Zheng Yongnian column
This year we have ushered in the 100th anniversary of the May 4th Movement.Since the decline in the 1990s, people have changed the practice of commemorating this great historical event every year in the past. Not only are they getting more and more low -key, but they also have a small and weak orientation of this movement in the field of academic and policy.
Politically speaking, this delicate change is not difficult to understand.Both the Chinese Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China are the products of the May 4th Movement. It is the May 4th Movement that has made the two major parties a revolutionary party. The difference is that the Communist Party is more revolutionary than the Kuomintang.destiny.The May 4th Movement triggered the Chinese revolution, but after the revolution, the political parties must have to make adjustments and transform from the Revolutionary Party to the ruling party.The Communist Party of China and the Communist Party of China as the ruling party as the Revolutionary Party, holding different views on the May 4th Movement, which is understandable.
While treating low -key treatment and even negating the May 4th Movement, a social phenomenon that can be called retro.This can also be understood as negation.The theme of the May Fourth Movement is to enlighten and modernize the pursuit of all aspects by denying tradition.In the 1980s, what happened in the intellectual world was considered another new May 4th enlightenment movement.Because this new enlightenment moved to the political radicals of young students and intellectual circles, the topics of May 4th became sensitive.After the 1990s, from the official to the folk, the ideology turned to conservatives, and all parties tried to find new ideological and values resources from tradition.This is the big background of the rise of retro national studies.
Starting from the modern interpretation of the Analects, China quickly entered a stage of revival of Chinese studies.Over the years, the so -called revival of Chinese studies is dazzling.Age -age students have entered a variety of formal Chinese classes (reading class), women have entered the female virtue class, teachers return to various costumes, doctorates began to respond in ancient sayings, some party members and cadres (many senior cadres) have various forms of wives and concubines in groupshellip; hellip; various phenomena are endless, not enough.
Most of these occurred in cities, and they were packed well, at least the content of knowledge.If you go to the vast countryside, the situation there is even more shocking.Various cults are rampant. As long as there are some people with money, or a little flickering ability, they can just support a temple and carry out their own mission or scriptures.The formal social order is gone, and it is replaced by various informal social order.
What to return to the retro trend
Is the variety of contemporary retro is a business gimmick?Are you looking for spiritual sustenance?Or is the civilization revival?People look for various reasons to demonstrate the rationality of their behavior.However, all these may be an illusion. As far as its essence is concerned, various phenomena only indicate the spiritual world that some people in China are becoming increasingly fallen, and the degenerate spiritual world is an opportunity for others. Whether it is pursuing commercial interestsStill social fame.
Of course, even the degeneration of the spiritual world is not difficult to understand.Its origin lies in the behavior of behavior during the sharp transformation of contemporary society.The old norms are not good, and new code of behavior and spiritual sustenance are needed.China has been an agricultural society for thousands of years, and now faces a real and completely complete business revolution.Business society needs to be in accordance with another form of behavior and spiritual support in this society.Historically, the West has also experienced this process several times, and Nietzsche's death of God's death has a similar background.For China, the question is what kind of spirit and how to shape this spirit?
During the Mao Zedong era before the reform and opening up, these prevailing today were probably regarded as a ghost and snake god.Mao Zedong is an idealist, but the pursuit of unrealistic ideals has become utopianism.In any case, Mao Zedong is the product of the May 4th Movement. They have the distinctive concepts of civilization and barbaric, advanced and backward in modern times, but they were only replaced by revolutionary and reactionary words at that time.It is precisely because these are regarded as brutal backward and reactionary that they are cleared one by one, at least in the form of form.
However, these phenomena have now appeared one by one and returned to the stage of Chinese society.The problem is that the removal after the May 4th Movement is considered to be brutal and backward?The May 4th Movement has been regarded as a period of destruction of traditional Chinese culture to fall to the Cultural Revolution.Indeed, while clearing the above -mentioned social behavior, many things that are regarded as traditional Chinese value are gone.
However, in the contemporary retro social movement, all of these dross of these politics have returned, and it is considered to be positive Chinese traditional value without signs of return.Therefore, today's question is: Do you need to continue to deny the May 4th Movement?Where is the right place for this exercise?Where do you do something wrong?It is not very clear about all these issues.
The theme of the May 4th Movement is democracy and science.Democracy is open politics, and is opposite to traditional closed politics; science is rational, and opposite to traditional superstition.It doesn't make sense to negate the May 4th movement for some political reasons.From the perspective of the evolution of civilization, most of the May 4th Movement is right.
The new cultural movement at the beginning of the May 4th Movement is like the Renaissance in Europe, which is very advanced.It was only later influenced by the political environment of internal and external internal and external, and its theme evolved into a political movement.Although this change is a regret of history, it is also inevitable.But is there any reason to deny the new cultural movement?Imagine what kind of social situation will China live without such a new cultural movement?
The intellectual world is the main source of the new spiritual world, but unfortunately, the intellectual world is the first to fall.After the May 4th Movement, various trends of thoughts in the West entered China and competed for the space for competition in China.After 1949, Marxism became the only methodology.After the reform and opening up, waves of Western thoughts entered China.To this day, people are increasingly aware that these western culture or theories are difficult to explain China's reality.However, does this mean that those things that have been regarded as cattle ghosts and snake gods have become science?Obviously not.
Western thoughts that prevailed in China after the 1980s have arisen at two related levels.Politically, the competition of various Western thoughts has negative consequences.As in modern times, some people still believe that China's modernization is Westernization, so China must also have thoughts and systems.This simplicity of modernization and westernization inevitably conflict with reality.
On the other hand, academically, these imported thoughts and theories cannot explain China.This is an important source of contemporary Chinese discourse power.The West cannot explain itself, and it is not original, which will inevitably cause the lack of discourse.However, it should be explained that at least Western doctrine itself is self -sufficient, because there is a set of logic; Western doctrine is built on Western experience, which can explain Western practice.It is just when people apply this logic to Chinese experience, they seem pale and weak.
This is also the background of some Chinese people in the past years that some people in China have pursued so -called Chinese social sciences.No one will deny the original intention of this effort, but people have never had any effective argument about what is the localization of social sciences.Eager to seek success, a lot of scholars have desperately returned to the tradition. Therefore, the Book of Chang Feng Shui Cable Hellip; Hellip; came out one by one, boarded the highest hall of knowledge, full of all areas of social sciences, used forExplain various social phenomena.As a result, we created a lot of things that are self -spoken and self -speaking, and no one can understand, poisoning young people and the future.
The biggest cultural challenge of the Communist Party of China
Today's Chinese academic community has resisted the West has become a conscious effort of all parties, and because many Western ideas lack social foundations in China, floating on the surface.To a large extent, many are regarded as a pressure from Westernization, and in fact the modernization of China itself.In other words, all modern countries will experience similar social changes.
Whether in the face of the pressure brought by the West or in the face of modernization, is retro?IntersectionRetro is generally accepted, causing a concept of all traditions.If this trend cannot be corrected, what will the ending?In a word: derailment with the world.
Simply put, this is because China has a deep social and cultural soil.First, the middle class in China is still low, and the poor are still mostly. The education (especially higher education) is still a minority, especially in rural areas.Second, China lacks national religion in many countries. Various folk religions have been flooding, and they have endlessly emerged.Third, Chinese traditionally dominates moral philosophy and lacks rational analysis culture.Emphasizing excessive morality, often moving towards the opposite side, becoming extremely hypocritical, and the degeneration of intellectuals often becomes bottomless line.Fourth, China has not experienced the Renaissance campaign like Europe, and has excessive political enlightenment.As mentioned above, the New Culture Movement is similar to the Renaissance, but the time is too short, and it will soon become a simple political enlightenment movement.Fifth, the flood of contemporary social media, all kinds of vulgar things can always be spread the most effective.
On the one hand, resisting the West, on the other hand, the combination of the two makes it easier to derail the world.The derailment phenomenon is obvious and manifested in all aspects.Over the years, the spirit of the rapid rise in the group has been an example.Many people always feel that the country is really amazing now.But the problem is that the world is changing and changing acceleration.If the spirit of this Boxer is rampant, the decline of the country is inevitable.False will be beaten, which is the deepest lesson to China since modern times.It is this lesson that has contributed to the open policy began in the 1980s, and it is the opening policy that has contributed to the power of contemporary China.Now, the country is hard to be strong, but unfortunately it has begun to retro again.However, it is obvious that retro is not a civilized revival that people pursue.
what to do?The experience of the Confucian cultural circle in East Asia can be referred to, because China is also the Confucian cultural circle, and it has always been the main body of this cultural circle in history.Japan's Modern Asia -Establishment Movement is similar to the May Fourth Movement of China, which is not less radical than China, and Japan has succeeded.After that, the four Asian dragons also succeeded.Success is not only at the level of economic and social, but also a cultural level.All these society inherit the value of traditional culture, but there is no retro phenomenon mentioned here.What's more interesting is that these society is considered westernized, but the value of traditional cultural value has not disappeared because of westernization.How can these society realize the organic combination of modernization and traditional value?This is still an important research topic.
It is not difficult to understand how to realize the revival of civilization rather than retro, which has become the greatest cultural challenge of the CCP as the ruling party.For the ruling party, in this field, you need to answer a series of important questions: After the revolutionary party transitions to the ruling party, does it not require the revolutionaryness of the revolutionary period?How to re -define the revolution of the ruling party based on the new situation and environment?How to maintain this revolution?There is no obvious answer to all these.
Although the ruling party does not have a clear answer to these questions, it is obvious that the result of losing revolution is obvious.The phenomenon of retro is also deeply affecting the ruling party, among which there are many senior cadres.Being superstition to worship the Buddha, belief and participation in various cults, etc. are by no means just ordinary people, but are popular in the ruling party, and there are even more senior cadres.It seems that a new cultural movement is imperative. This movement is neither retro nor westernized, and it is not to refuse to modernize.It is civilized, progressive, advanced, or even revolutionary.
The author is the director of the East Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore
The article only represents personal point of view
