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CHEN Lai, GAN Yang ed., Confucius and Contemporary China, Chinese Culture Forum, Vol. 3, Beijing, Life·Reading·Knowledge Sanlian Bookstore, 2007, 505 pp.
THE Chinese Culture Forum was founded in 2004 by ZHOU Kaixuan and DONG Xiuyu, two initiators, currently co-presidents of the forum council, with CHEN Lai, GAN Yang, HUANG Ping, LIU Xiaofeng, TONG Shijun, WANG Xiaoming, WANG Shaoguang, WANG Hui, YU Yongding, and SU Li as members of the council, and DU Weiming, JIN Yaoji, LI Zehou, WANG Yuanhua, WEI Yu, XU Zhuoyun, and YANG Zhenning, et al. as council advisors. The basic tenets of the forum are to stress the importance of “cultural self-consciousness”, and attempt to “base on the historical situation of the Chinese civilization in the twenty-first century, acquire a new understanding of the past, the present, and the future of China, cut through from specific issues by means of interdisciplinary cooperation, and promote theoretical thinking and practical concern on the subjectivity of the Chinese civilization in the era of globalization”. (1) In August 2007, The Third Chinese Culture Forum, an annual conference, with “Confucius and Contemporary China” as its theme, was held in Xiangshan (Fragrant Hill), Beijing. The current book, entitled Confucius and Contemporary China, is a collection of papers of the said forum conference.
In autumn 2006, a series of lectures on The Analects of Confucius in the “Lecture Room” (baijia jiangtan) on CCTV by YU Dan, a professor of the Department of TV Movie and Media, College of Arts, Beijing Normal University, aroused strong, extensive and sustained impacts and has become an important cultural event in recent years. According to CHEN Lai’s recount, The Third Chinese Culture Forum, an annual conference held in 2007, identifying “Confucius and Contemporary China” as its theme, also originates from concern of this important cultural event. After the “YU Dan Event”, there were many criticisms coming from academic circles, mainly focusing on questioning the accuracy of her interpretation of The Analects. Of course, the accuracy of interpretation is a very important issue, and it is quite complex, particularly when depicting and annotating the standard of pertinence on the level of right and wrong, as it involves all the more very troublesome theories of hermeneutics. But yet, since the “YU Dan Event” is an important cultural event (“culture” here is used in the strict sense of “civilization and cultivation”), then the attention to YU Dan should not stop at the logic of the mass media that makes frivolous remarks about stars, but rather analyze the practical significance of this event with a social science attitude.
YU Dan’s lecture on The Analects created an extremely high audience rating and the subsequent publication of her lectures also became a bestseller with extraordinary commercial success. This is just a purely factual description of the “YU Dan Event”. In this event, what deserves most attention is, in fact, not YU Dan; rather, it is the great number of ordinary people who were present at the lecture at their own will, either as an individual or as a family. Explanation of the “YU Dan Event” by way of logic of a media star neglects exactly the significance of the populace in the event. The real issue lies in why there are so many people who like to listen to YU Dan’s lecture and are willing to buy YU Dan’s book on The Analects. Furthermore, who on earth is the person that has indeed attracted so many people to listen to and read The Analects? Is it YU Dan who is branded as a beauty by the current media or Confucius who was conferred the title of a sage in the world of the past? Probably, it is not difficult to answer this question at all—many times, what’s difficult is how to raise the question correctly. The “YU Dan Event” shows very clearly that, as a kind of spiritual resource with profound public foundation, it is extremely likely that the Confucian cultural tradition, as represented by Confucius, will or has already started to play a more and more important spiritual role in the world of the contemporary life of the Chinese people. As far as this is concerned, the “YU Dan Event” is, in fact, a clear transmission, via the channel of the mass media, of the voice of the populace for restoration of Confucian culture.
Of the voices of the populace calling for Confucius, the core concern is the issue of ethics and faith. One of my personal experiences may help explain this point: during a gathering, I met a classmate of mine of the period of my postgraduate studies. Her major was Marxist philosophy. After graduation, she was assigned to work in a Party school. Currently, she has a five year old daughter. During our conversation, to my surprise, she talked about some issues of restoration of the Confucian studies with great enthusiasm. I then asked her why she was interested in Confucianism. She replied that “I am concerned about the future of my daughter and I hope I can give her a sound personality education.” Her reply was both unexpected and reasonable. When more and more parents are willing to connect the future of their children to Confucius, the implications speak for themselves. Moreover, the strong contrast here also finds its expression in “save our children”—a famous phrase uttered by LU Xun when he was expatiating that “Institutional Confucianism kills people”—what a stark comparison.
Detailed depiction of this process of transformation will be a very significant topic, to which I will give only a rough summary. The fading of the communist beliefs of the post-cultural revolution period is an important event to understand the change of the spiritual and cultural conditions of Chinese society in the recent thirty years. After 1949, communist beliefs gradually became the civil faith of China and its basic elements include the following several aspects: first, the communist ideal, which constitutes an answer with a clear direction to the question of “what is the good life” and therefore also the basis of civil faith. Moreover, it is an indisputable fact that communism is not only determined as the civil collective ideal, but more as an absolute ideal with global universal value, the goal that is worth struggling for by human society and the ultimate end of history. Secondly, because the communist ideal originates from Marxism—in this ideological spectrum, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao Zedong, all have their significance, therefore, materialism, as the basic theory of Marxism, and scientific socialism, which is founded on materialism, constitute the world view and the social historicism in the civil faith. This kind of world view, centred on the concept of matter under the mechanical view since modern times, and social historicism, with economic determinism as its substantial contents, have exerted an enormous impact on the thinking of the Chinese people and played a moulding role that cannot be underestimated, so much so that atheism and utilitarian ways of thinking have become two basic features of the spiritual world of the Chinese people. Secondly, on the premise of establishment of an absolute collective ideal in the first place, personal virtues will be mainly represented in the recognition and submission to this absolute collective ideal and its political embodiment, i.e. the Party and the country in its wide sense. With respect to this point, there are two types of expressions in the official ethical discourse: one is called collectivism so far as the inside is concerned; the other is called patriotism or nationalism so far as the outside is concerned. Thus, in a word, communism, as the ultimate ideal, materialism, as the basic theory, collectivism to the inside and patriotism or nationalism to the outside, together constitute the basic elements of the civil faith after 1949.
In the post-cultural revolution era, civil faith formed after 1949 had gradually faded away and the first to be affected was the wreckage of the communist ideal. This is represented not only by the ordinary Chinese people, but also demonstrably by the discourse transfer of the official ideology. The term “communism” was very common in the official discourse after 1949, and yet it appeared less and less in the official discourse after the end of the Cultural Revolution. By far, probably only the name “Chinese Communist Party (CCP)” still retains the concept of “communism”. Secondly is the reflection on the morals of collectivism, from original blind emphasis on “selfless” to starting to recognize reasonable private interest and further from the “private” concept that regards justification of private interest as a matter-of-course, to reshaping of the “public” concept. In short, with a shattering of the communist ideal, morals of collectivism that were originally associated with the communist ideal have gradually been replaced by egoism.
However, what’s widely different from collectivism that has gradually disappeared and declined is that, with the eclipse of communist beliefs, patriotism or nationalism has continually maintained its vitality and demonstrated an upward trend with subsequent changes of the international situation, and has been occupying a more and more important position in the political passion and belief of the Chinese people. It is necessary to point out here that the view that patriotism of Chinese society is only a product of the CCP’s ideological education is very biased. For the majority of the Chinese, patriotism or nationalism is almost spontaneous and this tradition can at least be traced back very clearly to modern times, for instance, the Opium War in 1840. In present mainland China, even those people who harbour strong discontentment against the rule of the CCP have also clear and unambiguous awareness of the demarcation between Party and country. Patriotism or nationalism, as an important component of the political mobilization theory of the CCP, is rooted in the actual predicament of China befallen since modern times, and it is also part of the legacy of SUN Zhongshan (Dr. Sun Yat-sen) that the CCP is willing to recognize and succeed. We observed that during the post-Cultural Revolution era, the CCP paid considerable attention to the social mobilization forces of patriotism or nationalism. As far as the CCP is concerned, this is in fact consistent, and it is inherent in its own tradition, i.e. the tradition opposing imperialism and rejuvenating the Chinese nation as explicitly depicted by MAO Zedong, only that the decline of communism is set off by a clear contrast, thereby further highlighting the status of patriotism. In this regard, the emphasis on patriotism or nationalism by the CCP during the post-Cultural Revolution era implies only that the CCP is still in firm grasp of the will of the people in the new era and in the new circumstances.
Furthermore, the decline of communist beliefs has not shaken materialism in the life-world of the Chinese people, which, as the basic theory of looking upon the world, society and history, is often closely connected to scienticism. Although among the people—especially in the rural area—acceptance of materialism is, per se, already a problem, and to a certain extent, there is also no lack of reflection on materialism during the post-Cultural Revolution era. Nevertheless, up to the present time, materialism—as the remain or residue of communist beliefs—still maintains its enormous influence on Chinese society, and is still infused into the thinking of the Chinese people, hindering their proper understanding of the various kinds of spiritual and cultural traditions. As far as this point is concerned, an interesting phenomenon I often cannot help laughing about is nothing more than the fact that, even some faithful who have been converted to Christianity for a long time, still continue to exploit the thread of thought of discourse and ideological framework of materialism without being conscious of it once they deviate from the church expression when analyzing
specific issues.
The nationalization and decline of communist beliefs, a unique part of history, has resulted in serious ethical and belief problems in the life-world of the Chinese people. The decline of communist beliefs found its remarkable expression in the 1980s. Since the 1990s, with further deepening of reform and opening up, the ethical and belief problems of the Chinese people have become more and more serious. On the one hand, the logic of capital of the market economy has gradually become the dominant force, shaping the soul of the people, and has exerted a tremendous impact on the various kinds of derivative moral concepts that are originally still playing an extremely important role in the life of the Chinese people by virtue of the customary forces; on the other hand, stores of injustice and inequalities in the process of economic reform have also brought about a series of grave spiritual consequences. It could be said that after communism is downed from the altar, capital starts to build as a new worship; moreover, with the long-term cleaning and the sustained boycott of the various spiritual traditions by the materialistic trends of thought, it becomes much easier for capital to build up as a new worship. Originally, the primary objective of the theoretical assumption of the “economic man” in the classical economics of western countries is to make the rational choices of the people in economic activities as a theoretical prerequisite of economics studies. However, the applicability of this concept in China is extended from the field of economics to the entire field of social living. Many of the social problems that once occurred in the early period of development of capitalism in Western Europe and which were criticized by Marx, Engels, et al., have also been repeated in China to various degrees. Capital worship has not only made a serious impact on public living and social interaction, but has also inevitably affected family relations and the individual’s body and spirit; it relapses the entire Chinese society into a profound moral crisis. Perhaps, the only strong resistance to capital worship is the family concept that is unique to the Chinese people, and the ethical concept that is built on this kind of family notion. Under such a special predicament of this kind of moral crisis, the call for Confucius is, in fact, a call for the classical cultural tradition as represented by Confucius, to become the main spiritual resources for rebuilding civil faith and
social ethics.
In contemporary China, another voice calling for Confucius comes from the authority and, from being partially hidden and partially visible in the beginning to the present; it seems that the voice is tending to be louder and louder. For a full understanding of the background and significance of this kind of voice, one must also speak from the decline of communist beliefs. After all, communism is, in the first place, a kind of political ideal. As it has already been actually mentioned above, decline of communist beliefs has occurred not only amongst ordinary Chinese people, but also—and even above all—within the CCP itself, a point that is obviously manifested in the change of discourse of the official ideology of the post-Cultural Revolution era. Prior to reform and opening up, the administrative programme of the government also took “socialism” as its core terminology. However, socialism then was confirmed as a transition period in the frame of reference to communism. Frankly speaking, socialism is just a preparation for communism and the ultimate goal of social construction is to realize communism, so much so that the advocacy of “running into communism” had even appeared during the “Cultural Revolution” era. Notwithstanding this, after the end of the Cultural Revolution, the term “communism” has appeared less and less frequently in the discourse of official ideologies, and it is hardly heard at the present time. On the other hand, although the term “socialism” is still a core terminology of the administrative programme of the government, it has nevertheless gradually come out of its utopian colour, originally associated with communism and tends to be practical. The most typical representation is, of course, nothing more than the advancement of the theory of “socialism at initial stage”...
[ End of sample | Please purchase the magazine for full articles ]
1. See The General Prologue published in front of each volume of the compilation of the Chinese Cultural Forum.
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Tang Wenming, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Peking University), mainly engages in studies of ethics and Chinese philosophy. Currently he is Associate Professor of the Philosophy Department of Tsinghua University, research fellow of the Centre of Research of Ethics and Religion of Tsinghua University, research fellow of the Centre of Research of Confucianism of the Institute of World Religions of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a council member of the Beijing Ethics Society, editor in chief of Tsinghua Philosophical Almanac, a member of the Editing Committee of Chinese Thought and a member of the Editing Committee of the Ethics and Public Affairs, visiting scholar of Harvard-Yenching Institute 2008-2009 and visiting scholar of the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley 2003-2004. |
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| Issue 6.3 |
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Remembering—
A Shared Duty
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