On the afternoon of December 30, 2021, at the invitation of the Center for Modern History Knowledge System of the Chinese Academy of History, the Social History Research Center of the Institute of Modern History and the Youth Book Club, Hou Xudong, professor of the Department of History of Tsinghua University, made an academic report entitled "Relational Perspective, Daily Life and History", which was attended by more than 50 scholars online and offline. The event was presided over by Researcher Cui Zhihai, Associate Researcher Li Junling of the Institute of Modern History, Assistant Researcher Liu Liyun of the Institute of Historical Theory, and Associate Researcher Lu Wenhao of the Institute of Modern History participated in the discussion as the participants, and Researcher Hu Yujuan of the Institute of World History gave a discussion on the "public daily life" of ancient Greek and Roman civil society.
An important direction of Professor Hou Xudong's research in the past twenty years or so is the concise documents unearthed during the Three Kingdoms period of the Qin and Han Dynasties, but he has also made a lot of efforts in sociology and anthropology, so he pays special attention to the study of repeated affairs and the daily rule of the imperial court in his research. His earliest study of "everyday rule" was "The Use of Ancient Chinese Names" and Their Meanings:Dignity, Subordination, and Responsibility," published in 2005 (Historical Research, No. 5, 2005), although the academic expression of "everyday rule" had not yet been distilled. From 2008 to 2015, he published five papers on the use of han dynasty inheritance, which deeply described the recurring affairs of the daily rule of the Han Empire from different aspects. Studies published in 2010 on the generalization of peasants in the Qin and Han dynasties (Historical Research, No. 5, 2010) and "Favor: Letter-Appointment-Style Monarch-Subject Relationship and the Unfolding of Western Han Dynasty History" published in 2018 are all explorations of daily rule research. On the basis of these research practices, Professor Hou Xudong published a monograph "What is the History of Daily Rule" (published by Sanlian Bookstore) last year, which comprehensively summarizes his academic thinking for more than 20 years. This event will use this book as the basic research bibliography.
A reflective "history of everyday rule"
In his report, Professor Hou Xudong introduced the basic concepts, academic pursuits and specific ideas of the history of daily rule.
He pointed out that the book is called "What is the History of Everyday Rule", but there is no "daily rule history" with clear boundaries as an object of study or exclusive domain, and what he actually wants to express is the study of daily rule in history. The subject of research is the current and future researchers, thinking about the position of the researcher, how the researcher looks at the past, including reflection on existing research, how to further carry out new research, specific perspectives, and so on. The objects of daily domination in history are open and need to be developed and created by current and future researchers.
"Everyday" focuses on "constant" and not "day", and is aimed at activities that have been repeated in history (most of them are cyclical, such as transactional work: straight, shangji, changqi...). There are also repetitive activities with no fixed cycles, such as "pets", waiting for outside travel, responses to Han Dynasty disasters) and fixed/unfixed repetitive activities (such as the tribute of "barbarians") and their meanings. It can also include broader common sense, common sense, common sense, normalcy, etc. "Constant" is more extensive than the sociological concern of "same", and "same" emphasizes unity and repetition.
Traditional Chinese historiography emphasizes "not writing about common things", paying attention to anomalies and changes, and after the 20th century, it was deeply influenced by Western evolutionary theory, paying more attention to "change", and it seems that what remains unchanged has no value to study. Mr. Qian Mu said in the "Chinese Historical Research Law": "Every year, month and month, everyone lives a uniform life, there is no change, and such daily life cannot be written into history." History must be varied, just as it must be peculiar." Observe life, perceive history, "change" outside, the background color and tone is "constant". We must expand our horizons, from attaching importance to "change" to paying attention to "constant", "constant" not only includes continuation, but also repetition, circulation, etc., and at the same time observe "change" in "constant", and observe the relationship between "constant" and "change".
As for why "rule" instead of the more common "politics"? That's because "rule" can be a verb, implying processivity, but also passive (ruled), and can also be used as an adjective to modify nouns (such as ruler/ruled, rule style, rule mechanism), its connotation is richer, allowing for various efforts around the dynastic order after the emergence of civilization. "Domination" can be flexible and fully demonstrate the establishment and maintenance of order and the relationship between domination/domination and resistance, or it can transcend the limitations of previous unique events and ideas that lack human institutions. "Politics" is almost a noun, much thinner in content, and more closely related to modernity, hindering a comprehensive grasp of the rule of ancient dynasties.
The study of everyday rule in history is not limited to ordinary people, but also includes rulers and even emperors. Everyday ≠ life, daily ≠ belong only to ordinary people. The question of the state of existence of all human beings, and how their existence constitutes an endless question of the past, is structured and maintained in the everyday (convention). At the extreme, anything can be a history of daily rule, and anything can be a history of daily rule, depending on how the researcher thinks.
There are four aspects of the specific thinking of the study of daily domination in history: the priority of subjective observation, supplemented by guest observation; the priority of observing the times, supplemented by the clarity of hindsight; the daily perspective; and the human-centered relationship thinking. At its core is human-centered relational thinking, hoping to free itself from the immobilized, unconscious relationship state of the object-researcher and discover new research space. Replacing physical thinking with relational thinking, then the history of 1838-1842 is more than just a solution to the Opium Wars. Just like the mobile phone in the hand, from another angle, it can be said that it is not a mobile phone: it is also a rectangular object, a black object, a Huawei product, a camera, wallet, compass, mirror, computer, calculator... Each title contains a relationship, a connection with some kind of other items, depending on the observer's classification and concerns. The researcher is actually the observer, who can find new aspects of the research object in continuous thinking, and form new problems for the aspects that have been ignored in the past.
The proposal of the study of daily rule in history contains a strong reflection on traditional Chinese historiography and new historiography since the beginning of the twentieth century, hoping to liberate us from the study of major event sequences extracted from hindsight and discover a more diversified and more realistic research space.
The "history of everyday rule" inspires us to think about what to think about
In the review session, Li Junling, Liu Liyun, Lü Wenhao, Hu Yujuan and others put forward their opinions on the concept of "daily rule history" and the inspiration given to academic peers by related research practices.
Li Junling pointed out that the history of daily rule takes "everyday" as a way to "observe and understand the past life: close to the actual life of man itself, to discover the meaning of life, the logic of life, and the generation, maintenance and resistance of order from cyclical and routine affairs" ("What is the History of Daily Rule", p. 26), emphasizing the "disenchantment" and "de-familiarization" of existing historical research methods, stimulating us to reflect on the knowledge and things we are accustomed to, and consider how to make a historical understanding that is closer to the original appearance and closer to the truth." Discover more of the obscured world". Traditional historiography has the custom of "not writing about things". As a generation of historical researchers, although we still live on the historical extension line of traditional China, we are not familiar with the common sense of the political structure and operation of traditional China. Coupled with the limitations of the research paradigm of existing historical research since the 20th century and the shortcomings of modern education, young scholars studying modern Chinese history generally have insufficient and in-depth understanding of ancient Chinese history, and there is obviously a gap in knowledge. As far as recognizing and understanding the history of China in the imperial era is concerned, the book "What is the History of Daily Rule" urges us to deeply understand the structure, mechanism and limitations of Chinese politics in this period, taking "daily rule" as the observation perspective, combined with Professor Hou's relevant empirical research cases, we will find the little-known faces and mechanisms of traditional Chinese politics. He believes that Professor Hou reflects on the limitations of the existing research on "event history" and "institutional history", points out the academic discourse and academic evaluation of "event history", "event history" and "event hierarchy", and points out that the concept of "event hierarchy" and even the subconscious mind are just the conceptual mapping of the ubiquitous "hierarchy" in real life. He said that any historical event, placed in a different sequence of events and a chain of logic to observe, will have a different position. The iconic events positioned by later generations do not exist in isolation, but form a continuous whole with many other events, which are "cut" out and are easily emphasized or amplified unconsciously. As Teacher Hou said, "If you want to restore the living history, return to the historical scene, and return to the daily world, I am afraid that you have to adopt a strategy." Only in this way can we see not only a few dead fish lying on the case for autopsy, but also the flowing living water and the fresh fish in it. (What is the History of Everyday Domination, p. 65) This prompts us to think about whether we can reasonably understand our predecessors, whether we can observe the world in which we live with the eyes of our predecessors, and whether we can feel and experience the times in which we lived with the hearts of our predecessors. He also believes that the daily study of the history of rule emphasizes that historical research is to pay attention to heroes, but it must not despise or ignore the power of ordinary people; we must not only pay attention to the discussion of major events, but also pay attention to the significance of small events, achieve a certain balance between the two studies, and consciously resist the temptation of "hindsight". The research of big events and big people is all "flow" with its own, which naturally attracts wide attention, but the study of ordinary people, especially the study of marginal groups, is still rarely cared about. Starting from the study of the "history of everyday rule", the study of ordinary people in the field of social history can expand academic horizons and discover new academic growth points. For example, combine the perspective of "everyday domination" with the "everyday life" perspective of social history.
Liu Liyun believes that Teacher Hou's proposal of "everyday" is mainly epistemological-oriented theoretical construction, focusing on the relationship between historical reproduction and historical evidence and historical experience, and "everyday" is the perspective of cognition "rule", rather than having a "daily rule" as an object of cognition. She believes that when Teacher Hou talks about the observation perspective of "daily life", he particularly emphasizes "things" (as opposed to the system), "small events" (relative to large events) and "affairs" (relative to events). This is a bit like the Chinese philosophical historian Yang Guorong's "view of things", using "doing things" to unify the "things" as actual forms, as well as people's spiritual activities and verbal behavior. Teacher Hou also mentions "doing things" in some places in the book (but using "use" more), of course, this "thing" is routine and repetitive related to domination. When it comes to "doing things", there must be a subject, and "people" appear; in what environment, by what experience, by what or what role, for what purpose, how to achieve the result, etc., it involves the relationship between people and people, people and things, and it is a dynamic and processal display. For example, in the study of the house, the house, the car, the horse, the food, etc. are all things, from the perspective of doing things, they enter the vision of people and become the object of people's help or role; for example, in the study of the "name" of the ancients, the name is originally a language symbol, but from the perspective of doing things, it is to establish a subordinate relationship or to take responsibility, which involves the relationship between people and people, people and things. Compared with "use", "doing" may be a better expression, avoid objectification, and more express practical. She believes that behind the "everyday" perspective is the "individualized" orientation of Western historiography since the 1980s, and the object of historical research has shifted from structural grand problems to individual experiences and feelings, denying the singularity of history and emphasizing the pluralistic and pluralistic characteristics of history. But there is also a question: after adding small events to big events, adding transactions to events, adding relational thinking to substantive thinking, adding institutional operations to institutions, countries as historical subjects plus people as historical subjects, and so on, is it possible or not to pursue an overall historical picture after such 1+1 operations? In addition, she believes that indoctrination is an idealistic, but not only conceptual way of ruling in ancient Confucianism, and it is multi-directional, such as the top-down emperor educating officials, officials educating the people; there are also bottom-up, officials educating the emperor, and may be routine, routine, such as the feast, may also be included in the field of daily ruling history.
Lu Wenhao believes that Professor Hou's research on the history of daily rule in recent years has achieved many high-level results and attracted a lot of attention, but it seems that not many people in the field of history really understand him. For example, in the years from 2008 to 2010, a hot issue discussed in the field of historiography was "whether the ancient Chinese political system is autocratic", which was triggered by a paper published by Professor Hou in 2008 in "Modern History Studies", and the results of the discussion seemed that the mainstream opinion tended to affirm the "authoritarian theory", and the people who put forward these opinions were a little angry that Teacher Hou did not answer their opinions positively, saying that Teacher Hou was somewhat "dismissive" of everyone's opinions. He believes that Teacher Hou only wants to oppose the political criticism of the ancient Chinese political system, whether it is autocratic or not, what words are better summed up, and it is necessary to make a lot of specific research on the production and maintenance of daily rule in ancient times before making a judgment; "common things are not books", if we collect many exceptions from the history books to argue for imperial autocracy, there is no doubt that there is a problem of "changing from generation to generation" in methodology. Lü Wenhao believes that the priority of the main position and the priority of following the times mentioned in Teacher Hou's report have important inspiration in historical research, which is also consistent with Weber's understanding of the subjective intentions of social actors. If we do not observe history in this way, it is easy to give the historical parties a "historical mission" that we extract from hindsight, to see whether they know or to what extent they have fulfilled what we call a "historical mission", which is often very unfair to predecessors.
Hu Yujuan believes that Teacher Hou's "daily rule" research is different from the "daily life" research of new cultural history, and he proposes that "daily life" is not equal to "life", not limited to the study of ordinary people, but also includes rulers and even emperors. In her view, the concept of "rule" may be appropriate for the political history narrative of ancient China, but in ancient Greco-Roman civil society, "politics" was not only the daily life of "rulers", but also part of the daily life of ordinary people. Therefore, in her research and teaching, she adopts the concept of "public daily life", which contains both "ordinary people" and "rulers", both "politics" and "life". The "everyday" perspective can break the stereotypes inherent in class analysis and identify the key causes of major historical turns from everyday factors. Taking the "Gragu reforms" as an example, due to the crowding, chaos and noisy voices of the Roman citizens' assembly, Tiberius Gragu's speech could not be heard by the people standing at a distance, and a gesture he inadvertently made was misunderstood as "wanting to be king", which led to the disaster of killing and leading to the failure of the reform. In a sense, "everyday" research requires researchers to go deep into historical scenes to discover historical truths, so as to get rid of the shackles of ideas and stereotypes.