been cruelly exploited by transnational capitals, its natural resources have been plundered, its ecological environment has been polluted and damaged, the polariza-

introduction

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tion of society has grown more severe, and social inequity has become intolerable. Various new social demands are currently bubbling up from dissatisfaction toward reforms in housing, health cares, education and state owned enterprise, toward land appropriation and development, pollution transfer, and working conditions. Various social forces, especially the hundreds of millions of migrant workers (the new proletariat in the Marxist sense) are currently assembling themselves. The reforms, which were originally accepted beyond questioning, are now facing serious challenges as people begin to reflect on them. New demarkation between friend and foe are currently taking shape. The recent resurgence of interest in Mao Zedong among the exploited and repressed lower classes and on certain websites evidences that objective demands for a new form of social integration and a new form of political expression have already appeared. Only future developments can tell us whether these demands will eventually succeed and how they will manifest if they do. October 20, 2009

PART I

“CONSIDER THE OTHER MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE SELF”: LIANG SHUMING’S VIEW OF CONFUCIAN ETHICS Chen Lai Translated by Ping Zhu and Adrian Thieret During the construction of Chinese modernity, intellectuals have been deeply influenced by traditional thought. On the one hand, this is because intellectuals are the core force of the modernization process; on the other hand, the supposed influence of tradition on modern people is to a large extent brought about by intellectuals’ interpretation and expression of that tradition. One should also note that there is already an awareness of some new problems within modern intellectuals’ interpretation of tradition. Proceeding from this, traditional and modern should be considered not just a dichotomy in which the past influences the present, but rather as connected in a dialectical and continuous process of interpretation and practice. Therefore, modern intellectuals’ understanding and interpretation of tradition itself is a manifestation of the interaction between tradition and modernity. After the New Culture Movement, Liang Shuming (1893–1988) advocated wholesale acceptance of Western culture. He expected that world culture would turn toward socialism, and he advocated the Confucian attitude toward life as the way of the future. The notions guiding his thought remained fundamentally unchanged through the late 1980s. Liang was one representative of the diverse “progressive” intellectuals of twentieth-century China. He also belonged to the first generation of “new Confucianism” (新儒家), which has represented the spiritual tradition of Confucianism in mainland China since the 1950s. Therefore, Liang’s understanding of Confucian ethics not only represents his individual experience, it also in a sense epitomizes how the Confucian tradition reacted to and shaped Chinese modernity. Philosophers’ conceptual reactions to modernity often foretell events that happen in empirical history, and therefore, concern for those reactions may be more significant than the presentation of empirical phenomena. In the conclusion of my paper discussing Liang Shuming’s 1975 work, Human Mind and Human Life (人心与人生) I said that “his conviction

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to ‘proving ideals through facts’ (以事实证明理想) runs throughout his life, and although it supported his eventual completion of his work on psychology late in life, the section on psychology is in fact less valuable—his most important contribution probably remains the portion on ethics.”1 This paper narrates and discusses Liang’s thoughts on ethics in order to investigate the reaction of the Confucian tradition to modernity theory, and then finishes with a brief discussion regarding the ethical idea of prioritizing the “other.” I Following the discussion of the human mind in Human Mind and Human Life, Liang Shuming begins his discussion of the human life. In this section, Liang continues to uphold his earlier theory of the “three great questions of human life” that humanity has faced since its beginnings: 1) the question of how humans should treat material things; 2) the question of how humans should treat each other; and 3) the question of how humans should treat their own lives. He declares, I expressed this theory of the three great problems of human life over fifty years ago, and it is one of the basic concepts underlying the theories of my older work Eastern and Western Cultures and their Philosophies (东西 文化及其哲学). From today’s point of view this book contains many mistakes and only a few arguments remain valid, yet the fundamental concepts remain constant. It is for this reason that in my later text, The Final Awakening of the Chinese Nation’s Self-salvation Movement (中国民族自救 运动之最后觉悟), I further expound this theory in a more apt and lucid manner than in the original work.2

In this, Liang has already pointed to the developmental threads of his thinking on the three great problems of human life, but he has explained them in detail. Then, in regard to moral practice in human life, Liang notes: Human life has both an individual aspect and a collective aspect; the practice of human life must be discussed in these terms. The last chapter

1 Chen Lai 陈来, Xiandai Zhongguo de zhuiqiu 现代中国的追求 [The Pursuit of Modern China] (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe 人民出版社, 2001), 275. 2 Liang Shuming 梁漱溟, Liang Shuming Quanji 梁漱溟全集 [Complete Works of Liang Shuming] vol. 3 (Shandong: Shandong renmin chubanshe 山东人民出版社, 1990), 716–717.

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primarily refers to the individual aspect, saying that true morality lies in consciously facing upward (向上) and the subjugation of the body to the mind. This chapter will explain that the morality of collective human life (society) lies in the fullest pursuit of ethical affection (伦理 情谊) and can be summarized with the single phrase “fullest pursuit of ethical behavior” (尽伦).3

Liang’s ideas here imply that “morality” (道德) refers to the self-awareness and upward movement of the human mind, and “ethics” (伦理) refers to the fulfillment of one’s duty with regard to human relations. In other words, this perspective considers morality a subjective state of one’s inner self, and sees ethics as a kind of objective interpersonal relations. This perspective and understanding are similar to Hegel’s view of morality and ethics.4 Regarding “ethics,” Liang Shuming states the following in chapter 18 of Human Mind and Human Life: Through its intellect, humanity has developed a particularly rich sense of affection (something unattainable by animals), a force that exists primarily in the interactions between people (people do have affection toward all the things in the universe, however it cannot be said that there is mutual interaction). To speak of ethical affection is to refer to this. The two parties in an ethical relationship are any two interrelated people, regardless of whether they have just met or are old acquaintances. In this sort of interrelated life, the affection between people is called ethics. And what of the principle underlying this? It is simply that we all take care of one another. To elaborate, the principle is that we ought to consider others more important than ourselves, instead of acting for ourselves and overlooking others.5

It is worth noting that Liang Shuming broaches his discussion of “ethics” through “emotion” (感情). Here, “emotion” does not refer to joy, anger, sorrow, or happiness, or to romantic desires. Rather, it refers to a mutual sentiment akin to the intimate sense of love and caring felt between family members. Liang thinks that of the two characters that constitute the word ethics, “proper relations” (伦) refers to the two parties in an interpersonal relationship, and “reason” (理) refers to the emotional reasoning (情理) underlying the mutual interaction between them. From this we can see that his “proper relations” fits Mencius’s concept of proper human relations (人伦), and yet his reason is not Ibid., 726. Charles Taylor, Hegel and Modern Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 82–84. 5 Liang Shuming, Liang Shuming Quanji vol. 3, 726. 3 4

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separate from emotion; it is not an external principle to which we are forced to submit. Thus Liang sets positive interpersonal moral sentiment as the foundation and principle of ethical relations. This kind of friendship or ethics, if we express it as a concept, is simply “consider the other more important than the self ” (以对方为重). It is important to note that “mutually consider the other more important than the self ” is Liang’s sociological observation of Chinese culture, and it is also a principled appeal transcending all relative ethical relations of society. However, it is definitely not to say that when one person considers another more important than himself, he must require the other also to treat him as more important than their self. Therefore, when speaking of an ideal society we hope that in all relative ethical relationships (father and son, husband and wife, etc.) we will “mutually consider the other more important than the self.” When speaking of individuals the ethical principle is simply “consider the other more important than the self.” Starting from the division of mind and body, Liang contends that considering the other more important than the self is the result of beginning from the mind, and when people begin from the body they will act selfishly. Only those with deliberate purpose (存心) are able to surpass the limitations of the body and keep the other in their minds. To take this a step further, those with deliberate purpose not only keep the other in their minds, to a certain degree they also disregard themselves for the benefit of the other: For example, is not a mother’s treatment of her young child often like this? Every kind of emotion of caring for the other, be it strong or weak, can be called ethical affection (情谊). This kind of affection is also written with the character yi (义), which means moral obligation. There can be no greater contribution to society than the people’s fulfillment of the moral obligations in all their ethical relationships; this is what we call morality.6

This theory of the mind and body can be considered a successor to Mencius’s thought. Moreover, Liang’s account of the mind obviously indicates a moral conscience transcending the perceptual little-self (感性小我), and he considers ethics a state of mind. All of these points coincide with the traditional philosophy of the mind (心学) school of Neo-Confucianism.

6

Ibid., 727.

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II Now let us trace the development and progress of Liang Shuming’s theory of ethics according to the clues he has provided. By the early 1920s, Liang Shuming had already expressed his high opinion of moral emotion in the book Eastern and Western Cultures and their Philosophies: Filial and fraternal piety are the only important principles advocated by Confucianism. Although these should be taken at face value, if Confucianism intends for people to live emotionally-rich lives then naturally it must mean for people to initiate their actions from the source of emotion.7

He also says: Westerners are selfish (有我) and Chinese are selfless (不要我). As for a Chinese mother’s emotion toward her son, it is as if she has a son and no self. As for the son’s emotion toward his mother, it is as if he has a mother and no self. Brothers and friends are also able to disregard themselves for the sake of the other and submit themselves in service to the other. In this there exists no distinction between the self and the other, nor any discussion of rights or obligations. The teachings of filial and fraternal piety, ritual, and courtesy in all respects embrace emotion and are selfless.8

In Liang’s view, Chinese people tend to treat others as family when managing their interpersonal relationships. Like the relationships between mother and son, or elder and younger brothers, this attitude is to “yield oneself to others” and “embrace emotion and be selfless.” Liang later took this understanding of the Chinese tendencies in managing interpersonal relationships to be an implied part of ethics. As for the way he approaches the three great questions of human life, in Eastern and Western Cultures and their Philosophies Liang actually did not clearly highlight the problems as he does in Human Mind and Human Life by writing “how humans should treat material things,” “how humans should treat other humans,” and “how humans should treat themselves.” Rather, in the third chapter of his discussion of the three great questions in Eastern and Western Cultures and their Philosophies, Liang emphasizes that the problems are how people should deal with “satiable” material world, the “not necessarily satiable” world of

7 8

Liang Shuming, Liang Shuming Quanji vol. 1, 467. Ibid., 479.

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other’s minds, and the “insatiable” world of cause and effect.9 Alternatively, these are the three paths of “forward-seeking,” “maintaining stasis,” and “backward-seeking.”10 However, Liang actually goes as far as to say the following near the end of the book: The first problem of humanity is the quest for life . . . food, clothing, shelter, all of the material requirements of life must be obtained from the natural world. Therefore a forward-seeking attitude is appropriate at this time. . . . When humanity transitions from the era of material problems to era of dealing with other people—the era of the second problem I listed above, that of other’s minds—then the attitude used to conquer nature cannot be used between people.11

Here he certainly raises the “question of how humans should treat material things” and the “question of how humans should treat other humans,” but he has not yet outlined the third question as that of the “question of how humans should treat themselves.” Therefore, as Liang Shuming himself says, it is in The Final Awakening of the Chinese People’s Self-salvation Movement that he finally describes the three great problems in an apt and lucid manner. Published in 1933, The Final Awakening of the Chinese People’s Self-salvation Movement contains his articles from 1930–1932 and is also referred to as Essays on Village Governance. The principle essay shares the title of the book. Liang frequently mentioned the importance of this book in his later work. Indeed, many of the important points in his late 1940’s book Outline of Chinese Culture (中国文化要义) such as the attention to societal structure and his assertion that the two great characteristics of China are the “enduring society” and “nearly irreligious life,” had already taken shape in The Final Awakening of the Chinese People’s Self-salvation Movement. In the essay “The Final Awakening of the Chinese People’s Self-salvation Movement,” he says: As for the problems we encounter in life, there are three different ones. As for the attitudes people hold in life, there are three distinct ones. Because of this, human culture has three distinct successive periods. The first question is that of how humans should treat material things, the second question is how humans should treat humans, and the third question is how humans should treat themselves.12

9 10 11 12

Ibid., 439. Ibid., 382. Ibid., 494. Liang Shuming, Liang Shuming Quanji vol. 5, 74.

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This 1930 article clearly describes the three great questions in Eastern and Western Cultures and their Philosophies as the problems of how people should act toward material things, toward others, and toward themselves. In fact, Liang’s theory of the three great problems and three paths contains an implicit contradiction: if the three types of paths, methods, and attitudes (a, b, c) are targeted respectively at solving the three different questions A, B, and C, rather than being three different attitudes to deal with the same question, then we cannot abstractly say that a certain attitude has been adopted too early or too late. We can only say that if we deal with the primary problem faced by a particular culture in a certain way, then that culture will incline in a certain direction. Or, if a certain culture erroneously used a certain attitude (such as b) to deal with a certain problem (such as A), we can only say that it was wrong to use attitude b to deal with problem A. The supposed problems of “too early” and “too late” do not exist in these situations. III Returning to the problem of ethics, Liang Shuming points out in this article that ethics means the interpersonal relations of human life,13 and hence ethics belongs to not the first question of life, but the second question. For the same reason, one needs the second attitude of life to solve ethical problems. One cannot go forward constantly or subdue through coercion. Rather, ethical relations should take as their foundation natural familial relations (天伦). Liang says: . . . the second attitude is to turn around one’s eyes at oneself, search for answers within oneself, exhaust that which is within one’s grasp, and reconcile and harmonize the self and others.14 At this time we can only ‘search for answers within ourselves’ and ‘exhaust that which is within us,’ and that is all . . . to properly conduct ethical relations requires both parties to put forth their best effort. But only a third party can say whether they both ‘put forth their best effort;’ the two parties involved can first only ask themselves whether they have put forth their best effort—one must always ask oneself first, and thus

13 Translator’s Note: I think ethics actually should mean the attitude one takes toward interpersonal relations. 14 Ibid., 74.

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chen lai everybody will acknowledge that one is allowed to blame himself but not to blame others.15

Here, we see that Liang insists on using “natural familial relations” as the initial form of ethics, and he takes people’s attitudes in familiar relations as the foundation of the ethical way. In terms of the second route that this attitude pertains to, apparently Liang thinks the appropriate attitude toward solving ethical questions is to “search for answers within oneself ” and “exhaust that which is within oneself;” in other words, to demand of oneself instead of others. At the end of the article, Liang points out: Ethical relations originated from the family, then spread to social and national life: the relations between lord and minister, and officials and civilian are like that of parent and child; the relations between boss and worker, and master and disciple, and all the friends and peers in society, are like that of brothers or father and son. Everyone has some ethical obligation to fulfill. An ethical relationship indicates a relationship of obligation, as if one exists not for himself, but only for others.16

In fact, Liang’s concept of ethical relations to a large extent refers to familial social relations. Here, the idea “consider the other more important than the self ” has already come into being. Liang reiterated his ideas in the later article “Our First Political Dead-End Road” (“我 们政治上的第一个不通的路”). Liang Shuming collected the important articles he wrote between 1933 and 1936 into his third book Rural Reconstruction Theory (乡村建设理论). In “Outline of Rural Reconstruction” (“乡村建设提纲,” 1933), he writes: In order to understand the reason why rural reconstruction will rebuild the organizational structure and open a new way of governance, we must first talk about the organizational structure and the way of governance of old Chinese society. In the past Western people were directly connected to the church, and today they are directly connected to the country. Particularly through the prevalence of individualism in modern times, Western countries thus formed a person-based society. Since they could not bear the evils of this society, they have turned around and are attempting to reform into a society-based society. In the past, Chinese society was neither of these types. It resembled an ethics-based society. People in their lives are inevitably related to other people—this is natural familial relations. People live always within interpersonal relations—

15 16

Ibid., 88–89. Ibid., 94.

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this is ethics. The affection of intimacy and care spring from familial and blood relationships, and all related persons naturally have affection. Where there is affection, there is obligation. The obligation of the father is kindness, the obligation of the son is filial piety, the obligation of the elder brother is friendship, the obligation of younger brother is respect. The husband and wife, and friends, and all related people naturally have obligations toward each other. Ethical relations indicate a type of obligation (义务), as if one does not exist for himself, but everyone exists for each other. In modern times, the Western people are precisely the opposite; everywhere can be seen a self-based orientation, and everything begins from the concept of rights (权利).17

To Liang Shuming, “individual-based” means the adoption of individualism as the fundamental attitude for solving ethical problems; its manifestation is modern Western capitalist society. “Society-based” means the adoption of collectivism as the fundamental attitude for solving ethical problems; its manifestation is the socialist society represented by the Soviet Union. “Ethics-based” is the attitude used in traditional Chinese society and culture to deal with ethical problems; it is based on the “mutually living for others” obligation of affection developed from familial relations. Liang especially notes that the individual-based attitude is expressed by the concept of “rights,” but in contrast, the ethics-based attitude is founded on the concept of “obligation.” Liang Shuming had gradually experienced the ethical attitude of “mutually living for others” during his implementation of rural governance in North China, and he articulated it with the concept of “respect.” Apparently this is because during the social implementation he realized that the attitude of familial affection among kin could not be fully copied into the community outside the family. Community ethics had to develop familial affection into “respect,” which has a more universal meaning. This also shows an effort by Liang to modernize traditional ethics. Liang clearly states in his 1934 article “Explanation of Village Schools and Township Schools” (“村学乡学释义”) that village schools and township schools are both rural organizations. On the one hand, this kind of organization fully contains the spirit of the modern Western progressive group life, yet on the other hand, they fully contain “ethicism” (伦理主义) and “upward life” (人生向上), two great characteristics of Chinese culture. As he explains later in

17

Ibid., 370.

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Human Mind and Human Life, “ethicism” refers to ethical spirit and “upward life” refers to moral spirit. Liang writes: The essence of ethicism is to respect the other as if there is no self. It is opposite the individual-based orientation, which takes the self as the point of departure. Western people’s debate over taking the individual or society as basis can be completely resolved by the ethics-based attitude of the Chinese. The individual-and society-based attitudes will not work. It should be that A respects B, and B respects A; one cannot say that you should respect me and I do not respect you. The group should respect the individual and the individual should respect the group. This arrangement is directly contrary to the Western principle of controlled equilibrium. This arrangement arises from ethicism.

Thus, Liang Shuming summarizes the aforementioned Chinese ethical attitude as “ethicism” and concludes that the key point of such ethicism was to “respect the other as if there is no self.” He maintains that the Western debate over individual- or society-based attitudes was onesided in the eyes of Chinese ethicists because it overlooked respect for others. According to Liang’s explanation of ethicism, mutual respect can be achieved if each party respects the other as if there is no self. At this time Liang realized that the ethical relations are not merely the traditional five social relationships (五伦), nor merely the relationships of individuals in modern society that transcend family. In addition to these, ethical relations also contains the relations between individual and group. The standpoint and gist of ethicism is to respect others in all ethical relations. This statement already contains a creative transformation of familial ethics. Regarding this, in his article “Something that Has Troubled Me for a Time” (“我的一段心事,” 1934), Liang points out: Chinese ethics begins from affection, and thus is not centered on the self, and instead considers the other as more important that the self. If one takes himself as center, he departs from the meaning of ethics. Ethics considers the other more important than the self, and thus the relations between people can reach a state of intimate harmony. . . . China has an old theory of the five relationships. Now we can add one more relationship, that of the group toward the individual and the individual toward the group, in which they respect each other and have obligation toward each other.18

18

Ibid., 537.

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It is obvious that, with his summary of the spirit of Chinese ethics as “considering the other more important that the self,” and his belief that this kind of ethical spirit is the essence of ethics itself, Liang Shuming’s ideas gradually formed from 1930 to 1934. IV In Liang Shuming’s view, this idea of Chinese ethics originates from the ethics advocated by Confucius. Consequently, Liang’s “Chinese ethics” and “ethics” are actually Confucian ethics. However, his grasp of Confucian ethics differs from the understanding held by ordinary researchers of Confucianism and religious studies. Instead of summarizing through discussion of the classics, Liang based his modern formulation of ethics on his experience of Chinese cultural life and his observations from rural governance practice. His approach and methodology resemble that of sociologists and anthropologists, and deserve attention. This also explains why later he was able to write sociological books such as Outline of Chinese Culture, a work comparable to Max Weber’s theory of Chinese religion.19 Few current scholars of moral philosophy and ethics touch upon Liang Shuming’s grasp of the spirit of Confucian ethical culture or his approach to the difference between Confucian ethics and modern Western ethics. Liang Shuming more often relates to the disciplines of cultural philosophy and comparative culture. This clearly is consistent with his early concern toward Eastern and Western civilizations and philosophies. In “The Final Awakening of the Chinese Nation’s Self-salvation Movement,” Liang points out: As for the existence of ethics in China, Confucius seems to have played a large role. These ethics are the center and backbone of several thousand years of ritual and customs and have not changed greatly. . . . If the Chinese are as happy and peaceful as [Bertrand] Russell says, then this is merely a gift of ethics.20 19 Of course, the ancient Confucian classics do contain discussions of this aspect, especially in the Book of Rites. E.g., “ritual is to humble oneself and honor others (夫礼 者自卑而尊人)” (Li Ji: Qu Li 礼记: 曲礼); “the gentleman considers others honorable and himself lowly (君子贵人而贱己)” (Li Ji: Qu Li 礼记: 坊记), and the gentleman also respectfully yields, etc. In fact, Liang Shuming’s articulation can be regarded as a modern expression of “the way of benevolence” (恕道). 20 Ibid., 86.

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chen lai The Chinese do not need religion because they have entered the second attitude of life! Since it has no large religion, then what does its whole society rely on to comfort and thus encourage people, and to maintain and thus progress? My answer is it relies on the thought, knowledge, ritual, and institutions of the Confucian school, which represent the second attitude of life.21 The Chinese are embedded in the second attitude of life. People from all regions share the same customs, and this has remained unchanged for thousands of years. The talented and wise all contribute to the knowledge and achievements of this route, like the Indians who are embedded in the third attitude and devote their talents and wisdom into religion. Confucius opened the door and explicitly showed the road to this attitude. Later generations cannot exhaust this resource, and once embedded in it cannot withdraw.22 As the country and society grows increasingly family-oriented, affection is becoming more important. The so-called principles and rituals of China all refer to affection. Despite China’s large area, differences in local customs and practices, many varied dialects, and difficult transportation, it is able to establish and maintain unity of culture probably because of the existence of a spiritual center commonly believed, understood, cultivated, and propagated by the national society. . . . This spiritual center, if elsewhere, would certainly become a large religion, but in China it is simply the ethics that Confucius advocated, nothing more.23

Clearly, Liang thinks Confucius’s ideas played a decisive role here, initiating and inspiring the life attitude of Chinese ethics. The correct attitude to solve the second question of life is the Chinese ethical attitude. This second life attitude is represented by the thought and culture of Confucius and Confucianism. The special characteristic of Confucian thought is its aforementioned attitude toward solving ethical problems: “Confucius’s teachings always direct people to look back at and expend energy on themselves. His teachings arouse selfreflection and seeking within the self . . . since the Chinese people have received the teachings of Confucius, Chinese society has assumed a great splendor, and morality has replaced religion.”24 Therefore, although Liang Shuming describes his ethical theory as merely “ethics,” to him, ethics (and ethical attitude) actually means Confucian ethics and the Confucian attitude on interpersonal relation-

21 22 23 24

Ibid., 75. Liang Shuming, Liang Shuming Quanji vol. 1, 85. Ibid., 587. Ibid., 79.

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ships. In other words, the ethical relations, ethicism, and ethics-based orientation spoken of by Liang are all in fact Confucian ethics. Consequently, the idea “consider the other more important than the self” is thus Liang’s personal understanding, development, interpretation, and expression of Confucian ethics. This kind of expression of Confucian ethics is by nature primarily an experience and expression of the “spirit and temperament” of Confucian ethical culture, or a comparison of the differing value orientations of China and the West. His is not a specific study of the morals, principles, ideals, and norms of Confucian ethics, yet this does not affect the profundity of Liang’s understanding. Although his discussion happened within the framework of East/West cultural comparison, the significance of its grasp and development of Confucian ethics cannot be overlooked. V Just as Liang Shuming asserts in Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies that the Chinese attitude in dealing with the traditional five relationships is “bending oneself to yield to others,” he uses similar words when discussing the Confucian ethical spirit in a 1930s essay: The Chinese are enveloped by ethical relations to the extent that there is nowhere in the world to escape. How to deal with these various kinds of relationships is actually the first question of life. . . . Therefore, “blaming the self ” becomes an undeniable principle unanimously acknowledged by the Chinese; “yielding to others” becomes their normal and customary practice. . . . In ethical relationships, it is as if one does not exist for oneself, and instead exists for others. This cannot be replaced by the universal self-based orientation.25

Naturally, in terms of actual social behavior, not all of Chinese “blame the self ” and “yield to others,” but we do not have to challenge Liang Shuming on this point. In fact, the significance of Liang Shuming’s argument is that no matter whether they can achieve it in their actions, average Chinese people treat “blaming the self and yielding to others” as an undisputed principle. They never, conceptually or in terms of 25 Liang Shuming, “Zai Zhongguo congqian youwu xiangcun zizhi 在中国从前有 无乡村自治 [Has there been rural autonomy in China in the past?],” in Liang Shuming Quanji vol. 5, 588.

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value, believe that “flaunting the self ” is proper. It is precisely on this point that traditional Chinese ethics are distinct from the “egocentrism” of the modern West. Naturally, in Liang Shuming’s view, in their actual actions Chinese people practice “yielding to others” more than Westerners. His article “Problems of Social Structure in China” (中国社会构造问题, 1936) focuses on the characteristics of the Chinese social structure, and purposely draws a comparison with the West. He writes: Ethics means relations based on obligation of affection, meaning respect, care, and obligation toward each other. In the extreme, ethics means sacrificing oneself for others. . . . Everyone should have the spirit to sacrifice himself and think of others, and all must consider the other more important. Chinese in all respects consider the other more important than the self. Westerners in all respects consider the individual fundamental and take the self as the center. . . . Within the idea of respecting others and considering others more important, there is a spirit of “yielding.” Yet in the individual-based and egotistic attitude of Western people, there is a spirit of “competition.” . . . In China, ethics arose from the importance of the family life and originally referred to kinship relations. But Chinese ethical relations are not limited to the family—all the relationships of society have become ethicized.26

Therefore, Liang Shuming thinks that the East and West hold contrary attitudes toward dealing with interpersonal relationships. Western people prioritize the self and exude “competitive” spirit; Chinese people consider the other more important and emphasize the spirit of “yielding.” This kind of East/West comparison has persisted unbroken since the New Culture Movement, but Liang Shuming did not stop at reductive comparison, he instead extended the discussion in the direction of ethics, reaching further than in his previous works. As I noted earlier, Liang Shuming gradually developed his thoughts and summarized the ethical spirit of Chinese culture as “consider the other more important than the self” in the early to mid 1930s. Also by this time, he formed and cemented many of his other ideas, such as his idea of “rationality” as a kind of moral emotion, and idea of Chinese national spirit as “human rationality.” He emphasizes these concepts in his later book Outline of Chinese Culture, but in the early 1930s he had not yet formed them into a system.

26

Liang Shuming, Liang Shuming Quanji vol. 5, 854–855.

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For instance, in the 1935 article “What is the Characteristic of Chinese Culture?” (“中国文化的特征在那里”), Liang Shuming already points out that what he discusses later in Outline of Chinese Culture: “the characteristic of Chinese culture is that human rationality developed too early.”27 This rationality manifests in two ways: first, in the “ethicsbased” mindset of the Chinese. Liang says, “ancient Chinese society was not individual-based, or society-based; it was ethics-based . . . Chinese people’s social relations are a kind of ethical relations. In interpersonal relations everyone has obligations of affection and considers the other more important.”28 Second, it manifests as “upward life,” for Liang believed that the Chinese differ from the Indians and Westerners. The Chinese are not world-weary or ascetic, or consider life a sin; nor do they base their life on desire and seek material happiness. The Chinese affirm life, earnestly seek the rightness and reason of life, and employ its spirit of ascension.29 Although Liang here does not explain clearly the meaning of “upward life,” it obviously refers to the pursuit of moral life. Therefore, we can surmise that Liang Shuming’s rural reconstruction implementation in the early and mid 1930s led him to a series of important understandings of Chinese social structure and ethics, and these were refined into Outline of Chinese Culture in the late 1940s. Liang admitted himself that he wrote Outline of Chinese Culture to link up with Rural Reconstruction Theory, as an “expansion or elaboration” of the latter’s discussion regarding the character of traditional Chinese society.30 The theoretical work of Liang Shuming actually represents a sort of structuring of Chinese culture. The idea of ethics Liang Shuming formed in the early 1930s is also his modern understanding of the Confucian ethical spirit. Expressed simply, it is a non-individualistic, non-egocentric, non-rights-based concept of ethics. Liang clearly summarized this ethical attitude as “considering the other more important than one’s self.” Now we must ask why Liang Shuming choose “ethics-based,” and not “familybased,” which was the more popular term at that time, to describe the attitude which he always emphasizes as “ethics that originated from the importance of family life.”

27 28 29 30

Ibid., 697. Ibid., 706. Ibid., 707. Liang Shuming, Liang Shuming Quanji vol. 3, 4.

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Liang Shuming offers a clear answer to this question in his later Outline of Chinese Culture. In this book, Liang first emphasizes the crucial role of the family within the actual life of Chinese social organization. He acknowledges that the Chinese regarded family ethics highly, and points out that dependence on family life is the difference between China and the West. Additionally, he writes: Then, is Chinese society consistently family-based? No, it is not so. . . . “Family-based” is not an appropriate phrase, and moreover it does not fully explain Chinese society. Only a patriarchal society can be called a family society, which is seen in Edward Jenks’s A History of Politics. But China is no longer a patriarchal society. . . . At this time we must use the phrase “ethics-based” to describe the relations of Chinese society and answer the important questions. “Family-based” is too narrow and biased.31

Liang Shuming thought the ideas of Chinese culture passed down through the ages, such as “all under heaven are one family” (天下 一家) and “all within the four seas are brothers” (四海之内皆兄弟) transcended the patriarchal and family society. “If it was family-based, how could the patriarchal system extend the Chinese nation so far in space and time?”32 Because Chinese culture is filled with this kind of transcendental awareness, we cannot say that Chinese ethics are familybased. The characteristic of Chinese culture is “the Chinese extend and develop through family relations, and organize society by means of ethics.”33 In other words, the Chinese organize the whole society using the ethics derived from family relations. Therefore, “ethics prioritizes the family,” “ethics originates in the family, but does not stop at the family.” “In fact, Liang Shuming’s ‘ethical relations’ obviously refers to familial or quasi-familial relationships; his ‘ethical society’ refers to a society that makes all social relations into familial ones,” a society that deals with all interpersonal relations as familial relations.34 Liang Shuming’s grasp of Confucian ethics and Chinese culture is insightful. However, doubt remains over whether this traditional ethics and its modern expression that Liang says “originate in the family” are still applicable to general interpersonal relations in industry- and commerce-based modern society. The cultural confidence of Liang 31 32 33 34

Ibid., 81. Ibid., 82. Ibid., 82. Chen Lai, Xiandai Zhongguo de zhuiqiu, 49.

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Shuming comes from his optimism for the future of socialism and his pessimistic view of the contradictions of capitalism. Indeed, although global trends since the Cold War leave no basis for an optimistic view of planned socialism, this in no way invalidates the ethical criticism of capitalism. Yet since the end of the Cold War, the rationalized market economy has been generally acknowledged as a fundamental factor and framework condition of modernity, and the modern morality that accompanies the market economy is “the Western individual-based and egocentric competitive spirit.”35 Consequently, as we face today the reality of the convergent development of the modern market economies of mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, we may wonder, if Liang Shuming were still alive and if his summary of the Confucian ethical spirit is correct, then how would Liang and the ethical spirit he outlines acknowledge their divergence from “modernity,” and how would they face the challenge of “modernity?” Is it necessary to form a different kind of modernity? Or, how can we establish a kind of broader rationality in order to regulate modernity? VI Modern morality is a morality based on rights. Let us now examine at Liang Shuming’s discussion on rights and obligation. In The Final Awakening of the Chinese Nation’s Self-salvation Movement, after discussing the two characteristics of Chinese ethics, “search for answers within oneself ” and “exhaust that which is within oneself,” Liang Shuming points out: Everyone knows that democracy is attained by the Western peoples’ revolt against the oppression of the higher classes. Equality and freedom arise because each seeks individuality and rights, and will not relax his grip upon them, and thus a balance of power is formed and everyone agrees on not to infringe upon the other people. However, how can one imagine this kind of democracy appearing where a life attitude and

35 Wan Junren points out, using Zander’s words, that modern morality is a morality based on rights. It starts with the idea that rights are in essence the individual subject’s demands of society, and supposes a moral value system of egoism or individualism. See Wan Junren 万俊人, Xiandaixing de lunli huayu 现代性的伦理话语 [Ethical Discourse of Modernity], (Heilongjiang: Heilongjiang renmin chubanshe 黑龙江人民出 版社, 2002), 135.

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This is to say that seeking individuality and striving for individual rights are the most fundamental life attitudes of Western people. The other values sought, such as equality and freedom, are based on these two pursuits. The Westerners pursuit of individuality and rights stems from the revolt caused by excessive oppression of the individual by the group during medieval times. Therefore, Liang thinks that the biggest difference between China and the West lies in their attitudes toward the individual. This difference is related to their histories and cultures: In summary, we can see everywhere that the West is seemingly individual-based and egoistic. Yet China seems to have an ethical concept, namely “respect the other.” To respect the other means to give priority to the other in mutual relationships . . . obviously, the individual-based way leads to more concepts of rights; the idea of respecting others leads to more concepts of obligations. These two aspects both have their origins.37

Thus, Liang writes in another article published not long after the above, The realities that caused the prominence of legal institutions in the West are individualism and the concept of rights. But the largest reality of China is ethics. Ethical relations encompass everything, and the significance of ethics is precisely non-individualistic and obligatory. . . . Because of ethics, there is no reason for the opposing ideas of rights and equality to emerge among the Chinese. Because of ethical deduction, there is no reason for an opposition to form between the Chinese government and Chinese people.38

Liang thinks that the West was mainly a self-based society, and from this arose the reality and institutions of repression and exploitation of others. Chinese interpersonal relations emphasize bending the self to yield to others, and China’s institutions valued harmony, and “hence ‘yield’ then became an important spirit of the Chinese people, in pre-

36 37 38

Liang Shuming, Liang Shuming Quanji vol. 5, 89. Ibid., 902. Ibid., 160.

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cise contrast to the Western spirit of ‘competition’ born from their first attitude.”39 Simultaneously, Liang Shuming points out that, between individualism and the concept of rights, the concept of rights actually is based on individualism. Therefore, individualism is the root of life attitude of the West (Liang’s “West” refers exclusively to the modern West, not to both ancient and modern times). He says: The West is self-based, China is ethics-based. When the Westerner invites guests, he sits at the head and the guests sit at the sides; he considers himself the principal entity. Yet Chinese people in all circumstances consider the other more important than the self. The Western concept of rights comes from the self-based orientation. This advocates individual portions, and in the case of local autonomy every citizen has his deserved portion. Chinese society is ethics-based. It begins from the concept of obligation, which connects people. If Chinese society took the concept of rights as its point of departure, then it would become more unorganized and have many disputes, and be unable to come together.40

These statements by Liang Shuming are not merely a historical narrative of the difference between Chinese and Western cultures. In fact, they imply his dissatisfaction with individualism and the concept of rights from the standpoint of the Chinese Confucian value system. Living in the 1930s, Liang believed that the importation of Western individualism and the ensuing concepts of rights would lead China into chaos and prevent the formation of an organic unity, and thus was not beneficial to the stable integration of the nation-state. Liang Shuming maintains that all ethics are based on a kind of psychology. Hence, a kind of ethical orientation must be based on the preference of a certain mindset. Consequently, when related to psychology, the self-based attitude is associated with the desire-centered perspective. With desire, one can only see the self and cannot see the other. The ethics-based attitude is associated with affection-focused perspective. With affection, one looks after the other and forgets the self. Liang says: People normally have both desire and affection, but the two of these conflict and are incompatible. The affection between family produced the concept of obligation—but this concept of obligation is not contrary to the concept of rights. In the West, rights and obligation are opposites. 39 40

Ibid., 94. Ibid., 536.

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chen lai For example, if you owe me money, you have the obligation to repay it, and I have the right to demand repayment. Such a concept of obligation is rigid and mandatory. What is called obligation in China is recognized by the self, not forcibly demanded by the other.41

Here we see that Liang Shuming’s “obligation” has a particular meaning. His “obligation” is an attitude in ethical relations, not the usual obligation that is opposite to rights. Rather, it is nearly a kind of volunteered responsibility. Liang’s “affection,” “ethics,” and “obligation” all have particular meanings, and we must note these meanings when reading and understanding him. We also see that, although Liang does not discuss ethics in depth, he explicitly addresses the differences between the ethical orientations of rights and obligation in the comparative framework of China and the West, and advocates a kind of non-rights-oriented ethics. Later he offered a more explicit explanation: The word quanli (rights) is an import of the last fifty years, and it came from the English word “rights.” The literal meaning of the word is “appropriate and reasonable,” and this matches what the Chinese uphold. But there is a fundamental difference, which is that it does not stem from the permission of others or the public acknowledgement of the third party, but is proposed by the self. For instance, who will say it is improper for the child to enjoy the nurture provided by the parents? But for the child to tell the parents “this is my right,” “you should raise me, you should pay my education fees,” does not at all fit the Chinese taste. If the parents tell the child, “I should raise you,” “I should pay your education fees”—this fits the Chinese taste. Likewise, for the parents to claim their rights in front of the child is also not fitting. . . . In short, everyone fulfilling his own obligations first, and waiting for rights to be given by others, and no one proclaiming rights for himself—this is the standard concept of Chinese ethical society. When both sides fulfill their obligations, their rights naturally are also fulfilled and none are missed or delayed. The reality remains the same, but the spirit is different.42

In fact, Liang Shuming values political rights; he never opposed the concept of rights in general. Consequently, the reasonableness of Liang’s proposal is that, from the perspective of Chinese culture, the appeal for rights cannot be regarded as a universal principle of all human social relations. It is appropriate only for the individual’s relationship with the state, and not for general interpersonal ethical

41 42

Ibid., 903. Liang Shuming, Liang Shuming Quanji vol. 3, 93.

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relationships. In other words, rights should be a political category, but not a fundamental concept of ethics. Therefore, on the question of how rights fit with Confucianism, Liang Shuming supports demands for sociopolitical rights and economic property rights. Yet in terms of general interpersonal relations, Liang opposes the use of individualism and the concept of rights as the fundamental attitudes of life. Essentially, we can say that Liang opposes the use of individualism and liberalism as the fundamental attitudes and ethical principles of life. He advocates a kind of Confucian attitude, a modern Confucian attitude opposed to ethics of rights. Liang Shuming’s summary of Confucian ethics as the non-individual- and non-rights-based attitude of “considering the other more important than the self,” is also significant to the discussion of world ethics. A synthesis of the ethical principles in various religions or cultural traditions does not necessarily have to be gleaned from the ancient classics, it could also be achieved through the summaries and understandings of the modern philosophers of each tradition. Liang touches on the question of human rights as well. He was concerned with the civil rights and obligations emphasized in the constitutions of European countries after World War One. Individuals originally wished merely that the state would not interfere in their business. Now this has changed and they hope that the state will take active responsibility. Therefore the new constitutions of many countries, as represented by the German Constitution in 1919, have added to the passive rights of the people many active rights, such as the right to life, the right to work, and the right to receive education. Another change is that the idea of being society-based has reared its head. The state wants to adopt an attitude of interference, and increase the obligations of the people. Consequently in the new constitution it is added that how to use property, how to receive education, how to work, and even how to cast the ballots in an election, are all obligations of the people. The state will enforce them. These two changes arose from the same trend: the increasing importance placed upon the collective of the state.43

We see that on the one hand, Liang Shuming endorses the addition of people’s rights to live and work to the existing political and social rights in constitutions. Yet at the same time, Liang understands the constitutional change as the change from a passive notion of the state from

43

Ibid., 89.

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which the people did not want interference, to the positive notion of the state that the people hoped would shoulder responsibility. Because the people required more obligations of the state, the state accordingly also required more obligations of the people. From this, we see that Liang appreciates these new changes in the relationship between rights and obligation. In other words, his concern for the people’s right to live and his recognition of state rights are both associated with his Confucian notion of socialism and differ somewhat from the concept of rights in classical liberalism. The ideas of Liang Shuming discussed above manifest in various ways in contemporary Chinese political culture, and show the broad influence of Confucian values. Afterword Since modern times, modernity in the West has faced questions and criticism throughout its process of construction. After the two World Wars, these questions and criticism deepened. Reflection on the domination of technical rationality, the alienation of human nature, and the withering of value rationality has become the focus of the critique of modernity. Although postmodernity is a deepening and extension of modernity, it is even more a questions and criticism of the past understanding of modernity. Ever since Emmanuel Levinas, postmodern philosophy has become increasingly concerned with the problem of “the Other.” The proposal of “the Other” is directed at the modern consciousness of the “subject.” Some scholars even think that the development of “the Other” is the main positive contribution of postmodernism: The modern notion of “subject” was founded by the French philosopher Descartes, and the postmodern notion of “the Other” was also founded by French philosophers: Emmanuel Levinas, Gilles Deleuze, and Jacques Derrida. Levinas believes that there will be an ethics to speak of only if when the other is acknowledged, and only with an appeal to the absolute other will ethics have an ultimate basis. Ethics is the first philosophy. Deleuze points out that “the Other” contains other possible worlds, other people’s faces, and other people’s words. Late-period Derrida follows Levinas, also thinking that the essence of ethics lies in generosity toward the other, and giving without asking for reward. . . . To treat each other with self-

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less and gratuitous generosity, this is quite different from the respect and exchange of those who “consider each other subjects.”44

From this perspective, Liang Shuming’s ethical idea “consider the other more important than the self ”—his interpretation of Confucian ethics—indeed differs from the emphasis of subjective consciousness, and also differs in meaning from the notion of intersubjectivity. It is an ethics featuring prioritization of “the Other.” This ethics not only stresses acknowledgement of the other, it also emphasizes affection, obligation, and respect toward the other. This kind of respect is based not on exchange, but on “considering the other more important than the self ” in the manner of “overlooking the self,” “sacrificing the self,” and “as if there is no self.” In terms of concern for the concept of “the Other,” Liang Shuming’s ethical ideas hold important significance. Since Max Weber, Confucian ethics have become the core topic in the discussion of Chinese cultural tradition and modernity. Yet the concepts of Weber and Parsons have gradually been superseded by others. For instance, some scholars have already pointed out that Confucian ethical thought is by and large not modern, but this definitely does not mean it is bad, because modern ethics has both insurmountable limits and fatal weaknesses.45 We have diligently pursed modernization for the last hundred years—this is certain. However, the development of the instrumental rationality of modernity and the popularity of utilitarianism have greatly dissolved the significance of pursuit of human realization and the common good of society; this aspect of modernity requires further reflection. Indeed, if Liang Shuming’s interpretation is reasonable, then even if Confucian ethics has the characteristics and meaning of prioritizing the other, it does not mean that Confucian ethics inherently aims to counter modernity. However, regarding the importance and relevance of Liang Shuming, on the one hand, he did not see the relationship of the traditional and the modern as simply that of the not-yet-evolved and the evolved.

Shen Qingsong 沈清松, Duibi, waitui yu jiaotan 对比､ 外推与交谈 [Comparison, Extrapolation, and Conversation] (Taibei: Wunan tushu wenhua gongsi 五南图书文 化公司, 2002), 11–12. 45 Shih Yuan-Kang 石元康, Cong zhongguo wenhua dao xiandaixing: dianfan zhuanyi? 从中国文化到现代性: 典范转移? [ From Chinese Culture to Modernity: A Paradigm Shift?] (Taibei: Dongda tushu gongsi 东大图书公司, 1998), 106. 44

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Liang was suspicious always of the ethical consciousness of modernity, and critical of modernity’s promotion of the concept of rights. Furthermore, his emphasis of Chinese traditional ethics contains a cultural attitude of pluralism and reasonable ideas. If one reconsiders the postmodern significance of Liang Shuming’s interpretation of Confucian ethics, then the single standpoint or perspective of the modernization theory is even less capable of dealing with the relationship between the traditional and the modern. Thus, given the above points, it is difficult to label Liang’s Confucian ethical thought as “traditional” or “modern.” It is neither purely traditional nor purely modern. It is both traditional and modern, and even linked to the postmodern. This demonstrates that we need a wider theoretical perspective to examine and understand the problem of “traditional” and “modern.” On the other hand, regardless of whether Liang’s understanding of Confucian ethics is comprehensive or reasonable, the merits and flaws of Confucian ethics will inevitably appear during the construction of Chinese modernity. They will manifest the various cultural aspects of China over the last one hundred years, and endow modern China, as one modernity among a plurality, with particular development characteristics. Liang Shuming’s interpretation enables us to, with greater self-awareness, examine and understand the unfolding of experience. Of course, Confucianism is certainly not the only traditional force influencing the Chinese modernization process, and even the influence of Confucianism sometimes combines with other forces. Thus the direction of modernity is not solely determined by the influence of Confucianism. However, we definitely can see clearly the influence of classical Chinese cultural traditions on the construction of Chinese modernity.

THE BASIC FORM, ACTUAL FORM, AND POTENTIAL FORM OF NEO-CONFUCIANISM: CONSIDERING THE HISTORICAL FUNCTION AND PRACTICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF NEO-CONFUCIANISM Liao Kebin Translated by Chloe Garcia-Roberts and Adrian Thieret I. The Significance of the Historical Function and Contemporary Value of Neo-Confucianism1 We generally believe that the ability to think is a basic human trait, and therefore we emphasize that thought and culture are of great significance and value to humanity, yet when analyzing and evaluating various ideological and cultural forms, we frequently adopt an attitude of snobbish utilitarianism. Using this attitude, rather than evaluate an ideological or cultural form according to its contents per se, we evaluate it based upon the rise or decline of its corresponding economic, political, and social forms. When the economy is prosperous, the state is strong, and the society is stable, people tend to think that the corresponding ideological and cultural form is both important and superior. When the economy is backward, the state is weak, and society is unstable, then people tend to think that the corresponding form of thought and culture is unimportant and degenerate. Since the modern era, the attitude adopted by the majority of Chinese people and foreigners toward traditional Chinese thought and culture is a typical example of this snobbish utilitarianism. In the modern era, China has faced severe domestic and foreign troubles, and in the areas of science and technology, economics, and military affairs, it has lagged far behind Europe and the United States. While suffering humiliation and hardship, the Chinese people began to wonder about the reasons behind these negative circumstances. The people first believed that China was underdeveloped primarily

1 “Neo-Confucianism” throughout this article refers specifically to lixue (理学), the main school of Confucian thought of the Song and Ming dynasties.

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because little importance had been attached to technology and industry throughout Chinese history. Thus began the Qing Westernization movement (洋务运动). However, China’s loss to Japan in the 1894 Yalu River naval battle heralded the failure of this movement. Consequently, people thought that China’s key problem was its political system, and so in 1898 they started the political reform movement, known as the Hundred Days’ Reform. However, this reform movement ultimately failed, and the people then thought they had to undertake a political revolution, overturn the monarchy, and build a republic. This led to the 1911 Xinhai Revolution. Yet following the revolution, China’s situation did not change for the better. Instead, it grew worse. Consequently, people thought that the underlying problem must be Chinese culture. They thought that the fundamental reason for China’s backward status was that Chinese culture itself was backward. In other words, they believed that Chinese culture throughout history had been backward and degenerate, and that traditional Chinese culture was principally responsible for China’s present underdeveloped state. Furthermore, they believed that unless traditional Chinese culture was fully destroyed or fundamentally reformed, China was doomed. This viewpoint led to the May 4th Movement. In the hundred years since, the May 4th tradition has been upheld as orthodox, and its criticisms of traditional Chinese culture have been widely accepted. Because Confucian thought occupies an important place within traditional Chinese culture, it borne the brunt of the tides negating traditional Chinese culture. Song and Ming dynasty Neo-Confucianism was once considered the orthodox school of late period Confucian thought, and moreover seemingly had a more direct relation to China’s underdeveloped state in the modern era. Therefore, it became a particular target of mass criticism. In the majority of modern commentary on Chinese history and culture, Neo-Confucianism is portrayed as worthless garbage or the source of all evil. As I discuss below, this criticism is to a large extent actually just emotional venting, not rational evaluation. Its argument principally relies on the underdeveloped state of science and technology, economics, and military affairs in modern China. Therefore, it is a typical attitude of snobbish utilitarianism. Interestingly, in recent years, following the rapid economic rise of East Asia, and especially the fast economic development of China, people’s attitudes toward traditional Chinese culture and especially their evaluations of Confucian thought, including Neo-Confucianism, have begun to ease. Even some positive affirmations have appeared.

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This type of evaluation seems completely opposite to the fierce negation of the past, yet the affirmation and negation both arise from a similar vein of thinking. Both judge the superiority or inferiority of thought and culture by the success or failure of science and technology, economics, and military affairs. In other words, this is still an attitude of snobbish utilitarianism. Regardless, Neo-Confucianism remains an important link in Confucian thought, and consequently it is an important component of traditional Chinese ideological culture as a whole. Presently as we investigate the ideological resources of China’s modernization and arrange and reevaluate the historical function and contemporary value of traditional Chinese culture, we cannot sidestep the historical existence of Neo-Confucianism. In other words, people have always believed that Neo-Confucianism was the most degenerate link and most negative part of Confucian thought, and have, since the Song dynasty, negated Neo-Confucianism while accepting Confucianism. If we can successfully formulate a rational explanation of the historical function and practical significance of Neo-Confucianism, it will doubtlessly be of great significance toward the arrangement and reevaluation of the all Confucian thought and the arrangement and reevaluation of the historical function and contemporary value of the entirety of traditional Chinese culture. II. Three Theoretical Models and Three Forms of Ideological Culture If we wish to free ourselves from a simplistic understanding of the mutual relationship between traditional Chinese culture and the development of Chinese history, and form an accurate and reasonable explanation of the relationship between them and of the historical function and contemporary value of traditional Chinese culture, we must reflect on and reshape our basic train of thought regarding our observations and consideration of this problem. Namely, we must explore the basic theoretical question of the exact nature of the relationship between ideological culture and the development of the economy and society. Because, if we continue to believe in the simple theoretical mode stipulating that the economic base determines the superstructure, social existence determines social consciousness, and social consciousness also functions upon social existence, we will necessarily arrive at an evaluation identical or similar to the viewpoint

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noted above, which has been popular over the past hundred years. One of the basic points of this theoretical model is that ideology can also impact social existence and consequently is responsible for the development of social existence. Thus in this model, the undisputed fact that China has lagged far behind America and Europe in the modern era serves as sufficient proof that traditional Chinese culture is backward and degenerate. Throughout the ages, researchers of cultural and social history have all inevitably touched on the basic theoretical problem of the relationship between ideological culture and the development of social history. After a while, people seemed to believe that these problems have basically been solved. Currently, when people analyze the causes of certain phenomena appearing in the development of social history or judge the historical function of a certain cultural form, they rely on a certain theory regarding this relationship. For instance, for the past hundred years, the majority of mainland Chinese scholars have adopted Marxism’s classic description of the relationship between the economic base, superstructure, and ideology as their theoretical base. This theory seems to have become an axiom. However, in actuality people still do not fully understand the exact nature of the relationship between ideological culture and the development of social history. If we carefully consider this question, then we see many more questions that also require continued investigation. For example, to what extent is ideological culture actually decided by social existence? Is it basically decided by the economic base? To what extent does it impact social existence and the development of social history? Through what type of mechanism and what channels does this function occur? Does ideological culture really have a great affect on the development of social history, and consequently how much responsibility should it bear? If they do not play a large function in the development of social history, then what is their significance? Is the significance of ideological culture then merely its function toward the development of social history, and principally the development of science, technology, and economics? Does it still have independent significance? How can a state have a flourishing economy and a formidable military without necessarily having a developed national ideological culture? Why are states and nations with developed ideological cultures still often defeated by states and nations with obviously backward ideological cultures? How has the extent and method of the function and counter-function of the aspects of social existence and the components of social consciousness

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varied in different historical periods of human social development? And so on. If we do not clarify these basic theoretical questions, we will have difficulty accurately evaluating the historical function and contemporary value of certain specific forms of ideological cultures. In my opinion, there are three general types of theoretical models of the relationship between ideological culture and economic and social development. The first type is the Marxist theory already familiar to us, which emphasizes that the economic base determines the superstructure, social existence determines social consciousness, and social consciousness also functions upon social existence. We can refer to this theory as a theoretical model of “function and counter function.” As an important supplement to the basic framework of this theory, Marx and Engels especially emphasized that one must not mechanically understand or indiscriminately apply this theory. Their emphasis that the economic base is the determining factor only means that over the long-term process of historical development, the economic base often plays an ultimately decisive role. It does not mean that the economic base has a decisive function at all times. In the specific process of social history development, any change in the economic base, superstructure, ideology, and any of their constituent components may have a crucial affect and thus bring about significant change in the complete social structure, a phenomenon which Marx and Engels call the “parallelogram” principle. Even though Marx and Engels supplemented this theory many times, it contains much rich content, and in use can result in various complexities, that its basic framework is “function and counter-function” should remain clear. Similar to this theory of Marxism is the theory of Max Weber. From the 1980s to the beginning of the 1990s, Weber’s scholarship became fashionable in mainland academic circles. He attempted to, through investigation of the different characteristics and different historical functions of the main world religions, explain why social history developed along different paths and to different extents in different regions of the world. He believed that the Protestant ethic formed the nucleus of the capitalist spirit and was the crucial factor leading to the birth and development of Western capitalism. Furthermore, he thought that the doctrine of religions born in the East, such as Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism in China, and Hinduism and Buddhism in India, contradicted the capitalist spirit, and therefore modern capitalism could not possibly have first appeared or quickly developed in those areas where Eastern religions were popular. Compared with the Marxist

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theoretical model of “function and counter-function,” Weber merely placed particular emphasis on the counter-function of ideological culture (including religion) toward the development of social history; his theory fundamentally does not exceed the “function and counter-function” theoretical framework of Marxism. The second type of theoretical model is the “interaction” theory. According to this theoretical model, judging by the course of its genesis, ideological culture is definitely not a resultant factor. And from the standpoint of value and significance, the value and significance of ideological culture does not necessarily manifest primarily in its function toward economic and social development. Ideological culture is a basic marker of the existence of humans as a species, and its principal value and function rests in its ability to satisfy and elevate the demands of human spiritual life. Of course this theoretical model also acknowledges and values the mutual influence of ideological culture and economic and social development, however when examining and evaluating this mutual influence, it stresses the synchronicity, intersection, and multi-dimensionality of the influence. The third type of theoretical model is called the “reciprocal forming” theory. This theoretical model emphasizes that ideological culture and economic and social development not only influence each other, they also at the same time shape each other. Moreover, the influence of ideological culture on economic and social development does not take a fixed, constant form. As the culture influences economic and social development, it is influenced by and also shaped by social and economic development. While it is being formed, this ideological culture also in a particular way exerts new influence on economic and social development. To a certain extent, economic and social development is simply using ideological culture as a medium through which it influences itself. Likewise, ideological culture uses economic and social development in the same way. This theoretical model emphasizes the variability of the form and function of ideological culture itself. The relationship between ideological culture and economic and social development thus appears more complex, although perhaps it is actually closer to historical reality. According to the third theoretical model, in human history every ideological culture has three possible forms: the fundamental form, the actual form, and the potential form. The fundamental form refers to the emergence or derivation of a certain specific theoretical form under particular historical circumstances, according to the evolving

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logic of the development of the ideological culture itself and the joint functioning of various inevitable and fortuitous factors. Actual form refers to the specific actual form that is assumed by the basic form of ideological culture during the reciprocal forming of ideological culture and economic and social development, is generally accepted by the specific historical circumstances, and has a considerable actual function within those historical circumstances. The basic form and actual form of every type of ideological culture are not necessarily identical, and the actual function that arises under specific historical circumstances is also not necessarily identical to the potential function. If the circumstances of social history were different, then an ideological culture could present a different appearance and its historical function could also differ greatly. The other possible forms of an ideological culture are its potential forms. Our previous understanding of the relationship between ideological culture and the development of economic and social history was perhaps excessively rigid and consequently our grasp of the form of ideological culture and the function of economic and social development was perhaps also overly simplistic. The reality is far more complicated than we had imagined, and contains much potentiality and variability. This is one of the main reasons why, when we analyze and evaluate the nature, historical function, and practical significance of a certain specific ideological culture, such as Neo-Confucianism, our analyses often are too superficial and simplistic. If the theoretical model proposed by this text of a “reciprocal forming” type of relationship between ideological culture and economic and social development, and its explanation of the three forms of ideological culture, proves tenable, then it could lead to the creation of new theoretical paradigm for the research of ideological culture. III. The Basic Form of Neo-Confucianism As one of the most important systems of ideological culture in the early stages of the Chinese nation, the Confucianism of Confucius and Mencius, like other important early ideological culture systems, possessed definite characteristics and a high plasticity. All of these early systems addressed nearly every aspect and explored nearly every fundamental question of human social life. Their perspectives were generally wide-ranging and imbued with dialectic spirit, which left a

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huge space open for the interpretations of later generations and foretold the many different possibilities for actual functions. Modern day scholars measure the past according to the present and future, and measure China according to the West. Thus, regarding the role the teachings of Confucius and Mencius have since played in the development of Chinese history, they adopt Western theoretical concepts. Some staunchly believe the teachings of Confucius and Mencius are the haunts of authoritarian thought, others believe the teachings contain abundant resources of humanist thought. Actually these factors all exist within the Confucian thought of Confucius and Mencius. Of course, in my opinion, the dominate tendency of the teachings of Confucius and Mencius is humanism. During the Western Han, the Confucianism of Confucius and Mencius was for the first time completely reshaped. In the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period, after “the contention of a hundred schools of thought” between Confucianism, Mohism, Daoism, Legalism, and others, the earliest ideology fancied by the ruler was not Confucianism. Instead, the Qin court used Legalist thought in order to realize the unification of China, but soon, because of its reliance on law and lack of compassion, it fell. Next, the early Han pursued the study of Daoism and the state was able to recuperate. However, the Xiongnu threat and the “Rebellion of the Seven States” incited by the Wu and Chu states during the early Han both showed that Daoism as a ruling philosophy could not possibly form a state strong enough to resist foreign aggression, nor could it form a central authority strong enough to preserve domestic stability and unity. It was then, after Legalism and Daoism had been successively adopted and proven unsuitable as guiding ideologies, that the ruler finally formally considered Confucianism. Earlier, the ruling family of the Han had made use of Shusun Tong and other Confucian scholars to create rites and music aimed at strengthening the majesty of social class. This already reveals clues regarding which aspects of Confucian thought interested the rulers. During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han, Dong Zhongshu proposed to “exclude all other schools and only respect Confucian learning.” He invoked the “the way of heaven” (天道), including yin, yang, and the five elements, and joined it with Confucianism, thus completing Confucianism’s ontology. He also extracted the Confucian teachings emphasizing class and order, strengthened them, and thereby constructed a political, institutionalized Confucianism with the maxim “heaven does not change, the way also does not

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change” (天不变, 道亦不变) “the three proper relationships” (三纲), and “the eight items” (八目). Compared with the Confucianism of Confucius and Mencius, the Confucian ideology of Dong Zhongshu had already undergone great changes. His new form abandoned or obscured most of the content emphasizing individual freedom in the teachings of Confucius and Mencius, shifted the central focus to social order, and greatly diluted the humanistic aspect of Confucianism. But Dong Zhongshu’s new form of Confucianism was beneficial toward the strengthening of central authority and establishment of social order under an autocratic monarchy. Therefore it was favored by the ruler and then upheld as orthodox thought throughout China’s imperial era. It must be noted that: first, these drastic changes in Confucianism were determined by the specific historical circumstances and social demands of China; the specific realities of social history shaped Confucianism in this way. Second, we must affirm the important historical role that the Confucianism of Dong Zhongshu played in strengthening central authority and maintaining the unity and stability of the country. As for the great unification and centralization advocated by this Confucianism being harmful to the birth of modern democratic thought, all laws necessarily have their drawbacks, and all historical choices yielding significant benefits simultaneously have negative consequences. Third, even after Confucianism was changed by Dong Zhongshu into a politicized Confucianism, it still retained a definite humanistic element. For instance, its emphasis on “the way of the true king” (王道) limited the power of the autocratic ruler. However, these few humanistic factors surfaced in a more convoluted form, under the name of the ”the way of heaven.” Neo-Confucianism, which originated in the mid-Tang and flourished in the Song, called itself the heir of the Confucian orthodoxy of Confucius and Mencius, and it can in fact be considered a revival of Confucian humanism. As one of the most important links in the history of Chinese ideological culture, Neo-Confucianism emerged and flourished due to the convergence of a variety of factors. First, after the mid-Tang, the central government grew weak, the state was actually divided into compartmentalized factions, and the people called for unification, so an ideology beneficial to unification was desperately needed. Second, during the Song dynasty, the state was weak, it constantly endured great pressures from the minority regimes of the North, and to bolster national morale it urgently needed an ideology emphasizing orthodoxy and defense against the barbarians. Additionally,

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since the Wei and Jin dynasties, Buddhism and Daoism had alternated in popularity. Confucian thought was hardly visible at that time, for its ideological structure did not accord with the social structure and needed significant readjustment. The two schools of Buddhism and Daoism, and in particular the development of Buddhism, provided a resource for the resurrection of Confucian thought. Furthermore, the Song implemented a policy giving preferential treatment to intellectuals, which created fairly comfortable conditions for intellectuals, allowing them to engage in philosophical contemplation, historical research, and the production of literature. All of these factors contributed to the rise of Neo-Confucianism. However, aside from these, the rise of NeoConfucianism should still have had an even more profound historical inevitability. Intellectual history is to a large extent the evolutionary history of the market of ideas. Every idea is a type of product, and they all arise to meet a certain social demand. Historically, major systems of theory and thought have emerged frequently due to certain basic, universal problems presented by social development that required prompt answers from the intellectual world. The rise of Neo-Confucianism is no exception. At basically the same time as the rise of Neo-Confucianism, Chinese society underwent two significant changes that deserve our special attention. The first of these was a change in social structure. After the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States period, and particularly after the Qin and Han, the recommended appointment system of civil service (推荐任官制) replaced the hereditary system (宗子世官制). The patriarchal system of the three dynasties (Xia, Shang, and Zhou) was destroyed, and the differentiation between major and minor bloodlines gave way to a class differentiation between aristocratic nobility and impoverished commoners. After the mid-Tang, and in particular since the Song, the social structure formed by the class division of nobles and commoners was destroyed. Aside from the small number of imperial descendents, relatives, and accomplished ministers, the aristocratic class gradually disintegrated, and a new social structure formed around the four classes of the literati (士), farmers, workers, and merchants. Class mobility increased, and in general the distribution of power and wealth grew more equal. The imperial civil-service examination system replaced the recommended appointment system, and large numbers of intellectuals from the lower classes entered the literati class through the imperial civil-service examination system. The power and wealth originally enjoyed only by the small nobility was

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then also enjoyed by many intellectuals of poor origins. Furthermore, the various pleasures originally monopolized by the nobility were then freed from their mansions and available to all of society. The second important change was an economic change in society. After the mid-Tang, and especially after the Song, China basically completed the relocation of its economic hub from west to east and from north to south. In southeastern China, agriculture, handicraft industry, and commerce all developed rapidly. From the Song dynasty, the division of commercial and residential districts within cities (城市 坊市制) was abandoned, and urban economies achieved high levels of prosperity. Market demand and competition drove the emergence of many types of consumption methods and the continual improvement of various consumer products, which in turn greatly stimulated the people’s consumption desires. These changes in social structure and economics led to a change in the entire way of life in society. This change then also gave rise to great changes in the people’s thought patterns and life ideals, and greatly impacted former perceptions of life, ethics, and morality as the people’s original views on life, ethics, and morality no longer suited the reality of this new social life. The relationship between the individual and society, in particular the relationship between the individual’s perception (the physical) and rationality (the spiritual) became a new concern, and the contradictions between the two grew particularly acute. I believe Neo-Confucianism emerged from this historical background, and these circumstances formed the fundamental reason for its rise and prosperity. The central problem of Neo-Confucianism is that of the relationship between perception (the physical) and rationality (the spiritual). Its mission was to, under the new historical conditions, construct a new set of life ideals and ethical and moral views concerning questions such as those of the relationship between the physical and spiritual and between the individual and society, in order to satisfy the needs of the entire society. IV. The Actual Form of Neo-Confucianism Against this historical backdrop, Neo-Confucianism had a choice between two possible development directions. It could have affirmed the rationality of the people’s various new perceptual desires and with this foundation constructed new ethical and moral norms for society.

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All ethical and moral standards contradictory to the people’s new perceptual desires would have therefore be considered irrational and immoral. This approach would have adapted and yielded the people’s innate rationality to these new senses in order to mitigate the tense relationship between perception and rationality and form a new harmonious relationship between them. If Neo-Confucianism had developed in this direction, it would have created a new set of life ideals and ethical and moral norms for society, ushering in a new way of social life and consequently triggering a fundamental transformation of society leading to a new social structure and new social institutions. However, as I said earlier, every system of thought is produced by and exists within a particular historical context, and has an interactive relationship with that historical environment. This type of interactive relationship is extremely complex and subtle, and not at all straightforward. In the frequent clashes between thought systems and historical environment, both sides make certain adjustments, however these adjustments are not always improvements. The capability of a system of thought is key to how large an impact it can have on its historical environment. The emergence of an outstanding thinker can increase the capability of a certain ideological system, but the capability of the system is ultimately determined by its actual foundation in society. Therefore, in the interaction between a system of thought and historical environment, the historical environment occupies the dominant position. During the Tang, Song, and the several later dynasties, China was still an immense empire ruled under a monarchical system. The small-scale peasant economy formed its main mode of production, meaning that the majority of society’s members, although in close proximity, remained distinct, not united. Their lack of a social network and lack of grass-roots democracy prevented the formation of a strong voice. The central government of the autocratic monarchy still firmly controlled the entire country. One important characteristic of this type of system is that it enforced absolute control of its large population and land in order to guarantee the interests of the ruler and other entrenched beneficiaries. The adoption of a new mode of production can perhaps raise the productivity of an entire society, but it also comes with the need to adjust social institutions and form a new social system, i.e., a new system of profit allocation. Therefore, the wealth of society as a whole would increase and the majority of society’s members would benefit. However, the interests of the monarch and other entrenched beneficiaries may not benefit,

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and in contrast may actually be harmed. And, if this development trend continued, it could even possibly threaten the foundation of their existence. For this reason, the ruler and other beneficiaries of China’s autocratic monarchy were naturally uninterested in changing society’s mode of production and lifestyle, which is to say they instinctually rejected it. Without great external pressure, extenuating internal circumstances, or a combination of these endangering the existence of the monarchical system, the beneficiaries of the system will not propose or accept any demands for reform. We can imagine for a second, that if the entire society was committed to pursuing the satisfaction of their perceptual desires and seeking material benefits, it would then certainly value industry and commerce, thus increasing the mobility and contact between the members of society. This directly contrasts with the desire of the ruler to preserve the diffuse status of society’s members beneficial to autocratic rule. The development of industry and commerce creates economic power, which also conflicts with the autocratic ruler’s intent to fully emphasize the preeminence of political power in order to maintain his absolute personal power. The public prioritization of the satisfaction of their perceptual desires poses a challenge to the various former moral norms and ideological concepts, impacting social units of society such as the family and clan, which form the theoretical basis and social foundation of the monarchy. And so on. In short, as long as the autocratic monarchy established upon the small-scale peasant-economy-based production mode still strictly controlled the entire country, historical circumstances could not permit Neo-Confucianism or any other ideological system to develop in the direction discussed above. Consequently, Neo-Confucianism could only develop in a different direction. Namely, it had to emphasize that perception (the physical 肉 体) must accept restriction by rationality (the spiritual 精神), as well as emphasize that perception must approach rationality. Through these methods, it hoped to dispel the tension between perception and rationality, and return them to a state of relative harmony. This proposal suited the historical circumstances of that time, helped to maintain the social order and social system, and were in accordance with the intentions of the ruler. Therefore, Neo-Confucianism was gradually acknowledged and utilized by the autocratic ruler, and grew in popularity throughout the entire society. It was popular for nearly one thousand years and had many sects, each with their own slightly different viewpoints, but generally the guiding principle of “uphold heavenly

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principle, extinguish human desire” (存天理, 灭人欲) was upheld by all. Of course, no relatively lucid Neo-Confucian scholar has ever negated the rationality of basic physical (perceptual) desires. The human desire they strive to “extinguish” is merely that of avarice. Also we should note that the Neo-Confucian proposal to “uphold heavenly principle, extinguish human desire” applies to all members of society, and was especially directed toward the monarch, nobility, and literati class, because only they were genuinely able to pursue an extravagant life of pleasure. However, as with other slogans shouted loudly and widely in other times and other places, this proposition when put into practice actually resulted in few restrictions on the monarch, nobility, and literati. Instead, it became an implement used by the ruler to deprive the commoners from enjoying even the most basic of rights. This is an unquestionable fact. Researchers who specialize in Neo-Confucianism, and in particular those who focus on a certain Neo-Confucian sect or thinker, have the ability to spin straw into gold, closely analyze and differentiate, and magnify certain aspects of Neo-Confucian thought for detailed observation and explanation. This has had a positive significance on our ability to fully and precisely grasp of the actual features and characteristics of Neo-Confucianism. This approach is similar to the procedure used in gene sequencing: first the subject is divided into several sections, these are individually observed and described, and then this information is reassembled into a relatively complete map of the gene. However, this approach can easily result in errors of judgment. For example, one might excessively magnify a certain element, mistakenly regard a hair as vertebrae under the microscope, and ultimately overlook the existence of another actually more important part. Additionally, every one of us has unavoidable limitations. Our limited comprehension ability can inevitably affect our understanding of ancient thought. We also may unavoidably possess motives besides pure academic research that influence our work, we may favor first impressions; and we may act impulsively and force the ancients to agree with ourselves. Consequently, many of the so-called achievements of our specialized research not only fail to elucidate the subject matter, they actually grow increasingly muddled as they explain, unexpectedly further confusing the matter. Some research results are defensible within their limited scope, however when placed against a larger background, we see that they are in fact distortions. Therefore we must soberly realize that along with the so-called increasing detail and depth of research, the probability of repeating long-standing mis-

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takes is also increasing. We must remain vigilant and avoid missing the forest for the trees. Regarding Neo-Confucianism, it is vital that we point out the existence of differences between the ideas of its various thinkers and sects, and also that we emphasize its complex nature, a point this text will attempt to address below. If we attempted to coerce an explanation out of only these partial facts in order to claim that Neo-Confucianism is actually a theory directly advocating individual freedom, this would be difficult for people to accept. In summary, in terms of the real form and real function of Neo-Confucianism in Chinese history, which we call its actual form, Neo-Confucianism definitely restricted the perceptual desires and individual freedom of the people and upheld the existing ethical and moral norms of society and existing social order, thereby impeding social development. V. The Potential Form of Neo-Confucianism From the standpoint of maintaining the existing social order and social institutions, Neo-Confucianism shares the purpose and function of Dong Zhongshu’s Confucianism. Moreover, Neo-Confucianism still attempts to adhere to existing ethical and moral norms and internalize the external demands of society as a kind of personal aspiration in every individual, thus furthering the restraint of people’s perceptual desires. So, why do we continue to say that Neo-Confucianism in a certain sense was the rebirth of Confucian humanism? Actually, this is precisely the reason why. Neo-Confucianism hopes that people will abide by the existing ethical and moral norms of society not because of external social pressure, but because they themselves are willing to do so. It hopes that people, through realization of the so-called way of heaven or out of conscience, will consciously restrain their own selfish desires and maintain compliance with the ethical and moral norms of society. Its focuses on the person, not the social environment. If the people continually engage in self-reflection and analysis of the their own perception and rationality, a tension will emerge between the two. The people will then more clearly understand their own perceptions and rationality, and their subjective rational spirit will grow more independent and self-aware. More than any other theories in Chinese intellectual history, Neo-Confucianism places greater emphasis on the power of subjective rationality. It believes that people’s rationality should dictate their entire consciousness and all of their actions. If we

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say that the Confucianism of Confucius signifies the great awakening of the Chinese nation, then Neo-Confucianism signifies the great awakening of each individual and independent person with that nation. If we say that Confucianism signifies the great awakening of the Chinese people as a unity of the physical (perception) and the spiritual (rationality), then Neo-Confucianism signifies the great awakening of the independent rational spirit of the Chinese people. Therefore, the birth of Neo-Confucianism meant that the independence and self-awareness of the subjective rational spirit of the Chinese nation had reached new heights. This was a result of the development of China’s social history, and also a result of the development of the Chinese people’s rationality and capabilities of thought. Although, this independent and self-aware rational spirit could not immediately begin to function, was still confused regarding its own nature and its future, and was even restricted by the historical circumstances of the time, it actively identified with the existing social institutions and ethical and moral norms. Moreover, the self outlined here, proved its power by controlling its perceptual desires in adherence with the social order and norms. Yet it had a long way left to develop before it would eventually achieve complete awareness and reveal its true appearance. Although for a long time after its awakening, this subjective rational consciousness functioned in support of, and actively served, the established social system and ethical and moral norms, its awakening nonetheless implied to the existing order and norms the emergence of a alien force, and ultimately its appearance was not a positive sign. Because autocratic political systems and their corresponding ethical and moral norms instinctively hope that the public will not think, imagine, or have independent opinions and judgment capabilities, these systems are fundamentally incompatible with the independent and self-aware rational spirit. This spirit does not judge right and wrong according to the established social institutions and ethical and moral norms, rather it judges according to personally experienced and understood standards, namely, the way of heaven and conscience. If the conscience considers something right, then even if Confucius considers it wrong, it remains right. If the conscience considers something wrong, then even if Confucius considers it right, it is nonetheless wrong. In this way, as the established social institutions and ethical and moral norms grow increasingly irrational, this independent and self-aware rational spirit eventually will come to contradict them, thus pronouncing their demise. In fact, in the mid and late Ming dynasty, some of the disciples of Wang Yangming’s xinxue

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(心学) school of Neo-Confucianism followed this line of thinking, raised doubts regarding established ethical and moral norms according to their assuredly self-confident rational spirit, and proposed a new ethical and moral perspective based on the affirmation of the rationality of people’s natural desires. This view severely impacted the established norms. Though its objective function was seemingly in complete opposition to earlier lixue Neo-Confucianism, the intrinsic logic actually was connected. Both schools stressed the independence and self-awareness of the subjective rational spirit, using it as the ultimate standard to judge right and wrong, good and bad, and to control the actions of the self. Although because it suffered the restrictions of its social historical environment and the influence of various chance factors, this ideological trend soon died out, it demonstrated the developmental direction of this independent and self-aware rational spirit. In summary, the basic character of Neo-Confucianism was its proposal of the independence and self-awareness of the subjective rational spirit, which on a higher level is the emphasis of human independence and freedom. This is precisely why we call it a revival or even a development of the humanism in Confucius’s Confucianism. However, as a result of the restrictions of the historical circumstances of the time, for a long period of history, its actual function was contrary to its aims. This is simply inconceivable, yet it did indeed happen. The intertwined mutual influences and interactions of historical circumstances and ideological development here resulted in an odd and lamentable scene. VI. The Possibility of a Modern Value for Neo-Confucianism The above description of the basic, actual, and potential forms of NeoConfucianism should be considered a specific case analysis and a concrete application of these three forms, which apply to every ideological culture. The birth and popularity of Neo-Confucianism had a profound historical inevitability; all of the questions that it confronts and attempts to solve are the critical theses raised by history. It contains an extraordinarily rich cache of ideas, and possesses tremendous ideological potential, but it was restricted by the specific production mode and political system of the time, and so in actual society manifested in a particular form. Therefore, Neo-Confucianism itself is rife with contradictions and its character is extremely complex. Later generations

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have been unable to agree on how to evaluate Neo-Confucianism and at times have reached widely divergent conclusions. The disagreement is basically due to excessively simplistic understandings of the relationship between ideological culture and the development of social history, as well as of the form of the ideological culture itself. Moreover, it has been believed that each ideological culture has only one solitary form and so its various forms have been discussed as one. The majority of people emphasize only the negative role that Neo-Confucianism played throughout a long period of history, only paying attention to its actual form, and not considering its potential form. Consequently, they deem the nature and historical function of Neo-Confucianism to be negative. A few researchers seem to have realized that Neo-Confucianism also has an intrinsic true essence and character, i.e., its potential form, yet they ignore or even consciously avoid its actual form, and singlemindedly seek to defend Neo-Confucianism. When examined from their particular perspectives, these analyses and evaluations all have real or theoretical bases and seem reasonable. However, when examined as part of the big picture, they are all biased and incomplete. Only by distinguishing its basic form, actual form, and potential form, individually examining them, and then synthesizing the observations, can we comprehensively and accurately evaluate the nature, historical function, and modern significance of Neo-Confucianism. Affirmation of the existence of the potential form of Neo-Confucianism is a basic precondition for discussion of Neo-Confucianism’s modern value. I believe that Neo-Confucianism, as an important part of China’s traditional ideological culture and a product of so many intensely dedicated and excellent scholars, definitely contains profound ideological resources still of great value to modern society. The central of these is Neo-Confucianism’s quest for the independent and self-aware subjective rational spirit. Because of China’s two thousand year history of unified centralized authority and autocratic monarchy, which both instinctively reject and suppress the independence and self-awareness of the subjective rational spirit, the Chinese nation was not able to easily realize this independence and self-awareness. Under these circumstances, the emergence of Neo-Confucianism philosophy championing the spirit is no less impressive than a tiny flower blooming underneath a sheet of iron. The distortion and corruption of Neo-Confucianism is also not hard to understand. Despite the form it actually took, Neo-Confucianism’s original tendency to champion the independence and self-awareness of

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the subjective rational spirit is nevertheless laudable. Even today, the Chinese nation has still not satisfactorily realized this objective, and there still remains a long and difficult road ahead. Yet the realization of the independence and self-awareness of the subjective rational spirit is a basic condition for the establishment of a modern democracy and a modern civilized society. Under these new historical conditions, we must energetically strive to attain it. The valiant, progressive spirit of Neo-Confucianism that advocates the independence and self-awareness of the subjective rational spirit, and its convictions promoting selfreflection, self-awareness, self-discipline, and self-respect, are all worthy of our adoption and further development. Of course, we must also take note of and learn from the ways in which Neo-Confucianism deviates in its advocacy of independence, self-awareness, and the subjective rational spirit. At this point, we encounter and must address a formerly inconsequential problem. Neo-Confucian thought emerged over one thousand years ago and has been left in limbo for a long time since. If we now say that after rediscovery and additional interpretation, it can supply a valuable ideological resource for the construction of contemporary humanism, people will inevitably have doubts. These suspicions arise from the long-held and severe misunderstandings people have of how the humanities develop, which were formed by the influence of science on the people in the modern era. Namely, they mistakenly think that the ideas of the humanities resemble the achievements of scientific research, in that they are quickly outdated or superseded by new achievements. Owing to the increasing influence of science in people’s lives, science occupies the paramount position in their minds. Thus science has not only changed people’s ways of life, it has also changed their modes of thought. People do not use scientific modes of thought merely to consider scientific questions; they have gradually grown accustomed to using scientific modes of thought to consider all of life’s questions, including research questions in the humanities. However, the development rules of science and the humanities are in fact very different. If we liken scientific development to a train speeding down an infinitely long track into space and time, then the humanities resemble a group of people dancing around a fire. The object of scientific research is the natural world and new research results are achieved every day. Later scientific achievements signify the negation and eclipse of previous achievements and therefore their effectiveness is confined to a certain time period. Results from the distant past are

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definitely already outdated and should be eliminated in favor of newer, better results, and the results of latter thinkers clearly surpass those of the ancient sages. The humanities differ, in that the principal subject of research is humanity itself, and in particular the spiritual world of humanity, where changes are exceedingly slow. Since the birth of the humanities, its research has been entirely confined to questions such as the nature of the relationship between human perception and rationality, the nature of the relationship between human freedoms and responsibility, the meaning of life, and the treatment of death. People of different eras raise different positions and perspectives in accordance with the social reality confronting them and their particular individual experiences, a process analogous to throwing kindling on a fire, feeding it so it may continue to burn without extinguishing. People will probably never be able to fully resolve these questions, and more contemporary opinions are not necessarily more brilliant than those of the ancients. Presently the scientific knowledge of middle school students certainly exceeds that of the celebrated scientists of old, however we cannot be certain whether contemporary humanities scholars’ understanding of human life and society exceeds that of the ancient sages. The contemporary scientist may respect the scientists of antiquity, but this respect is generally just an affirmation of their predecessors’ historical role in the development of a certain scientific field. The specific of opinions of the ancient scientists have long been eclipsed or negated. The humanities scholar respects the ancient masters in the humanities, not only because of their historical function, but also because their many opinions can still give us important inspiration today; the more the old classics are read, the more they yield new interpretations. Therefore, sciences and the humanities esteem their respective predecessors for different reasons and to different extents. Furthermore, those engaged in the research of natural science often do not understand humanities researchers’ esteem for their predecessors and the classics, because they do not understand the differences between these two fields. In summary, the different research objectives determine the differences in the development patterns of the humanities and the sciences. Neo-Confucian thought, born in China over a thousand years ago, can, just like other ancient ideological systems born in other corners of the world, provide wisdom for the construction of contemporary humanism.

INDIVIDUAL IDENTIFICATION AND THE REALM OF MORAL CHARACTER Liu Dong Translated by Chloe Garcia-Roberts and Adrian Thieret Ever since Chinese people have begun to adopt Western divisions of knowledge, they have tried to reclassify “classics, histories, masters, and anthologies” (经, 史, 子, 集), four categories from the traditional Chinese “order of things” (事物秩序), into the imported disciplines of “literature, history, and philosophy” (文, 史, 哲). From this arose a kind of “philosophy” based on modern Western individualism, focused on the creation of knowledge, and functioning as a special academic branch governing ideology. This philosophy wholly superseded the former model of classical learning, which had relied on repeated recitation for propagation and functioned as a kind of cultural self-replication. Consequently, specialized study of ancient ideology monopolized by a few professional elite has replaced the normal instruction on Confucian civilization that had been used by the general public in all of their daily interactions (伦常). In my opinion, this is the most significant and latent great change that has occurred in modern China. Because, from this point onward, the truly severe challenge that we face is not that of the West per se. Rather, it is our need to learn how to use Western modes of thought and knowledge production in order to comprehend the challenge of the West. Moreover, our incessant study has already displaced our original point of departure, and has turned and obliterated our subjectivity. Thus, the very existence of the academic field of “the history of Chinese philosophy” is sufficient to arouse relatively complicated feelings. Without a doubt, this professionalization of academia, with each department having its own duties, could perhaps allow us to gain more detailed knowledge than our ancient predecessors with regard to the detailed understanding and systematical grasp of ancient thought. And, in this sense, it is the existence of “specialists in the history of Chinese philosophy” that helps us realize that the flame of Chinese culture has not yet been extinguished. However on the other hand, when tradition is lost in the competitive and deliberate pursuit by academics to seek

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new things in their own names, it loses its vitality and can no longer bear new ideas. The field of “the history of Chinese philosophy” has already been greatly isolated from actual social life, and as a result, every newly discovered scroll of uncertain implication and every minor school that has not yet been sufficiently researched incites the interest of those scholars who describe the traces of intellectual history. The only thing here that is consciously forgotten is the question of whether the history of Chinese thought still continues today. In fact, if we stop rapaciously and predatorily exploiting our ancient inheritance, and instead familiarize ourselves with this habitable and welcoming tradition using a more natural attitude, then we would discover that surprisingly it is precisely those texts from which all meaning has seemingly already been extracted that actually possesses the greatest power to move the spirit. Moreover, perhaps it is precisely these simple and common caches of ideas, and not the excavated rarities, that truly form the constant (常) of Chinese civilization. In this sense, once we understand that the study of the classics is the study of the classics, and cannot and should not be changed into philosophy, especially this modern form of philosophy that encourages dissenting voices to speak out, we will be able to at the very least confront the danger of the present loss of people’s hearts and minds. In order to demonstrate this academic possibility, I would now like to begin with the famous paragraph of the Great Learning (大学): The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the kingdom, first ordered well their own States. Wishing to order well their States, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things. Things being investigated, knowledge becomes complete. Their knowledge being complete, their thoughts were sincere. Their thoughts being sincere, their hearts were then rectified. Their hearts being rectified, their persons were cultivated. Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their States were rightly governed. Their States being rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made tranquil and happy.1

1 James Legge, Confucius: Confucian Analects, The Great Learning & The Doctrine of the Mean (New York: Dover Publications, 1971), 357–359.

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This of course is a piece of intellectual history that even small children can recite. However, has the intellectual treasure contained within it really already been exhausted? Fairbank in his book The United States and China once took direct aim at this paragraph: The growth of science was also inhibited by the Chinese failure to work out a fuller system of logic whereby ideas could be tested by ideas, by confronting one statement systematically with another. Philosophers assumed that their principles were self-evident when stated. They made less distinction than the Greeks between grammar and rhetoric, and therefore between abstract and concrete or general and particular. Chinese writers relied more heavily on general ideas of proportion, the balance of opposites, and the harmony of the natural order. Their famous method of chain reasoning, which was a clincher for Chinese scholars of twenty centuries, was from the Greek point of view a fancy series of non sequiturs.2

Therefore, according to the differences between the Chinese and Greek modes of thought, if there indeed exists an all-encompassing, traceable thread connecting them, what manner of thought is it? According to Fairbank’s understanding, that great but impractical section of the Great Learning discussing the “eight orders” (八条目) frivolously touches upon a series of categories (such as things, knowledge, meaning, heart, body, family, kingdom, everything under heaven, and so forth), yet these things should actually be subordinate to rigidly compartmentalized subjects such as physics, biology, psychology, pedagogy, sociology, and political science. Consequently, it seems quite obvious that the author of the Great Learning must be speaking whimsically and without thought. However, if we take the entirety of the text and read it all together, actually this paragraph is preceded by the line, “what the Great Learning teaches, is—to illustrate illustrious virtue; to renovate the people; and to rest in the highest excellence.”3 And afterwards it also has the summarizing line: “from the Son of Heaven down to the mass of the people, all must consider the cultivation of the person the root of everything besides.”4 Therefore, we realize that the information the text wishes to convey is relatively certain. This type of endlessly accumulating extrapolation in fact is not at all related to the modern

John K. Fairbank, The United States and China 4th edition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979), 76–77. 3 Legge, 356. 4 Ibid., 359. 2

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academic subject classifications; it is only concerned with the question of cultivating the self, which had always occupied the ancients. And that, at least to Chinese thinkers, is the basis of the moral cultivation that makes humans human. Therefore, in my opinion, the meaning of this section does not even resemble what it seems at first glace: a section that can be roughly divided into two independent parts, the “inner sage” (内圣) and the “exterior king” (外王), similar to Goethe’s “apprenticeship years” and “traveling years,” as if under the modern education system, children were human products first assembled by schools, then sent and planted into increasingly complex social units outside of the family cell. Actually, the effortlessly interlinked tone of the ancient Chinese people originally held a benefit we have since forgotten. It was able, in a series of unquestionable and forceful admonishments, to simply and directly scan over one’s continuously expanding lifetime, and then cease in a similar indubitable and sudden manner. It thus demanded that one reread and recite this original foundation, thereby planting its teachings solidly in the mind. The size of the social unit being drilled did not matter, for all of them were working towards this same goal of self-cultivation. Likewise, this section also definitely does not imply a series of sharply divided stages of human life, i.e., first gaining and later spending, or first benefiting and later sacrificing, in a way similar to how we are divided in contemporary society, where the reproduction of labor is increasingly strenuous and so the heaviest responsibilities are all pressed upon those in their prime years. On the contrary, this section of the Great Learning depicts not a complete and unified course for human life, but rather an eternal state of gain and benefit. Yet strangely, even though it has always promoted altruism, Confucianism in essence has always been a “study for the self ” (为己之学). At its heart, Confucianism even goes so far as to regard superficial effort and service as a chance to temper the development of the individual. Furthermore, the more difficult their circumstances and the more complex their situation, the more one will be able to increase the hardness and breadth of their body. However, this “study for the self ” absolutely cannot only be confined solely to the “petty self ” (小我). On the contrary, Confucianism resembles all great religious missions, in that one must devote oneself to continuously breaking through excessively narrow self-awareness. If we say that Confucianism truly has some unique quality, than that

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quality is its desire to traverse the many concentric layers of the self from interior to exterior, leading the individual life into to the gradually broadening realm of life, and thus cause the natural “petty self” to sequentially rise up and become the humanist “great self ” (大我), rather than detach from the human world entirely and attain “notself ” (非我) or “lack of self ” (无我). Following precisely this continuous train of thought, the later thinker Wang Yangming, when deciphering this section of the Great Learning, penned one of his celebrated remarks: “great people take all the things of the universe to be one entity. They regard all under heaven as one family, and China as one person. As for one who separates the self from the other according to bodily shape, he is a petty person.” In this sense, even though the Western universe appears as a fourpart structure of “heaven, earth, man, and spirit” and the Chinese universe appears as a tripartite structure of “heaven, earth, and man,” Confucianism nevertheless still has sufficient strength, with its intellectual background that in a certain sense resembles atheistic existentialism, not to consider the other to be hell. Instead, Confucianism regards the social group as the stairway toward heaven, something through which we can transcend direction and degree, rising, filling in for the absent god, and satisfying our ultimate concerns. As we see, the author of the Great Learning incessantly and eloquently says that the awareness, will, and intent of the individual human must undergo a continuous broadening of the social group—from family, to kingdom, to everything under heaven. Only then is the individual able to progressively widen its own self-identification (自我认同) until it arrives at the point where everything under heaven is one great community in which “the people are my brethren and the things are with me” (民吾同胞, 物吾与也). In other words, Confucian thinkers definitely and firmly believe that the individual human spirit’s potential for development actually resides in intersubjectivity, and that separation from the crowd will prevent attainment of the sagely level of “the same current above and below” (上下同流). This is why, in the description of the Great Learning, “to renovate the people” is written between “to illustrate illustrious virtue ” and “to rest in the highest excellence.”5 Thus, we can deduce that this section of the Great Learning not only promotes moral cultivation from beginning to end, it also, through

5

Ibid., 356.

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successively linking the high realm of human character to the breadth of self-identification, pragmatically stipulates both the certain implication of human character development as well as the intersubjective moral force which drives this development. In this sense, psychological space and social space merge into one. Consequently, in Confucianism, the interior world and the exterior world have never resembled that divided dichotomy within the Western spirit. The more one opens the heart to embrace the even greater realm of heaven and earth, the more closely linked the self and its social community become. Meanwhile, the subjectivity of the self in contrast becomes increasingly rigid, causing the entire realm of human life to undergo a type of synchronous expansion. Additionally, once the individual ascends to what Feng Youlan described as “the realm of heaven and earth” (天地境界) then all the relationships between the heart and things and between the self and others will hopefully no be in opposition. This type of ethical development of individual humanity fundamentally negates the withered, uniform face of morality. The expansion of identification in regards to the investigation of things, the pursuit of knowledge, sincerity, self-rectification, self-cultivation, regulation of the family, governance of the state, and pacifying everything under heaven is a smooth process, unbroken by the rupture, abandonment, and deviation of hardship, pain, and tribulations. Furthermore, the beautiful traces of familial affection and longing for home that linger in our memory our entire lives do not have to resemble the kind of withdrawn penance of a temple or monastery. Thus, the progressive and accumulative process by which Confucianism develops people does not obliterate or dilute the richness and difference of the individual experience, but instead encourages dissimilar modes of individual personal expression. Consequently, this demonstrates a kind of moral practice brimming with the dew of experience and full of vitality. Despite increasing awareness of the value of collective shared existence, the individual still lives for their own unique life. On the other hand, for every man with continuously expanding and enriching self-awareness, though he can never slough off his original individual character or expunge the unique traces of his own small community, the structure of his awareness will inevitably converge with that of others owing to each man’s similarity to all other individuals who are also continuously rising to broader public spaces, and his focal points will increasingly overlap with those of others as well, and from this he will accumulate a basic common understanding for

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the entire society. The common problem of consciousness arising from common enterprise within a common territory allows us to expect the production and extension of this kind of fundamental identification. This kind of fundamental common understanding as “one among many” actually formed the core psychological level of Confucian culture, and moreover it constitutes the inherent reason for the perseverance of Chinese civilization. Therefore, even though there are people who wish to dismember the Confucian literati to form small circles independent of one another, those who have truly received Confucian training know that the expansion of thought cannot be reversed. For example, if an individual ascends to a belief in nationalism, then they definitely will never return to believing in regionalism; if they are able to ascend to a belief in globalism (天下主义), then they definitely will not return to believing in nationalism. Because of this, even though it has been carelessly interpreted as a “family philosophy” (家庭哲学), the purview of Confucianism is definitely not restricted to the family. On the contrary, in the Great Learning, this extrapolation of multiple concentric layers actually clearly reveals that, within the sequential and gradual appropriate broadening of the realm of human character, the significance of the family toward selfcultivation will also continually shift. If, through the outward extension of Mencius’s teaching, “treat your own elders as befits their age, and extend this treatment to the elders of others” (老吾老, 以及人之老), we can easily gain concern for a larger social community, then the glowing affection cultivated within the family can certainly form a psychological motivation for the moral practice of “benevolence is loving others” (仁者爱人). However, if for whatever reason, the heart could not be smoothly extended to the greater living community, then even the valued Confucian emotions of filial and fraternal piety might instead become obstacles to character development. This is precisely the boundary between the Confucian noble person and the Confucian petty person. Even more amazing is that, while nobly striving upwards, this kind of developing identification outlined in the Great Learning contains practical, mandatory progression for the moral cultivation of a concrete individual. Therefore on one hand, the movement from family to kingdom to everything under heaven with each step does indeed bring the advantage of greater knowledge. Thus Confucianism does not oppose, but actually encourages people to gradually leave their homes and countries and to meet, experience, understand, empathize

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with, and even identify with unfamiliar external cultural contexts, thereby broadening their ken and sense of belonging. In this sense, a step-by-step movement toward greater cultural space certainly implies an advantage of moral character. However, on the other hand, this course of Confucian self-cultivation also conversely implies, from a logical standpoint, that the gradual development from “petty self ” to “great self” is a sequential, slow process, and cannot be accelerated by force of will. Therefore, if the individual does not spend the time necessary for self-cultivation, then they would believe that they ascended to the supreme realm of “the same current above and below” relying on merely their own willpower, and would become a rootless wandering cultural ghost living under the tenuous banner of the “international person.” In precisely this sense, we perhaps have not yet fully realized that, even in today’s China in which tradition has been almost completely destroyed, leaving the country to study abroad still poses considerable relative danger to the prolonged upward seeking that is necessary to develop a person. In fact, identification has always been a two-way connection; it cannot be accomplished merely by wishful thinking in the presence of strangers. Therefore, if someone, when drawing strength from their identification for the urgent needs of their character development, suddenly for whatever reason is abandoned in some lonely place, discovers that regardless of language or habits and characteristics, or even skin color and nationality, that others cannot truly identify with him and he cannot truly identify with others, then his character development may suffer constraint and obstruction. The person thrown into this embarrassment will lose that order of regularly expanding concentric circles described by the Great Learning. They will no longer possess any indigenous resources from which there is a true possibility of extracting strength for character development, and they will also lose the actual context from which there is a genuine possibility of drilling social concerns. As a result, even if this person afterwards does not become a moral egoist like Louis XV, who stated “after me, the deluge,” their perspective will at best still remain limited to the tiny realm of family. If this particularism also encompasses us, then the love of Macbeth and his wife in Shakespeare’s play is enough to make us weep! The classical Confucian theory of moral character development perhaps can indeed be spread to the entire world and conform to fit everyone. However, at the very least we can assume that it is definitely

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more applicable to the people within the Confucian cultural domain. This is true because within this cultural circle, “internal restraints” and “external restraints” were originally microscopic, and also individual spiritual convictions were neither hollow nor abstract, and required replenishment with concrete intersubjective content. Therefore, as Chinese people face the previously unheard of problem of population migration, and especially when this migration occurs at that critical moment in their character development, their minds could possibly encounter greater challenges than those encountered by people from Christian cultural backgrounds, and consequently these encounters could produce within them a greater number of handicaps in their moral development. In our view, ruthless empirical evidence has already become fact and, due to the lack of a social group foundation that can provide intimacy, many specific identification scopes have already begun to face difficulties in their normal development, and proper advancement through each phase of character development is severely hampered. Often the individual is compelled to withdraw into the “petty self ” or the “small family” (小家). Furthermore, when the lowly individual moral character formed under this predicament runs up against a public calling contrary to short-term individual benefit, how could that person possibly display a “constant heart” transcending “constant livelihood?”6 Sadly, many first generation immigrants of narrow character are, by a trick of fate, forced to toil at the most spiritually demanding academic research work. Really though, this is one hidden reason why no matter how loudly I warn people to be on guard against the “artificial pidgin academic style,” there will still be some who immerse themselves in and enjoy it. As a prominent social symptom, this phenomenon has and does caution that in our time, “doing scholarly work” has already somehow completely lost all foundation of morality and justice. However, although I bluntly expose this aspect, I really do not intend to stir up among my generation those fierce debates of the past. I only wish to take this opportunity to analyze a few essential ideas of Confucianism for the deserving and promising rising generation. If this section of the Great Learning correctly declares the importance of

6 See Mencius, “Liang Huiwang shang,” section 7: “无恒产而有恒心者, 惟士 为能 . . .”

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concentric social circles to individual people, then it with equal accuracy highlights that once an individual loses the plentiful nourishment of the mother culture, is unable to join and smoothly identify with a greater social group and even perhaps is willing to endure hardship and humiliation for it, the normal character development of the individual faces great danger. It merits reminding that this danger does not in fact only belong to other people; it also belongs to those who wholeheartedly desire to treat themselves well. Since these individuals cannot find any type of cultural motivation above that covering the basic needs of existence, the developmental leeway for this stunted moral character will indeed be tiny! Beijing Grand Lodge (弘庐) September 25–26, 2002

CLASSICAL AND MODERN READINGS OF LAOZI’S ZIRAN Liu Xiaogan Translated by Chloe Garcia-Roberts and Adrian Thieret Ziran (自然) is the core concept of Daoist thought. However, this concept can easily give rise to a variety of understandings and ambiguities. This essay focuses on reading texts related to Laozi, and expounds on the classical meaning of Laozi’s ziran on three different levels. Furthermore, it explores the significance that these three levels of meaning should or could produce in modern society. This essay also asserts that the essential or core significance of Laozi’s ziran is the concept of humanist nature (人文自然). This approach is not adopted for its novelty, but rather to fundamentally reveal and emphasize the basic ideological spirit of Laozi’s ziran and thus avoid various misunderstandings. Also, it is intended to open a possible channel for the application and development of Laozi’s philosophy in modern society. To mention humanist nature in this way almost seems strange, as it is often believed that human culture (人文) and nature are generally at odds, and are sometimes even contradictory.1 The natural world and the world of human culture are completely different, and the domains and methods of the natural sciences and the humanities are likewise different. How is the synthesis of human culture and nature into the single concept of humanist nature possible, and furthermore why is it necessary? Although I only now propose this concept of humanist nature, it has already undergone more than ten years of tortuous exploration and

1 Actually this is not the first proposal of ziran as “humanist nature.” Tan Yuquan once wrote that the ziran of Laozi referred to the ziran of the “man-made world” (人为世界). See Tan Yuquan 谭宇权, Laozi zhexue pinglun 老子哲学评论 [Commentary on Laozi’s Philosophy] (Taibei: Wenjin Chubanshe 文津出版社, 1992), 185. Chen Rongzhuo also stated that “ziran in Daoism is definitely not the wild natural world opposite to the ‘humanist world.’ ” See “Wangbi xing Guo Xiang xuanxue sixiang zhi gongtong　王弼兴郭象玄学思想之共同 [Commonalities between the metaphysical ideas of Wang Bi and Guo Xiang]” Donghai xuebao 东海学报 33 (1992): 131.

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contemplation. Just the word nature, or ziran, alone has complex connotations and significances. In antiquity, what Laozi called ziran, what Zhuangzi called ziran, and what Huainanzi called ziran were all different. And what Song dynasty Confucians called “nature of heavenly principle” (天理自然), was also different. In modern Chinese there are also differences between the significance of ziran in the terms “natural disaster” (自然灾害), “protect nature” (保护自然), “natural state” (自然状态), “spontaneous” (自然而然), and “fresh and natural” (清新自然). If we do not clarify the significance of Laozi’s ziran, how can we further research his philosophy? The academic world seemingly knows that Laozi’s ziran does not refer to the natural world, yet in the past few years some publications on Laozi have nevertheless assumed ziran to mean the natural world. This shows that discussing merely the word ziran itself leaves too much room for misunderstanding, thus rendering rigorous academic discussion essentially impossible, not to mention the accurate understanding of Laozi’s thought or the modern application and adaptation of Daoist ideas. I once considered creating a new vocabulary to describe and define Laozi’s ziran, for example, to use shunran (顺然) to describe Laozi’s ziran and thereby sidestep future misreading of this term as the natural world. However, the term shunran can only explain one aspect of ziran; it does not demonstrate the richness or profundity of Laozi’s ziran. Indeed it is extremely difficult for us to create a new term that would accurately express the ideas of Laozi without creating new misunderstandings. Currently, using the concept of humanist nature is the best plan I have managed to conceive. I propose this concept of humanist nature foremost in order to prevent and eradicate the following misunderstandings: 1) The misunderstanding of Laozi’s ziran as the natural world or as a synonym of Nature. 2) The misunderstanding of Laozi’s ziran as isolated from human civilization or as a state entirely devoid of human effort. 3) The misunderstanding of Laozi’s ziran as the state of primal society in human history. 4) The misunderstanding of Laozi’s ziran as the “state of nature” comprising a war of everyman against everyman as hypothesized by Hobbes. The eradication of misunderstanding sounds negative, yet once misunderstanding has been prevented, we can more distinctively reveal the

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positive significance of Laozi’s ziran. Additionally, this will also help us excavate the modern significance of Laozi’s ziran. Laozi’s ziran is foremost a maximum value; it is what Paul Tilich (1886–1965) referred to as evidence of ultimate concern. It conveys Laozi’s concern for the ultimate state of humanity and the relationship between man and the natural universe. Second, Laozi’s ziran, as an ultimate value, also expresses Laozi’s concern for group relations, namely the real-life relations between different groups of humanity as well as their hopes and expectations regarding the state of their existence. Finally, Laozi’s ziran also conveys Laozi’s concern for the state of existence and development of the various individual human existences. To summarize, Laozi’s ziran expresses an ideal and a quest for the internal and external state of existence of human groups. It is a yearning for a spontaneous or natural (ziran) harmony and order. This value orientation is relatively unique among the various value systems of human culture, and it merits our attention and research. Moreover, it is an appropriate antidote to the various conflicts in modern society. Laozi’s ziran is essentially humanist nature. Though humanist nature is a relatively new concept and a new formulation, the basis for this formulation is not to create a new concept. Rather, the purpose is to reveal the core meaning and significance inherent in Laozi’s philosophy and to help the modern person comprehend its essence with relative accuracy. Below, Laozi’s ziran will be used synonymously with humanist nature. I. The Highest Level of Ziran: Ultimate Concern and Maximum Value Laozi mentions ziran in five places. These five places actually cover the three levels of the totality (总体), the group (群体), and the individual (个体). In other words, they reveal the significance of the highest, intermediate, and lowest levels of ziran. A section of the twenty fifth chapter of Laozi: “man models himself on earth, earth models itself on heaven, heaven models itself on the Way, and the Way models itself on that which is naturally so,” is the most important mention by Laozi regarding the concept of ziran. Throughout history, there have been different readings of this section. In particular, interpretations differ regarding the line, “the Way

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models itself on that which is naturally so.” These different readings have touched on different aspects of the syntactical structure.2 The first approach is the most common reading, namely reading the line as a subject—predicate—object structure, which is to say that man, earth, heaven and the Way serve as the respective subjects of the four phrases, while the word “to model” serves as the predicate verb in all four phrases, and earth, heaven, the Way, and ziran successively serve as the objects of the verb “to model.” The meaning then is that man should follow the example of the principles of the earth, the earth should follow the example of the principles embodied by heaven, heaven should follow the example of the principles of the Way, and the Way follows the principle of spontaneity. In this reading, the phrases are not repetitive, and there is a gradual progression from man to earth to heaven to the Way. Another type of reading follows the above mentioned subject— predicate—object construction in the first three phrases, but considers ziran a predicate adjective in the last phrase, meaning “the self as thus” (自己如此). Hence it takes fa to mean not the verb “to model” but the noun “rule” or “regulation,” and “the rule of the Way” (道的法则) becomes a noun and the subject. This reading , “the rule of the Way— it is the way it is,” can be explained to mean that “the rule of the way” actually is not modeled on anything; it is simply itself. Heshang Gong’s annotations state “the character of the Way is ziran, it is not modeled on anything” (道性自然, 无所法也), which correctly understands ziran (自然) in its original sense. However, from a grammatical standpoint this interpretation is not entirely appropriate because, among the four phrases of this excerpt, fa in the first three phrases is a verb, and only in the final line it is unexpectedly interpreted as a noun. This shift is particularly abrupt and illogical. Additionally, earth, heaven, and the Way are all noun objects, so it is awkward for the word ziran to suddenly become an adjective. Considering this, if the final conclusion of “man models himself on earth, earth models itself on heaven, heaven models itself on the Way” is merely to model the self and nothing more, then could not modeling on earth, heaven, and the Way then be omitted? In a word, taking “the modeling of the Way” (道之法) and describing it as “not modeled on anything” is overly simplistic. The

2 D.C. Lau, tr., Tao Te Ching, (London: Penguin Books, 1963), 82. Modified. The original text: 人法地, 地法天, 天法道, 道法自然.

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Way occupies an extremely important position in Laozi’s thought, and its meaning is extremely rich, how could it possibly be summarized by the phrase “not modeled on anything?” In fact, this reading not only loses the significance of ziran as a nominal concept, it also loses the rich content of the Way itself. In this reading, the sequence from man to earth, to heaven, to the Way, to ziran, is ultimately all modeling of the self, the meaning of each phrase is continuously repeated, and there is a total lack of development. Therefore, this reading is inappropriate in terms of both grammar and meaning. Finally, there is a third approach to reading this text, which alters the punctuation to read the text as “man models himself on that which makes earth earth, on that which makes heaven of heaven, on that which makes the Way the Way, and on ziran” (人法地地。法天天, 法道道, 法自然). This reading understands man as the subject of the entire text, and the four instances of “to model” are all predicate verbs of this subject. The object of these instances of “to model” then are respectively: “that which makes earth earth,” “that which makes heaven heaven,” “that which makes the Way the Way,” and ziran. This was proposed by Li Yue, and later Gao Heng agreed. Li states: Man models himself on that which makes earth earth, that which makes heaven heaven, that which makes the Way the Way, and on ziran. This speaks of modeling the three great natural principles. “Model on the earth of the earth” means for man to carry selflessly like the earth. “Model on the heaven of the heaven” for man to cover selflessly like the heaven. “Model on the Way of the Way” means for man to exist selflessly like the Way. It is like the example of the ruler of rulers, the minister of ministers, the father of fathers, and the son of sons.3

In other words, man should imitate the principle of earth that makes it earth, imitate the principle of heaven that makes it heaven, imitate the principle of the Way that makes it the Way. In actuality, this means to imitate the principle of ziran. However, this reading leads

3 The original text: 人法地地, 法天天, 法道道, 法自然。言法上三大之自然理 也。其义云‘法地地’, 如地之无私载。‘法天天’, 如天之无私覆。‘法道道’, 如道之 无私生而已矣。如君君、臣臣、父父、子子之例也。Note that Li Yue refers to the “Confucius idling at home” (孔子闲居) section of the Book of Rites (礼记), in which Confucius states that “heaven selflessly covers; earth selflessly carries; the sun and moon selflessly illuminate” (天无私覆, 地无私载, 日月无私照). Li Yue 李约 “Daode zhenjing xinzhu 道德真经新注 [ New Annotated Version of the True Classic of the Way and Virtue],” second scroll, in Zhonghua shuju 中华书局: Sibu yao ji zhushu ye kan 四部要籍注疏业刊 Volume 1, 270.

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to the conclusion that in the end, the text is merely saying that the self should imitate the self. According to Li Yue’s interpretation, it is no more than a circuitous way of saying “selfless.” This reading and the aforementioned second approach are the same; they interpret the phrases of the original text as repetitive, each phrase retreading the same ground. Moreover, although the sentence structure of “ruler of rulers, minister of ministers, father of fathers, son of sons” has long existed, if we turn this structure into the sentence object, then it yields the reading “[man] models [himself ] on that which makes the ruler the ruler . . .” and so forth. This reading seems to further complicate the meaning, and although it is not impossible to consider, the syntax is fairly unusual. Given that we have no evidence for this reading prior to Li Yue, this interpretation seems untenable. I advocate adoption of the popular first reading. This approach reads ziran as a noun. However, there is still disagreement regarding its meaning. The question is whether ziran as a noun refers to the natural world. Some people interpret or translate ziran as the natural world, but this is inappropriate. If ziran were the natural world, then it would include the previously mentioned supreme bodies—heaven and earth—and thus the section would be repetitive and illogical. However, according to this reading, in the series including man, earth, heaven, the Way, and ziran, there are not only four “greats;” there in fact appear to be five. This does not fit with the original text of Laozi, which states: “the realm has four greats” (域中有四大). Apart from this, interpreting ziran as the natural world obliterates the social significance of Laozi’s philosophy, simply treating it as a theory that venerates the natural world. I would like to emphasize that ziran here, although it is grammatically a nominal object, still carries the fundamental meaning of an adjective, hence it means “the self as thus,” “spontaneity,” or “naturalness.” This translation highlights the notion that its grammatical function is a noun, though its meaning still originates from an adjective. Read thus, the significances of the Way and ziran are the richest, and moreover no matter how many semantic layers are uncovered, there is no danger of repetition. That ziran in Laozi means “spontaneity,” or “naturalness,” seems to be the common knowledge and understanding among academic circles. Interpreting the word ziran as the natural world is a modern Chinese phenomenon and is not in accord with the ancient meaning of the word. This point did not originally merit discussion, however in recent publications several people have earnestly stated that Laozi’s

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ziran means Nature, interpreting the line “to use words but rarely is to be natural” in the 23rd chapter of the Laozi as “to talk little about Nature.”4 One person also says: What is ziran? It is the ziran of the line ‘man models himself on earth, earth models itself on heaven, heaven models itself on the Way, and the Way models itself on that which is naturally so’ in the twenty-fifth chapter of the current version of Laozi. It is Nature—it is the various phenomena of the natural world: the heavenly bodies, natural disasters, lunar and solar eclipses, cataclysms, and the births and deaths of all living things.5

To so explicitly interpret Laozi’s ziran as the natural world and moreover write it in a book, is absolutely astonishing, as it completely violates common knowledge of classical Chinese. If ziran means Nature, then in the line “models itself on that which is naturally so” means “imitate Nature,” then the content of this phrase is no different from the preceding “man models himself on earth, earth models itself on heaven, heaven models itself on the Way” and the section becomes tautological. Laozi also states, “respect of the Way and esteem for integrity are by no means conferred upon them but rather are always ziran.”6 If ziran is Nature, which is a noun, then “always ziran” becomes an adverb modifying the noun, hence “always Nature.” If we examine other examples of this syntax, such as “always sky” (常天空), “quickly moon” (快月亮), and “very mountain range” (很山脉), this clearly makes no sense. Of the extant classics, the term ziran (自然) first appears in Laozi. None of the relatively early classics such as the Classic of Poetry (诗经), Zuo Commentary (左传), and the Analects (论语) used the term ziran. The basic or literal significance of ziran is “the self as thus.” Originally ziran was a predicate construction formed by an adverb zi (自; self ) added to an adjective ran (然; thus), however as a philosophical concept it could already be employed as noun.7

Lau, tr., Tao Te Ching, 80. The original text: “希言自然.” Yin Zhenhuan 尹振环, Boshu Laozi Shixi 帛书老子试析 [Tentative Analysis of the Silk Manuscript of Laozi]” (Guizhou Renmin chubanshe 贵州人民出版社 1998) 344–342. 6 Victor Mair, tr., Tao Te Ching, (New York: Bantam, 1990), 20. Modified. The original text: “道之尊, 德之贵, 夫莫之命而常自然.” 7 Liu Xiaogan 刘笑敢, Laozi—niandai xinkao yu sixiang xinquan 老子—年代新考与 思想新诠 [ Laozi: An Era of New Investigation and New Thought Interpretation] (Taibei: Dongda Tushu Gongsi 东大图书公司, 1997), 77–79. 4 5

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It is important to note that when ziran was used as a noun, it still signified “spontaneity.” In modern Chinese, the use of ziran as a noun often refers to the natural world or Nature. In classical Chinese, especially in pre-Qin records, when ziran was used as a noun, it still signified “spontaneity” and it did not have the meaning of Nature. In antiquity, words equivalent to Nature were heaven (天), “heaven and earth” (天地) and the myriad of things (万物). Ziran was not used to denote the natural world until much later; the specific origin of this meaning is contentious. Zhang Dainian believes that its use began with the line in Ruan Ji’s Da zhuang lun (达庄论), “heaven and earth arose from ziran” (天地生于自然).8 However, Dai Lianzhang thinks that Ruan Ji “did not call ziran the ultimate aggregate.”9 According to Dai, ziran as meaning the natural world came later. I am partial to this theory. Nevertheless, we still must investigate further to determine exactly when ziran began to clearly denote Nature. It is evident that ziran in the pre-Qin era did not yet have the meaning of Nature. Although the existence of the natural world can represent the state of spontaneity relatively well, this state of ziran cannot be equated with the natural world. The natural world is actual existence, it parallels, contrasts with, or stands in opposition to, human society. In contrast, Laozi’s ziran is a state of the existence of things; when we talk about ziran, it can denote the conditions of the natural world, but in most instances, particularly in Laozi’s philosophy, ziran obviously denotes a state related to humanity and human society. Ziran in Daoism focuses its concern not on Nature, but on the state of existence of human society. Therefore we repeatedly emphasize that ziran in Laozi refers to the concept of humanist nature, not to the natural world. Perhaps these two meanings can coincide to a certain extent, however their implications and referents are definitely not the same. For example, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are both examples of the ziran of the natural world, but they are definitely not the ziran of Laozi’s “the Way models itself on that which is naturally so,”10 or “respect of the

8 Zhang Dainian 张岱年, Zhongguo gudian zhexue gainian fanchou yaolun 中国古典哲 学概念范畴要论 [Outline of conceptual categories of classical Chinese philosophy] (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe 中国社会科学出版社, 1989), 81. 9 Dai Lianzhang 戴琏璋, “Ruanji de ziran guan 阮籍的自然观 [Ruan Ji’s view of ziran],” Taibei: Zhongguo wenzhe yanjiu jikan 中国文哲研究集刊 3 (1993): 310. 10 Lau, tr., Tao Te Ching, 82.

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Way and esteem for integrity are by no means conferred upon them but rather are always natural.”11 The Way of “the Way models itself on that which is naturally so” is the sum origin and sum basis for all the things of the universe, and as such it uses ziran as the object to value, imitate, and manifest. The Way symbolizes Laozi’s ultimate concern, and ziran then is the ultimate value in which this ultimate concern resides. This ultimate value yearns for the totally or fundamentally spontaneous order and spontaneous harmony of human society. This total harmony of human society must of course be in harmony with the natural universe—this point is directly derived from the line “man models himself on earth, earth models itself on heaven.” Additionally, the 51st chapter of Laozi states “respect of the Way and esteem for integrity are by no means conferred upon them but rather are always ziran.”12 The ziran here is a specific description of the Way and virtue, and is also a use of its highest level of meaning. II. The Intermediate Level of Ziran: Concern for the Status of Community Life The second level of value of Laozi’s ziran is manifested in the society of human groups. This level primarily appears in the chapter seventeen line “the common people say of themselves, it is naturally thus.”13 We should address a few discrepancies in regards to this line. This line has historically been interpreted as the common people all saying “It happened to us naturally.”14 This understanding takes the character wei in this line as meaning “to say,” consequently “it is naturally thus” is then marked by wei as a direct speech. Heshang Gong is seemingly the first to read it this way. His annotation reads: “it says the country is at peace. The commoners are unaware of the pure and generous virtue of the ruler, instead believing that they are naturally thus.”15 Seemingly it is the accomplishment of the ruler that the commoners call ziran. Wang Bi seems to ignore who the term ziran is Ibid., 20. Ibid., 20. 13 The original text: “百姓皆谓我自然.” 14 Jiang Xichang 蒋锡昌, Laozi jiaogu 老子校诂 [An Annotated Explanation of Laozi], (Chengdu: Chengdu guji shudian 成都古籍书店, 1988), 113. 15 Wang Bi 王弼, ed., Laozi daodejing heshang gong zhangju 老子道德经河上公章句 [ Laozi’s Daodejing Heshang Gong Chapters],” (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju 中华书局, 11 12

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referring to. His annotation reads: “to be occupied with the business of non-action, implement the unspoken teachings, and not establish things based on form; thus are deeds accomplished and enterprises completed, yet the commoners do not know why it is thus.”16 Here it is unclear whether the people say, “we are naturally thus” (自谓自然) or the people think “the monarch is naturally thus” (君王自然). The Xianger annotations state “I am an immortal. The common people do not imitate me . . . they think I am ziran, when they see me, they are unwilling to hope to imitate me.”17 A typical reader would not endorse the interpretation of reading this “I” as the “immortal.” However, this annotation correctly does not consider “I” the common people or consider the common people the subject of ziran. I believe that the popular understanding represented by the Heshang Gong commentary does not necessarily fit the basic idea of ziran throughout Laozi’s writings. According to the Heshang Gong understanding, ziran is just an expression of the common people thinking that “they are thus.” But in fact, ziran in Laozi possesses a very high status and is not an ordinary descriptive term. The aforementioned phrase “the Way models itself on ziran” already clearly presents ziran as the highest principle. The 51st chapter of Laozi, also cited above, states “respect of the Way and esteem for integrity are by no means conferred upon them but rather are always ziran;” here the term ziran refers to both the Way and virtue. In this line of the 64th chapter, “[the sage] can help the myriad creatures be ziran but dares not to act,”18 the use of the term ziran is related to the sage as well as to the “myriad creatures.” In the chapter 23 line “to use words but rarely is to be ziran,” ziran is also a relatively important positive value. These few lines all demonstrate that ziran is not an ordinary descriptor, but is rather a universal concept and value closely related to the Way, the sage, and the myriad things. Thus the ziran of chapter seventeen, if

1993), 69. The original text: “谓天下太平也。百姓不知君上之德淳厚, 反以为己 自当然也.” 16 Lou Yulie 楼宇烈, Wangbi jijiao shi 王弼集校释 [An Explanation of the Collected Annotations of Wangbi],” (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980), 40. The original text: “居无为之事, 行不言之教, 不以形立物, 故功成事遂, 而百姓不知其所以然也.” 17 Rao Zongyi 饶宗颐, Laozi Xianger zhu jiaodeng 老子想尔注校登 [Collated Xiang’er Annotations on the Laozi ],” (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe 上海古 籍出版社, 1991), 22. The original text: “我, 仙士也, 百姓不学我 . . . 而意我自然, 当 示不肯企及效我也.” 18 Mair, tr., Tao Te Ching, 35. The original text: “辅万物之自然而不敢为.”

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it is in accordance with the general understanding, merely describes that the common people are ignorant of the role of the sage and think themselves successful, which does not conform with the status of ziran as the ultimate value in Laozi. To consider this chapter an exception is likewise inappropriate. Judging from the content, the subject of the narration is the sage, who in the preceding lines “hesitates, he values his words,”19 and whose “task is accomplished and his work done,” not the common people. This is especially true according to the verb-object sentence structure of the bamboo slip and silk manuscript editions, which state “accomplish the task and complete the work” (成事遂功 or 成功遂事). The sentence is left unfinished and must be followed closely by another part, and the content of the two parts must fit together. Consequently, the content of the following text should also relate to “the sage;” it cannot just refer to the common people alone. Therefore, it should mean that the common people are praising the sage’s management method of governance through non-action (无为而治) because it is in accordance with the principle of ziran. The “I” here is the same as in the chapter 20 line “The masses all have more than enough; I alone am bereft.”20 This wording conveys the common people’s esteem for the sage’s governance through non-action while also expressing Laozi’s esteem for ziran. If we say that the sage “values his words” and “accomplishes the task and completes the work” but the common people say they themselves are thus, then the meaning of the text is stilted and difficult to connect. This line uses the term wei (谓; to say) in the silk manuscript version, the Heshang version, and the Wangbi version. However, the original meaning of wei is lun (论; to discuss or to debate). The Shuo Wen (说文) states “wei is to report or to tell” (谓, 报也) and the notes of that section then state “wei is to discuss people and discuss things to obtain the reality of them” (谓者, 论人论事得其实也). The original meaning of wei is “to comment,” as in “the Master said of Gongye Chang, He deserves a wife.”21 This line cannot be understood as “the Master said: Gongye Chang deserves a wife.” Similarly, “the Master

Ibid., 79. Modified. The original text: “犹兮其贵言也. 功成事遂.” Ibid., 83. The original text: “人皆有余, 而我独若遗.” 21 This and the following few examples are from The Analects, book five. See Burton Watson, trans., The Analects of Confucius (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 36. The original text: “子谓公冶长, ‘可妻也’.” 19 20

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said of Nan Rong, If the state is ruled by the Way, he will not be overlooked” cannot be read as “the Master said: Nan Rong, if the state is ruled by the Way . . .”22 Sometimes these misunderstandings seemingly do not alter the original meaning of the speaker, but from a grammatical standpoint they are ultimately incorrect. For example, if “the Master said of Zijian, A real gentleman, this one!” is interpreted as “the Master said: Zijian, a real gentleman, this one!” the meaning seems to stay the same, however grammatically it cannot ultimately be justified.23 Similarly, the chapter 17 line in Laozi “the common people say of themselves, it is naturally thus” should not be interpreted as “the common people say: I am naturally thus.” This usage is identical to the syntax of the line “all under heaven say [of themselves], I am great (天下皆谓我大)” from chapter 67. This sentence should be read as “all under heaven think they themselves are great,” it is not appropriate to interpret it as “all under heaven say: I am great.” The term wei appears in Laozi 33 times and not once is used to mark a direct quote. Instead, when leading up to a directly quoted passage, Laozi always uses yue (曰) or yun (云), which both mean “to say,” or he uses “had this” (有之) or “had words” (有言). To summarize, only if we take wei to mean “to comment” or “to think,” can the line “the common people say of themselves, it is naturally thus” then express the central value of ziran, conform to the meaning of ziran in the other chapters, and comply with the basic grammatical function of the term wei in classical Chinese. However, in the bamboo slip edition, the line appears written using the word yue in place of wei. Does that not mean that the above argument is groundless, and the original version used yue? Is discussion of the meaning of wei completely useless? The reality is not so simple. Classical Chinese characters and grammar developed in a gradual process. Yue is one of the earliest characters, and appears many times in oracle bone and bronze inscriptions. Wei is a later character, and so far has never been found on oracle bones or bronzes. In fact the earliest appearance of the character wei was on a stone-drum inscription (石 鼓文) dating from the Warring States period (ca. 475–221 BCE). That the bamboo slip volume does not use wei here, is probably because at that time, the division between yue and wei was still not explicit or at

22 23

Ibid., 36. The original text: “子谓南容, 邦有道, 不废.” Ibid., 36. The original text: “子谓子贱, 君子哉若人.”

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least not widespread. However, the editor of the silk manuscript volume was probably already aware of the differences between the two terms and therefore he used wei instead of yue. To put it simply, the bamboo slip version uses yue more than wei, but the silk manuscript and later versions of the text obviously use wei more than yue. Chapter 17 of Laozi discusses four types of social management methods and outcomes. The sage is one who implements ziran, or “spontaneous,” management principles and methods, brings about the spontaneous harmony and order, and also attains the highest realm; he is one “preeminent, whose subjects barely know he exists.”24 The lower realms or outcomes then are, successively, the common people’s “affection and praise,” their “fear,” and their “insults.” Obviously, ziran in the line “the common people say of themselves, it is naturally thus”25 does not refer to ziran as nature or as an uncivilized state devoid of human culture. The formulation of the concept of humanist nature reveals with relative accuracy that Laozi’s references to ziran deal with the state of human social existence, not the natural world, or an uncivilized state devoid of human culture. Chapter 17 also touches on the relationship between the sage and the multitude of the common people, i.e., the question of how to handle the relationship between the one who manages society and the multitude of individual existences, as well as the question of the relations between these individual existences. The common people praise the sages for being ziran, namely for being in accordance with the principle of “the Way models itself on that which is naturally so,” or in other words, for achieving a spontaneous social order. On this second level of meaning, the value sought by the humanist nature is spontaneous harmony between the multitude of individuals as well as between those individuals and the ruler of society. This is the intermediate level of significance of ziran, which relates to group relations. The line in the 23rd chapter, “to use words but rarely is to be ziran,” then appears to discuss the sage’s principles of governance, which should also be the ziran of this second level.

24 25

Mair, tr., Tao Te Ching, 79. Modified. The original text: “太上, 下知有之.” Ibid., 65.

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The ziran of the third level can be represented by the chapter 64 line “Thus, he can help the myriad creatures be natural,”26 which emphasizes the ziran of the individual. This chapter is similar in the Heshang version, the Wang Bi version, and the Fu Yi (傅奕) version ; the silk manuscript edition has slight differences; the bamboo strip versions are again different, and the first (甲) bamboo version is different than the third (丙) bamboo version. Looking at the characters in the transcriptions, the third bamboo version is later than the first bamboo strip version. On these grounds we can take the dissimilarities of this chapter and compare them item by item from oldest to most recent. Key changes are underlined. First Bamboo Strip Version: 圣人欲不欲 . . . 是故圣人能辅万物之自然, 而弗能为. The sage desires to not desire . . . for this reason the sage is able to help the myriad things be natural, but is unable to act. Third Bamboo Strip Version: 是以圣人欲不欲 . . . 是以能辅万物之自然, 而弗敢为. Thus, the sage desires to not desire . . . by means of this, is able to help the myriad things be natural, but dares not to act. Silk Manuscript Version: 是以圣人欲不欲 . . . 能辅万物之自然, 而弗敢为.　 Thus, the sage desires to not desire . . . is able to help the myriad things be natural, but dares not to act. Wang Bi Version: 是以圣人欲不欲 . . . 以辅万物之自然, 而不敢为. Thus, the sage desires to not desire . . . in order to/by means of this/and help the myriad things be natural, but dares not to act.

Judging from the above comparison, the differences between the early editions as represented by the first bamboo strip version and the popular editions such as the Wang Bi version are quite apparent. First, the line “. . . able to help . . .” in the ancient books (the first and third bamboo strip versions and the silk manuscript version) uses the character neng (能; to be able), but in the popular volume the character yi (以; and) is used. Neng is an auxiliary verb here and yi is a conjunction. However, in ancient times, neng was sometimes used for the conjunction er (而; and, but), which may be the reason why it was changed in later editions to yi. Second, the first bamboo strip version uses of the

26

Ibid., 35. The original text: “是故圣人能辅万物之自然.”

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phrase funengwei (弗能为; not able to), but the other versions all use buganwei or fuganwei (不/弗敢为; not dare to). In third bamboo strip version, the final characters have already been changed to fugan, which does not correspond with the preceding nengfu. This situation continues until the silk manuscript volume. Here neng and bugan already lack a corresponding relationship, and therefore later editors read neng as a conjunction, and ultimately it is changed into yi. It merits noting that both neng and buneng refer to the ability and identity of the subject, yet gan and bugan refer to attitudes and decisions toward external circumstances. Finally, the first bamboo strip volume in the line “. . . able to help . . .” has the four character phrase shigu shengren (是故圣人; for this reason the sage) preceding it. The second bamboo volume first has shiyi (是以; thus) and lacks shengren (圣人; sage). The other volumes lack all four characters, although before “the sage desires to not desire” (圣人 欲不欲), the other volumes all have the word shiyi. Looking at this section, the first bamboo version is the earliest edition, and it is also the best. This is because: first, the first bamboo version begins with “the sage desires to not desire.” This line is linked to but does not have a direct cause and effect relationship with an earlier line from this chapter, “[the sage] does not act and therefore does not fail” (无为故无败), which on a contextual level makes more sense. Next, the following line “for this reason the sage is able to help the myriad things be ziran” uses shiyi, or “thus,” to link up with and follow the preceding lines, in which the sage “desires to not desire, does not value goods that are hard to obtain, learns not to learn, and reverts to what the masses pass by,”27 so the meaning is relatively coherent. Only because the sage lacks the commoners’ desire for rare goods and does not commit the same mistakes as them, is he “able to help the myriad things,” thus implementing the principles of Daoist behavior. And, “does not value goods that are hard to obtain” is the main content referred to by funengwei. Next, the first bamboo version contrasts the phrase “is able to help the myriad things be natural” with the following phrase funengwei, highlighting the opposition between “able”, or neng, and “unable,” or buneng/funeng. The contrast is distinctive and consistent. The third bamboo version and the silk manuscript version contrast neng with fugan, or “not dare,” and thus lose all correspondence between the two

27 Ibid., 35. Modified. The original text: “欲不欲, 不贵难得之货, 教不教, 复 之所过.”

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terms. Finally in the current edition neng changes into yi or “and.” Yi and bugan lack any contrasting relationship and so the two characters bugan seem rather unexpected. Furthermore, in the line “the sage is able to help the myriad things be natural and is unable to act” in the first bamboo version, the characters neng and buneng could refer to ability, or could refer the requirements of identity, duty, or morality. In terms of the position of the sage, he should have considerable ability and authority to do things, yet here he “is unable to act.” Obviously a Daoist sage’s identity and duty prevents him from doing whatever he pleases, as the commoner can do. Or, his moral standards limit the ways he can act. Regardless, this is all the initiative and decision of the subject himself. However, the use of fuganwei in place of funengwei in the other versions implies a passive and unavoidable attitude of fear of external circumstances or consequences. The first bamboo version expresses a type of positive, vigorous, and active attitude, and the other versions express a passive, forced, and negative attitude. In summary, although there are few differences between the first bamboo volume and the current edition, the characters in the bamboo strip manuscript more clearly show in “. . . helps the myriad things to ziran and yet is unable to do it” that the actions of the sage are active, spontaneous, and not forced. This is more in line with the basic meaning of Laozi’s use of ziran as a maximum value. Thus wuwei (无为; non-action) is an attitude actively adopted in order to realize the spontaneous order; it is certainly not a pretext for avoidance of behavior that one “dares not” do. The characters fu (辅; to help, to assist) and wei (为; action, behavior) deserve special attention. Today wei often refers to all actions, as if fu is also a kind of wei, wuwei negates all action, and the sage then does nothing at all. However, this obviously is not Laozi’s original meaning. Laozi clearly does not consider fu a common type of wei that is included in funengwei. In other words, the concept of wuwei definitely does not mean to negate all action. “To help the myriad things be ziran” is the sage’s particular behavioral mode; it is not the behavioral mode of the normal person. The terms fu nengwei and wuwei negate only the everyday behavior and behavioral patterns of the common people. Here “to help the myriad creatures be ziran” once again illustrates that Laozi’s ziran does not mean doing nothing, nor does it refer to an savage state devoid of human civilization. That the sage needs “to help the myriad creatures be ziran” is a generalization; here “myriad things” can be both a general designation

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and a singular designation. “To help the myriad creatures be ziran” then applies to every individual entity among the “myriad things,” otherwise it is mere boasting, falsehood, or idle talk. Therefore, Laozi’s ziran, as a value and principle, includes respect, concern, and love for each and every individual existence. “To help the myriad things be ziran” does not merely mean care and concern for the development of the whole, but means that every blade of grass and every tree, every family and every house, every village and every town, every state and every kingdom have the environment and space for normal development. This is the foundation and condition of total ziran harmony. “To help” here means to create the environment, to provide the conditions, to cherish, and to prevent interference and control. “To be unable to act” means to not directly arrange, grasp, or control. Therefore “to help the myriad creatures be ziran” and “to be unable to act” are essentially one and the same thing, two sides of an organic whole. IV. Humanist Nature and Modern Society Now we will summarize the three levels of meaning within Laozi’s concept of humanist nature in the context of modern society. The highest level of humanist nature arises from ultimate concern for human life, society, humanity, nature, and the universe. It is an investigation and description of the ultimate origin and basis of all the earth’s living things. It is Laozi’s proposed description of the state of existence of all living things (namely, that all things are spontaneous, not-created, and not planned or controlled). Simultaneously, it is also an expectation regarding the state of human existence and the state of the relationship between humanity and all the things of the universe (that they will exist in spontaneous harmony and order). Humanist nature is the result of Laozi’s observations regarding the basic state of the world (i.e., the way things are; description); it also is a declaration of the greatest value that human social order ought to seek (i.e., the way things should be; value).28 The highest goal of humanist nature 28 Some say that a concept cannot simultaneously be “actual” or “what is” (实然) and “ideal,” or “what should be” (应然). This dichotomy originated from Hume and has long stirred debate in the West. Hume’s theory, in terms of epistemology and logical reasoning, does not involve the fields of ontology and cosmology. It cannot be effectively applied to classical philosophy, and certainly does not govern Chinese philosophy. Also, the Western philosophical world has already realized that the division between “actual” and “ideal” is not absolute. See Hilary Putnam, The Collapse of

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is the “spontaneous” harmony of the entire human condition, it is a harmonious relationship between the entirety of humanity and the universe. As the ultimate concern, humanist nature is the ultimate goal toward which humanity strives to advance, and it is also the impetus and direction of the sublimation of individual souls. This ultimate concern provides moral restriction and value guidance for individual existences, and provides instruction in the formulation of laws, in competition methods, in management strategy, and in the pursuits of human life. As the greatest principle of value, humanist nature does not oppress or restrict the normal (i.e., harmonious with the natural ecology and human environment) development of any individual existence. However, it does, through the internal value judgments of individuals, limit and correct behavior that is damaging to the harmonious order of humankind. The intermediate level of humanist nature begins from concern for the actual social order and concern for the state of existence and the mutual relationships between the multitude of individual existences. This level touches upon principles of social management, and emphasizes harmony between the ruler and the individual existences, as well as harmony between all individual existences. Here individual existence refers broadly to all independent units of existence such as the individual, the family, the organization, the school, the company, the district, the city, the country, and even the entities of Asia, Europe, Latin America as well as the whole world—these can all be regarded as individual existences. The intermediate level of ziran emphasizes the relationships between and state of existence of these individual existences as well as the relations between specific individual existences and their rulers. Humanist nature demands the realization of spontaneous harmony of the order of human society. This ziran harmony means harmony lacking of oppression and with minimal control, it is not a harmony devoid of human civilization or social governance. It presupposes that every individual entity has an equal right to exist, and it requires that every individual existence respect itself and also respect others. These are the basic requirements of civilized society. This intermediate level of social order is not the transcendent ideal of

the Fact/Value Dichotomy and Other Essays, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002); Peter Singer, Unsanctifying Human Life: Essays on Ethics, ed. Helga Kuhse (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2002), 17–26.

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the highest level, rather it is an ideal created for actual society. Realizing this ideal is actually extraordinarily difficult, although not totally impossible, as at the very least it can be accomplished on a small scale or within a certain period of time. For example, within a residential unit of several people, several tens of people or several hundreds of people, realizing ziran order or a ziran harmony is not very difficult. The order of many families, schools, companies, districts, and even countries already is ziran, or at least was relatively ziran at one time. If we take the ziran order to be a value or objective, and consciously strive toward it, then the ziran order and ziran harmony both can certainly be realized in more individual lives. The most fundamental level of humanist nature is concerned with the state of all individual existences themselves. As stated above, any individual or any relatively independent unit of existence, regardless of size, is an individual existence. Whether these individual existences are able to spontaneously mature and develop is on one hand determined externally by whether the ruler chooses “help” (辅) or “control” (控) as a management method, and on the other hand it is determined by the individual existence’s own level and condition. The realization of humanist nature ultimately depends on the level of our humanist qualities. If an individual has a high level of humanist qualities, understands how to respect the self and respect others, and understands how to conduct themselves effectively and moderately, then the individual will be able to create with relative ease a ziran order and ziran harmony within their personal environment. If the individual lacks this high level of cultivation, then achievement of ziran will be quite difficult or perhaps even impossible. Humanist nature on this individual level requires the individual to have in abundance the humanist qualities of emotion and reason, and to have emotional, rational, effective, and warm interpersonal relationships. Of course, this necessitates new value standards and moral principles, in particular those often neglected or misunderstood Daoist values, principles, intellectual abilities, attitudes, and methods. According to this interpretation of Laozi, the “the Way models itself on ziran,” “the common people say of themselves, it is ziran.” and “to help the myriad things be ziran” all seek and yearn for the ziran harmony of human society itself as well as harmony and order between human society and the universe of living things. This humanist nature seems to advocate a ideal similar to the ren’ai (仁爱; charity toward others) of Confucianism, the universal love (兼爱) of Mohism, the

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universal fraternity of Jesus, and Zhang Zai’s declaration, “the people are my brethren and the things are with me” (民胞物与). Therefore, Daoist ideology in specific circumstances can correspond with Confucian theory. However, ultimately Daoism plants its own flag. The aforementioned schools of thought all advocate direct moral ideals and moral sentiments that the people should possess and embody. And although Laozi’s concept of humanist nature also can achieve the same condition that these other philosophies strive toward, ultimately it is not a direct moral demand or moral precept. Moral ideals appeal to one’s inner emotions and cultivation; humanist nature instead stresses the entire effect and state. Moral principles realize social harmony beginning from individual behavior. Humanist nature, however, begins with the sum origin and basis of all the things of the universe, and from that perspective considers what principles of existence and behavior humanity ought to have. Song and Ming dynasty lixue (理学), or Neo-Confucianism, used the concept of heavenly principle (天理) as the ultimate basis for ren’ai. Like the Way of Daoism, which “models itself on that which is naturally so,” this is also an origin and basis for the highest value, proposed from the perspective of the foundation of the universe. However, the concept of heavenly principle still only provides a metaphysical basis for individual conscience. Humanist nature instead uses the basic ideal state of all the things of the universe to guide and standardize the way of life and principles of existence for individuals and groups alike. Although the two differing routes of these two philosophies could potentially lead to the same goal, the principle of humanist nature however cannot ultimately classified as ethics. It can include and support moral principles, yet its eternal direction and objective is the complete harmony of human society and the entire universe; it does not merely blindly stress the importance and sanctity of moral principle. Humanist nature can then in at least two respects supplement and limit the shortcomings of Confucian ethics. First, the principle of humanist nature takes the harmony of society and human groups as its ideal. When moral principles are beneficial to the realization of the ziran harmony of society, then those moral principles coincide with the Daoist standpoint. However, when moral principles are sanctified to the point where they repress individuality, devastate human character, or even reach the extreme of “using principles to kill people” (for example, creating innumerable chaste widows and women who choose to die with their husbands), then human-

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ist nature can be a positive factor helping to prevent and limit these unhealthy and extreme tendencies. Extreme moral behavior causes the unnecessarily sacrifice of oneself or others, violating the principle of “to help the myriad things be natural.” At this time, Laozi’s humanist nature then has the significance of protecting the natural right of the individual to exist. Second, the principle of humanist nature can supplement the shortcomings of the Confucian principle of love for one’s relatives (亲亲). Confucian thought contains two aspects, love for one’s relatives and widespread love for the masses (泛爱 ). The former centers on the ethical relations of the family, and considering this principle, Confucianism conflicts with the Mohist concept of universal love, because we are unable to treat other people’s parents in the same way that we treat our own. However, the latter ideal of widespread love for the masses demands that we love all people. How can we in theory and practice reconcile these two concepts and implement them in real life? While remaining focused on the family and social community, how can we specifically realize the principle of “the people are my brethren and the things are with me?” The great Confucian masters wrote little about this. As a result, in real life, the concept of love for one’s relatives is primary and real, and widespread love for the masses is secondary and hollow. The principles of benevolence and righteousness (仁义) of Chinese society are thus principally manifested within small groups of family and friends, and are difficult to transform into universal social morals or into to respect and nurturing for strangers and all people. This dilemma is perhaps related to the biases of traditional Confucianism. However, the principle of “the Way models itself on that which is naturally so” demands that all individual existences be treated equally without discrimination based on the ideal of an integrated harmonious order. This implies that all things are equal, and also implies a basic concern and respect for all individual existences. This is precisely the basic value, attitude, and comportment needed in modern civilized society. In summary, Chinese society will increase its value standards and spiritual resources if it abides by the principle of humanist nature, and will with relative ease enter into a new phase of civilization. In this new phase, one will not only feel a profundity of camaraderie and empathy toward relatives and friends; one will also feel just as unrestrained and spontaneous, and assured, at ease, and comfortable, when confronted with countless unfamiliar faces. I yearn for such an existence.

THE ISOMORPHISM OF FAMILY AND STATE AND THE INTEGRATION OF CHURCH AND STATE: ON THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE CONFUCIAN POLITICAL TRADITION AND DEMOCRATIC POLITICS SHIH Yuan-Kang Translated by Dandan Chen and Adrian Thieret Historic events such as the Renaissance, religious reform, the scientific revolution, the Enlightenment, and the industrial revolution, released Western Europe from the Middle Ages and sent it into the modern age. This string of historical events constituted a revolutionary paradigm shift affecting all aspects of life. Revolutionary changes occurred in various fields such as economics, politics, science, religion, and art. Moreover, the modernization of Western Europe has spread worldwide. And, confronted by this outward expansion, no outside society could avoid the challenges posed by modernity. After China was defeated in its encounter with Western Europe in the 1840s, some knowledgeable Chinese intellectuals acknowledged that China was facing a seemingly unprecedented challenge. Li Hongzhang (李鸿章), for example, realized that this situation had never before occurred in the three thousand years of Chinese history. China had extensive experience in military, economic, and cultural exchanges with other countries throughout history. However, no one had ever imagined that such exchanges with other cultures would fundamentally impact the basic concepts and values of Chinese culture, and no one had ever realized that such exchanges with other cultures would fundamentally influence the structure of traditional Chinese society. However the impact of post-modernization Western Europe upon China was never limited to specific aspects which is why knowledgeable intellectuals such as Li Hongzhang said such shocking statements. We can definitely say that since the 1840 Opium War, modernization has been a foremost priority of the entire Chinese nation, and it remains an ongoing goal today. Words such as “modern,” “modernization,” and “modernity” are not merely temporal terms, they also have substantial content and significance, including extremely abstract and philosophical views of the

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universe, life, and values, as well as concrete institutions embodying these ideas and values, and instruments at the material level. In Max Weber’s theory of modernization, when he defines modernity at the most abstract level, he uses “rationalization.” What he calls rationality, of course, is the famous “instrumental rationality.” Weber’s understanding of “rationalization” is calculability. When he says the most important characteristic of modernization is rationalization, he means that the mode of human thought is directed by the principle of instrumental rationality, and likewise, the various human institutions, such as the economy, law, and bureaucratic organizations, are established according to this principle. When listing the achievements of this rationalist culture, Weber mentions science, the creation of rational jurisprudence and formal law, modern bureaucratic organization, rational harmonious music, “the rational use of Gothic vault as a means of distributing pressure,” and modern capitalism.1 Although “democratic politics” is not on this list, Weber mentions parliaments with regularly elected representatives and constitutions. If we follow Weber’s use of rationalization to define modern society, we can deduce that democratic politics is also one indispensable part of modernity. The relation between democracy and rationalization, simply put, is related to the inability of instrumental rationality to determine purpose. This leads to value subjectivity, and in turn, to pluralism. In a pluralist society, liberalism is the most reasonable basic social philosophy. Liberalism manifests in politics as the pursuit of minimal government, and it forms the greatest limits on the authority of the government. This is the liberalist style of democratic politics. China’s quest for modernization passed through several phrases. From Wei Yuan’s “learning the barbarians’ technology to conquer the barbarians,” to “Chinese essence, Western means” (中体西用), to the reforms of Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, to today’s “Four Modernizations,” it has been ongoing for already over 150 years. This process works on various levels such as the mechanical, institutional, and conceptual. It also involves different fields such as knowledge, politics, and economy. “Modernization” is a complete phenomenon that See Max Weber’s “Author’s Introduction.” This article is an introduction Weber wrote for his Collected Essays in the Sociology of Religion several months before his death. Parson translates it into English and place it at the beginning of The Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Scribreis, 1958), 16–17. 1

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certainly involves these many levels and fields. In this article, I would like to examine some problems China has encountered in its political modernization. I will compare the political thought and institutions of Chinese Confucianism with modern democratic politics. Through this comparison, I hope first to highlight the special characteristics of traditional Chinese political theory and practice; and second, I want to argue that these two types of politics are two incommensurable models. I will conduct this examination on two levels: the institutional level and the broader conceptual level. I At the beginning of his book Politics, Aristotle indicates that the first type of human social organization is the family and the first type of political organization is an extension of the family organization. A political leader’s position is like that of the family head; they both have natural authority.2 Aristotle’s view fits traditional Chinese politics perfectly. Many Chinese and foreign thinkers have noted that in the political theory and practice of traditional China, the state and the family are isomorphic.3 In Chinese culture, the isomorphism of the family and state was fixed in the mind of every traditional Chinese person. The emperor was the mother and father of the people, the local magistrates that he appointed were called parent-officials (父母官), and these magistrates considered the people as their own children. In the social realm, the traditional Chinese cultural ideal of interpersonal social relations is represented by the phrases “all people within the four seas are brothers” (四海之内, 皆兄弟也) and “all under heaven are one family” (天下一家). We call strangers “uncle,” “aunt,” and so on; a leader of an organization is called “head of the family” (当家的). All of these examples show that in traditional Chinese culture, the family occupied the most fundamental position, and other organizations larger than the family were constructed according to the model

2 Aristotle, Politics, tr. Ernest Barker (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), 1252b. 3 Hegel, The Philosophy of History, tr. J. Sibree, (New York: Dover Publication, 1956), 121–123; Lü Simian (吕思勉), Zhongguo zhidu shi 中国制度史 [History of Chinese Institutions], (Shanghai: Shanghai jiaoyu chubanshe 上海教育出版社, 1985), 373–375.

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of the family. This phenomenon and the conceptual system behind it still exert a profound influence on Chinese society today. Historically speaking, we can trace China’s family-based society and the isomorphism of family and state back to the patriarchal system and feudalism in the Zhou dynasty.4 After the Zhou people eliminated the Yin and Shang, they enacted a system of enfeoffment (分封). Most of those people granted fiefs shared the family name of the emperor. However, the emperor also enfeoffed some people with different family names, such as the Jiang family of the Qi kingdom; some old and distinguished noble families, such as the descendents of the Shun emperor, were enfeoffed in the Chen kingdom; and some descendents of the Yin, such as Wei Zi, who was enfeoffed in the Song kingdom. This system of enfeoffment was established under the patriarchal system. Simply put, the patriarchal system separated the primary line (大宗) and the minor lines (小宗). The eldest son of the primary wife of the emperor represented the primary line and he was supposed to inherit the throne. The other sons represented minor bloodlines and were enfeoffed as feudal lords. The eldest sons of those minor families also represent the primary lines of their respective clans and inherited the fiefs; other sons were parceled out their own fiefs. Between the Zhou ruler and those with his family name who he enfeoffed to become feudal lords, the ruler was the primary bloodline and the lords were lesser clans. Among the sons of a feudal lord, the eldest inherited the primary line, and the other sons became minor lines and were given their own fiefs as ministers. This system of enfeoffment continued down the ranks of nobles, ending with the shi class. In the Zuo Zhuan, the senior official Shi Fu of Jin describes it this way: “thus, the son of heaven establishes the feudal kingdoms, the feudal lords establish the families of ministers and high officials, the ministers establish assistant officials, the high officials have two families, the shi have their sons and younger brothers for servants.5 Under the patriarchal clan system, the eldest son is the leader of one family and everyone else belongs to him. This is not only a family organization based on affection, it is also a

4 According to Qu Tongzu, “China had entered the occurring and formative periods of feudalism, but all social organizations had not been fully feudalized.” It was until the Zhou Dynasty that China realized feudalism. Qu Tongzu (瞿同祖), Zhongguo fengjian shehui 中国封建社会 [The Feudal Society of China], (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 2005), 26. Concerning the details of feudalism, please refer to its second chapter, entitled “The Realization of Feudal Society.” 5 “Huangong ernian 桓公二年,” Zuo Zhuan 左传.

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power organization in which enfeoffment represents political control. The emperor is the greatest political authority and the feudal lords obtain power from him. This type of political organization, whether in an entire state led by the Zhou emperor or the kingdoms of the feudal lords, is based on the patriarchal clan system. In other words, the eldest son is the state ruler, and the state ruler is the eldest son. The ruler can become the ruler precisely because he is the eldest son of the legal wife of the former ruler. In fact, the patriarchal system and the feudal system are two sides of one coin.6 After the first emperor of the Qin dynasty united all of China, the feudal system was abandoned and replaced by the prefecture and commandery system (郡县制). The Han dynasty then inherited the system of the Qin. Although the Han also carried out some enfeoffment in its early period, creating feudal lords with and without its family name, after the “rebellion of seven kingdoms” (七国之乱) was suppressed, the enfeoffment system was fundamentally abolished. In the Chinese history after the Han dynasty, occasionally lords were provided with fiefdoms, but basically the country was ruled by centralized administration. If we understand feudalism as a system of “enfeoffing feudal lords and establishing kingdoms” (封侯建国), then as Qu Tongzu pointed out, feudalism ended after the Qin emperor united China.7 6 Lü Simian says: “In ancient times, the relationship between the emperor and the feudal lords was actually mostly the relationship of a clan. The emperor’s care for the feudal lords was as the eldest son’s sympathy for the family. The feudal lords’ veneration of the emperor was as the family’s respect for its eldest son. Talk of trust and cultivation of harmony was as the affections between kin. Rise and succession were as a family does not sever itself. Yet as for those who were placed outside, they still somehow had to be connected with the primary line. Thus the patriarchal clan system was established. It is said: ‘land is divided, people are not divided.’ When land is divided, it is what we call feudalism. When people are not divided, those children who come from the same original family will all submit to the governance of the eldest son of the main line. As for that called feudalism, one family occupies a plot of land and works their people in order to self-subsist. The land they occupy expands daily, and when the strength of one person is insufficient to care for it, they parcel it out to a remaining branch of their family; this is called forward management. Once the family branch and the parcel of land they occupy have again grown large, they again use this same process. This, although of a different name, is in fact the same as the relationship between the emperor and the feudal lords, and the feudal lords and senior officials. Thus the eldest sons at the time were all land-holding lords and therefore could care for their families. So-called kinsmen actually were born in the same fief with the eldest son, and desired their own existence but had to protect the eldest son. The primary reason why the eldest son is respected by his clansmen is that he is the heir of their ancestors.” Zhongguo zhidu shi, 373–374. 7 Ibid., 7. Discussion of the nature of feudal society is often linked with the land ownership system. For example, some consider the feudal system and the well-field

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Although feudalism declined after the Qin dynasty, the notion that the family is the model according to which other social organizations are established remained deeply rooted in the minds of the Chinese people. Enfeoffment according to the patriarchal clan system no longer existed, but people continued to use family relations as the basis for the state and other forms of social organization. As I mention above, in politics, the ruler and local officials were considered parents of people, and the state was an extension of family, and consequently the state and family share the same structure. The family system is almost a universal phenomenon in human society. This of course is because the two sexes must unite for humans to bear offspring. However, families do not share the same structure and function across all societies. All families share the function of procreation, but aside from this, families of different forms have different functions and different methods of organizing. For instance, the main function of the small family in modern industrial societies is to raise offspring and to fulfill emotional needs. The primary structure of this small family is the so-called “nuclear” structure, that is, a husband, wife, and their juvenile children. This type of small family is not an economic production unit. Until the children can produce, they of course must rely on their parents, but in families structured this way, husband and wife each are occupied with their own business, and sometimes even keep their property separate. Chinese families were traditionally large families, except during the Shang Yang reform period (商鞅变法) when men were required to live separate from the family after they reached maturity. The “large family” does not necessarily include many people. A family that has five members from three generations, although less in number than that in a nuclear family of seven, is a large family in structure. Moreover, in the agricultural society of traditional China, the family itself was foremost an economic system as one. Furthermore, whether the Western Zhou was actually a slave system or feudal system is also an important question debated by historians. It primarily centers on whether farm laborers in the Western Zhou were slaves or serfs. The difference is that the former does not have his own economy and is only the property of the slave owner, but the latter, although not entirely free, still has his own economy aside from service to his master. Guo Moruo is a representative figure among those who think the Western Zhou was a slave society; Fan Wenlan thought that it was a feudal society. See Zhongguo de nuluzhi yu fengjian fenqi wenti lunwen xuanji 中国的奴隶制与封建 分期问题论文选集 [Collected Essays on the Period Division of China’s Slave System and Feudalism], compiled by Lishi yanjiu bianjibu 历史研究编辑部 (Beijing: Sanlian shudian 三联书店, 1956).

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organization. The family constituted a production unit in which the members practiced division of labor and cooperation.8 Since it was an economic organization, it could not be a group formed purely by emotional ties. The purpose of economic activity is to produce and create material products, which cannot be accomplished by relying merely on emotion. Discipline is an indispensable requirement of this type of organization. In such an organization, authority must exist in order to insure that everyone follows the rules. This is not to say that the traditional Chinese family was purely an economic organization; it also had other functions such as education and emotion needs. The main purpose of education in traditional Chinese culture was the cultivation of character, and the main content of this education were the classics centered on traditional ethics. The teaching of technology was of course also included in education, but the most important question was nevertheless how to live one’s life in the world. Even in schools, this was the focus of education. It was a kind of humanist education, totally different both conceptually and methodologically from the modern type of education focused on technology. In moral character education, the teaching of children begins with disciplinary restriction and guidance. Theoretical and practical technological education instead aims to have children to think and solve problems for themselves. Based on these two characteristics—its function as an economic organization and function as the location for moral education—the Chinese family structure accordingly possessed several peculiarities. The traditional Chinese family was a patriarchal and authoritarian structure of blood ties. Some people call it a “patriarchal system” (父权家长制) form of family.9 In this blood-based organization, only one person was the head of the family: the patriarch. If the grandfather was still alive, then he headed the family. If the grandfather had passed away but the grandmother and the father were alive, then the father headed the family. Only when the grandfather and father were both dead could the grandmother or mother become the head of the family. People call it a “patriarchal system” because the father held absolute authority in the family, and thus the head of the family was also called the “family ruler” (家君). Of course, the patriarch Hsiao-tung Fei 费孝通, Xiangtu Zhongguo 乡土中国 [Rural China] (Hong Kong: Phoenix Publishing House 凤凰出版社, 2007), 42. 9 Wang Yubo 王玉波, Zhongguo gudai de jia 中国古代的家 [The Family in Ancient China], (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan 商务印书馆, 1997), 35. 8

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had to execute his authority according to a set of conventions, which are family rituals or rules based on age, position, value, parentage, and so on. Within this fully authoritarian style of family, the patriarch held astonishing power. Other family members had to submit to his command. Wang Yubo enumerates the different powers of the father in the traditional Chinese family as the power to determine survival, education, occupation, association, and marriage; to control property; to sell wives and children; and to punish children.10 Judging from these powers, we can say the patriarch was a complete dictator. Under his governance, the freedom enjoyed by other family members may have been extraordinarily limited. For example, in traditional Chinese society, people did not have the freedom to choose who they married, rather, they had to obey their parents completely. This would be considered an extreme violation of individual rights in modern Western liberal societies. Moreover, the patriarch retained his position for life. As long as the he was alive and able to execute his power, nobody could replace him. Of course, the patriarch also had his own responsibilities: he needed to feed his family, provide them with the opportunity for education, help them marry, and so on. Because the traditional Chinese family was also an economic organization, the family itself was often related to the concept of property. Moreover, this property was owned by the entire family, not individuals. We all know that throughout history, the dynasties all had laws forbidding people from amassing wealth in a household or family separate from that of their primary family, which shows that the family rather than individual owned the property. However, because the patriarch held the power to distribute the family property, he in fact controlled the property. From this simple analysis of the traditional Chinese family structure, we see that it was an organizational structure completely different from a democracy. The patriarch, as the authority, acted as a complete dictator. Of course, some enlightened patriarchs were more lenient and allowed family members their own space. Moreover, sometimes a father had to limit his absolute authority because the grandfather had spoiled the grandson. For example, in Dream of the Red Chamber, Grandma Jia spoils her grandson Jia Baoyu, thus preventing his father

10

Ibid., 36–40.

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Jia Zheng from disciplining Baoyu sternly. This was probably a very common occurrence. The family is an organization formed by a husband and wife, children, and possibly people of several other generations. Due to the disparity in position between members, the family is rarely an egalitarian group. Among family members, those most likely to be equal are husband and wife, because they are of the same generation, and they have to cooperate to maintain the family. However, for various reasons, perhaps the main one being production, once human beings moved past the ancient condition in which they knew only their mothers and not their fathers, men and women became unequal. It has since persisted, and even today this inequality between men and women has not yet completely disappeared. Accordingly, the inequality between parents and children and the following non-democratic state of the family are natural phenomena. Children have to rely on their parents until they are able to fend for themselves; furthermore, because the family is also an educational organization, when parents teach their children, the children will not always reach their expectations, and sometimes will make mistakes. At these times, parents must have the power to punish. Aside from relations based purely on emotion, human relations all require discipline to maintain. In a family, the authority to enforce discipline naturally belongs to the elder generation rather than the younger. Even for the nuclear families of industrial civilization, although the family is no longer a business organization and therefore emotion is the primary factor that maintains it, the educational function of a family and the accompanying disciple still exist. In traditional Chinese families, which had both productive and educational functions, the importance of discipline was even more imperative. The above description and analysis of the traditional Chinese family, and analysis of why the family cannot be an egalitarian democratic organization, naturally illustrate why the institutional arrangement in which the state is considered an extension of the family is not likely to produce democratic politics. The combination of clans and feudalism in the Zhou dynasty typifies isomorphism of family and state. The first emperor of the Qin dynasty abolished feudalism and enacted the “prefecture and commandery system,” thus superficially eliminating the isomorphism of family and state. However, at both the institutional level and the conceptual level, this isomorphism of family and state actually still

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remained. Here, let us examine it only at the institutional level. The abolishment of the feudal lords and the patriarchal clan system did not mean that the emperor or people ceased to regard the state as a large family. The emperor still governed the people as parents treat their children. Those who helped the emperor do this job were no longer his relatives, but his trusted ministers. However, as I said above, the emperor was the mother and father of the people, and county magistrates were “parent-officials.” Therefore, they had the same absolute authority that parents had over their children in traditional Chinese families. Furthermore, they also had to look out for the welfare of their children. If the emperor did not seek the welfare of the people, he was not a true emperor. The emperor had to love the people as his children, and more importantly was responsible for educating them. Simply put, the power and responsibility of the emperor paralleled the power and responsibility a patriarch had toward the children of a family. Aside from this, although feudalism ended, the traditional Chinese family system still remains firmly rooted in the soil of Chinese culture. At the level of local politics, the power of a patriarch is still extraordinary; this is why many people call China’s traditional form of local authority “rule by elders” (长老统治). As for the isomorphism of family and state, I think Confucius’ answer to a question is the clearest Confucian statement on this problem. Someone questioned Confucius, saying; Why aren’t you in government? The Master said, The Book of Documents says: Filial, only be filial, a friend to elder and younger brothers—this contributes to government. To do this is in fact to take part in government. Why must I be ‘in government’?11

Under democratic political systems, the state and family are two organizations with completely different structures. The family is a organization of blood relations based on the affection of kinship, but the state is a contract group established based on individual will. Although some thinkers such as Kant believe that marriage is also a contractual relationship, Hegel criticizes this idea severely. Hegel believed that superficially, marriage begins with a contract, but its goal is to establish a non-contractual relationship of love. Although Hegel opposes political contract theory, which regards a state as a group organization 11 Burton Watson, tr., The Analects of Confucius (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 22.

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built upon contract, the state as he imagines it has never appeared. The state in the modern democratic system is a contractual state. This is clear from the American Declaration of Independence, which asserts that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” A contractual relationship is of course a reciprocal relationship, and it is also a market relationship. If a family becomes a market, then the family no longer fits the idea of a family. To regard political relations as contractual or market relations is also a distortion, although this is the reality of modern democratic politics. In such political thought, the isomorphism of family and state is unimaginable. II In the previous section, I examined traditional Chinese politics at the institutional level. At this level, state, and family shared the same structure. The family in traditional Chinese culture was a authoritative kinship organization based on blood relations. The state was constructed as an extension of the family. In reality the sovereign and people are not blood relatives, yet traditional Chinese politics institutionally nevertheless established the state based upon the family organizational principles. Thus, the sovereign was simultaneously emperor, father, and teacher, and the people were considered children. The emperor’s power resembled that of the family’s authoritative patriarch; he was sole arbiter of an autocratic monarchy. In this section, I will analyze the differences between traditional Chinese politics and democratic politics at the conceptual level. Under the enfeoffment system of the Zhou dynasty, theoretically, the Zhou emperor granted the feudal lords power and land. When the Emperor’s court was powerful, he could also reclaim the enfeoffed territories. However, after the power of the Zhou court waned, it became impossible for the emperor to reclaim enfeoffed lands from the feudal lords. Nevertheless, people still had to acknowledge “all lands under heaven are lands of the ruler.” After the Qin dynasty eliminated the feudal lords, it enacted the prefecture-and-commandery system, thus guaranteeing that although land trading was permitted, the court would have the power to reclaim lands when necessary. As I state above, the Chinese family was economically a production unit. Family property or enterprise was one of the important factors forming the family. Similarly, the state was considered the property

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of the emperor. Although people were permitted to buy and sell land after the abolishment of the well-field system, it was never very difficult for the emperor to reclaim the land. The various land systems enacted throughout history such as the limited field (限田) and uniform field (均田) systems significantly restricted private land ownership. As for the emperor considering all land under heaven his private property, the most famous historical example is that of Liu Bang, the first emperor of the Han dynasty. After ascending to the throne, he says to his father: You, my father, always used to consider me a worthless fellow who could never look after the family property and had not half the strength of my older brother Zhong. Now that my labors are completed, which of us has accomplished more, Zhong or I?12

Huang Zongxi (黄宗羲) also writes in the “Yuan jun” (原君) section of his Mingyi daifang lu (明夷待访录) that “[the emperor] considers all under heaven as the largest property, passes it to his offspring, and enjoys it endlessly.” Max Weber uses “patrimonialism” to describe the form of traditional Chinese politics. He believes that patrimonialism is one type of patriarchy, namely, it is the use of patriarchal power to govern the people. In his book Economy and Society, Weber devotes one section to discussing imperial China, and uses this concept to analyze traditional Chinese politics.13 Marx also has a brilliant description of this political form: . . . the unity of the state, together with the consciousness, the will and the activity of the unity of the state, the universal political power, likewise inevitably appears as the special concern of a ruler and of his servants, separated from the people.14

This is the most precise description of jiatianxia (家天下), which refers to the emperor considering all under heaven his own private property, to be passed down and inherited through his family. Seized political authority is likewise treated as personal property to be kept in the family. Throughout Chinese history, this has been regarded as natural

12 Burton Watson, tr., Records of the Grand Historian (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 80. Modified. 13 Max Weber, Economy and Society vol. 2, ed. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 1011–1014; 1047–1051. 14 Karl Marx, “On the Jewish Question,” tr. George Benton, in Early Writings (New York: Penguin, 1992), 232.

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and fair ever since the Emperor Yu of the Xia passed his position to his son. Liu Bang’s saying is particularly memorable because it vividly expresses this notion held by the people. In ancient China, dynastic changes were considered as an attack on everything under heaven, and imperial succession was regarded as the inheritance of family enterprise. This all shows that the “private” nature of the regime. We can see that traditional Chinese politics contain a contradiction at both the theoretical and the institutional levels. Namely, under the jiatianxia system, it is impossible to differentiate the public and the private, because the so-called “public” is in the end just the private of the imperial family. The emperor would ask his ministers to be selfless, but in the final analysis, this “selflessness” simply means to work for the benefit of the imperial family. Throughout history, some people have realized this and thus we had the division of inner and outer court (内外朝). However, this design is not very meaningful in the jiatianxia system. As Weber pointed out, under patrimonialism, the ministers, including the prime minister who heads affairs of state, were merely a group of people employed by the emperor to help him govern. The emperor could always easily switch or even kill prime ministers. Thus, both conceptually and institutionally, the jiatianxia system is as Marx declares: issues of the state inevitably appear as the private issues of the ruler. The issue of who owns all under heaven is a question concerning who holds sovereign power. According to the jiatianxia idea, sovereignty belongs to the emperor. Modern democratic thought and systematized popular sovereignty both brought revolutionary change to sovereignty. Politics, like economics, is a practice necessary for group life. However, an economic activity in principle can involve only those people who participate in that specific activity, e.g. the buyer and seller in a transaction, and do not necessarily involve any third party. But the policies of the government influence all its subjects. Consequently, this type of power is by nature public, and therefore one of the important points of the democratic political theory is that sovereignty lies with the people. Sovereignty is owned jointly by all the people. More strictly speaking, sovereignty is not like a piece of property, which can be transferred back and forth. Rather, it is something produced when all people involved form a group. The government is granted power by the people, who are the sovereigns, to deal with collective issues. This idea is opposite to the notion of jiatianxia. As for second issue on the conceptual level, we need to point out that Confucian thinkers believe that the political order is the natural

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order, or part of the natural order. In contrast, modern democratic political theorists think that politics and nature are two totally different domains. They think the political order is purely an artificial order based on the will and rational choices of the people. When talking about modernity, Weber mentions a key notion: the disenchantment of the world. This concept and the instrumentality of rationality are two sides of the same coin. The disenchantment of the world refers to the removal of value categories, such as those of purpose and significance, from the objective world within the new mechanical cosmology of modern man. The Aristotle- and Christianinfluenced cosmology of the middle ages was a teleological cosmology: God created the world; every object has certain significance and order granted to it by the Creator; in order to comprehend the universe, we must, in addition to realizing its laws, grasp its significance and purpose, and then practice our lives accordingly. Once the scientific revolution excluded the significance and purpose from the world, the universe was no longer an order of significance, rather, it was merely a causal order controlled by or following natural law. Consequently, the Kantian categories, as a means of understanding the natural world, do not include the category of purpose. Significance and value are added to these categories by the subjective will and desires of humanity. Every society must have an order. Even anarchists do not seek chaos. They only believe that government is unnecessary for the achievement of order. Those more extreme even believe that government is an obstacle to achieving this order. The Confucian pursuit of order is no different from that of other theories. However, the difference between the classical world and the modern world is that the former believed the political order to be a natural order. Aristotle’s idea that the first political organization originated from an imitation of the family order illustrates this clearly. But the modern democratic political theory considers family and state to be organizations of fundamentally different natures that therefore must be established on different bases. The basis of the state is human will and rationality. The Confucian idea of the isomorphism of family and state highlights the characteristic of this classical theory. The family is an organization that occurs according to blood relations. Blood ties are not influenced by will and rational choice. One cannot choose one’s parents or siblings, and likewise, parents cannot choose their children. All of this is chance and natural. Family members, according to their fortuitous natural relationship, form a group based on some norms.

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Moreover, Confucian thought asserts that these norms themselves are also natural. We can trace it back to rules and laws such as the way of heaven and the mandate of heaven, which are not man-made. The ultimate foundation of the many norms and respective virtues that hold together the Chinese family is considered the way of heaven, which transcends the empirical world. Because political relations are equated with family relations, and also because family relations are a kind of natural relations, the individual will is inevitably prevented from playing any role in constructing political organization. Kant is able to talk about the autonomy and self-legislation of the will precisely because once the world has been disenchanted, moral laws no longer exist in the objective world. If we subscribe to realism, then we are only able to discover moral laws and not able to self-legislate. It is similar to natural laws, which we do not invent, only discover. Because the Confucian affirmation of the way of heaven is basically an idea of moral realism, no Confucian would say that the way of heaven is a product of the self-legislation of the human will. Therefore, I think it erroneous to describe Confucian morals as self-regulating. In the process of discovering natural or moral laws, the will cannot play any indispensable role. Therefore, in the natural order of the family, the will likewise does not play any role. In the state and political world that share the structure of the family, the will likewise does not play any role. Hegel believes that one of the most important marks of the modern world is the emergence of subjectivity. When he talks about China, he repeatedly points out that subjectivity has never appeared in traditional Chinese culture. He thinks this is the most important mark differentiating ancient from modern and East from West. The emergence of subjectivity and the disenchantment of the world caused the will to become the most important factor in the formation of human order. Therefore, this order is an artificial order. The affirmation of autonomy within democratic politics is the sign of the emergence of subjectivity. Ancient orders, including the Confucian order, were not this kind of subjectivity-affirming artificial order, but rather were natural orders. The third characteristic of Confucian political thought is its understanding of the purpose of politics. Confucian idea on this question is also classical and almost identical to that of Plato and Aristotle. The fundamental idea is that politics is an extension of ethics or morals, and the purpose of politics is the cultivation of morality. In other words, it

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is the integration of church and state. Plato says politics is something concerning the soul; Aristotle instead believes that the human purpose is to pursue the highest good, and the task of politics is to research the question of the highest good. The Chinese understanding of politics is as stated in the Zuo Zhuan: “the great issues of a state are sacrifices and wars.”15 Making sacrificial offerings to the ancestors and gods is an affair of religion, ritual, and moral teaching; it is one of the two great issues controlled by the state. From this we can see its importance in Confucian thought. Many Chinese and foreign thinkers have noticed that traditional Chinese political theory regards ethics and politics as being linked and inseparable. Liang Qichao says, “in short, when Confucianism talks about politics, its sole purpose and sole method is to improve the character of the citizens. As to purpose, politics is morality, and morality is politics; as to method, politics is education, and education is politics.”16 Liang Shuming also points out this characteristic of the Chinese tradition: “. . . therefore he includes the state in ethics and combines law and morality, and thereby replaces politics with moral teaching (or, integration of church and state).”17 Weber and Hegel also both note the characteristic integration of religion and politics in China. Hegel says, “the Emperor, as he is the Supreme Head of the State, is also the Chief of its religion.”18 Max Weber expresses a similar view, further noting that the emperor was “the old rainmaker” of past mystical religions, transformed into an ethical religious leader.19 I believe the observations of Liang Qichao, Liang Shuming, Hegel, and Weber are very accurate. Yet Liang Qichao’s words require slight revision, of course. Moral teaching is not the sole purpose; the emperor or politics also has another important purpose: seeking the welfare of the people. This is because traditional politicians personally understood the wisdom of the sentiment “after their storehouses are full, then the people will know ritual and propriety; after they have

“Chenggong shisannian 成公十三年,” Zuo Zhuan. Liang Qichao 梁启超, Xianqin zhengzhi sixiang shi 先秦政治思想史 [History of PreQin Political Thought], (Taibei: Dongda tushu gongsi 东大图书公司, 1980), 96–97. 17 Liang Shuming 梁漱溟, Zhongguo wenhua yaoyi 中国文化要义 [Outline of Chinese Culture], (Hong Kong: Sanlian shudian 三联书店, 1987), 139. 18 Hegel, The Philosophy of History, 194. 19 Max Weber, The Religion of China, tr. Hans. H. Gerth (New York: Free Press, 1951), 31. 15 16

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sufficient clothing and food, then they will know glory and shame.”20 As for the people considering the emperor the religious leader, because China has never had an organized religion independent of the political realm such as Christianity in the West, it seems that China always lacked anything resembling a church or religious leader. However, if we regard Confucianism as a religion, then we can naturally consider the entire state a religious organization, with the emperor as leader, his ministers as priests, and people all as believers. In traditional culture the court was sometimes called miaotang ( 堂), which also means “temple;” this demonstrates the integration of church and state. As for politics being an extension of ethics, let us here first differentiate and sort through the issue. After explaining this differentiation, I will elaborate its significance. People use “governing with morality” (德治) or “governing with ritual” (礼治) to describe Confucian political thought, in order to differentiate it from the Legalist idea of “governing with punishment” (刑治) or “governing with law” (法治). As Confucius says: Guide them with government orders, regulate them with penalties, and the people will seek to evade the law and be without shame. Guide them with virtue, regulate them with ritual, and they will have a sense of shame and become upright.21

This is the best description of the contrast between the two. However, so-called “governing with morality” is different from the continuum of ethics and politics that I define as a characteristic of classical political thought. “Governing with morality” is a method of governing, in other words, it is what Liang Qichao calls the “method.” Confucianism asserts that the ruler should govern the people through morality, but Legalist thought proposes governance through punishment and law. Yet the meaning of a unity of ethics and politics relates to the purpose of politics. In Eastern and Western classical thought, it was believed that the purpose of politics is the cultivation of character and the elevation of the soul. This idea is completely foreign to modern politics. In contract-based states, the purpose of politics is simply to provide a fair framework in which the people can pursue their own interests. It has no relation to issues of spiritual life such as character

20 This saying is recorded in the “Guan Yan liezhuan 管晏列传” of the Shiji 史记, though it also appears elsewhere. 21 Watson tr., The Analects, 20.

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and soul. When we say that the purpose of politics is ethics, we mean that the purpose of politics is the elevation of character. This type of character-elevating moral education requires the use of paragons to instruct the people, thus, the political leaders are also teachers. Consequently, China has a traditional saying: “heaven made the people a lord, and made the lord their teacher,” and also a tradition of Confucian teachers (师儒).22 Actually this is somewhat similar to Plato’s philosopher king, only the political leaders in China appear as sage kings, not philosopher kings. Regarding this idea of the unity of ethics and politics traditional Chinese culture, Confucius provides the best illumination: Ran You said: Once you have a sizable population, what should you do next? The Master said, Make them rich! And once they are rich? The Master said, Instruct them!23

The necessity of making the people prosperous can be fully illustrated by Guan Zhong’s saying quoted above, “after they have sufficient clothing and food, then they will know glory and shame,” and another saying of his, “if the people are too poor, they will not know shame.”24 Mencius once said, “only a gentleman can have a constant heart in spite of a lack of constant means of support.”25 However, the sequence of Confucius’s words: “make them rich,” then “instruct them,” shows that instruction is the supreme purpose. People can engage in artistic creation or scientific research only after they have enough to eat, and cannot do any meaningful work if they lack food, even though the true purpose of life is still creation and research. If we forgot this point and concerned ourselves only with eating, then we would be no different from animals. Thus, the value of eating enough food is mainly instrumental; only creation has intrinsic value. The idea of first making them rich, then instructing them means the same as the above explanation. But what should the people be taught? Mencius mentions issues concerning ethics and morality, as it is stated below,

22 23 24 25

D.C. Lau, tr., Mencius (New York: Penguin, 2003), 18. Modified. Watson, tr., The Analects, 90. “Chimi 侈糜,” Guanzi 管子. Lau, tr., Mencius, 13.

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Establishing Xiang, Xu, Xue, and Xiao [four types of schools] in order to instruct them. . . the Xue school has been provided by three dynasties; all of these schools are a means to illuminate proper human relations.26

Dong Zhongshu wrote of this in greater detail: Human character needs to be instructed in order to become good. This is called the true way of heaven. The people when born of heaven are innately good of character but not yet able to do good. Thus heaven appoints a king for the people, to make them good. This is the will of heaven. People receive from heaven their character, which is not yet able to do good. Then they receive from the king education to perfect their character. The king follows the will of heaven to take as his duty the perfection of the people’s character.27

Therefore, the purpose of politics is to educate the people to achieve their good nature. This is not a technical, vocational education, but rather a humanistic education teaching people how to live a perfect life. The emperor is the political leader and the teacher; his ministers also must take on the responsibility of moral teaching—this type of official is called a Confucian teacher. In ancient times, there were officials responsible for this instruction called the “three elders” (三老). They existed from the county level (乡三老) all the way up the country level (国三老). The xunli (循吏) of the Han were officials like the Confucian teachers, who functioned simultaneously as officials and teachers. They engaged in instruction and were responsible for transmitting culture.28 I once defined modernity as the emergence of “nonpolitical economics,” “non-ethical politics,” and “non-religious ethics.” Of these, politics has already separated from moral teachings or life ideals. This is of course due to the divergence of opinions regarding what constitutes an ideal life, which occurred following the disenchantment of the world and the emergence of value subjectivity. The separation and integration of ethics and politics, symbolizes the differences

“Teng Wengong shang 滕文公上,” Mencius 孟子. Dong Zhongshu 董仲舒, “Shencha minghao 深察名号,” Chunqiu fan lu 春秋繁露. 28 Regarding the thinking behind “make then rich, then instruct them” and the details of the Han dynasty xunli, Yu Yingshi 余英时 wrote a very good explanation in his article “Handai xunli yu wenhua chuanbo 汉代循吏与文化传播 [Han Dynasty Xunli and Cultural Transmission]. This article is in his book Shi yu Zhongguo wenhua 士与中 国文化 [Shi and Chinese Culture], (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe 上海人民出 版社, 1987), 129–216. 26 27

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in character between modern politics and ancient politics. This is also one aspect of the paradigm shift between ancient and modern. Above, when talking about the isomorphism of family and state, I mention that education is one important function of family. Parents must educate their children, and the main content of that education is character cultivation. At the conceptual level, this manifests as political leaders who also function as teachers. However, moral teaching in modern society, in which politics and religion are separate, is purely either an issue of the church or a private issue. It is completely separate from the political realm. III When describing the characteristics of modernization and modernity at the institutional level, Weber and Marx, two opposed thinkers, both indicate that the capitalist mode of production is the most important institution of modern society. Marx believes that other fields such as law and politics were derived to meet the needs of the capitalist mode of production. Although Weber does not completely agree with Marx on this point, they differ only concerning the birth of capitalism. As for capitalism being the most important institution of modern society, and regarding the characteristics of the modern society, their opinions are almost the same. Weber emphasizes the important role that ideas, or concepts, play in the history of human beings, while Marx does not believe that ideas have such extraordinary power. Since the rise of the “four dragons of Asia’ in the 1980s, Weber’s main arguments on the Protestant ethic have given rise to enthusiastic debate. People argue that the successful economic development of the four dragons constitutes a negation of Weber’s argument. Traditional scholars indicate further that Confucian values would not prevent, but actually foster the development of capitalism. Another criticism of Weber is that he emphasizes concepts and is opposed to Marx’s materialism. However, this is a partial understanding of Weber. This explanation arose from Talcott Parsons’s understanding of Weber. According to the argument of those opposed to Parsons, Weber, in his comparative studies in his later years, spent much of his energy discussing the institution, and noted some characteristics of cultural institutions outside of Western Europe. This proves that Weber is not

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a pure culturalist.29 Culturalists argue that the concept has a decisive role in the course of human history. Institutionalists propose that only the institution has this power: people’s concepts originate under the influence of institutions, and under different institutions, different concepts will emerge. According to the institutionalist argument, as long as non-European countries can successfully transplant various modern institutions into their own societies, successfully replacing the original institutions, then the process of modernization will continue smoothly. For example, in the economic domain, if the property system and market economy are introduced, then Capitalism will take root. When discussing the relative importance of the roles played by the two levels of institution and concept in the rise of East Asian capitalism, Peter Berger indicates that, as a sociologist who uses the Weberian approach, his intuition makes him incline to the culturalists, however, his moral and political biases make him turn toward the institutionalist camp. He says, “after pondering these questions for some years, my hunch . . . is that the correct answer lies somewhere in the middle, between the two hypotheses starkly formulated.”30 Regarding this question, my opinion is that institution and concept are two inseparable sides of one coin. The institution is the embodiment and expression of the concept in the experimental world, and the concept is the spirit of the institution. Without democratic thought, there would be no voting institution; yet democratic theory cannot be realized without the institution of voting. Of course, institutions are not strictly limited by abstract theories or concepts. Two slightly different institutions can both represent to the same theory. For example, in democratic politics, the presidential and parliamentary systems differ considerably, yet both of them can embody the spirit of democratic politics. Of course, theory nevertheless can limit the institution. Democratic theory cannot exist without the institutions of voting. I think this road of integrated progress is relatively practical. As to which comes first, the concept or the institution, this is a question

Regarding this argument, see Robert Bellah, “Reflections on the Protestant Ethic Analogy in Asia,” in ed. S.N. Eisenstadt, The Protestant Ethic and Modernization: A Comparative View (New York: Basic Books, 1968), 245. 30 Peter Berger, “An East Asian Development Model?,” in ed. Peter Berger, et.al., In Search of an East Asian Development Model (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1988), 10. 29

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for historical philosophy. Marx’s economic determinism and Weber’s emphasis of the concept all have their own pitfalls. Within economic determinism, productivity is the main factor driving history, yet it is uncaused—how is this possible? Productivity is not an uncaused cause like God. Rather, it, like other things, is caused by other factors. For those who emphasize the concept, concepts are the main impetus of history. Tolstoy sneers at this understanding in the postscript of War and Peace when discussing his view of history. He says, the main reason why intellectuals declare the idea the main driver of history is that intellectuals are the producers of ideas. Their only power is the idea, so of course they emphasize its importance. They are attempting to elevate their own position. Tolstoy concludes that the driver of history is a secret unknown to all of us. Most discussions of Weber’s points and the question of East Asian modernization revolve around economics and the rise of capitalism; rarely is political modernization discussed. This article dealt with the issue of modernization in the political arena. This is only a first step, and there are many more questions left for us to explore.

CONFUCIAN EXPERIENCE AND PHILOSOPHICAL DISCOURSE: REFLECTIONS ON SOME APORIAE IN CONTEMPORARY NEO-CONFUCIANISM Joël Thoraval The question of the “legitimacy” of the concept of “Chinese philosophy” is now the subject of new thinking in mainland China.1 It is an old debate, which dates back to Japan’s and then China’s encounter with the modern West. It is clearly the case that this discussion is marked by an essential historical contingency, since foreign categories such as “religion” or “philosophy” were introduced into the language and thought of the Far East hardly more than a century ago, because of the exclusive hegemony of European culture. However it is equally clear that this discussion is endowed with a kind of relative necessity, since these categories were actively appropriated by the Japanese and Chinese elites, and used to re-think their cultural heritage. This debate has thus long since ceased to appear as an “East-West dialogue.” It is above all a discussion specific to China and Japan, a self-assessment through which the modern intellectuals of these countries periodically re-examine in critical fashion their own Western roots.2 Because of its historicity, this debate is rightly interminable. It does not await a dogmatic and definitive answer, but rather a kind of pragmatic decision. What is required, it seems to me, is a simple explicitation of the position one wishes to adopt, knowing that by definition it cannot be universally valid, since it depends on the kind of intellectual and philosophical commitment that one embraces. After that, it is time to move on to the main point; that is to say to work. It is not our aim here to approach this problem in general, but only to present 1 See the research program presented by Zheng Jiadong, “‘Zhongguo zhexue’ de ‘hefaxing’ wenti” (The question of the ‘legitimacy’ of ‘Chinese philosophy’), Zhongguo zhexue nianjian, 2001, Beijing, Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan, 1–13. 2 On the inadequacy of the Western concept of religion to the Chinese context, cf. J. Thoraval, “Xifang dui Zhonggguo zongjiao de wujie—Xianggang de ge’an” (Western misinterpretation of Chinese religion—the case of Hong Kong), in Liu Qingfeng et Guan Xiaochun eds., Zhuanhua zhong de Xianggang (Hong-Kong in transformation), 1998, Hong Kong, The Chinese University Press, 237–257.

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a few critical comments on one of the most remarkable attempts to champion a form of modern thought which is both simultaneously and equally “philosophical” and “Confucian,” that of “contemporary neo-Confucianism” as illustrated particularly by the philosopher Mou Zongsan (1909–1995). The comments which follow are meaningful only in relation to the radical demands of this movement. What is called “Confucianism” nowadays, points to a fragmented reality which, in a Chinese society which has become post-Confucian, can nevertheless be perceived, in a variable and always problematical way, in the misleading evidence of ideological practice or theoretical discourse, as well as in the more ambiguous domain of unexpressed values and lived behavior. There are now many ways to refer in an active way to this enormous inheritance. One can find there a source of personal or collective enrichment, without necessarily embarking on any philosophical detour. One can also, when such a detour is explicitly assumed, approach this inheritance from widely differing perspectives, ranging from theological anxiety to ethical preoccupation, as well as the effort of hermeneutic reconstruction. But it is a question here only of a particular current daotong, or “transmission of the way” and by the demand for a state of wisdom or of “sainthood” radicalized by the appropriation of Buddhist teachings.3 The difficulties which we will examine are worthy of the remarkable ambition and the theoretical power of this movement. The propositions which follow take the deliberate risk of simplification. They seek precisely to be “debatable,” in making explicit the consequences of a possible positing of the problem which is capable by definition of not being exclusive. They need to be completed with more precise case studies.4

3 For a quick update of this movement, see: “La Chine et le confucianisme au défi de la modernité,” Esprit, nº 265, 2000, 140–154. 4 An article published in Chinese on the present topic has generated a dialogue with Chinese and Japanese academics. See “Rujia jingyan yu zhexue huayu” (Confucian experience and philosophical discourse), Zhongguo xueshu (China Scholarship), Pékin, vol. 4 (2003), 2, 1–37; Zhang Xianglong, “‘Zhexue’ de huoguo yu fencun—Du Ruile ‘Ruxue jingyan yu zhexue huayu’ yiwen duhou gan” (Consequences and measures of “philosophy”: Impression of a reading of the article by J. Thoraval), Zhongguo xueshu, 15, 2003, 242–259; and Joël Thoraval’s response, “Zongguo xiandai zhexue tizhi de ‘yaoshu’ zuoyong—huiying Zhang Xianglong de jige yijian” (The Role of ‘pharmakon’ in modern Chinese philosophy—A few remarks in response to Zhang Xianglong), Zhongguo xueshu, 16, 2004, 255–266; Dongya sixiang zhong de chuantong yu xiandai—“zhexue” de linglei puxixue (Modernity and Tradition in East Asian Thought:

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We need two distinct usages of the concept of “philosophy.” It does not seem, in this debate, that we can do without two different uses of the concept of “philosophy.” There exists between these two meanings a tension made necessary only by our own particular historical circumstances. We need this wider concept of philosophy for reasons which are as much political as specifically intellectual. This wider concept is first of all a condition for a “politics of recognition.” This is the principle which forbids us to impose a priori limitations on the abstract idea of a community of philosophical discussion. It consists of keeping open the possibility of welcoming participants from the most diverse cultural horizons, with a view to partaking in reasoned exchange, in the name of the regulating idea of a truly cosmopolitan philosophy. This demand is necessitated by the persistence of ethnocentrism, translated particularly in the West, in philosophical circles, by a persistently excessive ignorance of Far Eastern thought. The representatives of the present generation of neo-Confucianism have done much to make Confucian thought appear on the horizon of international religious and philosophical thinking, even if this recognition is more the work of America than of continental Europe. It is normal that this Annerkennung should first take on institutional form, in various international organizations, before being able to have lasting effects on thought. For it is less a question here of philosophy than of philosophical politics. As in any political environment, the result of this interaction can as easily be chaos and reciprocal deafness as harmony and cooperation. We should note in passing that this request for recognition is exercised simultaneously on the philosophical and religious levels. The insistence of this movement on emphasizing the religious dimension of Confucian thought has as a consequence that its Western partners are not only philosophers but also theologians. A counter-effect of this ambiguity is thus inevitable: it invites a calling into question of the specific usage which is made in the Chinese language, of the Western categories of philosophy (zhexue) and of religion (zongjiao). However this liberal attitude should not be considered a simple political concession to the inevitable. It also carries with it a specifically Hetero-genealogy of “Philosophy”), University of Tokyo Center of Philosophy Bulletin, vol. III (2004). The question “Is there a Chinese Philosophy? A State-of-the-art Presentation” has been recently discussed in a special issue of Extrême-Orient, Extrême-Occident, Paris, 27 (2005).

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intellectual demand. Not only for the simple reason that the bringing together of equally profound but differing worlds of thought is likely to produce opportunities for surprise, new departures, and even mutual illumination, but also for a reason connected to the initial vocation of Western philosophy itself. Frequenting the Confucian or Buddhist world can contribute to keeping alive the questioning of what Kant calls the “cosmic concept” (Weltbegriff ) of philosophy, as opposed to its “scholastic concept” (Schulbegriff ).5 It is not necessary to believe that the ancient ideal of a life of wisdom is practicable in order to benefit from this confrontation. At the very least, Western philosophical thought can find there new resources for a fresh consideration of “the world we have lost” since the modern turn in philosophical activity. This wider concept nonetheless must be contrasted with a narrower acceptance of the concept of philosophy. The latter harks back to a specific discourse which appeared in Europe, characterized by the technicality of its approach, and by the historicism of its questioning in its critical relation to the Western philosophical tradition. What was internationalized, little more than a century ago, was a new professional activity, carried on in a new institutional framework (the philosophy department of a European type of university), essentially at odds with the ancient modes of production and transmission of knowledge. It is this new reality that was designated by the Japanese and Chinese neologisms tetsugaku and zhexue, despite the maintenance of a reference, which had become abstracted, to the ideal of wisdom. It is also in this stricter sense that I will henceforth use the term philosophy. What must be emphasized is that the emergence in China of a university-based Confucian philosophy led to a new type of discourse, characterized by a fundamental hybridity. The example of the work of Mou Zongsan is particularly noteworthy, since it would seem to have borrowed its resources from the most demanding thinking of both the Chinese and European worlds. Trained in the school of logicism of Russell and of early Wittgenstein, applied to the reinterpretation of the thought of Kant (particularly through a translation into

Mou Zongsan, Xianxiang yu wuzishen (Phenomenon and Thing-in-itself ), 1975, Taipei, Xuesheng shuju, 455–464; Reference is made to Kant, KrV, B 866–867. Reciprocally, one notes the interest in Confucian circles in the “spiritual exercises” of Greco-roman antiquity edited by Pierre Hadot. 5

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Chinese of the three Critiques), Mou Zongsan’s thought6 endeavors to keep intact the objectives of the most “mystical” (a word used only for convenience) Confucian tradition, that of the school of the heart-mind (xinxue), while seeking to exploit the conceptuality of the ancient Buddhist school of Tiantai.7 This new discourse, devoted to the task of a selective blending of Chinese and European teaching, may appear to be a remarkable enrichment of philosophical thought. Indeed, why should one reject a creative hybridity, except in the name of a highly suspect philosophical purity? One may also, however, choose to see in this phenomenon an indication of a fundamental difficulty, which is rarely set out as such. This difficulty is the product of a specific historical situation. The 20th century has witnessed the tragic destruction (which is also largely a self-destruction) of the anthropological and institutional frameworks which had made possible the power of “Confucian” thought and action (the quotation marks appear only to indicate, without it being possible to develop here, the problematical character of this notion, which is of European origin). What have disappeared, are the material and symbolic conditions of this thinking, whether they be ritual or physical practices. What today is called Confucian philosophy, is the product of a tragic effort to preserve in a new language teachings which are highly valuable, but henceforth severed from the conditions of their possibility. To indicate in a word the nature of this difficulty, which I will seek to analyze below, it consists of the attempt, because of particular historic conditions, to solve by philosophical means problems which are not initially of a philosophical nature. Consciousness of this difficulty is not absent from the intellectual history of contemporary China, even if the prestige of the European example has reduced it to a marginal position. What needs to be considered here is the existence of a Confucian rejection of philosophy: not a reactionary or obscurantist rejection, but a reasoned decision to keep away from the academic institution, after a full recognition of its merits. One would need to look at the little-studied example of Ma

6 I have sought to present concisely but systematically the essential dimensions of Mou Zongsan’s thought in “Idéal du Sage, stratégie du philosophe,” introduction à Mou Zongsan, La spécificité de la philosophie chinoise, Paris, Cerf, 2002. 7 On these names and ideas, French-speaking readers will find convenient indicators in the very comprehensive work by Anne Cheng, Histoire de la pensée chinoise, 1997, Paris, Seuil.

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Yifu (1883–1967), who went to the United States to study philosophy as early as 1903 but refused any official function after his return to China, founding instead, in 1939, an academy of a traditional type, the Fuxing shuyuan. The teaching there was based on moral exercises, in the light of commentaries on the Confucian and Buddhist classics. One should also recall the resistance of Liang Shuming to being attributed the status of “philosopher” and his mistrust, particularly of Xong Shili (Mou Zongsan’ master), in the face of the superfluous development of philosophical ratiocination. One can see why the choice of a restricted concept of philosophy is desirable. Not in order to attribute supremacy to philosophical discourse of the modern Western type, but on the contrary to highlight the boundaries of philosophical intelligibility. It is only by maintaining in all its requirements the strict and limited exercise of philosophical activity that one can bring out the necessary autonomy of competing or complementary practices which are not in their essence philosophical. Only then can the origin of the principal difficulty and the source of the philosophical aporia of academic Confucianism be clearly brought to light. For the latter, the ancient practices, whether ritualistic or physical, are in fact transformed into an abstract requirement, they become like an extra, the desirable character of which is proclaimed, but which, in fact, takes on a secondary and almost optional character. This should not be seen as the effect of a theoretical weakness in this current of thought, but as the consequence of a real evolution: the disappearance of these ancient practices from the daily horizon of the modern Chinese intellectual—or at least their distancing, for although they become more dreamed about than experienced by academics, they remain partly present in disguised forms in popular culture, which the historian or the anthropologist sometimes seeks to study.8 The only advantage, perhaps, of the pragmatic choice of such a philosophical self-limitation is to highlight the existence of a problem, whereas the contrary choice, according to which Confucianism is “already” a philosophy, makes it possible to ignore it or to believe it to be imaginatively solved.

8 For a discussion of the “Confucian” dimension (ru) in popular religion in Taiwan, cf. Philip Clart, “Confucius and the Mediums: is there a ‘Popular Confucianism’?,” T’oung Pao, LXXXIX (2003), 1–38.

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The privilege accorded to philosophy in the restricted sense is not the result of a dogmatic definition on the essence of philosophy, but the result of a strategic decision. The often raised question: “Is there such a thing as Chinese Philosophy should be recognized for what it is—a question that has meaning only for a philosopher. It is, however, irrelevant to a historian concerned with Chinese thought before the 20th century. In fact, it is impossible for the historian to use the category or meta-category of “philosophy” from the outside and in a neutral way in an attempt to establish a structure in the system of thought under examination. Philosophy is a very singular exercise which has the particularity of perpetually including both its nature and its intention in the very process of its interrogation. The creation of every single philosopher has modified, even if only infinitesimally, the idea of what it means to philosophize. Consequently, the specific usage made of the category of philosophy in a Chinese context immediately gives rise to controversy in the name of a different and sometimes incompatible conception of the attributed finality. Therefore this exercise only makes sense if it is the result of a personal philosophic engagement, made in the first person singular, able to legitimize his choices when confronted with others which are equally possible. The commitment to such a of community of discussion is by definition the work of the philosopher. Only from this vantage point may Chinese texts take on a strictly philosophical dimension for the modern reader. The historian, on the other hand, has less need to question his own choices than those of others: for instance, the choice of certain Chinese literati to identify with the institution of philosophy as well as the opposite choice of the ancient Japanese samurai, resulting in this term being applied solely to the Western tradition and modern Japanese thought. The historian’s task consists of reconstituting the context of these choices, of interpreting their meaning, and of reflecting upon the intentional and non-intentional consequences of these original premises. This attitude does not prohibit the historian in any way from exercising criticism (as this article attempts to demonstrate), but it is a question of internal criticism, formulated in the mode of “If . . ., then . . .” If the stated objective is to preserve the process of selftransformation specific to the neo-Confucian tradition, then a certain number of conditions of possibility must be present. However, in his desire to appropriate the classificatory category of “philosophy” in non-critical fashion, the historian runs the double risk

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of historical deformation and philosophical trivialization. First of all, this temptation leads him to produce a “definition” of the essence of philosophy which is sufficiently formal or sufficiently vague to be able to describe markedly different ways of thinking, in order then to be able to emphasize, for example, the specificities of a “Chinese philosophy” which would be in opposition to a “Western philosophy.” But it is easy to show that such an approach tends to reproduce, in different cultural contexts, the stages of the same aporia. This aporia is the product of a specular device which works in three stages: annexation, extension, and dissipation. First a history of Chinese or Japanese philosophy is created by submitting indigenous culture to the divisions of Western culture. The Western category of philosophy is thus chosen as the criterion for selecting a body of texts which display similarities and which make it possible to contrast the two traditions. It is generally those discourses which offer particular qualities of logical rigor or critical tendencies which are thus chosen from the larger whole of which they were previously a part.9 In the second stage, one becomes suddenly aware of the arbitrariness of such a distinction, which sometimes has the effect of rendering unintelligible the deep-seated coherence of indigenous ways of thought. Could the rebuilding of a “Japanese philosophy” by choosing certain texts from the Buddhist schools of the Heian period, while rejecting others, actually call into question the meaning of Buddhist teaching itself?10 One therefore encourages a more extensive approach to the 9 See for example Zhang Dainan in his Outline of the History of Chinese Philosophy (Zhongguo zhexue dagang) of 1937: “In order to differentiate between what is philosophical and what is not, it is in fact Western philosophy which serves as a criterion: in the modern intellectual situation, it is inevitable that it should be so.” Quoted by Zheng Jiadong, op. cit., 2001, 6. 10 Sueki Fumihiko, “Nihon tetsugaku no kanôsei” (The possibility of Japanese philosophy), Kaitai suru kotoba to seikai, Bukkyô kara no chôsen (A world and a language of deconstruction, the challenge of Buddhism), 1998, Tokyo, Iwanami shoten, 322–342. See the scepticism of the philosopher Nakamura Yûjiro, “A philosopher in the face of the difficulties of philosophy in Japan,” Ebisu, nº 8, 1995, pp. 77–103, echoing, although from a new perspective the diagnosis pronounced by Nakae Chômin in 1901: “from Antiquity to the present there has never been any philosophy in Japan.” The attempt to construct a Japanese philosophical tradition is however taken up from time to time: see most recently, H. Gene Blocker and Christopher L. Starling, Japanese Philosophy, New York, SUNY Press, 2001. This work is interesting in that it lays claim to the Chinese precedent, modern Chinese intellectuals having been less reticent about applying the philosophical neologism (zhexue/tetsugaku) to their own tradition of thought. But such a position sometimes has the effect of producing rather strange

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category of philosophy, in order to include in the field of study all the texts necessary for a full understanding of these “philosophical fragments.” This extension is by definition infinite. The third stage, likewise inevitable, is the product of protest from the “Western” camp: one cannot contrast a restrictive conception of philosophy in one place with an extensive one in another without running the risk of artificially creating a confrontation between an obstinately rationalistic West and an East divided between utilitarian preoccupation and mystical vocation. The questioning of this received idea therefore makes it necessary to widen the Western “philosophical” universe by resorting, as necessary, to texts selected from the literary or religious shelves in our libraries. But the result of such an operation will be obvious to everyone: it is no longer a question of philosophies, but of Eastern and Western thoughts and cultures. Rather than resorting to the “enrichment” of philosophy, one has merely produced the spectacle of its total dissipation. In any case, there is a feature common to all of these constructions, despite their contradictory prejudices: they are all contemporary creations, produced by the decisions of modern intellectuals, thinking in the wake of the global evolution of a philosophical discourse of Western origin. A Chinese philosophy exists only for today’s philosopher. He has a choice between a pragmatic meaning and a dogmatic meaning of the term. The former is a simple opening up of an horizon of work and exchange.11 The latter is the temptation of complete discursive mastery, seeking to transform the “already there” of a virtual philosophy by the systematic resort to philosophemes of Western origin. Both of these choices are possible, and when they are made by thinkers as powerful as Feng Youlan or Mou Zongsan, they bear with them extremely interesting philosophical effects.12

utterances. Thus, on the critique of the Chinese tradition of thinking presented by the “nativist” thinker Motoori Norinaga (1730–1801) in his commentary on the Kojiki: “Motoori uses philosophy to challenge philosophy, and in a way that has postmodern connotations” (p. 186). 11 This seems to me to be the definitive choice which governs the work of de Lao Sze-kuang (Lao Siguang), in an important article on the question. His position is less one of claiming to “proclaim a truth” than of championing “a way of utility” which makes possible better philosophical communication: “Understanding Chinese philosophy,” in Robert Allinson, Understanding the Chinese Mind, The philosophical Roots, Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1989, 271. 12 It is remarkable that while the dominant theme of his undertaking was a permanent comparison between China and the West, Mou Zongsan refused to consider

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The danger of the dogmatic view is nonetheless manifest. Firstly because it puts the thinker at risk of an imaginary identification with a particular cultural tradition, making himself its spokesman and authorized interpreter. It is then less a question of philosophy than of collective Weltanschauung. Philosophical thinking takes place against a backdrop of filial piety towards an ancestral inheritance, which is sometimes reinforced by modern preoccupations with identity (cultural characteristics, national sentiment, etc.). There remains a constant danger of confusing the free “I” of philosophical discourse with the pre-philosophical “we” of communitarian identity, and of making the philosopher into the ventriloquist agent of a voice which is beyond him. This is called, for example, in the Hegelian language of Mou Zongsan in the 1950s, “the historical consciousness of a people” or “cultural destiny.”13 It is not certain that the more modest and pluralistic attitude of the most recent representatives of the neo-Confucianist tendency, in their call for a hermeneutic approach of a Gadamerian kind, will be able to completely escape this temptation.14

“comparative philosophy” as a specific discipline: while on a visit to Korea in 1980 he indicated that the latter is merely a convenient and temporary discipline, which all can embrace in their attempts to understand a foreign philosophy, but “there is no philosophy called comparative philosophy” (“Tan zongjiao, daode yu wenhua” [On religion, morality and culture], Shidai yu ganshou [Impressions of the period], 1984, Taipei, Ehu,199–200). This assertion is not without foundation, even if it is subordinated to a program which remains problematical (“how Eastern philosophy can include and absorb Western philosophy”). Indeed one should speak of a “comparative history of systems of thought” rather than of comparative philosophy. Comparativism properly speaking lies in the domain of historical science, not of philosophy. It premises an exteriority and an objectivism which, for the philosopher, can only be a provisional stage. The aim of the philosopher is not to compare: it is on a journey oriented above all by his own particular conception of philosophical truth that he can ingest the most heterogeneous elements of thought. A philosophy which was “comparative” before being a philosophy would on the contrary be destined for what Heidegger calls, in a negative sense, the liberalizing attitude (liberalistisch): “sie stellt sich grundsätzlich und im vorhinein aus dem, was sie meint und denkt, heraus, macht es zum blossen Gegenstand ihres Meinens.” Heidegger, Hölderlins Hymnen “Germanien” und “Der Rhein” [1934–35], Gesamtausgabe, Frankfurt am Main, V. Klostermann, 1989, 28. “It situates itself on principle and beforehand outside what it judges and considers, it makes of it a simple object of its opinion.” 13 Mou Zongsan, Lishi zhexue (Philosophy of history), 1955, Taiwan, Xuesheng shuju. 14 The temptation of ethno-philosophy naturally can exist in the most various cultural contexts, and can be found also in what one could call the philosophical ethnicity specific to the Euro-American world. These dividing lines, which recall the phenomena studied by anthropologists under the title of “ethnicity,” are not only attributable to the existence of differing philosophical languages and intellectual traditions but also

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The second danger is of harboring the idea that Confucianism’s (or Buddhism’s) “becoming-a-philosophy” is its unavoidable destiny and its only way of salvation, that Confucianism is only to be assured of its modernity through its transformation into a philosophical discourse of a modern type. Although this idea seems today to be open to dispute, it has nonetheless profoundly influenced the evolution of Confucian thought during the 20th century. But can one not be a good Buddhist or a good Confucian without being in the least a philosopher? Although a philosophical interpretation of Confucianism is possible, does it not presuppose the vitality of thoughts and practices which existed before it and which are not reducible to the systematization which the philosopher seeks? Is not the philosopher only one among many possible figures in the imaginary Confucian community? Should he not detach himself from an imperial conception of the philosophical logos, the better to perceive the existence of heterogeneous practices without which his project is in threatened with vacuity? The problem posed is not that of the relation between a theory and its practice. When Mou Zongsan left the Chinese mainland for Taiwan at the end of the Civil War in tragic circumstances, his response to the disappearance of what constituted in his eyes the main part of traditional Chinese culture was to seek refuge in the system. Where “there is no longer anything” ( yi wu suo you), there can still be found in thought the conditions for resistance; what can resist social chaos and intellectual nihilism, is the building of a “system of thought” (sixiang xitong).15 In a

to the play of academic micro-politics. However, these divisions remain internal to an imaginary community which lays claim to a philosophical project. The fact that these discourses consciously come under the play of language games which are related, makes these boundaries perpetually moveable or crossable. One thus witnesses the deliberate creation of new and sometimes improbable ethnonyms, such as “continental American philosophy,” a transplant of thinking of Franco-German origin (in “continental” Europe) into a space long dominated by analytical philosophy (Cf. Walter Brogan et James Risser eds., American Continental Philosophy, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2000), or the deliberate and tactical claiming of a specific cultural continuity, such as the “American philosophy” which Stanley Cavell reconstitutes, attached to the thinking of ordinariness, and finding its resources in the cinema of Hollywood as well as in pre-analytical thought such as that of Thoreau or Emerson (Cf., on this last point, Sandra Laugier, “Y a-t-il une philosophie américaine?,” in Recommencer la philosophie, PUF, 1999, 31–70). But the problem of a “Chinese philosophy” is of a completely different nature. On the notion of “African philosophy,” cf. “De la philosophie en Chine . . . ,” op. cit., 1992). 15 “Shuo huai xiang” (On Nostalgia For One’s Homeland), in Shenming de xuewen (A Doctrine For Life), Taipei, Sanmin shuju, 7.

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certain way, philosophy is the name given to this effort of explicitation and systematization. Beginning in the 1970s, this reconstruction increasingly takes on a form borrowed from the Chinese Buddhist tradition, that of the “classification of teachings” ( panjiao), through which various doctrines relating to wisdom can be compared and organized into a hierarchy. A work such as Buddha-Nature and Wisdom, is based on the postulate that it is possible, without being Buddhist oneself, to arrive at an “objective understanding” of the various Mahayana schools, and to establish, for example, the philosophical superiority of “the perfect teaching” ( yuanjiao) of Tiantai over the “particular teachings” (biejiao) of Huayan.16 Because of its power, this conceptual tool makes it possible to give an account of the relative truth of various moral philosophies, whether Western like Kantism, or Chinese: Buddhist, Taoist, or Confucian. These philosophies are open to reformulation in a common language, that of intellectual intuition, borrowed from Kant, but transposed to the experience of the wisdom of the Eastern traditions.17 Despite their differences, they can be perceived as so many partial truths, of which neo-Confucian teaching, particularly the school of the heart-mind (xinxue), constitutes the necessary outcome. This impressive undertaking is an opportunity for original re-readings and of frequently remarkable insights into Chinese thought. What one is led to question, on the other hand, is the status of such a discourse. Despite its presentation as a “doctrine of life” (shengming de xuewen), as a teaching of a moral nature manifested in action (chengxian), is not the intention which animates and organizes these propositions directed towards a coherence of a theoretical type? The impression left by reading some of Mou Zongsan’s commentators is that we are somehow in the presence of a complete and definitive theory: in short, there remains only to put it into practice. While one might sometimes complain of the rarity of sages, and the reality of moral conduct may be called into question,18 these defects cannot cast doubt on the philosophical system itself: they are attributable to harshness of circumstance

16 Foxing yu banruo (Buddhatâ and prajnâ: Buddha-nature and Sapience), Taipei, Xuesheng shuju, 1975. 17 Zhi de zhijue yu Zhongguo zhexue, op. cit., J. Thoraval, “From a post-Kantian point of view”. 18 Zhai Zhizheng, Dangdai xin ruxue shilun (Essays On The History Of Contemporary Neo-Confucianists), Taipei, Yunchen, 1993.

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or weakness of character. “practice” comes, somehow, in addition. It is left to individual and private initiative, and finds itself inevitably at fault in the face of the perfection of the theoretical ideal. But is it not clear that to think in terms of “theory,” however perfect and philosophical it may be, is already to have lost the game? Can there be such a thing as a theory of becoming a saint (chengsheng)? Was not the often far from systematic ancient discourse, which was a call to the long undertaking of self-transformation, articulated, in the neo-Confucian academies, around specific exercises, whether of the psycho-physical type such as “Quiet Sitting” ( jingzuo), inspired or remodeled by the Indian dhyana, or of the ritual type, such as the daily sacrifices to the sanctuaries of the ancient sages or the local scholars?19 The ancient discourses were as much the product as the cause of the lived behaviors. They gave accounts of these experiences in widely differing ways, without being guided by the preoccupation of constructing a sort of meta-language, both homogeneous and hegemonic. On the other hand, the theorization thrown up by the unreserved adoption of the philosophical model is incompatible with the ancient “identity of intelligence and behavior” (zhixing heyi). It fosters a modern Western conception of practice as being the simple “application” of a preliminary theory. Naturally the philosophy of Mou Zongsan does not fail to proclaim its suspicion of the pretentions of theoretical rationality. If the teaching of neo-Confucianism is “perfect” (in the Buddhist sense of the term), it is because it is capable of being paradoxical in nature: it knows that it must step back at the end of its journey, in an ultimate experience which lies beyond all discourse. It is “a system which does not have the character (lakshana) of a system” ( you xitong er meiyou xitongxiang). As a good logician, Mou Zongsan knows that the apophatic path does not contradict systematicity but can be its accomplishment.20 Thus the letter of such a discourse is not unfaithful to the ancient teachings. But it is a matter here of performative, rather than of semantic, contradiction. The question is whether this new discourse is not incompatible, 19 Cf. for example Chan Wing-tsit on Zhu Xi and his academies: in the tradition which has become orthodox, and which takes him as its authority, “religious sacrifices were closely connected with neo-Confucianism,” in Wm. Th. de Bary and John Chaffee eds., Neo-confucian Education, University of California Press, 1989, 401. 20 See the preface to his translation of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: “Keshuo yu bu kushuo” [ The Sayable and The Unsayable], in Ming li lun, Taipei, Xuesheng, 1987, 6–18.

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in its effective workings, through its institutional and discursive character, with the doctrinal content it seeks to preserve and legitimize. One can gauge the power of distortion which Western philosophical discourse can carry in such a context, by considering one of the fundamental intuitions of Mou Zongsan. In his long work devoted to a re-reading of the great neo-Confucian scholars of the Song and Ming dynasties, he strives to characterize in a word the difference in inspiration which divides the European and Chinese approaches to morality. What one finds in Kant and the Western philosophers is a “metaphysics of morals;” while, on the other hand, it is a “moral metaphysics” which is said to characterize the undertaking of the neo-Confucian scholars. From the Western perspective, morality constitutes the object of reflection, and metaphysics is the means or the method which make it possible to give an account of its theoretical foundations. The Chinese perspective adopts an opposite direction: it is “morality” which constitutes the approach or the means in terms of the practice of wisdom, and it is from this lived experience that the ultimate foundations of the human and cosmic order are interrogated (dao or “way,” li or “principle” . . .). The conjunction “of” which in Europe separates metaphysics from “morals,” translates the will to apply a method to an objectivated reality. In China the adjective “moral” modifies the noun “metaphysics,” to indicate its foundation: it is through moral practice that one will be able to perceive the most “metaphysical” dimension of the universe.21 But the imposition of the Western philosophical vocabulary (the English equivalents of Mou Zongsan’s neologisms are given in brackets) compromises what is enlightening and true about this intuition. Is not talking about the Confucian experience in terms of “moral metaphysics” the fostering of a double misunderstanding? Should one not, on the contrary, first of all state the inadequacy of these Western concepts and emphasize that this experience is only partly “moral” and probably not at all “metaphysical”? If the expression daode conventionally renders in modern Chinese the Western word “moral,” the de (weakly translated as “virtue”) is above all the sign of a power awakened in man by his appropriation of the dao, of the true “way,” and in many contexts, this power is not necessarily translatable into a vocabulary which, in the West, is the concern of morality or ethics.

21

Xinti yu xingti, I, 39–140.

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This quality, which is as cosmic as it is specifically human, could be declined according to many other Western languages: that of aesthetics, for example, of mysticism, and even of medicine. Above all, the prestige of the European referent leads unconsciously to the granting of an independent status to those realities which are found “before visible forms” (xing’ershang)—since this is the concept used to translate “metaphysics” (xingshangxue), which contradicts the spirit of Confucian thought. According to a famous passage in the Book of Changes (Yijing) “what is before forms is called Dao (Tao); what is after is called concrete things (qi). What transforms and governs them is change; when this is extended to action, it is everywhere successful.”22 Now, it is an understatement to say that the informal or invisible (xing’ershang) is inseparable from what has a visible form (xing’erxia). It must be asserted that there would be no possible access to the former if there were no effort to transform the latter. The undertaking of wisdom aims as much at the “physical” as at the “metaphysical.” It is also by exercise bearing on the mental, and the somatic that following the “way” can be effectively realized. A multiplicity of techniques make it possible to progress in this self-transformation, for example “Quiet Sitting.”23 In some ways, metaphysics in the Western sense would only exist if consciousness could attain these ideal objects directly and subject them to theoretical treatment. But this path is in fact forbidden by the seeking of wisdom as a “manifestation in action” (chengxian).24

22

271.

Xici [Yijing] A 11–12. Translation by Anne Cheng, slightly modified, op. cit.,

23 This practice is inseparable from the spirit of reform of the neo-Confucian movement under the Song and Ming dynasties: cf. Jacques Gernet, “Techniques de recueillement, religion et philosophie,” in L’intelligence de la Chine, Paris, Gallimard, 1994, 280–302. Wang Yanming is content to limit their use, for fear of encouraging a quietistic attitude, too distant from the problems of this world. It is the “activist” school of Taizhou which turned away from it: cf. Rodney Taylor, “Meditation and Ming Neo-orthodoxy,” in The religious dimensions of Confucianism, State University of New York Press, 1990, 93–114. But the contemporary current of neo-Confucianism does not claim that school as its authority. 24 It is rather ironic that this Western “metaphysics” which was thus to be chosen, in a decision with far-reaching consequences, as the possible partner in a sort of Sino-Western dialogue, was probably itself the product of a lack of comprehension or of an initial distortion. It is well known that the concept of “metaphysics” is not to be found in Aristotle, and that it is the product of the difficulties of his Greek editors confronted with the problem of classifying his posthumous writings. The title of “metaphysics” provides a name for the writings devoted to “primary philosophy” which questions being as such (protè philosophia), published chronologically “after” the texts on “physics,” according to one of the first senses of the word meta which means

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Of course, Mou Zongsan is aware of this difference of context. But what is in question is not the doctrinal content of his discourse, but its effective functioning. The discourse of “Confucian philosophy” governed by the idea of systematicity and of “dialectical” necessity is so dominant as to leave no autonomous voice to the expression of the labor which is situated “after forms.” The various possible relations between the principle (li) and the spirit (xin) over the course of the work of self-transformation, as well as the various stages by which is manifested the development of Buddha-nature according to the way of the bodhisattva, are set out in a discursive dimension which by definition cannot give an account of the psychophysical infrastructure which gives them their full meaning. “A doctrine of salvation such as Buddhism” writes Edward Conze,25 “becomes a ‘philosophy’ when its intellectual content is explained to outsiders.” In fact a certain exteriority characterizes philosophical discourse, whether it is Confucian or not. The Confucian philosopher must in some way be able to become the outsider of himself, if he intends to think philosophically about his originating tradition. But he can do so only if he is simultaneously, in his own person, the non-philosopher who practices in parallel the exercises of that tradition. This non-philosophical dimension must be able to attain its own language, which by definition is not universal but contextualized, not anonymous but personal, and governed not by the synchrony of the system but

“after.” It was only later that these texts, according to another sense of the word meta which also means “beyond,” were interpreted as analyzing realities which “transcend” the physical world. Heidegger emphasized how the constitution of “metaphysics” as a scholastic discipline during the Middle Ages, in a Christian perspective, made it, contrary to Aristotle’s initial orientation, a specialized knowledge of the “suprasensible.” It became an objective knowledge of a particular sector of being, and no longer a fundamental disposition of the subject of the philosophical attitude (the philosopher) questioning being as a whole while keeping himself involved in this questioning. See the course taught by Heidegger in 1929–1930: Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik, WeltEndlichkeit-Einsamkeit, Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1983, pp. 37–87. In short, if one accepts the Heideggerian interpretation, Aristotle does not, any more than do the neo-Confucian thinkers of the Song dynasty, separate a “physics” from a “metaphysics” as separate areas of existence, open to distinct and specialized approaches. With the construction of a modern Confucian philosophy, as a “moral metaphysics” are we not also running the risk of a kind of scholastic distortion of the inspiration of the scholars of the Song and Ming dynasties? 25 Buddhist Thought in India, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1983, p. 28. Cf. “Idéal du sage, stratégie du philosophe” on the necessity for taking into account the interdependence of the two “ways,” that of the vision of wisdom, darshana-mârga ( jiandao), and that of self-realisation, bhâvanâ-mârga (xiudao).

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by the diachrony of an individual path. The more unassuming voices which reflect this experience of self-realization can be of widely differing kinds, ranging from an essay to a poem or a conversation. One can thus find a reflection of this traditional inspiration in the path of a Japanese scholar attached to the way of Wang Yangming, Okada Takehiko, given to the practice of “Quiet Sitting” ( jingzuo) and to the maintenance of a communitarian relationship.26 An initial consequence of the transformation of neo-Confucianism into a philosophy is therefore to encourage a speculative approach to teachings which are thus severed from their “material” infrastructure and so from their very conditions of possibility. This phenomenon is not peculiar to this current of thought, and should be related to the historical transformations which have accompanied the emergence of modern Chinese intellectuals since the beginning of the last century. The sudden introduction of structures of production and transmission of knowledge inspired by the West had the effect of giving rise, in some cases, to an “intellectualistic” attitude which is also to be found in the Buddhist intellectuals of the time. Think of the Institute in Nanking in the 1920s and 30s, founded by Ouyang Jingwu, the Neikeyuan, which saw the gradual separation of a “Buddhology” ( foxue) from the Buddhist practices ( fojiao) particular to the monks and to the people. This evolution naturally did not take place in one direction only, but gave rise in its turn to an anti-intellectualist reaction. We have already referred to a certain “anti-philosophical” spirit which can be detected in works by individuals such as Ma Yifu or Liang Shuming. There is another consequence to this evolution which we cannot examine here in all its complexity but can only designate in a few words—it is the problematic character which henceforth characterizes the relation of the subject of the philosophical discourse to the subject of the practice of wisdom. The profound meaning of an undertaking such as Mou Zongsan’s can only be a philosophical reflection on

26 See especially his speech in Taiwan in 1995: “Wode shengya yu rujiao—zhuiqiu tiren zhi xue de licheng” (My life and Confucianism: a pursuit of self-realisation), Zhongguo wenzhe yanjiusuo tongxun (Academia Sinica, Taipei), 22, 1996, pp. 85–102. His work on seated contemplation and Zen meditation Zazen to seiza (1965), has been translated by Rodney Taylor: The Confucian Way of Contemplation: Okada Takehiko and the Tradition of Quiet-Sitting, University of South Carolina Press, 1988; see also the collection of notes taken at various stages of his oral teaching: Yômeigaku surezure kusa, Kyoto, Meidoku shuppansha, 2001 and his account of his journey of pilgrimage in China in the footsteps of Wang Yangming: Ô Yômei kikô, Kyoto, Meidoku shuppansha, 1996).

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the experience of becoming a sage or becoming a saint (chengsheng) which lies at the roots of the tradition of thought to which he claims to belong (the school of the heart-mind). This endeavor readily adopts a certain critical style: in a certain way it is a question of establishing the “conditions of possibility” of access to the ultimate state of illumination or awakening. However if this operation really seeks to be transcendental, it is must be possible for it to be a self-reflection, shedding light on what makes one’s own experience possible: that of a Confucian saint or of an awakened being (bodhisattva). But is this reflexivity real or imaginary? Is it really on oneself that the reflecting judgment falls? Is it not rather on the experience of others than oneself, whether ancient or modern sages, on whose written testimonies one meditates? That being the case, is this thought really transcendental reflection? Is it not rather, in Kant’s terms, transcendent, which is to say, going beyond the boundaries of common experience? Should one not in consequence recognize and think out the distance which separates the “I” of the modern philosopher from those texts which are characterized, according to Ricoeur, by a particular “altitude”? Otherwise is not the danger of Confucian thought one of transforming itself into the manufacture of an abstract and self-sufficient system, referring more and more distantly to the ideals of what has become an anonymous wisdom?27 All in all, it is as if the modern creation of a university-based Confucianism, which translates into the hegemonic or even exclusive reign of the philosophical paradigm, had the effect of depriving Confucian experience of its foundations, and thus to a large extent of its meaning. It encourages the self-perpetuation of a thought which is literally uprooted, cut off from what constituted its essential foundations. Under the effect of the prestige of the Western philosophical model, what could be the expression of the most concrete and closest exercise (such as the “reflection on things at hand” called to mind by the title of the Jinsilu, the anthology complied in the Song dynasty by Zhu Xi

27 I can only refer to the questions presented in “Idéal du Sage, stratégie du philosophe,” where is commented in particular Mou Zongsan’s decision to translate by a single Chinese word the notions of “transcendant” and “transcendental.” See also on this point the critical comments of Zheng Jiadong: “Chaoyue yu neizai chaoyue” (Transcendance and immanent transcendance), Duanlie zhong de Chuantong (A Shattered Tradition), Beijing, Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan chubanshe, 2001, 202–232.

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and Lü Zuqian)28 has gradually been transformed into an abstract and moralizing idealism.29 The problem is less one of the relations between Chinese and Western philosophies than of the relation between philosophical discourse and symbolic practice. This problem exists as much in the West as in the East. It is naturally the appearance of philosophical discourse which retrospectively makes the “non-philosophical” appear as other—as its other. It is from the demands of this discourse that the boundaries which separate it from cultural or symbolic practices can first be perceived or thought out. These practices can be of widely varying kinds: religious, aesthetic, therapeutic. Unless one fosters the dream of an absolute knowledge, philosophical discourse cannot be the sovereign meta-language which would carry these heterogenous practices to their respective truths; it is not superimposable. The relation it has with them is necessarily more complex and as it were transversal: it constantly calls them into question, while constantly nourishing itself with their intuitions. It is impossible to create a general theory of the relation between the philosophical and the non-philosophical. This distinction is always contextual: it is produced by the decisions of particular thinkers, acting in a particular historical circumstance. However, it bears the imprint of historical and cultural determinations of which the philosopher is not necessarily conscious. The historian and the anthropologist can therefore sometimes contribute to clarifying the context of philosophical activity, particularly by highlighting the role of the particular institutional framework in which it is exercised. One of the perplexing difficulties of contemporary Chinese or Confucian philosophy is probably connected with a certain amnesia about the conditions of its own institutional existence. What is notably in question, is the specificity of the rules which oversee the production and transmission of the very particular knowledge which should be its own. It is in this perspective that we bring in two new analogies here: 28 Cf. Reflections on things at hand, The Neo-Confucian Anthology, trans. Chan Wing-tsit, New York, Columbia University Press, 1967. 29 Despite the desire for a system, there nonetheless exists a certain heterogeneity, a kind of “play” in Mou Zongsan’s texts: the occasionally perceptible tension between the remarkable and meticulous commentary on the classics, and the desire for theoretical systematicity could encourage a reading which is more respectful of the levels of experience. It is not impossible, as Habermas said about Heidegger, to think with Mou Zongsan against Mou Zongsan.

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with traditional Chinese medicine to illustrate the disruption introduced into thought by the introduction of the modern university, and with Lacanian psychoanalysis to show that the problem we are dealing with is not related only to the differences in cultural traditions. It may seem surprising to compare the modern fate of Confucian philosophy with that of Chinese traditional medicine. Such a comparison would however have been less surprising before the 20th century, since it was a matter of teachings addressed as much to the “body” as to the “spirit.” It would be easy to demonstrate that these forms of knowledge shared certain fundamental notions and sometimes referred to common classical sources (such as the Yijing). Moreover, certain exercises particular to what we call here for convenience wisdom practices such as “Quiet Sitting” ( jingzuo), could include a dimension which today seems to us to be “medical:” such as the advice about corporal behavior given by Zhu Xi to one of his interlocutors with the aim of producing therapeutic effects.30 Above all, these disciplines shared to a considerable extent certain principles relating to the transmission of knowledge and experience. In a remarkable anthropological study of the present-day teaching of Chinese medicine on the Chinese mainland, Elisabeth Hsu analyses how the transmission of medical knowledge takes place in three kinds of situations: that of a master of qigong or healer, who uses the ancient traditions of “breath control,” that of a scholarly doctor privately practicing a form of traditional medicine, and that of teachers in a modern college of Chinese medicine. In each of these contexts, this transmission takes on a different character: it is respectively “secret,” “personal,” or “standardized.”31 The creation of “institutes of Chinese medicine” (zhongyi xueyuan) is an effect of the policy of the Communist government, setting up in parallel with the faculties of Western medicine, new institutions, specializing in the teaching of a “modernized” version of traditional medicine. It would undoubtedly be interesting, despite the difference 30 Zhuzi wenji, p. 51; quoted by Jacques Gernet, op. cit., p. 384. Gernet also refers to a late Ming dynasty scholar, Hu Zhi, who was very interested in the practice of Chan, and who engaged in seated meditations in order to counter the effects of tuberculosis: ibid., 294. His biography can be found in Mingru xue’an, j. 22, ed. Zhonghua shuju, I, 1985, 514–515. 31 Elisabeth Hsu, The Transmission of Chinese Medicine, Cambridge University Press, 1999.

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in contexts, to compare them with the creation of departments or sections of Chinese philosophy, which have existed in China for less than a century. It is not without reason that Elisabeth Hsu introduces the teaching of her scholarly doctor as “a social practice of the transmission of knowledge and exercise which has only recently been marginalized in China.”32 In the commentary which the doctor presents of the classical Chinese texts, he offers his disciples no generalized explanation but only limited interpretations. The disciple has to memorize the texts, which find their virtue only in the context of medical practice. It is only through personal experience that he will himself be able to attain a realization in the form of a “revelation” (wu). For master and disciple alike, learning is not the possession of neutral and objectifiable knowledge, but a greater or lesser degree of lived intelligence which depends on the experience of each individual.33 In the modern structure of the new institutes of Chinese medicine, on the other hand, there is a transition from a “personal” transmission to a transmission which seeks to be “standardized” ( guifanhua). The origin of the didactic relationship is no longer the personal decision of master and disciple, but the administrative allocation of students to a work unit, where what counts is the conformist following of a course, broken up into classes and examinations. In the observations of Elisabeth Hsu, knowledge seems to be affected by four essential transformations. Firstly there is a homogenization of the texts, the various dimensions, intimately connected in the ancient writings (“philosophical” background, diagnosis, and therapy), being henceforth separated and allocated to specialized headings. This operation is accompanied by a persistent will for “systematization” (xitonghua), articulating knowledge in a new whole which presents apparent qualities of logical order. A “theorization” is introduced, relegating “practice” to the end of the course, and ensuring a progressive conceptual appropriation, that is impersonal and measurable.34 The end result of this transformation

Ibid., 103. Because of this impossibility of overview or of exteriority in relation to the therapeutic experience, anthropologists such as J. Farquhar contrast knowing Chinese medicine with knowledge of Chinese medicine: Knowing Practice: The Clinical Encounter of Chinese Medicine, Boulder, Westview, 1994. 34 These aspects are naturally connected: “Insofar as the classroom is a place for standardized instruction of a coherent medical system and textbooks are the predominant 32 33

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leads to the growing autonomization of a knowledge which is “comprehensible by itself, independently of a mentor.”35 This standardization of traditional doctrine leads to the making of a hybrid knowledge, guided by a double prohibition: not to contradict either the canonical texts or the teachings of Western medicine.36 Such a construct can be the source of therapeutic difficulties, which are not our subject here. But the treatment given to the ancient texts by their being merely inserted into a depersonalized didactic structure deserves to be compared to that which is in favor in modern Chinese philosophy, because of a shared attachment to the ideals of modernization and systematicity.37 The main point remains the hegemonic position of a certain kind of rationality, based on the bracketing of the subject (in the sense that linguistics speaks of the “subject of the statement” [énoncé] as opposed to the “subject of the utterance” [énonciation])38 which has the effect of irresistibly introducing notions of “theory” and “practice” which formerly did not exist. The question of the subject and its role in the transmission of knowledge lies also at the heart of a Western experience, which we choose to recall here in order to shed light on a particular way of conceiving the relation between the philosophical and the non-philosophical, where the “non-philosophical” is (even if not exclusively) of a therapeutic nature. This is Lacanian psychoanalysis which, independently of its entitlement to “scientificity,” in all likelihood represents an anthropological experience unparalleled in European culture because of the radicality with which it questions itself on the conditions of its own possibility—or impossibility. It needs to be distinguished from the standardized discipline which developed in the English-speaking countries for a time after the war under the name of psychoanalysis, as a form of ego-therapy (based on the re-adaptation and reinforcement of the self of the patient, modeled on the “strong self ” of the psychoanalyst). Here

genre of medical instruction, the very process of standardization provides the basis for theory building,” Ibid., 160. 35 Ibid., 228. 36 “TCM (Traditional Chinese Medecine) is being forged so as not to contradict the canons of either Chinese medical doctrine or biomedical theory,” ibid., 229. 37 Elisabeth Hsu finds a certain number of these: a non-respect of textual genres, a shift from prescriptive propositions to descriptive propositions, the construction of a compatibility with the concepts of Western science, the disappearance of essential notions such as that of the “spiritual” (shen) by reduction of a psychological kind, etc. 38 See E. Benveniste, Problèmes de linguistique générale, 1966, Paris, Seuil, 225–288.

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it is a question only of the singular experiment to which Jacques Lacan (1901–1981) gave his name. This experience only has its true meaning when related to the means of the cure, which brings together in a spoken contract two dissymmetrical subjects, the analyst and the one who, since Lacan, has been called the analyzant (the one who is being analyzed). In the tradition of Freudian doctrine, this analytical relationship aims at transforming the relation of the subject with his unconscious history, through the use of the process of transfer. It is neither possible nor useful to indicate here the ideas through which Lacan rethought an analytical situation in which, in contrast with popular representations, it is not the analyst, with his constituted theoretical knowledge who “does” the analysis, but the analyzant himself in a relationship of transfer to “a subject who is supposed to know.” The difficult questions raised by this undertaking are about the nature of the knowledge thus constituted, about the possibility of its transmission and about the relation this particular experience can have, not only with the institution of the university, but also with the sometimes rival claims of philosophical discourse. Needless to say I will confine myself here to the few indications necessary for a simple exercise in analogy. There is a profound incompatibility between psychoanalytical experience and the process particular to the university. Jean Laplanche, who symbolized in France a certain “academic psychoanalysis,” himself presented the undertaking as problematic and as based on the hypothesis that such teaching implies “an analytical way of talking about analysis, such that the discourse, by itself, has an analytical impact:” the possibility of such communication “is based on the communication each one has with his own unconscious.”39 The content of the teaching, which is addressed as much to the subject of the unconscious as to the “self ” of the student, should therefore affect the form of this teaching in such a way as to make it compatible with the habitual canons of academic and scientific communication. What is interesting about the position of Lacan and his school is that they emphasized this incompatibility, while encouraging the experiment of a partial and paradoxical teaching of psychoanalysis at the

39 Jean Laplanche, “Psychanalyse à l’université,” in Psychanalyse à l’université, I, 1, 1975, 5.

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University of Paris-Vincennes from the beginning of the 1970s. “Analytical discourse teaches nothing” he says. “There is nothing universal about it: this is why it is not a subject for teaching. How to teach what cannot be taught? This is the path down which Freud travelled . . .”40 There is indeed no other source to analytical knowledge than that which the analyzant himself elaborates in the cure. There is no theory which does not pass though the clinic.41 The truth which reveals itself there is therefore not open to neutral, universal objectifying knowledge, since this truth is one of an act of speech made in the particular conditions of transfer, which alone open to the analyzant the access to his unconscious determinations. There can be no (“objective”) speech bearing on the (subjective) speech in order to elevate it to a superior truth, since speech is a singular act, which must be carried out by each subject (this is the meaning of the assertion according to which, from this point of view, “there is no meta-language”). This speech is therefore unrepeatable and cannot be applied generally, since in its very act it changes the relationship of each interlocutor.42 Lacan therefore distinguishes the “teaching” (which is, properly speaking, impossible) from the “transmission” of psychoanalysis, which can only take place in a relationship where the resources of transfer are called upon. Hence the strange form taken on by Lacan’s famous seminar: there cannot be a fundamental break between the experience of the unconscious as it appears in the cure and as the teacher seeks to apprehend it in its truth. It is the mechanisms at work in what he calls analysis “in intension,” which is to say “personal” analysis, which determine those which govern analysis “in extension,” which is to say the elaboration of analytical knowledge.43 The analyzant has no more access to the generality of an anonymous knowledge than the teacher—they both occupy, in relation to the discourse of the unconscious, a comparable position: “by offering itself to being taught, psychoanalytical discourse

Jacques Lacan, «Lacan pour Vincennes!», in Ornicar?, 17–18, 1979, 278. On this question, cf. Joël Dor, Clinique psychanalytique, Paris, Denoël, 1994, 11–39. 42 “Each time a man talks to another in an authentic and complete fashion, there is, in the true sense, transfer, symbolic transfer—something happens which changes the nature of both the beings present,” Lacan, Séminaire I, Les écrits techniques de Freud (1953–1954), Paris, Seuil, 1975, 127. 43 Lacan, “Proposition sur le psychanalyste de l’Ecole” (1967), in Autres écrits, 2001, 246. It is at the point of articulation of these two dimensions that Lacan institutes what he calls the “pass,” that is to say the transition which can make it possible for an analysand at the end of analysis to become a psychoanalyst recognized by his School. 40 41

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brings the psychoanalyst to the position of the analyzant, which is to say to producing nothing controllable, despite appearances, unless as a symptom.”44 One of the effects of the theory of the “four discourses” which Lacan elaborated in the 1960s is precisely to highlight the radically heterogeneous character of the university situation and the analytical situation, because of the specific relations which they establish between subject and truth.45

44 “Allocution sur l’enseignement” (1970), in Autres écrits, 304. Here I leave aside the temptation (or the dream) which drove Lacan in the 1970s, that of the transmission of a part of the analytical experience by means of what he called “mathemes,” which is to say a formalization inspired by mathematics, which, alone, would be capable “of transmitting itself in full:” Séminaire XX, de 1973–1974, Encore, 1975, 108. This ambition of a complete transmission of formal knowledge is contemporaneous with the attempt at university teaching in Vincennes. Jean-Claude Milner sees in the former the condition of possibility of the latter: L’œuvre claire: Lacan, la science, la philosophie, Paris, Seuil, 1995, 147. It remains a fact that this attempt does not do away with the acknowledgement of the “impossibility” of teaching what is the very spirit of the analytical experience—as in these remarks in 1978 at a conference of his school: “as I have now come to conceive it, psychoanalysis is untransmittable, it is very tedious that each psychoanalyst should be constrained . . . to reinvent psychoanalysis . . .,” in Lettre de l’école freudienne, 25, 1979. 45 The theory of the four discourses is essentially presented in Séminaire XVII (1969– 1970): L’envers de la psychanalyse, Paris, Seuil, 1991. It was revised to some extent. The brief comments which follow are by definition incapable of giving an account of its complexity and aim only to give a concise idea of its object. It is a question of a topological structure which is based on the permanence of four places: agent ¤ other truth production.

Discourse

of the master

of the hysteric

of the university

of the analyst

S1 ¤ S2 $ a

$ ¤ S1 a S2

S2 ¤ a S1 $

a¤$ S2 S1

The permutation of the elements in these places determines four discourses, where S1 is the master-signifier, S2 is knowledge, $ is the crossed subject, which is to say the subject of the unconscious, and the object “a” is the cause of desire. It is the insertion of a subject in the language (the symbolic chain represented by the minimal connection of the two signifiers S1¤S2) which operates a division of the “subject” (to be distinguished from the conscious “self ” which belongs to the imaginary). As a speaking being, the subject is always irremediably alienated in the symbolic chain, where he is represented, without ever appearing there himself, by “a signifier for another signifier”. This operation of division in the subject produces a remainder, a residue of speech, which cannot be symbolized, which is object “a” (it is also the object of the fantasy). Lacanian terminology can be a source of misunderstanding. The discourse “of ” the analyst is not the discourse which the analyst produces, but the discourse about the

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Each of these situations produces its own blindness, the discourse of the Analyst being no exception. Light can only be shed on a discourse from the point of view of another discourse: “one does not hear the discourse of which one is oneself the effect . . . The meaning of a discourse is never available but from another discourse.”46 There can be no totalizing, scientific, or philosophical knowledge situated, in some way, “outside place.” It is in this context that the incommensurability between analytical experience and philosophical discourse is presented as radical. This distancing is all the more significant for Lacan’s discourse being constantly nurtured on philosophemes and for constant reference being made there to the texts of the philosophical tradition.47 At the beginning of his teaching, Lacan defines psychoanalytical novelty as “a

analyst. Truth does not designate adequacy to a reality, but the truth of a subject, which is to say, according to a Heideggerian metaphor, the “unveiling” in action of his desire, which is never symbolized as such. The “discourse” here designates not an utterance, but a type of social relation defined by its topological characteristics. Thus the discourse of the hysteric is not what a sick man says, it is the situation in which a divided subject ($) addresses to the master (S1) a request to know (S2) about the causes of his desire (a): it is more generally the location of the “desire to know”, where science itself originates. In the discourse (which is to say the relationship) of the university, knowledge, that of the “great authors” (S2), is placed in the position of agent and addresses itself to the other as student or scholar; this discourse does not invent but limits itself to transmission: it produces a division in the subject ($) between this purely inherited knowledge and the imperative S1 (“go on knowing!”) which is in a position of a hidden truth and which the subject fails to reach. In the analytical situation, the analyst is the one who makes possible the transfer: placing himself by his silence in the position of object of desire of the analysant (a), he makes possible for the latter to make the master-signifiers of his repression (S1) happen and to place in the position of truth (as unveiling) this “knowledge without subject” which is psychoanalytical knowledge (S2). We notice that, topologically, the discourse of the analyst is the “reverse” of the discourse of the master; the latter is the form of political discourse in general, illustrated by the well-known dialectic which opposes the master, figure of the law (S1), and the slave who is his other (S2) in Hegel’s Phenomenology of the Spirit. 46 Lacan, “Avis au lecteur japonais” (1972), in Autres écrits, 498–499. 47 This is sometimes the opportunity for interpretations of remarkable originality: cf. for example «Kant avec Sade» (1962), in Ecrits (1966), Paris, Seuil, pp. 765–790 (which brings together two almost contemporaneous texts, the Critique of Pure Reason and Philosophy In The Boudoir) or the Séminaire VIII (1960–1961) which is an illustration of the mechanism of transfer though a commentary on Plato’s Banquet (Le transfert, Paris, Seuil, 1991). Everyone knows the debt his conception of “truth” owes to Heidegger, whom he knew personally and whose text on the Logos he translated: “Logos (Heraklit, Fragment 50)”, in Vorträge und Aufsätze, Pfullingen, Neske, 1954, 207–222. This translation can be found in La psychanalyse, 1, 1956, 59–79.

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revolution in the field of philosophy:”48 the subject of philosophy, still imprisoned by imaginary identifications, conflicts with the subject of the unconscious, in thrall to the symbolic order. It should therefore be understood that psychoanalysis and philosophy can ask themselves the same questions, while bringing differing answers. Lacan is willing to push this game quite far, since he agrees, in a speech for television, to pretend to answer, as an analyst, the three Kantian questions: “What can I know? What must I do? What can I hope for?”49 There is however a sufficient topological distance between the two discourses to prevent their relation being conceived in dialogic terms. In order to defend the specificity of analytical practice, Lacan comes, at the end of his teaching, to lay claim to an “anti-philosophy” which is also a resistance to the will to mastery of philosophical discourse as a University discourse.50 Thus although philosophemes are brought into play by psychoanalytical thought and practice, it is according to a gesture of deliberate diversion, which make them serve ends which are not, and cannot be, those of philosophical rationality. The “disagreement” between psychoanalysis and philosophy is therefore naturally interminable.51 48

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Lacan, “Télévision” (1974), in Autres écrits, 535–543. “Peut-être à Vincennes . . .” (1975), in Autres écrits, 314–315. It is in its dimension as university discourse that I here approach philosophy. I am well aware that Lacan approached it according to various dimensions of his topology, comparing it also, depending on the context, with the discourse of the Master (as claiming to represent the law), of the Hysteric (as a questioning arousing “the desire to know”), or even of the Analyst (Socrates illustrated the two latter positions). Philosophers who claim to be “Lacanian” have presented this configuration in various ways. Thus, for Alain Juranville, philosophical discourse is «the supreme form of the master’s discourse, no doubt including the knowledge of the hysteric, but as a moment which must be surpassed» (Lacan et la philosophie, Paris, PUF, 1984, p. 358). Alain Badiou remarks that “philosophy is always diagonal to the four discourses. It simultaneously accepts . . . the injunction of the master, the proferred interruption of the hysteric, the skilful ratiocination of the university and the abstraction of the analyst” (“Platon et Lacan: le mathème est-il une idée?,” in Lacan avec les philosophes, Paris, Albin Michel, 1991, p. 148). However it is especially in its aspect of university discourse that I refer here to the “becoming-philosophy” of contemporary Confucianism. 51 For an example of a philosophical reaction, cf. Jacques Derrida, “Pour l’amour de Lacan,” in Lacan avec les philosophes, 397–420; a tribute (“Lacan presented the singular desire of the philosopher and thus contributed significantly to the opening of a space for a kind of new philosophical culture”) which is also a philosophical counter-attack. 49 50

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What in the end can be the purpose of such an analogy, which relates situations as dissimilar as those of contemporary Confucianism and of Lacanian psychoanalysis, which here is approached only as the anthropological experience of modern Europeans? It is not necessarily a question of finding there grounds for comparing, for example, the behavior of the singular master that was Lacan with those of the masters of wisdom in Eastern cultures.52 As for a possible utilization of the Four Discourses in a Chinese context (supposing this was desirable and possible), it would demand the taking into account not only of the specificity of cultural tradition but also of the historicity particular to the analytic enterprise, which is a conceivable only in the after-shock of the birth of modern science.53 It is not because of the effects of contingent difficulties but for structural reasons that the university versions of Confucianism and of psychoanalysis share the same difficulty: the disbarment of the subject. Their didactic imposition, in the modern structures of the university, can only give rise to the impersonal reception of a theoretical knowledge, which contradicts, in a performative way, the deep meaning of their own teachings. It is from this point of view that one can find food for thought about the relation which binds them, in an analogical way, to philosophical activity. The analogy presented here therefore deals only with a difference: that which separates into non-superimposable areas philosophical discourse and “symbolic practices.” Illustrations of the latter expression

52 This comparison has been made: on Lacan as Chan (Zen) master, see Stuart Schneidermann, Jacques Lacan, The Death of an Intellectual Hero, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1981. 53 On this point, Lacan never varied. “The subject on which we work in psychoanalysis can only be the subject of science:” a problem which must be clearly distinguished “from the question of knowing whether psychoanalysis is a science” (“La science et la vérité” (1965), in Ecrits, pp. 858, 863). It is a question of the pure subject “without qualities,” that of the Cartesian cogito and of Galilean science: cf., on this question, Jean-Claude Milner, op. cit., 37–42. One must point out that until very recently, China had not had the experience of psychoanalysis, but of “Freudism” (Foluoyidezhuyi), propagated by circles which were pedagogical and literary, rather than medical or psychiatric. In the 1980s, the latter was generally thought of as a vision of the world or as a “modernist” method of literary interpretation. In other words, when cut off from its conditions of possibility—the Freudian corpus and the space of the cure—it is transformed into a pseudo-philosophy, under the effects of university discourse.

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can be found in Lacan himself,54 but it is used here in a broader sense in order to designate, in cultural contexts which can be various, the deliberate manipulation of symbols having an overall effect on the person, and particularly on the body. The notion of “symbolism,” taken up by Lacan, refers back to a notion developed by the French school of sociology, from Marcel Mauss to Claude Lévi-Strauss. We know how the latter, in a famous study, compared the practice of the shaman and the modern practice of the psychoanalyst.55 These symbolic practices, as we have seen, can belong to different registers: religious experience, artistic expression, therapeutic operation, etc. It will be noted that philosophical discourse is presented in the singular, where symbolic practices are plural. This is because we recognize here the almost universal spread of the philosophical institution of Western origin. Through the not necessarily intentional effects of the modern university, its products, from West to East and from North to South, now obey principles which, despite culturalist denials, have become highly comparable. It is often from its confrontation with historically and culturally situated symbolic practices that this discourse derives a part of its remarkable power. But the dream of sovereign assimilation is not inescapable. The philosopher can practice Buddhist meditation or the art of calligraphy, and give an account of them by means of specific language games, without, for all that, being seized by a philosophical hubris which tends to misrepresent these symbols as concepts, or these singular acts as a system. We therefore here advance the hypothesis of a neo-Confucian (or Taoist, or Buddhist) anti-philosophy. This attitude consists only of recognizing that the originality of neo-Confucian thought lies not in presenting new philosophical theses (cosmological, ontological, etc.) which would simply and antithetically oppose the propositions of the philosophy of Western origin (which nowadays is global), in order to find subject matter for confrontation or speculative surpassing. Even if this a possible choice, it is not in principle by the introduction of new 54 Does he not define psychoanalysis as a “praxis,” which is to say as an operation capable of “treating the real by means of the symbolic”? Séminaire XI, Les quatre concepts fondamentaux de la psychanalyse, 7–17. 55 The classic texts by Lévi-Strauss on this point are: “Le sorcier et sa magie” et “L’efficacité symbolique,” in Anthropologie structurale, 1958, 183–203 and 205–226, as well as the “Introduction à Marcel Mauss,” in Mauss, Sociologie et anthropologie, 1950, viii–lii—this latter text already refers to Lacan’s work.

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themes, concepts or philosophical arguments that one can best illustrate the irreplaceable contribution of neo-Confucianism. To transform this experience into philosophemes is already to have lost what constitutes its meaning and its power to disturb. It is not a particular philosophical theory that this experience can call into question, in order to offer a better one, but philosophical discourse itself, which in this way is better enlightened about its constitutive limitation. For philosophical discourse is potentially omnivorous, it is capable of dealing with everything: God, the Tao, even the unconscious.56 But it can do so only from the place and within the system of intelligibility which are its own. One of the roles of symbolic practice, when the philosopher is willing to submit himself to its specific demands, is precisely to shed light on the conditions of possibility of philosophical discourse, and through the establishment of a regulated relation with it, to seek to shift its boundaries. These practices find no place in the university order. This is why neo-Confucian thought, if it intends to abide by its material conditions of possibility, does not in principle form part of philosophy as it is defined by university discourse. An alternative then appears, to which we will deliberately give a radical twist. Does one really believe it possible to remain faithful to the “religious” ideal of the neo-Confucian sage or saint? If so, one must leave the university, and imagine a space, individual or collective, where the practices of wisdom can be carried on. It is later that it will be possible to define the paradoxical relation which will connect it with philosophical discourse, and to the university institution which takes care of reproducing the latter.57 The dream, sometimes cherished by young intellectuals in mainland China, of an autonomous space analo-

56 Cf. Jean-Marie Vaysse, L’inconscient des modernes, Essai sur l’origine métaphysique de la psychanalyse, Paris, Gallimard, 1999. 57 In the most radical perspective of contemporary neo-Confucianism, the distinction often made, as a sort of division of labor, between “religious” (or “popular”) Confucianism and “philosophical” (or “intellectual”) Confucianism should therefore appear highly problematical. This classification can only have meaning to the objectifying observation of the social scientist who, by definition, is not Confucian in the practice of his discipline. If on the other hand one declares one’s pursuit of the state of wisdom or of saintliness, such a distinction between self and others (or between the present and the past) is almost untenable. Indeed it is to the symbolic practice itself that the term “neo-Confucian” should first be applied, before being possibly extended, in a sense which can only be derivative, to the various contemporary discourses which seek its authority.

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gous to that of the ancient academies, is not without significance. The main danger of such a communitarian undertaking in modern conditions, would naturally be that of being ideologized. The model of the “school” has been used for a wide variety of purposes, from Liang Shuming’s period to that of the Cultural Revolution,58 but there is nothing to prove that such undertakings are by essence incompatible with democratic ideals. Nevertheless a modern experience of the way of wisdom or of sainthood (if there is such a thing) seems still to await the language and the institutional framework which would allow it fully to develop its own spirit: on this point, philosophical discourse, and the university practice associated with it, cannot be of any use. Does one on the contrary deem such ambitions to be utopian? Does one wish to divide one’s life between a private attachment to ideals which have become more distant, and a public activity in modern and standardized teaching and research institutions? One will then emphasize more modest objectives, even if they are of undoubted intellectual interest. In the culture of the humanities one will find riches, drawing at will on the treasures of a prestigious cultural tradition. Whether one is Chinese or a Westerner, if one seeks to be a philosopher it is through the specific demands of philosophical discourse that the live experience proper to neo-Confucian symbolic practice will be objectified and analyzed. Meantime, the reference to “Confucianism” will have changed meaning. The de facto demands of the university system will have bestowed a different character on the personal commitment made to the example of the ancient sages. One will have given up the idea of demarcating in a dogmatic fashion, within the philosophical Babel, a specific province called “Confucian philosophy.” The strategic objective will no longer be the confrontation of two entities, “Chinese” and “Western,” assured of their identities and of their respective boundaries. For the essential difference will no longer oppose regional “philosophies:” rather it will be that which connects

58 On the role of the “Confucian” school situated by Liang Shuming at the heart of a movement to rebuild the countryside in Shandong in the 1920s, cf. Guy Alitto, The Last Confucian, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1979. In the West, in extreme circumstances, that the philosopher’s communitarian dream takes on aspects which are far from being “wise” can be attested in the project of a “science camp” (Wissenschaftslager) presented by Rector Heidegger in 1933: thinking together was to be combined with living together and working together. Cf. Rudolf Safranski, Ein Master aus Deutschland, Heidegger und seine Zeit (1994), Frankfurt am Main, Fischer, 2000, 295–296.

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the same philosophical discourse with differentiated anthropological and cultural backgrounds, which have, however, become increasingly permeable and hybrid. In other words, one will have ceased to build a Confucian philosophy: one will merely have philosophized, in a creative way within a cultural and anthropological world which has become post-Confucian.59

The issue raised in the present article has been meanwhile reassessed from an anthropological perspective in Joël Thoraval, “Tetsugakuteki mono to hi-tetsugakuteki mono ni kan suru kôsatsu—jinruigakusha no shiten kara” (On the philosophical/ non-philosophical difference: an anthropologiperspective), in Kobayashi Yasuo, ed., Ima, tetsugaku to wa nanika? (What is Philosophy Today?), Tokyo: Miraisha, 2006, pp. 205–240 (french version in “Quelques remarques sur le philosophique et le non-philosophique vus par un anthropologue,” Ebisu, Tokyo, 37 (2007), pp. 47–70. Extensive fieldwork has illustrated the rethinking of formely rigid categorisations (philosophy, religion, science) in the practices of today’s “popular Confucianism” (minjian rijia): see Sebastien Billioud and Joel Thoraval, “The Contemporary Revival of Confucianism: Anshen liming or the Religious Dimension of Confucianism,” China Perspectives, Hong Kong, no 2008/3, pp. 4–22. 59

PART II

“WESTERNIZATION” VS. “SINICIZATION”: AN INEFFACEABLE PARADOX WITHIN CHINA’S MODERNIZATION PROCESS YU Keping Translated by Ping Zhu and Adrian Thieret The history of China’s modernization already spans 150 years. It can be traced back to the Qing government’s Westernization Movement (洋务运动) of the mid 19th century. Since that Westernization movement launched China’s modernization voyage, the process has continued, albeit with minor interruptions, through today. China’s modernization can be divided into three phases: the modernization led by the Qing government from the mid 19th century until 1911; the modernization led by KMT from 1912 to 1948; and the modernization led by the CCP after 1949 and especially after the 1980s Reform and Opening. These three different phases of modernization actually represent three different modes of modernization, as they were combined with three different political frameworks. In current discourse within China, these three modes are known as the feudalist modernization of the Qing dynasty, the capitalist modernization of the KMT, and the socialist modernization of the CCP. However, it is both interesting and thought-provoking that despite the fundamental differences between these three modes, they share a common internal logic. This logic runs through and connects the three different phrases of China’s modernization. What is this logic? It is the logic of “Westernization” (西化) and “Sinicization” (中化), and the incessant conflict and mixing between them. “Westernization” and “Sinicization” constitute an ineffaceable paradox within China’s modernization process. “Westernization” fundamentally implies that the process of China’s modernization is a process of comprehensively imitating and approaching the West—meaning to adopt Western institutions and methods not only in economy and technology, but also in culture and politics. The essential meaning of “Sinicization” is that despite the fact that China technologically and economically lags behind the West, Chinese politics and culture are in fact the most

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advanced, and thus the purpose of learning Western economics and technology is to strengthen the “roots” (本) of China, namely, China’s existing political institutions and cultural traditions. Let us first examine the modernization of the Qing government. When the Qing government was forced to implement modernization, it tried to comprehensively imitate the strengths of West in both economics and politics, and announced plans to establish a constitution. Therefore, the Qing modernization movement was called the “Westernization Movement.” After this, Westernization became a forceful voice reverberating through the entire nation, and various theories were formed in support of the Westernization movement. However, since the beginning of the Westernization Movement, dissent from court and commoners both was incessant and reverberated throughout the entire modernization process. In the process of opposing “Westernization,” systematic theories of complete anti-Westernization gradually formed; these are the “Sinicization” theories. In 1898, Zhang Zhidong proposed to use Chinese learning as the essence and use Western learning as a means (中学为体, 西学为用), in an attempt to mediate and resolve the conflict between “Westernization” and “Sinicization.” Zhang’s stance was quickly accepted by the Qing government and became an official political judgment and a modernization policy. Subsequently, the Westernization Movement transformed into the movement of “Chinese essence, Western means.”1

1 Because the concept of “Chinese essence, Western means” (中体西用) is crucial to understanding the entire modernization process in China, it is necessary to elaborate here. “Essence” and “means” are a pair of traditional Chinese philosophical concepts and have triple meanings: ontology and function, ends and means, essence and phenomenon. The idea of “Chinese essence, Western means” combines the three meanings. It signifies: (1) prioritization of Chinese learning (the Chinese tradition, especially the political tradition) over Western learning (Western civilization, mainly Western material civilization); (2) Chinese learning as inner and Western learning as outer; (3) Chinese learning as principal and Western learning as supplementary; (4) Chinese learning as root and Western learning as branch; (5) Chinese learning as constant and Western learning as variable; (6) Chinese learning as source and Western learning as extension. It is then not difficult to discern that the so-called “Chinese essence, Western means” was actually a “Sinicized” reading of the Westernization Movement. It was the government’s tendentious and authoritarian final choice in face of the irreconcilable conflict between “Westernization” and “Sincization.”

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I The conflict between Westernization and Sinicization more fully manifested during the Republican Era, especially in twenties and thirties following the May Fourth Movement. Ever since the Qing Government embarked on its Westernization Movement, the issue of the legitimacy of modernization gradually gave way to the issue of its rationality. After the 1920s, the focus of the Chinese intellectual world in fact shifted to the mode of modernization, i.e., to the question of what kind of modernization China should realize. The debate over what kind of modernization China should implement began before the May Fourth Movement, then reached its climax in the 1930s, and continued in the 1940s. The major debates at that time, such as those regarding “Eastern and Western Cultures,” “the outlet for China’s modernization,” “Chinese-based culture,” and “whether to base the nation on agriculture or industry,” were ultimately all debates about the mode of China’s modernization. During these debates, Chinese intellectuals developed various theories, such as the theories of “wholesale Westernization,” “globalization,” “sufficient Westernization,” “Chinese basis,” “Chinese essence, Western means,” “Chinese means, Western essence,” “China and the West as complementary,” “Chinese national conditions,” and “Chinese characteristics.” When we review those great debates today, we find that although they had different names, all of these theories were intended to solve the same basic problem of whether China should realize Western-style modernization or Chinese-style modernization: i.e. the problem of “Westernization” vs. “Sinicization.” The theories advocating Western modernization are referred to as “Westernization theory” in short. This includes the theories of “wholesale westernization,” “sufficient westernization,” and “globalization.” One fundamental premise of these theories is that modernization equals Westernization. Following this premise, Westernization is regarded as the only desired mode for the development of Chinese society. The proponents of Westernization theory were even reluctant to use the concepts of “modernization” or “industrialization,” instead insisting on the use of “Westernization” to summarize the modern stage of world historical development. In the 1930s, when more scholars began to abandon the concept of “Westernization” in favor of “modernization,”

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“industrialization,” and other concepts, Chen Xujing, a major representative of Westernization theory, disapproved: . . . Yan Jicheng thinks that the word “Westernization” is quite inappropriate and should be changed to “modernization.” Hu Shi also uses the word “globalization” in his works. I have used these two words in my previous writings, but I think that so-called globalized culture and so-called modern culture are essentially nothing but Western culture. Therefore the noun “Westernization” not only includes the other two notions, it is also more concrete and easily understood. Although Mr. Hu uses “globalization,” he nonetheless still uses “sufficient Westernization.” Although Mr. Yan thinks the word “Westernization” is inappropriate, he nonetheless uses “wholesale Westernization.” Therefore, I believe the use of “Westernization” is not a problem.2

The definition of “modernization” as “Westernization” has a historical basis. Chinese intellectuals’ sense of crisis arose from the clash between Eastern and Western cultures. In the mid 19th century, Western powers forced open the door of old China with their advanced weapons and products. Through this, Chinese people witnessed for the first time the power of Western civilization and discovered the gulf between Chinese and Western civilizations. They realized that if China could not catch up, it would be doomed. Beginning at that time, progressive intellectuals decided to model China upon and to learn from the West. In their view, advanced material and spiritual civilization both were products of Western modernization. Therefore, they set the target of China’s development as “Westernization” or “Europeanization.” “Westernization” means the wholesale adoption of Western industrial civilization and spiritual civilization, including modern science and technology, democratic politics, education, culture, arts, etc. Before the 1930s, “Westernization” was almost synonymous with “modernization,” and people often did not differentiate them in use. The early advocates of modernization, such as Chen Duxiu and Hu Shi, all used the concepts of “Westernization” and “Europeanization.” In fact, it was not until the 1930s that people started to distinguish between “Westernization” and “modernization.” Luo Rongqu, a scholar from Peking University, supports this point: “the word ‘modernization,’ as a neologism 2 Chen Xujing 陈序经, “Quanpan Xihua de bianhu 全盘西化的辩护 [Defense of wholesale Westernization],” Duli Pinglun 独立评论 160 ( July 1935). Republished in Luo Rongqu 罗荣渠, ed., Cong “xihua” dao xiandaihua 从”西化”到现代化 [From “Westernization” to Modernization] (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe 北京大学出 版社, 1990).

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in the social science lexicon, appeared in newspapers and journals in the 1930s. As far as we know, in July 1933, Shenbao Monthly (申报月 刊) published an extended issue for the anniversary of its founding; this special issued named “Issue on China’s Modernization Problem” (中国现代化问题号) probably marks the bona fide beginning of the promotion of this new concept.”3 Proponents of “Westernization” frequently emphasized that Westernization was globalization; they considered it the current of world history, an overwhelming tide that crushed all resistance in its path: “Western culture is the trend of world culture. In fact, today Western culture is world culture. If we do not wish to live in this world, then that is a different matter, but as long as we want to live in this world, we must adapt ourselves to this trend, for otherwise we resign ourselves to death.”4 In their eyes, Western civilization had transcended national boundaries to become a worldwide universal civilization; it had become the shared wealth of all human beings. Wholesale Westernization meant not to imitate a specific nation, but to absorb the shared wealth of all human beings. “From the view of history, socalled Western culture is not a registered patent of the Western people. Geographically speaking, it has swept the entire globe . . . ‘Western Culture’ can accurately be called modern world culture. We absorb so-called Western culture in order to modernize China and to make China into a competitive leader in the world order.”5 The usual reason provided by opponents of Western modernization is that despite West’s advanced material civilization, its spiritual civilization does not measure up to China’s. Proponents of Westernization offer a forceful rebuttal: they point out that material civilization is intimately associated with, and is a manifestation of, spiritual civilization. Thus the West not only had superior material civilization, it also had superior spiritual civilization compared to China. Lin Yutang, one

3 Luo Rongqu, “Zhongguo jinbainianlai xiandaihua sichao yanbian de fansi 中国 近百年现代化思潮演变的反思 [A Reflection on the Evolution of Thinking on Modernization over the Last Hundred Years in China],” in Cong “xihua” dao xiandaihua, 13–14. 4 Chen Xujing, “Zhongguo wenhua de chulu 中国文化的出路 [The Outlet for Chinese Culture].” Written in December 29th, 1933. Republished in Cong “xihua” dao xiandaihua, 389–390. 5 Xiong Mengfei 熊梦飞, “Tan zhongguo benwei wenhua zhi xiantian 谈‘中国本 位文化’之闲天 [Chat about ‘Chinese-based Culture’],” Wenhua Jianshe Yuekan 文化 建设月刊1:9 ( June 1935).

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major representative of Westernization theory, wrote an essay titled “Machine and Spirit” in response to the theory that “calls Western civilization material civilization, or mechanical civilization, and calls our country’s civilization moral civilization, or spiritual civilization.” Lin stated that the presence of material civilization does not necessarily indicate the absence of spiritual civilization, and likewise, the absence of material civilization does not necessarily indicate the presence of spiritual civilization. He stated that the West possessed material civilization and spiritual civilization both, and that the Western spiritual civilization, as represented in science, politics, education, and scholarship, was more advanced than the Chinese spiritual civilization. Lin described it with a colorful metaphor: “a man who defecates in a flush toilet does not necessarily have a corrupted mind; a man who defecates in a Chinese squat toilet does not necessarily keep a wholesome mind.”6 Lin’s final conclusion was that we must remember that mechanical civilization is also one representation of human spirit. Science, then machines, and Westerners’ self-perfecting commercial spirit, enabled the imported products that we all enjoy today. Another flag bearer for Westernization theory, Hu Shi, also wrote extensively on this issue. Like Lin Yutang, he thought that all Western material civilization embodied spiritual civilization, and that material and spiritual civilization were not contradictory to each other. Hu listed examples pointing out that Western science, morality, religion, and institutions were all types of spiritual civilization that had never existed in the East. He concluded that Western civilization “sufficiently employs human wisdom to seek truth in order to liberate man’s mind, to conquer nature for use by man, to remake the material environment, to reform socio-political institutions, and to pursue the greatest happiness of the majority—such a civilization can fulfill the spiritual needs of human beings. It is a spiritual civilization, a genuine civilization of idealism, it is certainly not a materialistic civilization.”7 While emphasizing that the West had both advanced material and advanced spiritual civilizations, the proponents of Westernization also highlighted the backwardness of Chinese civilization. Since the back-

6 Lin Yutang 林语堂, “Jiqi yu jingshen 机器与精神 [Machine and Spirit],” Zhong Xuesheng 中学生 2 (December 1929). 7 Hu Shi 胡适, “Women dui Xiyang wenming de taidu 我们对西洋文明的态度 [Our Attitude toward Western Civilization],” Dongfang Zazhi 东方杂志 23:17 ( July 1926).

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wardness of Chinese material civilization was already widely acknowledged and did not warrant reiteration, they focused instead on the backwardness of Chinese spiritual civilization. They thought that Chinese culture as a whole was degenerate, and always had been. Chinese culture was fundamentally a backward culture. Chinese people love to talk of morality and consider themselves benevolent and just. However, even in terms of morality, some proponents of Westernization thought China had no redeeming qualities and was morally the most degenerate nation. Wu Shichang, a literary historian, laments: “China has been talking about morality for longer than any other country in the world. Now in this era many people advocate more earnestly than ever the innate culture, particular national conditions, four principles and eight virtues, and spiritual exhortations of China. Yet in reality, Chinese society has degenerated to an incurable level. . . . At first I thought this was a transitory phenomenon within China’s current political environment. However, upon further consideration, it is actually that, although claims of “morality” existed in the culture of our ancestors, the culture actually did not leave its offspring a genuine moral heritage. At most, it talks some about ‘benefit’ and ‘harm,’ and the ways of the world.”8 After comprehensively comparing Chinese and Western cultures, Chen Xujing asserts that even in terms of traditional culture, Chinese culture had no good aspects and was inferior to Western culture in all respects: “Western culture is better than Chinese culture, no matter whether in thought, art, science, politics, morality, education, religion, philosophy, and literature.”9 In reply to some scholars who called Western civilization “materialistic civilization,” Hu Shi retorted that no, actually, traditional Chinese culture was the “materialistic civilization:” “such a civilization, restricted and controlled by material environment, unable to break loose, unable to reform the environment and improve its civilization with the ideas and wisdom of man, is a civilization of a lazy and unprogressive people; it is a true materialistic civilization.”10 The key argument of those who advocated Western modernization was that Western material civilization is an inseparable product of

8 Wu Shichang 世昌, “Zhongguo wenhua yu xiandai wenti 中国文化与现代 化问题 [On the Question of Chinese Culture and Modernization],” in Cong “xihua” dao xiandaihua, 351. 9 Chen Xujing, “Zhongguo wenhua de chulu.” 10 Hu Shi, “Women dui xiyang wenming de taidu.”

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Western spiritual civilization. According to their logic, if China intended to develop its economy and make itself prosperous and strong, it had to import Western material civilization, meaning advanced machines and other industrial products. Yet if China was to import Western industrial civilization, it simultaneously had to import Western culture, thus fundamentally negating its innate traditional civilization. To adopt advanced Western material civilization and still preserve the innate traditional civilization of China, or to enjoy the fruits of Western industrialization and yet reject Western spiritual products, is impossible. They thus pushed the issue to two extremes: either completely Westernize or fully uphold the old status quo, believing that China had no intermediate choice. In the words of Yan Jicheng, a well-known representative of Westernization theory, “in sum, China today is struggling in a thicket of problems, and the two methods by which all the problems can be solved are Westernization and conservatism. We will definitely not be able to find a third way in the short term.”11 Efforts to forcefully merge the two different civilizations of China and the West were futile, and thus theories such as “Chinese essence, Western means,” “China and the West as complementary” were purely nonsense in their eyes: If we are to single-mindedly preserve Eastern spiritual culture, and use Western material to comply with the nonsense that is “Chinese essence, Western means” (as essence and means are originally inseparable, for example, what on earth does it mean to say that the stomach is used as essence and the liver as means?), I am afraid that we will not even be able to copy the words of other. Are we going to follow the example of the rich Chinese abroad, who rides the Western-made bus (means) holding a copy of Great Learning or The Mean (essence)? Even if one reads Great Learning and The Mean thoroughly, he still cannot make a car by himself; he has to buy one.12

Furthermore, the proponents of Westernization blamed the failure of the Qing government’s modernization movement on its effort to marry the two heterogeneous civilizations of China and the West. They found that ever since the “Chinese essence, Western means” policy of late Qing, the Chinese government never wholeheartedly devoted itself to wholesale modernization. Rather, it wanted to use only Western mate11 Yan Jicheng 严既澄, “‘Women de zong dafu’ shuhou ‘我们的总答复’书后 [Postscript to ‘Our Summary Reply’],” Da Gong Bao, May 22, 1936. 12 Lin Yutang, “Jiqi yu jingshen.”

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rial civilization and thus preserve Chinese tradition, which was at odds with modern civilization. For Westernization theorists, utilizing merely the industrial civilization of the West was not modernization. Modernization meant to integrate and assimilate Western culture. At that time, many scholars hoped to preserve the Chinese “national essence” while assimilating the best parts of Western culture, and reconcile the two civilizations. For the proponents of Westernization, this attitude of reconciling China and the West “actually states that China must change but definitely cannot change.”13 In their view, modernization could not be accomplished with this attitude: China has not been able to adjust itself in this modernized world mainly because her leaders have not adopted the only feasible attitude toward modern civilization, which is to accept it wholeheartedly. In recent decades, China has not talked about boycotting Western civilization. This is only because China’s conservatism has taken shelter under selective modernization theories. The little progress it has made in adopting some aspects of Western civilization, such as the telegraph, telephone, railway, steamship, military reorganization, political reform and new economic institutions, has been enacted largely by the privileged expatriates and the Chinese who worry about national extinction and collapse. None of these advances were imported into China out of conscious will or clear understanding.14

Although Western-style modernization theory once held a commanding position among intellectuals, it was fiercely challenged in the 1930s, and was gradually replaced by an opposing theory: Chinese-style modernization theory, or “Sinicization theory.” II Various theories that emerged in the 1930s, such as those of “Chinese basis,” “Chinese national conditions,” “Chinese essence, Western means,” “Chinese characteristics,” and “China and the West as complementary,” all took different appearances and represented different political forces, but they all fall into the category of “Chinese-style modernization,” i.e., “Sinicization,” theory. These theories shared a

13 Hu Shi, “Wenhua de chongtu 文化的冲突 [Clash of Cultures]” (1929). In Cong xihua dao xiandaihua, 362. 14 Ibid.

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proposal to oppose the implementation of Western modernization in China. They thought it was feasible and necessary to merge Chinese civilization with Western civilization, and to assimilate the superior civilization of the West while preserving the Chinese tradition. In other words, they seek to realize modernization according to China’s tradition or national conditions, and imbue this modernization with Chinese characteristics. For example, the author of “On Sinicization,” Zhang Shenfu, writes: We always believe that reform of China is for the sake of China, or at least directly for the sake of China, although it may indirectly influence the world. At the same time, to reform China one has to find a method within China, though some general methods can be borrowed from the other people and other countries. Therefore, we think that many imported things should be Sinicized in order to apply them to China. Furthermore, if they are to be effective, they must be Sinicized. . . . If we give ourselves control, if we carefully Sinicize the things that are to be used in China and fit them to China’s national conditions, then we can make use of all foreign things without trepidation, and we will not have to reject any. Thus China will prosper! China was originally like this. We hope the new China that is consciously being constructed today will be certainly like this.15

The proponents of Sinicization first redefined the notion of “modernization.” Unlike the Westernization theorists, they no longer defined modernization as Westernization. Instead, they defined it as a process of social progress centered on industrialization. “So-called modernization is nothing but industrialization and mechanization, it means national industrialization.”16 “So-called modernization is actually industrialization.”17 In the view of Sinicization theorists, the main significance of modernization was economic development: increasing productivity, and enriching and strengthening the country. “So-called modernization primarily emphasizes economic reform and increased productivity. In other words, China must undergo a thorough industrial revolution. No matter whether the future of China lies in capitalism or socialism, 15 Zhang Shenfu 张申府, “Lun zhongguohua 论中国化 [On Sincization],” Zhanshi Wenhua 战时文化2:2 (February 1939). 16 Hu Qiuyuan 胡秋原, “Zhongguo wenhua fuxing lun 中国文化复兴论 [On the Renaissance of Chinese Culture]” (1934). Republished in Cong “xihua” dao xiandaihua, 327. 17 Zhou Xianwen 周宪文, “Zhongguo chuantong sixiang yu xiandaihua ‘中国传 统思想’与‘现代化’ [‘Traditional Chinese Thinking’ and ‘Modernization’],” Shenbao Yuekan 2:7 ( July 1933).

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undoubtedly the Chinese economy should be reformed and productivity should be increased.”18 The differentiation of Westernization from modernization and the definition of modernization as industrialization were crucial to Sinicization proponents, because this distinction made possible the separation of Western industrial civilization from Western politics and culture, and also made possible the realization of modernization without fundamental changes in Chinese political culture. In other words, Westernization was not necessary to the realization of Chinese modernization, as the economist Zhang Sumin writes: To individuals and material objects, modernization means progress. Modern men ought to be better than ancient men, and modern material objects ought to be better than ancient ones. If men and objects today are better than those of the past, modernization is realized. Otherwise, modernization has not been realized. This is the broad meaning of modernization. However, to the country and society, modernization means industrialization. Any modernized nation is an industrialized nation. Whether a country is democratic or Christian is not necessarily related to modernization. Japan is a modernized country, but it is not a pure democracy and its religion is not Christianity.19

The proponents of Sinicization thought highly of this distinction between modernization and Westernization because of its crucial importance for all of their theoretical propositions. For them, it was a difference not only of words, but of fundamental meanings. The famous Professor Zhang Xiruo warned, “if one wishes to mean the word ‘modernization’ to include ‘Westernization,’ of course that is okay. But one must remember that although modernization can include Westernization, Westernization does not include modernization. This is not to make a fuss over empty nouns, for there are many, varied facts contained within the words.”20 For the same reason, when the famous philosopher Feng Youlan heard his friends say “Westernization,” he always tried to correct them by saying “industrialization:”

18 Yang Xingzhi杨幸之, “Lun Zhongguo xiandaihua论中国现代化 [On China’s Modernization],” Shenbao Yuekan 2:7 ( July 1933). 19 Zhang Sumin张苏民, “Zhongguo xiandaihua zhi qianti yu fangshi 中国现代化 之前提与方式 [The Premise and Means of China’s Modernization],” Shenbao Yuekan 2:2 ( July, 1933). 20 Zhang Xiruo张奚若. “Quanpan xihua yu zhongguo benwei 全盘西化与中国本 位 [Wholesale Westernization and Chinese Basis].” Guowen Zhoubao 12, no. 33 (April, 1935).

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“when I am with my friends, if someone speaks of ‘Westernization,’ I always say ‘industrialization;’ this is not to play semantics; actually these two words really represent two different points of view.”21 One major point advanced by Westernization theorists to support their theory was that Western industrial civilization was based on Western spiritual civilization. Thus, since Western culture was incompatible with Chinese culture, traditional Chinese culture must be fully renounced in order for China to realize modernization. The proponents of Sinicization offered strong rebuttals of this point. They argued that human civilizations are plural, that Eastern and Western civilization are two different systems of civilization, and so one cannot say that Eastern civilization is ancient and Western civilization is modern. The major advocate of Sinicization, Liang Shuming, listed three different systems of civilization in his blockbuster work Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies: Western civilization (represented by ancient Greek culture), Indian civilization, and Chinese civilization. Liang even reached to the other extreme by arguing that although Western civilization was blossoming right now, the highest stage of human civilization was actually Eastern civilization as represented by Chinese culture. Based upon this, Liang predicted that Western civilization had already exhausted itself, and the next peak of world civilization would be the renaissance of Chinese civilization. “The future world culture is the renaissance of Chinese culture, just as the renaissance of Greek culture in recent times.”22 In this respect, Liang Shuming was at heart no different from the proponents of Westernization. He believed that it was impossible to reconcile Chinese and Western civilizations. However, he went to the other extreme: he believed that Chinese civilization would triumph over Western civilization, in contrast to the belief of Westernization theorists that Western civilization would triumph. For most proponents of Sinicization, the world’s civilizations were diverse and also complementary, and could blend with together. We can “mix Chinese and Western cultures perfectly, then Chinese culture can become part

21 Feng Youlan 冯友兰, “Zhongguo xiandai minzu yundong zhi zongxiang 中国现 代民族运动之总动向 [The General Trend of Modern China’s Nationalist Movement],” Shehui Xuejie 社会学界 9 (1936). 22 Liang Shuming 梁漱溟, “Dongxifang wenhua jiqi zhexue 东西方文化及其哲学 [Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies]” (1921). Republished in Cong “xihua” dao xiandaihua, 71.

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of world culture, and in the domain of world culture there will be a position for China.”23 Sinicization theorists stressed the complementary nature of Eastern and Western cultures. Professor Zhang Dongsun believed that if a revival of traditional Chinese culture occurred simultaneously with the importation of Western culture, these two would “not conflict, indeed, they would supplement each other.”24 Scientist Lu Yudao reiterates this point: So-called culture originally means the resources used for national survival; it is an accumulation of history. We do not need to differentiate what is Chinese, what is Western, what is new, and what is old. We can adopt whatever is beneficial to the strength and prosperity of our state and nation. Western countries do not consider their use of our compass to be Sinicization. Our adoption of Western railways and steamships is not Westernization. We do not need to abandon the original inventions of China, such as the compass, because we seek wholesale Westernization.25

Sincization theorists’ emphasis of the possibility of integrating Chinese and Western civilizations is significant because of the idea that traditional Chinese culture contains things of excellence worthy of preservation. Following from this, if the adoption of Western civilization means the utter negation of traditional Chinese culture, China may lose more than it gains. Many proponents of Sinicization pointed out that China had to adopt advanced Western culture and also preserve its excellent Chinese tradition. As author Chen Shiquan writes: To parochially, arrogantly, and exclusively worship ancient Chinese culture and to distain the use of science, is certainly a mistake. To single-mindedly look up to Western civilization and neglect the virtues in ancient Chinese culture is likewise a failure. . . . The inventions of indigenous Chinese culture, such as the compass and calendar, all have a scientific basis; other aspects, such as politics, philosophy, ethics, education, legal institutions, music, and arts . . . all have an original insight. Everybody knows that the Chinese conviction of ‘loyalty, filial piety,

Xiong Mengfei, “Tan ‘Zhongguo benwei wenhua zhi xiantian.” Zhang Dongsun张东荪, “Xiandai de Zhongguo zenyang yao kongzi 现代的中 国怎样要孔子 [“In What Way Do We need Confucius in Modern China],” Zhengfeng Banyuekan 2 ( January 1935). 25 Lu Yudao 卢于道, “Kexue de wenhua jianshe 科学的文化建设 [Scientific Construction of Culture],” Kexue 科学 19:15 (May 1935). 23 24

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While emphasizing the blending of Chinese and Western cultures, Sinicization proponents also pointed out that the two cultures conflict in some ways. Therefore, because of China’s particular national conditions, indiscriminately copying Western civilization in China would backfire or even cause catastrophe. They often noted that many advanced things from the West become deformed upon importation into China and lose their advanced nature. This was primarily because those things do not fit China’s national characteristics. Consequently, when Westernization proponents attributed the failure of China’s modernization to insufficient Westernization, Sinicization proponents attributed it to insufficient Sinicization. Sinicization theorist Xiong Mengfei bitterly notes: National characteristics are what we generally call “national conditions.” In the last sixty years in China, the reform movement failed because of ignorance of the national conditions. Proponents of Europeanization “cut their feet to fit the shoes,” engendering a different result because of different local conditions. Western parliamentary politics becomes piglet politics once moved to China. . . . Western science and education become foreign eight-legged essays once moved to China. American cotton produces less once transplanted to China. Italian bees make little honey once moved to China.27

Then, what indeed does “Chinese national conditions” or “Chinese basis” mean? This was a controversial question among Sinicization theorists. Someone thought that “Chinese basis” meant “the present need,” which included “enriching the people’s lives, developing the citizens’ livelihood, and striving for national survival.”28 Someone understood “Chinese national conditions” as national characteristics, which included the natural environment, the basic heritage of the nation, and its historical culture. Xiong Mengfei elaborates on this: From ancient times, the rise and fall of a nation, from its decline to the extinction or renaissance, is always associated with three factors—the

26 Chen Shiquan 陈石泉, “Zhongguo wenhua jianshe de dongxiang 中国文化建 设的动向 [The Tendency of Chinese Cultural Construction],” Da Gong Bao, March 13–21, 1935. 27 Xiong Mengfei, “Tan Zhongguo benwei wenhua zhi xiantian.” 28 Wang Xinming 王新命 and other nine professors, “Women de zong dafu 我们 的总答复 [Our Final Reply],” Wenhua Jianshe Yuekan 1:8 (May 1935).

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traits of its people, its natural geography, and its historical culture—and the interaction between them. The traits of its people means their bloodline and the variation within it caused by elimination through competition; natural geography means self-sufficient material conditions and the various impediments caused by natural forces or external forces; historical culture means the life experiences created by the ancestors over time, and their passivity, decadence, and the changes that arise the invasion of external culture.29

On the one hand, the proponents of Sinicization maintained that Chinese tradition contained excellent elements and China had its own particular national conditions. On the other hand, they pointed out that Western civilization was not all good; it contained both good and bad. Indiscriminate wholesale acceptance of Western civilization would bring disaster to China. Ye Ying, a professor of philosophy, points out that “everybody knows the United States is a country with developed capital, and its technology is also well-developed. Ford’s conveyer system and Tailor’s method of labor calculation are brilliant techniques by any measure, yet in the end they cannot rescue the United States from economic crisis.”30 Westerners were more affluent than Chinese, yet Western countries were polarized and the workers were exploited by the capitalists. Qu Qiubai comments: On the one hand, because of severe excess, some people destroy large amounts of cotton and grain, dump large amounts of milk into rivers, throw fish into the sea, and smash glass. And on the other hand? Many thousands of unemployed people suffer hunger and cold, and cannot fill their stomachs. Modernization that consists simply of production techniques cannot redeem the world from deformed development and miserable tragedies. Was the last world war not merely the fruit reaped from the advancement of production techniques?31

For Sinicization proponents, the biggest defect of Western civilization was its spiritual corruption. They listed many facts to show that Western countries had high rates of crime, mental disease, and suicide, and used these as proof that Western culture was degenerating. “When compared with our backward nation, the capitalist culture of Europe and the United States in modern times is more advanced than our

Xiong Mengfei, “Tan Zhongguo benwei wenhua zhi xiantian.” Ye Ying 叶英, “Xiandaihua de zhenglu yu qilu 现代化的正路与歧路 [The Right Way and Wrong Way of Modernization],” Shenbao Yuekan 2:7 (1933). 31 Yang Xingzhi, “Lun Zhongguo xiandaihua.” 29 30

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feudal culture, but today their culture is full of problems and has begun to decline.”32 Some radical proponents of Sinicization even believed that the decline of Western civilization was not limited to certain parts, rather, all of it was degenerating. Western people were waiting for the Chinese to rescue them. It was the glorious responsibility of the Chinese people to rescue the degenerate Western civilization using traditional Chinese civilization. Liang Qichao was the most famous representative of this notion: I remember that the famous American journalist Simon used to chat with me (the wartime history he wrote is generally accepted as the best). He asked me: “What will you do after you go back to China? Do you want to carry back some of Western civilization?” I replied: “naturally.” He sighed and said: “alas! What a pity. Western civilization is bankrupt.” I asked him: “What will you do after you go back to the United States?” He said: “Once I get back, I will shut my door and wait for you people to bring Chinese civilization here to save us.” Our population constitutes one fourth of the world’s population; we should be responsible for one fourth of human happiness. If we don’t fulfill this responsibility, we disappoint our ancestors, our contemporaries, and ourselves. Oh our sweet youth, stand at attention, and march! Millions of people on the other side of the sea are worrying about the bankruptcy of material civilization, crying out for help, and waiting for you to rescue them. From heaven, our ancestors, three saints, and many predecessors are watching you, expecting you to finish their cause, and protecting you with their spirit.33

III In the 1980s, under the leadership of CCP headed by Deng Xiaoping, China adopted a modernization strategy of domestic reform, and outward opening. China’s modernization process once again faced the Western countries, and the problem of “Sinicization” and “Westernization” reemerged in the Chinese intellectual world. However, this time the debate between Westernization and Sinicization more or less appeared as a debate between “Americanization” and Siniciza32 Chen Gaoyun 陈皋云, “Zenyang shi Zhongguo wenhua xiandaihua 怎样使中 国文化现代化 [How to Modernize Chinese Culture],” Shaobao Yuekan 2:7 (1933). 33 Liang Qichao 梁启超, “Ouyou xinying lu 欧游心影录 [Memoir of Travel in Europe]” (1920). Republished in Cong “xihua” dao xiandaihua, 40, 47.

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tion. “Westernization” and “anti-Westernization,” or more precisely, “Americanization” and “anti-Americanization,” had become the most noteworthy dichotomy in the Chinese ideological domain. Its influence exceeded the boundaries of the ideological domain and extended into politics, economy, education, academia, literature, arts, publishing, and people’s customs and daily lives. Let us first examine the various manifestations of “Westernization” and “Americanization.” Every Chinese person can, upon careful observation, notice that “Westernization” and “Americanization” take place around them every day. Language is perhaps the most obvious example. Learning English is currently the most important task of Chinese students. In the cities and villages, English courses are offered as early as primary school when conditions permit it. Once they enter college, students probably spend the most energy learning English. English is required to advance schools, to get a promotion, and to apply for many jobs. In the past, we usually Sinicized Western words in translation, but now we rush to Westernize Chinese words. Coca Cola and McDonalds advertisements and products pervade urban streets. On our computers, the standard platform is the Chinese version of Microsoft Windows and the most popular word processor is the Chinese version of Microsoft Word. Most of other important software also comes from the US. In literature and the arts, bestselling American fiction, films, music, paintings, and cartoons appear in China in Chinese versions almost immediately after their American release, and they are popular for a time just as in America. For example, highbudget films like Titanic are screened simultaneously in movie theaters in America, China, and elsewhere internationally, and likewise create huge reverberations. American public figures such as Bush, Clinton, Hillary, Lewinsky, Greenspan, and Jordan are also objects of discussion on the streets in China. As for publishing, Chinese intellectuals take pride in purchasing translations of American works. Publishing companies will almost never lose money on a book as long as the author is American, even if it is an academic book. Books written by scholars such as Huntington, Buchanan, Friedman, Toffler, Naisbitt, Brzezinski, and Stieglitz are essential works for the bookshelves of Chinese intellectuals. It is said that the Chinese translation of The Learning Revolution sold more than 10 million copies and almost every upper primary school student in Beijing has one. Most of the management and economics learning materials from Harvard University

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have been translated into Chinese and published in China, and now nearly every Chinese university student in management or economics has their own copy. The aforementioned are merely a few superficial phenomena. More importantly, many Chinese, especially the youth, are beginning to desire American values, and thus their minds are being “Americanized.” The lifestyle, political institutions, economic systems and management style, and even the ideology and humanist spirit of America have now become targets sought after and emulated by many Chinese. The United States has become an object of yearning for many Chinese, the “paradise” in their heart. “The American dream” thus has become the greatest aspiration of the post-Reform and Opening generation. It is as if everything in the United States is perfect. Its people, institutions, economy, culture, and land are suddenly lovely and familiar, even “the moon is rounder in the United States.” To study in America is the greatest wish of many young Chinese students and their parents. The post-Reform and Opening popularity of studying abroad is foremost a desire to study in the United States. Only if a student for whatever reason cannot go to the US will they consider going to other Western countries to study. Some people dream of becoming American citizens. Even some high officials who enjoy an elevated rank and prosperous life in China regard the US as the destination on earth and send their children there regardless of the cost. One author describes the ruthless “Americanization” of Chinese culture in this way: Ever since the 1980s, more and more products with American labels, blockbuster movies, various CDs, country music, rock-and-roll, Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Transformers, etc., all of which reflect the culture and values of the powerful country, are hitting the Chinese market. Even programs of pure entertainment, which contain relatively little ideology, intentionally and unintentionally also exhibit and advocate Western social lifestyle and greatly influence the young people. The rapid development of the internet in recent years has sped the dissemination of information, and as some researchers point out, information is different from the industrialized products: the large volume of information flowing on the information superhighway is inevitably tainted with obvious political and cultural colors. The US and other developed Western countries control most of the hardware and software that is responsible for the dissemination of information, and according to the estimate of one organization, the US owns 70% of the world’s databases. Additionally, the US has been pasting internationalized labels on its law, human rights, and technology standards, and forces them on other countries through the internet. The hidden “Americanization” influence of the

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internet poses a serious threat to the social, political, and legal cultural values of some countries.34

Certain people even think that under the forceful offensive of the US, many Chinese intellectuals and government officials in the higher echelons of society have already been “Americanized.” The culture of the Chinese elite is already a kind of American culture, and China’s “Americanized” elite has already formed a serious opposition and conflict with the masses, who represent the Chinese spirit. Recently, an internet poster using a pen name wrote of the U.S. government: [It] buys off some Chinese people, who then represent the US by promoting the advantages of multi-party elections in China, in order to divide China. This approach works in some extent; I think that many intellectuals living in China, including government officials, have already ‘Americanized.’ But the United States can only buy off a few elite; it cannot buy off 1.3 billion Chinese, because that would cost too much. This has led to the current situation in which the people at the bottom are generally nationalistic and the high ‘elites’ desperately try to put out the fire.35

Worries about “Americanization” are not limited to intellectuals and the party’s ideological workers, many common people have also expressed their concerns. I stumbled upon an unofficial local publication that primarily reports on the activities and speeches of the local party leaders. But this newsletter contained an article quite irrelevant to its theme. The article focuses on the harm of Americanization and the loss of national cultural identification. It cites the following statistics: the US controls 75% of the world’s television program production and manufacture, thus turning many TV stations in developing countries into rebroadcasting channels for itself; more than 90% of the news disseminated in the world today is monopolized by the US and Western countries; the US only produces 7% of the movies in the world, but those movies account for more than half of all worldwide showings. In October, 1998, a Beijing survey company conducted a poll among more than 800 residents of Beijing and Shanghai, and

34 Bian Qi 边琪, “Dui wenhua tongzhihua xiandai de sikao 对文化同质化现象的 思考 [Thoughts on the Phenomenon of Cultural Homogenization],” Sheke Zongheng 社科纵横 5 (1999). 35 Shu Xue 数学, “Meiguo na Zhongguo bing wu haobanfa 美国拿中国并无 好办法 [America has no good way of dealing with China],” See www.peopledaily. com.cn.

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learned that in those people’s eyes, American culture is represented by romantic Hollywood movies, wild Western cowboys, convenient and clean McDonalds restaurants, and the technological preeminence of Windows and Intel. Chinese children today “eat McDonalds, drink Coca Cola, play American games, watch European and American movies, listen to European and American music, and speak the ABCs. In their minds, there are no traditional myths, only cultural symbols like Donald Duck, The Transformers, Jurassic Park, and The Lion King.” The mighty state power and preeminent academia, culture, and information dissemination of the US have formed a cultural hegemony. This has made some Chinese intellectuals succumb to American culture, and even ignorant Chinese people who do not know the location of the US can still subconsciously feel its “superiority.”36 In light of the above description, it would be hard for anyone to deny that “China is being Americanized and Westernized.” However, if we do not rush to conclusions and instead take a look at the other side of the matter, “anti-Americanization” and “anti-Westernization,” we just might reach the opposite conclusion, or at the very least alter our original opinion. Anti-Westernization and especially anti-Americanization has been a constant national complex in modern China. Chinese modern history, particularly the history of the CCP’s revolution, is to a great extent a history of opposition to the Western powers and America. These strong anti-American sentiments should be held partially responsible for the closed-door policy in the Mao period. After the Reform and Opening, the anti-American feelings of the Chinese eased greatly, but in the 1990s, especially following the NATO bombing of the embassy of People’s Republic of China in Yugoslavia in 1998, these emotions were again aggravated and reached a new high. Articles filled with anti-American sentiments permeated publications on international relations, national culture, and globalization. Many Chinese accused the US of plotting to “Westernize” or “divide” China, cursed it for acting like the world’s police, scorned the arrogance and ignorance of Americans, and ridiculed those Chinese who follow the American way as “foreign slaves” and “American idolaters.” Many Chinese continue to insist that the US has always conspired to Westernize and divide China. Many Chinese scholars think hege-

36

Zhuji Tongxun 诸暨通讯 8 (2000): 38–39.

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mony is a set principle of American foreign policy. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the antagonism disappeared between the two great camps of socialism and US-led capitalism. Following the end of the Cold War, the major strategic enemy of the US shifted from the USSR to China. Therefore: Containing China until it has been trampled down, and erasing socialist China from the world’s political map, these are the established policies of the United States. We can predict that a clash between China and the United States, no matter whether of pen or sword, could be triggered by Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, or the Korean Peninsula. The US will probably seek to, with the backing of military might, gradually “do away with China through politics.” . . . The strategy is circuitous and the tactic is that of the carrot and stick.37

In the eyes of some Chinese intellectuals, the US suppression of and crack-down on China since the Cold War is no longer a theoretical problem of adjusting strategic focus; it is rather a very real practical problem. They think that the United States has started to besiege China with military force and that every strategic move of the US in the Asia-Pacific region is seemingly aimed directly or indirectly toward China. In an article titled “Caution! The US is Besieging China,” the author lists every important US military move in the Asian Pacific region, and analyzes in depth the true hidden motives behind those moves. The article states, “on one hand, the US has seized Taiwan as a card to strategically blackmail China; on the other hand, it speeds up to develop a quasi-military alliance around China, to tighten the strategic encirclement of China.” The author warns the Chinese not to forget the “sinister attempt” of the US, which though alliances with Japan, South Korea, Thailand and Taiwan, formed a crescent encirclement around China during the Cold War. Recently, the US has begun to show more friendship to its old allies, and has furthermore extended its power into other Asian countries. In Northeast Asia, the United States is strengthening its military cooperation with Japan and South Korea. Simultaneously, it is adjusting its policy on North Korea, actively seeking talks with the latter and trying to insert a wedge into China-North Korea relations. In Southeast Asia, the US has quickly restored its military relations with the Philippines

37 Chen Jiaxi 陈家希, “Meiguo baquan zhuyi lishi guiji zhuizong 美国霸权主义历 史轨迹追踪 [Tracing the Historical Trajectory of American Hegemony],” Huazhong Ligong Daxue Xuebao 华中理工大学学报 3 (1999): 17–22.

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yu keping with a “Visiting Forces Agreement.” Now the US is improving relations with Vietnam, in order to deepen its political influence on ASEAN. In South Asia, the US is taking advantage of opportunity to attach more importance to India than to Pakistan, carrying out a series of military and economic exchanges with India with intent to forge India into a force in Asia to match China. In Central Asia, the US keeps increasing its cooperation with the five countries in that area, with a two-fold purpose of restricting China’s development of Central Asian energy resources and turning the area into a springboard to infiltrate into the Western border of China. At the same time, the United States is actively developing relations with Mongolia and thus directly extending its power to the north of China. Moreover, the US secretly supported Taiwan’s separation from China, actively sells weapons to Taiwan, and wants to include Taiwan into the deployment of missile defense system, in order to suppress China’s development.38

A considerable number of scholars believe that although the United States’ intent to divide and contain China remains unchanged in the post-Cold War era, it has drastically altered its methods. After the 1990s, the new US method of Westernizing and dividing China is the unbridled promotion of globalization. As the newest instrument used to spread American hegemony, globalization is a highly deceptive trap. In the eyes of many, globalization is Westernization, or simply Americanization: The US relies on information technology, combining a “hard” hand with a “soft” one and attempting to fasten its grip on the Asia-Pacific region in the new century. The US has always emphasized that its economic and military superiority gained through high technology is a fruit of its social system and value cultures. This implies an odd but marketable concept: globalization in the information age is Americanization.39

Such globalization is not the gospel of humanity, nor is it inevitable. The NATO invasion of Yugoslavia revealed the true face of this minority, US-led globalization. “Globalization is Americanization,” shout many Chinese intellectuals when discussing globalization today. Many scholars participating in the discussion on globalization no longer stick with simple anti-

38 Zhang Xin 张欣, “Jingti! Meiguo zai baowei Zhongguo 警惕！美国在包围中 国 [Caution! The US is Besieging China].” See online journal Jishu Zhongguo 技术中 国 ( July 6, 2000). 39 Zhao Chu 赵楚 et al., “Quanqiuhua shifu haishi huo 全球化是福还是祸 [Is Globalization a Blessing or a Curse?],” Kaifang Daobao 开放导报 9 (2000): 43–44.

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American sentiments; they also conduct comprehensive theoretical analyses and proofs. One young professor who researches globalization, points out that many people think globalization is merely a pure rule of economics, but “actually the reality is more complicated than what we think. Undoubtedly power politics and economic hegemony are hidden behind globalization, which acts in this manner toward developing countries, and also toward developed European countries. Therefore, what globalization seeks is precisely a global conformity based on the US standard.”40 Some have even systematically analyzed the emergence, basic factors, major economists, core institutions, system guarantees, major media, and detailed procedure of the “globalization trap” jointly set by the US and the UK. When one sees the analysis, it is difficult not to be convinced that globalization is a carefully designed racket run by the US, “the crux is not the conspicuous US branding on its surface, but the malicious intent and hidden trap behind it.”41 For some, not only globalization, but nearly all American cultural and intellectual products hide the “malicious intent” of Americanizing the world and China. Recently one author published a paper closely analyzing how American movies have been penetrated by the FBI’s intent to advance the policy of Americanization through film and arts. The author cites a quote from one of the FBI’s program of action: “do all possible to propagandize, including movies, books, TV, radio—if they are attracted to our clothes, food, living, travel, entertainment and educational style, we are already halfway to success.” Then the author points out: The protagonist in American movies, whether a civilian or an American soldier, always shows up at the moment when humanity is facing devastating disaster and crisis to rescue people from their plight. Many American movies use fictional stories and images to propagandize the “American spirit” and American greatness . . . what about the image of China in American movies? The Chinese people and Chinatowns in American movies often appear cagey and demonized. Americans are most interested in the subject of Tibet because it incites ethnic conflict.

40 Wang Ning 王宁, “Quanqiuhua shidai de wenhua lunzheng he wenhua duihua 全球化时代的文化论争和文化对话 [Cultural Debate and Cultural Dialogue in the Era of Globalization],” Dongfang Wenhua 东方文化 (1999): 31–36. 41 Lin Fangshi 林方时, “Quanqiuhua beihou—qianxi Mei Ying zhenlue xianjing 全球化背后–浅析美英战略陷阱 [Behind Globalization: An Analysis of the Strategic Trap of the US & UK],” Zhongliu 中流 (1999): 13–17.

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Aside from hatred of the United States and condemnation of the Americanization plot, anti-Americanization also manifests as exposure of the dark side of American society and its various defects. A platform that tries to convince the Chinese people that the American situation does not fit China’s national conditions, and more importantly, that the United States itself is full of problems and an unworthy model for China. For example, it is said that more than 200 thousand Chinese middle and high school students are studying abroad at any time, many of them in the US, yet articles uncovering the defects of American education system are frequently published in China. For instance, one evening paper serialized a long article covering the life of American middle school students. In the article, the American middle school is a place of violence, murder, and pornography; reading the article makes one reconsider sending their children to an American middle school. However, more Chinese intellectuals point out the defects and shortcomings of the US from the standpoints of politics, economics, and culture. In terms of politics, the US is not truly democratic. It is a democracy of only the powerful minority. It is rife with election bribery, political scandals, and political partisanship. In terms of economics, the latent threat of financial crisis is always present, polarization is severe, the poor population is increasing rapidly, and economic inequality is worsening. In terms of culture, consumerism prevails, moral values have been lost, and most people are decadent and passive. Recently, the news of the abuse of Iraqi POWs by American soldiers provided to the proponents of anti-Americanization a perfect example of the corrupt institutions and degenerate character of the US. Americans are also anxious and disturbed by these defects, and some of “the pessimists even think that developed countries are already fatally ill and cannot be cured.”43 Many Chinese believe that the US is not a worthy model for China. Furthermore, they believe that China can disregard the US,

42 Anonymous. “Yincang zai Meiguo dianying zhong de xian’e yongxin 隐藏在美 国电影中的险恶用心 [The Malicious Intent Hidden in American Movies].” In the online journal Hongxing Zixun 红星资讯 (www.netsh.com), August 14, 2000. 43 Guan Zhikun 关志坤, “Quanpan Xihua zhi miu ‘全盘西化’之谬 [The Falsehood of ‘Wholesale Westernization’],” Qingdao Shifan Daxue Xuebao 青岛师范大学学 报 2 (1999): 23–27.

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that China now has enough power to compete with the US, and that China should not always act according to American wishes or consult the US, but should instead should adopt a stronger attitude in foreign policy toward the US. A few years ago, in conformance with these sentiments, some young journalists wrote a book called China Can Say No, which elicited a strong reaction, proved tremendously popular, and even led to the appearance of pirated editions. Other publishes also took hold of this rare opportunity to compile and publish a number of similar books, such as Containing China, Behind the Demonization of China, Why Does China Say No?, and China Must Say No. Those books were an outlet for the anti-American sentiments of some Chinese intellectuals, and lifted the cover on a small climax of post-Reform and Opening anti-Americanism. If no one had intervened, even more of these books would probably have appeared. All these books advocated the same point of view using a similar logic: China is the most populous large country in the world, it acquired nuclear weapons early and is a permanent member of the United Nations, after the Reform and Opening its economy has grown rapidly, and it now has accumulated enough overall national strength to compete with the US. The US is like a paper tiger: it appears powerful, but actually has many internal defects. The financial crisis has lurked just below the surface for many years. The US is not as great as people say, and its decline might come earlier than people think. Besides, the American army lost to the CCP in the war for liberation before 1949 and in the Korean War afterwards. “The US has no way of dealing with China,” and China can confidently say “no” to the US. Furthermore, some people even publicly call for “Chinese people to remember the animosity,” and they “call on the people to boycott American products, not watch American movies, and not eat American wheat and rice.” They think that China should not accept the status of “most favored nation” from the US. They say, “burn Hollywood,” “prepare for war!”44

44 Song Qiang 宋强 et al., eds., Zhongguo keyi shuo bu 中国可以说不 [China Can Say No] (Beijing: Zhonghua gongshang lianhe chubanshe 中华工商联合出版社, 1996). Li Xiguang 李希光 et al., eds., Yaomohua Zhongguo de beihou 妖魔化中国的背后 [Behind the Demonization of China] (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe 中国社会科学出 版社, 1996). Sun Keqin 孙恪勤 et al., eds., Ezhi Zhongguo 遏制中国 [Containing China] (Beijing: Zhongguo yanshi chubanshe 中国言实出版社, 1996). Peng Qian 彭谦 et al., eds., Zhongguo weishenme shuo bu? 中国为什么说不? [Why Does China Say No?] (Beijing: Xinshijie chubanshe 新世界出版社, 1996). Also see articles such as “America has no good way of dealing with China,” cited above.

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How should we understand the contradictory trends of Westernization vs. Anti-Westernization and Americanization vs. Anti-Americanization that run through the entire course of China’s modernization? What do these trends mean to modern and contemporary Chinese society? What kind of attitude should Chinese intellectuals adopt in regard to them? To answer these questions, we must look to the social and historical background of modern China. China is an ancient civilization with several thousand years of history, and has contributed enormously to humanity. However, traditional Chinese society for a long time existed in an extremely stable state. The political foundation of this stable society was the highly centralized and authoritarian political system ruled solely by the emperor. The economic foundation was the feudalistic, self-sufficient small scale peasant economy that valued farming and repressed commerce. The cultural foundation was the Confucian ideology, which suited and served the above political and economic systems. These systems greatly restrained the creativity of the Chinese people, impeded the development of social productivity, and thus hampered the overall progress of the Chinese society, politics, economy, and culture. Moreover, due to many years of foreign encroachment and civil war, after the Southern Song Dynasty, and especially after the Ming Dynasty, the contribution of Chinese civilization to the world was extremely limited. In stark contrast, Western countries have since modern times accomplished tremendous economic and cultural progress relying on technological development and industrial revolution. They successfully widened the gap between themselves and undeveloped countries, and became the world powers. In the late Qing Dynasty, the Western powers forced opened the door of ancient China with their superior ships and cannons, and at this time Chinese intellectuals finally realized the enormity of the gap between Chinese civilization and world civilization. They realized that for China to catch up to the developed countries and restore its past glory, it must carry out social reform, learn from Western countries, and adopt the advanced civilization of the West. Cornered by internal and external crisis, the Qing government was forced to accept the above proposition of Chinese intellectuals, and the began the Westernization Movement in the late 19th century. The Westernization Movement marked China’s first step on the journey toward modernization, and thus the beginning of modern

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Chinese history. There are two major strands running through modern China: one is that China’s economy and culture is backward, and China must escape from this backwardness, enrich the country, strengthen the army, and realize modernization. The other is that, because China is backward, it has been humiliated by the Western powers and become a semi-colony. As such, China must free itself from Western control and establish the independence of its people. Therefore, modernization and national independence are the two basic tasks of modern China.45 Fundamentally, the conflict between Westernization and Sinicization can be resolved within these two main threads of Chinese modernization. Objectively speaking, modern global civilization is primarily industrial civilization, which is fundamentally a product of Western countries. Modern machines, energy, chemistry, medicine, and communications all originated in the West. If modernization is narrowly defined as industrialization, then it is necessarily a process of learning advanced science and technology, industrial production, and management systems from Western countries. In this sense, the closer we are to the developed countries, the more we can learn from them, and the more society modernizes, the more it progresses. Thus it is not strange that many Chinese intellectuals equate modernization with Westernization. Conversely, if we do not learn or learn less from the West, more traditional things will be preserved, progress will be slower, and society will be more backward. In the particular historical context of modern China, Western civilization represents advanced civilization and Chinese civilization represents backwardness. Therefore, throughout the entire process of China’s modernization, the confrontation and conflict between the forces of progress and those of backwardness has always been represented as the conflict between Westernization and Sinicization. The backward force, representing the class with entrenched interests in the status quo, always tries to oppose reform in China by emphasizing “the decay of Western civilization,” that Westernized reform “does not fit the particular Chinese national conditions,” and that “traditional Chinese civilization is superior.” Just as Ai Siqi says, this is an old trick of all conservative anti-reactionary forces in modern

45 See Liu Danian 刘大年, “Zhongguo jindai lishi yundong de zhuti 中国近代历 史运动的主题 [Themes of Modern Chinese Historical Movements],” Jindaishi Yanjiu 近代史研究 6 (1996).

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China. They deny the general rule of the development of human history, they engage in “self-isolationism of thought.”46 However, aside from looking to the West to modernize, modern China has another important task: obtaining national independence. These two tasks conflict significantly. The problem of how to deal with the relationship between Westernization and Sinicization, or more precisely, how to effectively learn from Western countries while still preserving national independence, has always perplexed modern Chinese intellectuals and politicians. The semi-colonial status of modern China was caused mainly by the Western powers. On one hand, national independence means throwing off the control and influence of the Western powers; on the other hand, China’s desire for modernization compels it to learn from those countries. Because of this particular dilemma, when the progressive intellectuals in modern China advocate imitating the West, they do so cautiously, so that during the process of imitation China will not again be dominated by the West and become their colony. Therefore, these intellectuals stressed the importance of Sinicizing or localizing Western things, to avoid becoming Westernized in the process of learning from the West. The three different political systems of modern China, the Qing Dynasty, the KMT government, and the CCP government, essentially followed one logic when they dealt with the relationship between Sinicization and Westernization: take “us” as the foundation, make use of Western civilization for “us,” and Sinicize it as much as possible. This logic was called “Chinese Essence, Western Means” during the Qing Dynasty, later it was called “Chinese basis,” now it is “Chinese characteristics.” Consequently it is easy to understand why, when many contemporary patriotic intellectuals advocate wholesale Westernization or idolize Western civilization in order to speed up China’s modernization process, their efforts often backfire. They suffer severe criticism and sometimes are even condemned as “traitors” or “foreign slaves.”47 With the CCP rise to power in 1949, one of the two tasks of modern China was accomplished: China had acquired national independence. However, the other task had yet to be finished. Led by Mao Zedong,

46 Ai Siqi 艾思奇, “Lun Zhongguo de teshuxing 论中国的特殊性 [On the Particularity of China]” (1939). Republished in Cong “xihua” dao xiandaihua, 592–593. 47 Here I refer to those patriotic intellectuals who hate imperialism and wish for national independence. They are different from those who help the imperialists bully the Chinese people.

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the first generation of CCP leaders shouldered this task. They hoped to quickly turn China into a prosperous and strong country, and catch up to or surpass developed Western countries. Mao and his cohort truly did wish to develop the economy and speed the modernization of China. The movements advocated by Mao Zedong, such as the movement to “catch up with England and pass America,” the “large-scale steel production” movement, and the “Great Leap Forward,” in retrospect brought disastrous consequences upon China. Yet despite their failure, we cannot but recognize that Mao Zedong tried to explore a path to modernization in China. However, Mao Zedong certainly did not want to take the Western path of modernization, nor did he want to implement capitalism in China, open China to the West, or learn from Western countries. Subjectively speaking, it is because Mao and the other CCP leaders believed that Western institutions and civilization were inappropriate for the actual conditions in China and could not solve the practical problems faced by the Chinese. Also, they were afraid that if they opened to the West and adopted its civilization, this would lead to dependence on Western countries and cost China its autonomy. From an objective perspective, the antagonism between the two Cold War camps of US-led capitalism and Soviet Union-led socialism did not allow China to open itself on a large-scale to developed Western countries. Westernization was of course also out of the question. Reality has shown that Mao Zedong’s modernization road brought national independence to the Chinese people, yet it did not realize the modernization of Chinese society. In Mao’s late years, the gap between the Chinese economy and that of developed Western countries in fact widened. China remained far behind Western countries economically and culturally, and in order to realize modernization, Chinese still had to learn from the developed capitalist countries of the West. Based on this recognition, the CCP headed by Deng Xiaoping undertook sweeping reforms of traditional socialism after Mao passed away. One reform was the adjustment of China’s modernization strategy: they considered development to be “nonnegotiable principle” (硬 道理), re-opened to the world, learned advanced science, technology, and management experience from the West, absorbed Western capital, and actively sought various kinds of interaction and cooperation with developed Western countries. This readjustment of China’s modernization strategy caused the reappearance of a context for the struggle between “Westernization” and “Sinicization,” which had been first

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produced in the early-modern period. This context, the notion that China must learn from developed Western countries yet must also maintain its national autonomy, led directly to the reappearance of the questions that have always perplexed modern Chinese intellectuals and politicians: how can Western control of China be avoided? How can China absorb modern Western civilization without relying on the West? No intellectual or politician concerned with China’s modernization can avoid the aforementioned context. They all, directly or indirectly, must respond to it. In the process of thinking about and exploring the above questions, some people value the significance of development to independence, thinking that economic power and development level are critical to the protection of national dignity and national culture. Therefore, they concern themselves more with the speed and benefits of China’s modernization, often emphasizing the imitation of Western civilization, in hopes that the Chinese will be able to more quickly enjoy modern civilization. For these people, learning from the West is more important than promoting traditional culture. Conversely, other people attach more importance to the significance of independence to development, thinking that protecting the purity and independence of Chinese civilization is more important than developing the economy. They are more concerned with the autonomy of the nation-state and will not allow China to lose its autonomy and grow dependent on developed Western countries during its process of modernization. They prefer to promote Chinese civilization rather than learn from Western civilization. When these two groups of people cannot communicate or understand each other well, they tend to polarize their two opposing viewpoints. In the eyes of the former, the latter’s point of view is too conservative and traditional; for the latter, the former’s point of view is too Western. The Reform and Opening led by Deng Xiaoping commenced in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In this period, Western countries as a whole still led the world in socioeconomic and cultural development. The modernization of developing countries still to a large extent manifested as a process of approaching developed Western countries. Developing countries emulated and yielded to the West in many ways. Comparatively speaking, the United States remained far ahead of other developed Western countries in terms of comprehensive national strength and technology development. It can be said that the United

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States led the West in material civilization and spiritual civilization, and represented the highest development level of Western civilization at that time. Undoubtedly, the United States exerted a greater influence on all developing countries, including China, than the other Western countries. In a certain sense, the United States exerts irresistible influence on all the open countries of the world, including Western countries. Americanization is not limited to only developing countries; even the other Western countries also facing this problem. Therefore, it is easy to understand why the Westernization of the past has transformed into Americanization now, and accordingly, why the conflict between China and the West manifests mainly as a conflict between China and America, and why Westernization and anti-Westernization primarily appear as Americanization and anti-Americanization. V If we survey the historical development of the Westernization vs. Sinicization paradox within China’s modernization process, we see two obvious tendencies. First, the once diametrically opposed viewpoints of the two sides are growing closer by the day, and the influence of the radical viewpoints is weakening. Second, generally speaking, the influence of this paradox in the intellectual world is decreasing as it is replaced by other important discourses, especially those of modernization and globalization. Around the 1930s, Chinese intellectual debates on the mode of modernization had a conspicuous particularity: radical viewpoints were already hard to find. Although they held fundamentally different positions, neither the Westernization nor the Sinicization theorists completely rejected Chinese tradition or Western civilization just because they advocated one kind of modernization instead of the other. Hu Shi and Liang Shiqiu are widely acknowledged as representatives of Westernization, yet even they had to admit that a true wholesale Westernization was both undesirable and impossible. Hu Shi changed from advocating “wholesale Westernization” to “sufficient Westernization,” despite the large difference in meaning between “wholesale” (全盘) and “sufficient” (充分) in Chinese. He specially declared that “wholesale” merely means “sufficient,” and “sufficient” means “to the extent possible” (尽量) or “to the most of one’s abilities” (尽力).

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Hence, “wholesale Westernization” became “wholehearted Westernization” (一心一意西化).48 Although Liang Shiqiu thought that there were very few things in Chinese culture worthy of praise, he acknowledged that “if we compartmentalize the culture into several sections, we can see: (1) there are things in China that are superior to those in the West; (2) there are things in the West that are superior to those in China; (3) there are things which can coexist without the need for forced distinction of good or bad; (4) there are things in both China and the West that are not good and still need improvement.”49 Liang Qichao and Liang Shuming are widely acknowledged as representatives of Sinicization. Yet even people as radical as they were did not single-mindedly reject Western culture. Liang Qichao said that Chinese and Western civilizations could complement each other: “it is our responsibility to use Western civilization to augment our civilization, use our civilization to supplement Western civilization, and merge them into a new civilization.”50 Liang Shuming finally concluded after years of research that we should “fully accept the Western civilization and then fundamentally reform it; what should be reformed is the attitude toward it.”51 From the earlier polarization to the compromise in the 1920s and 30s, Chinese intellectuals made a significant step on the road of exploring China’s modernization. This shows that they were increasingly cognizant of two historical trends: First, the development of science and technology and the needs of the capitalist market economy increase the frequency of political, economic, and cultural exchange between nation-states. The mutual permeation of different civilizations grow increasingly apparent, and the shared interests of nation-states also increase. This is the trend of globalization. Second, in the era of globalization, nation-states’ consciousness of sovereignty and independence grows increasingly strong, and the characteristics of national culture are increasingly emphasized. Globalization does not mean the elimination of national characteristics, rather it is a process of seek48 Hu Shi, “Chongfen shijiehua yu quanpan xihua 充分世界化与全盘西化 [Sufficient Worldization and Wholesale Westernization],” Da Gong Bao 大公报, June 21, 1935. 49 Liang Shiqiu 梁实秋, “Zixinli yu kuadakuang 自信力与夸大狂 [Self-Confidence and Megalomania],” Wenhua Jianshe Yuekan 1:10 ( June 9, 1935). 50 Liang Qichao, “Ouyou xinying lu,” in Cong “xihua” dao xiandaihua, 47. 51 Liang Shuming, “Dongxifang wenhua jiqi zhexue,” in Cong “xihua” dao xiandaihua, 74.

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ing common ground while preserving difference. Under this historical background, complete isolation and utter renunciation of national characteristics will produce disastrous results. The Chinese intellectuals of the twenties and thirties had already started to realize these two coexistent and seemingly contradictory trends, yet their understanding still remained muddled. Their arguments and rebuttals often missed the point, and sometimes were even self-contradictory and untenable. Westernization theorists had three main reasons for their advocacy of Western-style modernization: Westernization was the world trend, Western civilization conflicted with Chinese civilization, and traditional Chinese civilization had no merits. The last two points were so weak that they were refuted as soon as they had been proposed. According to the opponents of Westernization, all systems of civilization in the world are more or less intermingled, and hardly any pure civilizations had ever existed. For example, so-called Chinese civilization itself is a mix of the civilizations of multiple nationalities. Furthermore, the perseverance of Chinese civilization over several thousands of years convincingly demonstrates that it does indeed contain many things of value. In fact, even the proponents of Westernization later had to acknowledge this. The first reason provided by Westernization theorists was their most persuasive. It proved difficult for their opponents to refute at the time. In the eyes of Westernization proponents, Westernization actually meant the process of capitalism spreading across the globe. The modernization process of developed capitalist countries was a process of extending their markets to the world. The market economy and national boundaries are inherently conflicted. Developed Western countries needed to sell their products, import raw materials, and find cheap labor worldwide, and thus they needed international trade. As they exported their products, developed Western countries simultaneously exported their culture. It was difficult for the backward countries to resist the advanced products and weapons from the Western countries, because resistance might mean self-destruction. In this sense, Westernization was globalization. Karl Marx saw this process as early as in 1848: The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred

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Surveying recent Chinese history, Westernization or globalization, as a process of global capitalism, represented not only an inevitable trend, but also a kind of objective reality. Even the fiercest opponents of Westernization had to face this fact. For example, as Liang Shuming was forced to acknowledge: The world we see is almost completely a Westernized world! Obviously, Europe and America are fully Westernized regions. As for Eastern countries, those which can accept and implement Westernization are able to preserve their nation- and statehood; those which cannot accept Westernization quickly enough will be occupied by the Westernized forces. Countries of the first kind, such as Japan, have adopted Westernization and thus are able to preserve their own existence; moreover they are now stand more powerfully on the world stage. Countries of the second kind, such as India, Korea, Vietnam, and Burma, did not adopt Westernization in time and thus were occupied by the Westernized forces. The only origin of Easternization, China, is also being oppressed by Westernization. It has been several decades already since Westernization knocked down our door and forced the Chinese, who have been living under Easternization for a very long time, to alter their lives and adopt Westernization. The spiritual, social, and material aspects of our current lives are filled with Westernization. This is undeniable.53

However, Westernization theorists’ equation of Westernization with globalization totally disregarded another trend existing alongside globalization—nationalism—and thus Westernization was decidedly unrealistic. The opponents of Westernization attempted to explain the unrealistic nature of Westernization using the character of Chinese culture. They believed that it was ridiculous to ask the Chinese people to abandon several thousand years of traditional culture in order to adopt Western culture. Even Hu Shi, one of the major advocates of Westernization, eventually discovered the unrealistic nature of the theory. Hu tried to use the concept “cultural inertia” to defend and revise his previous viewpoint, arguing that “culture itself possesses a

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (Wilder Publications, 2007), 12. 53 Liang Shuming, “Dongxifang wenhua qiji zhexue,” in Cong “xihua” dao xiandaihua, 49–50. 52

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kind of ‘inertia;’ the result of wholesale Westernization naturally will be the tendency of compromise.”54 Aside from this cultural inertia, the impossibility of Western-style modernization rests on this fact: in the historical conditions of that time, wholesale Westernization would only have led China into losing its autonomy and becoming dependent on developed countries. Modernization in China was a product of external stimulus; it was not generated spontaneously from within. China is a late-developing country. In the course of capitalist globalization, late-developing countries can exist only as the “periphery,” and they have to depend on the “core”—developed capitalist countries. After the second world war, some Western and third-world scholars proposed the major arguments of “dependency theory,” yet these arguments had already vividly described by Chinese philosopher Feng Youlan in his 1930s work: The nations of the world today have already divided into two groups: (1) economically affluent nations, the so-called “townsfolk;” (2) economically backward nations, the so-called “country folk.” In other words, the economically developed nations exploit and oppress; the economically backward nations are exploited and oppressed. The former is oppressing the latter right now. The Chinese nation unfortunately belongs to the economically backward nations and unfortunately has become “country folk,” an oppressed nation. Knowing the position we are in, we can know that the direction of our national movement is to seek “freedom and equality.” In other words, it is to seek to become the aforementioned “townsfolk,” seek equality with the economically developed nations, and avoid their oppression. Therefore, although the Chinese nation has recently acted in many ways, its ultimate, greatest, and principal aim is to seek freedom and equality.55

Aside from its practical impossibility, Westernization theory contains certain theoretical limitations. Westernization proponents defined China’s modernization as Westernization. Westernization, a geographical and cultural concept, has three limitations: (1) To treat Westernization as the only objective of Chinese modernization logically means that no matter whether good or bad, all things of the Western countries are worthy of imitation. This viewpoint is obviously untenable, as every civilization, including that of the West, inevitably contains

54 Hu Shi, “Bianji houji 编辑后记 [Editorial Postscript],” Duli Pinglun 142 (March 1935). 55 Feng Youlan, “Zhongguo xiandai minzu yundong zhi zong dongxiang.”

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some negative elements unworthy of emulation. (2) To define China’s modernization as Westernization implies that traditional Chinese civilization contains nothing worthy of preservation. This view is unacceptable, because every great civilization contains some things worthy of inheritance and development. (3) Western culture includes disparate elements. The capitalism for which Westernization theorists yearn and the Communism that they despise both originate from Western culture. As sociologist Wu Jingchao notes: Under the banner of “Westernization” are many mutually conflicted sub-cultures. Aristocracy is Western culture, democracy is also Western culture; capitalism is Western culture, communism is also Western culture; individualism is Western culture, collectivism is also Western culture; free trade is Western culture, controlled economy is also Western culture. There are many other similar things. Is wholesale westernization aristocratic or democratic, capitalist or communist? The internally contradicted nature of Western culture is fatal to the theory of wholesale Westernization.56

The unrealistic nature and conceptual limitations of Westernization theory weakened its influence, and by the 1930s, the influence of Sinicization had surpassed that of Westernization. In 1935, Chen Xujing lamented: “I thought we would not forget that few people today endorse fundamental Westernization. Most people are engrossed in the idea of a half Chinese and half Western compromise, or incline toward the old idea, changed in appearance, of Chinese essence and Western means.”57 Chen hoped to increase the number of Westernization supporters through his own efforts. But unfortunately for him, with the progression of history, Westernization theorists did not grow in number, they only dwindled. Sinicization theorists advocate Chinese-style modernization for these three reasons: (1) Eastern and the Western civilizations can blend and complement with each other; (2) there are reasonable elements in Chinese civilization and negative elements in Western civilization, just as there are negative elements in Chinese civilization and reasonable elements in Western civilization; (3) China has its particular national characteristics. Conceptually speaking, these three reasons are tenable

Wu Jingchao 景超, “Jianshe wenti yu Dong Xi wenhua 建设问题与东西文 化 [The Problem of Construction and Eastern and Western Cultures],” Duli pinglun 139 (February 1935). 57 Chen Xujing, “Quanpan Xihua de bianhu.” 56

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and have already been proven by later practice. Let us look at one example: in the 1920s and 30s, one popular view was that the ancient Chinese characters conflicted with the modern civilization and thus were one of the largest impediments to China’s modernization. Chen Xujing asserted: “I think that Chinese characters are one of the biggest obstacles to China speeding up. Chinese characters, no matter how China accelerates, will not catch up to letter alphabets. If we are really determined to accelerate, discarding Chinese characters is a crucial step.”58 Naturally the proponents of Westernization agreed, and even Lu Xun endorsed this view. His famous words are: “if Chinese characters are not discarded, China will perish.” This point of view resurfaced in the early 1980s when computer technology began to spread in China. Because computer software was initially programmed in English, many people at the time thought that Chinese characters could not be computerized and would thus form a serious obstacle to Chinese technological development. However, only a few years later, already hundreds of Chinese character input methods and thousands of Chinese software programs had appeared, and in a Chinese and English input competition, the input speed for Chinese characters even surpassed that of English. The notion that Chinese characters cannot be computerized subsequently crumbled. However, behind Sinicization theory lies an extremely dangerous implication: the theory can be used by conservatives to oppose modernization. This is because anyone can interpret “Chinese national conditions,” “a Chinese basis,” and “Chinese characteristics,” differently according to their own self-interest, and then in the name of national conditions, basis, or characteristics, arbitrarily accept or reject modern Western civilization.” Those things that benefit their personal interest are said to fit the Chinese national conditions, those things contrary to their interest are condemned as not suiting the Chinese national conditions, and so on. This is the fundamental logic that all conservative and reactionary political forces in modern China use to oppose progress. As philosopher Ai Siqi keenly points out in his article “On the Particularity of China:” All reactionary ideas in modern China have a particular tradition; if it must be named, perhaps it can be called isolationism of thought. . . . “It” stresses China’s “national conditions,” emphasizes China’s “particularity,”

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It was precisely in the name of “Chinese essence, Western means” that the Qing government opposed large steps toward modernization. Later, the KMT did the same. In the 1930s, important KMT members Sa Mengwu and Tao Xisheng led an influential faction within Sinicization theory, the “Chinese basis school.” On January 10, 1938, they issued the “Declaration of Chinese-Based Cultural Construction” (中国本位的文化建设宣言) and thus launched a “Chinese basis” movement. The declaration was propagated to support the KMT’s “Three Principles of the People Economic Construction Movement” (三民主义经济建设运动). The declaration’s discussion of the socalled “Chinese-based culture” was essentially a hollow pretext; the substantial part was instead its discussion of “Chinese-based politics:” “China’s political modality, social organization, and thought content and form have already lost their characteristics. The people raised by this featureless politics, society, and thought are not really Chinese.”60 The proponents of a “Chinese basis” sought to convince people that the KMT had already enacted great political reform since the 1911 Revolution: “Although there have been ups and downs, through these several years of effort, China’s political reform has finally achieved

Ai Siqi, “Lun Zhongguo de teshuxing” in Cong “xihua” dao xiandaihua, 592–593. Wang Xinming et al., “Zhongguo benwei de wenhua jianshe xuanyan 中国本 位文化建设宣言 [Declaration of Cultural Construction on a Chinese Basis],” Wenhua Jianshe Yuekan 1: 4 ( January 10, 1935). 59 60

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considerable success.” Therefore, the focus of future tasks was no longer political reform, but cultural construction, which was “more urgent” than political reform.61 The opposition to political reform was essentially opposition to democratic politics and support for authoritarian control. When a group of ten professors was asked what “Chinese basis” means, they replied that the so-called ‘Chinese basis’ means the needs of “here and now.” Specifically, it means that the “people’s lives need to be enriched,” the “citizens’ livelihood needs to be developed,” “the existence of nation needs to be guaranteed.”62 In brief, the needs of “here and now” do not include political democracy, only economic development. An opponent of the Chinese basis theory pointed out its true purpose at that time, saying: “the gist of Chinese-based culture is to abolish ‘democracy;’ the abolition of democracy is ‘a higher development of Three Principles of the People!’ To be more clear, the Chinese-based culture movement is a movement to construct authoritarian government.”63 To avoid substantial political reform, avoid democratic politics, import market economics while refusing to import the corresponding representative democracy, and only make use of the advanced science, technology, and production management experience of the West—this was the Qing government’s basic “Chinese essence, Western means” train of thought. Consequently, the 1930s theory of “Chinese basis” was nothing more than a reprint of the late Qing “Chinese essence, Western means,” despite the ten professors’ criticism of this concept. The liberal intellectual Hu Shi saw this clearly: In their manifesto, the ten professors expressed that they are not satisfied with the concept of “Chinese essence, Western means” in the period of “Westernization” and “restoration.” This is astonishing! Because their “Chinese-Based Cultural Construction” is precisely the newest disguised version of “Chinese essence, Western means.” While the rhetoric has changed, its spirit remains the same as that of the author of “Exhortation to Study” [Zhang Zhidong]. Is not “according to Chinese basis” the same as “Chinese learning as essence?” Is not “adopt a critical attitude

Ibid. Wang Xinming et al., “Women de zong dafu.” 63 Zhang Xiruo, “Quanpan xihua yu zhongguo benwei” Guowen Zhoubao 12:33 (April, 1935). 61 62

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The modernization movements led by the Qing government and the KMT government both ended in failure, which proponents of Sinicization and Westernization both attempted to explain. Westernization theorists attributed the failure to insufficient Westernization, and Sinicization theorists attributed it to insufficient Sinicization, i.e., the failure to combine with China’s “national conditions.” We can say that, although the two opposed points of view both are reasonable to some extent regarding different problems and different historical periods, from today’s perspective both explanations appear weak and biased, and do not address the crux of the issue. This is because they share two fatal methodological flaws. The proponents of Sinicization and Westernization both regarded modernization as a completely positive process and failed to see its inherently limited nature. This limited nature was actually one of the causes behind the many interruptions in China’s modernization process. In other words, the proponents of Sinicization and Westernization analyzed and evaluated the outcome of China’s modernization only in terms of the external conditions and factors of modernization. They did not examine the issue in terms of the inherent elements of modernization. China’s modernization has continued for nearly one hundred years and has still not been completed. This is undoubtedly due in part to important external institutions and cultural factors, yet the limitations inherent in modernization are also responsible. Modernization is the greatest course of human social progress that history has ever seen, yet it nevertheless is not a completely positive course of progress as the majority of Sinicization and Westernization theorists naturally assume it to be. It is dualistic, possessing both a positive side and a negative side. Of course, the positive aspects of modernization far outweigh the negative aspects—otherwise it would not be sought by all the countries of the world. Yet on the other hand, the inherently contradictory nature of modernization assures that, like all other processes of social progress, it comes at a cost.

64 Hu Shi, “Shiping suowei zhongguo benwei wenhua jianshe 试评所谓“中国本位 的文化建设” [Tentative Review of the So-called “Chinese-based Culture Construction”], Duli Pinglun 145:4 (March 31, 1935).

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Many of the viewpoints and conclusions of Sinicization theory and Westernization theory are drastically different, or even diametrically opposed, yet behind these disparate viewpoints lies a common methodology. Both theories tend to treat culture as a decisive variable. They consider culture a fundamental driving force of modernization, and thus attempt to explain the outcome of China’s modernization. Westernization theorists favored wholesale Westernization because they believed that traditional Chinese culture conflicted with Western material civilization; Sinicization theorists favored Chinese-style modernization because they believed that Chinese culture was compatible with modern Western civilization. The use of culture as the decisive factor to explain everything was the methodological weakness that prevented either theory from producing a profound analysis or correct evaluation of China’s modernization process. Cultural factors are undoubtedly important, but economics and politics were the foremost decisive influences on China’s modernization. Regrettably, 1980s Chinese intellectuals retraced the same erroneous methodological path taken by 1930s intellectuals. During the “cultural craze” and “Weber craze” beginning in the late eighties, many intellectuals once again treated culture as a panacea, regarded cultural transformation as the ultimate factor governing the modernization of China, and tried to interpret China’s reality and future based upon this. This, it is necessary for us to reiterate one lesson drawn from the 1930s debate over Sinicization and Westernization: China’s modernization process is decisively influenced by primarily economic and political factors, not cultural factors. Culture remains an important force governing China’s modernization, but it is not the fundamental driver. The fundamental force driving China’s modernization is its particular social, political, and economic organization. Rather than conducting cultural analysis and evaluation of China’s modernization, it is more important to carry out economic and political analysis and evaluation. Since the 1980s and 90s, humanity has gradually entered the era of globalization. Globalization is a process of change of all social history, and its basic characteristic is the production of inherent, indivisible, and increasingly strong mutual connections worldwide based upon a foundation of economic integration. The globalization process is filled with internal contradictions. It is a unity of contradictions: it contains the trend of integration and the tendency of fragmentation; it contains unification and contains diversification; it is concentration and it is dispersion; it is internationalization and it is localization. Globalization

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first appears as economic integration, but the globalization of economic life will inevitably profoundly influence all aspects of social life, including political life and cultural life. The era of globalization is a new era in the development of world history. Globalization is currently, and gradually will be, altering the contexts of “Westernization,” “Americanization,” and “Sinicization,” and producing a new context for mutual learning and influence among civilizations. Globalization has already become an inescapable objective reality; it is the inevitable trend of the development of world history. As long as a country opens to the outside, it will inevitably be pulled onto the path of globalization. This is a necessary step toward realizing the modernization of society, and China is not an exception. Globalization is championed by developed Western countries with the United States at their head; these countries set the rules and guide the process. However, no country, not even the United States, can completely control the course of globalization. China and the other developing countries will certainly play an increasingly influential role in the process of globalization in the future. Globalization is a doubleedged sword, not only for the developing countries, but also for the developed countries. Regardless of development status, any country could gain or lose during the globalization process. Globalization elevates modern civilization into a globalized abstraction, regardless of whether the civilization originated in the East or West. Therefore, the imitation of modern Western civilization does not equate to Westernization, and learning modern Eastern civilization does not equate to Easternization, just as China’s adoption of market economy and entrance into the WTO does not demonstrate Westernization or Americanization of Chinese society. Globalization and nationalization are complementary. If China wants to preserve its own national civilization throughout the modernization process, it must actively participate in globalization. Furthermore, if China wants to effectively participate in the globalization process, it must fully develop its own particular superior qualities. There are actually two seemingly opposed attitudes toward China’s participation in globalization. Indeed, both domestically and abroad, certain people and political forces seek to use globalization’s challenge toward China to weaken China, deprive it of autonomy, and make it dependent on external forces. On the other hand, because China’s participation in globalization carries certain risk, and also because some people seek

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to use globalization to damage China’s national interest, some people oppose China’s active participation in globalization. Ultimately, what we would like to state is that globalization is definitely not Westernization or Americanization, and the hopes and worries that China will be Westernized or Americanized through its participation in globalization will in the end all be proven shortsighted.

CONTRADICTIONS WITHIN ENLIGHTENMENT IDEAS Xu Jilin Translated by Adrian Thieret Since the 1980s, three different realms of cultural power have formed within the Chinese intellectual community: an elite theoretical realm focused on reformation of the national consciousness, a specialist academic realm based on modern academic and intellectual divisions of labor, and a realm of public ideas operating across academic boundaries in the public domain. These three networks of cultural space infiltrate each other and yet exist separately, all with their own regulations. Generally speaking they are, respectively, the research subjects of political history, academic history, and the history of ideas. As a study in the history of ideas, we will primarily concern ourselves with the great public ideological debate of the 1990s, and through this examine the overall state of China’s public intellectuals and public ideological circles in the nineties. Research into contemporary Chinese ideological culture is a current focus of both domestic and foreign intellectual circles. The ideological culture of this period can be investigated through ideological trends or approached through the study of historical figures, yet in order to untangle the complex relationships of ideas and divisions within this culture, it is necessary to begin our investigation from the series of great debates that occurred in the ideological culture world of the 1990s. The nineties was an era of reconfiguration for the world of Chinese ideological culture. In the New Enlightenment movement (新启蒙运动) of the eighties, Chinese intellectuals had formed a common enlightenment camp around their “unity of attitude” with regard to views on culture and reform. However, in the nineties a severe split occurred within this group. The intellectuals began by searching for common ground around the great central problem of Chinese modernity and reformation. This triggered a series of debates which led to deep differences in thought, knowledge, and personal relationships, and consequently shaped the divergent factions and value orientations of the contemporary Chinese ideological world. The most important difference between the world of Chinese ideological culture in the eighties

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and nineties is simply that it changed from “unified” to “divided.” Chinese intellectuals of the eighties had a relatively limited understanding of Western and Chinese cultures and although each had his own opinion, their knowledge structures and ideological trends were nearly identical. However, in the nineties, a great division occurred in the intellectual community. On one hand, this division was due to a series of profound changes that occurred in China during that decade, and was a hallmark of the arduous and agonizing historical change and social transformation experienced by contemporary China. Moreover, this division provided ample historical possibility and a substantial empirical foundation for the breakthrough development of academic ideas. On the other hand, when confronted with acute societal change, the Chinese intellectual community strove to come up with new explanations based on theory, and from this emerged an unprecedented drive to engage in positive dialogue with reality. However due to differences in intellectual background, problem consciousness, working hypotheses, field of vision, and methods, different thinkers often arrived at disparate or even antithetical conclusions regarding the same phenomenon, thus instigating head-on collisions between different discourses and shaping a series of debates on ideological culture of great influence in both Chinese and foreign academic circles. Due to these debates, the division of thought within the Chinese intellectual community was nearly complete by the end of the 1990s. In merely 10 years, the public arena was once again feudalized and compartmentalized; a united public ideological world no longer existed. I. The Enlightenment Split of the 1990s During the 1980s, Chinese intellectuals implemented the New Enlightenment movement. In the early nineties the intellectuals began spiritual and intellectual introspection, which was actually an inevitable result of the New Enlightenment movement. This reflection led to the manifestation of latent differences within the New Enlightenment movement, and from this point onward the division of the ideological world was inevitable. On the other hand, in the wake of the stabilization of the new socio-political arrangement in the nineties, the post-1992 acceleration of economic reforms and full introduction of market society to China

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increased the complexity of the Chinese situation. The central split in social ideology was no longer whether to reform, or whether reform was socialist or capitalist, but was rather about how to reform and in which direction to orient reform. Moreover, these questions were all closely tied to the meaning of Chinese modernity and some of the principle issues of modernity such as our understandings of liberty, democracy, justice, and equality. Intellectuals became increasingly divided concerning the reality, path, and developmental future of Chinese reform, and the initial “unity of attitude” permanently disappeared; fissures within the ideological world grew increasingly deep and grew beyond the possibility of repair. Even though introspection was characteristic of intellectuals throughout both the eighties and nineties, the eighties were a time of primarily moral introspection, of reflecting on traditional culture and extant political systems from outside of enlightenment thought. However, the nineties saw more intellectual introspection and reflection on the individual’s intellectual premises; this was a reflection on enlightenment thought. If we say that the main theme of the eighties was enlightenment, then in the nineties the theme changed to reflection on enlightenment. As such, the contradictory ideological traditions in the as-yet-undivided enlightenment thought of the eighties gradually split and became apparent in the nineties. Generally speaking, the fracturing of the 1990s ideological world occurred in three stages. 1990–1992 was the first stage. Intellectuals first had to resolve the question of whether they still needed to continue promoting the New Enlightenment movement of the eighties, or whether they ought to self-reflect and reestablish their personal knowledge base. Consequently the earliest debate was a discussion of academic norms conducted in Scholar.1 The division of the Chinese intellectual community in the nineties first arose from the search for common perspective. In the earliest debates on academic norms, enlightenment thinkers first attempted to determine a basic shared viewpoint for intellectual 1 Regarding the debate on academic norms, see the topic essays in the first issue of Xueren 学人 ( Jiangsu: Jiangsu wenyi chubanshe 江苏文艺出版社, 1991). This debate later continued in the Hong Kong Zhongguo Shuping 中国书评, but the problem consciousness had already lost the incisive character of reflecting on reality that it had carried in the early 1990s, and was instead mostly academic. For the details of the debate, see Deng Zhenglai, ed., Zhongguo xueshu guifanhua taolun wenxuan 中国学术规范 化讨论文选 (Beijing: Falü chubanshe 法律出版社, 2004).

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introspection, but as soon as the discussion was broached it revealed deep divisions among the enlightenment thinkers. The “unity of attitude” of the eighties only remained on the level of values; once the discussion turned to construction, differences could no longer be reconciled. Thus the search for common perspective opened a curtain on the great debate and split of the Chinese intellectual community. In the early nineties, enlightenment intellectuals recalled the suffering of the past, and beginning with reflection on reality, proceeded to reflect on the radicalism of 20th century China. From this arose a debate on radicalism and conservatism.2 The primary space for this debate was not within China, rather it was the newly founded Hong Kong magazine Ershiyi Shiji (Twenty-First Century), the most important magazine in the public realm of the Chinese intellectual community for the first half of the nineties. Even so, consciousness of issues surrounding reflection on reality could only be realized through a kind of historicization. However, this debate shows that the enlightenment camp of the eighties developed differing views regarding basic concepts such as what radicalism and conservatism meant in terms of both their historical connotations and scientific norms. Behind this difference, lay a split in reform ideology which in the eighties had not yet occurred. Regarding the perception of reform, did one believe that reform could completely transform society, or did one think that reform could only further the integration of old and new? Accordingly, in terms of reform policy, was it best to conduct a radical utopian revolution, or gradually remake society? After Deng Xiaoping’s “Southern Tour,” the Chinese economy took off and the split of the intellectual community entered stage two. Following the advent of market society, intellectuals were quickly marginalized and their livelihood and social status questioned. As they turned their attention toward state power, they were surprised to notice 2 Regarding the main points of the debate on radicalism and conservatism, see Yu Yingshi 余英时, “Zhongguo jindai sixiangshishang de jijin yu baoshou 中国近代思 想史的激进与保守,” in his Qian Mu yu Zhongguo wenhua 钱穆与中国文化 (Shanghai: Shanghai yuandong chubanshe 上海远东出版社, 1994); Lin Gang 林岗, “Jijinzhuyi zai Zhongguo 激进主义在中国,” Ershiyi shiji 二十一世纪 3 (1991); Jiang Yihua 姜义 华, “Jijin yu baoshou: yu Yu Yingshi xiansheng shangque 激进与保守：与余英时先 生商榷,” Ershiyi shiji 10 (1992); Yu Yingshi, “Zailun Zhongguo xiandai sixiangzhong de jijin yu baoshou 再论中国现代思想中的激进与保守,” Ershiyi shiji 10 (1992); Xu Jilin 许纪霖, “Jijin yu baoshou zhijian de mihuo 激进与保守之间的迷惑,” Ershiyi shiji 11 (1992); Fu Keng 傅铿, “Dalu zhishifenzi de jijinzhuyi shenhua 大陆知识分子 的激进主义神话,” Ershiyi shiji 11 (1992).

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direct palpable pressures from market capital. The market economy that enlightenment intellectuals had dreamed of in the eighties swept them out to sea when it finally arrived. This spurred several debates over how to view market society and how to rebuild the intellectual’s self-respect: the debate on human and literary spirit first begun by Wang Xiaoming and other Shanghai intellectuals in Dushu magazine in 1994,3 the debate on moral idealism sparked by Zhang Chengzhi and Zhang Wei’s “Resist Surrender,”4 and the ideological trend advocating rejection of the May 4th enlightenment dialogue and affirmation of secular, postmodern, and postcolonial culture represented by literary critics such as Zhang Yiwu and Chen Xiaoming.5 However, as China further integrated into the globalized international economic and political order, and continued to develop a market society while retaining authoritarian government, the relationships between society and country, and globalism and nationalism, grew extraordinarily complex and the Chinese intellectual community split further apart. Debates such as the discussion on civic society versus public domain that Deng Zhenglai began in Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Jikan (China Social Sciences Quarterly),6 and the arguments on nationalism versus globalization in Dongfang (Oriental) and Zhanlüe yu Guanli (Strategy and Management) magazines picked up steam and gradually moved into discussion of deeper topics such as reform and principle.7 From this

Refer to Wang Xiaoming 王晓明, Renwen jingshen xunsilu 人文精神寻思录 (Hong Kong: Wenhui chubanshe 文汇出版社, 1996); Ding Dong 丁东 and Sun Mian 孙眠, eds., Shijizhijiao de chongzhuan: Wang Meng xianxiang zhengming lu 世纪之交的冲撞—王蒙 现象争鸣录 (Beijing: Guangming ribao chubanshe 光明日报出版社, 1996). 4 Refer to Xiao Xialin 萧夏林, ed., Youfen de guitu—dikang touxiang shuxi: Zhang Wei juan 忧愤的归途—抵抗投降书系: 张炜卷 (Huayi chubanshe 华艺出版社, 1995); Xiao Xialin, ed., Youfen de guitu —dikang touxiang shuxi: Zhang Chengzhi juan 忧愤的归 途—抵抗投降书系: 张承志卷 (Huayi chubanshe 华艺出版社, 1995); Yu Shi 愚士, ed., Yibiweiqi: shijimo de wenhua piping 世纪末的文化批评 (Hunan: Hunan wenyi chubanshe 湖南文艺出版社, 1997). 5 Refer to Zhang Yiwu 张颐武, “ ‘Xiandaixing’ de zhongjie: yige wufahuibi de keti ‘现代性’的终结: 一个无法回避的课题,” Zhanlüe yu guanli 战略与管理 3 (1994); Chen Xiaoming 陈晓明 et al., “Houxiandai: wenhua de kuozhang yu cuowei 后现 代: 文化的扩张与错位,” Shanghai wenxue 上海文学 3 (1994); Zhang Fa, Zhang Yiwu, and Wang Yichuan 张法, 张颐武, 王一川, “Cong ‘xiandaixing’ dao ‘zhonghuaxing,’ 从’现代性’到’中华性,’ ” Wenyi zhengming 文艺争鸣 2 (1994). 6 See the 2002–3 issues of Zhongguo shehui kexue jikan 中国社会科学季刊. 7 Refer to Le Shan 乐山, Qianliu: dui xia’ai minzuzhuyi de pipan yu fansi 潜流: 对狭 隘的民族主义的批判与反思 (Shanghai: Huadong shifandaxue chubanshe 华东师范 大学出版社, 2004). 3

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two main camps were formed, the “Liberal” camp and the “New Left” camp, both with their own flags, theories, and spokesmen. At the end of 1997, Wang Hui’s article “The Problem of Modernity and the State of Ideas in Contemporary China” published in Tianya (Frontiers) magazine ignited a three-year argument between “Liberal” and “New Left” intellectuals.8 Thus began the third stage of the division of China’s intellectual community. The two parties engaged in intense debate on issues of modernity, freedom, democracy, social justice, economics, nationalism, and more. Rarely in 20th century China’s history of ideas had such broad and in-depth discussions occurred.9 Through these three waves of division, the superficial unity created by the New Enlightenment movement had completely disappeared by the end of the nineties. Goals, values, knowledge, and discourse methods had split and become incompatible. The united intellectual community of the eighties conducive to effective dialogue no longer existed. Just like the May 4th movement, the New Enlightenment movement disintegrated. Unlike that of the eighties, the intellectual divide of the nineties was deep and insuperable. Although the New Enlightenment camp of the eighties also had divisions and frequent lively debates, they were usually the product of differences in understanding and conception. The debates all shared the same background: as enlightenment thinkers facing a system of centralized authority, their interests, whether economic or social, were all aligned. Despite differences in value systems and ideologies, their knowledge structures were compatible and they all had only a muddled, holistic understanding of Chinese cultural tradition and Western knowledge. Most importantly, they pursued the same modernization aims: a democratic government, a market economy, and individualistic, secularized modernization represented by their generalized view of the West. Yet, the intellectual split of the Chinese intellectual community in the nineties was not simply a division of ideas; it was a deeper divergence of interests, a split of knowledge structures and modernization goals. The divergence of interests came first. Beginning in the mid-nineties, China experienced a conspicuous divergence of economic and Wang Hui 汪晖, “Dangdai zhongguo de sixiang zhuangkuang yu xiandaixing wenti 当代中国的思想状况与现代性问题,” Tianya 天涯 5 (1997). 9 Refer to Luo Gang and Ni Wenjian 罗冈, 倪文尖, eds., Jiushiniandai wenxuan 九 十年代文选 (Guangxi: Guangxi renmin chubanshe 广西人民出版社, 2000). 8

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social interests alongside severe social stratification and tense class relations. This was of dual significance to intellectuals. On one hand, members of the intellectual community were no longer all of equal socioeconomic status as they had been before 1992. As the income and status gap between elite and ordinary grew wider, the personal interests of the intellectual elite drifted away from that of the greater intellectual community. This led to a sharp divergence of perspectives. On the other hand, the socioeconomic stratification of society as a whole hastened the transformation of intellectuals from traditional intellectuals to organic intellectuals. 1980s intellectuals often declared that they represent the interests of the entire nation or embody universal truth. Upon entering the nineties, a group of intellectuals headed by the economic liberals charged the middle class with the task of modernizing China, and consciously made themselves the spokespeople of middle class socioeconomic and political interests. A different group of intellectuals led by the leftists, upset by the disgraced status of the lower classes, devoted themselves to defending the interests of the oppressed masses. This split in the social interests of the intellectual community resulted in striking differences between the actual contexts underlying their views on modernity and enlightenment. Next came the division of knowledge structures. The enlightenment intellectuals of the eighties understood Chinese and Western cultural traditions only in vague, general terms. However, following the rise in popularity of national studies in the nineties, a new generation of Chinese scholars who had studied abroad and translated Western books entered the Chinese intellectual community and contributed to its compartmentalization. The intellectuals now had a good grasp of the intellectual traditions and knowledge structures within Chinese and Western culture. Faced with mutual contradictions, they adopted the newest ideological trends and formed knowledge collectives based on their quickly diverging backgrounds, each collective with its own domain (including magazines, meetings, systematized space, cultural capital, intellectual origins, living habits, etc.). To a large extent these collectives relied on mutually incompatible knowledge structures, rendering effective dialogue impossible and hampering even basic understanding between the groups. Thus even though they shared the same concerns, because of large differences in fundamental knowledge structure, during debates they tended to misread each other and engage in meaningless, superficial disputes.

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Finally there was a fracturing of objectives. Modernity was the common objective of all enlightenment intellectuals, but due to the divergence of interests and knowledge structures caused by the nineties reforms, the question became not whether to modernize, but how to modernize. Modernity transformed from a single universal value of teleological history into many different and much-debated modernities. Furthermore, within the discourses of these different modernities, the originally self-evident values of liberty, democracy, markets, justice, equality, etc., all acquired new and sometimes contradictory connotations. These debates over principles were not purely academic. Rather, they were intimately connected to China’s reform policies and thus of an explicitly practical nature. After all, was the objective of China’s reform to become a classically liberal society favoring individualism, a radical democracy prioritizing class equality, or a socialist democracy balancing both liberty and justice? In the nineties, the Chinese intellectual community had already outlined many different roads to modernity. What were the characteristics of the 1990s division? We think that the split was the result of tensions and contradictions within modernity itself. Modernity is a paradox. Recalling Europe’s enlightenment, we find that enlightenment movements have never been pure, unitary systems of thought. In England there was within enlightenment thought, the empiricist tradition typified by Adam Smith and Locke. The situation in France was relatively complex: Voltaire represented the empiricist tradition, Descartes the rationalist tradition, and Rousseau an irrational tradition valuing nature. We see that even within the enlightenment movement in Europe there existed many different ideologies with their own internal tensions and contradictions. The conflicts within 20th century Western thought, scientism versus humanism, rationalism versus romanticism, and modernism versus postmodernism, can all be traced to European enlightenment thought. Zhang Hao points out that deep bifurcations existed within the May Fourth enlightenment movement. He analyzes the tense relationships between four of these divisions: rationalism and romanticism, skepticism and new religion, individualism and group consciousness, and nationalism and universalism.10 As we discussed above, the tense

10 Zhang Hao 张灏, “Chongfang Wusi: Lun Wusi sixiang de liangqixing 重访五四: 论五四思想的两歧性,” in Zhang Hao zixua ji 张灏自选集 (Shanghai: Shanghai jiaoyu shuban she 上海教育出版社, 2002), 251–279.

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relationships that Zhang Hao finds within May Fourth thought also exist within the 1980s New Enlightenment movement. All of the 1990s debates grew out of divisions within enlightenment thought and were connected to the basic problem of Chinese modernity. Because of the different intellectual traditions and contradictions within enlightenment thought, the “unity of attitude” underlying debates during the eighties turned into conflicted understanding, reflection, transcendence, and even criticism of modernity in the nineties. The nineties debates were from the beginning a matter of enlightenment criticizing enlightenment, intellectuals rejecting themselves. Most of the participants in the debates had participated in and were closely associated with the eighties New Enlightenment movement. More importantly, not only the proponents of the New Enlightenment ideas but their critics as well all saw themselves as successors to anti-New Enlightenment criticism.11 Liberty, emancipation, development, progress, prosperity, human rights, democracy, peace, justice—the enlightenment movement pledges to seek all of these ideals. However as Isaiah Berlin has noted, these enlightenment values lack coherency, and internal contradictions render any idealized, simultaneous realization of the values impossible.12 This is the cause of the enlightenment paradox. Different enlightenment ideologies all prioritize different values; for example, liberalism tends to champion individual rights, the radical left emphasizes socioeconomic equality, and postmodernism attempts to free the individual from the oppressive discourse of the collective. Although these ideals and pursuits were all part of the eighties enlightenment movement, enlightenment intellectuals failed to recognize the inconsistencies. They believed all they had to do was break through the net

11 Wang Hui believes that neo-liberalism distorted the rich, complex ideological legacy of the 1980s New Enlightenment thought, and claimed himself to be the legitimate successor of the thought liberation movement. However, in his view it is precisely those critical intellectuals who do not compromise with power and capital relations who were the true ”critical heirs” or “inheriting critics” of the 1980s thought legacy (Wang Hui 汪晖, “Yijiubajiu shehuiyundong yu ‘xin ziyouzhuyi’ de lishigenyuan: zailun dangdai Zhongguo de sixiang zhuangkuang yu xiandaixing wenti 一九 八九社会运动与 ‘新自由主义’ 的历史根源: 再论当代中国大陆的思想状况与现代 性问题,” Taiwan shehui yanjiu jikan 台湾社会研究季刊 42 [2001].). Another purported representative of the New Left, Gan Yang, also refuses to accept the tarnished title “New Left,” saying that what people consider the New Left is actually a group of “liberal left,” implying that they have an inherent connection to the Enlightenment movement (Gan Yang 甘阳, “Zhongguo ‘ziyouzuopai’ de youlai 中国 ‘自由左派’ 的 由来,” Mingbao yuekan 明报月刊 10 [2000].). 12 Ramin Jahanbegloo, Conversations with Isaiah Berlin (London: Halban, 1992), 183–4.

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of centralized state authority and they would be able to realize the utopian world of enlightenment ideals symbolized by the West. The enlightenment movement of the eighties had a collective enemy and united purpose. But after the rise of the market economy in the mid-nineties fulfilled a portion of the enlightenment promise, the movement lost both its shared enemy and purpose. After all, is the enemy of reform actually state socialism, or global capitalism (socalled neo-liberalism), or a combination of the two? Should reforms aim to create a society based on the protection of individual freedom through constitutional government, a society based on the unyielding principles of quick economic and scientific progress, or an egalitarian society stressing protection the weak? Members of the enlightenment community came to different conclusions regarding these basic judgments on values and the state of the nation, yet underlying these differences was none other than the contradictions inherent within enlightenment values themselves. In the end, these differing value judgments formed the basic divisions of the Chinese ideological world in the 1990s. Even though the fractures of the nineties have since continued to grow larger, beneath the apparent surface contradictions of the various factions, similar intellectual premises still lurk in the unconscious of those who support enlightenment, those who reflect on it, and those who reject it. Indeed, exposing and scrutinizing these hidden premises is one important goal of this study. The first generation of anti-enlightenment intellectuals, because they came out of the enlightenment camp, often employed enlightenment thought to oppose enlightenment thought just as May Fourth intellectuals employed tradition to oppose tradition. This is to say that they utilized the deeper modes of enlightenment to attack its surface ideologies. Behind their anti-enlightenment concepts lay fierce enlightenment-based intellectual premises. These so-called enlightenment premises refer to a comprehensive ideology centered around the rationality of man. Historically speaking, enlightenment thought as a replacement for medieval theology and Confucianism brought with it the characteristics of an comprehensive ideological system. Scientism, humanism, materialism, and empiricism all believe that human rationality is omnipotent, just as God’s will to Theism or man’s temperament to Confucianism. Enlightenment thought meets reality at the level of practical government and thus has become a political ideology. As Michael Oakeshott notes:

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A political ideology purports to be an abstract principle, or set of related abstract principles, which has been independently premeditated. It supplies in advance of the activity of attending to the arrangements of a society a formulated end to be pursued, and in so doing it provides a means of distinguishing between those desires which ought to be encouraged and those which ought to be suppressed or redirected.13

Obviously, the 1990s debates of the Chinese intellectual community primarily occurred at the macro-ideological level. The arguments were all ideological, and both sides carried the same comprehensive set of enlightenment-based intellectual premises. For example, postmodern theory of the nineties stands against the narrative of modernity (including both reform and enlightenment thought), because between the two theories exists a meta-narrative. However, Chinese “post-ology” (后学) is not merely concerned with deconstruction as in the West. On the contrary, Chinese “post-ology” clearly involves construction, a legacy of enlightenment thought. The replacement of modernity with Chinese nature (中华性) is one interesting example.14 Chinese “postology” became a case of total replacement rather than competition. This implies that even if contemporary Chinese thought has foreign origins, these foreign ideas were brought into the Chinese context and imbued with its constructivist objectives. This phenomenon is distinctly related to the suffering experienced by both enlightenment and antienlightenment intellectuals; they all believe that China faces a holistic crisis, and therefore prefer to reference comprehensive schemes when broaching questions. Consistent with their holistic thinking is their reductionist approach to problems. They attribute the complex problems currently facing China to a single ultimate cause such as underdeveloped civic society and lack of a middle class (civil theory), overly powerful government and lack of market freedoms (liberal theory), the logic of global capitalism (New Left theory), or any one of many other causes. Many nineties intellectuals still pose as ideological legislators, but when each school of thought arrogantly proposes its own comprehensive plan built on dogmatic reductionism, ideological self-reflection and mutual dialogue become impossible. Because we find the common mark of the enlightenment school behind the ideological split of the 1990s, the nineties can be considered a late-enlightenment rather than a post-enlightenment era. 13 14

Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics (New York: Basic Books, 1962), 116. Refer to Zhang Fa et al., “Cong ‘xiandaixing’ dao ‘zhonghuaxing.”

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In the early 1990s some intellectuals began to criticize the New Enlightenment movement for “seeking the new and strange, and throwing around meaningless words,” and blamed this on the “recklessness” and “frivolity” of the movement.15 They began consciously to remove themselves from the intellectual community and enter specialized academic circles, where they established a new practical knowledge base for Chinese scholarship and culture through the reconstruction of academic history and norms, and the rearrangement of traditional national studies. A new set of popular academic magazines such as Xueren, Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Jikan, Xueshu Jilin, and Yuanxue gave voice to those scholars who transformed from enlightenment intellectuals into distinctly specialized academics. The popularity of national studies in the nineties is to a great degree an intellectual product of this transition. However, this change of direction was criticized by intellectuals who still subscribed to the traditional enlightenment thought of the eighties. Believing that “thinkers are fading as scholars are surfacing,” they debated which should be prioritized, thought or scholarship.16 In the end, both sides maintained that thought and scholarship could be attained simultaneously. They subscribed to Wang Yuanhua’s idea of “thought within scholarship and scholarship within thought.”17 Thus the true difference was in their views toward enlightenment, specifically, the question of how to continue enlightenment in the new historical context of the 1990s. Certainly, among the group of intellectuals that turned toward scholarship, some did indeed fully renounce enlightenment thought. In particular, many members of younger generation born in the 1960s abandoned the public duty of intellectuals and become specialized scholars working within the state-controlled compartmentalized aca-

15 Refer to Chen Pingyuan 陈平原, “Xueshushi yanjiu suixiang 学术史研究随想,” Xueren 学人 1 (1991): 3. 16 Quoted from a letter to the editor by Li Zehou 李泽厚, in Ershiyi shiji 二十一世纪 23 (1994): 159. His viewpoint represents that of a substantial group of intellectuals at the time. 17 Wang Yuanhua 王元化, Xueshu jilin juanyi bianhouji 学术集林卷一编后记 (Shanghai: Yuandong chubanshe 远东出版社, 1994).

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demic system. Nonetheless, most of the remaining “academic” intellectuals, especially those who had been active in the eighties, actually reached a new understanding of enlightenment through reflection on May Fourth radicalism and a rediscovery of the historical value of cultural conservatism. They realized that the deepening of enlightenment thought cannot be achieved through merely the ideological fervor of romanticism; it also requires a solid foundation of academic theory. Additionally, they realized that endlessly chasing trends is not nearly as effective as expending some effort to learn basic Western academic theory. Furthermore, they realized that when studying tradition, they must abandon their prejudices for intellectual analysis methods and re-read tradition with a more sympathetic understanding. However this “alternative enlightenment” has yet to gain the understanding or acceptance of “thought” intellectuals, those who had not turned to academic specialization. With the revitalization of the intellectual community, the differences between the two sides only grew more pronounced and eventually led to the bifurcation of enlightenment intellectuals in the nineties. In the words that Yu Yingshi originally used to describe the different internal orientations of Song and Ming dynasty Neo-Confucianism, these two distinct perspectives on enlightenment can be suitably described as “honoring morality” (moral practice) and “seeking knowledge” (intellectualism).18 The New Enlightenment movement of the eighties in all aspects was a reprint of the May Fourth. It was both simultaneously rational and emotionally-charged, although perhaps more of the latter. If arranged within the academic trends of Chinese history, it could be called another era of Song studies in which everyone is overcome with compassion toward the world and vacuously blathers on about Neo-Confucian moral principles. Yet from the nineties the paradigm shifted from “honoring morality” to “seeking knowledge.” “Thinkers faded as scholars surfaced;” many enlightenment proponents retreated from the public square into academic institutions and replaced Songstyle moral reasoning with empirical research and textual analysis in the Qing tradition, and thus began the era of Qing studies. Nevertheless although the world was peaceful, crucial questions of morality still Refer to Yu Yingshi 余英时, “Qingdai sixiangshi de yige xin jieshi 清代思想 史的一个新解释,” in his Zhongguo xiandai sixiang chuantong de xiandai quanshi 中国现代 思想传统的现代诠释 ( Jiangsu: Jiangsu renmin chubanshe 江苏人民出版社, 1989), 207–237. 18

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loomed large and manifested in more striking ways than before. The split between discussion of moral reasoning and empirical research was only a continuation of the clash between Song and Han studies. On one hand, Qing studies flourished in the specialized academic system and powerful state. But yet the enlightenment camp formed in the eighties split from within. Ji Xianlin, Wang Yuanhua, and Li Shenzhi, the three greatest contemporary Chinese scholars of Confucianism, represent the paths taken by the different groups. As a leading first generation scholar of national studies and renowned Qing academic, Ji Xianlin engaged in scholarship for scholarship’s sake, sought knowledge for the sake of knowledge, and thus became the paragon of an erudite Confucian scholar. Wang Yuanhua and Li Shenzhi were both leaders in the enlightenment movement, leading to the popular saying of “Wang in the south and Li in the north.” Although upon much consideration they both recognized the fundamental value of liberalism, some interesting differences exist between their enlightenment methods. Li Shenzhi carried on the tempestuous tradition of the May Fourth movement. He deeply sensed the listless nature of nineties intellectuals and the loss of enthusiasm for criticism. In order to reinvigorate scholars, he picked up the flag of liberal ideology and devoted himself to practicing the morality he preached, hoping to blaze a path toward an ideal world. Wang Yuanhua was affected by the recklessness of the 1980s trend of considering only ideologies and not examining specific problems. Thus in the nineties he proposed “thought within scholarship and scholarship within thought,” reviving the May Fourth rationalist tradition. Like the Qing scholar Dai Zhen, who valued equally moral reasoning and empirical research, he imbued moral study with a base of empirical research and transformed enlightenment thought into a sturdy academic theory. On the other hand, Wang Yuanhua also began to seriously reflect on how the enlightenment had contradicted itself and resulted in an modern utopian tragedy. He attempted to mount a new defense of enlightenment objectives through transcendence of the enlightenment mindset. While Li Shenzhi drew a rigid line between enlightenment and autocracy in order to clearly delineate his supporters and opponents, Wang Yuanhua maintained a deep personal appreciation for the complexity and tensions within enlightenment thought, and often exhibited a rational pessimism directly contrasted with Li Shenzhi’s idealized and naively optimistic view of enlightenment. Wang was contemplative and Li

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zealous; their values similar but paths different. These paths are not solely the property of Wang and Li, they also represent the different directions taken by later enlightenment intellectuals. Moral practice and pursuit of knowledge were united in the eighties New Enlightenment movement, but gradually separated in the nineties. Academic theory no longer sought practicality and became an increasing elitist intellectualism disconnected from public concerns. Moreover, this intellectual elite refused to recognize the ideologies underlying moral practice because those ideologies are built on untenable theory. This dilemma still plagues contemporary Chinese enlightenment intellectuals even today. III. From Modernization to Modernity The Enlightenment movement revolved around the question of how to understand modernity. Max Weber explains modernity as the process of becoming rational, the process of humans extricating themselves from the charismatic world of the middle ages, taking control of their own destinies, replacing transcendental will with human reason, and acting rationally.19 However, for the Chinese enlightenment movement, in addition to denoting a secularization process similar to that of Western societies, modernity carried more complex implications. During the New Enlightenment movement of the eighties, the thinkers tended to use “modernization” rather than “modernity.” The difference between these two terms is not merely that the former emphasizes the course of history and the latter stresses understanding of norms. More importantly, in contemporary China they belong to different contexts. Modernization first appeared under the national ideology of secularized socialist reform and consequently became the shared objective of the thought liberation movement and New Enlightenment movement. Although these movements disagreed regarding some of the specific connotations of modernization, their views of modernization were built upon the same premises: modern was contrasted with traditional, and the central problem of modernization was how to move from traditional to modern. The concept of modernity did not enter widespread usage until after 1994, when it was systematically

19

Refer to Max Weber, The Sociology of Religion (New York: Beacon, 1993).

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introduced and discussed not by enlightenment intellectuals but by the “post-ology” scholars and the New Left, both groups critical of the enlightenment movement.20 Modernity became a focal issue for both of these groups. Conversely, the liberals still espousing enlightenment ideals lacked any enthusiasm to debate modernity and persisted in responding to it with modernization ideological trends from the eighties.21 Judging from this, it is obvious that 1990s modernity and 1980s modernization originated in different ideological trends. Granting that modernization focuses on the question of tradition and China, and attempts to move from traditional to modern, from China to the West, then the 1990s discussion with modernity is clearly related to postmodern ideological trends and reflection on the modernization of the West. As a product of postmodernism’s challenge to the modern, modernity is primarily concerned with the question of how to reflect on modernity itself. From the late Qing dynasty through the 1980s, the question of modernization was chiefly a re-conceptualization of time and space. The modernization ideas of the Chinese enlightenment were built upon two dualistic modes of thought: the chronological division of traditional and modern, and the spatial division of China and the West. However these two dualistic modes of thought actually share the same unitary theoretical assumption that history progresses teleologically. In other words, from the evolutionary theory of Social Darwinism in the late Qing to the modern Marxist/materialist view of historical advancement, and from the May Fourth movement to the 1980s enlightenment, all ideological movements of this period were premised on a linear, unitary view of history. Transition from traditional to modern and from Chinese to Western (or, in the case of traditional socialism, Soviet), were the historical imperatives of Chinese modernization.

The post-ology and New Left movements were the first to systematically discuss modernity and debate its core concepts, around 1994. Refer to Zhang Yiwu, “’Xiandaixing’ de zhongjie;” and Wang Hui, “Dangdai Zhongguo de sixiang zhuangkuang.” 21 Refer to Xu Youyu 徐友渔, “Erping 90 niandai ‘Xinzuopai:’ Zhongguo de xiandaixing yu pipan 二评90年代 ‘新左派: 中国的现代性与批判,” in Gong Yang 公羊, ed., Sichao: Zhongguo ‘Xinzuopai’ jiqi yingxiang 思潮: 中国 ‘新左派’ 及其影响 (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe 中国社会科学出版社, 2003). One exception is Wang Dingding 汪丁丁; he has discussed the possibility of rebuilding enlightenment from the internal complexities of enlightenment thought. Refer to his “Qimeng sile, qimeng wansui! ping Wang Hui guanyu ‘Zhongguo wenti’ de xushuo 启蒙死了, 启蒙 万岁! 评汪晖关于 ‘中国问题’ 的叙说,” Zhanlüe yu guanli 战略与管理 3 (1999). 20

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Although the 1980s narrative of modernization overturned the traditional socialist view and replaced it with the Western model, all of these modernizations were depicted as a series of neutral and measurable targets. They still belonged to the linear, unitary view of history, and were obviously colored by a teleological perspective. The relationship between China and the West is in the words of Wang Hui, “a kind of temporal space relationship.”22 In short, when confronted with the unequal modernity of China and the West, the inherently neutral and rational theory of modernity took the chronologically arranged cultural relationship based on space and displaced it with a universal relationship based on time. Modernization was then understood as merely a temporal relationship in which China would eventually converge with the West. Cultural comparisons between China and the West central to the cultural craze of the 1980s were premised on the binary division of traditional and modern popular with intellectuals of that period. Chinese culture and Western culture were seen as a dichotomy, the former representing traditional value systems and the latter representing modern cultural values. Consequently the spatial juxtaposition of cultures morphed into a linear temporal narrative. In other words, transforming Chinese culture meant overcoming the inertia and constraints of ancient culture to join the worldwide trend toward modern Western civilization. This formed an intellectual premise shared by Chinese enlightenment thinkers in the eighties. This linear, unitary view of history persisted into the 1990s. On one hand, the liberals further explained the aims of modernization following the model of Western liberalism, and endowed modernization with the universal ideals of globalization and global values.23 In contemporary China, liberalism became a kind of idealized newage utopia and end of history in which all human ideals (liberty, equality, peace, happiness) could all be harmoniously realized. On

22 Wang Hui 汪晖, “Weibo yu zhongguo de xiandaixing wenti 韦伯与中国的现代 性问题” in Wang Hui zixuanji 汪晖自选集 (Guangxi: Guangxi shifan daxue chubanshe 广西师范大学出版社, 1997), 13. 23 See Li Shenzhi 李慎之, “Hongyang Beida de ziyou zhuyi chuantong 弘扬北大 的自由主义传统,” in Beida chuantong yu jindai zhonggu: ziyouzhuyi de xiansheng 北大传统 与近代中国: 自由主义的先声, ed. Liu Junning 刘军宁 (Beijing: Zhongguo renshi chubanshe 中国人事出版社, 1998), 4. Also see Li Shenzhi’s ”Quanqiuhua yu quanqiu jiazhi 全球化与全球价值” and “Quanqiuhua youlaiyu quanqiujiazhi de queli 全 球化有赖于全球价值的确立,” both in Bei geming chidiao de erzi: Li Shenzhi wenxuan 被革 命吃掉的儿子: 李慎之文选 (Hong Kong: Mingbao chubanshe 明报出版社, 2003).

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the other hand, supporters of the early postmodern and postcolonial movements and even their critics considered postmodernism a later and hence superior form of modernism. Thus the transition from modernity to postmodernism became a peculiar display of a historically inevitable self-refutation of “post-ology” thought. Furthermore, from this integration of postmodern and postcolonial theory emerged the spatial signifier “Chinese nature,” consequently forming a spatial dualism between Chinese and Western nature.24 Nevertheless, this expression of space continued to be based upon an ineluctable unitary view of time and can thus be considered a mutation of the “temporal space relationship” from the eighties. The earnest pursuit of modernization in the eighties historically connoted a challenge to, and rejection of, traditional socialist practice. As market society appeared in China after 1992, China realized some of the aims of modernization and continued moving tortuously toward modernity. These changes upset some intellectuals, sparking reflection on the objectives of modernization. But after 1994, the problem of modernity provided a meta-theoretical focus for Chinese intellectuals’ reflection on enlightenment and Chinese modernization from the late Qing. As it had indicated the inherent limits and oppressive nature of enlightenment, awareness of the problem of modernity ended the tendency of intellectuals to look upon enlightenment as a glorious liberation.25 Additionally, rather that considering modernization a product of the linear teleological view of history, modernity placed modernization into a multifaceted spatial relationship and offered additional explanation of it. The rise of multiple modernities provided another imaginary space for thinking about modernity. These multiple modernities were atemporal, meaning that they no longer placed China and the West at different points on a developmental timeline, and ceased to assume that China must follow the path taken by the West, that the West’s today is China’s tomorrow. To prove these points, some scholars turned their gaze from Europe and America to Asia, and examined Japanese theorists’ views of modernity. Internally heterogeneous Asian and Western modernities were cited as the historical

See Zhang Fa, et al., “Cong ‘xiandaixing’ dao ‘zhonghuaxing.’” Refer to Wang Hui 汪晖, “Guanyu xiandaixing wenti dawen: da Ke Kaijun xiansheng wen 关于现代性问题答问: 答柯凯军先生问,” in his Sihuo chongwen 死火 重温 (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe 人民文学出版社, 2000). 24 25

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evidence proving multiple modernities.26 At nearly the same time, the theory of institutional innovation advanced in 1994 sought to transcend both Western capitalism and traditional socialism, and traverse the road to Chinese modernity through institutional innovation.27 This theory of institutional innovation received a warm response from the proponents of multiple modernities and was adopted as the plan of action for realizing Chinese modernity. But on the other hand, reflection on the unitary, linear view of history that grew out of late-Qing evolutionary theory led to widespread misgivings among intellectuals regarding the dualistic opposition of modern and traditional. Intellectuals abandoned the French style of radical reform in favor of gradual change in the English style, and re-conceptualized modernity as able to be realized in the presence of a suitable combination of both the traditional and modern. Whether at the level of institutions or the level of culture, Chinese modernity can and must find a new mode of structural and cultural identity apart from the Western one. Even in China’s interior, modernity has from its inception been heterogeneous. The coast and interior, cities and villages, all have their own modes of modernity. However, the multiple modernities theory still has not resolved the tensions between universalism and particularism, or universal and local knowledge, and thus it has not answered the question of nativism in the era of globalization. How can the commensurability of modernities be empirically proven when various modernity theorists see China and the West as different civilizations existing in atemporal spatial juxtaposition, and enthusiastically search for differences and incommensurable aspects? If there is no universal criterion by which to compare modernities, then what is the significance of modernity? And how can different civilizations form meaningful dialogue and be considerate of one another?

26 Sun Ge, Wang Hui, and others have written extensively on Asian modernity. Refer to Sun Ge 孙歌, Zhuti lunshu de kongjian: Yazhou lunshu zhi liangnan ( Jiangxi: Jiangxi jiaoyu chubanshe 江西教育出版社, 2002); Wang Hui 汪晖, “Yazhou jiaoyu de puxi 亚洲教育的谱系,” in his Xiandai Zhongguo sixiang de xingqi xia juan 现代中国思 想的兴起 下卷 (Hong Kong: Sanlian shudian 三联书店, 2004). 27 Cui Zhiyuan was the first person to suggest the theory of institutional innovation, although it later received a positive response from Wang Hui and others. Refer to Cui Zhiyuan 崔之元, “Zhidu chuangxin yu dierci sixiang jiefang 制度创新与第 二次思想解放,” Ershiyi shiji 二十一世纪 24 (1994); Wang Hui, “Dangdai Zhongguo de sixiang zhuangkuang.”

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The problem with the issue lies here: if we take an essentialist view of modernity, then we must acknowledge that American/Western European modernity provides the only universal standard. But if we refuse to take a generalized view toward the commensurability of different modernities, we once again fall into the trap of relativism. How do we resolve these difficulties? Let us say that in the standard understanding, modernities relate to each other as members of a family. No single characteristic is shared by all of the family members, but there are always a few basic characteristics shared by most of the family members. The modernity family does not necessarily share all the same characteristics, but they all hold the same considerations for their shared planet, and create possibilities for dialogue through their shared problem consciousness and considerations. Then in the course of each enacting its individual modernity, due to differences in historical experience, current conditions, and understanding of modernity, similarly oriented but distinct multiple modernities will certainly emerge. In this sense, the extreme views of modernity held by Chinese intellectuals in the nineties, whether essentialism championing global values or relativism upholding multiple cultures, were all inherently limited. Similar to modernization in the eighties, the question of modernity became the foundational signpost for all Chinese intellectual movements in the nineties. As Foucault has said, modernity is an attitude, a mode of relating to contemporary reality; it is a voluntary choice made by certain people; it belongs to relations and manifests as a task.28 Once modernity has become an attitude rather than a specific period of history, all intellectual movements regardless of whether they are self-aware will express this attitude. The Chinese intellectual community of the 1990s consisted of three attitudes: a liberalism promoting America and Western Europe as the locus of a universal modernity, a plural modernity theory that deconstructed American and Euro-centrism, and a postmodernism that rejected modernity entirely. Interestingly, after Leo Strauss gained recognition in early 21st century China, a fourth attitude toward modernity appeared. From the classicist standpoint of a natural right, this attitude completely denounced the relativistic and nihilistic values displayed by liberalism and postmod-

28 Refer to Michael Foucault, “What is Enlightenment,” in Paul Rabinow, ed., The Foucault Reader (New York: Pantheon, 1984), 32–50.

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ernism since the age of enlightenment.29 So far this American-born ideology of cultural conservatism remains within academic circles and has not yet joined forces with the neo-traditionalist revival of Confucianism. However, as Chinese cultural values are subjected to crisis, cultural conservatism and neo-traditionalism both will further develop, popularize, and become part of the social ideology. The myriad aspects of modernity have brought progress and order to the modern world, as well as regress and chaos. Not only have these complex facets of modernity torn apart the “unity of attitude” of the Chinese intellectual community, they have also caused many intellectuals to feel internally conflicted and tense. With the exception of the liberals and postmodernists who remain single-minded and staunch in their convictions, all contemporary Chinese intellectuals of slightly more complex viewpoints are deeply conflicted in the face of modernity. Taking Gan Yang as an example, in politics he repeatedly criticizes China’s conservative liberalism and the anti-democratic character of Burkian elite liberalism while lauding the democratic liberalism of Tocqueville. Furthermore, he reinterprets Weber’s theories to propose that China achieve political maturity through popular democracy.30 However, Gan Yang has not in the course of this become a true supporter of democracy. Indeed, in terms of cultural values his views resound strongly with the cultural conservatism of Straussian classicism, and he remains worried about the relativistic values and mediocrity caused by liberal democratic society.31 The kinds of internal tensions we see in Gan Yang between politics and culture, democracy and conservatism, and populism and elitism, are quite common among Chinese thinkers. Both the divisions in the intellectual community and the spiritual conflicts within individuals themselves evidence the serious self-contradictions inherent in the historical actualization of

The most important promoters of Straussian thought in China are Liu Xiaofeng and Gan Yang. See Liu Xiaofeng 刘小枫, Ciwei de wenshun 刺猬的温顺 (Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi chubanshe 上海文艺出版社, 2002); Liu Xiaofeng, ed., Shitelaosi yu gudian zhengzhi zhexue 施特劳斯与古典政治哲学 (Shanghai: Shanghai sanlian shudian 上海三联书店, 2002); Gan Yang 甘阳, Zhengzhi zheren Shitelaosi 政治哲人施特劳斯 (Hong Kong: Niujin Daxue chubanshe 香港牛津大学出版社, 2003). 30 Refer to Gan Yang 甘阳, “Fanminzhu de ziyouzhuyi, haishi minzhu de ziyouzhuyi 反民主的自由主义, 还是民主的自由主义,” Ershiyi shiji 二十一世纪 39 (1997); Gan Yang, “Gongmin geti weiti, tongyi xianzheng liguo 公民个体为体, 统一宪政立 国,” in Wang Chaohua, ed., Qilu Zhongguo 歧路中国 (Taipei: Lianjing chubanshe 台 北联经出版社, 2004). 31 Gan Yang, Zhengzhi zheren Shitelaoshi. 29

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modernity. Indeed, modernity does not imply a bright future, rather, its internal limitations reveal its paradoxical history, as well as the fate of the enlightenment movement. IV. Disintegration of the People as Subjects The rebuilding of people’s subjectivity was an important goal of the 1980s thought liberation and New Enlightenment movements. Under traditional socialism, the utopian ideals and actualization of the revolution were the ultimate values. These became the supreme subject while the individual was merely an insignificant cog in the revolutionary machine, which consequently enabled a multitude of inhuman and anti-humanitarian tragedies to occur. Thus in rejection of traditional socialist ideals and practice, the thought liberation and New Enlightenment movements championed humanitarianism and the subjectivity of the person. To 1980s enlightenment thinkers, “person” referred to the quintessential enlightenment view of the person: an existence that was rational yet emotional and replete with various logical, natural desires. This kind of person is a Person, an embodiment of his/her own goals with self-evident ontological status. There is no greater goal beyond this person. This person transcends national, class, and social relations, and implies a universal humanity. He has an autonomous will and unlimited ability to self-create; all he needs is to be released from his bonds and return to his innate nature. This is a person as understood by aesthetics and philosophical anthropology, a person extracted from specific historical context. This extraction is not coincidental; it is intended to underscore the supreme subjectivity of the person and break the mental and physical bonds imposed on the person by traditional centralized authority. He Guimei’s research reveals that in 1980’s China, thinking on the subjectivity of the person was expressed in the form of three theories. The first is the humanitarian Marxism that appeared in the midst of the thought liberation movement and used Marx’s early theory of alienation as a weapon with which to criticize the alienation and anti-humanitarian practice of traditional socialist theory. The other two appeared simultaneously during the New Enlightenment movement, one as a progenitor of the rationalist enlightenment dialogue bequeathed by the May Fourth New Culture movement, and the

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other as a life or cultural philosophy developed from the European traditions of Romanticism and Irrationalism. It must be noted that even though these three theories of people’s subjectivity all have distinct ideological origins and different relationships to modernity, they were all premised on a dualism between traditional (China) and modern (the West). Under the cover of modernization theory, the mainstream discourse at that time, “modernization of the person” was the explicit direction modernization took with regard to the human narrative. “The dualistic relationships between individual/state, individual/class, individual/society, and individual/culture established by humanitarian discourse did not actually exist in the eighties, rather, they were a kind of ideological discourse on the history of socialism.”32 Since the nineties, alongside the gradual dissolution of the New Enlightenment movement came the disintegration of the internallyconsistent subjective person. First the human spirit and physical body were split apart. Next, the abstract person as interpreted by philosophical anthropology was placed into a concrete historical context and returned its original status of belonging to a city, a state, a world, etc. Last, reflection on development, modernization, and the enlightenment movement cast suspicion on the subjective person, and resulted the person being returned to a interactive relationship with the natural, worldly, and ultimate, and then subjected to reinterpretation. In the 1980s, in reaction to traditional centralized authority’s oppression of individual spirits and desires, the liberation of the person became a complete liberation. Humanitarians believe that in an ideal human society, the genuine person has attained complete liberation and freedom with regard to rationality, spirituality, sentimentality, and desire. However, secularization of the market economy turned this kind of complete liberation into a utopian fantasy. The thorough commercialization of society loosed people’s natural desires and utilitarian pursuits. In the face of this nearly unstoppable tide, where is the value of the human spirit, and how are we to understand and affirm the significance of the self ? The 1980s enlightenment intellectuals sharply split over these questions in the early 1990s. One group of intellectuals

32 Refer to He Guimei 贺桂梅, “80 niandai rendaozhuyi sichao ‘geren’ zhi bianxi 80 年代人道主义思潮 ‘个人’ 观念之辨析,” in Sixiangshishang de geren, shehui yu guojia guoji xueshu yantaohui lunwenji 思想史上的个人, 社会与国家国际学术研讨会论文集 (Hong Kong: Xianggang Zhongwen Daxue Zhongguo wenhua yanjiusuo 香港中文 大学中国文化研究所, 2003).

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enthusiastically approved of the natural desires and utilitarian pursuits brought about by secularized society. Another group ferociously condemned the loss of humanist spirit under the century’s economic tide, saying that people had already degenerated to mere objects controlled by material desire, and were no longer human. From this state, a great debate erupted on the humanist spirit in 1993.33 This debate clearly shows that once the enlightenment movement no longer had to deal with the traditional system of centralized authority and instead faced a complex market society, the two different factions within the movement, Secularism (the secular utilitarian tradition) and Spiritualism (the transcendent humanist spirit tradition), began to split and move their separate ways. As tensions appeared between the secular and the holy, between the liberation of desire and the liberation of the spirit, human nature fractured into a secular person of natural desires and a spiritual person of humanist inclination. The holistic unity of spirit and flesh from the 1980s began to disintegrate. The disintegration of the person also meant the end of the “modernization of the person” illusion. As mentioned above, the human narratives of the eighties were all premised on a binary analytic framework of traditional/modern and guided by a teleological view of history asserting that humanity progresses from the traditional nonhuman (slave) to the modern free person. Yet in the process of moving toward the so-called modern, people encountered a new type of alienation; every kind of liberation was in a different sense a kind of oppression. Only through accounting for their specific historical context and precise political and cultural environment can we begin to debate whether, to what degree, and in what way people have attained freedom and liberation. Consequently, in the mid-nineties the theoretical premise underlying this debate switched from the traditional/ modern teleological framework into a new binary analytical framework of society/country. In 1980s Chinese thought, the individual and state were set in opposition, and the state was considered the main oppressor of the individual. Under traditional systems of absolute state supremacy, the state monopolizes society’s most important resources, and thus society does not exist. Even if a society exists under such a system, it is antithetical

33 See Wang Xiaoming, ed., Renwen jingshen xunsilu; and Ding Dong, et al., Shiji zhijiao de chongzhuang.

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to the individual, a mere extension of the oppressive state apparatus. This dichotomy between the individual and the state (including society) began to change in the nineties with the emergence of society. Following the relaxation of state supremacy, a private society revolving around the market gradually appeared in China. And what was the relationship of society to the individual and the state? The emergence of society imbued individual and state, formerly mere abstract symbols, with concrete historical context. The individual was returned to and reexamined within the framework of society/state. The main topic of the 1980s was the liberation and release of the person from all snares and bonds. Liberation was the core of intellectuals’ understanding of freedom. As intellectuals held the spotlight during the eighties, the abstract, free, unrestricted person was in fact conceived in the intellectuals’ self-image. Yet in the nineties, as society spread outward from China’s center and established its own secular principles based on the market, the dichotomy between individual and state gave way to an imaginary dichotomy between society and state. Furthermore, some thinkers believe that in this kind of market society, the middle class, not the intellectuals, occupy the center of society. This spurred an immense debate within civic society. The debate on civic society, conducted primarily in the Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Jikan in the early 1990s, evidenced that the individual versus state problematic had already transformed into an issue of society versus state. The individual faced a society and state far more complex than in the past. In terms of civic social theory, civic society constituted a barrier repelling the state and encroaching on the individual, and only by organizing an autonomous society could individuals effectively defend their own rights.34 However there is another view which maintains that in China’s historical context, society and state are not self-evident concepts. Rather, they are mutually permeable; the state participated in the construction of society, and naturally also participated in the construction of many human identities. During the construction of the modern nation-state, the individual and the state are born simultaneously, and in the beginning they coexist without any of the tension or conflict that later occurs. The process is similar to that Refer to Deng Zhenglai and Jing Yuejin 邓正来, 景跃进, “Jiangou Zhongguo de shimin shehui 建构中国的市民社会,” Zhongguo shehui kexue jikan 中国社会科学季刊 1 (1992); Deng Zhenglai, Guojia yu shehui: Zhongguo shimin shehui yanjiu 国家与社会: 中国 市民社会研究 (Sichuan: Sichuan renmin chubanshe 四川人民出版社, 1997). 34

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of early Chinese modernization.35 In her analysis of individualist discourse in modern China, Lydia Liu points out that the individual must first be liberated from his family, clan, or other traditional relations, in order for the state to acquire full, direct, and unmediated ownership rights to him. The individualist discourse in modern Chinese history happens to play perfectly this role of liberator.36 Yet in the view of these intellectuals, the contemporary reforms of the late 1970s proved that the individual, state, and society can only be understood if placed into a complex, interactive relationship.37 Evidently, in the nineties, Chinese intellectuals reached two different understandings of how to treat the relations between individual, state, and society. Liberal-leaning intellectuals believed that the individual and society together formed one faction distinct from the state, and thus the individual could resist traditional centralized state authority through the establishment of a middle-class civic society. On the other hand, the New Left thought that the state was no longer a purely external, alienated country, rather it was a modern nation-state constructed during China’s modernization process with the help of the individual, and this kind of state also participated in the construction on society. Consequently, human freedom must be reconsidered in the framework of globalized capitalism under which state and society and power and capital are woven tightly together. Despite this division, we can still see immense changes in 1990s Chinese thought. In the mid-1980s, the so-called person was an abstract individual opposed to the state and dissociated from concrete societal relationships. But in the nineties the focal issue was no longer abstract liberation of humanity, instead it was the reinterpretation of human freedom in the concrete web of state and society. In this way, state and society replaced the person as the main topic of conversation. The person was restored to a concrete status from the abstract one, and human freedom was tied to the relations of concrete laws, systems, and globalized capitalism. Once the person has been placed into this network of state and society, he is no longer the abstract person of

35 Refer to Wang Hui 汪晖, “Geren guannian de qiyuan yu Zhongguo de xiandai rentong 个人观念的起源与中国的现代认同,” in Wang Hui zixuanji 汪晖自选集 (Guangxi: Guangxi shifan daxue chubanshe 广西师范大学出版社, 1997). 36 Lydia Liu, Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995) 95. 37 Refer to Wang Hui, “Dangdai Zhongguo de sixiang zhuangkuang.”

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philosophical anthropology. He has the concrete sociopolitical identity of citizen, national, or member of a greater public community. Thus striving for human freedom simply refers to obtaining equal status under the law. In the 1980s New Enlightenment movement, the individual and the state formed an opposing relationship. Relative to the subjective nature of the individual, the state was a passive, inert, and instrumental object. Yet with China’s increasing globalization in the 1990s, widespread recognition of China as a nation-state collective became increasingly important. In the surge of Chinese nationalism since the mid-nineties, the state has replaced the person as a crucial focus of debate. V. Nation-State Identity under Globalization The astonishing rise of nationalism in 1990s China was closely related to China’s increasing involvement in globalization and can be considered a direct response to globalization currents. China’s Reform and Opening beginning in the late 1970s fully opened the formerly isolated country to the world. However, in the eighties, because China did not deeply involve itself in globalization, the reforms were conducted in a still half-closed environment; China’s relationship with the world was still a merely external relationship. The “those who fall behind will be bullied” catch-up modernization ideology present in the late eighties New Enlightenment movement, and the debate in the Shijie Jingji Daobao (World Economic Bulletin) over whether China would “lose its place in the world” in fact reflected deep anxieties of Chinese intellectuals who had only just opened their eyes to the world. They worried that due to the inferiority of China’s economic society and institutional culture relative to the rest of the world, China must rush ahead to catch up and join the ranks of the world’s modernized countries. The nationalism of the 1980s was a kind of cosmopolitan nationalism focused on the question of how to establish a democratic, wealthy, and powerful political community. As China had just entered the world in the eighties, enlightenment intellectuals were deeply affected by the differences between Chinese and Western culture. They concerned themselves with finding similarities among the differences and, by means of enlightenment, establishing a modern nation-state that could join the world order. They did not wish

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to locate unique and primitive characteristics of the nation, rather they wanted to open China to the whole world, let it merge into the global currents of modernization, and turn it into a cosmopolitan, modern country that could compete with the West on the world stage. Since the mid-1990s, China’s rapid economic development has propelled it into position as a key producer in the global economy and integral part of the globalized economic system. The question was no longer whether China would “lose its place in the world.” Now the question was what place did China occupy, and what role was China to play in the globalized economic and political order and network of civilizations. Yet due to its economic rise, China faced increasingly direct conflicts of interest with the United States and other Western countries. American opposition to China’s entrance to the WTO and application for the 2000 Olympic games, trade frictions between the two countries, the Milky Way cargo boat incident, the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, 9/11, the American invasion of Iraq, and other incidents, caused many Chinese intellectuals to lose faith in the West. They discovered the ugly power dynamics behind the charming discourse of the West, and realized that the unequal world order had been forced on China by the United States. The alarming realization of this sharp juxtaposition between China’s increase in overall national strength and decrease in international status provoked strong nationalist sentiments among some Chinese intellectuals. It is under the above circumstances that the 1980s enlightenment camp split along the issues of globalization and nationalism. This split is intimately connected to the debates on liberalism and the New Left since the mid-1990s. Although liberalism and nationalism both faced globalization, they understood and explained it in entirely different ways. Liberalism understood globalization as a universal liberal value and system already proven supreme by over two hundred years of world history,38 and consequently China of the 1990s was no different from China of the eighties: its problem was simply one of having not yet globalized to a sufficient degree. Nationalism viewed globalization as an unequal economic and political order dominated by the United States and other Western powers, and thus China faced the issue of how to break and overthrow this new imperial network and establish a just world order in its place. Liberalism summarized the anti-foreign

38

Refer to Li Shenzhi, “Hongyang Beida de ziyouzhuyi chuantong.”

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orientation of 20th century Chinese nationalism, and treated nationalism and populism both as spiritual infections impeding China’s modernization.39 Many kinds of nationalism arose to affirm the uniqueness of Chinese history and culture on political, economic, cultural, intellectual, and other levels, yet these were more concerned with finding difference in the midst of similarity, building national confidence in the face of national crisis, and locating the uniqueness, otherness, and primitive character of national culture. With nationalism considered an internal requirement of modernity, whether we want it is no longer in question. The key issue is rather which ideology to merge with it. Nationalism is a double-edged sword. It is capable of merging with liberalism as it did in the American and French revolutions, allowing liberalism and democracy to manifest in the form of a nation-state. Yet nationalism can also be an excuse for political legitimacy used by authoritarian and anti-Western conservative regimes. Indeed, in recent Chinese history and in the 1990s, there have simultaneously existed several forms of nationalism, including liberal nationalism, authoritarian nationalism, and cultural nationalism, which have all contributed to the complexity inherent within Chinese nationalism. The crux of the issue is how to reconcile a particular nationalistic identity with the universal principles of liberalism. Theoretically speaking, nationalism and liberalism both have problems with modernity. Modernity not only manifests as a complete set of values, it also affects the organization of human social systems, influencing what kind of communities are constructed, what constitutes public acceptance of a community, how communities relate to one another, etc. Nationalism is not the antithesis of enlightenment but rather a product of it. The central idea of enlightenment thought was the establishment of human subjectivity through the affirmation of the autonomous rational capacity of humans. The world’s subject was taken from transcendent gods or destiny, and returned to people themselves. Therefore the legitimacy of human communities no longer came from a transcendent external force, and instead must be sought in human rationality, history, and cultural traditions. The autonomy of the nation-state is thus

39 Refer to Zhu Xueqin 朱学勤, “Wusi yilai de liangge jingshen ‘bingzao,’ 五四以 来 的 两 个 精 神 ‘ 病 灶 ’ ,” Zhanlüe yu guanli 战略与管理 4 (1999).

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the extension and application of principles of individual autonomy to the group. The modern nation-state encompasses two communities: the national community and the political community. In other words, it is a political state organized within the bounds of a nationality. According to the enlightenment ideal of individual subjectivity, this political state is not a dynastic state run by an autocratic monarch; it instead ought to be a democratic republic ruled by the people. Nationality provides the modern nation-state community with its unique form, while democracy provides the community with its political content. Just as Gellner notes, the nation-state is a product of Western modernity, it arose as an adaptation of the sovereign state to the homogeneity and standardized secular culture of industrial society. In Western modernity theory, nationalism is a political legitimacy principle on par with liberal democracy.40 Nation-state identity responds to two different identities: one is people’s common status as citizens of a political state, the other is each person’s particular ethnicity and cultural background. The person is not an abstract concept; enlightenment thought understands the person as an abstract rational subject and liberalism recognizes the person as a subject of rights. However, although these are both necessary, reasonable abstractions, they are unable to cover the whole of human character. If we understand enlightenment as rationalism, then nationalism is not only the product of enlightenment, it is also anti-enlightenment and related to the romantic tradition. According to German Romanticism, the person is forever a concrete being living within history, not a vehicle for rationality. The historical and actual person is not merely rational, but also emotional, and emotions are always tied to a certain ethnic and historical cultural background. The person must obtain a sense of belonging to a certain culture or ethnic group, and must live within a certain cultural community, otherwise they will have no means of forming a complete self-conception. Habermas considers the nation-state a solution to the integration of modern society. The civil state needs the nation-state as the basis of its community; if an autonomous citizenry has no national framework, then its republican polity will lack vigor. The nation provides

40 Refer to Ernest Gellner, Nationalism (New York: NYU Press, 1997); Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983).

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the citizens of the state with a sense of belonging, and their own historical-cultural community.41 In other words, constitutional democracy supplies only a system of political community. If this political community (the state) intends to turn from universalism to particularism, it must first merge with a specific linguistic, historical, and cultural community (the nation) to become an integrated modern nation-state with a clear sense of belonging. As revealed by the 1990s debate on nationalism and globalization, identification with the nation-state has not weakened as globalization sweeps over China, on the contrary, it has manifested in sharper ways. Nationalism has once again become an important banner, just as it was in the first half of the twentieth century. Now, the foremost concern regarding Chinese nationalism is whether it will merge with authoritarianism, cultural traditionalism, anti-Westernism, liberalism, or some other ideology. VI. The Issue of Sanctity in Secular Society The 1980s was a post-sanctification era in which the utopia of revolution faded to be replaced by the emergent utopia of modernization. A post-idealist atmosphere enveloped society, affecting both the thought liberation movement and the New Enlightenment movement with idealized visions of modernization. Society abounds with high-minded zeal and idealist passion. With the appearance of market society in the nineties, the secularization of China accelerated. Instrumental rationality in daily life became the universal, legal ideology of citizens. Debates thus began over issues of humanist spirit and moral idealism: in a secular society, do transcendent humanist concerns still carry any meaning? Is idealism justifiable? How should we approach an understanding of the revolutionary spirit? Throughout history, literati have occupied the highest position in China’s four occupation (literati, farmers, laborers, and merchants) society. Literati were the center of society, and enabled the integration of society with state structure and ideology. In recent times, especially

41 Refer to Jürgen Habermas, “The European Nation-State: On the Past and Future of Sovereignty and Citizenship,” Public Culture 10:2 (1998): 397–416.

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since the abolishment of the imperial examination system, the dissolution of the four-occupation societal stratification and rapid rise of merchants and soldiers, a great number of fringe groups entered the center of society, and intellectuals lost their place at the core. Although several generations of intellectuals have attempted to regain their place of importance through public opinion and political practice, in the end they have all failed. In particular from 1949–1979, intellectuals were thoroughly marginalized in both politics and society. However, after the reform and opening, intellectuals proudly returned to the core of society. Humanist intellectuals in particular were considered by society to be cultural heroes. However the good times did not last. The secularization of society and changes in value standards and civic ideology after 1992 forced intellectuals back to the margins of society, and this time, the marginalization was primarily economic, rather than political. When faced with the first results of the reforms which they had promoted, enlightenment intellectuals felt lost; they themselves had been sacrificed to bring about marketization. Against the surging tide of secularization, what were intellectuals, as society’s elite, to do? Did they have any spiritual standpoint or legitimate basis from which to speak? These are the crucial questions that advocates of the humanist spirit had to resolve. The humanist spirit debate beginning in 1994 was another attempt by intellectuals to reclaim their place at the center of the newly secularized society. Originally, the proponents of humanist spirit sought to locate a shared, ultimate standpoint for intellectuals in the age of secularization. However, the great debate that sprung up over the humanist spirit showed that the critical target was no longer traditional centralized authority as in the 1980s, but rather marketization, a target which had once been a goal of the enlightenment intellectuals. Consequently, enlightenment intellectuals immediately split regarding how to deal with this newly emerged product of the reforms. Those scholars who criticized the humanist spirit by and large positively affirmed the market economy reforms and the rationality of secular values. They condemned humanist spirit as an idealist utopia, saying that China in modern history has never had humanist spirit, so of course China has never lost it.42 Even the post-modernists who condemned human-

Refer to Wang Meng 王蒙, “Renwen jingshen wenti ougan 人文精神问题偶感,” Dongfang 东方 5 (1994). 42

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ist spirit as modernization discourse also equated their concept of the postmodern condition with secularized consumer society.43 The great debate on the humanist spirit exhibited the divisions inherent in the enlightenment movement. From the beginning, enlightenment thought had been severely conflicted regarding how to deal with their relationship to secular society. Marx and Weber explain modernity as a process of becoming rational, referring to instrumental rationality. Once the people of modern society cast off the demons of the spiritual age, they no longer use the value-based rationality of the old to judge daily life. Instead, they use instrumental rationality to pursue happiness and prosperity in the current life. The fulfillment of secular desires becomes the ultimate principle of market society. This liberation of human desire itself was a goal of the Enlightenment movement, but at the same time the Enlightenment movement also pursued liberation of the human spirit. When, early in the Enlightenment movement, criticism was directed primarily at the religious bondage of the medieval era, liberation of human desire and liberation of human spirit were one and the same. However, as capitalist secularization began to develop, the human spirit was repressed not only by religion, but more importantly by material desires stemming from the alienation produced by universal markets. Thereupon, traditions of romanticism and modernism sprung up within the enlightenment movement to refute the material worship of capitalism and seek human spiritual freedom. Nevertheless, romanticism and modernism both are a kind of reincarnation of religious sanctity in a secular age, moralized fetishes in secular form. Actually, the humanist spirit tradition of the 1990s and its opposite, secularism, both were intellectual traditions of the enlightenment movement. When in the eighties, the two ideologies confronted traditional centralized authority, they did not separate, and instead rallied together under the flag of humanitarianism. However, once the rise of the market economy in the mid-nineties directly threatened intellectuals’ spiritual principles, the secularism and humanist spirit traditions of the enlightenment movement split and began to move in separate directions, and liberation of desire and liberation of spirit grew into mutually incompatible banners. The first proponents of humanist spirit originally had wished to find a common spiritual locale for intellectuals

Refer to Chen Xiaoming et al., “Hou xiandai: wenhua de kuozhang yu cuowei.” 43

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in the secular age, but as with the debate on academic norms, a discussion that began with the goal of locating common ground in the end only deepened divisions. Even the advocates of humanist spirit cannot substantiate a common ground among themselves. Humanist spirit is a negative discourse which in the 1980s was primarily directed against political autocracy, and in the nineties obviously opposed the emerging market hegemony. It attempted to relocate a cultural legitimacy for intellectuals within secular society, and thus establish a third form of esteem that could contend with money and power. Yet the humanist spirit idea was premised on the holistic meta-discourse of modernity, and so when modernity promised a diversification of values in modern society and thus further encouraged the rise of post-modern thought, humanist spirit thought was confronted with a fundamental crisis. The crisis was not a result of external conflict with post-modern trends, but an expression of the internal difficulties of the humanist spirit concept. Soon after the humanist spirit debate, another debate erupted in the intellectual world, this time a debate on moral idealism sparked by the “two Zhangs,” Zhang Chengzhi and Zhang Wei. This debate eventually expanded to touch upon Lu Xun, and persisted into the early 21st century. The awareness of problems within the moral idealism debate was similar to that of the humanist spirit discussion; they both were related to the question of sanctity in a secular age. In Europe, the death of God resulted in the rise of various utopias, and in China, the world of Confucian principle has been replaced by the utopia of revolution. Yet in the 1990s, an age in which, as Weber says, we have discarded charisma, the spiritual utopia represented by revolution and ideals turned into a superfluous luxury. However, questions of ultimate values and spiritual beliefs have not disappeared in secular society. On the contrary, they have manifested in more extreme forms. Among the popular intellectual world of 1990s China, liberalism received widespread support as a kind of secular ideology. Calling liberalism secular is to refer to it as a way of managing sociopolitical order that gives the individual inalienable rights and moral autonomy. Liberalism views the question “what is just?” as a question of public justice in the public domain. The question of value, “what is good?” is however considered entirely an issue of personal belief that ought to be decided by the individual. Thus liberalism banishes value judgments and kindness from the public domain, making them purely personal affairs. However, in actuality the issue of values, especially ultimate

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values, has not disappeared due to secularization anywhere in the world. To the contrary, it has manifested in increasingly acute ways. In the Middle East, the issue emerges as unending religious conflict. In the United States, the value disputes over religion, gender, abortion, etc., could not be resolved through the mainstream liberalism represented by Rawls. Instead, these disputes incited a strong reaction from conservative Christian evangelists and led to the formation of a right-wing religious empire headed by George W. Bush. However, in contemporary China the issue of values appears in the form of moral idealism and revolutionary symbols, and in the nineties, an era of rapid secularization, the transcendent values symbolized by revolution and morality unexpectedly garnered even more attention. Now that the “revolution is dead” and idealism is extinct, how will the sanctity and transcendence symbolized by revolution and idealism manifest? Where will the ultimate values of human significance reside? How will intellectuals, having lost their spiritual beliefs, find a source of values by which to critique reality? The secularized world is a unitary world in which transcendent values no longer exist. Once the world no longer faces tensions between the two worlds of the real and ideal, and consists solely of secular modernization, it will inevitably arouse strong opposition from some intellectuals spiritually inclined toward utopianism. The resistance of Zhang Chengzhi and Zhang Wei’s moral idealism to cynicism, and the spiritual symbolism of revolution, passion, and ideals represented by Lu Xun and Che Guevara, both evidence that even in secular society, the problem of sanctity remains a spiritual crisis that the systematic objectives of liberalism are unable to eliminate. Nevertheless, although the first generation of idealists in secular society may be spiritual saints, the second generation often turns out to be hypocritical opportunists. The latter notice the considerable market value of sanctity as a rare resource in secular society, and exploit it for commercial purposes. Consequently, the supposed ideals, revolution, and passion all become tradable, commercial selling points. Revolution is dead; long live the revolutionary spirit. However, once the revolutionary spirit is also subjected to commercial exploitation as a scarce resource, we will have reached the apex of secular society’s destruction of sanctity. However the true problem of sanctity has still not been resolved and continues to appear in various forms. This is why, since the 1990s, Lu Xun has repeatedly been cited and sparked many intense debates. As

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a symbol of resistance, Lu Xun implies different meanings in different contexts. In the eighties, he symbolized resistance to traditional autocracy, but in the nineties he more prominently symbolized resistance to secular power in the broad sense (encompassing political, market, and cultural power). However, this kind of non-nihilistic opposition necessarily must be based on certain values and tied to an ideal world transcending present reality. In this sense, incomplete secular society still requires a reasonable utopia. Zygmunt Bauman uses two metaphors to describe the function of intellectuals in modern and post-modern societies. He thinks that in modern society intellectuals are “legislators,” meaning that in modern society all knowledge is integrated, not separated, and the objective knowledge held by intellectuals is primarily a set of objective, neutral, and procedural narratives and rules. In modern society, this knowledge commands the authority of arbitration. In other words, only procedural rules are able to guarantee objective truth and effective moral judgment. Because these procedural rules have universal validity, the results of their application are likewise universally valid. Thus, as soon as intellectuals grasp this set of objective knowledge they are able to transcend all other strata and become the arbiters of knowledge. Bauman believes that no substitute exists for the role of intellectuals as legislators in modern society. To borrow Bourdieu’s words, intellectuals in fact control the scare resource of “cultural capital.” From this sprang the discursive hegemony discussed by Foucault, and discourse itself became a kind of power. However, in post-modern society Bauman points out that diversification of the whole society leads to disintegration of the entire system of knowledge, and dismantles the single, united intellectual platform. The intellectual space of the whole society becomes divided into many independent, solitary communities, each with its own knowledge paradigm and intellectual tradition, and nearly incompatible with the others. Bauman indicates that in post-modern society, intellectuals may act the role of legislator only within their own community; they are no longer universally valid legislators outside of that community. Thus the function of intellectuals has actually changed to that of “interpreter.” The interpreter’s role is to translate and explain the knowledge of their own community in such a way that members of other communities can understand it. Intellectuals actually no longer have the universal, holy, and absolute character of a legislator. Instead they are mere interpreters tasked with preventing distortions of meaning in the course of communication. Bauman espe-

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cially points out that the core concepts of modern society are rationality, truth, and other similar universally valid concepts that intellectuals rely upon for legitimacy, but in post-modern society these are replaced with the concept of community. In reality, different communities have different cultural traditions and different modes of life, and thus the fundamental values of intellectuals belonging to different communities may be entirely different, or even antithetical.44 The entire decade of the 1990s was to Chinese intellectuals an era of great division and reorganization. Ruptures within the enlightenment camp caused the collapse of the holistic meta-discourse which had maintained “unity of attitude” throughout the eighties. Due to the division of knowledge backgrounds and societal interests, on nearly all issues, intellectuals in the 1990s proved unable to reach shared understandings, instead engaging in fierce arguments. The debates among intellectuals have calmed in the beginning of the 21st century, but this does not mean the questions have been resolved. On the contrary, it implies that the questions cannot be resolved. The unified popular intellectual world of the eighties has shattered, and divided into numerous compartmentalized fiefs delineated by different intellectual problems, value perspectives, and ideological beliefs. This is the damage we have inherited from the debates of the nineties. Although division is one mark of a mature ideological market and a foundation of diverse society, diversity is not equivalent to dispersion. Under the new historical condition of tentative multiple modernities, the rebuilding of a fundamentally shared understanding of modernity and the construction of a public space, public culture, and tradition of public knowledge for mutual interaction among intellectuals in the ideological world, demands not only the structural prerequisites of external freedom, democracy, and law, but also the professional rules of communicative rationality, moral self-disciple, and argumentation ethics. Only then will the various ideological trends, factions, and concepts that differentiated in the nineties be prevented from further radicalization and the formation of a reasonably balanced plurality become possible. In the eighties and nineties, all intellectuals, regardless of whether they supported or opposed enlightenment, all made a

44 Refer to Zygmunt Bauman, Legislators and Interpreters (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987).

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living as legislators of enlightenment ideology. Now it is time for them to transform from legislators to interpreters. The enlightenment is dead; long live enlightenment. The absolutist meta-discourses of the enlightenment tradition have died, but the communicative rationality and critical spirit of enlightenment thought persevere.

RURAL RECONSTRUCTION, THE NATION-STATE AND CHINA’S MODERNITY PROBLEM: REFLECTIONS ON LIANG SHUMING’S RURAL RECONSTRUCTION THEORY AND ITS PRACTICE1 Lu Xinyu Translated by Ping Zhu and Adrian Thieret I. The Sannong Problem Rural reconstruction (乡村建设) has once again become a topic of theory and practice in contemporary China. Between 1926 and 1936, under the leadership of James Yen (晏阳初), the “Chinese Society for the Promotion of Mass Education” (中华平民教育促进会) carried out a decade-long mass education and rural movement in Dingxian, Hebei Province. In July 2003, the “James Yen Rural Reconstruction Institute” headed by Wen Tiejun was established in Zhaicheng Village, the former center of the mass education movement. The college was jointly established by Zhaicheng Village, the Chinese Revolution Magazine Company, Oxfam Hong Kong, and the United Kingdom Rescue Organization. In January 2005, Meng Lei, a senior journalist and commentator for The Economic Observer (经济观察报), published a book titled From James Yen to Wen Tiejun.2 Wen Tiejun, who suggested and researched the important “sannong problem” (三农问题, meaning the three rural problems of agriculture, villages, and peasants), in the beginning traced his own tradition directly to James Yen, the pioneer and reformist of a rural reconstruction primarily dependent on “Westernization” and Western funding. Later, Wen Tiejun reattributed his origins to Liang Shuming, a different pioneer of rural reconstruction in the 1930s who utilized mostly traditional cultural resources.

1 This is a shortened version of a much longer paper which is a research outline on Liang Shuming’s rural reconstruction theory and its practice. The longer version is still being developed and revised. Its final version will be published at a later point. 2 Meng Lei 孟雷, ed., Cong Yan Yangchu dao Wentiejun 从晏阳初到温铁军 [From James Yen to Wen Tiejun] (Beijing: Huaxia chubanshe 华夏出版社, 2005).

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The Liang Shuming Rural Construction Center headed by Wen Tiejun was established in December 2004 and registered in Beijing. It is a “nongovernmental organization promoting peasant cooperation and harmonious urban and rural reconstruction.”3 The center is located in the People’s University, where Wen Tiejun works as a professor and dean. In April 2007 the James Yen Rural Reconstruction Institute was closed, but the Liang Shuming Rural Construction Center remains active. The tortuous implementation of Wen Tiejun’s rural reconstruction reflects an urgent need to reorganize the numerous complex rural reconstruction theories and practices in China from the 20th century through today. The Westernization of James Yen’s movement is apparent in comparison with Liang Shuming’s rural reconstruction in Zouping, Shandong Province. In the eyes of contemporary observers, the rural reconstruction movements in Zouping (Tsou-p’ing) and Dingxian (Ting hsien) respectively symbolize China and the West, old and new. In his book The Last Confucian: Liang Shu-ming and the Chinese Dilemma of Modernity, American scholar Guy S. Alitto describes it: . . . observers noted that Yale-educated “Jimmy” Y. C. Yen considered “the five thousand years of Chinese history, its habits and customs, as the enemy. So he worships Western culture unconditionally and wants to use Western spiritual, technical, and material aid to help create ‘modern,’ ‘scientific’ rural villages.” Thanks to American “material aid,” Ting hsien had “ample financial and human resources.” Material standards—at least for the personnel of the two hsien projects—were decidedly different. Ting hsien worker Li Ching-han found a salary of 150 yuan a month “barely enough to live on”; the salary scale at Tsou-p’ing ranged from 15 to 50 yuan a month. Because of Ting hsien’s glamorous affluence, its proximity to Peking, and most of all, Yen’s contracts in the missionary and American academic communities, Westerners most often identified the rural reconstruction idea with Ting hsien rather than Tsou-p’ing.4

Alitto believes that while James Yen’s experiment in Dingxian was considered a charity and rescue movement, the Zouping experiment was based on the premise that peasants are able to save themselves. At the same time, Liang Shuming was also a critic of James Yen. Yet the See “Beijing Liang Shumin xiangcun jianshe zhongxin tuandui jianjie (北京梁漱 溟乡村建设中心团队简介),” http://www.3nong.org/?action-viewnews-itemid-52. 4 Guy S. Alitto, The Last Confucian: Liang Shu-ming and the Chinese Dilemma of Modernity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 240. 3

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relationship between Liang Shuming and Mao Zedong contains even greater historical significance. In his book, Allito repeatedly notes that Mao Zedong and Liang Shuming’s rural reconstruction programs had many commonalities, and Liang Shuming believed Mao accomplished the mission that he personally had failed to complete: Liang himself felt strongly that the programs and goals of his rural reconstruction movement had in fact been carried out by the CCP. The resemblances were especially close in the CCP’s programs as they were in fact implemented during the war with Japan. Liang felt that even CCP’s land reform as it was carried out in the late 1940s and early 1950s accomplished essentially the same goals as his rural reconstruction had striven for. “The peasantry needed organization and science. This was the purpose of rural reconstruction and this is what the CCP accomplished.”5

Liang Shuming’s 1930s rural reconstruction meant to oppose and replace the Communist Party’s class struggle. However, when Liang Shuming began to accept the Communist Party in the 1950s, Mao resolutely and fiercely split from him. Where exactly did they differ? The three rural reconstruction movements led by James Yen, Liang Shuming, and Mao Zedong are the most representative of their type. What kind of complex relationship between rural reconstruction, Chinese nation-building, and modernization is represented in the theory and practice of these three different yet entangled movements? All three regarded the modernization of rural villages as a necessary step to the construction of the nation-state and realization of modernity. Yet their differences cannot simply be summarized as the differences between the three paths of Western/enlightened rural modernization, Confucian/conservative rural modernization, and revolutionary/socialist rural modernization. II. Liang’s Second Theory of Rural Reconstruction: Class, Political Party, and State Liang Shuming’s narrative of Chinese history differs greatly from that of the Chinese Marxists, “We do not agree to add the categories of feudal society or capitalism to the history of Chinese society. In not

5

Ibid., 344.

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following the CCP, the crucial point is to not to follow their struggles. Struggle is the CCP’s best game. They treat the whole of history as a history of class struggle, which is precisely what the Westerners say.”6 This divergence focuses on the problem of “class.” In the Marxist narrative, Chinese traditional society is both a feudal society and a class society with landlords as the exploiting class. Today’s studies of Chinese economic history generally support Liang Shuming’s point of view that traditional Chinese society was a farmerbased society with little class differentiation. Liang Shuming repeatedly claimed that he intended to, with his rural reconstruction theory and practice, cause the CCP to fail, because the CCP’s theory on class struggle had damaged the unity of villages. However, he failed and the CCP succeeded. In a general sense, Liang Shuming’s narrative of Chinese class issues was correct, but after the end of the 19th century, and especially following the Taiping Rebellion, the proportion of absentee landlords in China’s cities and towns increased. “While rural class relations were never the proper subject for a pastoral idyll even under the best Confucian landlord, absenteeism in the late nineteenth century introduced an increasing element of harshness which became intolerable in the twentieth.”7 In fact, the situation in rural China had from the end of the 19th century departed from the road of tradition. This is precisely how Liang Shuming himself analyzed it; rural damage stemmed from outside pressure. The problem lies in whether class is used as an analytical method and model. In this sense, Liang Shuming’s judgment of Chinese society as classless is arguable with regard to the modern period. Marxism’s class analysis theory is problematic as an explanation for the entirety of Chinese history, yet regarding the social changes of modern China, it is not without reason. The Marxist theory is actually an explanation of politics, not history. The last chapter of the Cambridge History of China: Volume 11, titled “Currents of Social Change,” examines this modern social change. The author believes that social changes in the late Qing manifested particularly in the worsening of land relations and relations between landlords and tenant farmers. Ever-increasing military expenditures and other costs of modernization increased the burden on small time producers, who constituted the majority of the peasants, and drove them toward bank-

6 7

Liang Shuming. “Zhongguo jianshe zhilu,” in Liang Shuming Quanji vol. 3, 382. Fairbank et al., The Cambridge History of China: Volume 11, 11.

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ruptcy. The traditional social system of regional and kinship relations also split apart during this process: This system, which had served to assure vertical integration in rural communities, tended to fall apart. Partial or total release from farm rents in cases of poor harvest, and help and various forms of protection extended to tenants and small growers by landlords or local elite, became more infrequent or more onerous. The absenteeism of landowners, which was the corollary of the urbanization of the elite, accentuated this evolution without being its sole cause, since those who remained in the villages certainly did not exhibit any greater Confucian benevolence. Their ruthlessness, especially when combined with the absence in the city, eroded any mutual confidence and moral authority they might have retained in their relations with tenant farmers.8

This process was precisely the disintegration of Chinese rural society described by Liang Shuming, but Liang denied that this was the appearance of new class relations, instead viewing it as a social phenomenon that had to be overcome. Therefore the key to his rural reconstruction plan was how to eliminate the social conditions that produce new class conflict. And the goal of his societal reformation was to rebuild an organic society integrating together the urban and rural as well as the top (intellectuals) and bottom (peasants). In his 1950 article “The Road of China’s Construction,” Liang analyzed his failure.9 He said that he always thought that military force as an agent was preconditioned on the existence of class, and moreover the class must be appropriate to its time. Since class did not exist, a group had to be formed in order to control the Chinese military. This would start with the establishment of a political party, which would in turn establish a military force and a country. Since we had no ready-made, available class to act as the military agent, we created our own substitute group, a “quasi-class.” The KMT failed because, first, the foundation of the party was imprecise and attempted to include everything. With slogans such as “the party transcends class” and “revolution of all the people,” the party was too diffuse to form a party, and thus did not. There were only individuals, not a party, and military power thus belonged not to the party, but to individuals. Second, although the KMT gained control of the government, they

8 9

337.

Ibid., 593. Liang Shuming. “Zhongguo jianshe zhilu,” in Liang Shuming Quanji vol. 3, 321–

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did not have a clear plan for constructing the country. In contrast, the CCP explicitly was founded on the proletariat, and it did not mind this narrow focus. Although in fact the majority of CCP members were peasants and intellectuals, the party’s standpoint was clear and its fortifications strong. Once the party succeeded, it controlled military force, rather than individuals. It directed its efforts in a precise direction—the route of the new democratic economy, and used military power correctly.10 In Liang’s view, the CCP attained unprecedented success in China as a group organization. It staunchly and unfailingly resisted the old society. Society tried to frighten the CCP, considered it an enemy, and killed its members on sight. But the CCP was like Western Christianity, growing in the midst of a bloody struggle, and thus it succeeded as a group.11 This is also why the CCP managed to unite the entire country, establish state power, introduce a new kind of group life to China, change the Chinese people’s lax customs, foster a conception of the public, regulate the spirit and organizational ability of customs and the legal system, and thus completely change the Chinese people. The cooperation movement involving land reform and mutual production assistance in the Northeast and Shanbei deeply impressed Liang Shuming. To him, this was an exposure of and victory for the human heart, and a merger of group and ideal. In this sense, the CCP “unintentionally” solved the great problems of modern China, to which Liang for many years had been earnestly seeking resolution. He said, “I oppose their abandonment of the warm, cultured, profound spirit and turn toward barbarism, but I understand that they act based on a desire to improve, and I admit that old culture needs further cleansing.”12 Liang Shuming’s summary of class in China stops here. He has seen the relationship between the nation-state and class. In order to build a nation-state, the first task is to build a class. This is the relationship between the CCP and the proletariat. Let us continue along this perspective. Class struggle is a classic theory of Marxism, and the proletariat is the theoretical fulcrum on which historical materialism pivots. When Marx discovers in his introduction to Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right that the proletariat is the driving force of history, he

10 11 12

Ibid., 336–338. Ibid., 350–351. Ibid., 413.

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finally transforms himself from a Hegelian to a Marxist. Class replaced the theories of Hegelian philosophy, and Marxism became a dynamic dialectical materialism. “The emancipation of Germany is the emancipation of man. The head of this emancipation is philosophy, its heart is the proletariat. Philosophy cannot be actualized without the abolition of the proletariat; the proletariat cannot be abolished without the actualization of philosophy.”13 Marxist philosophy created for the world proletariat their position of agency, and the proletariat drove 20th century world history. However, to Mao Zedong, a disciple of Marxism in the third-world China, the historical absence of both a bourgeoisie and a national industry meant that a proletariat consisting mainly of the working class was a fiction. Consequently, Mao used the lowest stratum of Chinese society, the peasants, to fill the empty principle position. Yet the peasants alone could not realize their mission as historical agent. In order for a self-being class to transform into a self-making class, Marxism needed to be combined with the peasant movement, in other words, Marxist intellectuals had to merge with the peasants. This was a task of the party, and also a task of modern enlightenment. China’s implementation of revolution was unique in world history, and in this sense it was radical—it was an implementation of democracy by the most radical method, and in the most fundamental sense. The party led by Mao Zedong was able to, through the Chinese method (surrounding cities with villages), accomplish the historic mission to build a nationstate body. This method, based on a worker-peasant alliance with the proletariat as its agent, became a prerequisite for the socialist establishment of third-world nation-states. When it arose, the Western bourgeoisie exuded a universality. Just as Marx described, as it arose, and when it led all the people against feudal monarchism, the bourgeoisie was a universal representative of society. This is precisely the historical basis for the bourgeoisie, as a class, to become the primary body of the nation-state. However, the third-world bourgeoisie has no universal historical power with which to establish itself. On the contrary, though appealing to its own interests, it split the public interests and universal values of society. This division has become a source of constitutional crises in many newly

13 Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy Of Right (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 142.

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risen nation-states. In terms of the historical process that structured China into a nation-state, the CCP was able to use the “proletariat” as the source of public values to create the public and universal character for a new nation-state because the proletariat’s historical appeal is for self-annihilation. It is in exactly this sense that the class plea structured the plea of the entire society, the most radical plea. Using proletarian dictatorship as the agent of state power is a social institution intended to guarantee the elimination of wealth differentiation. This is why during the Mao era “proletariat” became a symbol for morality and justice, and was no longer a realistic expression of economic status. This emphasis on using a class as agent of the country during an era in which class differences had actually been abolished was in fact a kind of value appeal, or a legitimate appeal to state ideology. Class struggle theory of the Mao era ought to be re-understood on the level of the structuring of agent of the nation-state, for this is why this theory always emphasizes the hegemonic pressure of international American “imperialism” and Soviet “revisionism,” and connects them to awareness of crises threatening the survival of the party or country. These outside pressures forcefully entered Chinese society, forcefully sculpted Chinese social relations, and persistently incited violent conflict within society. Behind the “unending revolution” theory of the Trotskyians, internal critics of communism, was a premonition that in a hostile international environment, socialism alone would inevitably bring about internal autocracy. But, because the premise of this theory in practice became liquidationism, it has received incessant, harsh criticism throughout China’s revolutionary history. The transformation of the party today, from class struggle theory to the “Three Represents” theory and social harmony theory, on one hand shows the relative weakening of pressures regarding the legitimacy of state sovereignty on the level of international relations. In other words, on this level the century-long historical task of establishing a nation-state—what Liang Shuming once called the greatest political task of the modern era—has basically been accomplished. On the other hand, internal social pressures regarding legitimacy continue to increase, and consequently, the party’s center of gravity has begun to turn from the political level to the social and economic level, making economics the greatest political issue and making the party’s source of political legitimacy increasingly rely upon economic development. The coerciveness of economic discourse has replaced that of class discourse and become the new political correctness. The examination and pro-

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motion of regional officials is based on the regional GDP development markers. The popularity of developmentalism has caused the exaggeration of economic figures that prevailed, disastrously, during the Mao era’s Great Leap Forward, to once again flourish. It is in this sense that Liang Shuming’s 1930s criticism of China’s political party problem once again becomes significant in China’s new historical context. Corruption and bureaucratization of the party, and the domination of interest groups, has turned the issue of depoliticized politics into today’s historical plight. According to Wang Hui’s description, this plight manifests in the revocation of the agency of workers and farmers, a change in the state and its form of autonomy, and decay of political party politics.14 Liang Shuming saw profoundly how the need for class was inherent to modernity and the historical narrative of the nation-state. Yet classes are founded through bloodshed, and this was precisely the kind of revolutionary violence that Liang desperately wished to avoid. He thought the CCP also acted as a force of rural destruction, because the CCP, having adopted the imported form of a modern party, was a product of modern Western civilization. Liang tried to take advantage of the organizational resource of traditional society, reform them, and use the township and rural schools to replace organizational framework of the modern nation-state. Yet, as he later said: “I tried hard to introduce group life, but failed, because I did not want to go down this path. Once I saw the success of the CCP, I was filled with inexpressible emotion.”15 In 1938, Liang Shuming went to Yan’an and held a historic meeting with Mao Zedong. They agreed on many issues, but differed in two ways. First, when asked by Mao about the problems of rural reconstruction, Liang Shuming once said the greatest problem he had experienced during rural reconstruction was, “the peasants preferred passivity to action.” He was cut off abruptly by Mao Zedong, who said “You are wrong! The peasants want action. How can you say they prefer to be passive?”16 Second: 14 Wang Hui 汪晖, “Quzhengzhihua de zhengzhi, baquan de duozhong goucheng yu 60 niandai de xiaoshi 去政治化的政治, 霸权的多种构成与60年代的消逝 [Depoliticized politics, hegemony’s many forms, and the passing of the 1960s],” in Wang Hui, Quzhengzhihua de Zhengzhi 去政治化的政治 (Beijing: Sanlian shudian 三联书店, 2008). 15 Liang Shuming, “Zhongguo jianshe zhilu,” in Liang Shuming Quanji, vol. 3, 351. 16 Quoted in Alitto, The Last Confucian, 289.

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lu xinyu After listening to Liang expound on his rural reconstruction and cultural theories for a week, Mao summed up their differences: “Chinese society also has its qualities in common [with other societies]. China’s problems also have common qualities. You overemphasize its special nature and neglect its universal nature.” Liang answered: “The reason China is China lies precisely in these special features. You overemphasize its common qualities and neglect its special qualities. How can that be right?” My debate with Mr. Mao ended here.17

Mao Zedong emphasized on the common qualities of Chinese society because of Marxism’s quest for a historical teleology. This formed the premise of Mao Zedong’s thought, which considered the Chinese revolution as an important part of the world revolution. But Liang Shuming instead saw the oppression inherent in the universalism of modernity, and he emphasized the uniqueness of China’s problems in attempt to rescue Chinese society from the historical discourse of universalism. However, he ran into a fatal problem: the peasants did not follow him. So, why did the peasants follow the CCP? One can see from Mao Zedong’s 1927 “Investigation Report on Hunan’s Peasant Movement” that the way of the CCP’s peasant movement was to overthrow the local landlords and wicked gentry, and give all power to the peasant associations. In Mao’s Marxist historical narrative, this was: The great peasant masses rising to fulfill their historic mission; the forces of rural democracy rising to overthrow the forces of rural feudalism. The patriarchal feudal class of local and lawless landlords, and wicked gentry, has formed the basis of autocratic government for thousands of years and is the cornerstone of imperialism, warlords, and official corruption. Overthrowing these feudal forces is the true objective of the nationalist revolution . . . Every revolutionary comrade should know that the nationalist revolution requires a great change in the countryside. The Revolution of 1911 did not have this change, so it failed. Now this change is happening, and it is an important factor for the completion of the revolution. Every revolutionary comrade must support it, or he will stand on the side of counterrevolution.18

Ibid., 289. Mao Zedong 毛泽东, “Hunan nongmin yundong kaocha baogao 湖南农民运动 考察报告 [ Investigation Report on the Peasant Movement in Hunan],” in Mao Zedong xuanji 毛泽东选集 [Selected Works of Mao Zedong], vol. 1 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe 人民出版社, 1996), 12–44. 17 18

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Mao Zedong and Liang Shuming both emphasized the importance of the rural society and the peasants in Chinese revolution. Moreover, it is precisely because Liang Shuming had in 1927 witnessed the conflict between the CCP-organized peasant associations and the landlord-controlled local militia in rural Guangdong that he became more confident in the potential power of peasant movement. Alitto quotes Liang: “A peasant movement is what China definitely must have at present. If anyone ignores the peasant movement, then he does not understand the present situation.” Only after the success of his own “revolutionary” peasant movement—aimed at revitalizing China’s ethical society as well as remedying the political and economic backwardness—“would the other peasant movement be useless, and only then would it be possible for the Communist party not to exist.”19

Mao and Liang differed in that Liang did not think the local landlords and wicked gentry were products of Chinese feudal society. “Commonly we like to refer to local landlords and wicked gentry as feudal forces. In fact they are not things of tradition. In old Chinese society, there were not many pretexts or chances allowing people to become local landlords and wicked gentry, and thus at that time the local landlords and wicked gentry were few. It is the situations in recent years that has created them,” especially the rise of local self-government and local self-defense: “worrying is forced self-government when the conditions are not right for self-government. Even if there are no local landlords or wicked gentry, this will create them.”20 This is because so-called self-government meant staking out a region and establishing an official apparatus that could issue orders to the peasants, forcibly raise taxes and collect money, and also had military power. In Liang Shuming’s point of view, self-government made opportunities for the local landlords and wicked gentry to obtain legal status, thus further limiting peasants’ ability to protest. Moreover it created many pretexts that they could rely upon, and provided them with greater power. Today these viewpoints are very familiar to us. China in Revolution: The First Phase, 1900–1913, edited by Mary C. Wright and regarded as the first book to observe this problem, was

19 20

405.

Guy S. Alitto, The Last Confucian, 158. Liang Shuming, “Xiangcun jianshe lilun,” in Liang Shuming Quanji vol. 2, 404–

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published in 1968. Yet Liang Shuming had already expressed such views as early as in the 1930s. If we borrow Prasenjit Duara’s concepts of “protective brokerage” and “entrepreneurial brokerage” to examine Liang Shuming’s rural reconstruction theory, the local landlords and wicked gentry that Liang opposed were actually the entrepreneurial broker between the state and the villages. They were a product of Chinese modernity. The village and township schools that Liang directed his efforts into were actually the protective broker attempting to reform and revitalize tradition under new historical conditions. In Duara’s research, the extension of state power into villages and the strengthening of social control were realized in the spontaneous process of modernization. It led to the expansion and involution of state power, and local finances fell into a vicious circle, as if merely serving to sustain the ever-growing brokerage group consisting of the bureaucracy and state. In the beginning of the twentieth century, village leaders’ main duty was debt collection. In the 1920s and 30s, due to increasingly severe extortion by the state and warlords toward the rural community, more and more protective village leaders resigned, and rural power gradually fell into the hands of entrepreneurial brokers—it is the background of and reason for the rise of the rural movement. Harsh and varied taxes, not class struggle, were the main cause of peasant uprisings. As Duara notes, “even communist cadre in Shandong ‘tended to believe that rent and interest reduction were not important revolutionary tasks, since they could neither activate the majority of peasants nor weaken the forces of feudalism in the countryside. . . . Indeed some cadres had found that alleviating the tax burden was the most pressing demand of the masses.’”21 The various taxes are the operational cost of sociopolitical power in the modern nation-state. Therefore, Liang Shuming insisted that no government could avoid responsibility for rural damage. The political power itself was the problem, not the problem-solver. According to Prasenjit Duara, when entrepreneurial brokers enter rural politics and steal part of the power that bestowed upon the village by the state, they greatly damage the legitimacy of the regime. Consequently, before the released forces of de-legitimating reach it, the transitional regime has to establish a new legitimacy. This competition affects the fate of the regime. Thus, as the CCP peasant movement

21

Ibid., 252.

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attacked local landlords, the KMT government also had to start its own anti-landlord movement. However in the eyes of the CCP, beating down the local landlords and wicked gentry was a historical task of anti-feudal New Democracy. Yet for Liang Shuming, it was a matter of resisting the oppression of Western modernity. What did Liang rely upon to resist this process? He believed that only the rural movement, different from all the restoration, revolution, and national salvation movements of the past, could unite China. This was a solution based on the unique characteristics of China. However, only the CCP’s lowering of taxes and interest, land reform, attacks on landlords, and land distribution managed effectively to impact the rural damage caused by entrepreneurial brokers, and for this the CCP gained the support of the peasants. This was a political solution, which Liang Shuming’s rural reconstruction was unable to accomplish. In his “Our Two Great Difficulties,” Liang described these two problems: “first, talking loftily of social reform while clinging to the regime; second, proclaiming a rural movement although the rural villages do not move.”22 The first problem was, Liang thought, that if rural reconstruction depended on the government to accomplish it, and if rural work became lowlevel local administration, then it would be in collusion the involution of China’s state political power during the process of modernization, which was directly contrary to rural reconstruction’s guiding principles of social reformation. The government itself was a problem, not a force that could solve the problem. The CCP’s rural practice in itself could not prove that the CCP was successful, because the political power of the CCP was not yet unified, and no regime could completely avoid extending into and extorting rural villages. No regime could avoid damaging the countryside, because political power itself has a price, and that price is high. So we fell to clinging to the regime: “honestly, it is just because the rural movement itself has no source of funding.”23 The second problem was that we think that our work is beneficial to the rural villages, yet they do not welcome it, and so at the very least we will remain different from them and not integrate. This is because:

22 Liang Shuming, “Women de liang da nanchu: ershisinian shiyue ershiwuru zai yanjiuyuan jiangyan 我们的两大难处: 二十四年十月二十五日在研究院讲演 [Our Two Great Difficulties: Lecture at the Research Institute on October 25 of the 24th Year of the Republic],” in Liang Shuming Quanji, vol. 2, 573. 23 Ibid., 580.

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lu xinyu We have set out on a road to reform the peasants from the standpoint of the government, rather than to reform the government from the standpoint of the peasants . . . this problem is the most tormenting! . . . peasants suffer by the harsh and varied taxes, yet we cannot immediately relieve some of their burden. Peasants have no land, but we cannot distribute land to them. Many of the things they require must be resolved politically, yet when we first went down to the villages to work, we did not have the power to solve these political problems. Thus, obviously because we cannot grasp the peasants’ suffering, we cannot grasp their hearts.24

This was Liang Shuming’s historical and real dilemma, but it does not evidence that his judgment of Chinese society was incorrect. The relationship between the regime and the countryside during the process of modernization is the crux of today’s sannong problem. Because of this, Liang Shuming’s theory and practice provide us with a unique precious viewpoint from which to reconsider the relationship between class, political party, and state in twenty-first century China. III. The Yan’an Road, Industrialization, and Today’s Sannong Problem In Mao Zedong’s peasant movement, all power belonged to the peasant association. This power included state power, meaning that the peasants themselves could decide whether to pay for the functional cost of the modern nation-state: various harsh taxes. At that time the CCP was not the ruling party, so it did not need to think about the cost of running the country. To maintain its army, the CCP depended upon attacking local landlords and distributing their lands to the peasants, and because of this the peasants were willing to follow the CCP. This is why the CCP was able to mobilize the peasants and Liang Shuming could not. So-called “base areas” created self-sufficient economic bodies that existed beyond the reach of the Republican government. These areas refused to pay for this kind of authority, and thus their taxes remained low. Liang Shuming once declared to the CCP that it could not solve China’s political problem and was instead moving away from a solution. In his view, the CCP’s method of class struggle was destructive and could not lead to the establishment of a united political power. “Why am I so certain that they cannot establish

24

Ibid., 581.

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political power? Have they not established political power both in the past and now? Yes, they have, but it will not lead to unity and stability. Unity may be achieved some day, but of what use is a mere day or two of unity?”25 As the CCP refused to pay for the cost of extending state power, how could it possibly establish and maintain the political authority of a modern state? “The ability of the Communist party to transform its program of agrarian revolution in accordance with united front wartime imperatives while leading a bold and creative attack on problems of rural oppression and disintegration is the hallmark of the Yenan period.”26 In 1941, the Shanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region held elections of district, county, and township representatives, leading to expansion of the regional government and functional departments. From 1941 to 42, the North China base area suffered great losses under the “Three Alls” (kill all, burn all, and loot all) policy of the Japanese, and after the failure of the CCP-KMT cooperation, the Republican government of Chongqing cut off subsidies to the Eighth Route Army and the borderregion government. Severe currency inflation forced the border-region government to raise taxes to an unprecedented level, double the previous year. “The sharp tax rise reflected the crisis confronting the North China base areas and specifically Shen-Kan-Ning. For the first time since their arrival in the northwest, the communists were left with no recourse but to impose a severe tax burden on their closest allies, the poor peasants.”27 In 1937 and 1938 the CCP’s tax policy was light and it primarily depended upon subsidies from the Republican government and food and property confiscated during the Agrarian Revolution period. From 1939 to 1941 it sharply increased tax rates to pay for the large administrative and government expenses of the border government, as well to counter the KMT’s blockade. The government implemented a series of taxes and fundraising activities, eventually over-exhausting rural resources. In 1941 and 1942, skyrocketing taxes increasingly intensified the burden on the middle peasants and poor peasants who enthusiastically supported the CCP, and the government faced a crisis of legitimacy. To deal with this crisis, the CCP initiated

25

621.

Liang Shuming, “Da xiangcun jianshe pipan” in Liang Shuming Quanji vol. 2,

26 Mark Selden, The Yenan Way in Revolutionary China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 120. 27 Ibid., 181.

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an unprecedented cadre training and rectification movement in the spring of 1942, because within the party, disputes and differences had arisen over the method of government and leadership. The purpose of the rectification movement was to merge the thoughts and approaches of the party, and to reinforce party loyalty. The purpose of criticism and self-criticism was to overcome the differences between outside and local cadre, and between worker/peasant and intellectual cadre. Overcoming bureaucratism was another objective of the rectification movement. The Yan’an road included popular participation, government downsizing and relinquishing of power, and community autonomy. Accompanying the rectification movement were the movement to trim and simplify the army, and the movement for large scale production, to reduce the expenses and tax burden of administration. The large scale production campaign of 1943 sought to achieve self-sufficiency not only in the border region area, but also in every governmental and military unit. There was also a rent reduction movement and a cooperative movement. The Yan’an road is almost a rehearsal of the post1949 rural reconstruction. It represents the CCP’s solution to China’s inherent paradox of modernity, and is a key to our understanding of Mao Zedong’s rural reform and construction in the new China. Prasenjit Duara believes that the 1949 establishment of the CCP government indicated the end of the involuntary expansion of state power since the late-Qing. In the beginning, the People’s Republic of China culled large numbers of “entrepreneurial brokers” and raised taxes by a large margin. Starting from the foundational level, it began to establish various organizations connected with the state government, and completed the task of “building a national government” that the KMT had been unable to accomplish. In the 1950s, the rural cooperative system finally eliminated the tax evasion and corruption problems, and fully unified tax entities, land ownership rights, and political structure. From this, the PRC politically and economically realized its aim of “government construction.” However, once it became the ruling party, the CCP’s relationship with the rural society fundamentally changed. In 1953, Liang Shuming accused Mao Zedong and the CCP of betraying the peasants. The CCP had relied on peasant movements to rise to power, but once they entered the cities, their focus shifted from the countryside to the city. Today’s construction emphasizes industry, and this is the focus of peoples’ efforts. In terms of the difference in livelihood, the workers live in

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heaven, and the peasants in hell. The peasants try to run to the cities but are not allowed. Labor and wealth concentrate in the cities, and although nobody speaks of abandoning or losing contact [with rural society], this more or less seems to be happening. Yet the peasants are the people and the people are the peasants. Without sufficiently caring and arranging for the people, how can one build a country? In the revolutionary period when the peasants suffered the brutality of the Japanese invaders and KMT reactionaries, they and the CCP were intimate as family, but today this has already passed . . . The peasant problems or rural problems . . . all depend on the initiative of the peasants or rural villagers. How can the peasants be mobilized? Through the peasant associations? Of course it should be the peasant associations, but what do the peasant associations look like nowadays? They were useful during the land reform, but that is no longer. Today they have party and government cadres (the various democratic party factions do not go to the villages), then youth and women’s associations. Is this enough? I feel it is not. First, in rural villages, the party is also the government and the government is also the party. The party is able to decide everything. Yet administrative orders are transmitted without sufficient educational significance and the work of the masses is not mentioned. This is evidenced by the severity of imposed orders and a domineering style in recent years. Second, the quantity is insufficient. Places where the party and associations have a presence are not taken care of sufficiently, and those places where the party and associations do not reach receive even less care. In summary, the peasants have nothing to fall back on.28

Faced with this, Mao unexpectedly lost his demeanor and grew enraged. The following point from Mao’s “Criticizing Liang Shuming’s Reactionary Thought” merits consideration: China’s peculiarity is that it was a half-colonial and half-feudal land. If you don’t acknowledge this, you have helped imperialism and feudalism . . . if we follow your approach . . . are we not destroying Chinese industry? If this happens, the party and country will die. As for the death of the party, do not think it will only kill the CCP; the democratic parties will also be affected. . . . Our party has been talking about worker-peasant alliance and cooperation for more than thirty years. . . . The alliance of the worker and peasant classes is most important. Liang Shuming says that if the worker-peasant alliance is destroyed there is no hope for nation building. This is to say that if we don’t adopt his suggestions we cannot hope to build a worker-peasant alliance and cannot succeed

28 Liang Shuming, “1953nian 9yue 11ri zhengxie kuoda huiyi shang de fayan caogao 1953年9月11日政协扩大会议上的发言草稿 [Draft Speech of the Expanded CPPCC Meeting on 11 September, 1953],” in Liang Shuming Quanji vol. 7, 5–6.

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lu xinyu in nation building. Then there is no hope for socialism! The kind of “worker-peasant alliance” of which Liang Shuming speaks truly is hopeless. Your route is the route of the bourgeoisie.29

Mao began to identify Liang Shuming with the bourgeoisie. In the rural reform of New China, Mao reiterated the spontaneity of opposing capitalism. He abolished and eradicated the peasants’ handicraft industry and side industries, which were originally the economic forms of traditional society. The developed world market and trading business in the Ming and Qing dynasties were built upon these industries, i.e., built on a foundation of small-scale peasant economy. Marxist Chinese historians have always been discussing whether buds of capitalism appeared in the Ming and Qing dynasties, while at the same time Mao labeled this traditional side industry a spontaneously and incessantly emerging “capitalism.” To Mao Zedong, what exactly did bourgeoisie and capitalism imply? In 1953, Mao once related socialism and state capitalism: “most of the current capitalist economy in China is under the supervision of the people’s government and is connected to the state-run socialist economy through various means, and is a capitalist economy supervised by the workers. This kind of capitalist economy is no longer a normal capitalist economy, but rather a kind of special capitalist economy, a new form of state capitalist economy. . . . Consequently, this new form of state capitalist economy is to a large extent socialist; it is beneficial to the workers and the state.”30 Proceeding from this, capitalism developed in the state mode is socialism, and the reverse is capitalist. The so-called state mode, in terms of Chinese agriculture at the time, meant bringing agriculture onto the road of integrated national industrialization. Liang Shuming questioned precisely this point. For Liang, this was a kind of split, yet from Mao’s standpoint, it was necessary in order to build a modern nation-state. Mao thought that to oppose it was to help imperialism, because the oppression of imperialism was the motive and reason for building a modern nationstate; and to help feudalism, because the feudal landlord class was

29 Mao Zedong, “Pipan Liangshuming de fandong sixiang 批判梁漱溟的反动思 想 [Criticizing Liang Shuming’s Reactionary Thought],” in Mao Zedong xuanji vol. 5, 107–115. 30 Mao Zedong, “Guanyu guojia zibenzhuyi jingji 关于国家资本主义经济 [On the State Capitalist Economy],” in Maozedong wenji vol. 6 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe 人民出版社, 1999), 282.

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the “other” that enabled the formation of the proletariat (peasants). Although the landlord class that was identified as such mainly consisted of small peasants and owners of family farms (those who worked their own land), the peasants, small-scale peasant economy, and rural society were the most solid foundation of traditional empire, and also an impediment to the transformation of traditional empire into modern nation-state, a natural “other” to modernization theory. Reformation of the peasants, small-scale peasant economy, and rural society was inherent to the modernization process. Liang Shuming emphasized that peasants had agency outside of industrial and the state; this was obviously then a pro-feudalism view, and thus Mao believed that Liang stood in opposition to the modern nation-state and was a reactionary. Although, from Liang Shuming’s own perspective, his rural reconstruction ideas in fact began in the industrialization of agriculture, and only then gradually transitioned to the industrialization of the country. He certainly did not oppose industrialization, for modernization was industrialization and was the foundation for building a modern nation-state. This was a shared premise. However, Liang did not notice that the overwhelming importance of heavy industry for the new nation-state had already been determined by the period from the Opium War to the Korean War. This historical momentum, which began with the late-Qing Westernization Movement (洋务运动), was the historical mandate of Mao Zedong and his New China. One important premise behind Liang Shuming’s commitment to the rural movement was the failure and impossibility of national industry. Under historical conditions in which state power could not be established, Liang hoped to realize the state and its industrialization through the industrialization of agriculture. Liang had seen how violence and revolution were inherent in the process of building a nation-state, and this doomed his own rural reconstruction movement, a non-violent cooperative organization, to failure on the path to providing a nation-state. Consequently, Liang Shuming saw the significance of the CCP’s forging of class and party to the nation-state. This made him, an opponent of the Communist Party, into its greatest empathizer. However, he missed the fact that (heavy) industrialization as an imperative mandate was inherent in the historical narrative of the nation-state, and that the worker-peasant alliance, as the agent of the country, was to be built upon it. If the working class in the revolutionary era was, to certain extent, an appropriated and imaginary historical agent, behind its disguise

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scurried the soot-covered figures of the Chinese peasants. With the establishment of the PRC and the beginning of national industrialization, the working class walked to the newly forged forefront of history and became the new historical agent. The agency of the Chinese working class was a product of the merger of Western Marxism and the Chinese peasant revolution. After establishing state power, Mao Zedong stressed the need to develop heavy industry in the mode of state capitalism. It is as Liang Shuming said regarding tides of thought when he discussed warlords: the revolutionary tide combines with the circumstances; those who follow the tide will flourish and those who oppose it will perish. Mao also liked to say this, and therefore his criticism of Liang Shuming as wanting to destroy Chinese industry, and thus end the party and state, was honest and not in error. Liang said that military power itself is powerless and must join with the current to have force. He actually should have understood the relationship between Mao Zedong’s dictatorship of the proletariat and national industrialization. Autocracy itself is inherent in the process of forging the nation-state, and also inherent in the world system of nation-states. Aiming toward Liang Shuming, Mao Zedong repeatedly talked about the relationship between greater and lesser benevolent governance (仁政). Mao stated that collecting more agricultural taxes and developing industrialization is the greatest benevolent governance: There are two implementations of benevolent governance: one kind considers the immediate interests of the people; the other kind considers the long-term interests of the people, as in the War to Resist American and Aid Korea, and the construction of heavy industry. The first kind is lesser benevolent governance, the second one is greater benevolent governance. One need to give consideration to both of them, otherwise one will make mistakes. Then, which is the priority? Emphasis ought to be placed on greater benevolent governance. In order to construct, money is needed . . . Some friends today unilaterally emphasize lesser benevolent governance, which implies that the War to Resist America and Aid Korea should not be fought and heavy industry should not be built. We must criticize these wrong ideas. These ideas also exist within the party. I encountered them during the Yan’an period. In 1941, the Shanxi-Gansu-Ningxia border region levied 200 thousand cubic meters of public grain. Some people cried, saying that the CCP was showing no consideration toward the peasants. A few CCP cadre also brought up the issue of benevolent governance. I criticized those ideas at that time. At the time, what was the greatest benevolent governance? It was the war against Japanese imperialism. If we levied less public grain, then we would have to downsize the Eighth Route Army and New Fourth Army,

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which would benefit the Japanese imperialism. Therefore, those opinions actually represented and assisted Japanese Imperialism.31

The greatest benevolent governance is accomplishing the historical mission of national independence from foreign countries and domestic industrialization. Liang Shuming’s criticism of the peasant associations and rural grass-roots organizations also touched a nerve with Mao Zedong. Peasant associations originally were the magic weapon the CCP used to mobilize peasants during the revolutionary period. The CCP gave all power, including state power, to the peasant associations. This is because at the time, state power was not in the hands of the CCP. However, now that the CCP holds state power as the ruling party, it will never yield that power to the peasant associations. Instead came the top-down integration of party and government that sunk into villages in the form of state power and “administrative orders.” This involved no mass work, and was contrary to Liang Shuming’s idea of rural reconstruction from the bottom up. The construction process of New China was also the process of CCP organizations replacing and rebuilding urban and rural social organizations. In the cities, labor unions were reorganized and worker’s associations became work units under CCP leadership. In the villages, cooperatives became People’s Communes. The CCP’s social reformation constituted a major part of its building of party and country. In Liang Shuming’s eyes, this represented the loss of rural agency. When grassroots organizations became an extension of the national power and a part of the construction of new national power, opposing them became “fake patriotism” and was categorized as truly reactionary. However, we know from Mao Zedong’s sensitive reaction to Liang Shuming that Mao was not entirely unmoved. To the contrary, he was always trying to solve the paradox of modernity in his own way, from the cooperatives to the People’s Communes, the reduction of Three Major Distinctions (三大差别), the combination of the intellectuals’ road with that of the workers and peasants, education reform, the movement to send educated youth to the countryside, and more.

Mao Zedong, “Kangmeiyuanchao de weida shengli he jinhou de renwu 抗美援 朝的伟大胜利和今后的任务 [ The Great Success of the War to Resist America and Aid Korea and the Furture Tasks],” in Mao Zedong xuanji vol. 5, 105. 31

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However, the questions Liang Shuming raised toward the CCP have not disappeared. They reenter our perspective in the new form in the post-Mao era. Since the 1980s, the disintegration of rural villages in China has begun anew, and at the same time the involution of state power at the grassroots level has uncontrollably restarted. Today Chinese sociologists tell us that China’s cities and villages, and agriculture and industry, have already split apart, and furthermore this trend is probably irreversible. The sannong problem is becoming the most crucial problem of state political authority. Chinese grassroots organizations are mired in debt. The reduction of agricultural tax has not solved the problem of operational funding for the grassroots political organizations in China, and may actually worsen rural governance. In light of this, how should we conduct the present rural reconstruction movement? Following James Yen, Liang Shuming, and Mao Zedong, it is now our turn to face this serious historical question.

WHO IS AFRAID OF LU XUN? THE POLITICS OF “DEBATES ABOUT LU XUN” (鲁迅论争 LU XUN LUN ZHENG ) AND THE QUESTION OF HIS LEGACY IN POST-REVOLUTION CHINA Zhong Xueping For quite some time now, Lu Xun (1881–1936) and his legacy, along with the May Fourth Movement (1915–27), have been challenged and his relevance questioned in the West among certain circles of China scholars. In his stead, we find other modern figures, events, and movements taking the spotlight presumably for the benefit of achieving a better understanding of Chinese modernity. There is, one might suggest, a Lu Xun fatigue syndrome that is symptomatic of an underlying shift propelled by many China scholars in their efforts to uncover the overlooked or forgotten (and yet supposedly more attractive) visions of Chinese modernity.1 This syndrome is also symptomatic of the development of Chinese cultural studies in the West over the last two decades. Even though in certain corners of the field there continues to be a strong resistance to the application of postmodern theories, a larger postmodern logic has nevertheless manifested itself in the paradigm and ideological shifts in the study of modern China—its history, culture, and society. 2 Along with the “postmodern break” from the Enlightenment-induced metanarrative modernity paradigm, came, in the 1990s, the Chinese cultural studies’ versions of postmodern production of knowledge about China, even though questions regarding the ideological implications of this kind of knowledge production remain largely assumed and unchallenged.

1 This phenomenon came into vogue with the development of Chinese cultural studies in the 1990s perpetuated, in part, by the post-Cold War triumphantilism in the West. 2 By “postmodern logic” here, I refer to both what Fredrick Jameson refers to as the “postmodern break” that has challenged the Enlightenment-informed modernity paradigm and what other theorists have pointed out, namely the ideological implications of this break in conjunction with the logic of globalizing capitalism.

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One of the major shifts is the concerted efforts and arguments made to move away from the focus on the May Fourth movement. Beginning in the 1980s, and becoming more active and widespread throughout the 1990s after the Cold War, scholars began to question the most radical aspects of the Movement including the rise of Marxism, nationalism, the communist revolution, and the various endeavors to search for a linkage between “modern enlightenment” and the masses. Branded as the Chinese version of (grand) meta-narrative that the Chinese themselves had been politically manipulated to focus on in the last half of the 20th century, the May Fourth movement came to symbolize for many China scholars in the West what went wrong in China’s search for modernity. Many fault it for its supposed embrace of Westernization, for radicalizing such an issue as nationalism, and, worse of all, for igniting the communist revolutionary spirit. Indeed, it is almost a given now that, when any (doubly) “enlightened” China scholar discusses the May Fourth movement, he/she usually takes as his/her point of departure that the aforementioned aspects of the May Fourth movement are to be questioned. As just pointed out, this postmodern logic inspired development emphasizes the need to uncover, as it were, the overlooked and the marginalized visions and expressions of Chinese modernity. The result is a “digging” frenzy in the study of modern China, all in the name of moving beyond the May Fourth. The irony, of course, is that, when such seemingly progressive academic stance appears to fit the postmodern challenge of the Enlightenment-modernity paradigms in the West, this postmodern turn in the field of Chinese cultural studies also helps shed light on the political economy of the postmodern logic. That is, in addition to the fact that it is being spread as the latest “truth” from the West on the back of post-Cold War globalizing capitalism in search of market, there lies a postmodern meta-narrative manifested, among other things, in its discomfort, or even fear, of the non-Western “other” continuing to identify with the (revolutionary) modernist spirit and doing so as a “sovereign” entity.3 3 I have in mind the connection between some of the key post-structural concepts such as difference and discourse on the one hand and the questioning of “nationstate” and nationalism on the other. Since these concepts (and the related theories behind) and the criticisms inspired by them came to be widely used in cultural studies more than two decades ago in the West, many of these concepts have gone through a transformation from the ones that question assumptions to assumptions themselves. Given the limited scope of this essay, I mention this here, mainly to indicate, once

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In China, on the other hand, despite the transpacific influence of the Lu Xun fatigue, Lu Xun has never been fully retired from public debate, in spite of the fact that he has been removed from the official pedestal as the most important modern Chinese writer and thinker. Instead of being marginalized, Lu Xun is, shall we say, re-controversialized in China. And the controversies, needless to say, keep him in the foreground, if not always in the spotlight, of contemporary cultural politics in China. Unlike in the fields of China studies in the West, the May Fourth movement and Lu Xun do not exist only as objects of study in China. They also exist as major cultural legacies and, if you will, a structure of feeling, relevant not as cultural relics but as operative forces that keep alive some of the most fundamental questions that China has had to come to terms with. And this is what those who want to retire Lu Xun from the on-going cultural politics fail to recognize: Lu Xun’s legacy lives on even in his critics’ negation, precisely because the fundamental questions raised during the May Fourth movement, many of which were sharpened by Lu Xun, continue to address today’s China, especially its intellectuals. These questions include what being “modern” means in China, how to reconcile the different imaginaries of the “modern” advocated by different groups of intellectuals, how to account for the continuing sense of uncertainty in an on-going debate among Chinese intellectuals regarding China’s path to modernity, what kind of values, if any, should be upheld as China strides (as in “ben xiao kang” 奔小康) towards modernization and what kind of intellectual responsibility is involved, and above all what kind of “modern” individuals does one envision the Chinese will become in all of this. These questions continue to be operative in China today simply because, since the beginning, when they became part of Chinese intellectuals’ consciousness, in particular during the May Fourth movement, they remain part of the “reality” in China in social, cultural, and political terms and as a result they continue to inform Chinese intellectual

again, that what I mean by “postmodern” is a historical phenomenon, one that has its own economic logic, historical implications, and ideological limitations. See Perry Anderson The Origins of Postmodernity (London and New York: Verso, 1998), Fredric Jameson The Cultural Turn (Verso, 1998), Fredric Jameson A Singular Modernity: Essay on the Ontology of the Present (Verso, 2002), and Terry Eagleton After Theory (New York: Basic Books, 2003).

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debates today.4 In this sense, debates about Lu Xun or Lu Xun lunzheng in China must be understood beyond the lenses of Western academic trends which, given their own ethnocentrism, do not share the same kind of “sense of questioning” (问题意识 wenti yishi) as most of those in China do when they engage in the debates. Indeed, ever since the first commentary on Lu Xun occurred in 1919, Lu Xun’s writings and their studies have constituted a major component of modern Chinese culture and have consistently raised questions regarding the tensions and difficulties in China’s quest for modernity.5 In contemporary China, either way—arguing to go beyond (超越 chaoyue) or attempting to get closer (走近 zoujin) to Lu Xun—is symptomatic of the fact that Lu Xun continues to loom large in the debate. And it behooves Chinese intellectuals (and, perhaps, scholars of modern China) to explore as to why. In addition to the questions listed above, the history of Lu Xun-related debates in the last two decades, especially throughout the 1990s, is indicative of another fundamental question that some contemporary Chinese intellectuals have come to ask: at the end of the 20th century after a century-long pursuit of modernity and as China is finally irrevocably on its way to “modernization,” where is China heading? Lu Xun, whose wide range of critical writings and whose personal history embody this question, remains a central figure, albeit a controversial one, within this intellectually and also politically charged question. Simply put, one can say that precisely because Lu Xun has once again become a controversial figure, it is time that we took another serious look at the controversies carried out in his name and his legacy and, more importantly, the contemporary social and political implications in all of this. In what follows, I will first offer a brief account of the historical context of the reform era’s cultural politics in relation to Lu Xun lunzheng and summarize the major differences and arguments within. I will

4 Here I am specifically referring to an article by Zhang Yiwu in which he echoes a Japanese China scholar’s view on whether or not it is still necessary to talk about Lu Xun in the 21st century. I address Zhang’s argument in the last part of this essay. Zhang Yiwu “Bei ‘zhuan huan’ he bei ‘tidai’ de xinwenxue” (Modern Chinese literature that has been transformed and replaced), Wenxue Ziyoutan (Forum for free discussion on literature) no. 4 (2004), 83–90. 5 According to Zhang Mengyang, in December of 1919, the magazine “Xin Chao” (New Trend) offered the first response to Lu Xun’s works. Zhang Mengyang “Lu Xun xue shigao gangyao” (Outline of the History of Lu Xun Study), Lu Xun Yanjiu Niankan (1990) (Beijing: zhongguo heping chuban she), 575.

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then focus on some of the popular points of contention and examine the extent to which the ideological shifts, indicated by these Lu-Xun oriented controversies, help raise questions regarding the ideological repositioning among different groups of Chinese intellectuals and the implications. Finally, by visiting some debates, old and new, about Lu Xun studies (as opposed to Lu Xun the person only), I will argue why the on-going debates about Lu Xun help demonstrate that Lu Xun’s legacy will continue to live on precisely because his is a legacy that not only keeps Chinese intellectuals conscious of the fundamental questions in China’s search for modernity but also of their own paradoxical role and positions within it, and because, as a result, his is a Chinese modernist legacy that refuses to “melt into air.” I. The Spectacle of “Lu Xun Lun Zheng” since the Late 1970s Controversies over Lu Xun are nothing new to post-revolution China (late 1970s to the present). They began as early as the 1920s when Lu Xun debated with a range of individuals over, among other things, such concrete event as the conflict between students and the president of Beijing Women’s Normal College and her defenders (the incident is known as Beijing nüshida xuechao 北京女师大学潮).6 From then on until his death in 1936, Lu Xun himself continued to engage in debates and arguments with different groups and individuals on a wide range of issues. Between those times and the end of the Cultural Revolution in the late 1970s, Lu Xun and his legacy went through a range of changes mainly due to political upheavals. Shortly after the end of the Cultural Revolution (1966–76, during which time, Lu Xun was deemed politically acceptable and elevated to a larger-than-life position where no debate about him would have been allowed), along with the establishment of the Chinese Society of Lu Xun Studies (中国鲁迅 研究会) and the publication of Lu Xun Studies (鲁迅研究), controversies

For more information on Lu Xun debating with others on this incident and all other information regarding Lu Xun’s debates with others, see Zhang Mengyang Zhongguo Lu Xun Xue Tongshi—Suoyin Pian (Chinese History of Lu Xun Study—Index Volume) (Guangdong Jiaoyu Chuban She/Guangdong Education Press, 2002). 6

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over Lu Xun resumed.7 Since then, there have been waves of public debates about Lu Xun and his legacy.8 After the Cultural Revolution, the first person to raise questions regarding Lu Xun is said to be Mao Dun (茅盾), a left-wing writer in the 1920s and 30s. He did so in 1977 at a conference on literature of the 1930s. Later in 1979, Mao Dun published articles calling for a stop to the movement to turn Lu Xun into a god-like figure (“神话” Lu Xun).9 In 1980, Wang Meng (王蒙) published an article titled “On How Fair Play Should be Implemented” (论 “费厄泼赖” 应该实行 Lun feierpuolai yinggai shixing) referring directly to Lu Xun’s piece titled “On How Fair Play Should Slow Down” (论 “费厄泼赖” 应该缓行 Lun feierpuolai yinggai huanxing) published in 1925.10 The initiation of the post-Mao era’s controversy over Lu Xun was started by some of these political and cultural elite, whose central concern was not so much about Lu Xun as about negating the politics of the Cultural Revolution in the name of Lu Xun and about their call for a return to “humanism” (manifested, in these two cases, as in “de-mythification” of Lu Xun and in arguing for the need for “fair play”). Since then, along with the publication of magazines dedicated to Lu Xun studies,11 articles in numerous other literary or academic magazines, and countless books about Lu Xun, debates over Lu Xun and his legacy have also increased, sometimes quite radically and emotionally charged, leaving behind not only a huge body of literature about Lu Xun but also, and more importantly, traces of arguments that are closely related to the ideological changes throughout the reform era. The first round of a rather sensational controversy over Lu Xun took place in the mid 1980s when two irreverent sounding essays were published—one is “Why must one evoke Lu Xun whenever one speaks?” (何必言必称鲁迅 hebi yan bi cheng Lu Xun) and the other “On Lu Xun’s creative career” (论鲁迅的创作生涯 Lun Lu Xun de chuangzuo

Zhang Mengyang “Lu Xun xue shigao gang yao,” 578. For detailed discussion of the controversies, please see Shui TiaoZhan Lu Xun— xinshiqi guanyu Lu Xun de lunzheng (Who Challenge Lu Xun: Debates on Lu Xun in the New Era) edited by Chen Shuyu (Chendu: sichuan wenyi chuban she, 2002). 9 Chen Shuyu “Introduction,” Ibid., 1–28. 10 Wang Meng “Lun ‘feierpolai’ yinggai shixing,” Du Shu (Reading) ( January, 1980), 12–16. 11 Such as Lu Xun Studies (Lu Xun Yanjiu), Lu Xun Studies Monthly (Lu Yanjiu Yuekan), and Lu Xun Studies Quarterly (Lu Xun Yanjiu Congkan). 7 8

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shengya).12 The authors were two young people who expressed their defiance towards the highly respected cultural position that Lu Xun continued to enjoy. Even though the two pieces did not appear in any of the major publications, they still managed to attract attention and met with rather harsh criticism for being so radically irreverent toward Lu Xun. Even though none of what they wrote added to a better understanding of Lu Xun, the irreverent tone of their writings was nevertheless reminiscent of Lu Xun’s own times during which publicly pronounced displeasure towards him was nothing particularly new. In post-Cultural Revolution China, the return of such an irreverent tone was henceforth always to accompany controversies over Lu Xun, even though most people involved in Lu Xun studies at the time tended to find such irreverence unacceptable. This reaction, incidentally, has to do with what Wang Hui (汪晖) termed as “sheng hua” (圣化) or sageization (as opposed to deification) of Lu Xun in the post-Cultural Revolution Lu Xun Studies (an issue I will return to later). This youthful irreverence also indicated the beginning of yet another era of diverse views and positions vis-à-vis Lu Xun, something, I might add, that Lu Xun himself was better prepared for than many of his defenders. A more serious round of debate on Lu Xun occurred in the late 1980s when Wang Hui published “A Critique of the History of Lu Xun Study” (鲁迅研究的历史批判 Lu Xun yanjiu de lishi pipan) in 1988 and when Xin Pingshan (辛平山) published a commentary in the same magazine in 1990.13 Wang Hui’s article was hailed as a major theoretical departure and hence a challenge to official Lu Xun study as it charged the establishment with relying on a reified official line about Lu Xun without fully understanding the complexity of the writer as a historical figure, especially the uniqueness of his views, opinions, and thoughts, and, above all, of his critical spirit. Indeed, given the received understanding of Lu Xun at the time, Wang Hui’s critique was no doubt both refreshing and unconventional. Xin Pingshan’s criticism of Wang Hui’s critique, on the other hand, indicated an inertia on the 12 Zawen Bao (Essay Newspaper), August 6, 1985; Qinghaihu (Qinghai Lake), August, 1985. 13 Wang Hui “Lu Xun yanjiu de lishi pipan,” Wenxue Pinglun (Literary Review) ( June, 1988), 4–17; Xin Pingshan, “Jiujing yao shuzao shenmeyang de Lu Xun xingxiang?—ping Wang Hui de ‘Lu Xun yanjiu de lishi pipan” (To exactly create what kind of image of Lu Xun: on Wang Hui’s “a historical criticism of Lu Xun study”), Wenxue Pinglun (Literary Review) ( June, 1990), 116–125.

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part of many Lu Xun scholars at the time, in their unwillingness to situate their study of Lu Xun in conjunction with many difficult (and unresolved) issues that Lu Xun himself was willing to confront. I will return to Wang Hui’s criticism later. Before I continue with examples from the 1990s, let me offer a quick observation. The revival of Lu Xun studies and the early rounds of debates over Lu Xun in the 1980s have two levels of implications. First: the cultural ethos and politics of the 1980s. Throughout the 1980s, the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution loomed large in the cultural movement of the time. Alternately known as “culture fever” (文化热), or “rethinking of culture” (文化反思), or “Enlightenment [movement]” (启蒙 qimeng), this 1980s’ cultural movement re-evoked the May Fourth movement. Such re-evocation had a strong political overtone in that the intellectuals were deeply concerned with what was identified as the Maoist ideology and its presumed link with the “traditional culture.” Their primary concerns stemmed from a conviction that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) dogmatic Marxist teachings had more to do with the Party’s inability to break out of the traditional culture’s bind than its modernization rhetoric. The real issue at hand, most of the elite intellectuals believed, resided in the residual power of the traditional culture. It is in this sense that the intellectuals of the 1980s felt a natural connection with the May Fourth legacy. Lu Xun, being the most readily recognized symbol of this Movement, was re-evoked. There is, of course, a paradox in the re-evocation of Lu Xun as an oppositional move, as the Party had already made Lu Xun into one of its most important revolutionary icons. How then does one in this context re-evoke Lu Xun, and, for that matter, the May Fourth movement, as a gesture of political opposition? By re-evoking the anti-tradition legacy of the May Fourth movement, of course. As I have just mentioned, intellectuals perceived a direct link between the politics of the Cultural Revolution (and also the entire Mao era) and the negative remnants of the traditional culture. Within this view, the iconoclastic May Fourth criticism was a powerful discursive tool for intellectuals when the trauma of the Cultural Revolution was still fresh and the fear of its return continued to preoccupy most of them. At the same time, and given the advantage of the hindsight, we realize that the cultural movement of the 1980s was carried out within a changed political and cultural environment but not a radically different social and economic

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one.14 Indeed, by taking the anti-traditional culture route, much of the cultural criticism was not readily translated into an awareness of the complex relationship between China’s quest for modernity and the structural implications of its pursuit for “modernization” (which would become more a prominent issue in the 1990s). In other words, although the cultural politics of the 1980s were manifestations of the changing alliances among intellectual circles in relation to the changing and changed politics of the time, much of the criticism took place within the immediacy of post-Cultural Revolution politics. The second level of implication has to do with the ideological shift in the post-Mao era when the revolution model was discredited in favor of a (supposedly) liberal model of modernity. The increasingly publicized resumption of Lu Xun controversies coincided with the rising dominance of the development-oriented model of modernization. Starting in the early 1990s, the by-and-large-shared culturally oppositional stance taken by different groups of intellectuals also began to split. To some intellectuals, because “socialism” was closely associated with the Mao era and its violence, as a concept it had little attraction. This provided ground for some of the oppositional intellectuals to abandon the notion of “socialism” altogether and embrace a liberal version of modernity. By extension, consequently, the May Fourth legacy, especially Lu Xun who is perceived as representing its revolutionary, left-wing, and combative tradition, began to appear outdated and subsequently the target of challenge and, sometimes, attack. Furthermore, throughout the 1990s, the introduction of postmodernist theories including postcolonial theory and an increasing attention towards and introduction of works on modern Chinese history and culture by China scholars in the West further complicated the voices in the controversies over Lu Xun. Lu Xun began to be examined and critiqued in conjunction with postcolonial theory and with the studies of other modern cultural elites from the periods ranging from the late Qing to the 1940s.15 Before I return to this aspect of the issue in the 14 To be sure, the agriculture reform that started shortly after the Cultural Revolution brought major changes in rural China. In urban centers, however, fundamental structural changes brought about by economic reforms did not truly take place and exerted a profound impact until the 1990s. 15 Examples include “yige xiandaixing shenghua de youlai: guomingxing huayu zhiyi” (origin of a modern myth: questioning the discourse of (Chinese) national character) by Liu He, Wenxue Shi (History of Literature) vol. 1, eds. Chen Pingyuan and

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following section, I would like to continue with a few more examples in which Lu Xun lun zheng was sensationalized. The next round took place in late 1998 when Beijing Wenxue (北京 文学 Beijing Literature) published the result of a survey after fiftysix writers, who were born in the 1960s and 70s and who were not officially affiliated with the Writers’ Association, responding to 13 questions one of which specifically had to do with Lu Xun.16 While most of the young writers expressed their respect towards Lu Xun, some of the respondents were quite nasty with their comments (such as calling Lu Xun “a piece of old stone” (一块老石头 yikuai lao shitou) and stating that Lu Xun should be taken out of the game (让他一边歇歇去 rang ta yibian xiexie qu). One of the respondents, Ge Hongbing (葛红兵), later published further thoughts—indeed eulogies as he calls them—on the 20th-century Chinese literature calling Lu Xun a “master of half-finished products” (半成品大师).17 This kind of youthful contempt towards Lu Xun came to a culmination of sort when Wang Shuo, a well-known but controversial popular literary writer, came out with his “The Way I See Lu Xun” (我看鲁迅) in 2000.18 Published as one of the three articles in Harvest (收获 Shou Huo) critical of Lu Xun, Wang Shuo shares the same tone as Ge Hongbing and some of Ge’s cohorts. In it, Wang laments the fact that Lu Xun never produced a novel and claims that because of that, Lu Xun does not deserve to be viewed as the great modern Chinese writer that he is lauded to be. He goes on to lament that Lu Xun wasted his talent, energy, and time on “critical essays” (杂文 zawen) which, in Wang’s view, do not possess much value because they are too political. This, of course, is not the first time that Wang Shuo went after a major modern Chinese writer. His irreverence towards both elite and

Chen Guoqiu (Peking University Press, 1993); “guominxing li lun zhiyi” (question the theory of national character) by Liu He Yu Ji Shu Xie (writings across linguistic boundaries) ed. Wang Weidong (Shanghai sanlian publishing house, 1999); Dangdai Yingyu Shifie de Lu Xun Yanjiu (Contemporary research on Lu Xun in the English Speaking World) ( Jiangxi renming chubanshe, 1993). 16 “Duanlie: yifen wenjuan he wushiliu fen daan” (Rupture: one questionnaire and fifty-six answers) compiled by Zhu Wen, Beijing Wenxue (Beijing Literature) no. 10 (1998): 19–40, 47. For Zhu Wen’s response to the reactions to this “event,” see Zhu Wen “Gouyan kanren” (looking at humans through dog’s eye), Fu Rong (Lotus) no. 5 (1999), 121–24. 17 Ge Hongbing, Deng Yiguang, Liu Chuan’e “Lu Xun: bei wudu de dashi” (Lu Xun: a misunderstood master), Fu Rong (Lotus) no. 5 (1999), 125–128. 18 Wang Shuo “Wo kan Lu Xun” Shou Huo no. 2 (2000), 127–132.

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popular cultural establishments was daring and remains a good tactic to attract public attention to himself. Besides the sensationalism, of course, is the issue of what this kind of attack represents culturally. Together with the irreverence represented by the two essays that were mentioned earlier, plus the survey published in Beijing Literature of fifty-six young writers, and Ge Hongbing’s pieces in Fu Rong (芙蓉) magazine, Wang Shuo’s response represents a rather emotional and total negation of Lu Xun. Such sentiment, now more commonly found on the internet in various chat rooms, constitutes part of contemporary Chinese cultural dynamics in which irreverent youth express their contempt towards what they see as outdated cultural establishments in an emotional and sensational fashion, something, I might add, that is often hyped by the media for its market value. Still, however, Wang Shuo’s contempt towards what he sees as a misplaced appraisal of Lu Xun as a writer reveals something more than youthful irreverence. It also represents a kind of nihilistic sarcasm somehow befitting the market-driven commercial materialism that has in fact become part of the mainstream culture in China. Skewed by his own success within this cultural milieu, Wang Shuo claims that he finds little value and use in “Lu Xun spirit” (鲁迅精神). Framing “Lu Xun spirit” narrowly within the dogma of Lu Xun’s style of scolding (鲁骂 Lu ma), a notion originated by such Lu Xun’s contemporaries as Lin Yutang (林语堂) (someone I will return to in the next section), Wang Shuo’s piece echoes Lin in its discomfort with Lu Xun’s criticism of some early 20th-century Chinese elitists’ smugness in a society facing profound challenges and uncertainties. Also, on a deeper level, it is a criticism of their refusal to recognize the unique complexity and richness of Lu Xun’s spirit informed both by a concrete historical moment and by concerns of broad universal implications in the larger (West-imposed) modern context. After Harvest published Wang Shuo’s article (along with two others which I will take up in the following section), Zhu Zhenguo (朱振国), a member of China’s Writers Association from Shaoxing (绍兴), Lu Xun’s hometown, sent an open letter to the Association entitled “What is the Purpose of Smearing Lu Xun?”19 He indignantly argues

19 Zhu Zhenguo “Biansun Lu Xun, yiwei ruhe.” First appeared in Shaoxing Ribao (Shaoxing Daily), May 25, 2000.

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that (Feng Jicai’s piece reduces Lu Xun to someone merely echoing Western missionaries’ prejudice against the Chinese and that Lin offers no more than a caricature of Lu Xun’s image) Wang Shuo smears Lu Xun in an irreverent and nasty manner merely for the purpose of being offensive. He also wonders about the point of these and other attacks that have been leveled at Lu Xun since the 1980s and questions the purpose of Harvest in running these articles and in effect continuing the attacks. He argues that “it is one thing to remove someone from a god-like shrine and return history its truthful face; it is quite another to use extreme methods such as a complete overturning or negation of a ‘god’ into a ‘ghost.’”20 In response to Zhu’s open letter, an editor from Harvest explained in an interview that the sole purpose in running the column was to provide a space for debate and for various opinions.21 “Since Lu Xun is a human being and not a god,” the editor maintains, “everybody has the right to express their views about him.”22 In brief, even these debates are only a fraction of what is out there about Lu Xun, what I have briefly sketched here is representative of a typical range of views and positions with regard to Lu Xun in post-Mao China. These different and contrasting voices indicate the changes in China’s cultural politics, in which truly conflicting views are expressed and different perspectives are presented albeit in this case through debates on Lu Xun. But more importantly, these debates help indicate the shifted and shifting political and ideological positions among intellectuals when divergent views raise questions about what informs difference and how to understand the positions within. Even though many of Lu Xun’s defenders may not always be able to fully appreciate his many-faceted complexity and contradictions, their emotional attachment to him nevertheless comes from a history that is layered, scarred, and deeply muddled; a history that produced someone like Lu Xun. It is an equally layered, scarred, and deeply

Ibid. In fact, the responses to the three pieces were so many that a collection of some of the essays was compiled shortly after the controversy. See: Lu Xun Fengbo (Controversy over Lu Xun) ed. Chen Shuyu, (Beijing: dazhong wenyi chubanshe, 2001). For additional readings on Lu Xun debates, see: Zhongguo Xiandai Wenxue Congkan vol. 3, 2001 (Beijing: zuojia chubanshe, 2001); Bei Xiedu de Lu Xun ed. Sun Yu (Beijing: qunyan chubanshe, 1994); Yige Dou Bu Kuanshu, ed. Chen Shuyu (Beijing: Zhongguo wenlian chubanshe: 1996). 22 Cheng Yongxin “Zoujin Lu Xun, yongxin liangku” (We are serious about getting closer to Lu Xun), ibid., 152. First appeared in Shaoxing Daily, June 7, 2000. 20 21

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muddled history that in turn informed the surplus of emotions on the part of those who debate either for or against Lu Xun’s importance and relevance. In what follows, I will focus on the other two articles which were published along with that of Wang Shuo’s in Harvest, to examine further some of the cultural developments in China as its intellectuals face rapid changes and try to make sense of them, some by way of Lu Xun. II. Contemporary Cultural Politics as Manifested through Debates about Lu Xun In 2000, the Shanghai-based literary magazine Harvest launched a column called, “Getting Closer to Lu Xun” (走近鲁迅), effectively offering yet another concentrated public space for debating about Lu Xun. The three articles that included the one by Wang Shuo’s mentioned above appeared early in the year. The other two pieces are by Feng Jicai and Lin Yutang (a republication), respectively, each focusing on one aspect of Lu Xun around which, I might add, many others have also expressed their views. The former centers around Lu Xun’s criticism of the “Chinese national character” (国民性) and criticizes it for being unduly influenced by Western missionaries, while the latter concerns Lu Xun’s role as a critic. I am interested in these two pieces because, even though they each represent two different critical positions, they are nevertheless highly representative of some of the major intellectual positions that have evolved over the last two and half decades. In order to revisit the question of Lu Xun’s legacy in the 21st century China, it is necessary that we recognize what informs these positions, how they influence the popular debates on Lu Xun, and where they leave Lu Xun at the end of the 20th-century and for what reasons. Feng Jicai is a writer from Tianjin known for his novel Sancun Jinlian (三寸金莲 Lotus Feet).23 Entitled “Lu Xun’s Contributions and ‘Mistakes’ (鲁迅的功与“过”),” Feng Jicai’s essay focuses on the alltoo-familiar character Ah Q (阿Q ) created by Lu Xun and Lu Xun’s criticism of the so-called Chinese national character. While acknowledging the significance of Lu Xun’s scathing criticism of the Chinese “national character,” Feng, taking his cue from the writings by a

23

Feng Jicai “Lu Xun de gong yu ‘guo’ ” Shou Huo no. 2 (2000), 123–126.

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number of scholars on “guominxing” (国民性), re-evokes the postcolonial discourse and calls Lu Xun’s criticism into question by wondering aloud whether or not Lu Xun was uncritically influenced by Western Orientalists such as missionary-turned-sinologist Arthur Smith, author of Chinese Characteristics.24 Armed with the notion of Orientalism, Feng argues for a need to view critically the connection between Lu Xun (and other early 20th-century Chinese intellectuals) and the various Western observations of “Chinese characteristics.” He argues that, unless the Chinese are able to recognize and acknowledge the connection (between Lu Xun and Western missionaries’ views of the Chinese), they will not be able to arrive at a better understanding of Lu Xun. Feng continues to contend that his deep respect for Lu Xun can only be sustained if this kind of complex entanglement in Lu Xun’s criticism (of Chinese “national character”) is fully recognized. By linking Lu Xun’s critical creation of Ah Q with Western missionaries’ views of the Chinese culture and people, Feng manages to “discover” Lu Xun’s “mistake.” To be sure, Feng also stresses the need to recognize the difference between the intention underlying Lu Xun’s criticism of China and that of the Western missionaries’ (racist) views of China. But Feng insists that while the latter provided a mirror of Chinese culture for Chinese intellectuals like Lu Xun, Lu Xun and his comrades accepted its negativity without questioning the mirror itself. Lu Xun’s mistake, according to Feng then, was that he failed to recognize the larger context of the “mirror” and who were holding it in front of the Chinese. In other words, Lu Xun inadvertently played the role of a Chinese Orientalist in his creation of the character Ah Q and in his scathing criticism of the “Chinese national character.” And yet, because his underlying intention was different from that of the missionaries, Lu Xun’s mistake, according to Feng, must be qualified, hence, the quotation marks around the word “guo” (过, mistake) in the title of his article. Feng’s piece, in essence, tackles the post-modern induced question regarding the role of Western hegemony in China’s pursuit of modernity. Buttressed by the postcolonial discourse, he goes directly after the

24 Liu He “Yige xiandaixing shenhua de youlai—guominxing huayu zhiyi” (The origin of the Chinese national character myth—questioning the “guo min xing” discourse), Wen Xue Shi (Studies in Literary History) vol. 1 eds. Chen Pingyuan and Chen Guoqiu (Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1993), 138–156; Liu He Yuji Shuxie—Xiandai Sixiangshi Pipan Gangyao (Translingual Writings—An Outline for A Critique of the History of Modern Ideas) (Shanghai sanlian shudian, 1999).

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(politics of the) creation of Ah Q, a character most Chinese have long accepted as Lu Xun’s most poignant criticism of the deeply rooted negative impact of the traditional Chinese culture on its people, putting Lu Xun on trial as a Chinese Orientalist for creating Ah Q. And yet, many have argued, and will continue to argue, that the creation of Ah Q was meant to generate a modern self-awareness on the part of the Chinese so that they could (and can) learn not to be slaves to any masters, be they Chinese or Western. In this sense, what the postcolonial (and postmodern) challenging or questioning of the creation of Ah Q actually does is demonstrate or reveal the dilemma facing modern Chinese intellectuals: it is impossible to understand Chinese modernity without acknowledging its entangled relationship with the West. The paradox lies in the fact that, on the one hand, Feng Jicai’s piece, by introducing an element of ambivalence in his interpretation of the character Ah Q , manages to complicate Lu Xun’s legacy vis-àvis what influenced Lu Xun’s perception and criticism. On the other hand, it also begs the question regarding the postcolonial discourse and its ambivalent role played, for example, in Feng’s criticism of Lu Xun and, by extension, of modern and contemporary Chinese history and the cultural politics within. That is, if one takes away the radical and historical nature of Ah Q as a center piece in Lu Xun’s critical thinking, what else informs the significance of Ah Q? Indeed, when Ah Q is identified merely as a Western-influenced negative portrait of the Chinese, Lu Xun’s role as the creator of the character is called into question and its radicalism crippled. Ironically, therefore, in spite of his stated intention, Feng’s interpretation of Lu Xun’s criticism of traditional Chinese culture is a sneaky deconstruction of the significance of Lu Xun, a deconstruction realized by an uncritical adoption of postcolonial theory that is in essence buttressed by an Eurocentric world view in its assessment of the Westimposed drive towards modernity in non-Western societies. As such, it reveals at least one drawback of the post-colonial discourse manifested in Feng’s application: that is, it allows Feng the liberty to choose to ignore the political nature of the (colonial) historical context in which the character of Ah Q was created.25 The context was one in which intellectuals like Lu Xun acutely felt and responded to the relationship

25 A similar criticism is made by Wang Weidong in his discussion of “guominxing” in conjunction with the two articles by Liu He in which she foregrounds a similar criticism as that of Feng Jicai’s on Lu Xun’s criticism of Chinese national character.

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between Western (and Japanese) aggressions and the fundamental need for China to change in order to resist such aggressions. The reality was that China’s quest for modernity was irrevocably entangled with Western aggressions, Western influences, a sense of humiliation, and the need to emulate the West, and this reality, I believe, was never lost on Lu Xun. His struggle was to find a way to face and deal with that highly ambivalent reality. While Feng’s faulting of Lu Xun may sound “post-colonially correct” to some people, its “effect” is no more than the addition of one more layer of ambivalence in the postmodern-induced reassessment of China’s pursuit of modernity. It does not alter the fact that the mirror held in front of Lu Xun is still held by the powerful West and that Lu Xun was not unaware of the force that thrust the mirror in front of him, and that is why he was more than just critical of traditional Chinese culture alone. What is more, Feng appears to be unaware of the fact that his own choice of questioning the creation of Ah Q could be more related to the fact that focusing on Ah Q was part of the 1980s’ new “Enlightenment” cultural movement, something that in effect simplified Lu Xun’s critical spirit which is far more complex than his scathing characterization of Ah Q. It was the new “Enlightenment” movement intellectuals of the 1980s, in other words, who shone the limelight onto the character of Ah Q in their urge to “enlighten” the masses again. Their re-evocation of Lu Xun was a relatively simplistic one and as a result, Feng’s postcolonial critique in response does not go beyond the underlying simplicity of this new “enlightenment” re-evocation of Lu Xun. In other words, Feng’s criticism of Lu Xun’s creation of Ah Q (along with many other Lu Xun scholars’ attention on Ah Q ) continues along the line of an understanding of Lu Xun which has unfortunately simplified and narrowed Lu Xun’s critical stance and landscape. From the various debates Lu Xun carried out with many of his contemporaries, we know that Lu Xun was in fact far more critical of those who assume that they are more awake than others and yet have little or no self-knowledge about their own complexity and failings. Lu Xun, in other words, demanded a lot from intellectuals and the social-cultural elite when he believed that, to modernize China, they were the ones who should be responsible for leading the way. Whether or not the post-modern ethos of our times is capable of allowing many to take such a demand seriously, Lu Xun’s demand and his unwillingness to relent constitute the very essence of his legacy. As I will argue later, it

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is with this recognition that we are able to see the connection between Lu Xun and our times. The case involving Lin Yutang in fact helps further demonstrate the complexity of Lu Xun’s critical stance. Lin was a Lu Xun’s contemporary and was rather harshly criticized by Lu Xun. Lin responded, among other things, with satirical remarks in this “eulogy” (悼鲁迅 Dao Lu Xun) written shortly after Lu Xun’s death when Lin was living in New York.26 Although it is not a contemporary piece, the editors of Harvest chose to run it along side Wang Shuo’s and Feng Jicai’s, juxtaposing the contemporary criticism with that of Lu Xun’s own time. Writing in a classical style, Lin wonders aloud what will become of Lu Xun’s legacy, a legacy, according to him, that is littered with Lu Xun’s unkind words (of criticism—namely “maren” 骂人) for many people. Indeed, Lin spends the entire piece satirizing Lu Xun for his unrelenting way of going after virtually everyone with whom he disagreed. Lin writes, apparently parodying Lu Xun himself, that “rather than calling Lu Xun a man of letters, we should call him a soldier. Why a soldier? It is because he would not be happy if he did not wear armored clothes or carry a spear with him. Even if there were no battle to fight or spear to carry, it would make him happy if he could simply pick up a stone and manage to hit a dog. This was a typical image of Lu Xun.”27 As we know, from the various public arguments during the 1920s and 30s between Lu Xun and those he strongly disagreed with, Lin’s blatant displeasure with Lu Xun was representative of a sentiment shared by those who had not been spared by Lu Xun’s sharp pen. Harvest’s rerun of Lin’s piece conjured up, once again, the image of Lu Xun as a bad-tempered, unkind, ungenerous, mean-spirited, narrow-minded, partisan individual, an image many in his own time went out of their way to reinforce. This republication, then, helps rekindle the notion of Lu Xun’s “scolding” which in the reform era has been sarcastically dubbed as Lu Xun’s way of scolding (鲁骂 lu ma). Originating in the likes of Lin Yutang due to their personal grudge against Lu Xun, criticism of “Lu Xun’s way of scolding” has taken on a life of its own in the last two decades and has become one of the favorite topics for those who have chosen to side with Lu Xun’s Lin Yutang, Ibid., 133–134. First appeared in Yuzhou Feng (Universal wind) vol. 32 in January 1937. 27 Lin Yutang “Dao Lu Xun,” Lu Xun Fengbo ed. Chen Shuyu (Beijing: dazhong wenyi chubanshe, 2001), 144. 26

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“enemies.” Among the most outspoken ones is Shao Jian (邵建), a columnist for Fiction Review (小说评论 Xiao Shuo Ping Lun). Throughout the year 2003, he wrote in his column a series of pieces on Lu Xun’s publicized debates with Hu Shi (胡适) and Shi Cunzhe (施存蛰) in the 1920s and 30s. Shao mainly focuses on what he refers to as “lu ma” and criticizes Lu Xun for what Shao sees as unfair public criticism of these two men (and, by implication, many others as well). In the piece on Lu Xun and Shi Cunzhe, the author first retells the story (as recounted by Shi Zhecun) in which Lu Xun is said to have used a different pen name or two and published essays criticizing Shi Zhecun’s suggesting Zhuang Zi (庄子) and Wen Xuan (文选) as recommended readings for the young.28 Shao then argues that “so long as Shi’s article and the examples he offered in it are concerned, no matter how I read them, I do not see the need for criticism. Aren’t those things just a matter of personal taste? Why make a big fuss about it?”29 Applying jargon of his own times, Shao goes on to say that, “Lu Xun could not tolerate difference (差异). . . . What is not respectable is his ‘teleological’ (目的论 mudi lun) way of thinking. . . . People all say that Lu Xun was a liberal, but I don’t see how he could be one. . . . For a long period of time, this kind of teleological way of thinking and certain nonnegotiable principles (硬道理) have interfered with individual rights (个人权 利) [to speak up] and have done so armed with various kinds of grand narrative (宏大叙事).”30 If Feng Jicai uses postcolonial theory to question Lu Xun’s creation of Ah Q , Shao Jian borrows words directly from post-structualism discourse, such as “chayi” (difference) “mudilun” (teleology), and “hongda xushi” (grand narrative), regardless of whether or not any of them actually apply and in what ways.31 Although Shao does not explain what he means by these post-modern jargons, it is indicative of how much these terms have been assumed to the extent that they have become mere labels when applied in writings like that of Shao’s. If Feng presents a post-colonially-incorrect Lu Xun, in his version of “fair play,” Shao’s application of these labels presents a

28 Shao Jian “Shi Lu zhi zheng” (debate between Shi and Lu), Xiaoshuo Pinglun (Fiction Review) April, 2003, 15. 29 Ibid., 16. 30 Ibid., 17. 31 Wang Peiyuan “Ye tan Lu Xun de ‘maren’ ji ‘shi lu zhizheng,’ ” (also about Lu Xun’s way of scolding and his debate with She Zhecun) Zhonghua Dushu Bao (Chinese Review of Books) April 28 (2004), 6.

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seemingly post-structurally-challenged Lu Xun. And yet the critic fails to realize that he himself may be truly post-structurally challenged when he fails to address what might have informed the “difference” between Lu Xun and Shi Zhecun and why Lu Xun bothered to go after that seemingly innocuous difference in opinion. Continuing along the line of Lin Yutang’s and Shaojian’s indignation, Liu Xiaofeng (刘小枫), in his recent book Zheng Jiu Yu Xiao Yao (拯救与逍遥 Salvation and Free Spirit), identifies Lu Xun as a “cold and vicious scoundrel” (阴冷, 阴毒的无赖), culminating their version of “fair play” with Lu Xun by resorting to name-calling and psychologically analyzing Lu Xun in a moralistic manner.32 Indeed, many of those who denounce “Lu Xun style of scolding” end up attacking him not on issues but on his personality, portraying Lu Xun as, well, “humanistically challenged.” As we recall, “fair play” was re-evoked by Wang Meng in the early 1980s. But when it comes to the turn of the 21st century, the call for “fair play” becomes something quite different from two decades earlier. When Wang Meng’s call was made during a time in which Lu Xun had been put on a “god-like” pedestal and the humanistic movement of the time was to call for returning Lu Xun to a historical human being, by the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, the negative views on Lu Xun have turned him into a ghost-like figure. Indeed, Wang Hui’s worry about the sage-ization of Lu Xun not only seems no longer necessary but the aesthetics of his version of the ghost-like Lu Xun (as a critical spirit) has also been replaced by constant attempts that demonize Lu Xun. What is interesting about Lu Xun and the never-ending controversies and debates around him, however, is that he may well be the Chinese version of the “never-ending Shakespeare.” In the midst of the various attacks, there are always many contrasting voices. Among them are a few responses, to the aforementioned three articles, published also in the same “getting close to Lu Xun” column in Harvest. Chen Sihe (陈思和), a professor of Chinese at Fudan University, for example, wrote a piece called “My Third Comment on Lu Xun’s Scolding [or, Lu Xun’s Style of Criticism]” (三论鲁迅的骂人 Sanlun Lu Xun de maren).33 In it, Chen offered a brief account of his own Liu Xiaofeng Zhengjiu yu Xiaoyao (Salvation and Free Spirit) (Shanghai sanlian shudian, 2001). 33 Chen Sihe “Sanlun Lu Xun de maren” (My third comment on Lu Xun’s scolding), Shou Huo no. 4 (2000), 49–57. 32

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participation in past debates on Lu Xun throughout the 1990s. In 1991, he states, he wrote his first piece, “On Lu Xun’s Scolding” (鲁 迅的骂人 Lu Xun de maren; “maren” here means criticism which pulls no punches). At the time, in 1991, Chen points out, Liang Shiqiu (梁实秋) was in vogue again while Lu Xun came to be known as a mean-spirited individual going after Liang, unmercifully and therefore wrongly, with his unrelentingly sharp pen.34 Chen’s second piece “Again, on Lu Xun’s Style of Criticism” (再论鲁迅的骂人 zailun Lu Xun de maren) appeared in 1996 when “being kind and generous (宽 容)” and “multiplicity (多元)” were in vogue . . . and when people made Lu Xun appear like a terrible person, as if the spirit of generosity was going to be destroyed by this intellectual who spent his entire life in pursuit of spiritual freedom.”35 Needless to say, Chen’s third piece, in Harvest, was in response to yet another round of controversy generated in early 2000 by the magazine. He writes: “The reason that today’s China still needs Lu Xun is not because he was once important. Rather it is precisely because in today’s China, Lu Xun’s spirit (including his uncertainty and confusion) can continue to help contemporary intellectuals better recognize the nature of Chinese society and of its people’s existence.”36 He continues “Sometimes I cannot help but feel lucky that the 20th-century Chinese literature had Lu Xun, just like modern Europe had Kafka. The latter clearly experienced the depression and despair of modern civilization while the former was deeply doubtful of his own country’s elite’s pursuit of Western modernity. . . . Only Lu Xun was willing to remain in reality where he had to fight with various ghosts on earth . . .”37 Echoing Chen Sihe, but from a somewhat different angle, was a Shanghai-based writer named Chen Cun (陈村). Perhaps as a gesture of defiance, he simply titled his piece “Wo ai Lu Xun” (我爱鲁迅 I love Lu Xun).38 Lu Xun, he writes, “is a mirror.” The difference between him and other mirrors is that there are too many clowns in front of the mirror that is Lu Xun.”39 He goes on to say, “I do not like the fact that 34 Here, Chen refers to the post-1989 “fanan feng” or “correct the record” among certain intellectual circles when, for the first time, a major backlash against Lu Xun was waged. 35 Shou Huo no. 4 (2000), 50. 36 Chen Sihe, Ibid., 50. 37 Ibid., 50. 38 Chen Cun “Wo ai Lu Xun” (I Love Lu Xun), Shou Huo vol. 6, 2000, 92–94. 39 Chen Cun, Ibid., 93.

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these days, Lu Xun has become an excuse for [debating about] other things and not the person himself. . . . Regardless of what people say, as someone who was born and grew up in China, I see various kinds of people and hear about things everyday that are just like those created by Lu Xun.” “How can I say otherwise about Lu Xun?” he asks and goes on to say that, “let others feel it is a misfortune for China to have had Lu Xun and for him [his spirit] to continue to exist. For me, to have ‘met’ Lu Xun is the only luck I have had in my unlucky life.”40 By linking Lu Xun’s writings with his own daily existence, Chen Cun suggests that Lu Xun’s relevance today goes beyond the grand theory that scholars like to make it out to be and exists, rather, in the kinds of human drama in everyday life that Lu Xun wrote about and which continue to exist in today’s society. It is precisely Lu Xun’s portrayals of human drama, Chen Cun insists, that continue to provide sharp lenses today for individuals like himself to see and to understand the complexity of human existence (in the Chinese context). Needless to say, for both Chens, Lu Xun cannot be more relevant in today’s China. And for them, the relevance hinges, precisely, on Lu Xun’s well-known critical spirit: Lu Xun did not hesitate to face directly the deeply entangled tensions within “Chinese modernity,” and did so critically. So far as these critics are concerned, in other words, what is perceived by Feng Jicai as Lu Xun’s mistake and what is trivialized by those who strongly dislike Lu Xun’s way of criticizing do not matter that much in the end. What matters is not whether or not Lu Xun was human-being enough to engage in criticism but rather the fact that his criticism continues to resonate. And the postmodern break, demonstrated in Feng’s postcolonial-discourse-informed argument in linking Lu Xun’s criticism with “grand narrative” and Shao’s criticism of Lu Xun’s supposed intolerance with “difference,” while also injecting a new ambivalence into the mix, does not answer the question of whether or not Lu Xun is still relevant in the 21st-century China. The two Chens’ responses, on the other hand, bring us back to the very question implied so far in this essay: if, in spite of all the debates (or, precisely because of them), Lu Xun is still relevant today, what is his legacy?

40

Chen Cun, Ibid., 94.

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In addition to the two Chens, there are many others, including Qian Liqun (钱理群), Wang Hui, Deng Yiguang (邓一光), and Liu Chuan’e (刘川鄂) (the two scholars who joined but differed from Ge Hongbing in their discussions of Lu Xun), who insist on the importance of recognizing Lu Xun’s relevance and on the need to understand better his legacy in contemporary China.41 At the same time, there are others who in different ways proclaim that Lu Xun is no longer relevant. This is where I would like to return to Wang Hui’s 1988 article, mentioned earlier, in which he criticized the establishment of Lu Xun study at the time and the direction it had taken after the end of the Cultural Revolution, and in which he argued for a need to move beyond the confines of the existing framework within which Lu Xun had been studied and (mis)understood. This is also where my discussion moves from debates about Lu Xun as a person to debates about Lu Xun study, although I must quickly point out that these are two different but related aspects of the Lu Xun lun zheng. One prophetic aspect of Wang Hui’s article, other than his criticism of the ideological binds and blinds in the then Lu Xun study, is his insistence on recognizing the complexity of Lu Xun both himself as a historical figure and his paradoxical but unrelenting critical spirit. He argues that the dominant tendency in Lu Xun studies of the 1980s “turned Lu Xun—someone who did not argue about permanence of any kind and who relentlessly demonstrated the transient nature of reality—into someone that symbolizes ‘absoluteness’ (绝对 juedui ) and ‘holiness (神圣 shensheng).’”42 He goes on to point out that the official Lu Xun Study shuns the complex and difficult but important aspects in Lu Xun and even declares them to be unbefitting of the “new era.” He argues that such a position is based on “a fear that Lu Xun’s relentless critical spirit can reveal the transient nature and limitations (暂时 性和局限性 zanshixing he juxianxing) of our current life time (当代生活 dangdai shenghuo) and can continue to function as a powerful resource

41 See Wang Hui Fankang Juewang (Resisting Despair) (Hebei jiaoyu chuban she/ Hebei Education Press, 2000); Qian Liquan Yu Lu Xun Xiangyu (Encountering Lu Xun) (Sanlian Chubanshe, 2003); Ge Hongbing, Deng Yiguang, and Liu Chuan’e “Lu Xun: bei wudu de dashi” (Lu Xun: a misunderstood master) Fu Rong (Lotus) no. 5 (1999), 125–128. 42 Wang Hui “Lu Xun yanyiu de lishi pipan,” 7.

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from which desire for change will arise.”43 He further argues that the then dominant discourse in Lu Xun Study, “though praising him as a ‘mirror,’ . . . nevertheless situates his significance in the past. Lu Xun’s spirit, as result, is no longer recognized as itself a life force (生活的力量 shenghuo de liliang) nor a revolutionary one. [ Lu Xun scholars] refuse to see Lu Xun as what used and continues to be a historical force alive in the midst of changes and conflicts.”44 Consequently, Wang Hui maintains, Lu Xun study at the time has lost its value and significance in two ways. First, “because we [as Lu Xun scholars] do not try to learn to be self-critical by way of recognizing [the importance of ] Lu Xun’s critical spirit, nor do we try to recognize the fact that there is an unbroken connection between what Lu Xun criticized and negated and what exist in our own time, we have failed to understand [the ways in which] Lu Xun’s critical spirit is relevant in our present time. The second loss has to do with the fact that we frame Lu Xun Study within a pre-determined ideological paradigm within which Lu Xun is disconnected from both historical and real life experiences. As a result, we turn him into that which is ‘absolute’ (绝对 juedui ) and ‘god like’ (神化 shenhua).”45 The significance of Wang Hui’s criticism, though made to criticize the state of Lu Xun Study in the 1980s, lies in the fact that it remains on target when read against the backdrop of Lu Xun lun zheng as it went on within the changed and changing condition of the last one and half decades. Wang’s criticism goes beyond challenging the ideological framework of the then dominant discourse in Lu Xun Study; it in essence questions any kind of attempt to fossilize Lu Xun and make him obsolete. Wang Hui’s criticism, therefore, can be re-evoked when we encounter the seemingly de-politicized and cynical kinds of attacks on Lu Xun found in the examples given above and in the more recent ones, all of which share a similar treatment of Lu Xun, namely disconnecting the relevance of his critical spirit from historical and real-life experiences. Zhang Yiwu’s (张颐武) call for transcending Lu Xun (超 越鲁迅 chaoyue Lu Xun) is one such example. In his “New Literature That has been ‘Transformed’ and ‘Replaced’ ” (被转化和被替代的新文学 Bei ‘zhuanhuan’ he bei ‘tidai’ de xinwenxue),

43 44 45

Ibid., 7. Ibid., 7. Ibid., 7.

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Zhang appears quite excited about a Japanese China scholar’s article titled, in Chinese, “Is It Still Necessary to Talk about Lu Xun in the 21st Century? (二十一世纪鲁迅是否还值得谈 er shi yi shi ji lu xun shi fou hai zhi de tan).46 Zhang first cites this scholar who states that “Lu Xun mainly exists in ‘modernity’ (鲁迅基本上是存在于 “现代性” 当中的) Because of this, I am afraid that, for Japan, China (mainly its major cities), and Korea in the 21st century, there does not exist social conditions based on which the masses will continue to accept Lu Xun. In other words, it is no longer possible for young people there to be interested [in Lu Xun]. Cultural globalization (文化全球化 wenhua quanqiuhua) has enhanced (促进 cujin) this condition . . .”47 Echoing this claim, Zhang states that “actually most people do not try to negate Lu Xun’s historical value. The problem has to do with that, through reflecting on Lu Xun, we actually discover a ‘fissure’ (裂痕 lieheng) between Lu Xun and the reality in present China. . . . There is no question that there is a vast difference (巨大的差异 juda de chayi) between Lu Xun’s historical vision and cultural judgment (文化判断 wenhua panduan) and our present time (当下 dangxia). Lu Xun has become a cultural classic (文化经典 wenhua jingdian) in an absolute sense (绝对意义 juedui yiyi), no longer someone who in a significant way has any realistic function.”48 Identifying Lu Xun as being like such cultural figures as Qu Yuan (屈原), Li Bai (李白), and Cao Xueqing (曹雪芹), Zhang declares that Lu Xun “is no longer a spiritual leader (精神导师 jingshen daoshi) in our lives (现实中的 xianshi zhong de). He now belongs to literary history, transcended by the current globalization and the new reality in China.” “It does not mean,” Zhang goes on to state “that this is a historical tragedy for Lu Xun. On the contrary, this is precisely what Lu Xun himself hoped for—finally, in Chinese history, there is a new beginning . . .”49 In China, Zhang Yiwu is known as someone who most actively embraced “post-ism” or hou-xue (后学) and is therefore nicknamed as hou zhu (后主) or the master of “post-ism.” While the jury is still out on how to assess the historical significance of his role in introducing postmodern theories into China, what is stated above in his assessment

46 Zhang Yiwu “Bei ‘zhuanhuan’ he bei ‘tidai’ de xinwenxue,” Wenxue Ziyoutan (Forum for free discussion on literature) no. 4 (2004), 83–90. 47 Ibid., 84. 48 Ibid., 85. 49 Ibid., 85.

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of Lu Xun’s legacy appears to indicate that this is an example of “postism” run amuck, especially in his assessment of the current historical conditions. For to be the master of “post-ism,” “modernity” simply means the past and “globalization” means a new beginning for China. It is obvious that Zhang fails to see, precisely, what Lu Xun was able to see sixty-some years earlier, as pointed out by Wang Hui, behind what appears to be new and different, one must always be conscious of the historical relations that inform assumed beliefs and moralities, and of the existing power relations (统治关系 tongzhi guanxi) and their reproductive mechanisms.50 Zhang’s pronouncement not only reveals a fallacy in his understanding of the “postmodern”—which to him simply means a new stage beyond “modernity”—but it also indicates a subsequent regression on his part in retreating from a necessary historical dialecticism. After jumping on the (wrong wagon) of the postmodern discourse, he forgets to ask, what his “new beginning” is based on and where it is heading. What is more, whether or not it is Zhang’s willful reluctance to recognize the limitations of postmodern theories and the problematic relationship between these theories and the postmodern condition buttressed by the globalizing capitalist power relations and ideology, Zhang simply cannot wish Lu Xun away. His simplistic acceptance of a supposed historical disconnection, in this case, between “modernity” and postmodern globalization suggests, precisely, why Lu Xun is highly relevant today. Indeed, what Zhang and others like the Japanese China scholar he quoted do constitute the other side of the coin of the Lu Xun Study questioned by Wang Hui. That is, by way of a postmodern version of trivialization, they fail to understand the complexity of modern Chinese history and, on that basis, they fail to understand the fact that Lu Xun’s relevance does not hinge on how on the surface China and the Chinese have changed. It hinges upon keeping alive the awareness to question the power relations that inform “reality,” regardless of whether it is perceived to be in stagnation or undergoing rapid transformation. The irony in Zhang’s case is that relegating Lu Xun to the “past” by way of postmodern claims is not dissimilar to the earlier official dogma found in Lu Xun Study in which Lu Xun was made to fit a political discourse which, in turn, minimized

50

Fankang Juewang (Resisting Despair), 18–46.

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his continuing significance. In both cases, Lu Xun and his legacy are rendered frozen in time. What critics like Zhang fail to realize, in other words, is that so long as there remain such questions as those mentioned at the beginning of this essay and so long as the underlying power dynamics and their historicity are key to one’s understanding of any social and economic conditions, Lu Xun’s legacy—his relentless critical spirit and his skepticism of any absolute claims—will remain relevant. Additionally, as the harshest critic of the society in which he lived, Lu Xun’s writings as a whole will continue to compel the Chinese society, especially its intellectuals, to be aware of the need to constantly re-evaluate themselves. Lu Xun lunzheng in the last two and half decades is closely related to different intellectual groups’ assessment of this legacy in conjunction with their understanding of the current social and political condition in China. In this sense, then, the essence of the contemporary Lu Xun lunzheng must be understood as more than about the man and his work. It is symptomatic of the fact that there exist different ideological stances among intellectuals in China today and the essence of the debate, to echo the point I made at the beginning of this essay, must be studied and understood in conjunction with the changed and changing interpretations of modern Chinese history in the larger transpacific context and in the context of the political economy of the globalization. The emotional connection with Lu Xun found in such critics as Chen Sihe, Chen Cun, and Wang Hui (expressed in the new Introduction of his book Resisting Despair [反抗绝望 Fankang Juewang, 2000]) must be understood as a recognition, on their part, of the connection between their own social and political concerns about contemporary China—where China is heading—and Lu Xun’s unrelenting efforts in calling for such an awareness. In concrete terms, like Lu Xun himself whose criticisms are often both specific and transcendent at the same time, their re-thinking of Lu Xun in cultural terms must be understood within contemporary socioeconomic context of their own, in which, according to He Qinglian, the self-interest-based model of modernity is an accomplice to the corrupting practices of the resource-redistribution that are causing a rapidly increasing gap between the rich and the poor.51

51 He Qinglian, Xiandaihua de Xianjing (Traps of Modernization) (Beijing: Jinri zhongguo chuban she, 1998).

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By now, I have offered enough key differences in the debates for us to turn to the question of Lu Xun’s legacy itself. On this issue alone, many Lu Xun scholars have offered their views. Among them, the recurrent theme echoes that which is implied in Wang Hui’s critical assessment of the Lu Xun Study, namely Lu Xun’s legacy lies in his critical spirit and, more importantly, in what Wang Hui identifies as it being a living source of life and a source for Lu Xun’s kind of revolution—relentlessly critical of both one’s self and the social reality at large. Lu Xun’s critical spirit, that is, is a legacy that is fundamentally necessary and therefore positive for the Chinese society. This essence of the Lu Xun spirit and legacy is nicely summarized by Lin Fei (林非), a Lu Xun scholar, as “respecting individuality and promoting critical spirit” (尊个性张精神 zun gexing zhang jingshen).52 These two aspects are further summarized by Lin Fei as “li ren” (立人 or literally: help human beings stand up and stand straight) which suggests that the legacy of Lu Xun continues to remain (1) in the paradoxical dynamics between his hope for “Enlightenment” and his skepticism in its possibility and (2) in his willingness to fight for it in spite of his own doubts.53 Given the current nature of debates about Lu Xun (from some of the examples mentioned earlier especially the latest one regarding Zhang Yiwu), it is not altogether clear whether or not Wang Hui’s latest re-evocation of Lu Xun will succeed in persuading Lu Xun’s 21st-century detractors to recognize Lu Xun’s relevance in China. And yet, also given the existence of the debates, regardless of whether the “real” Lu Xun wanted it or not, his relentless combative spirit, his seemingly dark vision of certain Chinese cultural legacies, and his propensity for pessimism about China’s future, juxtaposed with his resistance against despair and with his relentless insistence on engaging with the reality in which he found himself, remain a major part of the cultural resources as well as inspiration for many Chinese, intellectuals or otherwise. In his dark and gloomy way, Lu Xun always reminds us (both Chinese and non-Chinese) of the need to be conscious of the 52 Zhang Mengyang, “jianshi er jingshen de lu xun yanjiu zhuan jia—lin fei,” Lu Xun Yanjiu Niankan (The Yearly of Lu Xun Studies) (1990), 522–528. The word “jingshen” in Chinese is a difficult one to translate. No English word carries a wide enough connotation to convey the multi-faceted meaning in this word. In the context of Lu Xun’s own life and writings, I believe the word jingshen is used to refer to the essence of Lu Xun’s critical spirit. 53 Ibid., 522.

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ugly side of human civilizations, modern or otherwise. Wang Hui’s call for “resisting despair,” though, like that of Lu Xun’s, is mostly a lonely call in the wilderness where the masses have been mobilized to view pursuit of a wealth and self-interest as positive forces of modernity, can be understood as an echo to Lu Xun’s call for a need to create critical-thinking citizens who are capable of understanding the economic, political, and social sources of their “despair” and thereby capable of arriving at a critical position that understands the reason for resistance. Marshall Berman, I might add, should have included Lu Xun in his discussion of “the experience of modernity” by way of a reconsideration of modernism; like Goethe, Marx, and other figures he discusses in his All That is Solid Melts into Air, Lu Xun is a true modernist who has foreseen the postmodern condition and the ironies of it all in our own times.54 In the end, I argue, Lu Xun’s deeply entangled contradictions— pursuit for modernity and its discontent—have finally become more relevant in contemporary China, perhaps more so than his own time: the essence of the Lu Xun-related debates lies in the tension between different visions of a modernized China. By way of debating about Lu Xun, there lies a possibility of a much needed critical stance about the social and political conditions in post-revolution China. Such a critical stance is potentially in opposition to the interests of an emerging urban middle class who wish to be confirmed by the cultural elite like Lin Yutang in indulging in their new-found leisure and modern style of living while turning a blind eye to the suffering of hundreds of millions of peasants and workers and many other consequences of the economic reforms, wishing they would all somehow miraculously go away. This, I believe, is precisely why Lu Xun’s relevance will continue to exist in China for a long time to come. The question, of course, remains: what does his relevance entail in a time, identified by Dai Jinghua (戴锦华) as a shehui pipan quexi de shidai (社会批判缺席的 时代), when social criticism, especially the kind advocated by Lu Xun, is (mostly) absent?55

Marshall Berman, All That is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity (New York: Penguin Books, 1982). 55 Dai Jinghua “Dazhong wenhua de yinxing zhengzhixue” (Invisible politics of the popular culture), Tian Ya (Frontier) no. 2 (1999), 41. 54

PROGRESS THEORY: THE CONSTRAINT ON CHINA’S CULTURAL RENAISSANCE He Qing Translated by Adrian Thieret “Progress theory” (进步论) is a direct Chinese translation of the French l’idée du progrès, which is also called progressivism (进步主义). Not many people are familiar with this concept; however, all educated Chinese know of progress theory in its social history formulation, as “social evolutionary theory” (社会进化论). In this essay, the “progress theory” accused of restricting China’s Cultural Renaissance refers to this “social evolutionary theory.” Fifteen years ago in 1990, when I wrote Modern and Post-Modern,1 I had already pointed out the great damage caused by progress theory to Chinese cultural and especially contemporary Chinese society. The deep feelings of inferiority brought to the Chinese people by progress theory “is the greatest disaster of contemporary China. It is more severe than China’s population problem or economic problem. It in fact touches upon the question of whether five thousand years of Chinese culture can continue to exist, and also relates to the survival of the Chinese nation (中华民族),” because “a nation that has lost confidence in its own culture and considers itself culturally inferior cannot possibly last long in this world.” In 1998–1999 I wrote another book, titled Bury Progress Theory (埋葬 进步论) to specifically deal with progress theory, but could not find an appropriate domestic publisher until 2004, when the book was finally published by Yunnan People’s Press under the title Decoding Progress Theory: Setting the Record Straight on Chinese Culture.2 1 First published under the title Xiandai yu houxiandai: Xifang yishu wenhua xiaoshi 现 代与后现代: 西方艺术文化小史 [Modern and Postmodern: A Concise History of Western Art Culture] (Hong Kong: Sanlian shudian 三联书店, 1994; and Beijing: Zhongguo meishu xueyuan chubanshe 中国美术学院出版社, 1998). Republished as Xiandai, tai xiandai le 现代, 太现代了! [Modern, too Modern! ] (Beijing: Zhongguo renmin daxue chubanshe 中国人民大学出版社, 2004). 2 Jiepo jinbulun: wei Zhongguo wenhua zhengming 破解进步论—为中国文化正名, (Yunnan: Yunnan renmin chubanshe 云南人民出版社, 2004).

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“Progress theory,” or “social evolutionary theory,” can be considered a fundamental question of cultural theory underlying contemporary China’s politics, economics, cultural, art (including city buildings), and other phenomena. Many of the ills and problems in contemporary society stem from progress theory. So, what is “progress theory” (“social evolutionary theory”)? Actually, this theory which has greatly influenced contemporary Chinese people comes from the West. It was produced recently, only two hundred and some years ago. Social evolutionary theory was first advanced in prototype form by Condorcet, a marquis during the time of the French revolution, meaning it was invented during China’s Qianlong reign period. In the historical conception of the Chinese people, the Qianlong period feels just like yesterday. The marquis was affected by the proliferation of English and French colonies around the world and the remarkable technological progress of European society, and wrote the book Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind. This was the first delineation of his ten stages of human progress. He sanguinely proclaimed that human society will progress alongside the progress of technology, and experience, spirit, and morality will also all progress limitlessly. In the 19th century, many versions of “progress theory” and “social evolutionary theory” appeared in the West. First was Hegel’s construction of a solid philosophical base for “progress theory.” Hegel was the first person to systematically and meticulously describe human history as a process of “progress.” Engels praised him saying that the great merit of the Hegelian system is that within it “for the first time the whole world, natural, historical, intellectual, is represented as a process, i.e., as in constant motion, change, transformation, development; and the attempt is made to trace out the internal connection that makes a continuous whole of all this movement and development.”3 In other words, Hegel created a linear (course) and teleological (progress) conception of history. Next, August Comte’s tri-phase “social evolutionary theory” separated human history into the three phases of theological, metaphysical, and scientific. When Darwin presented his On the Origin of Species in 1859, his theory of biological evolution gave an unprecedented boost

3 Frederick Engels, “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific,” in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Selected Works in One Volume (New York: International Publishers, 1968), 413.

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to social evolutionary theory. Around this time, Herbert Spencer in his 1857 “Progress: Its Law and Cause” and in his 1864 Principles of Biology introduced biological evolutionary theory to social evolutionary theory, and believed that “survival of the fittest” applies to the world of human culture as well as the biological world. Then, in 1877 Lewis Morgan published Ancient Society, in which he proposed a three-stage social evolutionary theory of savagery, barbarism, and civilization, using the criterion of technology. Later the five-stage social evolutionary theory based on production appeared, with which we are all familiar. In the 1940s and 50s, Leslie White’s four-stage social evolutionary theory using the consumption of energy as criterion appeared in the West. He used the equation ET=C (energy multiplied by technology equals culture) to divide human social evolution into these stages: first, humans utilize their own abilities; then they utilize animals, plants, water, and wind; then coal, oil, and natural gas; and final nuclear power. This has been dubbed an “energy-based translation of historical materialism.” Surveying these different versions of “progress theory” or “social evolutionary theory,” we can induce the following four main characteristics: 1. The straight line of time. In most forms of human culture, people generally understand time as cyclical, founded on the natural cyclical changes of night/day and the seasons. However, “progress theory” encompasses a linear conception of time. It places all of human society’s rich history on a single straight timeline, and is in fact a manmade abstraction, a product of the Western “modern person’s” quest to grasp time and control history. One of the four characteristics of “modernity” is “worship of the new.”4 Meaning to value, on a straight timeline, abandonment of the old and pursuit of the new (destruction of the old and establishment of the new), negation of the past, negation of tradition, and worship of the new person, the new era, and the new world. Examined closely, it is related to “progress theory’s” linear conception of time. 2. The universalism (世界主义) of human similarity. “Progress theory” is based on the conception of humanity as an integrated whole and does not distinguish between ethnicities. All human societies will

4 The four characteristics of Western Modernity are: human centrism, individual centrism, progress theory, and worship of the new. See my Modern and Post-Modern.

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inevitably experience this kind of “progress” or “social evolution.” In other words, regardless of ethnic, geographical, historical, and cultural differences, humans all share the same rationality, same standards of good, evil, beautiful, and ugly, same material and spiritual needs, and all will experience the same pattern of history. Therefore, humanity is heading toward a kind of universalism. 3. The West as cultural center. This superficial universalism of human similarity is not a universalism in which all nations are equal. Rather, it manifests as Western-centric, because all of the aforementioned “progress theories” and “social evolutionary theories” took contemporary European “civilization” as the criterion with which to judge other societies. In particular, they judge the progress of society by materialist criterion such as “technology,” “productivity,” and “energy.” If a society’s productivity level is high, its level of cultural progress is also high. If a society’s productivity level is low, then its level of cultural progress is also “backward.” Since the West’s level of material and technology is high, then Western society and culture are at the most advanced of all humanity, and all other nations must “progress” toward Western society and culture. This obviously leads to a theory of the West as cultural center. Thus, the universalism of “progress theory” is a kind of Western-centric universalism, and also what Lévi-Strauss calls Western “ethnocentrism.”5 4. It is a substitute for religion. To modern people, who have killed God and are progressing toward the self-worship of humanity, “progress theory” or “social evolutionary theory” revealed a worldly heaven far ahead in history. As atheists, modern people believe that humanity, relying on its own strength as well as the progress of science, technology, and productivity, can “progress” to a beautiful future and ideal society. Thus, “progress theory” has religiosity; the so-called “religion of progress” is a kind of modern person’s religion. Over 100 years ago, Yan Fu’s “theory of evolution” (天演论) introduced “progress theory” and “social evolutionary theory” to China. Beginning from the day Yan Fu published that small pamphlet, the “theory of evolution” (social evolutionary theory) became popular within the Chinese intellectual world, and has remained fashionable to

5

Claude Lévi-Strauss, Race and History (Paris: UNESCO, 1952).

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this day. Comte’s tri-phase social evolutionary theory also at one time greatly influenced Chinese Communist Party founder Chen Duxiu.6 Since then, “social evolutionary theory” based on material productivity standards has united the consciousness of modern Chinese people. That backwardness of the economic base (productivity) determines backwardness of the superstructure (social, cultural, and political institutions) has become a set formula of modern Chinese thought. Yet it is precisely this “materialist” “progress theory” or “social evolutionary theory” way of thinking that has caused feelings of inferiority among Chinese people today. “Progress theory” or “social evolutionary theory’s” negation of Chinese culture is tripartite: 1. Appraisal of societal and cultural progress by the criterion of material productivity deems Chinese culture “backward.” 2. On this straight timeline, worship of the new, or “era worship,” negates the significance of Chinese culture as “old tradition.” 3. Western-centric universalism negates the national significance of Chinese culture, and negates the cultural identity (文化个性), or national character (国性) of the Chinese nation. Respectively, these three points negate Chinese culture in terms of value standards, in terms of time, and in terms of space. It is precisely under the conditions of “progress theory’s” tripartite negation of Chinese culture that today’s Chinese people carry a deep cultural inferiority complex, have no cultural self-confidence or self-respect, lack basic cultural value judgments, have lost basic cultural perspective, and are able only to blindly emulate the West. The West has become a synonym for “the world” and “modern.” Many slogans such as “march toward the world,” “march toward the modern era,” and “connect with the international” reverberate throughout China. Under nominal “modernization,” China is implementing “total Westernization” or even “total Americanization.” “Progress theory” has become a kind of spiritual opium poisoning Chinese cultural intellectuals.

See Chen Duxiu 陈独秀, “Falanxi ren yu jinshi wenming” “法兰西人与近世文明” [The French People and Modern Civilization], in Chen Duxiu wenzhang xuanbian 陈 独秀文章选编 [Selected Works of Chen Duxiu] vol. 1 (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe 上海人民出版社, 1993), 137–139. 6

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Actually, once “progress theory’s” tripartite negation of Chinese culture has come to light, it is quite easy to refute. As to the first part, anyone can see that use of material productivity as the standard for a culture’s development is a biased method of judgment. Yet this “materialist” or “historical materialist” way of thinking has been deeply internalized in the thought of several generations of Chinese cultural intellectuals. They still are accustomed to thinking that economic base determines superstructure, and material economy determines spiritual culture. Although they say that the superstructure can also act upon the economic base, people have not yet seriously considered this; material remains paramount, and economics remain the decisive force. In the common parlance of China, “culture” is often misused. Anything can be “culture;” and the concept “culture” can encompass everything. Consequently, material economy, science, and technology all belong to “culture.” Thus, if China’s technology and material economy are backward, then of course China is “culturally backward.” Actually, culture is not necessarily a simple reflection of material economy. As the value system and way of life of human groups, culture is related to locality and local environment, and has considerable uniqueness and stability. The saying that a certain place cultivates a certain kind of people actually means a certain place cultivates a certain culture. Culture cannot be discussed as one with material and technology, because culture in its narrow definition is a kind of spiritual value. This culture is roughly equivalent to the “superstructure” opposite the “economic base.” In the 1980s, the Chinese intellectual world experienced a “cultural craze,” which generally divided “culture” into three levels: technological products, institutional system, and psychological structure. Narrowly defined, culture only encompasses the latter two levels. I agree with the traditional German conception of “culture.” Germans had very different conceptions of “civilization” and “culture:” “nineteenth-century German thinkers drew a sharp distinction between civilization, which involved mechanics, technology, and material factors, and culture, which involved values, ideals, and the higher intellectuals artistic, moral qualities of a society.”7 At the time, the German

7 Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998), 41.

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people did not give in to pressure from the “civilization” of “Western” England and France. To the contrary, this pressure awakened in the Germans a “cultural nationalism.” They went in search of a “cultural Germany,” a kind of cultural volksgeist. The German intellectual elite of the time firmly believed that in terms of civilization, Germany was inferior to England and France, but in terms of culture, Germany was superior. I believe that although a distinction between progressive and backward exists for material and technology, such a distinction does not exist for culture. 15 years ago in my Modern and Post-Modern I already advocated that Chinese and Western culture are divided not by “distance,” but by “difference.” Chinese culture is definitely not “backward.” Moreover, regarding how it manages the relationships between people and nature, people and society, and people and the self, Chinese culture exhibits great wisdom. The issue is merely that we have not calmly and objectively tried to understand our own culture. Regarding the second part, negation of Chinese culture in the dimension of time, its bias is already extremely obvious. If the first negation can be called “economic determinism,” then the second can be called “temporal determinism.” “Progress theory” emphasizes the linear “progress” of human society through time, and leads to a kind of “time worship” or “era worship.” Everything must change with the times. In particular, this “time (era) worship” often is connected to a kind of modern “worship of the new:” when the times change, all the “old,” “past,” and “traditional” are subject to a priori depreciation, or even complete loss of value, and are made obsolete by history; all the “new,” “modern,” and “current” things are a priori granted value and considered good. Under the domination of this kind of new-worshipping “temporal determinism,” Chinese culture, as an old culture, loses its value. In particular, Chinese culture is connected with a kind of “agrarian civilization” and thus appears even more “backward,” “feudal,” and undesirable. During the May Fourth era, many scholars thought that Chinese culture was the second stage of civilization, and Western industrial civilization was the third. There was a distinction between “ancient civilization” and “modern civilization,” but no distinction between “Eastern civilization” and “Western civilization.” As the scholar Chang Naide clearly wrote, “In the world there exists only ancient civilization and modern civilization; there is not distinction of Eastern civilization and Western civilization. Modern Western civilization belongs to the

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world, not a single nationality. It is an inevitable step on the evolutionary line, and is not inapplicable to Eastern peoples.”8 Between various human cultures there exists only a temporal “distance,” but no “difference,” spatial or otherwise. The 1980s television series River Elegy (河殇) still exhibited this kind of “era” division between “yellow culture” (the past) and “azure culture” (the modern). The later rise and fall of “third wave,” “fourth production revolution,” “knowledge economy,” “new economy,” “advancing with the times,” and other slogans of the “new era” illustrate that modern Chinese people examine questions only from the perspective of time and era. The leading ideology in China today is a kind of “five-stage” social evolutionary theory, that only locates China on a straight timeline: it once established China as in the stage of communism, then later regressed to socialism, and finally located China in the “beginning stages” of socialism. Some have even proposed that China ought to re-learn the lessons of the capitalism “stage.”All of this boils down to time (the era). The people have never considered finding a place for Chinese society outside of this straight timeline, spatially defining Chinese culture as distinct state, different from Western, Islamic, and other cultures. The French art philosopher Taine believed that art is decisively influenced by three factors: race, milieu, and moment (era). 9 Taine’s “three factors” approach can also be applied to culture. Moment (era) is not the only factor that decides a certain kind of culture; race and milieu also contribute decisive influence. To a great extent, the latter two factors exert greater influence. This is because, once a certain culture has formed under the influence of certain territorial ethnic environment, it tends to persevere. The culture constitutes a nation’s “basic psychological structure,” and is the basic spiritual pillar allowing the nation to continue. Yet the influence of the moment (era) on culture is often superficial and manifests as the changes and fluctuations of “fashion;” it does not constitute fundamental changes in a culture.

8 Chang Naide 常乃德, “Dongfang wenming yu Xifang wenming” “东方文明与西 方文明” [“Eastern Civilization and Western Civilization”], Guomin 国民, 2:3 (1920). 9 Taine’s le moment is translated in Chinese as shidai 时代 [times; era].

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The evolution of culture is better described as a kind of spatial coexistence of new and old, acceptance of both today and yesterday, and simultaneous storage of modern and traditional, rather than a simple temporal replacement of old with new, yesterday with day, and traditional with modern. Old objects do not necessarily lack a reason for existence. “Progress theory” expands the function of time (era), and makes the contradictions between new and old, present and past, and modern and traditional absolute, in all cases affirming the former and negating the latter. It ignores the constancy of culture that can persevere throughout the ages. “Progress theory” is extremely biased and absurd. The third point, Western-centric universalism’s negation of the national uniqueness of Chinese culture, is to the Chinese people one of the most potent toxins of the spiritual opium that is “progress theory.” “Progress theory” supposes a unified conception of humanity in which the entirety of humanity “progresses” as one toward an ideal “universal civilization” (communism or “liberal-democratic” society). On the opening page of my Globalization and the Decline of National Consciousness, I lamented, “Oh, universalism, the crimes that have been committed in your name!”10 China echoes with slogans such as “march toward the world,” “connect with the international,” and “globalize.”11 Among the people who chant these slogans, some indeed are inclined toward negation of China’s own national or cultural identity. Western culture is “universal,” and therefore we cannot “seal” ourselves in our own culture; instead we must “reconstruct” (actually meaning “negate”) and “innovate” (actually meaning “Westernize” and “Americanize”) our culture. In the midst of a limitlessly marvelous and “progressive” “universal civilization,” there is no place for “national culture.” The universalism of “progress theory” exalts Western culture values as the universal standard; its Western-centric nature is obvious:

10 He Qing 河清, Quanqiuhua yu guojia yishi de shuaiwei 全球化与国家意识的衰微 [Globalization and the Decline of National Consciousness] (Beijing: Zhongguo renmin daxue chubanshe 中国人民大学出版社, 1993). 11 The call for economic globalization has been propagated for a long time by Western neo-liberalism, and represents the interests of multinational financial capital and multinational corporations. Globalization implies weakening the political, economic, and cultural autonomy of the nation-state, in order to permit the economic might of multinational corporations to roam freely around the world and seize the maximum amount of wealth and resources from each country.

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he qing The concept of a universal civilization is a distinctive product of Western Civilization . . . At the end of the twentieth century the concept of a universal civilization helps justify Western cultural dominance of other societies and the need for those societies to ape Western practices and institutions. Universalism is the ideology of the West for confrontations with non-Western cultures.12

Lévi-Strauss also exposes the universalism of “progress theory” as European “ethno-centrism.” He and Huntington both show that the concept of “universal civilization” is illusory. Lévi-Strauss says, “it is not another civilization distinct from all the others, and yet real in the same sense that they are. When we speak of world civilization . . . we are employing an abstract conception.”13 Huntington in his The Clash of Civilizations, dedicates an entire chapter (chapter 3) to demonstrating the absurdity of the concept of “world civilization.” He earnestly advises America to abandon the pursuit of universalism based on the assimilation of the world through Western values. Lévi-Strauss, coming from the perspective of cultural anthropology, emphasizes “cultural diversity.” Huntington, however, begins from concrete examination of the real world, and emphasizes “cultural identity.” Both men emphasize a “plural” conception of “culture.” Lévi-Strauss says plainly: “A world civilization could, in fact, represent no more than a world-wide coalition of cultures, each of which would preserve its own originality.”14 Huntington then clearly states that the seven or eight primary civilizations of today’s world cannot merge; instead they will maintain their own “cultural identities” for a long time yet. I believe that these two men’s analyses of the state of current world culture are calm, incisive, and accurate. The Chinese people cannot continue to be enthralled by a kind of illusory and harmful universalism, negating the own culture of the Chinese nation, and negating China’s cultural identity. “Progress theory’s” tripartite negation of Chinese culture has severely damaged Chinese socio-cultural reality. The three schools of thought in traditional Chinese culture, Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, have never been official acknowledged by the P.R.C. government. The traditional Chinese cosmic view of “the heavens and people as one,”

12 13 14

Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations, 66. Lévi-Strauss, Race and History, 44–5. Ibid., 45.

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the political wisdom of “work for the people,”15 the social ethic of “people in harmony,” the balance of “justice and profit,” the life philosophy of tranquil neutrality, and other Chinese cultural values, have never obtained formal affirmation or approval. Chinese students do not receive sufficient schooling in the classics of traditional cultural (yet everyone in China studies English). Many Chinese officials as well as cultural and political elite considerably lack understanding of Chinese culture.16 Chinese urban buildings are undergoing an unprecedented “constructive destruction,” a self-mutilating demolition of urban historical memory. The average Chinese citizens are also experiencing a severe crisis of cultural beliefs. All of the above is due to the “cultural inferiority complex” laid upon the modern Chinese people by “progress theory” or “social evolutionary theory’s” negation of Chinese culture. These theories constrict the Chinese cultural renaissance. Beginning from Yan Fu’s “theory of evolution,” “progress theory” has spread across China for already 100 years, leaving severe harm in its wake. I only hope that the Chinese people will realize: until “progress theory” or “social evolutionary theory” is discarded, China will remain unable to attain cultural independence, renaissance, or self-strengthening. Hangzhou Mid-autumn 2005

15 See my Minzhu de wutuobang 民主的乌托邦 [Democratic Utopia] (Hongkong: Mingbao chubanshe 明报出版社, 1994; and Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe 中国社会科学出版社, 2004). 16 See my Yishu de yinmou: toushi yizhong “dangdai yishu guoji” 艺术的阴谋: 透视一种 “当代艺术国际” [The Conspiracy of Art: Seeing through a kind of “Contemporary Art International” ] (Nanning: Guangxi shifan daxue chubanshe 广西师范大学出版社, 2005).

PART III

“ONE AND THREE, THREE AND ONE”: THE IMPACT OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION ON CHINESE MODERNITY Tang Shaojie Translated by Adrian Thieret The history of the People’s Republic of China from its founding to today has progressed through three stages: the 17 years from October 1949 to May 1966, the 10 years from June 1966 to the end of 1976, and the 28 years from 1978 until now. Here, for the sake of this analysis of the Cultural Revolution, the stages can be called “the 17 years prior to the Cultural Revolution,” “the 10 years of the Cultural Revolution,” and “the 28 years after the Cultural Revolution,” respectively abbreviated below as “17,” “10,” and “28.” This division is necessary because it pertains to the mutual relationships and interactions of these three stages, and relates to how we understand and grasp each stage. More specifically, it influences the way we evaluate many issues of the Cultural Revolution. Due to different personal interests, people’s views and attitudes toward these three stages can roughly be divided into the following three angles: 1. Using “17” as the frame of reference from which to analyze “10” and “28.” 2. Using “10” as the frame of reference from which to analyze “17” and “28.” 3. Using “28” as the frame of reference from which to analyze “17” and “10.” This text does not make judgments of right or wrong, or associated explanations of value regarding these three perspectives. Rather, this text attempts to, through comparison of the three perspectives, reveal the cultural resources that the Cultural Revolution provides to Chinese modernity, even if most of that heritage is negative. In China today, the majority view the Cultural Revolution from the third angle. However, there are also some who approach the Cultural Revolution from

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the first and second perspectives. Currently, very few people maintain the second perspective, and they rarely show their faces. Worthy of consideration is that the few people who maintain the first perspective hold more distinguished positions and have greater influence than the people who subscribe to the third. Thus in varying ways, the standpoint and opinions of this group, consciously or not, significantly constrains the ways in which we reflect on and criticize the Cultural Revolution, and also influences how we reference and grasp the cultural resources provided by the Cultural Revolution to modernity. The perspective based on “17” holds that “10” is a counteraction to “17;” the “10” years of the Cultural Revolution developed and enlarged the mistakes and setbacks of “17” to the extreme, and thus was no more than a radical, biased, and extreme consequence of these “17 years.” We must be alert to the fact that today, many of the relatively popular attitudes and evaluations of the Cultural Revolution come from the “17” value orientation. Even if they criticize and negate the Cultural Revolution, they are attempting to return to “17.” In other words, they definitely do not examine the Cultural Revolution from the perspective of post-Cultural Revolution “28.” This group treats the Cultural Revolution as merely a bias, error, distortion, and aberration of “17,” and today the people’s actions are merely correction and revision of the Cultural Revolution. I believe the transition from “17” to “10” was a natural progression. “17,” especially the particular period of 1957–65, provided for the Cultural Revolution a political paradigm, mental preparation, cultural accumulation, and even “cast and crew roles,” especially the dramatic scenes and plots of the masses’ lives. It should be emphasized that reflecting upon and grasping the historical connections between “17” and the Cultural Revolution is not only crucial, but also relatively urgent. Obviously, the decade of the Cultural Revolution did not appear from a void, nor was it created in a day. In a way, it is impossible to better reflect on and grasp the Cultural Revolution without reflecting on and grasping “17.” Indeed, many current examples indicate that how we reflect upon and grasp “17” is sometimes even more important and urgent than how we reflect upon and grasp the Cultural Revolution. “17” and “10” are two consecutive time periods. Was the development of the Cultural Revolution from “17” historically inevitable? Jin Chunming considers 1956–65 a period of preparation for, or even the

the impact of the cultural revolution on chinese modernity 301 source of, the Cultural Revolution.1 Although “17” historically served to initiate New China and achieved breathtaking successes, what significance does it hold for the Cultural Revolution? Is “17” the “pedigree” (谱系) of the Cultural Revolution or a “rumination” (反刍) of it? Undoubtedly, events of the “17” period such as a series of ideological adjustments; the social utopian movement epitomized by the Great Leap Forward; the Anti-Rightist Struggle that suffocated intellectual spirit and exploration; the increasingly severe centralization of leadership power and autocratic judgments; the millions who died “unusual deaths” as a consequence of the “three years of hardship;” the political movements to strengthen class struggle; all on a certain level were a rehearsal of the Cultural Revolution rather than a presage to it. Everyone knows that in the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, the question of how to evaluate “17” was a focal point of the unending argument between the two mass factions of Tsinghua University, and also a frontline of the mortal struggle between them. For the purpose of initiating and promoting the Cultural Revolution, Mao viewed China’s education, culture, and art spheres as, during those 17 years of history, having deviated from the lead of the party as represented by himself, and instead had been dictated by the bourgeoisie. Mao was for a long period uncomfortable that these domains, obviously or not, exhibited various inclinations divergent from Mao’s extreme radical proposals and zealous presumptions. Clearly, Mao used the “17” issue to find a reason and excuse for the Cultural Revolution. To begin the Cultural Revolution, Mao first fired at the world of education by erecting it as the imaginary political enemy of feudalism, capitalism, revisionism, and absolute autocracy. Consequently the education world attracted the heavy artillery of all-out civil war that was the Cultural Revolution. Mao did not mind temporarily rattling the “pots and pans” of the state and party he led, nor was he afraid of temporarily toppling party cadre and mass enthusiasts who had closely followed him for many years. As summarized by a radical mass faction of Tsinghua teachers formed early in the Cultural Revolution, called the “Red Teachers Union” (红教联), the rightists of the Cultural Revolution were the leftists of “17” and the leftists of the Cultural Revolution were the rightists of 1 Jin Chunming 金春明, “Wenhuadageming” shigao “文化大革命”史稿 [Draft History of the Great Cultural Revolution] (Sichuan: Sichuan renmin chubanshe 四川人民出版社, 1994), 4.

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“17;” class conflicts and friend/foe conflicts were reversed during the Cultural Revolution. The problem is that those numerous party cadre and mass enthusiasts who had benefited in politics and life during the 17 years were for a time unable to completely accept Mao’s Cultural Revolution craze. They naturally and consciously used the shield of Mao’s “17” to block the sword of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, because the “17” period was to them a comfortable existence in which they could happily spend a lifetime. Their political battle with the radical troublemakers of the Cultural Revolution in the end turned all educators and affiliates of the education sphere, almost without exception, into targets of the Cultural Revolution. The evolution and transformation of the “17” issue was a historical and logical inevitability of the Cultural Revolution. Viewed from the “17” perspective, the “28” period after the Cultural Revolution was a complete negation of the Cultural Revolution, and also a kind of sublation and reformation of “17.” On one hand, the association between “17” and “28” is not any more simple or obvious than the connections between those periods and the Cultural Revolution. This is because from the “17” perspective, it is impossible to accept, understand, or even foresee the various facets of “28.” Yet from the “28” perspective, the value and mission of “28” is located as much in the transcendence of “17” as in the negation of the Cultural Revolution. On the other hand, the association between “28” and the “10” of the Cultural Revolution is more direct that than of “28” and “17.” In other words, “28” and “17” are indirectly associated, and the Cultural Revolution is their intermediary. At least, relative to the Cultural Revolution, “28” and “17” are two disparate historical coordinates and value dimensions. These two stages usually exhibit their great historical contrast and profound real differences through their different associations with the Cultural Revolution. Indubitably, many of the things criticized, negated, and rejected during “17” received recognition, acceptance, and establishment during “28.” When some people view the Cultural Revolution through the “17” thought pattern and mindset, their attitude toward “28” is also restricted by the boundaries of “17.” Likewise, when “28” is examined from within the “17” boundaries, then clearly research and criticism of the Cultural Revolution from the “17” perspective will be restrained and handicapped for fear that dissection and negation of the Cultural Revolution could implicate “17.” Many facts evidence this. Some people use “17” to condemn “28,” thinking that “28” is more heretical

the impact of the cultural revolution on chinese modernity 303 and savage than even the Cultural Revolution, and striving to return to their idealized fabrication of the “17” period. Another method is also worthy of our attention: Fan Liqin, the Red Guard student of Beijing University famous for opposing Nie Yuanzi, once personally said to us that, faced with the high tension and unusual oppression of the eve of the Cultural Revolution, she would rather return to the “10” years of the Cultural Revolution than have to return to “17.” Supposing this is merely because the Cultural Revolution’s false democracy and formal mass self-liberation superficially surpassed the rigidity and fear of the previous years, then why were the masses attracted to and inspired by the Cultural Revolution at the time? The “17” perspective cannot provide a complete and reasonable answer to this question. When reflecting on and trying to grasp the relationship between “17” and the “10” of the Cultural Revolution, we definitely should not repeat the thought pattern of the Cultural Revolution and adopt an affirmative or negative posture toward the process. This text does not make any blanket criticisms or explanations of “17.” Rather, it only presents an examination of the historical relationship between “17” and the Cultural Revolution. The 10 years of the Cultural Revolution and the 17 year period before it appear to be a unity of opposites. This unity of opposites relationship in fact primarily manifests in the inherent connections between the Cultural Revolution and the 10 years immediately prior, because the history of 1957 through early 1966 is the immediate origin of the Cultural Revolution. The Cultural Revolution arose from the ten years prior as an explosion of deep contradictions in party-mass relations, cadre-mass relations, democracy, and freedom of speech accumulated over those ten years. Thus we can say that the decade prior to the Cultural Revolution provided rich cultural resources to the Cultural Revolution, evidenced primarily by a series of latent yet serious social crises such as those created by industrial prioritization, agriculture collectivization, over-conversion of economic life to public ownership, monopolization of economic planning, pan-political moralization of social psychology, increasing ideological paranoia, centralization of political power by the party, the supremacy of leaders’ authority, and increasingly severe idolatry of them. However, the Cultural Revolution was possible only through negation of “17.” At least, this holds true for the realms of education, scholarship, and art. The Cultural Revolution shoved the accumulated crises and irreconcilable contradictions of “17” (and especially

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the decade immediately prior to the Cultural Revolution) into the thunderous mass revolt that swept the country at its start, and then into Mao’s separation from Liu Shaoqi in the early period, into Mao’s fight with Lin Biao in the middle period, and finally into Mao’s dispute with Deng Xiaoping near the end of the Cultural Revolution. The Cultural Revolution was indeed a kind of culmination or completion of “17.” How should we treat the Cultural Revolution’s negation of “17”? I think this kind of negation is only a partial negation, and cannot possibly be considered a thorough, complete one. At least it cannot negate the individual authority strengthened by Mao during “17.” In other words, the Cultural Revolution negated mostly those aspects of “17” that impeded the wholesale pursuit of the Cultural Revolution. Temporarily setting aside questions of whether the Cultural Revolution’s thorough criticism and refutation of “17” was reasonable or rational, the hidden dangers and maladies of “17” (and especially the decade immediately prior to the Cultural Revolution) which led to the Cultural Revolution are now obvious. If we consider the Cultural Revolution a kind of alienation from the ten years preceding it, then the Cultural Revolution’s criticism of that decade and its negation of “17” to me merely signify that the Cultural Revolution is a natural extension of the previous ten year period. “28” is unquestionably a counteraction and negation of the Cultural Revolution. Many things criticized and negated by the Cultural Revolution reappeared and were overturned during “28.” The Cultural Revolution itself was completely oblivious to the intensity and scope of correction, rectification, negation, and dismissal it would be subjected to during “28.” The Cultural Revolution has been called “unprecedented;” from today’s perspective, the unprecedented aspects are the alienation and self-alienation of the Cultural Revolution that sowed the seeds of its destruction, and the function of the Cultural Revolution as one historical source of China’s unwavering path toward construction of modernity and development of modernization. Consequently, a few of my friends all believe that the Cultural Revolution has a positive and even laudable significance: it gave rise to China’s Reform and Opening. I think this is not entirely true. The original purpose of the Cultural Revolution was not to realize the construction of modernity and development of modernization. The outcome of the Cultural Revolution was the opposite of the Cultural Revolution, nothing more. The historical inevitability of transition from the Cultural Revolution to “28” cannot be advanced to prove that these two historical periods are consistent or complementary. For example,

the impact of the cultural revolution on chinese modernity 305 although human and worldly life advanced greatly after World War Two, this progress cannot be attributed to the criminal masterminds of the war. Was the development of “28” from the Cultural Revolution inevitable, or a coincidence? Philosophically speaking, was it self-made or self-existent? Was the deciding force in this development the will of the populace or the strain of the leaders? Was the evolution from the anti-modernity of the Cultural Revolution to the post-Cultural Revolution construction of modernity unexpected and chaotic, or reasonable and orderly? We still must work long and hard to explore and understand these questions. Does the evolution of these three historical periods, “17,” “10,” and “28,” exhibit the Hegelian dialectic of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis? Or, does it fit the three phases of affirmation, negation, and negation of negation? I do not think so. This speculative dialectic cannot encompass or replace the internal interactions and associations between these three historical stages. As described above, the relationship between “17” and the Cultural Revolution is not completely affirmative or completely negative. Rather, it is only partially affirmative and partially negative, meaning that the two periods share a certain amount of internal harmony. More importantly, the relationship of the three periods is not a simple matter of the Cultural Revolution negating “17” and “28” then negating that negation. Plainly speaking, we again must question whether “28” is a return to “17” or a transcendence of it. The primary thread running through and linking these three stages is based upon the main thread of recent historical development of Chinese society—construction of modernity and development of modernization. Ever since foreign countries forced China to open its doors in 1840, China’s movement toward the world, modernity, and modernization, whether voluntary or not, has proved irreversible. I think “modernity” refers primarily to the intellectual and spiritual aspects of modern civilization’s progress, and “modernization” refers to the material and systematic aspects of that progress. Construction of modernity and development of modernization are an organic combination; they are complementary and both are essential. In China’s case, construction of modernity is far more imperative than development of modernization. The past prolonged cultural battle over “ti” (体) and “yong” (用) indirectly evidences this. The Cultural Revolution interrupted and prematurely aborted the construction of modernity in China. Yet, the origins, implementation, failure, and culmination of the Cultural Revolution all contrarily prove

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that no matter what the difficulties or vicissitudes they experience, the construction of modernity and development of modernization continue their indomitable forward progress. Beyond this, the Cultural Revolution provided Chinese modernity with roughly the following cultural resources: 1. The Cultural Revolution ended two historical phenomena of modern Chinese society: worship of totalitarian political leadership and personality cults built around political leaders. Ending this kind of worship and idolatry was an important marker of the end of the Cultural Revolution. Furthermore, it also implied that Chinese construction of modernity and development of modernization must begin by bidding farewell to totalitarian worship and leadership cults, and instead establish a modern democracy and legal authority. The halfcentury battle beginning with the overthrow of the dynastic system in 1911 and lasting until the abandonment of the above historical phenomenon in the late 1970s comprises one political course of the construction of modernity and development of modernization in China. Today, Chinese construction of modernity and development of modernization cannot coexist with totalitarian worship and leadership cults. 2. The Cultural Revolution confirmed the transformation of the Chinese Communist Party’s role and function from that of a revolutionary party to that of a reigning political party. Of all the organizations and groups in Chinese society, the Chinese Communist Party was hit hardest by the Cultural Revolution. In the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, nearly all organs of the party were paralyzed. The history of the Cultural Revolution shows that the Party’s former tactics, including military experience from the war period and “class struggle” movements during the early years of the P.R.C., had already become obsolete and were completely unsuitable to Chinese construction of modernity and development of modernization in the second half of the 20th century. After the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese Communist Party’s changes took roughly the following forms: the Party fully engaged in constructing its functions as the reigning political party, and gradually reduced its role as revolutionary party; it drew a lesson from the Cultural Revolution, and confronted and strove to improve its relations with all the people of every class and occupation; and it stressed and reinforced the timely replacement of its own duties, strategies, and methods in the new historical period. Not

the impact of the cultural revolution on chinese modernity 307 long after the end of the Cultural Revolution, the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party began gradually to transition from domination by a leadership group of revolutionary leaders and political elite, to administration by a group of skilled cadre and specialist elite. 3. The Cultural Revolution ended society-wide, pan-political mass movements that had been conducted in New China since the founding, and also ended the associated cultural mode. Since 1956, the spread and permeation of these mass movements caused great, irrecoverable loss of material and spiritual resources, and enlarged the gap between the development level of modern Chinese society and that of the world’s leading civilizations. These mass movements have already caused irreparable and indescribable pain, disaster, and rupture to the masses from all walks of life. The trauma mass movements have caused to the Chinese people as a whole is far beyond the abilities of a single generation to heal or erase. These mass movements extended into the Cultural Revolution, and reached the stage called “the masses liberate themselves; the masses educate themselves.” Yet actually, by this time the mass movements had already turned to self-negation and self-alienation of the masses. The kind of great democracy exhibited by these mass movements of the Cultural Revolution is merely a shortlived, troubled “great democracy” restricted to single work and living units, and practically never attained inter-regional, inter-departmental, or inter-occupational social democracy. Similar to the mass revolts of Chinese history, this mass “great democracy” of the Cultural Revolution could only lead the masses toward self-delusion, self-abuse, and even self-slaughter in internal wars. These mass movements were exploited by leaders who themselves did not belong to the masses. The movements revealed primarily the masses’ ignorance, blindness, insanity, and humiliation. In fact, this type of movement is completely incompatible with life in modern civil society. In the end, the suppression of Chinese construction of modernity and development of modernization by these society-wide, pan-political mass movements can only be attributed to the masses having not yet become “citizens” in the modern sense. Thus, one objective faced by Chinese construction of modernity and development of modernization is the transformation of all society’s members from “masses” into “citizens.” People today ought to ceaselessly pursue the following question: what have the mass movements of 1956 onward and especially the Cultural Revolution period brought to China and the Chinese people? Additionally, Chinese

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construction of modernity and development of modernization have an important responsibility both now and in the future to eradicate these mass movements and prevent their reappearance. 4. The Cultural Revolution resulted in the reexamination of revolutionary culture. I personally feel that the cultural origins of the Cultural Revolution are not limited to the decade of 1956–65, but actually have close connections with the history of revolution culture in 20th century China. As a confluence and extension of the Chinese Communist Party’s successful “political revolution” in the 1940s and relatively unsuccessful “economic revolution” in the 1950s, the entire history of the 1960s “thought revolution” (it could even be called a “spirit revolution”), namely the Great Cultural Revolution, profoundly expressed the revolutionary tenor and function of 20th century Chinese history as manifested by the course of these three revolutions, from political to economic to thought. Simultaneously, the consequences of the Cultural Revolution led the focus of China’s societal progress since the late 19th century, after a half century of historical excitement and revolutionary incitement, to remain placed upon construction of modernity and development of modernization. As a unique 20th century revolution, the Cultural Revolution hastened the complete transformation of 20th century Chinese revolution. After the Cultural Revolution, China finally ended its tumultuous 20th century history with a few decades of relatively stable development. 5. The Cultural Revolution resulted in the reexamination of the orientation of traditional Chinese culture. The Cultural Revolution was an eruption of contradictions between traditional and modern culture. It caused major damage to and yet also emulated traditional culture. If we say that the May Fourth New Culture Movement fundamentally completed the transformation of traditional culture into modern culture, then the Cultural Revolution brought on one hand, conflict and rupture between traditional and modern culture, and on the other hand, mutual alienation to the two cultures, at the very least rendering many aspects of traditional culture unable to opportunely and truly resolve the problems of contemporary Chinese society. The background contrast and reverberating consequences of the Cultural Revolution again reveal that the relationship between traditional Chinese culture and Chinese construction of modernity and development of modernization is no longer restricted to Chinese territory. Rather, the rebirth of traditional culture has, together with a solution for Chi-

the impact of the cultural revolution on chinese modernity 309 nese construction of modernity and development of modernization, merged into the currents of modern world civilization. 6. The Cultural Revolution led to re-reflection and criticism of the role and function of intellectuals in modern China. The Cultural Revolution hit the intellectual class hardest of all social classes. In every sense, it was a mental and physical purgatory for Chinese intellectuals of the period. The Cultural Revolution’s persecution and punishment of intellectuals was indirectly an attack and pressure on all social groups who sought Chinese modernity. As cast by the Cultural Revolution, the general problem of intellectuals has become a weathervane measuring whether Chinese society can progress, and a barometer of whether progress can continue. Indubitably, whether intellectuals today can completely criticize and reject the Cultural Revolution depends on the criticisms and self-criticisms they experienced and performed during the Cultural Revolution itself. The Cultural Revolution was to intellectuals an unforgettable experience of life and death. This has led the entire intellectual community to sever relations with all forms of anti-intellectual radical culture in China. Indeed, just as the May Fourth New Culture Movement openly brought spiritual liberation to early 20th century China, the Cultural Revolution fortuitously brought an unprecedented liberation of thought to China in the last 20 years of that century. This epochal thought liberation not only has the potential to nearly complete the as-yet unfinished imperatives of recent Chinese history, including society-wide enlightenment, science, and democracy, it also may potentially hasten the spiritual sublimation and progress of the entire populace. Happily, the bankruptcy of the Cultural Revolution has brought death to dogmatism, fideism, obscurantism, and other trends that had plagued China for far too long. Furthermore, the generations of youth born during and after the Cultural Revolution have already inaugurated an brand new face of spiritual life in Chinese society. 7. The Cultural Revolution prompted unprecedented reform of contemporary Chinese societal, political, economic, and ideological systems and institutions. Bankruptcy of the Cultural Revolution necessitated the reform of these systems, which had formerly been based on Soviet and even more radical, biased models, because the flaws and shortcomings of the systems had reached their extreme during the Cultural Revolution. These flaws and shortcomings impeded the normal construction of modernity and healthy development of

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modernization in China, and also pushed the Cultural Revolution toward its death. The diverse institution building and system reform conducted by China post-Cultural Revolution, especially the remarkable economic reform, guaranteed a fundamental dissolution of the effects of the Cultural Revolution. From today’s perspective, this institution building and system reform was not merely a way out from the disastrous consequences of the Cultural Revolution; it was also a kind of preview or dress rehearsal for society’s construction of modernity, starting from society as a whole and moving on to society’s individual parts. Despite the long, difficult road ahead for reform in contemporary China, this kind of reform is filled with vitality, accomplishment, and hope. I have noticed the following fact: although the people have varied opinions and proposals regarding China’s reforms and in particular the method, path, extent, speed, and other aspects of the reforms, practically everyone is in favor of conducting reform. The robust construction of modernity and development of modernization brought by the reforms has already become a historical and actual unstoppable living force. The repeated vain attempts of extreme-left forces to stop or reverse the progress of the reforms alone are enough to prove this point. 8. The Cultural Revolution’s impact on socialist movements may provide these movements with a chance for self-renewal. As for extent of impact on socialist movements, to a certain degree the consequences and effects of the Cultural Revolution may be second only to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. The Cultural Revolution itself repeatedly showed that socialist practice in 1960s China contained many pervasive elements of feudalism. Contrary to orthodox conceptions of socialism, during that period Chinese socialism’s innate associations to feudalism were much greater than its acquired associations to capitalism. As such, this kind of socialism already had connotations of pre-modernity and even anti-modernity that were far more salient than the connotations of modernity it should have carried. Therefore on the general level, the value and orientation of modernity under Cultural Revolution style socialism is clearly less than that of capitalist modernity during the same time period. The hideousness, deficiency, malformation, and ephemeral nature of this kind of socialism are obvious to all. Here, the Cultural Revolution reminds us to consider how to avoid and prevent the reappearance of that kind of un-modernity or even anti-modernity socialism, and how to best advance a modernity-filled socialism.

the impact of the cultural revolution on chinese modernity 311 9. The extraordinary challenge posed by the Cultural Revolution to Marxism has brought Marxism an unprecedented opportunity for development. Ever since its introduction to Chinese in the first decades of the 20th century, Marxism has maintained a close relationship to Chinese modernity, and become the ideological resource of the modernity project led by the Chinese Communist Party. The Cultural Revolution exploited Marxism by claiming that transitioning from class struggle to a dictatorship of the proletariat was the essence of Marxism, and by rejecting the Marxist theory of holistic, free human development as revisionist and humanitarian. The entire Cultural Revolution ideology was as Marx and Engels described in The German Ideology: The more the normal form of intercourse of society, and with it the conditions of the ruling class, develop their contradiction to the advanced productive forces, and the greater the consequent discord within the ruling class itself as well as between it and the class ruled by it, the more fictitious, of course, becomes the consciousness which originally corresponded to this form of intercourse (i.e., it ceases to be the consciousness corresponding to this form of intercourse), and the more do the old traditional ideas of these relations of intercourse, in which actual private interests, etc., are expressed as universal interests, descend to the level of mere idealizing phrases, conscious illusion, deliberate hypocrisy. But the more their falsity is exposed by life, and the less meaning they have to consciousness itself, the more resolutely are they asserted, the more hypocritical, moral and holy becomes the language of this normal society.2

The Cultural Revolution ideology took to its extreme the typical 20th century dogmatic, ossified Marxism that had evolved through the Soviet Union. Here the question is: is the relationship between the late-era Mao Zedong ideology that guided the Cultural Revolution and Marxism actually a tension within Marxism, a difference between a heterodox Marxism and fundamentalist Marxism, or an opposition between ideological Marxism and non-ideological Marxism? When people condemn Mao’s ideas in old age as violating and negating the fundamentals of Marxism, how are we to understand Mao’s statement that his plan for ruling the country was “Marx plus Qin Shihuang”? What exactly did Marx and Marxism mean to Mao, especially late

2 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1968), 310.

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in his life? After the Cultural Revolution ended, Marxism once again faced the question of how to join and merge with Chinese construction of modernity and development of modernization. This of course relates to the vitality of Marxism in new century China. It is precisely after the end of the Cultural Revolution that differentiated schools, styles, and orientations of Marxist theory first appeared in China. The challenge that the Cultural Revolution presented to Marxism has caused us perhaps relentlessly to pursue the Marxist principle that individual liberty and comprehensive development of every person is the premise and precondition for the liberty and comprehensive development of all members of society. The Cultural Revolution’s challenge has caused this objective to become a fundamental ideological resource of Chinese modernity, and one for which China is willing to fight to realize. 10. The latter part of the Cultural Revolution provoked China to join the world. The great historical irony here is that, during the Cultural Revolution, China’s domestic policy reached to the extreme left and caused increasingly severe domestic crises, but China’s foreign policy and diplomacy during the latter half of the Cultural Revolution reached an extremely practical and relatively conservative “right” state of affairs, and furthermore achieved great successes. Indeed, during the second half of the Cultural Revolution, China’s international image and status improved for the first time since 1840. It must be emphasized that contemporary China’s practice of basing foreign policy on the ideology of the ruling party actually ended in the latter half of the Cultural Revolution, and was gradually replaced by a completely new phase of foreign relations based on the greatest real interests of the Chinese people. May we then say that China’s 1970–76 diplomatic course was not merely an irony and correction of the Cultural Revolution ideology, but also more importantly facilitated China’s post-Cultural Revolution opening and entrance into the world? Foreign diplomacy is an extension of the state’s internal affairs and associated ideology, yet in the latter half of the Cultural Revolution the great contrast between China’s foreign and domestic affairs showed the overall fragmentation, local deficiencies, and greatly contradictory nature of the Cultural Revolution. In any case, the rapid progress of China’s foreign affairs in the second half of the Cultural Revolution paved the way for the post-Cultural Revolution revival and rise of Chinese modernity, established a breeding ground for the next stage of Chinese history, the Reform and Opening, and pushed

the impact of the cultural revolution on chinese modernity 313 China to, in the last decade of the 20th century, ready itself for daily increases in overall national strength. Finally, I wish to conclude with a quote from venerable professor He Zhaowu of the Tsinghua University Humanities Department, who fully weathered the tumult of the Cultural Revolution: Although goodwill is human nature, ill will is also human nature. For example, aside from the human animal, what other species of animal torments its kin for pleasure? To those people working in other specialties, the Cultural Revolution was certainly a kind of loss, causing them to lose great amounts of precious research time. But to the humanities alone, the Cultural Revolution an unparalleled harvest. It provided us a rare opportunity to experience the depths of human nature, an opportunity unimaginable and unattainable in peaceful times. Several thousand years of Chinese history and the human character formed through it all erupted in the most condensed form and shortest time possible. If today’s historians are unable to utilize these unprecedented (and perhaps never to be seen again) excellent conditions to write one or several books on the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese, and world histories, and historical theory, methodology, and philosophy, then they truly will have failed to live up to the era they personally experienced.3

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3 Gao Zengde and Ding Dong 高增德, 丁东, eds., Shiji xueren zishu 世纪学人自述 [A Century of Scholars in Their Own Words] vol. 6 (Beijing: Beijing shiyue wenyi chubanshe 北京十月文艺出版社, 2000), 4–5.

WHY DID THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION END? Han Shaogong Translated by Adrian Thieret Mainstream society has seemingly reached a common understanding regarding the causes of the Cultural Revolution. Some people mention China’s tradition of autocracy; others mention the influence of Stalinism and trace the Cultural Revolution back to the achievements and failures of the Russian and French revolutions. However, most people do not have the patience to bother with these explanations and instead simply attribute the Cultural Revolution to a “power struggle” or “nationwide madness.” Here, let us set aside this issue and ask a different question: why did the Cultural Revolution end? As we have reflected upon the beginnings of the Cultural Revolution, we cannot avoid its conclusion. As there are reasons for the birth of the Cultural Revolution, so must there be reasons for its end. As certain Western scholars have noted, tyrannical governments never exit the historical stage of their own accord, rather, they must be forcefully removed—this is the logic behind the present Iraq War initiated by the United States and United Kingdom. However, the Cultural Revolution, usually considered an example of tyranny, seems to exist outside of this logic. It was not ended by widespread revolt, as was the Qing dynasty, nor was it ended by the occupation of foreign armies, as was the Japanese government in World War Two. The Gang of Four was crushed basically without bloodshed, and the entire conclusion of Cultural Revolution was relatively peaceful. The third plenary meeting of the 11th Central Committee of the CCP, which marked the end of Cultural Revolution, completed the transfer of power in merely one or two sessions, relying only on a debate regarding “standards of truth.” The transition went smoothly. In other words, the Cultural Revolution was ended through low-cost self-renewal and crisis dissolution. What caused this? If we say that the Cultural Revolution was a “power struggle” and “nationwide madness,” then why did these end at that specific moment? If autocracy or Stalinism led to the Cultural Revolution, then why did these cease functioning at that moment? What force overcame these things, and how?

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Changes in the course of history arise when the conditions of society are ripe for them. The function of the individual is certainly important to the course of history, yet in a large country, this function is necessarily relatively minor. Political paths are also certainly important to the course of history, but often they require additional related basic prearrangements, and sometimes are even contingent upon some certain quiet reform of production technology. For example, without the construction of the systematic layout of “large-scale” and “smallscale” fertilizer factories in the early 1970s, without the construction of nationwide field irrigation symbolized by the “Red Flag Canal,” and without the research into and promulgation of improved crops such as hybrid rice, then even the later family-unit contract production system would have been unable to produce enough agricultural products. Consequently, the successive retirement of meat, cloth, and grain ration coupons, the later rapid increase in China’s urban population, and the rise of its market economy, would have been difficult to imagine. Thus we must not overlook these important events. However, let us speak here only of two points relating to thought and politics. I. The Birth of a New Thought Trend The countrywide tide of dissent in 1976 represented by the April 5 Tiananmen Incident did not unexpectedly fall from the heavens, rather it was the culmination of the people’s will and showed that the Cultural Revolution had reached its end. Before this, in 1973 Li Yizhe published a report in Guangzhou espousing democracy, and in 1974 Zhang Tianmin and others brought complaints against the government regarding the movie Chuangye (创业), directly accusing it of cultural autocracy. These kinds of dissent had already grown common inside and outside of the system. Materials released in the last few years reveal that at the time, many different groups active all around the country were considering unorthodox ideas. For instance, in Beijing Guo Lusheng (pseudonym “index finger” 食指) and others began a literary group (see Duoduo’s writings). In Shanghai (see Song Yongyi’s writings), Hubei (see Wang Shaoguang’s writings), Hebei (see Zhu Xueqin’s writings), Sichuan (see Xu Youyu’s writings), Guizhou (see Qian Liqun’s writings), and other places, many underground “small reading groups” engaged in critical reflection on politics and

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society. Chen Yinan’s A Worker’s Ten Year “Cultural Revolution” (一个工人的十年”文革”) also provides a lively and accurate account of personal experience. It records the thought processes of a few rebellious workers, including their ideological confusion and eventual clarity. All of these example reveal that the 1976 Tiananmen Incident was not an isolated event. Behind the incident lay a widespread and profound people’s thought liberation movement, which was initiated and promoted by various colorful thinkers. The new trend of thinking adopted democracy, liberty, law, humanity, and social justice as its core values, and generally manifested in three ways. The first of these was the “rebellious form,” which revealed itself as hard resistance to the Cultural Revolution. Under the totalitarian system and political fanaticism of the Cultural Revolution, Yu Luoke, Zhang Zhixin, Lin Zhao, Liu Shaoqi, He Long, Peng Dehuai, and others were wrongfully persecuted, and countless human rights disasters occurred, thus compelling many people to reflect upon the political and social system. After some people, including many members of the upper echelons of the CCP, who were accustomed to subordination and had originally believed in and followed political movements prior to the Cultural Revolution, personally suffered excruciating pain and humiliation, questions began to arise in their minds. The painful personal experiences of Hu Yaobang and Zhou Yang obviously influenced them to later become the champions of “democracy” and “humanitarianism,” respectively, within the CCP. The second form of this new thought trend was the “estranged form,” which manifested as soft resistance to the Cultural Revolution. The majority, who were not direct recipients of political persecution, also grew increasingly distant from and suspicious of the Cultural Revolution, because it interfered with their individual life desires. These people generally did not have a strong political consciousness and did not directly engage in political behavior, yet they formed a widespread and powerful centrifugal force consisting of values, and this force pulled outward, away from the Cultural Revolution. In the mid-1970s the youth were affected by the “self-study craze,” the “art craze,” and the “furniture craze” following their “post-revolution return to secular life.” Chinese citizens enthusiastically sought name-brand watches and bicycles from Shanghai. The renowned “Happiness Group” (幸福团) from Hunan was established by the relatives of a few cadre, and sought pleasure without restraint, listened to jazz music, danced, fought, and even molested women. The group of army comrades described by

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Wang Shuo in his book animal Vicious (动物凶猛) approach this state of individualism, decadence, and nihilism. This demonstrates that even within the circles of power at that time, the doctrine of restricting desires was broken and secular interests gradually returned, thus speeding the disintegration of the Cultural Revolution. The third form was the “successive form,” which manifested as the support, adaptation, and use of certain positive elements within the Cultural Revolution. The Cultural Revolution was an extremely complex historical phenomenon. Generally speaking, it was characterized by two intermingled orientations that gradually waxed and waned in succession: revolutionary ideals and the totalitarian system. These two conflicted orientations brought about constant internal tension and frequent upheavals, and caused the moments of unusually extreme freedom and restriction during the Cultural Revolution. In 1966, Mao Zedong incited the Cultural Revolution after his main political enemies lost power, and it therefore cannot be explained away as a mere “power struggle.” He championed “continuous revolution” and “it is right to rebel” (造反有理), and wanted to “incite the masses to expose our dark side.” Over the next two years, his movement let the majority of the people enjoy freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, countrywide unity, and grassroots-level political autonomy. Although people even today still debate and doubt Mao’s ultimate motives, democracy was at that time radicalized far beyond the level achieved by the West. Later Mao’s policies faltered, lost their backing, grew inconsistent, and became increasingly fettered by the disadvantages of totalitarian power. Yet among society as a whole, the rebellious spirit and the egalitarian objective more or less retained their legitimacy. For instance, the large-character posters and other methods used to criticize and denounce obtained legal protection, and the “countercurrent” spirit received political encouragement. This extremely contradictory condition and process left an opening through which the Cultural Revolution could end. The April 5th Tiananmen Incident, reverberating with the sound of the Internationale, and the “Democracy Wall” that was later banned, were merely the result of history moving ahead of itself; they were variants of “it is right to rebel.” From this perspective, the Cultural Revolution was different from ordinary totalitarian rectifications. For example, after the 1968 countrywide turmoil had been quelled, heterodox thought still remained active and continued to rise all around the country. This contrasts

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sharply with the complete silence that followed the Anti-Rightist movement of the late 1950s. Also from this perspective, opposition to the Cultural Revolution differed from normal Western democracy. For example, the new thought trend did not imitate the ideology espoused by the BBC or VOA. The trend did not have a middle class to act as the pillar of society, and instead rooted itself in the particular characteristics of Chinese history and Chinese reality. The experiences of Yu Luoke, Li Yizhe, Yang Yiguang (Yang Xiaokai), Zhang Zhiyang, and other well-known unorthodox thinkers prove that they embodied both the “rebellious form,” due to their negative experiences of the Cultural Revolution, and the “successive form,” due to the positive ideological resources they obtained from the Cultural Revolution. In their various writings, we can occasionally get glimpses of their backgrounds as Red Guard or rebels, and their Marxist and Leninist heritage is obvious. Precisely because of this, many researchers think that the Cultural Revolution contained no democracy, or at least no real democracy, since all rebellion was conducted in accordance with the central government’s “strategic deployment.” Moreover, they think that even heterodox thought was often dressed in the trappings of the orthodox red discourse. These opinions are not without reason. However, history does not occur in a vacuum. Democracy has never had a standard model. The Russian enlightenment during the reign of Catherine the Second was an enlightenment preconditioned on autocracy. The French reforms of Napoleon were also premised on autocracy. People have not written off that period of history simply for these reasons, nor have they disregarded the enlightenment and reforms. In ancient Greece, democracy coexisted with slavery in a system rife with evil and suffering, yet later generations have never called it undemocratic. The Cultural Revolution actually presents a similar situation. On one hand, the people respected the authorities and obeyed orders, but on the other hand, we must not overlook the diversity and multitudinous reality of those things done under the banner of revolution. This complex reality, although it is the normal condition of history, proves very difficult for some scholars to comprehend. For instance, once the rebellious spirit and egalitarian objective gained legitimacy, they formed a psychological force that pervaded society, and this force, like a rushing train, opened up the possibility of a departure from the tracks of totalitarianism. Looking back at those many heterodox people, even if we adopt the most arrogant and pedantic attitude of some Westerners, we still cannot claim that merely because their ideas

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originated from orthodox Communist thought, those ideas were fully undemocratic. In the many years since the end of the Cultural Revolution, numerous group uprisings have occurred in the course of marketization. Workers and farmers hold up pictures of Mao Zedong, sing revolutionary-era songs, protest the growing wealth disparity and power corruption in some areas, and yearn for the bygone days in which the leaders and masses subsisted on similar incomes and even received the identical rations of food and cloth. As one legacy of the Cultural Revolution, this kind of nostalgia has provoked widespread debate; it is difficult to simplify and entirely affirm or negate it. Perhaps the equivocal nature of post-Cultural Revolution thought is to a certain degree a recurrence of the ambiguity inherent in social ideological currents during the Cultural Revolution—a rearview mirror through which we can examine history. II. The Return of Old Camps Certain radical factions during the Cultural Revolution once complained that Mao had not “fully smashed the old state system” and was too soft on and tolerant of the “bureaucratic class” (see: Yang Xiaokai’s 1967 article). This exposes a certain reality: the elite upper class, which consisted of party officials and most intellectuals, was greatly wounded at that time, but certainly was not eliminated, and did not exit the public stage. Actually, as Chen Yinan described, as the country reestablished order from 1968–1969, party officials of all levels were impacted by the power reorganization and the “three-way merger” (of cadres, masses, and military), but they remained the primary wielders of actual power; not all were forced to retire their posts. Most of those officials and intellectuals who stepped down were able to even, after 1972 and after undergoing a period of manual labor and reeducation, successively return to work and reenter the state apparatus. The survival of this group, which brimmed with political and cultural energy, through the red storm, was one important condition for the conclusion of the Cultural Revolution. The twentieth century was, as Eric Hobsbawm said, an “age of extremes.” Its politics were characterized by paranoia, fanaticism, and blood. During its Great Purge, the Soviet Union executed over half of its central and alternate committee members, military generals, and other high military officials, including 13 of 15 regional military com-

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manders and 57 of 85 military-level cadre. The 1960s regime change in Indonesia, which received the official support of the US, UK, and Australia, involved the massacre of nearly a million leftists. The American ambassador in Indonesia personally marked several thousand targets for elimination. Severed heads were displayed on the streets. The military collaborated with Muslim extremist organizations to kill at least 1,500 people per day over a period of two years.1 As a part of this blood-soaked century, China’s Cultural Revolution also included a large-scale, unusual culling of officials. For a time, human lives were cut down like grass. This was due in part to state violence, and in part to the violence of the masses when the state lost control. However, as the result of a long period of ideological education, the latter type of violence nevertheless exhibited a systematic inevitability, and together with the other violence formed the blackest and most bloody page in the course of totalitarianization. However, looking at the greater picture, reality at that time consisted of more than merely confusion and blood. The violent actions of the “joint action” (联动) organization of the Red Guard were investigated by the law. Additionally, the military swiftly stopped and suppressed violent unrest in Guangxi, Hunan, Jiangxi, and other areas—these and other stories are worth mentioning. Furthermore, before the end of the Cultural Revolution, a number of elite including Chen Yi regained their former fame. Others, such as Deng Xiaoping, Wan Li, and Hu Yaobang, regained their power. Cultural Revolution China thus differed from the Soviet Union and Indonesia in its large-scale preservation and intriguing reinstatement of power. Was this phenomenon a benefit derived from the continuation of the traditional revolutionaryera policy of “not mistreating prisoners of war”? Perhaps it also was assisted by the legacy of China’s supple cultural traditions of “moderation” (中庸) and “harmony and integration” (和合)? To historians, these are important questions. Slogans such as “fight with words not with weapons,” “unite 95% of the cadres and 95% of the masses,” and “do not kill a single person and do not arrest the majority” were official orders directed at these people. Interestingly, in what has for many years been the mainstream narrative of the Cultural Revolution, these directives are best known for existing in name only at certain times and places during the Cultural Revolution. The narrative rarely mentions that the directives

1

See Mike Head’s series of reports in the Sydney Morning Herald, July 1999.

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were, in other times and places, efficacious. This is similar to another historical reality of the 20th century: nearly everyone knows of the “red scare” of the Soviet Union, yet very few known of the “white scare” of Indonesia. It would be difficult to claim this is normal for public opinion. Actually, one of the basic realities is that, if China had also become a Soviet Union or Indonesia, if Deng Xiaoping and many of China’s other great figures had been massacred as were Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky, Bukharin, and Pyatakov in the Soviet Union, or if they had been singled out for assassination by some foreign ambassador, they would have been unable to reemerge later, and thus the end of the Cultural Revolution would have been significantly delayed. In retrospect, the upper class elites talk about their demotion (下放) more than any other Cultural Revolution experience. These demoted officials and intellectuals were sometimes reassigned to lower posts, and sometimes sent straight to the countryside, to factories, or to special farms designated for reeducation through labor. The dispatch of nearly 20 million educated youth to the countryside was an enlargement of this scheme. Demotion of course functions as a punishment. Decreases in social status are often accompanied by discrimination, shame, fear, hardship, family separation, and wasteful neglect of occupational skills. These experiences engendered a rational hatred of the Cultural Revolution in the people affected by them, and also became the psychological basis of those people’s resistance to the Cultural Revolution. We can imagine that when those people felt wronged, they could see only the imperious large-character posters and the chilly gaze of the special investigative organization. Their pride of once following the currents and participating in struggle would not necessarily remain in memory for long. Cooperative medical care, universal education, the culturing of the countryside, self-reliance, bitter struggle, and the other highlights of the revolution would be even less likely to excite them. The gradual displacement and reorientation of these people’s recollections proves difficult for later readers of their works to discern. On the other hand, aside from the minority who were sent back to the countryside or captured and imprisoned, most people demoted in the standard sense retained their status as cadre or party members, and retained their salary or were even given a raise. This is revealed unintentionally in the memoirs of many of those people, but is not necessarily in their conscious memory. Compared to the “past events”

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of Zhang Yihe’s Past Events are Not Like Smoke (往事并不如烟), in which the suffering protagonists busy themselves applying makeup, watching opera, and attending banquets, the fate of these demoted people is of course already quite bitter, yet demotion nevertheless does not seem to be purely a punishment. In a certain sense, the pitiful majority of the demoted still continued to enjoy some respect, envy, and even perhaps jealousy from the masses. They still formed the latent mainstream of society—they had merely been frozen for a moment and had undergone a short period of penetrating education before they returned to power. The authorities seemingly had intended to use this to adjust the social class structure, compel the upper-class elite to mingle with the lower class masses, and attempt to revolutionize the “May Seventh Road.” Following the failure of the democratic Great Leap Forward, this was no different from conducting a new, populist “Great Leap Forward” exploiting the respected and oppressing the noble. Like the Great Leap Forward, it was astonishing within the context of world history. Yet contrary to the authorities’ plans, the masses did not feel any prolonged obligation toward revolution. Rather, they were growing increasingly tired of the drawbacks of totalitarianism; and their material and cultural desires came into sharp contrast with the restrictions posed by the road to becoming a powerful state. Not only did the masses fail to provide the demoted elite with a reeducation protective of the Cultural Revolution, they actually instilled in the demoted suspicions and the courage to resist reality. The rich experience provided by demotion gave them more energy for their future struggles. Literature demonstrates this: when criticism of the Cultural Revolution was becoming acceptable in literature, many writers adopted an attitude of “pleading for the people’s lives.” Even the majority of individualized expressions resonated within the minds of peasants, workers, and lowlevel cadre, thus revealing a wide human concern and social perspective. Although this perspective changes shape when filtered through the lenses of individual emotions, it at the very least sympathizes with, thanks, respects, and cherishes the lower-class masses, just as in the movie The Horse Wrangler (牧马人). This contrasts sharply with the narcissism and indifference relatively common in literature since the 1990s. The 1990s criticism seemingly still continues and is even deepening, yet once those elite writers complete the release of the thoughts and emotions they accumulated during the process of demotion

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and reassignment, their attentions turn to food and sex. At the most they may reminisce about their past social status or power, e.g., they may show interest in the topic “the last aristocrats,” or they may joke that, in the White-Haired Girl (白毛女), Xi’er missed her chance to get rich when she married Dachun out of love. They involuntarily set the reconstruction of the social class system as their glorious objective, and consequently, a great gap is currently forming between them and the masses. Evidently, now that things have already reached this point, relative to those demoted people who worked in close alliance with the peasants during the latter part of the Cultural Revolution, is the current elite’s criticism presently changing, and turning in the opposite direction? If the class disparity craved by the elite continues to expand, if we cast off the legacy of totalitarianism and merely let those in the lower ranks of society slide into to the prison of a system ruled by money, will the masses’ yearning for revolution and the “Cultural Revolution” arrive on time? The ruling authorities underestimated the common people’s dissatisfaction during the Cultural Revolution, and also underestimated the dissatisfaction hidden behind the superficial compliance of the elite. Through the movement to demote and transfer the elite to lower positions or positions of manual labor, which has rarely occurred in world history, the authorities hastened their own failure. As the elite returned en masse from their places among the common people, and as their names reappeared in newspapers and at meetings, opposition to the Cultural Revolution matured into a preeminent force within the system. This force permeated throughout all important posts, including those in politics, economics, science, education, and foreign affairs. At this time, new ideas had formed, containing some of the old within the new. The old camp had regained its position, containing some of the new within the old. Social conditions were reorganized in complex ways, as if society was emerging from the broken cocoon of the great Cultural Revolution. After 1974, the movements to “criticize Lin Biao and Confucius” and “counterattack the rightist trend of rehabilitation” lacked strength and, although superficially supported by the people, were everywhere met with covert resistance. This lack of support presaged the end of the Cultural Revolution. When the opportunity presented itself, reform leaders were able to follow and emphasize the people’s will. With “realizing China’s four modernizations” as their slogan, and with the support of the April 5th Tiananmen movement, the leaders first played the card of the people’s will, then played the card of implementation, and thereby formed a great Marxist moral

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authority and political offensive. During this process, they did not seek assistance from elsewhere, but instead utilized the existing institutional resources and institutional path. For instance, the arrest of the Gang of Four and the defeat of Shanghai separatist plot relied upon the “lower levels obey upper levels” principle of centralized power. Hua Guofeng was the supreme leader at that time; the party, military, and country all had to obey him. The inauguration of the third plenary meeting of the 11th Central Committee of the CCP instead depended upon the democratic principle of “the minority follow the majority.” Even though supporters of the “two alls” (两个凡是) policy held nearly all of the powerful positions in the party, government, and military, they nevertheless had to respect the will of the majority and relinquish power to those who championed practical, concrete reform. This “centralized democratic system” was flexible—at times democratic and at times governed by centralized power. Rather than a complete institution, it more closely resembled an unfinished one, and even at times resembled non-institutional emergency measures. This system was once effectively used to save the state and revolution from their difficulties, yet it did not prevent the disaster of the Cultural Revolution, and ultimately mutated, consolidating power and growing more extreme. It thereby caused lingering fear and anxiety among the people. Consequently, after the old camp successfully ended the crisis, because they wanted to continue forward, and because they wanted to take on the entirely new mission of developing China, with its large population, they had no choice but to confront the difficult issue of institutional reform and innovation. This issue I will leave to the future. III. Concluding Remarks: The Cultural Revolution Is Easy to Comprehend The simplified narrative of the Cultural Revolution is seemingly already set in stone. Many foreigners and many of China’s new generation have been brainwashed by certain works of “trauma” literature. Consequently, when China’s Cultural Revolution is mentioned, they can only sigh, shake their heads, and exclaim that the Cultural Revolution is “incomprehensible.” This in fact proves the failure of the current mainstream narrative of the Cultural Revolution. Here, “comprehension” means recognition and understanding. We need natural science precisely because it explains various incomprehensible natural

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phenomena in ways that we can comprehend. Likewise, we need the humanities and social sciences precisely because they reveal various incomprehensible human and social phenomena in ways that we can comprehend. We must not talk of the Cultural Revolution as strange or incomprehensible, and certainly should not then take pride in the self-made gaps in our understanding. The Cultural Revolution was a real ten-year event in the lives of over a billion people, a decade arising out of various possibilities and various events, each with their own particular conditions and internal logic. It was not a ridiculous tale of some madman’s experience in a mental institution, nor was it a strange story of royal strife. As long as we do not bias our perspectives or distort our memories, the many disasters occurring during the rapid development of a large yet poor country are no harder to comprehend than our personal feelings of love and hate. They are no more difficult to understand than the relatives and neighbors in our everyday lives. Fundamentally speaking, those people are not gods or demons, they are the same people who first participated in and promoted the Cultural Revolution, and ultimately questioned it and ended it. The Cultural Revolution ended thirty years ago, and has already grown distant enough to allow for clear examination. We need more writers with different perspectives and standpoints to expand and enrich the Cultural Revolution narrative, and restore a comprehensible face to Cultural Revolution-era China. This might render criticism of the Cultural Revolution more difficult, but it will ensure that the criticism is more accurate and powerful, and true. Official policy and the mainstream opinion have completely renounced the Cultural Revolution for many years. This obviously carries the advantage of obviating any need to settle past scores or revise overall strategy. If the purpose is to eliminate the totalitarian system and its various evils, then perhaps this total negation is appropriate. Even if those involved grow somewhat emotional, that too is normal human behavior. However, if the Cultural Revolution is completely dismissed merely out of intellectual sloth, if it is cordoned off from academia, and the events of that decade blindly avoided, banned, and cursed without any discussion, then a polarized kind of demonized and mythological narrative will create confusion and hidden dangers. The events of that long decade unrelated to totalitarianism (such as the creation of beneficial institutions and the strengthening of the country) and the events that eroded, hampered, changed, and restricted

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totalitarianism (such as democratic and revolutionary enlightenment) could become expensive collateral damage if we wage indiscriminate war against the Cultural Revolution. Consequently, the lively process and historical significance of the end of the Cultural Revolution would forever remain absent. This kind of seemingly recurrent contest of bigotry would be shameful. Not only would it induce tides of a certain illusory and exaggerated nostalgia for the Cultural Revolution, it would furthermore, in the face of the Western Cold War mentality, lead people to premature confusion, self-censorship, blind conformity, and loss of the ability to act autonomously. In precisely this sense, if the Cultural Revolution remains incomprehensible for a long time, it will become a huge insular body disconnected from its past and future. This would certainly hinder people’s understanding of the half a century of revolution prior to the Cultural Revolution, from which the Cultural Revolution gradually arose. It would also definitely handicap people’s understanding of the 30 years of Reform and Opening following the Cultural Revolution, because the Cultural Revolution was the mother that incubated and birthed those next 30 years of surprising successes and sudden crises. As China becomes a truly hot topic of conversation worldwide, discussion of the Cultural Revolution will be unavoidable, and we certainly should not let it become a rusty lock preventing access to the labyrinth of the Chinese people’s sentiments and perceptions since the 20th century. July 2005

A UNIQUE TRANSCENDENCE: DENG XIAOPING’S CHINA AND MAO ZEDONG’S CHINA Gong Yuzhi Translated by Adrian Thieret In July 1977, Deng Xiaoping reemerged at the third plenary meeting of the 10th Central Committee, and resumed the duties which had been stripped from him during the April 1976 Tiananmen incident. This was the final rise of his “three falls and three rises,” and from this, Mao Zedong’s China gradually transitioned into Deng Xiaoping’s China. I Does Deng Xiaoping’s rise imply something “non-Mao (非毛)?” This question was once a topic of debate among Chinese and international circles. “Non-Mao” was not coined by CCP members. Yet it is nonetheless a reasonable question. Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping had a deep, but complicated relationship. Indeed, his first fall was the result of dogmatists labeling him a Maoist, and his first rise due his nomination by Mao to the post of General Secretary. Yet Deng’s second fall came when Mao started the Cultural Revolution to criticize “Liu [Shaoqi] and Deng, heads of the bourgeoisie.” Deng’s second rise was the consequence of a strategic move by Mao to reemploy Deng to head a number of rectification projects during Zhou Enlai’s illness; at this time Mao had high hopes for Deng. However, Mao later lost confidence in Deng’s ability to uphold Cultural Revolution principles in his rectification work, and began the campaign to “criticize Deng and counterattack the rightist trend of rehabilitation,” proposing in April 1976 to strip Deng of all his duties within the Party. This was Deng’s third fall. The Mao Zedong who criticized and stripped Deng of his power was already an old man, lonely and critically ill, besieged by the Gang of Four, and completely out of touch with reality and the masses.

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Mao appointed a different successor, but he was not confident that the succession would go smoothly. Supposedly, not long before his death, Mao said that two affairs, the Taiwan problem and the Cultural Revolution, were not yet finished, and he would have to leave them for the next generation. If the transfer of power could not be completed peacefully, it would have to be undertaken in turmoil. Done badly, it could get bloody; only the heavens know what you should do. Not a month after Mao passed away, the party committee led by his appointed successor effortlessly vanquished the Gang of Four. This admirable campaign commanded full support from the party and the entire populace, and created the conditions necessary for altering China’s fate. Soon after smashing the Gang of Four, the party proposed the “two alls” (两个凡是; to firmly support all of Mao’s policies, and to forever follow all of Mao’s directives). This was intended to show the commitment of the new leaders to following Mao’s will and continue flying his flag. Additionally, the leaders would use Mao’s criticism of the Gang of Four to demonstrate the legitimacy and orthodoxy of its exposure and overthrow. However, within the “two alls” framework, criticism of the Gang of Four was severely limited and Mao’s errors could not be touched. The “criticize Deng and counterattack the rightist trend of rehabilitation” campaign and the 1976 Tiananmen incident were considered “anti-revolutionary issues” and problems of the Cultural Revolution, and could not be resolved smoothly according to the will of the people. Yet only with the resolution of those issues would conditions be ripe to change China’s fate. Deng Xiaoping’s third rise opened a large gap in the “two alls” framework. However, at the time no one discussed the validity of the still extant Mao directives critical of Deng. When it opened in August 1977, the Eleventh Congress proclaimed that the overthrow of the Gang of Four marked the successful conclusion of the Cultural Revolution. The party and the people both supported ending the Cultural Revolution. Yet to call the Cultural Revolution a victory, to proclaim that in the future China must conduct many more cultural revolutions, and to say that the guiding ideology of the Cultural Revolution, the theory of “continuous revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat,” was the most important development of Mao Zedong ideology, was to indicate that the Eleventh Congress still endorsed the errors Mao made in his late years. Although they certainly wished to rectify the many problems caused by the Cultural Revolution, they still restricted it to the framework of assessing Mao as “70% success, 30% failure.”

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This path was unable to adapt to the historical needs of the development of Chinese socialism, and unable to direct a shift in the course of Chinese Communist Party history, and thus led to China “tiptoeing forward” in the two years following the overthrow of the Gang of Four. II History advances inexorably. When the third plenary meeting of the 11th Central Committee opened following criticism of the “two alls” and increasing debate over the reliance on practice as the sole criterion for testing truth, Mao’s twenty year old path of political development through class struggle was replaced with policies focused on socialist modernization. The government officially retracted the “criticize Deng and counterattack the rightist trend of rehabilitation” campaign and made amends for the 1976 Tiananmen incident. Then, the Cultural Revolution attacks on Liu Shaoqi received redress in the fifth plenary meeting of the 11th Central Committee. The Central Committee even drafted a document appraising the grievous historical errors made by the Party since the founding of the P.R.C., intending to discuss and approve it at the 6th plenary meeting. All of these affairs unavoidably touched upon the severe mistakes made by Mao in his last years. Consequently, cries that China was turning “non-Mao” grew increasingly widespread, to the point that famous Italian reporter Oriana Fallaci, in an extended interview with Deng, bluntly raised many incisive questions that, put together, amounted to asking whether China was moving away from Mao. Confronted by Fallaci’s questions, Deng did not attempt to retreat or evade, instead answering frankly. While supervising the drafting of “Resolution on the Historical Problems of the Party since the Founding” (“关于建国以来党的若干 历史问题的决议”), Deng discussed it with fellow party insiders more than ten times. These talks on the draft resolution and the resolution’s subsequent passage at the sixth plenary meeting of the 11th Central Committee resolved the questions of how to deal with Mao’s historical status and the guiding role of Mao Zedong ideology. Deng understood well that unless the errors of Mao’s last years were rectified, China would remain unable to escape from its current difficulties and the shadow of history, and would be unable to make significant forward progress. China could no longer suspend judgment

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or equivocate over the Cultural Revolution; it was imperative that it condemn the Cultural Revolution as a long-term, thorough mistake in terms of both theory and practice. The party also needed to explicitly address severe errors made prior to the Cultural Revolution (The resolution on history traced party errors back to the decade beginning in 1957, meaning the Anti-Rightists, the Great Leap Forward, and the Anti-Rightist Tendencies movements. A later document added the 1955 anti-Hu Feng movement and criticism of Deng Zihui as a rightist) in order to identify grave historical errors and explain the origins of the Cultural Revolution. The document referred to the mistake as “the mistake of the Cultural Revolution and Leftist inclinations prior to it.” Put metaphorically, the 10-year error of the Cultural Revolution is the body of a bridge, and the errors of the decade from 1957 leading up the Cultural Revolution form the causeway connecting the body of the bridge to the mainland. This causeway is still over land, not water, but even so it leads to the main body of the bridge over the water. Deng also deeply understood that correction of Mao’s mistakes was necessary for China to move forward. Yet this redress needed to be conducted carefully, so as to avoid harming Mao’s historical status as the founder of the P.R.C. or denying the guiding role Mao Zedong ideology played in the victorious culmination of the Chinese revolution, for any such offense would mean a fundamental betrayal of the facts of China’s revolutionary history, not to mention the will, emotions, rationality, and conscience of the party and people. It is precisely because Mao’s mistakes had to be corrected properly, without shaking the people’s scientific belief in the Chinese revolution, that Deng insistently spoke of protecting Mao’s historical status and the guiding role of Mao Zedong thought, and made these the central issues addressed by the resolution on history. He intended to resolve these issues, but not through the “two alls” policy or by ignoring the mistakes Mao made late in life, because those routes were doomed to failure. Instead Deng intended to resolve the issues scientifically through a fresh approach based on the pursuit of truth, identification of grave historical errors, and correction of the mistakes Mao committed late in life. III Deng Xiaoping proved his political courage and mettle by sticking out his neck to confront and correct Mao’s mistakes during a stifling

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era when Mao was still enshrouded by an intense personality cult. He further demonstrated his fearlessness and political mettle by daring, at a time when raising the above issues could potentially shake and negate China’s revolutionary history, to defend Mao’s historical status and the guiding role of Mao Zedong ideology. The combination of these two aspects, namely the combination of the correction of Mao’s mistakes and the inheritance of his legacy, form the unique method by which Deng-era China transcended Mao-era China. The correction of the mistakes Mao committed in his later years belongs on the level of concrete errors in political policy and decisions. Even the complete and long-term mistake of the Cultural Revolution, the grave error of choosing the wrong fork on the road to socialism, belongs on this same level. The inheritance of Mao’s revolutionary legacy encompasses the People’s Republic of China established by the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, the PRC’s popular democratic government, its People’s Congress system, system of multi-party cooperation and political negotiation, system of autonomous ethnic regions, its rudimentary successes in social reformation and economic construction, its goal of fighting to realize modernization from a socialist foundation, as well as its pursuit of truth, its intellectual line linking Marxism to Chinese reality, its mass line of everything for the people and by the people, and the ethos of struggle for independence, autonomy, and self-renewal—these are all the living spirit of Mao Zedong ideology. They belong to a different level: the level of fundamental system and direction. Deng Xiaoping has said that since the third plenary meeting of the 11th Central Committee, we accomplished two tasks: “removing disorder and returning to the proper” (拔乱反正), and comprehensive reform. “Removing disorder” includes correcting the mistakes Mao committed in his later years and “returning to the proper” means returning to the correct path of Mao Zedong ideology. This is another manifestation of the unique way in which Deng-era China transcended Mao-era China. In both ways, correction and inheritance as well as “removal and return,” Deng demonstrated his great political courage, wisdom, artistry, and kindness. His deeds not only helped China through a difficult historical transition at the time, their genius and power is still evident today. This power helps us remain strong, and reminds us not to forget the painful lessons of history, or to forsake historical reality

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and the experiences of the people to whitewash over Mao’s mistakes. Additionally, it reminds us to keep our heads and remain objective when judging the currents of history, even in the face of grave historical errors. In other words, this power allows us to open our eyes wide to history, cherish China’s revolutionary history and Mao’s legacy, and advance down the road laid before us by Deng Xiaoping. IV Compared to “removing disorder and returning to the proper,” Deng’s comprehensive reform operated on a new level—that of the search for a new path. Comprehensive reform meant reexamination of basic questions such as what socialism is and how to construct it. It also meant reexamination of many traditional beliefs based on these questions, and the establishment of new socialist beliefs based on historical experience, epochal change, and the fruits of modern civilization. This inevitably conflicted with propositions of traditional socialist thought, and thus sparked many debates on whether China was capitalist and socialist. Comprehensive reform began in rural villages, primarily with the abandonment of people’s communes for the household contract system. Under Mao, people’s communes were the only system in place, and contracting production out to families was never permitted, but even so the farmers were limited to communal agriculture not by Mao, but by traditional conceptions of socialism. The spread of the household contract system broke with this traditional paradigm and caused intense debate on whether China was capitalist and socialist. Deng Xiaoping’s China proved through practice that contracting production out to families is not capitalist, but socialist. It suits China’s situation and constitutes a major accomplishment of the agricultural production and management system of socialism with Chinese characteristics. China’s opening to the outside world began with the establishment of special economic zones. No socialist country in history had ever before had special economic zones. When Deng approved the establishment of a special economic zone in Guangdong, he said “we must fight and blaze our own way out.” He said this to explain that with China’s opening, the debate over whether these special economic zones are capitalist or socialist may grow intense. Fears and suspicions that the zones could become bridgeheads of capitalism may be wide-

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spread. Deng Xiaoping’s China proved through practice that China’s opening and special economic zones are not capitalist, but socialist. These were great accomplishments that imbued Chinese socialism with new vitality. The rural production reforms and the opening to the outside world through special economic zones are the two great practical breakthroughs of China’s reform. Yet the reform also contained two great breakthroughs and creations on the theoretical level. The first is the theory of the beginning stage of socialism. Socialism in China requires an extended beginning stage of at least one hundred years. In this stage, we must pool our energies to further develop society’s production power. We must implement a basic economic system of primarily socialist public ownership that also allows for the common development of other ownership systems. Furthermore, we must implement a basic distribution system of primary allocation to each individual according to his/her labors that also allows for the existence of other distribution methods. This idea of dividing socialism into different stages of undeveloped and relatively developed first appeared during the Mao era. However, at that time it was assumed that the relatively developed stage would be the long one, and that the undeveloped stage implied the existence of only two kinds of socialist public ownership (national and communal ), while all other forms of ownership were rejected. The basic economic system defined by the beginning stage of socialism theory is of course very different from the original understanding of socialism. Does this mean we are moving toward a combination capitalist and socialist economy, or have regressed to the economic system of a “New Democracy”? Deng Xiaoping’s China proved through practice that the beginning stage of socialism theory is not capitalist, but socialist. This theory succeeds “New Democracy,” upholds socialism, and creates a new conception of socialism appropriate to the Chinese situation. The second is the theory of the socialist market economy. Economic system reform constituted the first and most fundamental of the comprehensive reforms. The planned economy has always been considered a special characteristic and merit of socialist economic systems. The market economy has always been considered a capitalist entity at odds with socialism. During the Mao era, we relaxed somewhat toward the partial and temporary use of markets within the framework of the planned economy at the 8th National Congress and after the Great Leap Forward, but after this the situation grew tense, and all markets

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were treated as traces of capitalism and culled. From the beginning, the economic reforms of Deng era China developed toward the opening of the markets. The 12th National Congress acknowledged the principle of keeping a primarily planned economy with supplementary market controls. Then the resolution on economic system reform of the third plenary meeting of the 12th central committee reinterpreted the planned economy to mean a planned commodity economy, a historical stage insurmountable by socialism. The 13th National Congress decided to stop referring to a primarily planned economy, and instead refer to state-controlled markets and market-led enterprise. Finally, when some theorists conflated a market economy with capitalism around the time of his Southern Tour, Deng clearly stated: “A planned economy does not equal socialism” and “a market economy does not equal capitalism.” Thus he prepared an ideological basis for the 14th National Congress’s establishment of a socialist market economy as the objective of Chinese economic system reform. He also opened a way for the relatively smooth development of China’s socialist market economy after the 14th National Congress. Market economics were fully developed under the conditions of capitalism. The economy of socialist China gained the attention of the entire world when China took market economics to be the fruit of modern human civilization, and merged it with the fundamental system of socialism. This is undeniably a great accomplishment for Marxism and socialism in both theoretical and practical terms. These two great theoretical accomplishments should be considered alongside socialist essence theory (referring to the preconditions of liberation and productivity development, and the end result of shared prosperity as the essence of socialism), socialist democratic political theory (if we only enact economic reform and do not reform the political system, then the reform is not comprehensive. “Reform of the Party and State Leadership System” 《党和国家领导制度的改革》 proposed an outline for political system reform), socialist spirit and civilization theory, the theory of science and technology as the foremost means of production, the theory that those who prosper first will lead the others to prosperity, relatively prosperous society theory, two general situations theory (one being the rapidly developing coastal regions, the second being the interior that requires developmental help from the coastal regions. These two regions are interdependent and must show concern for each other’s needs.), one country two systems

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theory, theme of the era theory, and so on. All together, this series of new concepts regarding socialism comprises the theory we now call “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” Guided by this theory we have formed the definite path that we now call “the basic path of the Chinese Communist Party in the beginning stage of socialism.” From this series of new concepts regarding socialism, it is evident that Deng-era China’s transcendence of Mao-era China was not merely a combination of correction and inheritance, but also contained a third important factor—creative development. The combination of these three aspects or factors is another, deeper level of meaning implied by this unique transcendence. V Socialism with Chinese characteristics was the great creation of Dengera China. Yet if we trace its origins, of course it too originated from Mao. As the people say, it was “started by Mao” (始于毛). The indication is Mao’s “On the Ten Major Relationships” (“论十大关系”). Mao once said that in the first few years of its socialist construction, China imitated foreign experience, “but since the 1956 proposal of the ten major relationships, China has begun to find her own proper path. To say “begun” here is completely accurate. So-called “foreign experience” refers mainly to that of the Soviet Union under Stalin, which was the model socialist country of the time. Mao sensed certain problems with the Soviet model, and in his “On the Ten Major Relationships” proposed that China avoid following the tortuous path of the Soviet Union and instead take its own road. However to say “find” was premature and Mao’s search resulted in many accomplishments and also experienced great setbacks; on the whole we cannot say it was a success. Despite realizing some significant breakthroughs from the Soviet mode, Mao’s search also strengthened and absolutized many of its fundamental aspects. Deng-era China continued the search that Mao began in 1956. It inherited the scientific achievements of Mao’s search, and also corrected and summarized the failures and lessons of Mao’s search. Moreover, China turned its eyes to the world, researched the modernized development experience of other countries, and truly began to find a path of socialist development appropriate to the Chinese situation. China

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under Deng creatively proposed and developed a full set of theories and paths for the construction of socialism with Chinese characteristics. As the people say, it was “realized by Deng” (成于邓). Deng-era China began to enact, and eventually realized, the proposals for breaking out of the Soviet mode that Mao had suggested but not accomplished or failed to implement well. The various dogmatic understandings of socialism and ossified perspectives appended to the Marxism on which the Soviet mode depended, and the various socialist premises promoted by Marx and Engels of the need to follow actual development and epoch changes with repair and development, eventually all received serious reordering, deep reflection, and scientific re-recognition in this new era of breaking away from the Soviet model. The theory of socialism with Chinese characteristics is the great ideological achievement of this ordering, reflection, and re-recognition. According to Deng, this theory does not lose sight of Marx or Mao. We cannot lose our forefathers! The problem is figuring out what to call socialism, and how to construct and develop socialism. In order to figure out these two basic theoretical problems while not losing our forefathers, we inevitably will say (and have already said) many things that our forefathers never said, new words that fit objective reality and reflect the development of the times. This is an even higher level and newer state of transcendence of Deng-era China over Mao-era China. Deng Xiaoping was the principle founder of socialism with Chinese characteristics, yet the theory also was a crystallization of the collective wisdom of the Chinese Communist Party. It is just like Chinese revolutionary theory: Mao Zedong was the founder, yet the theory was also was a crystallization of the party’s collective wisdom. Since the third plenary meeting of the 11th Central Committee, the community of party leaders, and all reports and guiding policy resolutions of the National Congress, have shared in contributing to the formation, interpretation, utilization, and development of this theory, as well as its implementation into concrete actions and government policy. It is premature to say “realized by Deng”? We should say that the theory has already been formed, and the implementation has already succeeded. Do the breathtaking successes achieved by socialist China since the third plenary meeting of the 11th Central Committee still not evidence the success of this theory and enterprise? Of course, we should scrutinize our past achievements and current difficulties, and look at those aspects that still require work. We should dialectically

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examine the words “form” and “succeed,” and look at them in terms of continuing development. Deng said it well: China’s goal of becoming a relatively prosperous society by the end of the 20th century “is a success of socialism.” If, 50 years into the 21st century, China has basically realized modernization based on a socialist foundation, “then we can say more decisively that socialism has succeeded.” When does the era of Deng Xiaoping end? Usually, the death of its representative figure signals the end of an era as the death of Mao marked the end of the Mao era. However, Deng learned the lesson of Mao’s last years, and advocated elimination of the lifetime tenure system for leaders. As the representative of that era, Deng did not hold the highest leadership positions of the party and state. At the 13th National Congress he “partially retired.” At the fourth plenary meeting of the 13th Central Committee he selected Jiang Zemin as CCP General Secretary, and at the fifth plenary meeting he fully retired. As a veteran cadre and citizen who had fought decades for the communist cause, national independence, unity, construction, and reform, after his retirement Deng was still concerned with and faithful to the party and state cause. Also party and state leaders still wished to solicit his views on important questions. Deng expressed systematic, especially crucial views on these questions with his 1992 Southern Tour. His views received the full, collective approval of the Central Committee led by General Secretary Jiang, and was adopted as the guiding ideology of the 14th National Congress. Deng’s Southern Tour and the 14th National Congress opened a new developmental stage in the new historical era of China’s reform and opening. In general terms, this new stage was a period of seizing opportunities to accelerate both reform and opening, and the march toward modernization. In terms of development, it was a new stage of realizing exponential growth and moving towards a relatively prosperous society. In terms of deepening reform, it was a new stage of clear objectives and acceleration of the transformation into a socialist market economy. In terms of fundamental guiding ideology, it was a new stage of championing the construction of socialism with Chinese characteristics theory founded by Deng. No split or fracture in history occurred between the two stages of the new historical era. This new stage inaugurated by Deng’s Southern March and the 14th National Congress was a new stage of urgent forward progress along the path opened by the third plenary meeting of the 11th Central Committee of the CCP.

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After this, Deng faded from party and state political life. Does this mean the end of China’s Deng era? In February 1997, Deng Xiaoping passed away. That year at the 15th National Congress, Jiang Zeming’s report lauded Deng’s great contributions to China with high praise. He placed Deng Xiaoping together with Mao Zedong and the pioneer of the Chinese revolution, Sun Yat-sen, and named them the three preeminent leaders in the vanguard of progress in 20th century China. VI The socialism with Chinese characteristics enterprise that was “started by Mao and realized by Deng” has continued galloping forward in the post-Deng era. Successors of course must transcend their forebears. This kind of transcendence often includes two aspects, inheritance and development. The theoretical fruits of this transcendence were expressed in the important “Three Represents” (三个代表) ideology at the 16th National Congress. The ideology still primarily aimed at construction of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and expansion of it in the aspects outlined by the original theory. Yet with each major aspect, the “Three Represents” ideology adapted to the new Chinese and global circumstances of the new century, and proposed new idea and tasks. Therefore, people refer to it as a successor to, as well as rich and creative development of, the theory of socialism with Chinese characteristics. “The Party must always represent the developmental requirements of China’s advanced productive forces, the forward direction of China’s advanced culture, and the fundamental interests of the greatest majority of the people in China.” This new summary of CCP character by Jiang Zemin was both an inheritance and development of the party-construction ideologies of Mao and Deng. The 16th National Congress took it further, as a general summary of the development of the CCP’s guiding ideology since Deng Xiaoping. Guided by this general summary, the party developed a series of new theoretical concepts and proposed a series of new strategies and tasks. For example: the party proposed a theory and task for the complete construction of a relatively prosperous society; it formed a new thesis analyzing the new social strata that had emerged in the reform

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and opening period, and declaring them all builders of socialism with Chinese characteristics; it established a holistic, concerted, sustainable, and fundamentally human scientific developmental view; it emphasized state laws, civilized government, and protection of human rights; it arranged to develop China’s West and reinvigorate the North-East; and so on. These examples all illustrate the rich and creative development of socialism with Chinese characteristics by Deng’s successors. The strategies Deng hoped to enact when China became a relatively prosperous society were all enacted after his time, once conditions ripened. Concepts and strategies that had not yet been proposed or emphasized during Deng-era China were collectively proposed by party leaders at appropriate times according to new requirements of the national and international development situations. The work of socialism with Chinese characteristics still faces many difficulties, deep-seated contradictions, developmental bottlenecks, and domestic and international pressures. However, the road to socialist with Chinese characteristics that was started by Mao, realized by Deng, and enriched and developed by their successors, has already been cleared and located, and the way ahead is brightly lit. As the waves of the Yangtze push each other forward, so does each generation of party members and Chinese people continue fighting for the realization of Chinese modernity and a great renaissance of the Chinese nation along the road to socialism with Chinese characteristics. August 20, 2004

THE IMPACT OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION ON REFORM ERA POLITICAL CULTURE* Roderick MacFarquhar** The Cultural Revolution ended like it began, with a coup against the Gang of Four. But the coups differed: in 1966, a political coup, in 1976, a military one. At the start of the Cultural Revolution, Mao was able to manipulate the party to ensure a procedurally correct condemnation of his supposed enemies. By its end, the Chinese political system was so paralyzed by top-level factionalism that only the use of armed force could affect a change of leadership. The aim of this paper is to examine the legacy of the Cultural Revolution, in particular its impact upon China’s post-1978 polity. My contention will be that the Cultural Revolution is a watershed, not just in the history of the PRC, but also in modern Chinese history, and even when seen against the backdrop of the long sweep of Chinese dynastic history. Deng will rightly get historians’ credit for the modernization of China (gaige) and its incorporation into the wider world (kaifang), but it was Mao’s disastrous enactment of his utopian fantasies that freed Deng’s mind from Communist orthodoxies. In the almost three decades since the end of the GPCR, Mao’s worst revisionist nightmares have been realized, and he has only himself to blame. Even his greatest post-1949 victory, the collectivization of agriculture, has been set aside. Only his major achievement, the 1949 revolution itself, is still in place saved by Deng Xiaoping and the PLA in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, when the CCP could no longer cope.1

* Prepared for the Symposium on “Cultural Resources and Modernity in China”. ** The ideas in this paper were developed further for the concluding chapter of /Mao’s Last Revolution /by Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals (Harvard University Press, 2006). 1 Arguably, only Deng had the determination and the prestige to order the suppression of the student democracy movement, and thus his action on June 4 posthumously justified Mao’s refusal to consign him to outer darkness during the Cultural Revolution.

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It is normal in Chinese books and articles to put the characters “wenge” (文革) in quotation marks to signify that the Cultural Revolution was not a revolution and had nothing to do with culture. Implicitly, it was neither great nor proletarian either. Wuchanjieji wenhua da geming was just an unmitigated disaster. While understanding the motivation that leads to this semantic degrading of the Cultural Revolution (hereafter GPCR), and conceding that the events of 1966–76 do not have to be called ‘great’ and were not particularly ‘proletarian,’ it is important in academic discourse to call a spade a spade. Mao’s aims in the GPCR were profoundly revolutionary—and yet oddly counter-revolutionary at the same time—and had a great deal to do with China’s political culture. That is why that terrible decade had so profound an impact upon the reform era. As is well known, for well over a century, after the Opium War of 1839–42, the Chinese struggled with the problem of how to modernize while preserving their integrity as a people and a culture. The slogan that gained currency in the mid-19th century was ‘Chinese learning for the essence, Western learning for practical use’ (zhong xue wei ti, xi xue wei yong). That slogan gave way to ‘self-strengthening’ and other expressions of the search for wealth and power, but in my experience, that mid-19th century slogan lingers on in the minds of Chinese intellectuals. But the problem for them was that early in the 20th century, Chinese ‘learning’ crumbled. Confucianism was abandoned as the state ideology. The 2,000 year-old imperial Confucian state gave way to a republic. Confucianism as a social philosophy was attacked by intellectuals as inegalitarian and paternalistic. In the mid-19th century, the mandarins knew precisely what they were trying to preserve, but by the early 20th century, the nature of the Chinese ‘essence’ had become unclear or at least contested. In its place, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) offered MarxismLeninism. True, it was a foreign ‘essence,’ but with its comprehensive set of explanations and precepts for state and society it was as familiarly totalist as Confucianism. Moreover, the new essence promised and, under Mao, delivered success. But by the late 1950’s, Mao had tired of aping foreigners. The Great Leap Forward (GLF) was his first attempt to find a distinctive Chinese road. By the mid-1960’s, he could

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justify his distaste for the Soviet model with the spectre of ‘revisionism.’ The GPCR was declaredly Mao’s attempt to vaccinate his people against the Soviet disease. But the method he chose to achieve that aim, unleashing society against the state, was profoundly revolutionary. More importantly, the GPCR was Mao’s last best effort to define and perpetuate his version of communism, to fashion a distinctive Chinese essence which would encompass a future different from both the Soviet Union and the West. One can call it Mao’s counter-revolution against the modern world. His was truly the last stand of Chinese conservatism.2 II. Deng’s New Course Deng made a partial attempt to restore the political status quo ante the GPCR with three measures. He rehabilitated fallen comrades. Secondly, to satisfy cadres’ desire for retribution, he put the Gang of Four and the ‘Lin Biao clique’ on trial, and attempted to deflect the blame for the worst outrages upon them rather than upon Mao. For good measure, Deng also got rid of the ‘little gang of four,’ along with Hua Guofeng who foolhardily predicted that “Political revolutions in the nature of the Cultural Revolution will take place many times in the future.” Thirdly, Deng oversaw the writing of the Resolution on CCP History to explain why party leaders like himself had been unable to unite to prevent the Chairman from running amok, and to justify to the ‘broad masses’ why Mao should still be deemed a great proletarian revolutionary despite initiating and leading so great a disaster as the GPCR. The real issue, as Deng put it, was that “discrediting Comrade Mao Zedong . . . would mean discrediting our Party and state.” But these three essentially conservative and defensive measures soon paled by comparison with the positive and transformative steps which Deng took. The chaos, killing, and, at the end, the stagnation of the GPCR led Deng Xiaoping finally to abandon the vain search for a Chinese version of modernity that had preoccupied the nation’s The American historian, the late Mary Clabaugh Wright devised this phrase in The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism: The T’ung-Chih Restoration, 1862–1874 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1957) to describe mid-19th century reactions to the onset of the West. 2

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politicians and intellectuals for well over a century. Chinese exceptionalism had to go. The country needed to jump on the bandwagon of successful Western-style modernization. The new order was called ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ by its progenitors, ‘market Leninism’ and other neologisms, or sometimes just capitalism, by Western observers. Thus the GPCR became a watershed in modern Chinese history. It is easy to understand why Deng acted. The enormity of the challenge facing him and his colleagues was visible all around East Asia. When the CCP had come to power in 1949, its morale high, determined to transform China economically and socially, Japan was under foreign occupation, still demoralized by defeat and the nuclear coup de grâce. Taiwan was a rural backwater to which the defeated remnants of Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Party (KMT) and army had fled. Within a year, South Korea was to be devastated by invasion from the north, and soon after Chinese troops were contributing to its destruction. As late as the eve of the Cultural Revolution, not much seemed to have changed in East Asia. Only a few observant foreigners had noted the signs of dynamic growth in the Japanese economy.3 But by the time that Deng returned to power, the Japanese miracle had been emulated in South Korea and Taiwan. The sleepy entrepöts of Singapore and Hong Kong had become flourishing industrial centers. The rampant East Asian tigers had proved that you did not need to be poor just because you were part of the old Chinese cultural area, let alone Chinese. Yet at the historic heart of the area, China itself was now laid spread-eagled, this time by its own hand, not due to foreign invasion or civil war. For the Chinese leadership, the message was clear: they had to embark upon a policy of rapid economic growth to make up for lost time and to re-legitimize CCP rule.4 They had to abandon Maoist utopianism in favor of building the strong and prosperous nation of which they had dreamed when they joined the nascent CCP in the 1920s. Otherwise the CCP itself might not last. Thus the GPCR became the political watershed of the PRC.

3 Notably: Correspondents of The Economist, Consider Japan (London: Duckworth, 1963). 4 A senior Chinese academic official told me at that time that he had written to the leadership saying that if the country did not change direction, it would end up as some form of colony again.

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III. An Ideological Vacuum An important corollary of this economic volte-face was the effective abandonment of ideology as a vade mecum for economic decision-making. Mao’s thought had been absurdly worshipped during the GPCR. Under Deng, Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought was still held up as one of the four cardinal principles of the Chinese revolution. ‘Scientific’ Marxism had replaced Confucianism as the state ideology, conferring on the CCP the justification for its rule and supposedly the guide for building a better future. But in reality, like one of the other four principles—the socialist path—it was little heeded. ‘Practice,’ not ideology—not Marxism-Leninism, not Mao Zedong Thought— became the ‘sole criterion of truth.’ Expediency was what mattered. If it worked, it would be done. IV. Party Morale For CCP members, particularly the 19 million who joined CCP during the GPCR—half the party membership at the start of the reform era—this was a considerable threat to their public standing. No longer could they silence questions or opposition with the karate chop of a Mao quotation; nor was there room for portentous self-righteousness. Instead of peppering foreign visitors with quotations from the little red book, cadres had to be able to negotiate contracts with them. Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government has replaced May 7th cadre schools as the upward mobility route for high-flying cadres! They have to be able to solve problems, whatever it takes. Superficially, this was a return to the pre-GPCR party style, when many cadres had to work very hard to solve problems, particularly those generated by Mao’s GLF. But without the mandate of a supposedly scientific ideology, the CCP’s legitimacy has to be based on competence, a very risky mandate for any government. The loss of a comforting sense of ideological certitude compounded the effect of the humiliations and injuries inflicted on even very senior party leaders during the GPCR. Quite apart from the profoundly depressing effect of such suffering upon those who survived, even if rehabilitated and returned to office, the sight of the greatest in the land being publicly cut down to size lowered esteem for the party they had led in the eyes of the people.

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That esteem was further diminished by the behavior of party cadres in the reform era. ‘To get rich is glorious’ replaced ‘Serve the people’ as a moral compass. Officials took advantage of their posts to line their own pockets. Perhaps it was only human that, after the sufferings they had endured during the GPCR, party cadres should think it was time to look out for themselves. Why should only the ‘broad masses’ be allowed to get rich? But whether understandable or not, the upwardly spiraling level of official corruption—according to some Chinese who participated in the revolution it is now worse than during the last days of the KMT—has contributed greatly to the diminution of public respect for CCP authority. V. Leadership The position of the party was also eroded by a step taken by Deng to prevent any prospect of another Mao emerging to lead his people so terribly astray as during the GPCR. Deng became known in the West as the ‘paramount leader’ and all Chinese knew that he had the last word. But he maintained a lower profile than Mao, never accepting the top state or party posts, except for the chairmanship of the CC’s Military Affairs Commission. He got his colleagues to agree to the abolition of the party chairmanship so intimately linked with Mao’s name, in order that China’s leader would be only a general secretary as in other communist systems. He seems even to have tried to persuade the PLA that the party MAC should be replaced by a government one, so that the military would be formally under the state, but the generals presumably refused to agree, so that China is now absurdly lumbered with two effectively identical MACs. These measures were doubtless necessary and indeed praiseworthy. The fact remains that as pioneered by Lenin, a communist party is a leader-friendly system, indeed an organization which needs a leader who is larger than life. Even Stalin’s longer lived successors—Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev, too—were dominating figures who were the focus of loyalty and obedience. For better or worse, they put their stamp on their times. So too did Mao and Deng. It is less clear that this is true of Hu Yaobang, Zhao Ziyang, or Jiang Zemin or will be true of Hu Jintao. To the outside observer, Hu Jintao seems like a technocratic leader appropriate for a modernizing era, but is that enough to command the

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obedience of an organization like the CCP? The rapid pace of modernization continually presents the party with very difficult problems, some of which will inevitably cause friction within the Politburo. Only an unquestioned leader can preside over such a situation. If the CCP is no longer to be led by a revolutionary giant—or, as in the case of Jiang Zemin, with a supportive revolutionary giant in the background to help in the consolidation of power—then its leader needs greater legitimization than being picked by his predecessor, or, as with Hu Jintao, his predecessor but one. Deng justifiably demystified the leadership of the CCP, but he failed to put in place a selection system which would give a modern bureaucratic leader the requisite authority among his peers. To sum up, the GPCR and Deng’s reactions to it have had profound effects on the Chinese political system. These influences, whether malign or benign, have all contributed to the system’s modernization, but they have also weakened it. In imperial China, the state was led by a combination of a godlike emperor and a Confucian mandarinate, and the system was glued together by Confucian doctrine. Mao reproduced that system, with obvious differences, with the CCP and Marxism-Leninism, but then undermined it with his assault on the party. Deng further eroded the tripartite system. If one considers the key elements of the Chinese political system down the centuries, this constituted a watershed in Chinese history. From the viewpoint of PRC history, this erosion meant that during the democracy movement of 1989, the party had no formal leader with the authority to command either a consensus among his colleagues or the obedience of the students, and no ideological levers with which to persuade the latter that their actions were wrong. The remolded CCP leadership was as strife-ridden and paralyzed as it had been at the end of the Cultural Revolution, unable to solve a political problem by political means: the five-man Politburo Standing Committee split three ways on the issue of martial law, the Central Committee was never summoned. The situation could only be resolved by a deus ex machina. The revolutionary leader, Deng Xiaoping, returned to the fray, calling on the last bulwark of any civil power, the military. The PLA action on June 4 preserved the political system, but further eroded respect for its authority among the people. The leadership of the party is the most important of the four cardinal principles, but the combination of Mao’s actions during the GPCR and Deng’s reactions to them during the reform era have undermined that leadership

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in the public eye. Having set aside the principles of Marxism-Leninism and the program of the socialist road, the CCP enforced its right to remain in power only by enforcing a “proletarian” dictatorship involving shooting its own citizens in the heart of the capital. VI. Impact of the GPCR on the People Some suggestions have been made above about popular attitudes. It should be readily admitted that it is difficult for a foreigner to divine Chinese popular attitudes given that public opinion surveys are in their infancy in China. Nevertheless, there are certain indicators as to the impact of the GPCR and the reform era on the people. As already noted, the essence of the GPCR was Mao’s unleashing of society against the state, another first in Chinese history. Students were told that ‘To rebel is justified’ and that they should ‘Bombard the HQ.’ Sadly, in a society inured to violence after innumerable political campaigns, and with the restraints of party rule set aside, Mao’s encouraging words brought out the worst human instincts among China’s youth. So terrible were the beatings, the killings, and the internecine Red Guard gang wars, that finally in summer 1968, Mao had to consign the Red Guards to the countryside. But his injunction to ‘Dare to think, speak and act’ had generated a habit of autonomous behavior which was not suppressed or forgotten with the disbandment of the Red Guard organizations. That autonomy was displayed in late March 1976 when Nanjing students marched in protest at an implied attack on Zhou Enlai in the Shanghai press, and again shortly thereafter on April 5, when Beijing citizens spontaneously protested the withdrawal of the memorials to Zhou Enlai set up in Tiananmen Square. It was displayed again by the contributors to Democracy Wall in Beijing in 1978–79, some of whom had been Red Guards. After the GPCR, the party foreswore political campaigns, and the more relaxed political atmosphere encouraged by gaige and the availability of new ideas essential to kaifang has also contributed to the increasing willingness of Chinese citizens to act of their own accord. Today, society seems only loosely under party control. The 1949 revolution had been termed the ‘Liberation’ by the party, but it fitted the Chinese people into a procrustean bed of MarxistLeninist orthodoxy under party dictatorship. In the wake of the

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Cultural Revolution, and after the humiliation of party cadres, high and low which it encompassed, popular liberation finally did take place and flourished. In the 1980s, students and intellectuals demonstrated in favor of political pluralism and against corruption. Today, all over China, people protest what they consider to be unjust treatment by officials. Perceived threats to the dominance of the CCP are not tolerated. But despite the suppression of the student movement in 1989 and the Falungong in 1999, along with the regular arrests of political dissidents and the leaders of workers’ and peasants’ protests, the rapid transformation of China’s society under the influence of extraordinary economic growth, have freed Chinese from the most egregious terrors of the fifties, sixties and seventies. The Cultural Revolution was also a watershed for the people of the PRC. VII. Watersheds The change in Chinese thinking on political economy fostered by the reform program in reaction to the GPCR has been as striking. Down the centuries, Confucian mandarins like their Communist cadre successors, had believed that government should dominate the economy and frowned on the profit motive as corrosive of personal morality and social harmony.5 Officialdom insisted on monopoly control of key commodities; its philosophy was spelled out as early as in the famous debates on salt and iron in the 2nd century BC.6 Merchants were discriminated against, economically and socially. Commerce flourished under the Han and Tang, but ‘in spite of, not because of governmental policies.’ Though government monopolies were gradually abandoned in later dynasties, merchants grew wealthy and powerful only by a symbiotic, subordinate, and often corrupt relationship with the bureaucracy.7 After the Communist revolution in 1949, the CCP quickly established a similar dominance over commerce and industry, first by

5 Charles O. Hucker, China’s Imperial Past: An Introduction to Chinese History and Culture (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1975), p. 187. 6 Patricia Buckley Ebrey (ed.), Chinese Civilization and Society: A Source Book (New York: Free Press, 1981), pp. 23–6. 7 John King Fairbank & Merle Goldman, China: A New History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard/Belknap, enlarged ed. 1998), pp. 179–82.

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political controls, then by total or partial takeovers via joint stateprivate enterprises. In the symbiotic relationships established, there was plenty of corruption which the CCP tried to root out.8 In the later critique of Soviet revisionism, evidence of Khrushchev’s alleged determination to restore capitalism were reports of illicit business activities culled from the Soviet press. At the outset of the Cultural Revolution, former capitalists were among the usual suspects targeted by the Red Guards. In the reform era, there has been a sea change. No mandarin would have intoned ‘To get rich is glorious’ even though the prosperity of the people was supposed to be his central concern. As significant was Deng’s 1983 statement, ‘Some people in rural areas and cities should be allowed to get rich before others.’ Incentives were in, as shown by the praise given to peasant households which earned 10,000 yuan (about $1,250) a year. In the subsequent two decades, that figure has become totally out of date as some people got really rich before others: by 1993, a writer had been paid a 1,000,000 yuan (about $125,000) advance for a soft porn novel;9 by 2003, Forbes magazine was listing 100 Chinese private entrepreneurs with a personal wealth of over $100 m.10 Old cadre attitudes persist, and uppity tycoons can run afoul of the law.11 But profit is no longer a dirty word, and in 2004, private ownership was finally enshrined in the national constitution. This, too, is truly a historic cultural revolution. VIII. Political Stasis Though willing to adopt any policy to get China back on the road to wealth and power, the aim espoused by all patriots at the start of the

8 See the description of the ‘three-antis’ and ‘five-antis’ campaigns in Frederick C. Teiwes, ‘The establishment and consolidation of the new regime, 1949–1957,’ in MacFarquhar, The Politics of China (2nd ed.), pp. 37–40. 9 Geremie R. Barmé, In the Red: On Contemporary Chinese Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), pp. 181–2. 10 http://www.forbes.com/2003/10/29/Chinaland.html 11 Xinhua announced on 1 June, 2004, that China’s reputedly 11th richest tycoon, Zhou Zhengyi, had been sentenced to three years in prison for stock market fraud. In October, 2002, Yang Bin, worth $900 m. according to Forbes magazine and by now a Dutch citizen, was arrested on suspicion of tax evasion.

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20th century, Deng did not pay much heed to the goal of democracy espoused by the leading Chinese revolutionary of that time, Sun Yatsen. For Deng with his memories of the Cultural Revolution, power to the people could easily degenerate into mob rule. As he asserted shortly before the Tiananmen events in 1989, “the key to our success in modernization, the reform and the opening up to the outside is stability . . . China cannot afford any disorder . . .” The basis for stability was to be four cardinal principles: the socialist road; the dictatorship of the proletariat; the leadership of the CCP; and Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought.12 By the early 21st century, the one truly cardinal principle was the rule of the party, enforced as it saw fit and deemed possible. Yet the foundations of party rule have been undermined. There is no revolutionary giant to give purpose to the regime and impose discipline upon the country. The Cultural Revolution and the reform era have destroyed respect for the ideology that gave the party legitimacy and glued the system together. Party members are often seen as careerists without a cause, and so, more dangerously for them, disrespected by their people. At some point, the exigencies of governing a vast, restive, and increasingly wealthy and sophisticated population of 1.3 billion may make the party decide that political pluralism is an opportune way to diffuse responsibility and deflect criticism.13 If so, a favorite observation of Mao’s—out of bad things can come good things—may be applicable also to the Cultural Revolution: a terrible era, but out of which has emerged a saner, more prosperous, and perhaps one day a democratic China. Beijing July 2004

Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping (1975–1982), pp. 172–81. For the most recent expression of an optimistic political scenario for China, see Bruce Gilley, China’s Democratic Future: How It Will Happen and Where It Will Lead (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004). 12 13

THE INFLUENCE OF CHINA’S CULTURAL TRADITION OF REVOLUTION ON REFORM-PERIOD CONCEPTIONS OF MODERNITY Cao Tianyu Translated by Adrian Thieret I. What Is This Cultural Tradition of Revolution? Since the May Fourth movement, China’s distinct path toward modernization has been based not on China’s particular cultural and institutional system, but rather on the particular national (民族) road leading to, through national revolution guided by Marxism and Leninism, the liberation of backward nations and a movement toward socialism. This constitutes the foundational theory and practice of Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party. Here, China’s revolutionary tradition basically encompasses the following three points: One, a socialist/communist orientation transcending capitalist modernity; two, the way of the masses and of evidence-based practice; three, the state system of People’s Republic and People’s Congress. As for its orientation, this revolutionary tradition has universality, yet the universality takes not a pure form but a national one; Soviet socialism and Maoist socialism differ in this respect. II. What Is the Relationship between Modernity and This Socialist Revolutionary Tradition? Is the Tradition Anti-Modernity, or Does It Embody a Particular Revolutionary Modernity? In its economic ideas, the socialist revolutionary tradition is obviously different from the capitalist modernity of the West. However, in terms of its Leninist party structure and political mechanism of mobilizing the masses through ideology, its large-scale industrialization (in the 1930s and 1950s–70s), and its societal development with regard to education, sanitation, welfare, female liberation, accumulation of human talent, and other aspects, no matter whether analyzed

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using Weber’s idea of rationally-organized socioeconomic life (an allpowerful state and planned economy), Durkheim’s criteria for industrialization, or simply the nationalist criteria of independence, autonomy, unity, and renewal, this socialist revolutionary tradition embodies a conceptually unique modernity different from the modernity of Western capitalism. III. China’s Revolutionary Tradition Is Conceptually Different from the Soviet Model China’s revolutionary course (farming villages surrounding cities) and direction of construction (yet unrealized proposals regarding division of agriculture, light industry, and heavy industry, and the volition-based drive for a great leap forward through mass movements) long ago deviated from the Soviet model. Opposition to Soviet control of the international communist movement that had grown out of nationalism, under the direction of an ideological Utopia, quickly transformed into anti-revisionism and the Cultural Revolution, publicly breaking with the Soviet model and thus sending China on an irreversible course toward alliance with the USA and opposition to the USSR. IV. China’s Revolutionary Tradition Contains Complementary Feudalistic and Traditional Elements of Confucianism and Legalism These elements manifest as an all-powerful state in which politics, religion, and the political culture of the state and ruler are unified, and leaders are worshipped. Absolute control over information, public opinion, and ideology has formed a sharp contrast with capitalism and liberal culture. Second, China’s revolutionary tradition is characterized by lawless mass movements produced from the merger of the native tradition of peasant insurgencies with anarchist ideas imported during the May Fourth movement. Third, within the Chinese revolutionary tradition, Leninist political parties have become the primary vehicle for promoting volitional theory.

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V. The Ways in Which the Chinese Revolutionary Tradition Has Influenced Reform-Era Conceptions of Modernity from the Perspective of Its Universal and Particular Constituents One, Deng Xiaoping’s “thought liberation,” “pursuit of truth,” “ordering and rectification,” and “reform and opening” broke with ideological dogma and expressed a relatively thorough critical consciousness. Two, Deng enlisted his critical rationality in pursuit of a legal system (to avoid mass movements), development of production power, and realization of collective prosperity. Thus the market economics, private ownership, and distribution according to factors, all considered taboo by Mao, gained legitimacy due to their contribution to development of production power. Three, despite their different economic models of mass movements and the market economy, and ideological division between volitional theory and pursuit of truth, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping concurred in taking a particularly Chinese path toward socialism. VI. Deng Xiaoping’s Socialist Modernity, Dependent on the Market and Aimed at the Realization of Collective Prosperity, Is Different from Western Capitalist Modernity and also Soviet and Maoist Socialist Modernity Considering this however, in principle one theoretical problem must first be resolved: how can socialism be realized through a market economy, under the condition of active participation in the process of globalization? This is the question now under investigation by Deng Xiaoping’s successors. The people no longer face struggles between China and the West, or the traditional battle between socialism and capitalism. This kind of socialism does not stand counter to individualism, liberalism, or a democratic government. If a model of market economics free from employment and exploitation of labor were discovered, it would mean the absolute realization of liberal principles and the fusion of liberalism and socialism. Regardless of whether Deng Xiaoping’s successors manage to find this kind of model, the socialist ideals of China’s revolutionary tradition undeniably still remain central to the conception of modernity in the reform era.

THE CHINESE REVOLUTION AND THE SELF IDENTITY OF THE CHINESE NATION Lin Chun Translated by Adrian Thieret Of the native resources of Chinese modernity, the most important is the legacy of the Chinese revolution, especially the new democratic revolution led by the Chinese Communist Party. After the republican revolution that overturned the Qing court, through military struggle and the countryside-to-cities strategy, the communist revolution set China, weakened by one hundred years of corrupt government and imperialist encroachment, on a path to modernization separate from that offered by the colonial modernity. Next, the CCP’s socialist experiment to a great extent resisted the Stalinist model and provided valuable examples and lessons for the human liberation and social development of the third world. The epic undertaking symbolized by the Long March and accomplished through the sacrifices of several generations of Chinese revolutionaries is an eternal source of inspiration and pride for the Chinese nation. The current trend of reversing the verdict on the revolution has exceeded far from merely “bidding farewell to revolution,” and formed a fad of negating and mocking the revolution. However, only through recognition of the justice, legitimacy, and historicity at the roots of the revolution, can we bring true closure to the tortuous path of the revolution, and all its mistakes, failures, costs, and crimes. Moreover, today in China, all the accomplishments that make us proud are predicated, or founded on, the victory of the revolution. This essay attempts to briefly outline the successes, failures, contradictions, and world historical significance of the revolution, including searches and pursuits in New China, and through this clarify a few of the indivisible basic concepts and principles of 20th century revolutionary history integral to our current struggle and self-orientation. At the same time, this essay points out that China’s current societal crisis is not a matter of insufficient connection with the rest of the world or insufficient marketization, but rather the result of our deviating from the original intentions of the revolution with regard to current developmental strategy and public

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policies. Especially in this post-Cold War age of global integration, the (multi-national) Chinese nation, inspired by soaring innovative ideas, must candidly recognize, defend, and critically develop its own precious modern revolutionary legacy. From “young China, like the heavens, does not grow old” to “the rise of the great Eastern phoenix from the flames of Huanghua Gang”; from “the arrival of the Northern Expedition at the gates of Wuchang” to “the 20,000 li flowing molten iron of the invincible red army”; from “the gathering of outstanding descendants of the Chinese nation at the banks of the Yellow River” to “our troops marching toward the sun”,1 the Chinese nation has experienced workers’, peasants’, soldiers’, women’s, and students’ movements, revolutionary bases at Jinggang and Taihang, the icy mountains and grassy plains of the Long March, and execution grounds and battlegrounds. Innumerable martyrs have generously sacrificed their lives for an independent, free, democratic, prosperous, and strong New China. The epic of 20th century Chinese history is indelibly etched as a most heroic and glorious saga in our contemporary national memory. We discuss this topic now first of all because the Cold War mentality has not yet disappeared in the post-Cold War era. To the contrary, it has been widely promoted among socialist crusaders in the formerSoviet and Eastern worlds. To condemn and vilify revolution, and to overturn the verdict on the French, Russian, and indeed Chinese revolutions, has become the ticket flaunted for entry into the liberal, democratic, modern club. Second, because, of the native forms and resources of the quest for modernity, none are more important than the revolutionary modernity that resists colonial modernity. It can be said that China’s revolutionary forerunners, including Communists, have through today proven to be the most effective pioneers, leaders, and advocates for modernization of the Chinese nation. Finally, because the current social crises fundamentally all arose from the metamorphoses of revolutionary achievements, issues of wealth polarization, policy failures in public servicese, privatization of state enterprise, plight of migrant workers, struggling small producers, mining disasters, and bureaucratic and judicial corruption, have gradually obscured the

1 “Young China, like the heavens, does not grow old” (少年中国与天不老) is a famous line from Liang Qichao’s 1910 essay “On Young China” (少年中国说). Other words quoted are all from lyrics of popular songs in revolutionary China.

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boundary drawn in 1949 between new and old society. The spread of nostalgia for Mao Zedong is not without cause; the spirit of revolution continues to haunt China. Retrospection and affirmation of the reason, justice, necessity, and historical legitimacy of the Chinese revolution is intended to reiterate the continuity of the reform from revolution and post-revolution socialist experiment, to defend and develop the most basic achievements of the revolution, and thus to eradicate the societal conditions that could cause another revolution. Intellectual trends suspicious of or hostile to the Chinese revolution have adopted a multi-pronged strategy: they elegize the civic society destroyed by the revolution; condemn radicalism as China’s disease of the century; champion a paradigm shift regarding the revolutionary narrative; blame the Communist Party for taking advantage of the Japanese invasion to expand themselves without ever resisting Japan; lament the premature deaths of the Westernization Movement, the Three Principles of the People, or the Nationalist Government, and so on. Before correcting the sheer distortions of historical reality involved in these claims, the mere questions themselves of why revolution was chosen instead of piecemeal reforms and why socialism was chosen instead of capitalism are already fully ahistorical. The severe crises of society and nation at the end of the Qing dynasty “preemptively eliminated the possibility for gradual reform,”2 and imperialism colluded with the power of officials, compradors, and the exploitative classes, blocking all “normal” roads to capitalism. In fact, America and Europe aside, none of the places in which revolutions have occurred in modern history are places in which capitalism was able to or had already developed in a healthy manner. On the contrary, these places were the failed sectors of the capitalist world. Revolution is the result of underdevelopment, not the cause. Re-identification with new democratic and socialist revolution, on the one hand, does not equate to disregard for the efforts and achievements of the Nationalist party such as the encouragement of village construction during the Nanjing period, legislation of women’s rights, and later, Taiwan’s land reform, developmental state, and relative equity in economic growth, and political democratization. On the other hand, it also does not mean denial of the negative consequences

2 Tang Tsou, The Cultural Revolution and Post-Mao Reforms: A Historical Perspective (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), p. 327.

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of violent seizure of political power, especially the deviation of the revolutionary party from ideals such as freedom and democracy after it transforms into the ruling party. The logic in this is rather simple: as Lu Xun said, “in revolution there is blood, there is filth, and yet there is also new life.”3 Here, let’s not debate the rights and wrongs of the French Revolution (from which arose the universal values of liberty, equality, and fraternity) or the Bolshevik Revolution (from which Soviet democracy, the right to national self-determination, the liberation of Asia, and other relevant understandings were subsequently born), and instead look at the following social changes accomplished by the Chinese revolution that are so important for the Chinese people and in world history. 1. Unity of the Country and National Independence. From the point when it began to suffer the aggression and pressures of imperialism with the Opium War, old China became the “sick man of East Asia.” The Xinhai Revolution overturned the imperial system and established a constitutional republic. However, civil war and foreign humiliation did not truly end until the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949, gaining autonomy, unity, and territorial integrity for the nation and state. The phrase “the Chinese people have stood up!” cannot help but imply a fundamental success to every generation, and every honest individual, of the Chinese people. As poet Ai Qing exclaimed in “guang de zange,” “I am of an oppressed nation; I sing of liberation.” China’s national liberation and industrial and economic development, as well as the growth in state capability and international status that these progresses won for the country, have repercussions surpassing China’s borders. Not only did China’s success declare to the peoples of the third world the possibility of an anti-colonial, non-capitalist modernity, it also, together with other socialist countries and through the pressures of competition, contributed to the transformation toward welfare state in some advanced capitalist countries. 2. People’s Sovereignty and the Status of Laboring classes. The Chinese revolution was a peasant revolution, and also a people’s war, a movement in which the people made history. Its achievements were the establishment of an economic and political system based upon

3 Lu Xun 鲁迅, Lu Xun quanji 鲁迅全集 [Complete Works of Lu Xun] vol. 10 (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe 人民文学出版社, 1981), p. 336.

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public ownership and the protection of urban and rural workers’ rights, and the transformation of ordinary people from imperial subjects into constitutionally designated masters of society. The people’s rule became the source, as well as the legitimate basis for and judgment criterion of, state power. Sovereignty became rooted in the people’s hearts, and manifested itself to various degrees in institutional arrangement and the orientation of public policies, such as the pre-reform realization of rudimentary, low-level yet comprehensive social welfare in order to satisfy the basic needs of the people in the world’s largest poor country. The elder generation of revolutionaries and explorers such as Gu Zhun and Li Shu opposed a hollow people’s democracy; and young scholars went further in investigating how to turn abstract people into concrete, politically-active citizens and electors. The main point of both groups is to, while breaking down traditional populism and rule by men, return power to the people and fundamentally affirm the democratic character and objectives of the Chinese revolution. 3. Human Capital and Social Responsibility. The darkness of “old” society has been agreed upon by all unprejudiced observers who experienced it first-hand. Otherwise, why would millions of people, including women and the intellectual elite, fearlessly devote their lives to revolution; and the national bourgeoisie and patriotic democrats also ally with the Communist party? In New China, although class exploitation and sexual oppression were far from being eliminated, they had at least ideologically and legally become things of the past. Through the conviction of the state and support of the public, China’s gender equality garnered the attention of the world, and aside from the relatively low political participation record in such terms as of the percentage of female deputies in the People’s Congress, it was not only far in advance of other poor countries, it had also made a few developed countries lamented that they had not achieved the same levels. China’s performance with regard to public literacy, basic education, mass vaccination, and child health care, etc., was even more remarkable and had far surpassed that of other countries at the same GDP level. According to the United Nation’s index of “human development” (average lifespan, education level, and infant mortality rate), New China led the third world by a large margin. 4. Social Organization and Atmosphere. The Chinese revolution made the scattered Chinese people organize together to pursue life, progress, and development; it brought society together, unified the people’s hearts and morals, stabilized order, and promoted collectivism. New

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China overcame the dregs of old society including disease, brothels, lack of care for the old, weak, sick, and handicapped, bureaucratic corruption, concubinism and polygamy, and more. Extraordinary historical conditions aside, government edicts were followed, and for the vast majority people lived peacefully and enjoyed their work. Even the most imaginative people of that time could not have foreseen the current lamentable situation of all families, in cities and county towns, needing to install metal anti-theft doors on their homes. At that time, the People’s Liberation Army epitomized service on behalf of the people, and the people’s police were protectors who would return found valuables and could be called upon in times of need. Corruption and lawlessness were individual phenomena; no one had even heard of the concept of riot police. 5. Equality of nationalities, Stability and solidarity. Examined from the angle of relations between nationalities, early-period policies of the communist party respected the principle of national self-determination and, after the founding of the P.R.C., the government enacted regional autonomy for nationalities, opposed Han chauvinism and upheld the principle of equality in accordance with the constitution, and enacted policies to protect and support minority written languages and customs. Although the government has made some severe mistakes, causing conflict to its own dismay and the pleasure of its enemies, the scale of these errors was relatively small; on the whole, all nationalities together identified with the great family of the Chinese nation. In Xinjiang, different ethnic communities under the regional autonomous government accomplished greatly in improving their living standards while turning the region into a vast and popular base of material and cultural production for China. Even in Tibet, where religious power was firmly entrenched, local cultures had received the respect they deserved, and generally speaking, the Tibetan people and aid-workers from the interior of China worked and shared burdens together, and lived in harmony. In contrast, large increases in commercial invasion and inequalities, along with external provocation, have become the main causes of dissatisfaction and opposition in recent years. Yet in the global environment of rising and highly-charged ethnic nationalism, China’s once remarkable achievement of relative equality and stability is worth noting. In People’s China, built upon the ruins of war and in the midst of the shackles of imperialist blockade, all people were mobilized to participate, employment was high and wages low, accumulation was high

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and consumption low, rural areas were relatively impoverished, cadres enjoyed certain special privileges, individual rights were weak, and the oppressed nature of the system was readily apparent. However, the administration was by and large honest and diligent, the Communist Party cooperated with outsiders and democratic factions to strengthen the country, and in a still perilous international environment, walked a socialist road sufficient to stir pride among Chinese living in the homeland as well as their compatriots abroad. The fundamental legitimacy of the Chinese revolution lies in its replacement of a backward, harsh, and underdeveloped semi-colonial and semi-patrimonial and patriarchal society with socialist modernity; the excavation of hundreds of millions of people from exploitation, oppression, discrimination, humiliation, and injustice which were the social soil of revolutionary resistance. Maurice Meisner’s judgment “in the sense that it has saved, prolonged, and bettered the lives of more people than any other single political event in world history, the Chinese Revolution of 1949 must be seen as one of the greatest achievements of the 20th Century” justly advances and shows to the world that cases of history cannot be overturned so easily.4 Here let us make a simple comparison of revolutionary modernity and colonial modernity. In the underdeveloped capitalist world, many countries in South Asia, Africa, and Latin America directly transplanted democratic systems from their colonial masters, but in form only, not substance. Their economies and societies stagnate, and the majority of the population remains impoverished and helpless. Yet post-revolution China managed to rapidly develop as mentioned above, and sustained its massive population, providing for their basic needs even before the economic miracle created by reform.5 This is undoubtedly due to the following reasons: first, the Chinese revolution thoroughly resolved issues of land: the significance of the 1947 Land Law Guideline (土地法大纲) to China was equivalent to the significance of Lincoln’s

4 Maurice Meisner, “The Significance of the Chinese Revolution in World History,” London School of Economics and Political Science, Asia Research Working Paper 1 (1999), p. 13. Available online at http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/21309/. 5 Cf. Chris Bramall, In Praise of Maoist Economic Planning: Living Standards and Economic Development in Sichuan since 1931 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993), p. 335; Lu Aiguo and Manuel Montes, eds. Poverty, Income Distribution and Well-Being in Asia During the Transition (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), pp. 8–9; Carl Riskin, China’s Political Economy: The Quest for Development Since 1949 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987).

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Emancipation Proclamation to the United States;6 and at the same time land issues were also issues of local political power. Land reform not only destroyed clans, landlessness, usury, serfdom-like relations, and other old forms of exploitation and subordination, it also eliminated the central and local power of political regime that these had depended upon for their existence.7 Second, the Chinese revolution engendered a particular type of the developmental state, and had the resolve and strength to mobilize and utilize all of society’s human, material, and monetary resources to preferentially develop basic industry and the dominant factors of the national economy and people’s livelihood. Furthermore, it accordingly planned and regulated interactive cooperation between all sectors, divisions, departments, and local, provincial, and central government. In the midst of an unequal world economic order often propped up by violence, the Chinese revolution won a space for China’s self-determination, and cannot be spoken of in the same breath as those developmental states in East Asia which took off partly by receiving great capital and market assistance from the United States. Brazil’s Landless Worker’s Movement, Mexico’s indigenous peoples’ uprising, and India’s abandoned green revolution provide counter examples to the notion that land (farmers have their fields, no matter if those fields belong to the farmers themselves or to the collective) and state (collective power in the sense of popular sovereignty and control) have a key function in late-development. China’s experience reproduced a Machiavellian revolutionary baptism, and implemented the theorem of a revolutionary break (violent or nonviolent) with the past.8 The success of the revolution allowed China to avoid turning into a mere extension of European history and passively enter world history like most non-Western countries,9 without accruing any advantages from late-development. Instead, it allowed China to actively change history, create history, rebound in the fight for existence, and eventually grasp the difficult chance of realizing the “privilege of backwardness.” 6 William Hinton, Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972), p. 7. 7 Du Runsheng 杜润生, Du Runsheng wenji 杜润生文集 [Selected Writing of Du Runsheng] (Shanxi jingji chubanshe 山西经济出版社, 1998), p. 782. 8 Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston: Beacon, 1966), p. 431. 9 Arif Dirlik, After the Revolution: Waking to Global Capitalism (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1994), p. 22.

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Undeniably, the revolution contained deep contradictions and its steep cost included brutal internal cleansing and negative consequences of a war year unified party-army-government command. As for the problems that arose in the practices of socialism, arbitrary class struggle is the first and foremost. Destruction of certain cadres, intellectuals, and the masses by political movements centered on straightening out the people reached an extreme during the anti-Rightist movement and the Cultural Revolution. The huge gap between the urban and the rural stands in contrast with the egalitarian principles of socialism. The great famine brought about by the Great Leap Forward should be considered the largest stain on the history of New China. Control and suppression of independent thought and personal freedom run contrary to the original ideals of the revolution; the democratic basis of the system of democratic centralism was completely destroyed by the end of the Cultural Revolution. Consequently, the 1976 April 5th Movement became the turning point that led to reform. Everyone knows about these problems. The truly difficult part is sorting out right and wrong, and finding historical explanations for each. For example, the Cultural Revolution was utterly wrong, yet nothing is wrong with methodically learning from workers and farmers and military affairs, nothing is wrong with laborers and skilled workers participating in management, and nothing is wrong with sending doctors, medicine, and cinema to rural areas. In comparison, today’s problem is far more than a mere “Urban Gentlemen’s Ministry of Health!”10 After thirty years of rapid growth, how can it be that the children of many farmers and migrant workers cannot afford to attend school, and ordinary citizens cannot afford medical care? The early successes of the Chinese Communist Party all were due to following a mass line. As soon as the people lose their status, the accomplishments and efforts of the revolution go to waste. Aside from this, the issue of why social revolution in China took the form of armed struggle must also be noted. With a precarious balance of power between revolution and counterrevolution, is there a non-violent method for defeating the enemy’s military maneuvers and the white terror? Later in a relatively isolated international environment and under the threat of war, can

10 “城市老爷卫生部,” a new name for the Ministry of Health suggested by Mao Zedong in 1965 to criticize the fact that healthcare was, at the time, still a privilege primarily enjoyed by upper class urbanites.

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dictatorship and strengthening of the state apparatus be prevented? How did state-ism or state-centered approaches hijack socialism? Why did ideology resemble religious dogma, forbidding independent thought and self-criticism, and savagely attacking differing ideas? Why did China not hesitate to sacrifice agricultural development in the pursuit of industrialization? Why did the CCP abandon the peasants after seizing power from the countryside? Why could the “Ten Major Relationships” be discussed but not implemented as policies? At the time, were there any better, practical choices (compared to South Asia’s long-term poverty and Latin America’s dependent economy)? None of these questions can be answered merely by abstract moral principles. The difficulties and contradictions inherent in the socialist movement provided a basis for the urgency and rationality of the reform. Yet at the same time, the legitimacy of the Chinese revolution also set limits on the reform. Although the socialist movement made many grave mistakes, the guiding principles of the reform can only be rectification and creation. Reform is meant to contrast with “revolution” (i.e. as the executioner of the anticommunist revolution), and this antirevolution sentiment became reality with the transformation of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe beginning in 1989. A few lucky countries aside, this resulted in devastating losses for all of the participants. The speed of disintegration, extent of regression, frequency of war, and deep-seated animosity between peoples could not have been foreseen. China’s success lay in its persistent self-adjusting reform of socialism, which avoided radical changes tending toward an “absolutism” reminiscent of the revolution.11 Along the same lines, contemporary social protest and the issues of regime legitimacy also arise from the radicalization of reform centered in privatization that began in the 1990s. This radical transformation led to China turning its back on goals sought with the blood and sweat of revolution, such as to make the people the subjective sovereign and conscious masters of their own destinies, to make production for common prosperity and strength of the nation rather than profit, and to cover the entire nation with a basic public welfare system. It also betrayed the basic values of socialism such as egalitarianism, public service, participation, and autonomy.

11 Francois Furet, “Democracy and Utopia,” Journal of Democracy 9.1 (1998): pp. 65–79.

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The two great accomplishments of the early reform period were ending the externally imposed quarantine on foreign relations, and breaking domestic seals politically and socioeconomically. Thereupon, China had to decide what of the original system to change, what not to change, and in which direction to change. Facing severe private usurpation of public power, polarization, a social integration crisis, ecological disasters, a development pattern dependant on foreign capital, trade, and financial markets, and other problems, a strategy of mere global integration would unavoidably lead to China to a lowered position on an uneven playing field of competition, and in the end China would likely have trouble competing even on its strong points. Using the advantage of being a big country to regenerate under one’s own strength is preferable to relying on cheap labor and being exploited and enslaved by others. This means not closing the country, but rather prioritizing the domestic market, expanding domestic demand, and protecting national industry, technological development, and capital markets. Simultaneously it means political pluralism and popular participation, and according to the principles of nationalism, democracy, and the people’s livelihood, a move toward government of the people, by the people, and for the people. After all, if reform has turned into a primitive accumulation of the most backward capitalism characterized by bureaucratic monopoly and corruption, then back in history, why did the revolution happen? And why did China reform? To search again for the legacy of revolution in today’s extravagant, materialist and deceptive environment, serves first to continue the reform, and second to prevent the reform from switching aims. The Chinese revolution paid very dearly for the specific implications and legitimacy of “modern” to this land of an ancient civilization, and the progressive spirit of the Chinese nation. In this, principles and values of socialism are of the utmost importance; they are the greatest “soft power” of contemporary China. As regards China’s modernization efforts, historical experiences of revolution and socialism are their principal organizational and cultural resources. Losing these resources would mean the loss of the essence, lifeblood, confidence, and integrity of the Chinese people’s modern existence. We would never again be able to, as the Communist Manifesto urges, stir and raise ourselves up. So-called Chinese-style modernization would be groundless, without local sources, and a mere illusion creeping along behind the backs of others. Truly, the pre-revolution tradition and useful foreign resources, from Confucius to Sun Yat-sen, from Marxism to Liberalism, will not

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be abandoned. What the Chinese people are currently exploring is indeed an unprecedented enterprise. Only thanks the great precedents of great wisdom and courage, and the impetus of heroism and idealism from the revolution, can people today advance in the face of obstacles. We must ask ourselves: in the end, what kind of a home, China, world, and future do we wish to build?

COMMENTS ON GONG YUZHI’S “A UNIQUE TRANSCENDENCE” AND RODERICK MACFARQUHAR’S “THE IMPACT OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION ON REFORM-ERA POLITICAL CULTURE” Lin Chun Translated by Adrian Thieret I I fully agree with professor Gong Yuzhi’s summation of Deng Xiaoping’s relation to Mao Zedong in the reform era as a “combination of correction of Mao’s mistakes and inheritance of his legacy.” On the contrary, if correction of the Mao personality cult and other mistakes are extended to negation of the entirety of Chinese revolutionary and socialist history, this “would mean a fundamental betrayal of the facts of China’s revolutionary history, not to mention the will, emotions, rationality, and conscience of the party and people.” Gong persuasively summarizes Deng’s contributions, including Deng’s understanding of the beginning stage of socialism and market economics, and his affirmation and pursuit of democratic politics. But what exactly does “democratic politics” indicate? Around the time of the third plenary meeting of the 11th Central Committee in the late 1970s, Deng paid special attention to political reform, emphasizing separation of party and government and elimination of the lifetime tenure system, and he cherished “highly civilized, highly democratic” socialism as the goal of the reform. Afterward, we must note that Deng’s definition of socialism was limited to shared prosperity and the elimination of exploitation. It did not touch upon requirements of the institutional level or political foundation such as constitutional government, elections, the principle of popular sovereignty, and other issues (more recent official interpretations of prosperous society are similarly limited to economics). Gong’s statement that Chinese socialist experiment was “started by Mao and realized by Deng” affirms the continuity of the two development stages before and after 1978. This point is crucial. Just as many scholars have pointed out through a mass of empirical research (such as that on rural industry) and careful theoretical analysis (such as that

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on the function of the state), the majority of reform policies could not have succeeded without the various preparations of the Mao era. Yet at present, to what extent have the reforms actually succeeded? Gong uses the past tense in a complete affirmation of reform success; he is overly optimistic. He says that “the economy of socialist China gained the attention of the entire world when China took market economics to be a fruit of modern human civilization, and merged it with the fundamental system of socialism.” He does not mention the hidden ills and price of China’s rise. Nor did he discuss the specifics of the “fundamental system of socialism,” particularly in the context of China’s current intensifying social crises. His past tense observation overlooks societal, environmental, and many other problems. In fact, the issues of corruption, rural decline, state enterprise “reform”, lost healthcare for the masses, unaffordable education, horrifying death toll in mining, and other problems already have raised questions regarding the legitimacy of the reform path taken since the 1990s. If it cannot even guarantee the most basic social justice, is “socialism” worthy of its name? Thus the new generation of leaders has, under the pressure of increasingly frequent mass incidents, begun to reflect on China’s developmental pattern and adjust public policy and implementation. In other words, although the Chinese path of socialism undoubtedly was “started by Mao,” the argument that it was “realized by Deng” remains unconvincing. Although Mao and Deng-eras show continuity, they also exhibit rupture. The future of the Chinese path also remains open. Many possibilities exist, and we cannot yet judge whether it will, in the end, succeed. II Roderick MacFarquhar is the most influential Cultural Revolution specialist of the academic world outside of China. One of his fundamental points is that the Cultural Revolution was a national experiment of far-reaching effects, and in the end the bad turned to good and great destruction caused great reform. I understand “destruction” to have two meanings. First, in the sense of opposing the bureaucracy and existing knowledge and production systems, it means an overturning of modernity by utopian romanticism. Second, it means the self destruction of certain accomplishments of the revolution, namely the party and state system as well as the cadre and cultural elite. Issues of

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whether this destruction contains any positive value, or whether any construction happened in its midst are not within his purview. MacFarquhar also observes that the Cultural Revolution opposed the state through the mobilization of society, and in the respects of its justification for revolt and encouragement of the people to speak, think, and act freely, it to some extent functioned to educate and liberate the people. Although the boundary between “state” and “society” has never been clearly delineated in China, and society is by no means a single unified collective (and differentiation is not limited to that between rebels and conservatives), this viewpoint is still extremely crucial. “Great democracy” was a great training school. Despite its enormous cost, altered the lives of one or two generations and provided strength for later innovation in China. MacFarquhar returns to the traditional conflict of ti and yong. He thinks that the Cultural Revolution was actually the last struggle of Mao’s “national culture conservatism.” Yet the failure of the Cultural Revolution “in the end caused the futile pursuit of a Chinese-style modernity to be abandoned.” This judgment is premised on the perceived opposition between socialism and modernization: “the theory of Chinese uniqueness has expired; China must start down the path of Western-style modernization.” MacFarquhar’s capitalist integration theory is directly opposed to Gong Yuzhi’s theory of the success of the socialist market economy, but like Gong, his conclusions are also hasty. If in the 19th century Chinese may have had a more or less shared understanding of ti, today we are all confused: what are Chinese characteristics? What is the alternate, Chinese modernity? What values of Chinese culture have modern significance or potential, and need to be preserved and developed? But our temporary confusion and lack of clear objectives are not necessarily insurmountable. The national road of socialism is an old topic, as is the search for a nonStalinist, democratic socialism. Yet we may be able to find new solutions to these old questions. From the “Ten Major Relationships” to various experiments, the hard work of hundreds of millions of people over several decades, successful or not, has proved an invaluable learning experience. Even in today’s currents of integration, the Chinese model has not lost its meaning. At least, with history as our warning, subjectively the Chinese nation will not willingly be integrated according to the rules of the game made in the global north. Objectively, the possibility of alternative development not only cannot be eliminated, it may be China’s only realistic road out.

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Professor MacFarquhar’s reading of the Cultural Revolution is deep and contains much inspiration, but it is sealed off and thus significantly limited. III Returning to the debate on China’s native resources of modernity, if we do not abandon the Chinese model, then the greatest resource is ourselves. As for China’s recent trend, it can only be considered American centric (if talk of social justice must mention Rawls and talk of gender equality must mention Western feminism, as though China does not have any similar, or more progressive tradition), and the “connecting” project is just far too wishful. Even among historical institutionalists, few are interested in seriously tidying China’s own modern historical legacy and path dependence. Gong and Mac-Farquhar reach different conclusions, but they are both able to begin their examinations from China’s internal situation, recognize the weight of “Chinese characteristics,” and understand why the “socialist market economy” is an issue in contemporary China, yet not an issue in other developing or developed countries. However, they are not aware of the various obstacles to China’s perseverance in or abandonment of its own model of modern development. If China perseveres, it will face pressure from the great tide of globalization trends; if China abandons its own model, it will face many internal contradictions and social protest. It seems that China, with its consistent progress, is the final test of the “end of history” theory: is it true that even a country this large, tenacious, and diverse, with a history this long, and the experience of a profound social revolution, cannot climb out of the valley of capitalism? To the multi-national Chinese people, maintaining a level of cultural identity is perhaps not the most difficult. What is truly difficult is finding a native form of socialism. After all, from exploitation and oppression to the pillaging of resources, from the separation of the North and South to war and conflict, capitalism cannot solve the problems of China, nor can it solve the problems of the world. Thus the quest for a Chinese form of modernity carries, as always, great significance.

CHINA’S SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION AND TWO TYPES OF MODERNITY Gao Like Translated by Adrian Thieret I. The Mao Era and Two Types of Modernity Modernity is a complex and multifaceted body of contradictions. Immanuel Wallerstein believes modernity has two different, contradictory aspects: modernity of technology and moderngity of human liberation. Modernity implies advancement of technology, and yet also symbolizes human freedom, democracy, and liberation. These two types of modernity are disparate and even contradictory. After the French Revolution, the two modernities that were born together out of the Enlightenment age ceased to coexist harmoniously as the bourgeoisie who pursue the modernity of technology began to fear the lower classes’ pleas for liberation. The tension between these two modernities manifested as ideological conflict between liberalism and socialism. Consequently, the two modernities together form the primary cultural conflict of the modern world system, and have caused a moral and institutional crisis.1 The historical course of China’s modernization also follows the internal conflict of modernity. Mao Zedong’s pursuit of wealth and power (富强) and his equality plan for Chinese socialist modernization included the dual objectives of modernity of technology and modernity of liberation. On the eve of the P.R.C. inauguration in 1949, Mao at the second plenary meeting of the seventh Central Committee proposed a program for establishing the country that included two major developmental objectives for China: the transition from an agricultural to an industrial country, and the transition from a New Democracy society to a socialist society. These two exhibited Chinese socialist modernity’s dual objectives of technology and liberation. In 1952 Mao

1 Immanuel Wallerstein, The Essential Wallerstein (New York: New Press, 2000), 454–71.

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set a general path for the transition period between New Democracy and socialist society, and in advance enacted the plan for industrialization and socialist reconstruction (including three major socialist reconstructions: the agricultural industry, the handicraft industry, and capitalist industry and business). After the advance completion of socialist reconstruction, Mao in 1958 initiated the Great Leap Forward and People’s Communes movements. The “surpass England and overtake America” technological revolution of the former, and the “Communist-style” uniting of workers, farmers, merchants, scholars, and soldiers of the latter, together realized Mao’s modernization plan to merge the advanced technologies of industrialization with socialist ideals of equality. In 1956 the eighth National Congress established a socialist-era road map to modernization centered on economic construction. This plan, directed primarily at economic and technological development, symbolized socialist China’s strategic change of direction toward the pursuit of technological modernity. However, the turn was quickly reversed due to the summer 1957 Anti-Rightist Movement. Consequently, Mao gradually distanced himself from the modernization road map set by the eighth National Congress, and formed “leftist” ideas based on class struggle. After the 1960s, Mao fell into an increasingly difficult position regarding the construction of socialism, and grew increasingly concerned with the contradiction between the course of industrialization and the ideal of societal liberation. In his later years, modernity presented Mao with a severe conundrum: on one hand, Chinese society’s pursuit of wealth and power depended on industrialization; but on the other hand the course of industrialization advanced by the planned system tended toward rationalization and bureaucratization, which runs counter to the communist ideal of eradicating the Three Major Distinctions (三大差别). The Soviet experience, and the conflict between modernity of technology and modernity of liberation in China at the time, caused Mao to question the consequences of industrialization and gradually distance himself from the modernity of technology. Extreme-left Cultural Revolution logic such as “as a satellite ascends to the sky; the red flag falls to the ground,” and “we would rather have socialist weeds than capitalist rice” reflected this profound conundrum within Mao Zedong ideology. This kind of plight of modernity is particular to Eastern premodern communism.

china’s social transformation and two types of modernity 377 Mao’s Cultural Revolution was essentially a resistance to the modernity of technology through the radically egalitarian modernity of liberation. Mao fundamentally split from the path of Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping in regard to the contradiction between modernity of liberation and modernity of technology. If we say that the modern division of labor and the social distinctions caused by it symbolize the deep conflict between these two kinds of modernity, then the “May 7th Road” that included both industrial and agricultural, and civil and military aspects, was Mao’s attempt to eliminate division of labor and the Three Major Distinctions, and try a “continuous revolution” of “anti-revision and prevention of revision.” It was the most radical utopian experiment led by Mao since the People’s Communes movement. Unlike Marx’s conception of scientific socialism, which would rely on technological progress to eliminate divisions of labor and realize human liberation, Mao’s Cultural Revolution adopted an anti-modernity of technology (including rationalization and hierarchy) revolution against the division of labor. Mao’s “anti-modernity modernity” or “anti-West modernity” essentially was a modernity of liberation opposed to technological modernity. Yet paradoxically, although this modernity of liberation upheld the egalitarian ideals of the socialist movement, it was founded on statist coercion and utopian Great Democracy, concepts antithetical to the people’s social liberation. Mao in his later years proposed the “poverty transition” (穷过渡) theory to overcome the conundrum of modernity. Mao believed that in order to overcome Western capitalism and Soviet revisionism, and prevent China from falling into the vicious cycle of “poverty leading to desire for change” and “affluence leading to revisionism,” China must directly transition from late-developing status to communist society, the so-called “poverty transition.” Clearly, the “poverty transition” essentially meant to repudiate modernity of technology, and use radical social revolution to avoid the negative consequences of modernity of technology. The tragedy of Mao’s later years is that his abandonment of modernity of technology and his “continuous revolution” for human liberation in the end fell into the trap of anti-modernity utopianism.

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At the end of the 1970s, Reform and Opening China reenacted a modernization plan of national renaissance. During the Deng Xiaoping era, China experienced a transition from “class struggle as creed” to “productivity standards,” from political command to an “economic center,” and from ideology to pragmatism. From this, a developmental strategy favoring efficiency replaced the egalitarian developmental strategy of Mao-era China, and technological modernity became the nuclear focus of the country’s Reform and Opening. In 1980s China, the encounter between Chinese modernization planning and Western modernization theory formed a modernization ideology and utopia in the Mannheimian sense. Originating in America, modernization theory is a product of the Cold War era. According to the research of American scholar Michael Latham, modernization theory was formed during the Kennedy era. This social evolutionary theory based on Western and American history and suited to the needs of America’s global strategy carries an intense ideological tinge. In modernization theory, “modernization” signifies a revolutionary transformation of traditional society affecting changes in economic organization, political structure, social value systems, and other closely interrelated aspects. The theory seeks to establish a universal, empirical frame of reference with which to describe the overall state of global change. Modernization theory takes the Western, industrialized, capitalist nation-state, particularly America, as its paragon. Modernization as an ideology melded with Americans’ assumptions regarding the nature of American society and America’s ability to change the world’s undeveloped regions. It reflected a kind of worldview integrated into America’s strategic needs and political choices.2 During the 1980s, modernization theory spread throughout the Reform and Opening era Chinese intellectual world, revealing its great theoretical allure to late-developing nations aspiring to economic growth, political democracy, and achievement orientated ethics. In the reform period, because modernization promised a beautiful future

2 Michael Latham, Modernization as Ideology: American Social Science and “NationBuilding” in the Kennedy Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), Chapter 1.

china’s social transformation and two types of modernity 379 benefiting everyone, the myths of modernization and development became substitutes for Mao-era communist ideals. Modernization theory was broadcast in China against the background of the reform era modernization movement. Those who accepted the theory reacted in different ways. To the political elite and state ideology, “modernization” was a continuation of the technological modernity objective of the Mao era, and signified the “four modernizations” of industry, agriculture, technology, and national defense. The economic growth emphasis of “modernization” corresponded with societal pursuit of “development” in reform era China, and thus became a new source of political legitimacy in the post-Mao era. This ideology of modernization, directed toward state economic growth and emphasizing the “four modernizations” objective, manifested as a kind of “development is an unyielding principle” (发展是硬道理) and GDP-centered developmentalism. In this case of modernization, socalled “reform” actually means the “economic reform” of turning a planned system into a market economy. Yet Enlightenment intellectuals’ pleas for modernization were certainly not confined to modernity of technology; they also included the even broader social objective of modernity of liberation. The intellectuals wished for “overall modernization” encompassing the economy, politics, society, and culture. “Political modernization” (“the fifth modernization”), with democracy as its objective, was particularly important. Unlike the “economic reform” of the political elite, Enlightenment intellectuals pleaded for comprehensive “reform.” These Enlightenment intellectuals who followed the May Fourth spirit of “democracy” and “science,” entrusted “modernization” with China’s hundredyear cultural ideals, and modernization theory’s “development” and “reform” themes, the modern/traditional dualistic paradigm, and the logic of comprehensive societal transformation became theoretical weapons used by intellectuals to criticize tradition and explore paths of reform. Thus, “modernization” has revealed its varied connotations in reform era China: as a state ideology, modernization represents the flourishing society brought about by economic growth and technological progress; however, to the utopia of the New Enlightenment Intellectuals, modernization means a free, democratic, and affluent modern society. The balanced opposition between modernization ideology (economic modernization) and modernization utopia (comprehensive modernization) symbolizes the tensions between modernity

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of technology and modernity of liberation, and between “economic reform” and “reform.” These tensions portended the deep societal conflict of the late 1980s. III. The Conflict between Marketization and Modernity Since 1992, the rapid societal transformation ushered in by China’s marketization has led to a remarkable economic boom and advancement of the civilization, and yet it also produced severe societal contradictions. China consequently turned into a risk society of differentiated interests and classes. In the latter part of the 1990s, China’s Gini coefficient surpassed the 0.4 warning line, making China one of the 40 most unequal countries of the world in terms of income distribution. In the two and a half decades since the reforms began, China has turned from a universally indigent society into a society with severe disparity between the rich and poor. A report by the American Council on Foreign Relations, “The Latin Americanization of China?,” warns that China could experience a Latin Americanization trend of political strife caused by antagonism between the rich and poor. China’s partial reforms and handicapped development favoring the economy have led to severe contradiction between economic development and social justice. Wang Shaoguang, Hu Angang, and Ding Yuanzhu’s research report warns that China is once again entering a period of social instability. The prominent manifestations of this are an extensive global adjustment of economic structure; an extensive global flood of retirees and laid-off workers; an extreme global disparity between urban and rural areas, and different regions; one of the world’s most rapidly increasing Gini coefficients; severe global corruption, and unprecedented levels of associated economic losses; and the most global extensive ecological and environmental destruction ever.3 The “poverty in the midst of prosperity” and “unequal development” of transitional China cannot immediately actualize “shared affluence.” At its root, the current situation is a consequence of the marriage of the old system to modernity of technology. The “Latin Wang Shaoguang, Hu Angang, and Ding Yuanzhu 王绍光, 胡鞍钢, 丁元竹, “Jingji fanrong beihoude shehui buwending” “经济繁荣背后的社会不稳定” [Social Instability Behind Economic Prosperity], Zhanlüe yu guanli 战略与管理 3 (2002): 26–33. 3

china’s social transformation and two types of modernity 381 America disease” of China’s transitional society symbolizes the profound plight of Chinese-style economic reform. The 1990s turn to marketization was a kind of lame reform that delayed political reform, causing China to produce a misshapen economic transformation. It led to the integration of government and business in an power-capital economy. Sociologists have summarized the complex coexistence of socialism and Latin Americanization in 1990s China as “ideology of the left, social policy of the right.” The dichotomous nature of the left/right mix in transitional China and the complexity of the China problem exposed the limits of 1980s New Enlightenment thought. Confronted with questions of freedom, equality, and justice in a transitional, neither planned, nor market economy, dualistic ideological categories such as left/right, socialism/ capitalism, and reform/conserve were clearly insufficient to diagnose the complexity of the China problem. The China problem is larger than any ideological “-ism.” The GDP miracle of China’s rapid economic growth did not lead to all the people sharing the fruits of development. Rather, the price of this boom was partial poverty. In transitional China, the illusion of development exposed the difficulties of the justice problem and modernity of technology. The historical phenomenon of injustice criticized by the 18th century Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and the 19th century Communist Manifesto is still reoccurring all over China. Liberalism and socialism are two opposing yet complementary spiritual legacies of the enlightenment movement. They represent the freedom and equality pursued by modernity of liberation. Truly, as Michael Ignatieff says: “liberalism and socialism had always been frères ennemis.”4 When discussing ideology, Karl Mannheim notes that: Only certain limited aspects and areas of historical and political reality reveal themselves to each of the various parties . . . Nowhere is the mutually complementary character of socially-politically determined partial views more clearly visible than here. For here it becomes once more apparent that socialist thought begins at the point where bourgeoisdemocratic thought reaches its limits.5

Regretfully, throughout the 20th century we remained divorced from China’s historical context as a late-developing country, dealing with

4 5

Michael Ignatieff, Isaiah Berlin: A Life (New York: Macmillan, 1999), 298. Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia (London: Routledge, 1991), 132–3.

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liberalism and socialism through either-or polarized ideological thinking and remaining unable to recognize the contradictory and complementary dialectic relationship between the two. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and the Communist Manifesto are two great bequests of modern human civilization. The former forms the base of the latter, and the latter is a sublimation and development of the former. They symbolize two kinds of value and two stages of modernity of liberation. The endpoint of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen became the beginning of the Communist Manifesto. Human liberation is a historical course, and the historical continuity of these two great declarations manifested as the historical development of citizens’ rights from early-modern legal and political rights to contemporary economic and social rights. Modern European history is a history of conflict, interaction, and confluence between the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and the Communist Manifesto. This manifests as a historical course in which liberalism (the first road) accepts socialism (the second road) and forms a democratic welfare state (the third road). The outcome of the Cold War symbolizes a merger of ideologies, and in Western party politics also, ideology-based political parties turned into non-ideological voting parties. The left-right divide usually expresses itself as “the Right makes money; the Left distributes money” (baking the cake and distributing the cake), a division of their particular, complementary functions. Wallerstein summarizes America’s historical course as: yesterday, liberty; today, prosperity; tomorrow, equality. He considers these three blessings from God.6 The history of American civilization also is a history of interaction and agitation between modernity of technology and modernity of liberation. Since the latter part of the 1990s, the issue of justice has become the greatest issue facing transitional China. Qin Hui’s 1990s appeal, “justice is also an unyielding principle,” has recently been echoed by Wang Shaoguang and others. As a late-developing country, China’s justice issue is at its roots a paucity of rights, consisting of a dual lack of pre-democratic rights and democratic rights. Injustice in China’s transitional society takes two forms: institutional justice, meaning prereform level differentiation caused by the dualistic urban/rural struc-

6

Wallerstein, The Essential Wallerstein, 387.

china’s social transformation and two types of modernity 383 ture (the traditional form of injustice); and class differentiation caused by marketization (the market form of injustice). The resolution of the justice issue is unavoidably tied to the ideological resources of liberalism and socialism. To resolve the traditional forms of injustice in transitional China such as human rights, the urban/rural divide, and the treatment of peasants as non-nationals, we must use the principles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. To deal with the market forms of injustice caused by the alliance of power and capital, we must first use the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen to resolve the regulatory justice issue, and then use the Communist Manifesto to resolve the issue of just distribution. To humanity, the twin modernities are both essential: technological progress as impetus, and human liberation as goal. The tensions of symbiosis and contradiction between them have formed the active structure of the evolution of modern civilization. The last fifty years of Chinese history prove that neither the anti-modernity of technology “revolution” nor the anti-modernity of liberation “development” alone can achieve a prosperous and democratic modern civilization. Only by tempering instrumental rationality with value rationality, and using modernity of technology as a method for the realization of modernity of liberation, can China’s road to modernization overcome the contradictions of modernity, escape from the paradox of economic prosperity and societal conflict, and pursue a free, prosperous, and just society.

CONFUCIAN MARXISM AND ITS IMPLICATIONS IN THE CURRENT AGE OF GLOBALIZATION Chen Weigang I. The Issue: Culture and Peripheral Justice One does not need to embrace Samuel Huntington’s theory of the clash of civilizations to recognize the increasing salience of cultural and ethnic conflict in the post-Cold War world.1 Indeed, recent major trends in the developing world, from the spectacular growth of Islamic fundamentalism in Muslim countries to the rapid ascendancy of Confucian nationalism in East Asia,2 all demonstrate clearly that culture and cultural identities have become the driving force in global politics today. How, then, do we explain the intriguing fact that precisely at the moment when the West scores a decisive victory over all political and economic alternatives, when capitalism is universally accepted as the only feasible way to rationally organize a modern economy, and when Third-World industrialization tears down the traditional North-South structure thereby marking the beginning of an age of capitalist globalization, there has emerged across non-Western societies an ever more powerful anti-Western backlash and an ever stronger aspiration for

1 Huntington, Samuel, The Clash of Civilizations: Remaking of World Order (New York: Touchstone, 1996). 2 In 1993, Hanoi published, at great expense, a romanized Vietnamese translation (in fifteen volumes with almost eight thousand pages) of “The Imperially Authorized Compendium of Institutions and Institutional Cases of the Great South” (“The Great South” was the Vietnamese imperial name for Vietnam, adopted in the late 1830s). The “Compendium of Institutions” had been compiled originally in classical Chinese by senior mandarins of the Vietnamese court at Hue in the 1840s. It was supposed to be an encyclopedic handbook of the Vietnamese government on the principles of bureaucratic Confucianism. The communist state translators of this voluminous work bragged of their determination to ensure that libraries, schools, cultural agencies, and even every family library all over Vietnam would obtain copies of their translation. The translation and impressive popularization of this massive work in the 1990s clearly demonstrates a powerful renewal of the national interest in the country’s precolonial Confucian legacy (Woodside 1997: 68–69).

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cultural assertiveness? What does such cultural conflict portend for the world order of the twenty-first century? In order to address these crucial issues, it will be necessary to take a step back and examine how the question of culture and modern transformation has become a dominant concern in social analysis. A. Peripheral Capitalism and Cultural Nationalism The rise of liberal modernity that took place in Western Europe and North America more than two hundred years ago, as Ernest Laclau and Chantel Mouffe have forcefully put it, marked a momentous mutation in the social imagination of Western societies. This mutation can be defined in these terms: the logic of equivalence displaced the logic of differentiation and imposed itself as a fundamental nodal point in the construction of the social. It introduced a new matrix of the social imaginary within which subordination was constructed as oppression, thereby designating the end of a society of hierarchic and inequalitarian type.3 In the Kantian tradition, such a radical discontinuity has been conceptualized as the replacement of the primacy of the good life by the primacy of justice. No social order can persist without appearing just or being perceived by members of society as being just. Indeed, our intuitive conviction that each one should be rendered one’s due is so fundamental that it denies that sacrifices imposed on a few can be made right by a larger sum of advantages enjoyed by many, even by the welfare of society as a whole.4 However, this does not mean that every social order is equally just or should even be considered as being just. In traditional or illiberal societies, the notion of justice presupposes rather than defines an account of the basic principles in terms of which social advantages are divided and distributed among individuals. There the principles of justice are derived from what Hegel termed “Sittlichkeit,” that is, the customs, norms, and expectations inherent in the conception of the good life of a given society. According to John Rawls, it its in this relationship between justice and the basic structure of society that the most distinctive feature of the liberal Laclau, Ernesto, and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (London: Verso, 1984). 4 Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), 3–4. 3

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society can be discerned. For what is characteristic of liberal democracy is precisely its claim to social justice, namely, the claim that “the primary subject of justice is the basic structure of society” per se.5 Thus, for the first time in human history, there emerged a political-social order within which each person possesses an initial position of unconditional equality and any unequal distribution of social advantages among individuals is made on principles and procedures that any equal and rational persons would accept and regard as fair and just. This new structure is what we call liberal modernity. The emancipatory implications of liberal modernity well explain why both classical liberalism and classical Marxism shared a common belief in the effectiveness of capitalism in raising growth, alleviating poverty, and promoting equality and civil liberties everywhere, including the Third World.6 However, what these classical paradigms have failed to anticipate and certainly could hardly explain was what Tom Nairn termed “the most brutally and hopelessly material side” of modern world history— the persistent uneven development between Western core countries and the peripheral world.7 Ever since the nineteenth century, social analysts have been haunted by the puzzling fact that the imposition of basic ideas and institutions of bourgeois modernity (individualism, constitutionalism, human rights, free markets, the rule of law), which presumably contributed to the vitality and prosperity of the advanced capitalist center in the West, has produced in the peripheral world exactly the opposite effect: a direct descent into social decay and economic stagnation.8 In the fashion of Samir Amin, I shall refer to this phenomenon as the paradox of peripheral capitalism or peripheral liberal deformation. Nowhere has this paradox asserted itself in a more glaring manner than in the post-Communist world today. Contrary to the neo-liberal views of the “end of history,” the eager turn of former communist and developing nations to the free market economy and liberal democracy has not ushered in an unequivocal flowering of capitalism. Instead, the

Ibid., 7. Hoogvelt, Ankie, Globalization and the Postcolonial World: The New Political Economy of Development (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 65. 7 Nairn, Tom, The Break-up of Britain: Crisis and Neo-Nationalism, 2nd ed. (New York: New Left Review, 1977), 336. 8 Hoogvelt, Globalization and the Postcolonial World, 175. 5 6

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attempt has been repaid only with bitter disappointments: regional and ethnic conflicts, rampant corruption, glaring inequality between the rich and poor, and flagrant lawlessness.9 The rapid social disintegration of Russia from the early 1990s provides a compelling case in point. Over the past few decades intensive studies have been made, both by Western social scientists and Third World intellectuals, to explore the origins and effects of peripheral deformation. From these studies two factors stand out as eminently responsible: nation-states and the bourgeois class. Modern economic transformation depends upon the institutional framework provided by a modern nation-state, which alone possesses sovereignty characterized by the authority to maintain an administrative and legal monopoly over a territory and to exercise direct control of the means of internal and external violence.10 Thus the nation-state is defined as a political body of national sovereignty. It constitutes a sharp contrast to traditional forms of states—empires and kingdoms, in which social control rests on a division of labor and a coordination of effort between a semi-bureaucratic state and a landed upper class, which retains considerable local and regional authority over the peasant majority of the population.11 Modern nation-states first emerged in Western Europe in the aftermath of the Renaissance and Reformation. This historical process is essentially a product of aspirant middle classes, who typically play a decisive role in creating a popular-national identity12 or what Benedict Anderson has termed “a new form of imagined communities.”13 The result is the emergence of a voluntary type of nationalism, which defines the “the nation” as a rational association of free and equal individuals in a given territory. Ironically, this voluntary, bourgeoisie-centered model of state building, when applied or introduced into non-Western countries, has become a standard recipe for social and political disaster. With the breakdown of traditional forms of political power, what has emerged

9 de Soto, Hernando, The Mystery of Capitalism: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else? (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 2–4. 10 Giddens, Anthony, A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism, II: The Nation State and Violence (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1985), 119–121. 11 Skocpol, Theda, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). 12 Kohn, Hans, The Idea of Nationalism (New York: Macmillan, 1945). 13 Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, revised edition (London: Verso, 1991), 46.

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to replace them is anything but national consciousness or an “imagined community.” Instead, the whole society is fragmented into numerous forms of regionalism, linguistic and religious assertions, and tribal or ethnic loyalties, leading to a typical Hobbesian situation—amoral familism, clientelism, lawlessness, ineffective government, and, consequently, economic stagnation.14 The significance of this typical situation of peripheral liberal deformation for our understanding of the modern world system is obvious. Nearly a century ago, it was precisely the convergence of a weak native bourgeoisie and the social disintegration in Russia that forced Lenin, Trotsky, and other Russian revolutionaries to abandon the Marxist orthodoxy regarding the revolutionary role of the bourgeoisie and to propose the idea of “hegemony.” Central to the idea is the assertion that peripheral nation-building could be accomplished only through carrying out a non-bourgeois democratic revolution on the basis of a national-popular identity organized by a revolutionary vanguard party.15 It was a similar crisis of bourgeois liberalism in China and many other peripheral countries that pushed these nations to the “Russian route.” As a result, there emerged what Benedict Anderson termed “official nationalism,” which is characterized by a mixture of modern nationalism and the dynastic intention of old empires, forged and led by intellectuals and political elites.16 Not surprisingly, during the mid-twentieth century, this state-centered nationalism set the stage for the great wave of anti-colonial national movements that swept across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. For the convenience of discussion, I shall term this type of nationalism peripheral cultural nationalism or hegemonic nationalism to highlight its illiberal, non-bourgeois character. The central role of hegemonic nationalism in peripheral modernization can be judged from the fact almost all recent successful instances of Third World industrialization have taken place in countries that have grounded state-building on hegemonic nationalism and adopted a deliberately illiberal or de-Western strategy of development. The best example, of course, is the case of “the East Asia Miracle” (World

14 Putnam, Robert D., Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 183. 15 Ibid., 77; Laclau and Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. 16 Ibid., 86; Konrád, Georg, and Ivan Szelényi, The Intellectuals on the Road to Class Power, trans. by Andrew Arato and Richard E. Allen (New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979).

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Bank 1993). Since the 1970s, East Asian countries, collectively referred to as “high-performing East Asian countries” (HPEAs), have experienced extraordinarily high rates of growth in the GNP per capita, higher than those of any other group of countries in the world, including the advanced core countries.17 Such remarkable successes, as many analysts have pointed out, were attributable primarily to the model of the “developmental State”18 or “a second case of modernity.”19 By drawing inspiration from native cultural values and norms, the HPEAs have called into question virtually all the basic assumptions of the Eurocentric models of development. The most dramatic instance of the developmental-state model can be found in the recent gigantic economic growth of China that, unlike other former socialist regimes, still remains a single-party State. This huge nation was on the list of the poorest countries until 1979 when it started “market reforms.” Today, its remarkable rate of economic growth over the past two decades has brought forth the speculation that China could become, in twenty-five years, the most powerful foe that the United States has ever had to confront.20 The rise of China as a formidable economic power, which constitutes such a sharp contrast to the ineffective struggle of Russia and other former socialist and developing countries, forces us to reach a near-paradoxical conclusion: Given the persistence of peripheral liberal deformation, de-liberalization or deWesternization is almost a “logical prerequisite” for the upward mobility of a peripheral nation within the capitalist world system controlled and dominated by the Western core countries. Only against this background may we understand why there is currently a widespread resentment to “human-rights imperialism” across the peripheral world, why peripheral nations insist on the primacy of national sovereignty over democratization, and why it is “in the realm of culture that emerging market nations in Asia and Latin America now feel most threatened and in which they are most insistently demanding independence and freedom from Western domination.”21

Hoogvelt, Globalization and the Postcolonial World, 210f. Ibid., 61. 19 Berger, Peter L., The Capitalist Revolution: Fifty Propositions about Prosperity, Equality, and Liberty (New York: Basic Books, 1986). 20 Fogel, Robert William, The Fourth Great Awakening and the Future of Egalitarianism (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2000), 180. 21 Ibid., 234. 17 18

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B. The Kantian West versus the Hegelian East? The Logic of Weberianism It can be noted at this juncture that the experience of the peripheral world seems to fit the diagnosis of the crises of bourgeois modernity made by Hegel and other communitarian philosophers and social theorists. This is crucial to our discussion, for it brings the problem of peripheral capitalism to the center of current controversies over the nature of liberal modernity between liberalism and “neo-Aristotelianism” or “neo-Hegelianism.”22 As a theory of social construction, the whole edifice of the liberal tradition hinges upon the Kantian notion of “moral autonomy,” which sets the un-situated self against both the Sittlichkeit, or the ethical way of life of society, and one’s empirical inclinations, desires, and interests. Habermas’ idea of “modern structures of consciousness”23 (1984) and Rawls’ assumption about “individual persons’ capacity to have an effective sense of justice”24 are both contemporary reconstructions of the same central notion. All these conceptual constructs about private autonomy have been formulated to demonstrate how a popular-national identity or consensus could be generated from within a civil society where “the pursuit of material interests were emancipated from moral passions and became in fact the ruling passion” (Benhabib 1986: 6); or, to put it bluntly, how “private vices” could become “public virtues in the modern marketplace.” Underlying these constructs is the claim that private persons, when engaged in rational-critical debate about publicly relevant issues, somehow begin to look at things from a general perspective while retaining their private identities. The question is how can this be done without presupposing an Enlightenment notion of the rational subject, who is said to occupy a neutral, ahistorical position and is always capable of subjecting passions to the control of reason, or a Kantian notion of “the noumenal self,” a disposition of rational beings to act in accordance with “ought” rather than “is”?

22 Benhabib, Seyla, Critique, Norm, and Utopia: A Study of the Foundations of Critical Theory (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986). 23 Habermas, Jürgen, Theory of Communicative Action, Volume One: Reason and the Rationalization of Society (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984). 24 Rawls, A Theory of Justice.

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The argument against various versions of the un-situated self is well known and needs no reiteration here.25 It is sufficient to note that the essence of the critique, to use Hegel’s terminology, lies precisely in the problem concerning the possibility of the “second nature.”26 Viewed from this perspective, the idea of “public use of reason by private people” is self-contradictory. Public reasoning cannot but presuppose a sharp distinction between the private self and the public self, a distinction that stands at the heart of any form of Sittlichkeit—the traditional teleological scheme of the good life. Hegel accordingly predicted that the bourgeoisie as private people were by nature incapable of building up any meaningful social order, needless to say “an imagined community,” and that no construction of a modern nation-state would be possible without the determinant role of “the ethical State,” which alone could serve as the ultimate locus of the “general will” of the nation or the ethical life in and for itself.27 The prevalence of capitalist deformation in the peripheral world has certainly brought into sharp focus the conceptual force of the Hegelian perspective as well as its current relevance. It demonstrates that “rational egoists” collectively called “the bourgeoisie” are normally neither rational nor autonomous nor “socialized;” that a free-market economy without an effective political-legal regulation is normally a system of cheats; that the liberal State, which is supposed to be separated from the ethical life of any historical community, is normally of a no-public nature; that since no power could ensure that the State would act publicly, and since nothing could prevent those who control the coercive force of the State from using that force as their private capital, there normally exists “the unholy marriage of political and economic power, whereby money buys influence, and power attracts money;”28 and, as a result of all this, that a capitalist society based on the prin-

The problem with this conception of the autonomous self, it is argued, is that a “subject” as such does not have at one’s disposal an immediate intuition of one’s existence and essence as a thinking being. As Paul Ricoeur puts it, all rational reflection must be mediated in the sense that it is to be cultivated, objectified by the ideas, works, and institutions of its socio-cultural context. See Ricoeur 1979: 106. 26 Hegel, G.W., Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts oder Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse, Werke 7 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1970); for the English translation, see Elements of the Philosophy of Right, edited by Allen W. Wood and translated by H.B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), §151. 27 Ibid., §302. 28 Harrison, Paul, Inside the Third World, 2nd ed. (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1981), 369.; North, Douglass C., Institutions: Institutional Change and Economic 25

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ciples of market economy and liberal politics is normally a society of rampant corruption. In this connection, it may be argued that what is really at issue in the paradox of peripheral liberal deformation is not so much the question of why liberal modernity has failed in the periphery as the question of how it could ever have succeeded in the West in the first place. Here the Weberian tradition comes in. In his famous comparative studies on the “economic ethics” of the Chinese, Indian, Hebrew, and Protestant civilizations, Weber conceded that liberal democracy, defined as a polity on the basis of a consensual contract among autonomous, rights-bearing individuals, may provide little solution to the dilemma of collective action characteristic of a market society. It does not follow, however, that the Kantian theses on the primacy of justice and moral autonomy are purely philosophical speculations. Rather, they are abstract reflections on the concrete cultural and political processes in the historical development of the Occident civilization. Kant is certainly right in asserting that the cognitive evolution from substantive rationality to formalistic rationality, from the primacy of the ethical life to the primacy of justice holds a key to the emergence of legal domination and rational capitalism in the West. What Kant has overlooked is the fact that such an evolutionary process is itself rooted primarily in the particularity of the religious or cultural orientation of the Occidental civilization and, therefore, is historically contingent and culturally specific. It is these unique cultural traits that account for the predominance of civic norms and networks of civic engagement in Western core countries, which breed and sustain “an individualistic ethics of conscience and responsibility” and hence the practice of public reasoning by private people29 (Ingram 1987: 45). By contrast, the absence of such civic roots in non-Western societies would create a kind of “un-civic” capitalist system in which “defection, distrust, shirking, exploitation, isolation, disorder, and stagnation intensify one another in a suffocating miasma of vicious circles.”30 In this setting one

Performance (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 59; Putnam, Making Democracy Work, 165. 29 Schluchter, Wolfgang, The Rise of Western Rationalism: Max Weber’s Developmental History, trans. Guenther Roth (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: The University of California Press, 1981), 62f.; Putnam, Making Democracy Work. 30 Putnam, Making Democracy Work, 177.

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should only expect a Hobbesian or Hegelian solution, which compensates for instabilities through authoritarian institutions. C. The Problematic of Peripheral Justice in the Current Age of Globalization It is not difficult to find certain striking parallels between peripheral cultural nationalism and the Weberian tradition. Just as peripheral nations insistently demand that human rights must be considered in the context of “national and regional particularities and various historical, religious and cultural backgrounds,”31 so Western cultural analysts and communitarian philosophers appeal to values rooted in inherited national, religious, or ethnic identities as the inescapable framework within which all issues of justice and modern transformation should be addressed. This convergence, however, is profoundly revealing. For it brings to the fore the limits of the developmental state model as an alternative to liberal modernity in a most glaring manner. As Edward Said, Bryan S. Turner, and others have rightly observed,32 the Weberian line of analysis is closely associated with the “Orientalist” legacy in the Western social sciences. It carries the central implication that non-Western societies, for lack of various desirable cultural traits, basically deserve to be caught in the dilemma between social disintegration and authoritarianism. Here lies an apparent dilemma that any peripheral nationalist or multiculturalist position has to face. It certainly could be argued that “the moral point of view” advocated by prominent thinkers of the liberal tradition like Immanuel Kant, Jürgen Habermas, and John Rawls is nothing but an Occidental discourse about reason, which is a mere contingent product of linguistically socialized, finite, and embodied creatures. The irony, however, is that in making such an argument, one is actually asserting that only some specific groups of homo sapiens deserve or can afford “to reason about general rules governing their mutual existence from the standpoint of a hypothetical questioning: under what conditions can we say that these general rules of action are valid not simply because they are what you and I have been brought up to believe or because my parents, my synagogue, my See “Bangkok Declaration of Human Rights” in World Conference on Human Rights (1993). 32 Said, Edward W., Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1978).; Turner, Bryan S., Marx and the End of Orientalism (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978). 31

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neighbors, my tribe say so, but because they are fair, just, impartial, in the mutual interest of all?”33 This is more than a normative issue. It has tremendous practical implications in the present age of globalization. Third World industrialization, especially the rapid rise of East Asian countries into the epicenter of global capital accumulation and transnational production, marks the beginning of a new phase of the historical development of capitalism within which the capitalist mode of production has become, for the first time in modern history, “an authentically global abstraction, divorced from its historically specific origins in Europe.”34 Keeping in mind the decisive role of hegemonic nationalism and the developmental State in peripheral modernization, it can be said that globalization defined as the expansion of capitalism to non-Western regions and the emergence of a highly integrated world economy presupposes a structural differentiation between Western voluntaristic nationalism and peripheral cultural nationalism—that is, between liberal nation-states and peripheral developmental states. Moreover, this new global structure is not only differential but also hierarchical. Because of the persistent effects of peripheral liberal deformation and the juxtaposition between liberal and hegemonic nation-states, the old three-tiered structure of the global hierarchy that took shape after the 1917 Russian Revolution, as Habermas has rightly indicated, remains basically intact within the present world system.35 The Third World today consists of territories of peripheral capitalist deformation, where “the state infrastructure and monopoly of the means of violence are so weakly developed (Somalia) or have disintegrated to such an extent (the former Yugoslavia)” that indirect violence of a Mafia-like or fundamentalist variety disrupts internal order.36 By contrast, the Second World consists of those nation-states in the periphery that seek to compensate for instabilities through authoritarian constitutions and native values. As a result, some of them have achieved a remarkable success in industrialization. Only the states of the First World in Europe and North America can afford to harmonize 33 Benhabib, Seyla, Situating the Self: Gender, Community and Postmodernism in Contemporary Ethics (New York: Routledge, 1992), 6. 34 Dirlik, Arif, “The Global in the Local,” in Rob Wilson and Wimal Dissanayake (eds.), Global/Local: Cultural Production and the Transnational Imaginary (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1996), 30. 35 Habermas, Jürgen, The Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political Theory, edited by Ciaran Cronin and Pablo De Creiff (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1998), 183f. 36 Ibid.

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their national interests with the norms that define the universalistic, cosmopolitan aspirations of the United Nations. It is in this pattern of globalization by hierarchical differentiation that some of the most profound contradictions of the present world system can be clearly discerned. Globalization, as so many analysts have pointed out, is by nature supranational or transnational. It would inevitably intrude on national economic sovereignty and, accordingly, undermine national sovereignty from within by fragmenting the national economy.37 The erosion of nation-states, in turn, would necessitate a political, social, and cultural framework at the world level that can give coherence to the overall management of the system.38 The question is what this tendency towards de-nationhood or denationalization portends for Western and peripheral countries. This process has created virtually no problem for the states of the first world in Europe and North America. Rooted in a voluntaristic type of nationalism, the historical convergence between nationality (ethnos) and liberalism (demos) in the formation of European nation-states was only a contingent link: liberalism depends neither conceptually nor practically upon nationality.39 The recent remarkable processes of economic and political integration among members of the European Union certainly attest to the validity of this observation. It is hardly surprising, then, that some of the best minds in the West have already begun thinking on the application of liberal principles of justice to the supranational domains. Both Habermas and Rawls, for instance, recently advocated a model of cosmopolitan law or “the law of peoples,” which confers actionable legal rights directly on individuals and mandates the creation of supranational political agencies and institutions to ensure the implementation of human rights on a global level.40 By contrast, the same tendency of de-nationhood has posed fundamental challenges to peripheral nation-states. With cultural nationalism and developmental states as their only resource for survival within the capitalism system, these nations have already been dragged by 37 Dirlik, “The Global in the Local,” 31; Held, David, Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt and Joanthan Perraton, Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999). 38 Amin, Samir, Capitalism in the Age of Globalization (London and New York: Zed Books, 1997). 39 Habermas, The Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political Theory. 40 Ibid.; Rawls, John, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999).

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processes of economic globalization into an almost impossible situation. They are forced to move simultaneously in two completely opposite directions: to be nationalistic while allowing themselves to be denationalized; to be radically multicultural or anti-Western while subjecting themselves to supranational institutions governed by norms of Western liberalism. There is little doubt that any attempt on the Western part to impose a global regime of liberal democracy would have only the effect to deprive peripheral nations of the very means that have been so critical to most successful instances of peripheral industrialization—the national sovereignty to manage internal affairs and the rights to regulate multinationals and promote domestic businesses.41 It should be obvious that neither liberal universalism nor peripheral culturalism may provide any reliable solution to the current crises of globalization and the enduring inequalities between the West and the peripheral world. The only solution is located in the possibility of equal development in the sense that each nation should afford to harmonize its national interest with the ideals of social justice or, in Ernest Laclau and Chantel Mouffe’s terminology, the logic of equivalence. If so, the following question becomes essential: given the historical specificity of the Western bourgeoisie and its decisive role in the reproduction of liberal democracy, how then can we define or even perceive the logic of equivalence in non-bourgeois peripheral terms? Simply put, is it possible to develop a notion of the primacy of social justice that transcends the limits of liberal democracy and, therefore, can be applied to peripheral conditions? I shall speak of this issue as the problematic of peripheral justice. It should also be obvious that any attempt to address this problem has to confront the challenge posed by the Weberian legacy: how can one provide a full explanation as to why in the West—and only in the West—the ideal of public reasoning by private people has been materialized while still capable of demonstrating the principles of justice and equality are beyond the peculiarity of the Occidental civilization? This is where the Marxist theory of public hegemony becomes so relevant.

41 Amsden, Alice H., The Rise of “The Rest:” Challenges to the West from Late- Industrialization Economies (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).

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The theory and practice of hegemony, as was discussed above, arose as a state-centered solution to the prevalence of liberal deformation across the peripheral world. For this reason, the tradition of hegemony should be perceived as a forerunner of contemporary peripheral cultural nationalism. There is, however, a fundamental difference between these two versions of “official nationalism.” While contemporary cultural nationalists find in the developmental state a viable alternative to the Western model of liberal modernity, Marxist “state-builders”42 conceived of such a statist model precisely as what is the problem at issue. They were keenly aware that any attempt to construct a nonvoluntary form of national-popular identity through the practice of hegemony would inevitably postulate a clear separation between the leading sectors and those who are led, thereby resulting in “a Bonapartist-Caesarist type” of nationalism.43 Accordingly, the very constellation that made revolution possible would turn out to be “the greatest roadblock for developing a free society.”44 Such a dilemma was a major impetus for the development of a variety of Leninist or post-Leninist efforts to reconcile peripheral nationalism and the ideals of equality and justice, ranging from Lenin’s scheme of “Soviet Democracy” to Trotsky’s theory of “Permanent Revolution” and to Mao’s platform of “New Democracy.” The process reached its culmination in the notion of public hegemony developed respectively by Antonio Gramsci and Chinese Confucian Marxists. In order to examine the significant theoretical implications of this tradition, it would be necessary here to take a closer look at the nature of the problematic of peripheral justice. At the core of this problem is an intrinsic linkage between liberalism and eurocentricism, or to put it more dramatically, the liberal logic of eurocentricism. An appropriate point of reference for considering this linkage may be found in the idea of the primacy of justice as explicated by Rawls.

Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions. Laclau and Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, 55; Gramsci, Antonio, Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, edited and translated by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey N. Smith (New York: International Publishers, 1971), 227. 44 Cohen, Jean L., and Andrew Arato, Civil Society and Political Theory (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1992), 143. 42 43

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Social justice, defined as the basic structure of society, presupposes the existence of a pre-political state of nature and the possibility of a public perspective shared by the contracting parties, which, ironically, may least likely exist in the absence of a political order. The perplexity highlights the centrality of the “duality of human existence” for collective action,45 accounting for the predominance of political society in pre-modern social formations, notably the fundamental contrast between the public realm of the polis and the private realm of economic activities in Greek city-states.46 Seen from this perspective, the primacy of justice presupposes what Arendt has characterized as “the rise of the social”47—the elevation of the private realm of labor into the public realm or, more simply, the institutionalization of private people’s public use of reason.48 Framed as such, the “social” or civil society assumes the possibility that private people can reason publicly. The question, of course, is how this is possible. This perplexing problematic allows us to understand why the Kantian notion of moral autonomy or similar constructs about bourgeois subjectivity has been so centrally important to the self-understanding of the modern West. According to this deontological view of the modern selfhood, the bourgeois as the privatized individual is actually two things in one: bourgeois and homme. On the one hand, the bourgeois as the owner of goods is profoundly caught up in the requirements of the market and thus subject to empirical inclinations. On the other hand, however, the bourgeois as human being is the subject of pure interiority that follows its own laws and not any external purpose. This peculiar human subjectivity promises liberation from the constraints of what exists, whether it refers to the prescription of culture or the necessity of life.49 For this reason, the split between the bourgeois public

45 Durkheim, Emile, On Morality and Society: Selected Writings, edited by Robert N. Bellah. (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1973), 149–166. 46 MacIntyre, Alasdair, After Virtue (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984); Arendt, Hannah, The Human Condition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1954), 12f. 47 Arendt, Hannah, The Human Condition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1954), 38f. 48 Habermas, Jürgen, Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit: Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft (Darmstadt und Neuwied: Hermannn Luchterhand Verlag GmbH & Co KG, 1962); for the English translation, see The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. Thomas Burger (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1989). 49 Ibid., 55.

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sphere and the market place, which is constitutive of the bourgeois “social” in the West, is best analyzed as the institutional expression of bourgeois subjectivity—i.e., the duality of the bourgeois personality. In a crucial sense, Marx’s historical materialism can be seen as a materialist defense of the liberal idea of bourgeois civil society.50 In response to Hegel’s relentless critique of the Kantian notion of the transcendental self, Marx sought to re-conceptualize the rise of the “social” in terms of the fundamental changes in the conditions for the reproduction of material production. Any theory of social formation must begin with a simple but extremely important fact: namely, that every economic system must make provision for its own reproduction over time.51 This process first and foremost involves the reproduction of the labor force as historical subjects, who are alone capable of collective action. In pre-capitalist societies, the separation of material production from the public dimensions of social life, which are essential to the reproduction of material production, renders necessary the existence of an autonomous State that serves as the locus of the public life of society. This is why “in the earlier epochs of history,” the common interest, out of its contradiction to the particular interest, has to take “an independent form as the State, which is divorced from the real individual and collective interests, and, at the same time, functions as an illusory community.52 What is characteristic of a modern capitalist economy, by contrast, is precisely its capacity for self-reproduction, i.e., its capacity to organize social interaction completely on the basis of economic relations. This economic form of social interaction finds its material presence in the emergence of “socialized humanity,” i.e., modern industrial classes. With the rapid transformation of the laboring masses into modern industrial classes, the old tension between the particular and general interests is no longer of central significance for social formation, for the simple reason that class interests have replaced general interests as what generate and sustain the public life. Bourgeois society in this view is revolutionary and emancipatory by nature, precisely because the economic activity has arrived at the point where it becomes the Althusser, Louis, For Marx (London: Verso, 1979), 108. Althusser, Louis, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” In Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, trans. Ben Brewster (London: New Left Books, 1971), pp. 127–188.; Abercrombie, Nicholas, Stephen Hill and Bryan S. Turner, The Dominant Ideology Thesis (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1980) 22–23. 52 Marx, K., and F. Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 5 (New York: International Publishers, 1976). Emphasis added. 50 51

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dominant factor in every aspect of social life, private or public, or to put it differently, precisely because the superstructure is now determined by the economic base. As Lukács points out, the emergence of modern industrial classes for Marx is to be understood as a process of “re-appropriation,” a process through which individuals come to recognize that the relation to the totality of society is an integral part of their self-activities as social beings. Now “man becomes, in the true sense of the word, a social being. Society has become the reality for man.”53 It is worth noting how uneven global development seems to have counteraffirmed and at the same time reaffirmed the liberal paradigm of the “social.” While the prevalence of capitalist deformation across the peripheral world has called into question the liberal claim to the priority of bourgeois subjectivity and thus confirmed the Hegelian assertion on the primacy of political society for public life, the same phenomenon— simply by being a distinctively peripheral occurrence—has, simultaneously and paradoxically, underscored the decisive role of the bourgeois class in the formation and reproduction of Western democratic societies. This paradox accounts for the ever-lasting sway of the Weberian civilizational analysis over theoretical analyses of the modern world order. The whole point of Weberianism, it will be recalled, is to provide an analysis of “the developmental history of the West.”54 Precisely because the transition from political society to civil society as anticipated by classical theorists is normally impossible, the developmental history of the West must have arisen out of certain religio-cultural contingencies unique to the Occidental civilization, which alone may breed the crucial precondition for the public reorientation of private wealth— bourgeois subjectivity. The Weberian line of reasoning allows us to discern a virtually logical linkage between the liberal paradigm of the “social” and the eurocentric perspective. This liberal logic of eurocentricism can be succinctly stated as follows: given the pivotal role of the Occidental bourgeoisie in the rise of the “social” and given the historical contingency of this class, one may expect a permanent disparity between the Kantian

53 Lukács, Georg, History and Class Consciousness (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1971), 19. 54 Schluchter, Wolfgang, The Rise of Western Rationalism: Max Weber’s Developmental History, trans. Guenther Roth (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: The University of California Press, 1981).

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West and the Hegelian East. The fate of each nation in the modern world, therefore, was sealed centuries ago, if not earlier. A contemporary illustration of the effect of this logic is provided by Habermas’ theory of communicative action. The theory represents arguably the most systematic effort in present-day social theory to demonstrate that the process of rationalization described by Weber is beyond the peculiarity of the Occidental civilization and “lays claim to a universal binding on all ‘civilized men.’ ”55 The rise of “modern structures of consciousness” in the West, which for Habermas holds the key to the formation of the bourgeois public sphere, is to be explained in terms of the replacement of traditional forms of the ethical life by the unavoidable pragmatic presuppositions of speech and argumentation.56 As these presuppositions of communicative action constitute the very discursive conditions for any mode of social formation, modern moral consciousness rooted in them can be characterized as the self-consciousness of universalistic properties of human communication and thereby transcends the limits of any system of cultural givens. Habermas, however, has never succeeded in explaining why it is the case that the same process of “de-ethicalization” has led to the “moralization” of the social world in the West but only become the very raison d’être of de-moralization anywhere else. The Huntingtonian thesis of the clash of civilizations is a logical derivative of this intellectual milieu. In view of the intrinsic linkage between liberalism and eurocentricism, it becomes obvious that no solution to the problem of peripheral justice would be possible without seriously questioning the validity of the liberal paradigm of the “social,” even if it is taken only as a selfinterpretation of the West. In other words, a theory of peripheral justice must start with the assumption that the rise of the “social” is independent of and prior to the historical contingency of the bourgeois class. Clearly, such a new conception of the “social” is possible only when two crucial conditions are met. First, the rise of the “social” does not presuppose the role of class subjectivity or any mode of “modern structures of consciousness.” Second, the self-activity of the Western bourgeoisie is actually the effect of the public reorientation of social Habermas, Theory of Communicative Action, Volume One, 184. Habermas, Jürgen, “Justice and Solidarity: On the Discussion of Stage 6,” in Michael Kelly (ed.), Hermeneutics and Critical Theory in Ethics and Politics (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1990), 170. 55 56

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labor rather than its cause. In other words, it must be assumed that the liberal paradigm of the “social” is an illusory self-interpretation of the West, which simply cannot work anywhere, East or West. These formidable challenges provide us with an appropriate framework for assessing the significance of the Marxist theory of public hegemony. Central to this theory is the development of an “ethical” conception of the “social” that denies any significance to the role of private autonomy in the public reorientation of material production, representing a radical inversion of the relationship between class and the “social” in the liberal paradigm. In this view, the real source of autonomous public life lies in the ethical substance of traditional political society. The elevation of social labor into the public realm, therefore, is to be understood as a historical process through which the laboring masses re-appropriate the ethical-public sphere of political society. For this reason, the “social” is to be conceptualized as “civil hegemony”57 (Gramsci) or public hegemony. The starting point of this “ethical” conception of the “social” is a radical reinterpretation of Marx’s analysis of social reproduction. In sharp contrast to a variety of “dominant ideology” or “common culture” theories that have dominated theoretical analyses of culture and state power ever since Marx (Abercrombie et al. 1980), public hegemony theorists identify the mechanism of hegemony by cultural differentiation as the key to the analysis of the role of the State in social reproduction in traditional political societies. According to this view, the reliance of material production on the State for its reproduction in these societies arises precisely from a fixed differentiation between social and political reproduction and between structural and symbolic integration. The domination of the State over the toiling masses is achieved through a deliberate creation of “symbolic isolation” of the masses. In other words, it is achieved by a deliberate effort to prevent popular masses from becoming “subjects” or “public selves.” Once political reproduction is secured through the role of the ruling elites as carriers of the ethical (i.e., cultivation), the structural submission of production strata to the public authority would follow. In this sense, the monopoly of symbolic integration (i.e., the ethical sphere) by the ruling group constitutes the basis of its symbolic power, which in turn paves the way to its access to political and economic power (Liu 1939; Gramsci 1971).

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Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci.

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The rise of the social, from this perspective, is to be defined as the private realm’s appropriation of the ethical content (the ethico-political sphere) of the State, which is now estranged from the State and assumes its own existence in “traditional intellectuals” and “classical education.” For this reason, the “civilized” nature or the autonomy of civil society is best understood as the result of a historically unprecedented development: the direct integration of the ethico-political sphere into the private realm of labor. The key to the successful transition from natural society to civil society, therefore, lies in two historical processes: the split between the ethical content (hegemony) and the “political society” within the ethical State per se and the subsequent appropriation of the former by the private terrain. “Civil society,” accordingly, is to be conceived as the ethico-political sphere in the private realm of labor. It is in this sense that Gramsci suggests to redefine civil society as “civil hegemony” or “the image of a State without a State.”58 In this connection, bourgeois civil society is to be analyzed as a specific form of civil hegemony. The assimilation of the ethico-political sphere into the sphere of the production of material life, in this view, holds the key to the secret of bourgeois subjectivity. This process not only explains why the private realm began to assume public significance in the early modern Europe; even more significantly, it also allows us to specify the very conditions under which the European bourgeoisie as a modern class was born. The appropriation of the ethico-political sphere by private sectors had been made in such a fashion that the sphere became the private property of the dominant economic grouping, cut off from the rest of society. Civil hegemony was thus transposed to the subculture of the dominant economic group, under the guise of its “internal” or “intimate space.” By radically reversing the liberal account of the relationship between class and the “social” and redefining bourgeois subjectivity as the result of the bourgeoisie’s monopoly of the ethical, the theory of public hegemony suggests that bourgeois democracy is best viewed as a “civic” mode of domination by cultural differentiation. The significance of this distinctive approach to bourgeois democracy can hardly be overestimated. It holds a number of implications that are of paramount importance for theoretical attempts to address the problematic of peripheral justice. Since the dual role of the bourgeois class (as the carrier of both praxis and labor) results from the

58

Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, 263.

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appropriation of the ethical domain by the realm of labor as well as the bourgeoisie’s monopoly of the ethical as its subculture, the subsociety of the dominant economic group constitutes the de facto institutional base for the formation of the public of private people in Western democratic societies. What is characteristic of bourgeois publicity, then, is a structural split within bourgeois society between, on the one hand, the private ethical as the institutional base of public reasoning and, on the other, the bourgeois public sphere as the manifestation of bourgeois publicity. This split is essential to our understanding of global uneven development on two counts. Firstly, it suggests that ethnic differentiation is in fact rooted in the very nature of bourgeois domination and constitutes an essential component of Western democratic societies. Due to the monopoly of the dominant culture by the bourgeoisie and the subsequent structural split between the mainstream liberal culture and the dominant (sub)culture, acculturation or the assimilation of minorities into the mainstream culture becomes one of the most effective mechanisms through which the symbolic isolation of laboring masses from the dominant culture is created and the submission of non-bourgeois laborers to bourgeois domination is secured. Secondly, the split allows us to discern how the mechanism of symbolic isolation through assimilation, which holds the key to civic ethnicity, has been used by European powers to systematically create the core/periphery disparities at the global level. As in the case of minority groups, the more a non-Western nation incorporates itself into the global culture of liberal democracy, the more it is symbolically isolated from the very culture of the Western bourgeoisie that is actually the dominant culture of the capitalist world order, the more it is marginalized within the world order, and the more it is condemned for its “Oriental” traits. In this sense, uneven development can be properly characterized as a global expansion of racial disparities within the capitalist core. The solution to the problematic of peripheral justice, accordingly, lies in the possibility of constructing a public-ethical sphere or what Gramsci terms “the public ethical State” that will serve as a school of “State life,” in which “each non-ruler” is ensured a free training in the skills necessary for governing.”59

59

Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, 268.

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Abercrombie, Nicholas, Stephen Hill and Bryan S. Turner, The Dominant Ideology Thesis (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1980). Althusser, Louis, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” In Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, trans. Ben Brewster (London: New Left Books, 1971), pp. 127–188. ——, For Marx (London: Verso, 1979). Amin, Samir, “Accumulation and Development,” Review of African Political Economy 1/1 (1974): 9–26. ——, Capitalism in the Age of Globalization (London and New York: Zed Books, 1997). Amsden, Alice H., The Rise of “The Rest:” Challenges to the West from Late- Industrialization Economies (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, revised edition (London: Verso, 1991). Arendt, Hannah, The Human Condition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1954). Benhabib, Seyla, Situating the Self: Gender, Community and Postmodernism in Contemporary Ethics (New York: Routledge, 1992). ——, “In the Shadow of Aristotle and Hegel,” in Michael Kelly (ed.), Hermeneutics and Critical Theory in Ethics and Politics (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1990), pp. 227–252. ——, Critique, Norm, and Utopia: A Study of the Foundations of Critical Theory (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986). Berger, Peter L., The Capitalist Revolution: Fifty Propositions about Prosperity, Equality, and Liberty (New York: Basic Books, 1986). Cohen, Jean L., and Andrew Arato, Civil Society and Political Theory (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1992). de Soto, Hernando, The Mystery of Capitalism: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else? (New York: Basic Books, 2000). Dirlik, Arif, “The Global in the Local,” in Rob Wilson and Wimal Dissanayake (eds.), Global/Local: Cultural Production and the Transnational Imaginary (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1996), pp. 21–45. Durkheim, Emile, On Morality and Society: Selected Writings, edited by Robert N. Bellah. (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1973). Fogel, Robert William, The Fourth Great Awakening and the Future of Egalitarianism (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2000). Giddens, Anthony, A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism, II: The Nation State and Violence (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1985). Gramsci, Antonio, Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, edited and translated by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey N. Smith (New York: International Publishers, 1971). Habermas, Jürgen, The Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political Theory, edited by Ciaran Cronin and Pablo De Creiff (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1998). ——, “Justice and Solidarity: On the Discussion of Stage 6,” in Michael Kelly (ed.), Hermeneutics and Critical Theory in Ethics and Politics (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1990), pp. 32–52. ——, Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit: Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft (Darmstadt und Neuwied: Hermannn Luchterhand Verlag GmbH & Co KG, 1962); for the English translation, see The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. Thomas Burger (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1989).

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——, Theory of Communicative Action, Volume One: Reason and the Rationalization of Society (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984). Harrison, Paul, Inside the Third World, 2nd ed. (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1981). Hegel, G.W., Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts oder Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse, Werke 7 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1970); for the English translation, see Elements of the Philosophy of Right, edited by Allen W. Wood and translated by H.B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). Held, David, Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt and Joanthan Perraton, Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999). Hoogvelt, Ankie, Globalization and the Postcolonial World: The New Political Economy of Development (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997). Huntington, Samuel, The Clash of Civilizations: Remaking of World Order (New York: Touchstone, 1996). Kepel, Gilles, The Revenge of God: The Resurgence of Islam, Christianity and Judaism in the Modern World (Pennsylvania, University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press,1994). Kohn, Hans, The Idea of Nationalism (New York: Macmillan, 1945). Konrád, Georg, and Ivan Szelényi, The Intellectuals on the Road to Class Power, trans. by Andrew Arato and Richard E. Allen (New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979). Laclau, Ernesto, and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (London: Verso, 1984). Liu Shaoqi, “On the Cultivation of the Communist,” originally published in three issues of Jie-fang (Liberation Weekly) (Yan’an: Xin-hua Bookstore, 1939), reprinted in A Special Collection of Materials on Liu Shao-chi, edited by The Series Editorial Board of the Studies on Chinese Communism (Taipei: The Institute for the Study of Chinese Communist Problems, 1967), pp. 25–68. For the English translation, see “How To Be a Good Communist,” in Collected Works of Liu Shao-ch’i before 1944 (Hong Kong: Union Research Institute, 1969), pp. 151–282. Lukács, Georg, History and Class Consciousness (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1971). MacIntyre, Alasdair, After Virtue (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984). Marx, K., and F. Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 5 (New York: International Publishers, 1976). Nairn, Tom, The Break-up of Britain: Crisis and Neo-Nationalism, 2nd ed. (New York: New Left Review, 1977). North, Douglass C., Institutions: Institutional Change and Economic Performance (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990). Putnam, Robert D., Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993). Rawls, John, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). ——, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971). Ricoeur, Paul, Essays on Biblical Interpretation, ed. Lewis S. Mudge (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970). Said, Edward W., Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1978). Sandel, Michael, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982). Schluchter, Wolfgang, The Rise of Western Rationalism: Max Weber’s Developmental History, trans. Guenther Roth (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: The University of California Press, 1981). Skocpol, Theda, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).

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Turner, Bryan S., Marx and the End of Orientalism (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978). Wellmer, Albrecht, “Models of Freedom in the Modern World,” in Hermeneutics and Critical Theory in Ethics and Politics, edited by Michael Kelly (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1990), pp. 227–252. Woodside, Alexander, “The Struggle to Rethink the Vietnamese State in the Era of Market Economics,” in Timothy Brook and Hy V. Luong (eds.), Culture and Economy: The Shaping of Capitalism in East Asia, (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1997), pp. 68–69. World Bank, The East Asian Miracle (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).

THE COLD WAR, IMPERIAL AESTHETICS, AND AREA STUDIES Wang Ban In my local library in East Brunswick, New Jersey, military artifacts, weapons, and photos are on prominent display as a reminder of the days of the world wars, the military interventions of the postwar era, and the sacrifice of young men who grew up in local neighborhoods. If you want to know Chinese culture and history, you should have no difficulty finding about thirty or forty books just a few steps away. These books can be readily divided into two categories. One set idealizes a long tradition of Chinese cultural heritage and the other is composed of mostly narrative accounts of harrowing experiences of living in contemporary China. Books like Red Azalea by Anchee Min, Wild Swans by Jung Chang, and Red Flower of China by Zhai Zhenhua form a genre of semi-autobiography. They tell stories of personal tragedy, tortuous bildungsroman, and purgatory experience under the “totalitarian regime.” The first set seems to freeze China in a comfort zone of ancient civilization; the narratives appeal to an audience that would still like to see a “Red China” with demonic intents of the enemy. In the wake of September 11, the proximity of military memorabilia to books about China takes on an uncanny significance. If the structure of the unconscious can be traced in the physical layout of mundane objects, we can detect a hidden standoff between weapons for national security and fantasies of China or other foreign countries as real or imagined threats. The memorabilia testify not just to the World Wars but also to the more extended agenda of national security Portions of this paper were presented at the Sawyer Seminar of the International Center for Advanced Studies at New York University, in a talk at Rowan University, and in a conference at Duke University on postsocialism. I thank Marilyn Young and Allen Hunter of NYU, Edward Wang of Rowan University, and Leo Ching of Duke University for inviting me to present my work at these occasions, and I thank the participants for their comments. In revising this essay I also benefited much from the comments of Brent Edwards of Rutgers University, and I express my gratitude to him.

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through military interventions during the Cold War. We have been told that the Cold War ended in 1989 and things have moved on the globalization track. The Cold War, with its confrontation between sovereign nation-states of leviathan power, its mutually assured destruction policy, and its ideological conflict, has gone the way of the dinosaurs. Blessed with accelerated economic momentum and free flows of capital without borders, we are said to be entering a new age relieved of big powers’ confrontation. The modernist style of international politics is obsolete, taken over by the postmodern fluid dynamics of trade and commerce, under the imperial supervision of the supranational jurisdiction of an international system. Events since September 11 came as a shattering blow to this myth of globalization. By conjuring up the specter of the Cold War, they compel us to question the neoliberal forecast of the global circuit of capital accumulation and circulation and to reevaluate in a more realistic fashion a suddenly revealed force field of power struggle. The numerous references in the aftermath of September 11 to Pearl Harbor, the World Wars, and the Korean conflict, the nostalgia about “the good old days” of the citizen army and righteous heroism, and the elevation of an elusive terrorist group into “the Enemy” endowed with state sovereignty “at war” with us, suddenly turned the clock back a half-century. The tremendous display of sentiments, passion, phobia, and policy initiatives is redolent of the Cold War. It is as if America and the civilized world had been living in a soothing dream, only to be rudely awakened and thrown back to the rugged terrain of Cold War conflict, to the paranoiac security needs, the bloody conflict of giant powers, the tightening of boundaries, and the hysterical assertion of national identity. Does the specter of the Cold War signal the return of the repressed lurking beneath the discourse of globalization? Does this return really signal any real change in the world system or simply reveal its secret? How does this event alter the production of subjectivity in the sphere of culture? How does it affect area studies? These are the issues I will explore. I. The Cold War, a Sleeper? The Cold War provides a parameter to assess the so-called post-Cold War period since 1989. If it is true that we have entered a new era, the novelty of the current situation needs to be placed in a broader

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historical perspective, taking into account the interaction between modern sovereignty and capital’s worldwide expansion. Capital in its unceasing expansion and hostility to boundaries, is at odds with the sovereign structure of the nation-state. While capital favors horizontal “free” flows, the state tends to impose a transcendent, regulative power over its movement. Although modern sovereignty, in the form of imperialist and colonial powers, served and promoted the interests of capital in its worldwide expansion, the operation of capital has the tendency to disengage from state sovereignty, which wields power “over a bounded and segmented social terrain.”1 Capitalism, with its permanent creative destruction and ceaseless demand for ever widening markets, labor, and resources, is defined, as Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari have shown, by the generalized decoding of flows, the massive de-territorialization, and the breakdown of the established geopolitical, juridical, and economic boundaries and institutions.2 In light of sovereignty’s centripetal control, as opposed to capital’s centrifugal dispersal, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri see the entire history of modernity within a framework of constant tensions and negotiation between the modern sovereign state and capital. This overwhelming tendency, starting from the latter half of the Cold War and culminating in the nineties, can be seen as a “one-sided movement from sovereignty’s transcendent position toward capital’s plane of immanence.”3 In this distinction between sovereignty and capital, the high Cold War was marked by a confrontation between sovereign states enmeshed in the condition of great power politics.4 Along with this condition of power rivalry and military confrontation was the long-standing tendency in American society and the liberal elites to envision U.S. foreign affairs as an imperial project promoting progress and democracy for all humankind. In recent decades, this liberal tendency has escalated into a utopian vision of market economy as the necessary stepping-stone to international cooperation and global democracy, forming 1 Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000), 326. 2 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), 224. 3 Hardt and Negri, Empire, 327. 4 See John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: Norton, 2001). Mearsheimer argues the realistic theme that power conflict and war will remain the basic condition of the twenty-first century.

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a language of Empire, ruled by law, norms, communication, universal subjectivity, and police management. During the Cold War, however, capital obviously did not display this freelancing, benign profile now made familiar by the celebrants of globalization, but was spearheaded by sovereign powers, particularly the United States. In her book on the Cold War, Virginia Carmichael depicts a close alliance between the imperialist politics of the state and capitalist expansion.5 She draws attention to both hard-core issues of the operation of the military-industrial complex in the service of capital’s worldwide expansion and soft questions of culture. The cultural dimension extends to renaming the Cold War the “Cultural Cold War” or the merging of the military-industrial-academic complex into one monolithic politico-economic operation, unifying knowledge, capital, and the state’s foreign policy. But the cultural dimension during the Cold War period was subordinated to the stark self-interests of sovereign power. George Kennan, the much-quoted American diplomat known to have initiated crucial Cold War concepts, first articulated the importance of the realistic, hard-core issues in a 1948 secret State Department memorandum. He urged that in both its foreign and domestic policy the United States should attend to the real politics of military and economic operation rather than indulge in moralistic rhetoric about human rights, democratization, and raising living standards. Kennan zeroed in on the basic fact that the United States owned 50 percent of the world’s wealth, but had only 6.3 percent of its population. In the face of such a potentially inflammable situation, “our real task” in the coming period, says Kennan, “is to devise a pattern of relations which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security.”6 In the form of imperialist and colonial powers, the modern sovereign states served and promoted the interests of capital in its worldwide expansion. Yet the operation of capital has the tendency to disengage from the state’s hold on a bounded and segmented social terrain. The Cold War agenda was largely an exercise of modern sovereignty in terms of its foreign and domestic policy in the service of capital. Capitalism in the West was still heavily dependent on central-

5 Virginia Carmichael, Framing History: The Rosenberg Story and the Cold War (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993). 6 Quoted in Carmichael, Framing History, 36–37.

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ized political power and the military-industrial complex for its smooth operation at home and abroad. At the heart of a whole series of Cold War policy in the United States, these agendas included, among other things, “the national security state, with foreign policy taking priority over domestic; massive military development and buildup; overt and covert non-democratic political, economic, military, and cultural intervention in, and manipulation of the affairs of, the other nations; and the most effective and enduring dispersal and silencing of dissent in a (legally) totally enfranchised and constitutional democracy in history.”7 This realist picture was obfuscated in the post-Cold War era. What distinguishes the period from the Gulf War to September 11 seems to be the replacement of the hard-core issues of the military-industrial complex by a soft power of culture, communication, and trade. While the military-industrial complex still remained intact and active, it was the soft side of the Cold War that had come to center stage in public discourse and imagination. To be sure, the Cold War, declared as an ideological and religious war, had some use for the soft power of culture. The Cold War was a rhetoric, a narrative, and a moral drama propelled by the Manichean myth of apocalyptical struggle between forces of good and evil, between capitalism and communism, between democracy and totalitarianism, rationality and barbarism. The intertwining of power and legitimacy, of military operation with the civilizing mission, the stick and the carrot, was a classical feature of the older imperialist project. The hard-core strategies need moral and ideological justification and rely partially on intellectual institutions and think tanks to supply notions of legitimacy, myth, imaginations, and narrative, not as cover-ups but as an intrinsic, serviceable part of militaryindustrial and strategic operations. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the existing socialisms on the path to a world market, the United States became the only hegemonic power in the world capable of maintaining the world order with military and economic might. It seems now that the ideology of economic liberalism does not need to serve the powers that be and can go along with the drift of “benign” capital, markets, free trade, transnational organizations, and supranational juridical structures to achieve the dream of an Empire. With this bipolar structure out of the way,

7

Ibid., 36.

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the global superhighway seems wide open for the realization of the world-historical spirit of free market economy—that is, if the liberal elites have their way. Yet for all the euphoria of liberalization and foreign engagements of the Clinton administration, the gap widens between the democratic mission and actual foreign policy in the interest of national security and capitalist expansion. The nagging question is, “How does America’s expression of its intention to realize the imperial dream of a New World Order relate to its relentless practice of maintaining its dominion and national self-interest?” Does the global, imperial rhetoric elide the secret imperialist agenda? Or are these dual tendencies inherent contradictions in the state-sponsored global expansion of capital? Obviously these two tendencies, at least in the United States, complement as well as conflict with each other in different periods. What is clear in the globalization discourse is that the parochial interest of national security and survival, embedded in the Cold War condition, is drowned out by loud, triumphant fanfares about the disappearance of the Cold War style of conflict that has changed into smooth flows of global capital. The strident Cold War tone of military and ideological conflict between good and evil had almost vanished, except for the occasional reference to China’s coming threat or the unruly terrorism of the rogue states and fundamentalist groups—until September 11 broke through the veil of globalization and began conjuring up the old specters. II. The Mirage of Imperial Sovereignty and Subjectivity In the post-Cold War era of the nineties, public discourse, economist pundits, financial experts, and the transnational media have spawned a new discourse of globalization. This discourse is intensely aesthetic in form and ideological in agenda. Mortgaged to the tradition of liberal thinking, this view holds that people in the world are rational and capable of peaceful cooperation in accordance with universal principles. Conflicts of interest can be resolved by international organizations that rule over states and dispense justice by means of norms, laws, and police forces. The two touted examples are Woodrow Wilson’s initiative for the League of Nations and the formation of the United Nations. Thus, instead of a world torn asunder by warring states, we are invited to dream a world system where all sovereign

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powers are associated to become constituent members of a global civil society. When trouble and disturbances break out, the simplest response is police action. This worldwide imagined community, endowed with civic virtue and governed by norms, is derived from the ideology of the world market and free trade—the globalization of capitalism. An image of the individual must fit into this picture of imperial sovereignty. By invoking the philosophic-aesthetic apparatus of the Enlightenment, Slavoj Zizek rightly links this aesthetic image to the logic of late capitalism. He presents the Spinozist discourse of a positive, rationally organized reality to which Kantian practical reason, the notion of autonomous choice, stands in opposition. The opposition between the two, I think, is analogous to the distinction between the bipolar power structure of sovereign nation-states of the Cold War and the supposedly de-centered flow of capital. Spinozist substance is a form of universal knowledge unhinged from the master signifier, the privileged sign of paternal authority; it is not buttressed by an obvious power or interest. This replacement of God in metaphysics with the God of positive reality shifts from the contested, de-ontologized world of politics to a new ontology, recast in terms of a metonymical universe of “pure positivities.” This colorless, disinterested universe, a plane of immanence, has no use for the moral imperative that for Kant underlies the autonomous, self-determining subject. A good illustration of this stealth logic that replaces the “ought” of subjective responsibility with the “is” of “objective” reality is Spinoza’s interpretation of God’s warning to Adam and Eve, “Don’t eat the apple from the tree of knowledge!” For Spinoza this injunction sounds as prohibition only to the primitive mind, which is “unable to grasp the chain of causes that lie behind its message.” A rational, enlightened mind, however, does not hear God’s words as an imperative, but as “an insight into the state of things: this apple has properties injurious to health, which is why is it not advisable to eat it.”8 Zizek’s interpretation of Spinoza’s rationalism illustrates the shift from the vertical regulation of sovereign power to the horizontal immanent movement of capital itself, enabling us to see capital and the market as the very medium of the flow of positivities. This slide from ethical injunction into fluid fluxes of reality is framed by a global

8 Slavoj Zizek, Tarrying with the Negative: Kant, Hegel, and the Critique of Ideology (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1993), 217.

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imaginary that is supposed to work for everybody and has no regard for cultural and geographical differences. I venture to call this imaginary “imperial aesthetics,” which breeds its related subjectivity. For proponents of globalization, cultural differences, mired in their age-old memory and ethnically drawn territories, only betray the primitive inability to grasp the world in its immanent necessity. Their deviation and nonconformity, under the enigma of nationalism or fundamentalism, are readily associated with the pathological and evil. The imperial subject, in the image of the citizen of the world, can also be illustrated with reference to classical aesthetics. The aesthetic in Kant presents an imaginary solution to the central problem of modernity: how conceptual understanding can mesh with practical action. In the epistemological shortfall of a disenchanted world, the problem that preoccupies Kant and many others is that the a priori lawfulness of the understanding provides no guarantee for the putative lawfulness of external reality, whose stony intransigency and heterogeneous contradictions do not answer to human freedom. The aesthetic comes to the rescue by providing a re-enchanted look at the secularized, demythologized world, “as though it were itself a mysterious sort of subject or artifact, governed like human subjects by a self-determining rational will.”9 The aesthetic is thus a projection of the free play of the subjective faculties onto an unanswerable, disenchanted reality. Its pleasure comes from the pleasant surprise that certain things, no, the whole world, can conform delightfully to our capacities. While it is impossible to understand the unity of experience in actuality, it is a lucky chance that we can enjoy the unity and purposefulness of aesthetic experience as if it were real. The aesthetic imagination “creates a purposive synthesis, but without feeling the need for a theoretical detour.”10 The aesthetic reinstalls purpose within the self-delighting purposelessness of the imaginary. As Terry Eagleton summarily puts it, “it is the mode of religious transcendence of a rationalistic age.”11 With an “invisible hand” reaching to all the corners of the world, the aesthetic is adept at overcoming the difference between a translucent self and the opaque other. Its capacity to level out difference is

9 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, trans. J.H. Bernard (New York: Hafner Press, 1961), 37–81. See also Terry Eagleton, The Ideology of the Aesthetic (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), 84. 10 Eagleton, Ideology of the Aesthetic, 85. 11 Ibid., 88.

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identical to—and in the network of global interdependence, already a function of—the universal leveling trend of capital. Eagleton gives an example of the aesthetic conquest of self through erasing the self/other divide. A statement like “I like x” cannot count as an aesthetic judgment by the standard of classical aesthetics, for it only refers to the subject’s contingent, local inclinations. The genuine aesthetic must translate this personal preference into “We all agree that this is beautiful.” Forget about private or local interests; a thing of beauty strikes a common chord among sensible, civilized people all over the world. This is a very small step toward the postmodern notion of the dissolution of the subject. “Postmodern” individuals do not form a community through the classical interaction between a self who seeks recognition by the other, but as Zizek points out, “through the mechanism of affective identification,” through “the intermixture of partial affects,” a series of structure of feeling or intensities that echoes and imitates each other.12 Rather than a subject exercising self-determination, the notion of subjectivity becomes an empty placeholder, a ground zero for traversing and inscribing by a network of affective images and sound bites. “I” recognize myself as a self-sufficient being insofar as I perceive this vast network as a reflected image of my boundless self. In postmodern terms, the Kantian subject of autonomy dissolves into “self-annihilation,” through which a selfless self can somehow swim or perch on any position whatsoever to contemplate a self-running, self-sufficient machinery of capital in its supreme beauty, because there is no special, privileged, differentiated point of entry into it. The aesthetic refers to sensual particulars, but now we have particularized universality: the concrete universal, where beauty is truth, truth beauty.13 For all its dissolution into streams of images, the aesthetic subject remains self-centered. This means in the nature of things, that there can be no refashioning of the world in our narcissistic self-image. However, the aesthetic subject somehow convinces itself that the whole world is unified and centered toward me. So it is unnatural and unaesthetic not to love Hollywood or McDonald’s, for the beauty of McDonald’s is not a personal affair; it is deep in human nature itself, deeply

12 13

Zizek, Tarrying with the Negative, 218. Ibid., 217–18.

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consistent with universal norms. The beauty of McDonald’s is consonant with other beauties: world markets, consumption, democracy, freedom; in Benjamin Barber’s shorthand, the McWorld.14 Pursuits of alternatives by other people only betray parochial inclinations and therefore become unaesthetic and ugly. The aesthetic taste can even be maintained by transnational organizations that police normal standards to maintain everybody’s normalcy. In this image of the “selfless,” cosmopolitan subject, America’s pretension to world dominance is forgotten and cleansed of its parochial, nationalist self- interest. In other words, whatever comes under the sign of America also encompasses the whole world. It is thus in the best interest of “other people” to know the true taste of commodities, Hollywood images, and the universal jouissance of consumptive living. This is why the World Trade Center was the most compelling symbol of an aestheticized world in the image of capital. To regard the twin towers as a financial headquarters is to undervalue their aesthetic and objective truth, for they are nothing less than a condensed package of a totalized way of life ruled by capital. After the disaster of September 11, the World Trade Center suddenly loses its universal halo and becomes more a symbol that pertains to the United States and New York rather than to the “world” at large. The globalization discourse, with its related categories of development, markets, liberalism, and universal prosperity, generates a form of subjectivity that is aesthetically “disinterested,” leveling out every particular interest in a selfsame cosmopolitan identity. Instead of the Cold War, we have trade war and trade talks in a supposedly free international market; instead of moral struggle between ideological camps, we have development and underdevelopment; instead of politics and morality, we have economics and management; instead of nation-states, we appeal to supranational entities of all kinds. So local interest is aestheticized into a global subjectivity purged of parochial or ethnic biases. This seeming disinterestedness is most remarkable in the prevalent metaphor of an imaginary fluid space of global flows: flows of capital and information; flows of images, ideas, and discourses; the flow of border crossings; the flow of scholars, journalists, and peoples. The most overreaching system for conjuring up the free flow is the transnational multimedia. The freewheeling flows initiated by mul-

14

Benjamin Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld (New York: Ballantine, 1996).

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timedia conglomerates have bred a falsely cozy image of the global village where diverse peoples and cultures are freely commingled, as in a sprawling buffet of multiethnic foods. The imperial presumption of this aesthetic subject is that what is good for me must be good for everyone else. This widening gyre of self-aggrandizement not only erases the self, but also condemns the outburst of otherness as irrational and radical evil. As the classical subject of ethical autonomy gives way to the free-floating subjectivity of consumer ecstasy, the cog and screw of the capital machine, the “subject” is reduced to a thing or commodity. And others, like us, are just things to be manipulated by the transcendent power of capital. If capital or the market run into local resistance there is always military intervention at hand. The insistent question “Why do they hate us so much?” asked immediately after September 11, betrays the inability to perceive the difference as real. The shattering of pax Americana comes as a blow to the narcissism of an imperial proportion and as a sobering reminder of the otherness of the other, who remains different and ready to inflict huge injury. Disturbingly, if there are others out there who do not like what we are doing, the touted universality of our enterprise turns out to be another particular in the global process. The events of September 11 can indeed be grasped as an instance of inherent and constant ruptures within the universalizing process: it reveals the stark impossibility and tragedy of refashioning other people in the image of capital. On the other hand, a discovery of “we” is thrust upon us; “we” as one particular among many others. In the ruin of the imperial dream, the United States has emerged starkly as what it has always been: a sovereign nation-state. This discovery is what mobilizes the political will, the civic spirit, patriotism, and homeland security, while the silencing of dissent and curtailing of civil liberties brings back the Cold War. But these elements extend beyond the Cold War agenda; we have seen heightened political consciousness and more intense public debate over contending issues that cannot be consigned to the invisible hand of global trade and transnational corporations. If Cold War memory can still be of any use, it may be its vigilant sense of an unsettled, ongoing struggle for national sovereignty and a strong assertion of the sovereign subject that measures itself against the existence of the significant other. There is a humbling sense in recognizing the other as another sovereign entity, not lengthened shadows of the metropolitan centers to be globalized in our homegrown image. In the

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post-Cold War era, this conflict-ridden situation, the classical terrain of power politics, appeared to melt away into an all-encompassing imperial aesthetics. Its rediscovery after September 11 may be salutary for perceiving alternative social imaginaries and for a form of international coexistence not dictated by one powerful party but premised on a notion of justice that respects both the sovereignty of the different states and universal rights. The globalization discourse buries international politics in an “apolitical” free market, extolling economy and development as the panacea for the problems of domination, violence, inequality, and oppression. It turns the unequal distribution of power and resources in a shrinking world into a “natural” relationship between fortunate and unfortunate, between advanced societies and backward countries, which, through their own faults, have not done well in modern times. All too quickly it leads to the forgetting of enduring clashes between national interests, between divergent histories embedded in specific geographies and, most importantly, between contending appropriations of the future. The effect of this neutral globalism is the universalizing of the parochial or national interests of Euro-America at the expense of underdeveloped countries, regions, and populations. Instead of hurrying to embrace the global flows, we need to attend to Edward Said’s warning that huge populations of people who cross the borders are “harassed” and dispossessed refugees. Uprooted from their ancestral land, they “try to become acculturated in a new environment.”15 With their struggle for identity and search for endangered cultural memory, it is hard to say how long it would take or how costly it would be for these immigrants to become neutralized into global cosmopolitans—trying desperately to make a home away from home. Meanwhile, the gigantic system of mass media is also migrating across—or rather pushing its way through—what it would like to see as a borderless world. A quarter of a century ago, Herbert Schiller presciently revealed how free flows of information sponsored by the American media obscured economic inequality, power imbalance, regional unevenness, and postcolonical struggle in self-determination. Media-induced flows of information seemed to bring together into a global village the rich and poor, the powerful and powerless, and peoples of different colors and beliefs. But less sanguine observers would

15

Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (New York: Vintage, 1994), 309.

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interpret this free expansion as the agenda of “an aggressive and powerful industrial-electronics complex working to extend American socioeconomic systems spatially and ideologically.”16 This diagnosis of the media flow comes as a sharper rebuttal to today’s euphoria about the democratic potential of the free flow of people, information, and the Internet. The smug satisfaction with free flow, with what Schiller calls “the American international cultural offensive,” is of a piece with the current embrace of the U.S. economic expansion and is indistinguishable from cultural invasion. This invasion is no less true of the cultural and humanistic studies of developing countries gathered under the rubric of area studies. The worldwide media system does not simply provide news, information, advertisement or entertainment; it articulates and produces culture, notions of economics, and assumptions of authority and power side by side with the system of the military-industrial complex. As a result, the image factories of the transnational media have an “institutionalized tendency to produce out-of-scale trans-national images,” and these media cultures are now “reorienting international social discourse and process” and manufacturing worldwide consensus concealing the fact of domination and violence.17 The sinister effect of this is a thoroughly aestheticized world, a seamless web of simulacra, where free egos are supposed to recognize and to be involved with each other in an imagined global community. III. How Not to Understand China: Area Studies This neutralization has serious consequences for the academic discipline of area studies. During the Cold War, area studies targeted specific geographical areas of strategic importance to the United States and was very much a power-driven project. In the atmosphere of globalization, along with the promotion of the multicultural curriculum, area studies apparently became more active. Stripped of its original power baggage, it has jumped on the bandwagon of multiculturalism as an ideology of pluralism. As such, it is becoming another depoliticizing instance of capital’s worldwide circulation and production. Area

16 Herbert Schiller, Mass Communications and American Empire (Boston: Beacon, 1971) 14–15. 17 Said, Culture and Imperialism, 309.

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studies, in short, makes great business sense in the domestic and foreign markets with demographical changes and global interdependence. David Palumbo-Liu suggests that the inclusion of ethnicity and nonWestern cultures into the curriculum may be a professional way of assimilating differences into the mainstream presumptions of “aesthetic value.” The opportunity of ethnic studies provides a forum for “a critique of the ideological apparatuses that distribute power and resources unevenly among the different constituencies of a multi-cultural society.”18 Although this insight concerns ethnic difference in the university curriculum, the potential loss of critique applies as well to area studies, which may be seen as a multicultural critique on the global scale. Benjamin Schwartz reminded us that simply by applying “area studies” to Western civilization, one could raise very fruitful questions about how different national cultures, both within and without the West, contribute to Western civilization as a whole.19 Between the Cold War legacy and globalization, the central challenge of area studies is how to preserve a critical edge and maintain its integrity independently of established powers. Events since September 11 have spurred a renewed interest in South Asia and the Islamic world, which also has implications for the study of other areas. Indentured previously to national security interests and later to global capital, area studies has not been able to claim its own territory as a critical form of knowledge. The recent skepticism of the myth of globalization forces us to see how much area studies is implicated in the myth. I will turn to Chinese studies to consider this question. It is now a familiar story that in the last two decades China has been moving toward the liberalization of market economy, political reforms, and opening up to global capital. In the light of the Cold War binary of capitalism and communism, these developments signal a victory of capitalism over socialism. This perception informs much of Chinese studies these days. It is not possible in this short essay to go into detail about the discipline, but I will discuss perceptions of China that shape academic trends. In the eyes of the American media, China generally presents an ambivalent image. One side is tainted with the harrowing narratives David Palumbo-Liu, ed., The Ethnic Canon (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), 2. 19 Benjamin Schwartz, China and Other Matters (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), 99. 18

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that I mentioned in the beginning of this essay. China, these narratives intone, has a miserable track record in human rights and individual freedom. The other is a benign China, on a racetrack to catch up with our modernity. The demonization of China continues the Cold War imaginary and posits an evil other so as to assure the voters of the righteousness of American democracy and the military-industrial complex. The idealization of China’s reforms, on the other hand, is in tune with the neoliberal vision of globalization. Both perceptions misread China, not falsely, but in the sense of treating it as a shadowy entity whose significance is granted by an animating us. China is seen either as a reluctantly accepted member of the world community or as a threatening sovereignty ready to wield its ominous power. These views ignore China as a modern sovereignty engaged in its own trajectories, articulated in its own circumstances—a political and economic entity that is radically different from the fetishized images of the Tang or Ming dynasty. The urgent questions to ask are: What would China do with its modernity that cannot be defined by a straight line of capitalist development? Does the liberalization of the economy entail a rejection of the decades of endeavors to transform and reshape Chinese society? Does it mean that the dysfunctional socialist system gets a welcome blood transfusion from global capital and is on the way to normal health? Does it mean that China is lucky to be reborn in the age of globalization, and would do itself a great favor by making a clean break with its past? The new transnational regime of simulacrum and media repeatedly affirms the Cold War victory of capitalist development over one of its alternatives, China’s socialist experience. Since the 1980s, the image of China in the West has tended to merge with the official self-image disseminated by the Chinese government. It is a China that has finally awakened to the universal history of worldwide economic development, repudiating a century of revolutionary-nationalist, social-democratic, and socialist experiences. Despite the official insistence on the socialist characteristics of China’s modernization, the priority of official policy lies with unchecked integration into the global market and unbridled economic growth. China’s recent entry into the World Trade Organization further indicates that it is resolved to make a clean break with the historical “aberrations” of its past. This end-of-history trend is directly related to de-politicization and professionalization in humanistic and cultural discourse in Chinese studies. Ironically, de-politicization is a Cold War legacy that has been

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intensified by the globalization discourse. De-politicization manifests itself in the modernization discourse as the guiding prism for studying developing and underdeveloped countries. Its related terms include modernity, tradition, development, backwardness, and so on, all enveloped in terms of economic growth. As the parameter for the study of Chinese history and society during the Cold War, the modernization discourse was subjected to occasional critique in the sixties and early seventies, but now it is becoming the hegemonic paradigm. Historian Paul Cohen’s analysis reveals that American historians working in Chinese studies during the postwar years, being part of the system that implicated itself in the making of twentieth-century China, had also “taken a leading part, as historians, in the creation of conceptual paradigms for understanding it.”20 This paradigm is the modernization discourse, or the tradition versus modernity approach. It posits Chinese culture as being devoid of real history and stuck in its timeless, immutable tradition, until it was jolted out of its age-old sleep by the impact of the imperialist West. It defines modern changes in China by how well or miserably the Chinese are able to make the grade in catching up with the West in economic modernization. From this point of view, the anti- imperialist revolutions, nation building, socialism, and the quest for and establishment of modern sovereignty—the inescapable experiences constitutive of modern China—are written off as huge aberrations. These experiences went astray from the proper world-historical development exemplified by the liberal market-oriented models of the West. The creative agency through which the Chinese made their history and reorganized their life in the face of dire consequences of modernity are regarded as passive responses to Western impact. In challenging this West-centered view, Cohen resorts to an equally ahistorical notion of what he calls China-centered history, untouched by imperialist penetration and modernity. This image of China, with its internal and self-enclosed logic and cultural dynamics inaccessible to the West, rests on a mystified assumption of the essential other, shrouded in the dark and completely cut loose from the process of modern history. Yet even a cursory look at modern China will reveal a history that involved intense dialectical interaction and interweaving

20 Paul Cohen, Discovering History in China: American Historical Writing to the Recent Past (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), 150.

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among cultures, East and West. Having said that, we need to appreciate how this reexamination of historiography’s constraints challenged the objective, disinterested facade of area studies. Cohen re-politicizes area studies as a power-inflected discourse in the service of national security interest and the military-industrial complex. The historical context for this critical reflection was U.S. involvement in Vietnam and Indochina, the oil embargo of 1973, and the Iran hostage crisis of 1979–81. These events constituted for Cohen a symbolic meaning of Vietnam as a subject of criticism. He points to a critical space opened up for self-reflection, guilt, and heightened political consciousness. The meaning of Vietnam confronted American historians with the limits of our power, the very real constraints upon our capacity to bend the world to American purposes. By exposing the myth of American global supremacy—political, moral, cultural—it freed American historians, perhaps for the first time, to abandon Western norms and measures of significance and to move toward a more genuinely other-centered historiography, a historiography rooted in the historical experience not of the West but of China.21 It is surely ironic that this stance of critical vigilance during the Cold War seems to have been swallowed up quickly in post-Cold War area studies. In Chinese cultural studies there is a growing interpretive mode that privileges development and individualist-consumptive ideologies at the expense of political and social history. The neutral, disinterested notions of globalization and modernization, a brand-new positivity that seeks to replace the discredited positivist political and economic history, seems to prevail in the field of Chinese cultural studies. De-politicization is reflected obliquely in the above-mentioned books recounting the harrowing personal experience of living under the ironfisted rule of communist China. Articles and books have been written on these narratives as the knowledge of China. It is true that these eyewitness accounts of hunger, oppression, and repression in the decades before the reform period of the eighties are believable. These accounts correspond strongly to the indictment and the search-forroots literature in the mid-eighties in China reflecting on the traumas of political catastrophe. The main plotlines of these stories are mostly a narrative of bildungsroman or a saga of freedom seekers in tragicomic combat against tyranny (the victims all come out scarred but

21

Ibid., 7.

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unscathed). Rescues and redemption often come from the West, especially the United States. It is no accident the writers are mostly immigrants, safely nestled in the United States, who look back at the “other” shore with fear and trembling. While recognizing them as personal testimonies, one should be on guard against taking these narratives as representing the history of modern China. It is quite disturbing to see these books arranged in libraries and Barnes and Noble under the heading “history.” While acknowledging their subversive value against authoritarian politics, one needs to see them as fueling the fetishism of development and globalization. There is the real danger that a ready acceptance of these narratives as historical truth would put to rest all the historical drive, over a century, of millions of people to shape their alternative destiny. Treating these personal accounts as proof of a history gone awry erases the enduring, unresolved problems of modern China, problems that do not end with the end of the Cold War and integration into the global economy. As Arif Dirlik and Maurice Meisner rightly point out, these narratives reduce complex, long-term problems embedded in Chinese history to “spatially and temporally limited tropisms” or figures.22 These figures wield tremendous aesthetic and selling power, because they couch personal experience in a dramatic or melodramatic form and privilege personal encounters over a reflective memory and examination of inherent problems and issues. One is invited to like or dislike the images of China, not to look into the images’ historical and social implications. Here again we get an aesthetic that says what you see is what you get and there is nothing behind or off the screen. A little knowledge here is a dangerous thing. This testimonial narrative is given to us not “in explicit arguments or by systematic analyses that bring up concrete issues for discussion and debate.”23 It functions as a rhetorical, emotive figure, a structure of feeling, in Raymond Williams’ term. It plays on the desire for black and white simplicity and falls back on the victorious affirmation of the Cold War ideological divide. It denies China its own experience and quest, socialist or otherwise, and reconfirms capitalist globalization as the gateway to the future. It writes off a whole century of China’s

22 Arif Dirlik and Maurice Meisner, eds., Marxism and the Chinese Experience (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1989), 5. 23 Ibid., 7.

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unique pursuit of modernity, which includes socialism as one option among a number of ill-examined social democratic visions for national independence, growth, freedom, and a just society. The problem of personal accounts is symptomatic of a larger problem of the visual appropriation of history. Area studies is now venturing into the fashionable field of visual studies, so that a sort of visual tourism is becoming one of its most attractive components. As a subject, “Third World cinema” is geared increasingly toward the cinematic staging of the spectacle of history rather than delving into it. The cinema merges with the aesthetic of the simulacral flow of capital at the cost of history’s real dynamics, until it becomes the quintessential expression of capital’s worldwide expansion.24 To get a sense of this phenomenon, we may consider the self-understanding implicit in a recent Chinese film entitled Once upon a Time in Shanghai [Shanghai jishi, 1999]. This film presents a good case of the self-conception of “Chinese globalists” in terms that mirror the metropolitan “other” and can be an allegory of the developmentalist logic in area studies. Professor Rebecca Karl has analyzed the film’s ahistorical narrative and fetishism in contrast with a more contested historiography in an earlier Chinese film, Crows and Sparrows. I owe my observations to her research and will reframe the issue within the general orientation of Chinese cultural studies. The film was made in 1998 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the communist liberation of the city of Shanghai. It was commissioned by the Shanghai government and received large budgetary and technical assistance. The favorable reviews and a major prize the film has received indicate its popular success as a rewriting of Shanghai’s history as a replenished self-image catering to the global market and investors.25 With the film’s focus on the moment of Shanghai’s liberation, one would expect it to give due attention to a historical state of emergency amid conflicting forces. A series of the film’s superficial mise-en-scènes indeed depicts the chaotic situation resulting from the nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek’s ill-conceived plan to regulate the financial

24 For a discussion of cinema as the image of capital, see Jonathan Beller, “Capital/Cinema,” in Deleuze and Guattari, ed. Eleanor Kaufman and Kevin Heller (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998), 77–95. 25 See Rebecca Karl, “Liberating Shanghai, Then and Now: Crows and Sparrows and Once upon a Time in Shanghai” (paper presented at the International Conference on Shanghai, New York University, April 19–22, 2001).

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market and economy. The rush on banks and stores, the riots, the wars with the People’s Liberation Army, the police crackdowns on illegal speculation, and so on invoke the cinematic clichés of the war zones and economic collapse of a “Third World” nation in the turmoil of revolution. These retro-stylistic cosmetics strip the volatile and potentially dynamic circumstances of their political gravity. The simulation of chaos and war is obviously predicated on the film’s underscoring of the financial woes of the city as a managerial, operational issue rather than political struggle. The battles between the Communists and Nationalists, the day-to-day political activities of the population, the military action, the formation of political structure—all these seem to be bubbles in the film’s single-minded gravitation toward the bottom line of the financial and economic fate of the city. The liberation of Shanghai is reduced to the unfolding of surface political conflict subsumed within economic and financial matters. The operational and managerial logic of economy has its counterpart in characterization. The real hero entrusted with a mission to pull the city through the economic deep waters is not a Communist, a worker, a soldier, or a political leader—the typical agent of politics, but a Western-educated, management-savvy woman, Li Huirong. Li manages a textile factory jointly owned by her father and fatherin-law, who reside in America as overseas investors. From the current vantage point of global capitalism, Li’s role as a harbinger of capitalism in China is immediately apparent. As an offspring of the national bourgeois who dreams of building an independent industry, she would be a controversial and ambiguous image in the repertoire of available historical figures in Chinese cinema. In this film, however, she takes on the unambiguously heroic, “progressive” quality of capitalist spirit. With support from the Communists, she tries almost single-handedly to preserve the industry base, the capitalist infrastructure, from the terrorist sabotage of the defeated and retreating nationalists. It seems as though China’s economic survival and revival all depended on the courage, will, and ingenuity of the capitalist daughter. This image of progressive capitalism takes on a feminine quality as Li is also characterized as a lovely young wife, a typical street-smart, sophisticated Shanghai girl, the object of desire and affection to her husband, Guo Shaobai. The film’s romantic episodes revolve around Guo’s dilemma over taking his wife away to America or joining her in the resolve to rebuild the industry, a conflict of personal desire entan-

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gled with the historical necessity of deciding on China’s future. As a freelance journalist in America, Guo professes to take an “objective” stance toward reporting the events in Shanghai’s liberation. His “objectivity” is based on his eyewitness accounts to inform the “outside world,” but the objectivity is undercut by his ideological leaning toward his wife’s trust in the Communists. The “outside world” that could benefit from his objective reporting turns out to be the United States, already in the process of implementing Cold War policy against a China lost to communism. Objectivity is meaningless and useless now for all the interested parties, except for the film’s purely apolitical, growth-oriented backward look at a politically volatile moment in history. This neutral, balanced stance neutralizes the necessary ideological leaning, the inescapable political taking of sides in Shanghai’s liberation. Turning ambiguity into a virtue, this stance turns the moment of liberation into a transitory link in the impersonal chain of economic development and universal history of modernity. An episode toward the end of the film depicts the terrorist act of the defeated Nationalists in sabotaging the industrial infrastructure of newly liberated Shanghai. In fighting to protect a power plant, Li is murdered by a saboteur who turns out to be her classmate in a business school back in the United States. As she dies in her husband’s arms, the spectacular fire, explosions, and destruction on the screen celebrate the tragic death of the capitalist, leaving no doubt about the seeds planted for China’s future. The camera cuts from the ashes of destruction, magically traversing fifty years’ worth of history, to Guo standing on the Huangpu dock in Shanghai against a dazzling array of neon-lit shop signs, advertisements, and the glaring silhouettes of towering office buildings—a metaphor of the phoenix rising to match the skylines. Guo retreats to America after his wife’s death and returns fifty years later to Shanghai, only to find her memory forever young and frozen as a timeless image. The everlasting youth of the capitalist daughter blends into the new economic development zone of Pudong, a mesmerizing simulacrum complete with skyscrapers, the monumental TV tower, and myriad lights—a virtual Manhattan in the Orient. Thus the cinematic spectacle short-circuits the rugged and twisted historical and political terrain to link a personal and melodramatic scenario to a mysterious, “objective” law of universal history. The nostalgic evocation of Shanghai in the image of the capitalist heroine, as Rebecca Karl observes, “proceeds with ostensibly direct reference to

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its pre-revolutionary other through appeals to the city as a stable place whose lure is inscribed in a mythology of a past, to which the present must inevitably return.”26 This “backward” trip possesses a return ticket to the brilliant future of economic development, now suddenly accelerated, and affirms the hidden teleology of China’s rush to the global market, whose proudest product is the replenished city of Shanghai. What gets liquidated in this cinematic spectacle is the fifty years of Chinese history which, ironically, are what the film is memorializing. A genuine history needs to be reconstructed, as Karl suggests, as the lived experience of a lifeworld through a detailed and contradictory account of the historical trajectories of modernity. The cinematic spectacle in this film can be seen as an instance of virtual reproduction of capital. In cinematic images, capital, removed from confrontations and free to flow across borders, becomes the only historical teleology to guide interpretations of Chinese history. The cinema as the spectacle of capital also penetrates the theoretical discourse of film studies in recent years. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the films of the Fifth Generation filmmakers galvanized international attention by depicting the corrupt, despotic stratum of feudal China as a metaphor alluding to the authoritarian China. They also exhibited stunning aesthetic and technological creativity. In line with the post-Cold War mood of the end of ideology, film scholars attempt to look back at the entire history of the Chinese cinema in the twentieth century in a new depoliticized light. The most remarkable move is to eschew the radical filmmaking and film criticism as ideological propaganda and as signs of a dead or lingering socialism. The new research looks for traces in an archaeological fashion to uncover those archival remains, documents, and facts repressed and marginalized by the mainstream social and political history. Foucault’s archaeology is edged with genealogy, and is a critical attempt to expose and analyze the condition of possibilities for generating reified social formations and discursive practices. Yet, the archaeologists of film history do not follow this critical, demystifying route. What they attempt to unearth from the ideological encrustations is something that is more “normal” and more in tune with historical inevitability of the global trend. The

26

Ibid., 2.

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object of the search is the archival traces contributing to the formation of an autonomous stream of film production, techniques, apparatuses, and discourse removed from political and historical vicissitudes. The cinema’s aesthetic form, its industrial organization, production, and circulation are treated as absolute values and proper objects of inquiry. To be sure, professional concentration and subdivision are much needed in the emergent field of Chinese film studies. But what may be neglected is that the cinema is being reconsidered independently from its implication in historical junctures of social relations and power struggle. Various aspects of the cinema are taken as disciplinary topics that simply need to be studied in the empirical objective fashion of science and technology. Technological, aesthetic, and institutional facts are seen as repressed innovative endeavors that need to be uncovered so as to rehabilitate the individualistic-consumptive, cosmopolitan lifestyle. It is to restore an enduring, naturally accumulated histoire de mentalité: a substratum of tradition, popular practice, and entertainment forms. The recovered figure, endowed with the aura of a fallen hero rising from the ashes, is frequently a city-dwelling consumer with cosmopolitan taste, who enjoys streets scenes and shops, coffeehouses, movie theaters, and above all Hollywood. The Republican era and the city of Shanghai become the ultimate space-time coordinate that frames the search for earlier capitalist stirrings. This figure from the past is also symbolic of the global space-time of the present, a doubling of the developmentalist frenzy and the image of Shanghai as the Manhattan of East Asia, with its skyscrapers, Times Square, and World Trade Towers.27 I am not suggesting that it is wrong to look for aesthetic and technical innovations in film history and to restore the lived experience of consumers during the Republican era. The problem seems bigger than methodological preference and illustrates a growing trend in area studies under the spell of globalization and the regime of simulacrum. The search for China’s past in this case proceeds on a rigid dichotomy between the historical experience of radical cinema and a depoliticized, consumer-oriented urban culture, a variant of the communism versus capitalism divide. This residue of the Cold War dichotomy

27 I base my observations and arguments in Yingjin Zhang, ed., Cinema and Urban Culture in Shanghai, 1922–1943 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999). For the restoration of the history of mentality, see specifically Zhang’s introduction, 2–23.

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allows researchers to reject China’s history of politics and social movements, its struggle and quest for a modernity that does not toe the line of capitalism incarnate in consumptive urban culture. With “eyes wide shut” to a large swath of the Chinese population and experience, it blocks inquiries into possible dialogue and mutual traffic not only between capitalist-consumerist lifestyles and the anti-imperialist Left, but also among many other political orientations and progressive practices. This approach ignores forms of art and politics that constantly cut across the capitalist and socialist divide, across city and country, tradition and modernity, and the aesthetic realm and political activity. It uncritically endorses free market ideology, the myth of development and globalization as the undisputed key to China’s past and the signpost for its future. September 11 may or may not have shaken this myth, but it has certainly shocked us into a sober reflection of the constraints and ideological baseline of area studies enveloped in the aura of globalization.

THEMES FOR CHINA: MODERN ARTS, MODERN CONFLICT Marshall Berman Some . . . hope to get rid of modern arts, in order to get rid of modern conflicts. —Karl Marx, 1856

My presentation will be a trip through the Communist Manifesto, with special emphasis on part one. I believe this book is the greatest-ever vision of modernity. I want to emphasize the expansiveness of its horizon, its grasp of the paradoxes and inner contradictions of modern life, and the depth of its penetration into the inner life of the modern subject. Subjectivity is a central theme for Marx. He shares Hegel’s idea that “the principle of the modern world is freedom of subjectivity.” He builds on this idea and deepens it. Freedom of subjectivity is central to his communism. In the 1840s, he portrays it as the culmination of bourgeois humanism. His communist society will be one where “the freedom of each is the basis for the freedom of all.” Marx presupposes the English, the American, and the French Revolutions; he sees communism as a way to fulfill their broken promises of democratic citizenship and human rights. The USSR and the PRC emerged in environments where no such promises were ever made, where the story of liberty never had a chance to begin. Their models were peasant communes and religious monasteries, overpowering collectivities that crush the self. In Russia and China, a Marx-type communism couldn’t even be imagined until Stalinism and Maoism were overthrown. Only then could modern subjects emerge and act. Their actions are loaded with irony and contradiction. Modern capitalism promises subjective freedom, but it alienates people from themselves. The pressures of market society twist the individual into a cash machine (some of whom produce a lot more cash than others). Marx thinks the workers can overcome their alienation, because capitalism is the one social system that oppresses people in a way that actually makes them smarter and stronger. All workers get a compulsory free education in what old American slang calls “the school of

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hard knocks.” To organize and to create radical labor unions, is not just a triumph, but a triumph of subjectivity. The song “We Shall Overcome” promises us a new world, if only we can remain united and remember our long-term goals. But who knows if the workers of this world can stay together long enough to overcome the global market? I talked about this in my book, All That is Solid Melts into Air.1 It was published in paperback shortly before the great events of 1989, at the Berlin Wall and in Tian’anmen Square. Since then China has become the most dynamic economy in the world. I have been reading a book, One China, Many Paths (Verso, 2003), in which many Chinese intellectuals discuss the meaning of the boom. The government’s position seems to be summed up in the 1980s slogan coined by Deng Xiaoping: “development is the irrefutable argument.” If this is so, then China’s spectacular growth rates not only win the argument they end the argument. That seems to be the point of the 1990s slogan, “farewell to utopia.” There also seems to be a wave of cultural bullying directed at intellectuals. They are told something along the lines of: “China’s boom will go on forever; it is its own justification. It is dangerous to think about what it means, or about how its benefits should be shared, or about how men and women should live. Brains have an important function, to design technical improvements and arrange policy implementation, not to worry about the meaning of life. You had dialogues about all the great ideas in the 1980s, and you know where they led. We do not want any more of that.” This language reminds me a lot of the “McCarthy years” in which I grew up, an age of cultural repression in the midst of an economic boom, when intellectuals were told they had better “Shut up and keep off the grass.” What does this have to do with Karl Marx? Communist Manifesto has a couple of trenchant sentences that can help us see the connection. “The bourgeoisie,” he says, has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the doctor, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage-laborers. In this vision intellectuals are still there, but they are demoted, deskilled, disabled, and pushed down into the proletariat, where they live by selling their brains for purely technical uses. However for Marx,

1

Penguin, 1988: Commercial Press, Beijing 2003.

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to recognize yourself as a proletarian, a member of “the modern working class,” is just the first chapter in a great story. In his narrative, just as in some of the greatest works of world literature (Oedipus, King Lear), the hero is thrown down from the top to the very bottom of society, only to rise again. The man who is “stripped of his halo,” of his power over old ideas, develops a power to generate new ideas. Capitalism has the ironic power to oppress people in a way that makes them strong. So the declassed intellectual can learn a new way to see society as a whole, to establish connections among human beings that have a wider horizon, and mobilize deeper emotions than anything the aristocracy or the bourgeoisie could conceive. As he “gets his head together” (American slang again) and nourishes his bruised subjectivity, he can learn a new solidarity with other subjects who as bruised as he. Together they can imagine a world where “the free development of each is the basis of the free development of all.” Can they, can anybody, actually create such a world? I don’t know. But the power to at least imagine a world where people are free subjects together instead of cash machines can change the world we live in now. As China gets covered with such cash machines, the story of Karl Marx in China may just be beginning.

INDEX

11th Central Committee 331, 333, 338, 371 11th Central Committee of the CCP 315, 325, 339 12th National Congress 336 13th National Congress 336, 339 14th National Congress 336, 339 16th National Congress 340 1894 Yalu River naval battle 46 1911 Xinhai Revolution 46 1917 Russian Revolution 395 1947 Land Law Outline 366 2000 Olympic games 224 8th National Congress 335 9/11

224

A Worker’s Ten Year Cultural Revolution 317 abortion 231 Adam Smith 204 Africa 365, 389 Agrarian Revolution period 249 agricultural taxes 254 Ah Q 269–272, 274 Ai Qing 362 Ai Siqi 179, 180 n. 46, 189, 190 n. 59 Aid Korea 254 All That is Solid Melts into Air 284, 434 America 48, 121, 169–170, 172, 181, 183, 186, 214, 216, 294, 361, 376, 378, 382, 410, 414, 418, 428–429 American 169, 172, 175–176, 216, 225, 374, 378, 433 American Council on Foreign Relations 380 American Declaration of Independence 107 American democracy 423 American media 420, 422 American movies 172, 175, 177 Americanization 13, 168–171, 174–176, 178, 183, 194–195, 289 Americanize 293 Analects (论语) 81 anarchists 110 ancient Greek 164

Ancient Society 287 Animal Vicious (动物凶猛) 318 anti-Hu Feng movement 332 Anti-Rightist Movement 319, 367, 376 Anti-Rightist Struggle 301 Anti-Rightist Tendencies movements 332 Anti-Rightists 332 Antonio Gramsci 398 Antonio Negri 411 April 5th Movement 367 Aristocracy 188, 435 Aristotle 99, 110–112 Arthur Smith 270 ASEAN 174 Asia 92, 116, 174, 214, 362, 389–390 August Comte’s 286 Australia 321 autocratic monarchy 53, 56–57, 62, 107 autonomous ethnic regions 333 Barnes and Noble 426 BBC 319 Behind the Demonization of China 177 Beijing 169, 171, 236, 261, 350, 353 Beijing University 303 Beijing Wenxue (北京文学 Beijing Literature) 266 Beijing Women’s Normal College 261 Belgrade 224 Benedict Anderson 388–389 Benjamin Barber’s 418 Benjamin Schwartz 422 Berlin Wall 434 [Bertrand] Russell 31 Behind the Demonization of China 177 biology 67 bodhisattva 134, 136 Bolshevik Revolution 362 Bonapartist-Caesarist 398 Book of Changes 133 Bourdieu 232 Brazil’s 366 Brezhnev 348 Bryan S. Turner 394, 400 n. 51 Brzezinski 169 Buchanan 169

438

index

Buddha-Nature and Wisdom 130 Buddhism 49, 54, 134, 294 Buddhist 129–131, 135, 147 Bukharin 322 Burkian 217 Burma 186 Bury Progress Theory 285 Bush 13, 169, 231 Cambridge History of China: Volume 11 238 Cao Xueqing 280 Capitalism 117, 252 capitalist 4, 167, 199, 252, 334–335, 352, 429, 432 capitalist economy 252, 400 capitalist market economy 184 Catherine the Second 319 CCP 8, 13, 153, 168, 177, 180–181, 237–238, 240, 242–244, 247–251, 254–256, 315, 317, 325, 339, 343, 346–347, 349–353, 359, 368 CCP-KMT 249 Central Committee 331, 339, 349 Chang Naide 291 Chantel Mouffe 386, 397 Che Guevara 231 Chen Chen Cun 276–277, 282 Chen Duxiu 156, 289 Chen Shiquan 165 Chen Sihe 275–276, 282 Chen Xiaoming 201 Chen Xujing 156, 159, 188–189 Chen Yi 321 Chen Yinan 317, 320 Chiang Kai-shek 346, 428 child health care 363 China Can Say No 177 China in Revolution: The First Phase 245 China Must Say No 177 China’s Writers Association 267 Chinese agriculture 252 Chinese Characteristics 5, 15, 155, 161–162, 180, 189, 270, 334, 337–341, 346, 373–374 Chinese cinema 428, 430 Chinese Communist Party 306–307, 311, 331, 333, 337–338, 344, 355, 359, 368 Chinese Communist Party’s 264, 306, 308 Chinese Revolution Magazine 235

Chinese Society for the Promotion of Mass Education 235 Chongqing 249 Christian 73, 163, 231 Chuangye 316 Civil War 129, 178, 301, 346, 362 Classic of Poetry (诗经) 81 Claude Lévi-Strauss 147 Clinton 13, 169 Clinton administration 414 Coca Cola 169, 172 Cold War 13, 37, 173, 382, 410–415, 418–419, 421–427 Cold War era 378 collectivism 29, 188, 364 communism 12, 188, 242, 292–293, 345, 376, 413, 422, 429, 431, 433 Communist Manifesto 370, 381–383, 433–434 Communists 249, 428–429 Condorcet 286 Confucian 111, 120, 122–124, 129–130, 134 Confucian ethics 21, 31–33, 36, 41, 43–44, 94 Confucian Marxists 398 Confucian nationalism 385 Confucianism 6, 21, 25, 31–32, 41, 44, 47, 49, 51–53, 59–60, 68–71, 73, 93, 95, 112–113, 120, 124, 129, 136, 146, 149, 206, 210, 217, 294, 344, 347 Confucius 31–32, 51–53, 60, 106, 113–114, 324, 370 conservatism 160–161, 200, 217 Containing China 173, 177 controlled economy 188 Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right 240 Crows and Sparrows 427 Cultural Renaissance 285, 295 Cultural Revolution 4, 8–11, 14–16, 149, 261–262, 264, 278, 299–313, 315–327, 329–333, 343–346, 349, 351–353, 356, 367, 372–374, 376–377 culturalist 117, 147 Dai Zhen 210 Dao 6, 133 Daoism 49, 52, 54, 82, 94, 294 Daoist 6, 75–76, 89–90, 93–94 Darwin 286 David Palumbo-Liu 422

index Declaration of Chinese-Based Cultural Construction 190 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen 381–383 Decoding Progress Theory: Setting the Record Straight on Chinese Culture 285 democracy 6–7, 37, 98, 104, 176, 188, 191, 199, 202, 204–205, 217, 233, 241, 303, 309, 317–319, 361, 369, 375, 379, 411, 413, 418 Democracy Wall 318, 350 democratic 163, 176, 188, 327, 360, 379 democratic government 202, 333, 357 democratic politics 98, 105, 107, 111, 117, 156, 191, 371 democratic system 107, 325, 365 Deng Xiaoping 7, 11, 16, 168, 181–182, 304, 321–322, 329, 332–334, 338–340, 343, 345, 349, 357, 377–378, 434 Deng Yiguang 278 Deng Zhenglai 201 Deng Zihui 332 Descartes 42, 204 Ding Yuanzhu 380 n. 3 Dingxian 235–236 Dirlik 426 Donald Duck 170, 172 Dong Zhongshu 52–53, 115 Dongfang (Oriental) 201 Dream of the Red Chamber 104 Duoduo’s 316 Durkheim’s 356 Dushu 201 East Asia 46, 346, 362, 385, 431 East Asian 117–118, 346, 390, 395 Eastern and Western Cultures and their Philosophies 22, 25, 27, 33, 164 Easternization 186, 194 economic determinism 118, 291 economic property rights 41 Economy and Society 47, 108 education 103–104, 112, 116, 156, 158–159, 165–166, 169, 301, 303, 323–324, 355, 360, 372 Edward Conze 134 Edward Jenks 36 Edward Said 394, 420 eighth National Congress 376 Elisabeth Hsu 138–139 Emancipation Proclamation 366 Emmanuel Levinas 42

439

Emperor Yu of Xia 109 empiricist 204 enfeoffment 100 enfeoffment system 101, 107 Engels 49, 286, 311, 338 England 181, 204, 291, 376 Enlightenment 97, 206, 211, 229, 264, 272, 283, 375, 379, 391, 415 Eric Hobsbawm 320 Ernest Laclau 386, 397 Ershiyi Shiji (Twenty-First Century), 251 200 Essays on Village Governance 26 ethical affection 23–24 ethical relationship 23–24, 28, 33 ethics 14, 22–25, 27–32, 34–36, 38–43, 55, 94, 111–115, 132, 165 Europe 45, 48, 92, 121–122, 132, 167, 186, 204, 214, 230, 361, 395–396 European 132, 172, 294 Falungong 351 Fanjang Juewan 282 Fan Liqin 303 FBI’s 175 Félix Guattari 411 feminism 374 Feng Jicai 268–269, 271, 273–274, 277 Feng Youlan 70, 127, 163, 187 feudal society 237–238, 245 feudalism 8, 100–102, 105–106, 246, 251–252, 301, 310 Fiction Review 274 Fifth Generation 430 filial and fraternal piety 25 five relationships 30, 33 five social relationships 30 Forbes magazine 352 Ford’s 167 Foucault 216, 232, 430 Four Discourses 143, 146 “four greats” 11 Four Modernizations 98, 324, 379 four principles and eight virtues 159 France 141, 204, 291 free market economy 387, 392, 414 free trade 188, 413, 415 freedom of assembly 318 freedom of speech 303, 318 French 285, 360 French Revolution 286, 362, 375 Freudian 141

440

index

Friedman 1, 169 From James Yen to Wen Tiejun 235 Fu Rong (芙蓉) magazine 267 Fudan University 275 Fuxing shuyuan 124 Gan Yang 217 Gang of Four 9, 315, 325, 329–331, 343, 345 Gao Heng 79 GDP 16, 243, 364, 381 Ge Hongbing 266, 278 Gellner 226 George Kennan 412 George W. Bush 231 German 290–291 German Constitution 41 German Romanticism 226 Gilles Deleuze 42, 411 Gini coefficient 380 globalism 71, 201, 420 globalization 5, 7, 13, 15, 155–157, 172, 174–175, 183–186, 193–195, 201, 213, 215, 223–224, 227, 281–282, 357, 396, 410, 412, 414, 416, 421–423, 425–426, 431–432 Globalization and the Decline of National Consciousness 293 GNP 390 God 110, 118, 148, 230, 268, 288, 382, 415 Goethe 284 Gong Yuzhi 329 Gorbachev 348 Guo Lusheng 316 Gramsci 398, 403–405 Great Leap Forward 10, 181, 243, 301, 323, 332, 335, 344, 356, 367, 376 Great Learning 6, 66–69, 71–73, 160 Great Purge 320 Greece 319 Greenspan 169 Gu Zhun 363 Guan Zhong’s 114 Guangdong 245, 334 Guangxi 321 Guangzhou 316 Guizhou 316 Gulf War 413 Guy S. Alitto 236 Habermas 226, 391, 394–396, 402 Han 52, 54, 101, 115, 210, 351, 364 Han dynasty 101, 108

Happiness Group” (幸福团) 317 Harvard University 169 Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government 347 Hayek 1 He Guimei’s 218 He Long 317 He Qinglian 282 He Zhaowu 313 healthcare 372 Hebei Province 235 Hebrew 393 Hegel 106, 111–112, 286, 386, 391–392 Hegelian 128, 241, 286, 305, 392, 394, 401 Heian period 126 Heidegger 1 Herbert Schiller 420 Herbert Spencer 287 Heshang Gong 83–84 Heshang Gong’s 78 Hinduism 49 Hobbes 76 Hobbesian 389, 394 Hollywood 176–177, 417–418, 431 Hong Kong 37, 200, 235, 346 Hu Angang 380 Hu Jintao 348–349 Hu Shi 156, 158–159, 183, 186, 191, 274 Hu Yaobang 317, 321, 348 Hua Guofeng 325, 345 Huang Zongxi 108 Huayan 130 Hubei 316 Human Mind and Human Life (人心与人生) 21–23, 25, 30 human rights 6, 8, 15, 41, 170, 205, 317, 341, 383, 387, 394, 396, 412, 423, 433 humanism 52, 61, 204, 206, 262, 433 humanist nature 75–77, 82, 87, 91–95 Humanitarians 219 Hunan 317, 321 Hundred Days’ Reform 46 Huntington 169, 294, 385 ideological culture 47–51, 53, 61–62, 197–198 Immanuel Kant 394, 416 Immanuel Wallerstein 375 imperial civil-service examination system 54

index imperialism 242, 244, 251–252, 361–362, 365 India 49, 174, 186 Indian 131, 393 individualism 5, 14, 28–29, 38–39, 41, 65, 188, 204, 318, 357, 387 Indochina 425 Indonesia 321–322 industrial revolution 97, 162, 178 industrialization 155–156, 162–164, 179, 252–255, 355–356, 368, 376, 395 Institute in Nanking 135 Institutionalists 117 insufficient 166, 192, 251, 359, 381 Intel 172 Internet 170–171, 267, 421 intersubjectivity 43, 69 Iran hostage crisis 425 Iraq 224 Iraq War 315 Iraqi POWs 176 Isaiah Berlin 205 Islam 407 Islamic fundamentalism 385 Islamic world 422 Jacques Derrida 42 Jacques Lacan 141 James Yen 235–237, 256 Japan 46, 119, 163, 173, 186, 237, 280, 346, 361 Japanese 119, 122, 249 Japanese invasion 361 Japanese samurai 125 Jean Laplanche 141 Jesus 94 Ji Xianlin 210 Jiang Zemin 339–340, 348–349 Jiangxi 321 Jin Chunming 300 Jinggang 360 Jinsilu 136 John Rawls 374, 386, 394 Jordan 169 Jurassic Park 172 Jürgen Habermas 394 Kafka 276 Kamenev 322 Kang Youwei 98 Kant 106, 111, 122, 130, 132, 393–394, 415–416 Kantian 110, 145, 386, 391, 393, 399–401, 415, 417

441

Kantism 130 Karl Mannheim 381 Karl Marx 185, 433–435 Kennedy era 378 Khrushchev 348 kingdom 66–67, 69, 71, 91 KMT 153, 190, 239, 250, 346, 348 Korea 186, 280 Korean Peninsula 173 Korean War 177, 253 Kuhn 1 Lacan 141–147 Lacanian psychoanalysis 138, 140, 146 Landless Worker’s Movement 366 Laozi 75–77, 80–87, 90, 93 Laozi’s 75–77, 79–85, 87, 90–91, 94–95 large-character posters 11, 318, 322 late Ming dynasty 60 Latin America 92, 365, 389–390 League of Nations 414 Legalism 52 Legalist 52, 113 Lenin 348, 389 Leninism 346, 355 Leninist 319, 350, 355–356, 398 Leo Strauss 216 Leslie White’s 287 Lévi-Strauss 147, 288, 294 Lewinsky 169 Lewis Morgan 287 Li Bai 280 Li Hongzhang 97 Li Shenzhi 210 Li Shu 363 Li Yizhe 316, 319 Li Yue 79–80 Liang Qichao 98, 112–113, 168, 184 Liang Shiqiu 183–184, 276 Liang Shuming 21–23, 25–37, 39–44, 112, 124, 135, 149, 164, 184, 186, 235–240, 242–248, 250–256 liberal democracy 226, 387, 393, 397, 405 Liberalism 3, 5–6, 12, 14, 41, 98, 205, 210, 213, 216, 224–227, 230–231, 357, 375, 381–383, 391, 396, 398, 402, 418 limited field 108 Lin Biao 304, 324 Lin Biao clique’ 436, 345

442

index

Lin Fei 283 Lin Yutang 157–158, 267, 269, 273, 275, 284 Lin Zhao 317 Lincoln’s 366 literacy 363 literati 54, 58, 71, 125, 227 literati class 54, 58 Liu [Shaoqi] 329 Liu Bang 108–109 Liu Chuan’e 278 Liu Shaoqi 304, 317, 331, 377 Liu Xiaofeng 217 n. 29, 275 Locke 204 Long March 359–360, 369 Louis XV 72 Lu Xun 7, 189, 230–232, 257, 259–284, 362 Lu Yudao 165 Lü Zuqian 137 Lukács 401 Luo Rongqu 156 Lydia Liu 222 Ma Yifu 135 Mahayana 130 mainland China 21, 37, 119, 148 Manhattan 429, 431 Mao 1, 9–10, 15, 172, 181, 237, 241, 243–245, 251–255, 301, 304, 311, 320, 329–334, 337–341, 343–345, 347–350, 357, 371–372, 375–377 Mao Dun 262 Mao era 7, 15, 242, 264–265, 335, 339, 372, 379 Mao Zedong 7–8, 15–16, 180–181, 237, 241, 243–245, 250, 252–256, 311, 318, 320, 329, 333, 338, 340, 345, 347, 353, 355, 357, 360, 371, 376 Mao Zedong Thought 332, 347, 353 Maoism 433 Maoist 5, 264, 329, 346, 355 Marcel Mauss 147 market economy 8, 10, 37, 117, 184–185, 194, 201–202, 206, 219, 228–229, 316, 335–336, 357, 379, 381, 387, 393, 411, 414, 422 Marshall Berman 284, 433 Marx 49, 108–109, 116, 229, 240–241, 284, 311, 338, 400–401, 403, 433–435 Marx’s materialism 116

Marxism 3, 12, 49–50, 218, 241, 258, 311–312, 333, 336, 338, 347, 355, 370, 387 Marxism-Leninism 344, 347, 349–350, 353 Marxist 16, 49, 238, 241, 252, 264, 319, 324, 398 Marxists 12, 237, 398 Mary C. Wright 245 Maurice Meisner 365 n. 4 Max Weber 43, 108, 112, 211 May 4th enlightenment 201 May 4th Movement 46, 202 May Fourth 7, 204–206, 209–210, 258, 264–265, 291, 379 May Fourth Movement 7, 155, 210, 212, 257–259, 264, 355–356 May Fourth New Culture 218 May Fourth New Culture Movement 308–309 McDonald’s 417–418 McDonalds 169, 172 medical care 322, 360, 368 Meisner 426 Mencius 51–53, 114, 115 n. 26 Meng Lei 235 Mexico’s 366 Michael Hardt 411 Michael Ignatieff 381 Michael Latham 378 Michael Oakeshott 206–207 Mickey Mouse 170 Microsoft Windows 169 Microsoft Word 169 Middle Ages 97, 110, 134 n. 24, 211 Middle East 231 mid-Tang 53–55 migrant workers 360 Military Affairs Commission 348 Milky Way cargo boat incident 224 Ming 252 Mingyi daifang lu 108 mining 372 Modern and Post-Modern 232, 285, 287 n. 4, 291 modernization 1, 4, 6, 12–14, 16, 43, 97–99, 116–118, 140, 153–156, 160–164, 167, 178–183, 185, 187, 189–190, 192–193, 202, 211–214, 216, 219, 223–224, 227, 229, 231, 237, 253, 259–260, 265, 289, 305, 331, 333, 339, 353, 355, 359, 373, 375–376, 378–379, 383, 424–425

index Mohism 52, 93 Mohist 95 Mongolia 174 moral realism 111 morality 23, 32, 37, 55, 90, 112–114, 132, 158–159, 209–210, 231, 286 Mou Zongsan 120, 122–124, 127–129, 131–132, 134, 137 n. 29 Muslim 321, 385 Naisbitt 169 Nanjing 350 Nanjing period 361 Napoleon 319 National Congress 338 National Government 361 Nationalism 7, 15, 71, 186, 201–202, 204, 223–227, 258, 356, 389, 396, 398 Nationalist party 361 Nationalist Party (KMT) 346 Nationalists 398, 428–429 NATO 172, 174 Neikeyuan 135 neo-Aristotelianism 391 Neo-Confucian 58, 63–64, 125, 130–132, 133 n. 23, 147–149, 209 Neo-Confucianism 24, 45 n. 1, 46–47, 51, 53–63, 94, 121, 131, 133 n. 23, 135, 148, 209 neo-Confucianist 128 neo-Hegelianism 391 New China 162, 250, 252–253, 255, 301, 307, 359–360, 363–364, 367 New Culture Movement 21, 34 New Deal 13 New Democracy 247, 335, 361, 376, 398 New Democracy revolution 359 new economic development zone of Pudong 429 New Enlightenment 1, 6–7 New Enlightenment movement 197–199, 202, 205, 208–209, 211, 218–219, 223, 227 New Jersey 409 New York 273, 418 Nie Yuanzi 303 Nietzsche 1 North America 386, 395–396 Northern Expedition 360 nuclear weapons 177 oil embargo of 1973 425 Okada Takehiko 135

443

On the Origin of Species 286 Once upon a Time in Shanghai 427 Opium War 97, 253, 344, 362 Opium Wars 5 oracle bone 86 Oriana Fallaci 331 Orientalist 394 Orientalists 270 Outline of Chinese Culture 31, 34–36 Outline of Chinese Culture (中国文化要义) 26 Ouyang Jingwu 135 Pakistan 174 parallelogram principle 49 Past Events are Not Like Smoke (往事并不 如烟) 323 patriarchal system 36, 54, 100–101, 103 patrimonialism 108–109 Paul Cohen 424 Paul Tilich 77 Pearl Harbor 410 pedagogy 67 Peking University 156 Peng Dehuai 317 People’s Communes 255, 334 People’s Communes movements 376 People’s Congress 355 People’s Congress system 333 People’s Liberation Army 360, 364, 428 People’s Republic 355 People’s University 236 Peter Berger 117 Philippines 173 physics 67, 133 n. 24, 134 n. 24 PLA 343, 348–349 Plato 111–112 Plato’s 114 pluralism 44, 98, 351, 353, 421 Politburo 349 Politburo Standing Committee 349 political science 67, 365 n. 4 Politics 3–4, 8, 97–99, 102, 109–116, 153–154, 158–159, 165, 169, 173, 176, 178, 190, 193, 217, 228, 238, 262, 264, 271, 302, 316, 320, 324, 356, 379, 415, 418, 428, 432 Popper 1 population migration 73 postmodernism 42, 204–205, 214, 216 postmodernity 42 Prasenjit Duara 246, 250

444

index

prefecture and commandery system 101, 105 prefecture-and-commandery system 107 presidential and parliamentary systems 117 Principles of Biology 287 private land ownership 108 Progress theory 285–291, 293–295 Protestant 393 Protestant ethic 49, 116 psychoanalysis 140–142, 145–146 psychology 22, 39, 67 Pyatakov 322 Qian Liqun 278 Qian Liqun’s 316 Qianlong reign 286 Qin 54, 101 Qin dynasty 101–102, 105, 107 Qin Hui 382 Qin Shihuang 311 Qing 7, 160, 191, 212, 214, 238, 265 Qing Dynasty 153, 178, 180, 212, 315, 361 Qing government 153–155, 178, 190, 192 Qing Westernization movement 46, 253 Qu Qiubai 167 Qu Tongzu 101 Qu Yuan 280 radicalism 200, 209, 271, 361 ration coupons 316 rationalist 98, 204, 210, 218 Rawls 231, 386, 391, 394, 396, 398 Raymond Williams 426 Rebecca Karl 427, 430 rebellion of seven kingdoms 101 Red Azalea 409 Red Flower of China 409 Red Guard 303, 319, 321, 350, 352 Red Teachers Union 301 Reform and Opening 1, 3, 5–7, 14, 153, 172, 177, 182, 228, 312, 327, 339, 357, 378 Reformation 197, 239, 247, 253, 255, 302, 333, 388 “Reform of the Party and State Leadership System” 《党和国家领导 制度的改革》 336

Renaissance 97, 164, 166, 295, 341, 378, 388 Republican era 155, 431 Resisting Despair 282, 284 Resolution on the Historical Problems of the Party since the Founding 331 Revolution of 1911 244 rice 177, 316, 376 Ricoeur 136 River Elegy 292 Roderick MacFarquhar 343, 372 Roosevelt 13 Rousseau 204 Ruan Ji’s Da zhuang lun 82 rural reconstruction 28, 35, 235–239, 243–244, 247, 250, 253, 255–256 Rural reconstruction 235 Rural Reconstruction Theory 28, 35, 238, 246 Russell 31, 122 Russia 388–390, 433 Russian 315, 319, 360, 389 Salvation and Free Spirit 275 Samir Amin 387 Samuel Huntington’s 385 Sancun Jinlian 269 Sang Mengwu 190 sannong problem 235, 248, 256 Scholar 199 self-cultivation 68, 70, 72 September 11 409–410, 413–414, 418–420, 422, 432 Shakespeare’s 72 Shanbei 240 Shandong Province 236 Shang Yang reform period 102 Shanghai 171, 201, 269, 276, 316–317, 325, 350, 427–431 Shanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region 249, 254 Shao Jian 274 Shaoxing 267 Shenbao Monthly 157 shi class 100 Shi Cunzhe 274 Shi Fu of Jin 100 Shijie Jingji Daobao (World Economic Bulletin) 223 Shun 100 Shusun Tong 52 Sichuan 316 Singapore 346

index Sinicization 153–155, 161–168, 179– 181, 183–184, 188–190, 192–194 Sittlichkeit 386, 391–392 Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind 286 slavery 319 Slavoj Zizek 415 Social Darwinism 212 socialism 3–6, 8–9, 12–15, 21, 37, 42, 162, 173, 181, 206, 212, 215, 218–219, 242, 252, 265, 292, 310, 331, 333–341, 346, 355, 357, 361, 367–377, 381–383, 413, 422, 424, 427, 430 socialist 6, 8–10, 12–14, 29, 153, 173, 199, 204, 211, 213–214, 218, 241, 252, 310, 331, 333–339, 341, 347, 350, 353, 355–357, 359–362, 365, 368, 371–373, 375–377, 381, 390, 423, 427, 432 socialist democracy 204 sociology 67, 147 sociopolitical rights 41 Somalia 395 Song 46–47, 53–56, 76, 94, 100, 132, 136, 178, 209–210 Song kingdom 100 Song Yongyi’s 316 South Asia 174, 365, 422 South Korea 173, 346 Southern Song Dynasty 178 Soviet 5, 212, 242, 309, 360 Soviet Union 12–13, 29, 173, 181, 310–311, 320–322, 337, 345, 368, 413 Spinoza 415 Spring and Autumn period 52 Stalin 337 Stalinism 315, 433 Stalinist 359, 373 state enterprise reform 16, 372 Stieglitz 169 Straussian 217 Sun Yat-sen 340, 370 Taihang 360 Tailor’s 167 Taine 292 Taiping Rebellion 238 Taiwan 37, 129, 173–174, 330, 346 Talcott Parsons’s 116 Tang 56, 351, 423 Tao Xisheng 190

445

Taoist 130, 147 television 145, 171, 292 Ten Major Relationships 337, 368, 373 Terry Eagleton 416 Thailand 173 The Clash of Civilizations 294 Communist Manifesto 434 The Economic Observer 235 The Final Awakening of the Chinese Nation’s Self-salvation Movement 22, 31, 37 The Final Awakening of the Chinese People’s Self-salvation Movement 26 The German Ideology 311 the Great Leap Forward 10, 301, 323, 332, 335, 344, 367, 375 The Horse Wrangler (牧马人) 323 The Last Confucian: Liang Shu-ming and the Chinese Dilemma of Modernity 236 The Learning Revolution 169 The Lion King 172 Theism 206 “Three Alls” 249 Three Major Distinctions 255, 376–377 Three Principles of the People 190–191, 361 Three Principles of the People Economic Construction Movement 190 Three Represents (三个代表) 340 Three Represents theory 242 Tian’anmen Square 434 Tiananmen 324, 353 Tiananmen Incident 316–318, 329–331 Tiananmen Square 343, 350 Tianjin 269 Tiantai 123, 130 Tianya (Frontiers), 253 202 Tibet 173, 175, 364 Times Square 431 Titanic 169 Tocqueville 217 Toffler 169 Tolstoy 118 Tom Nairn 387 totalitarianism 15, 319, 323–324, 326–327, 413 township schools 29, 246 traditional Chinese medicine 138 Transformers 170, 172 Trotsky 322, 389 Trotsky’s 398

446

index

Trotskyians 242 Tsinghua 301 Tsinghua University 1, 301 Tsinghua University Humanities Department 313 UK 175, 321 uniform field (均田) systems 108 United Kingdom 315 United Kingdom Rescue Organization 235 United Nation’s 364 United Nations 177, 396, 414 United States 13, 45, 124, 167–168, 170–171, 173–174, 176, 182–183, 194, 224, 231, 315, 366, 390, 412–414, 418–419, 421, 426, 429 University of Paris-Vincennes 142 US 169–177, 181, 321 USSR 173, 356, 433 vaccination 363 Vietnam 174, 186, 425 village schools 29 Virginia Carmichael 412 VOA 319 volksgeist 291 Voltaire 204 voting 117, 382 Wallerstein 375, 382 Wan Li 321 Wang Bi 83, 88 Wang Hui 213, 263, 266, 278–279, 281–283 Wang Hui’s 202, 243, 263–264, 275, 278–279, 283–284 Wang Meng 262, 275 Wang Shaoguang 380, 382 Wang Shaoguang’s 316 Wang Shuo 266–268, 318 Wang Xiaoming 201 Wang Yangming 69, 135 Wang Yangming’s xinxue 60 Wang Yuanhua 210 Wang Yuanhua’s 208 Wang Yubo 104 War and Peace 118 War to Resist American and Aid Korea 254 Warring States period 52, 54, 86 Weber 43, 50, 98, 108–110, 112, 116, 229–230, 393, 402 Weberian 117, 393–394, 397, 401

Wei and Jin dynasties 54 Wei Yuan 98 Wei Zi 100 Wen Tiejun 235–236 Wen Xuan 274 Western Europe 97, 116, 216, 386, 388 Western Han 52 Westernization 153–166, 168–169, 174, 178–181, 183, 185–189, 191–195, 235–236, 258 Westernization Movement 154–155, 178, 361 Westernization Movement (洋务运动) 46, 153, 253 wheat 177 White-Haired Girl (白毛女) 324 Why Does China Say No? 177 Wild Swans 409 Windows 172 Wittgenstein 122 Woodrow Wilson’s 414 World Trade Center 418 World Trade Organization 423 World Trade Towers 431 World War One 41 World War Two 305, 315 Writers’ Association 266 WTO 194, 224 Wu Jingchao 188 Wu Shichang 159 Wuchang 360 Xianger 84 Xin Pingshan 263 Xinhai Revolution 46, 362 Xinjiang 173 Xiong Mengfei 166 Xiong Shili 124 Xu Youyu’s 316 Xueren 208 Xueshu Jilin 208 xunli (循吏) 115 Yan Fu 288 Yan Jicheng 156, 160 Yan’an 243 Yan’an road 250 Yang Xiaokai’s 320 Yang Yiguang 319 Yangtze 341 Ye Ying 167 Yijing 133, 138 Yu Luoke 317, 319 Yu Yingshi 209

index Yuanxue 208 Yugoslavia 172, 174, 395 Zhaicheng Village 235 Zhang Chengzhi 201, 230–231 Zhang Dainian 82 Zhang Dongsun 165 Zhang Shenfu 162 Zhang Sumin 163 Zhang Tianmin 316 Zhang Wei 230 Zhang Xiruo 163 Zhang Yihe’s 323 Zhang Yiwu 201, 280, 283 Zhang Zai 94 Zhang Zhidong 154, 191 Zhang Zhixin 317 Zhang Zhiyang 319 Zhanlüe yu Guanli (Strategy and Management) 201 Zhao Ziyang 348

447

Zhejiang University 1 Zhengjiu yu Xiaoyao 275 Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Jikan 208, 221 Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Jikan (China Social Sciences Quarterly) 201 Zhou dynasty 100, 105, 107 Zhou Enlai 350 Zhou Enlai’s 329 Zhou Yang 317 Zhu Xi 136, 138 Zhu Xueqin’s 316 Zhu Zhenguo 267 Zhuang Zi 274 Zinoviev 322 Ziran 75–94 Zizek 415, 417 Zouping 236 Zuo Commentary (左传) 81 Zuo Zhuan 100, 112 Zygmunt Bauman 232