Zhang Kun's Commentary on Order and Chaos: The "Social Miracle" of Transforming China: The "Third Way" of Chinese Studies

Order and Chaos: The "Social Miracle" of Transforming China, by Chen Yingfang, National Taiwan University Publishing Center, March 2021 edition

"Comrade, which unit are you from?"

People who are a little older now know that in China, everyone used to belong to a "unit". Since this "unit" originated from the "food unit" of the war years, in a "socialist country" where "unified purchasing and marketing" is concerned, whoever leaves the "unit" has no source of food and cannot survive. Thus, a person can have no position, no money, or even no relatives, but he cannot do without a "unit." The "unit system" was once the most basic social structural unit in China, and without it, no one can understand Chinese society.

However, by the end of the 1970s, the "unit system" began to loosen and gradually disappear. So, in China, what replaces the former "unit system"? Some sociologists have proposed that the "project system" of the 1990s replaced the "unit system". But will someone ask, "Comrade, which project are you?" ”

The first original idea put forward by sociologist Professor Chen Yingfang in his book "Order and Chaos: The "Social Miracle" of Transforming China" is: "familyization". For scholars engaged in the study of contemporary Chinese history and the evolution of contemporary Chinese society, when they are puzzled by the disappearance and destination of the "unit", seeing such a point of view, it is like drinking with a stick, and suddenly sobered up: "Xiao Wang, are you married?" It turns out that the society of forced marriage is also the result of "social familyization".

The sociological work Order and Chaos, a four-part book with twelve chapters and four hundred and ten pages, spans the entire period of China's "reform and opening up" and focuses on the basic and major social structural changes behind people's daily lives. However, no matter how important the narrative, for sociology, it must start with individual people, which is a principle established from Marx, one of the three founders of sociology. Marx rebuked Hegel, and sociologists rebuked philosophers, saying that philosophers in contemplation "went from abstraction to concreteness" and talked about their own ideas, not social reality. The history told by this method is the history of heroes, not the history of the people. In this regard, Marx proposed "from the individual to the general", calling for the observation of the formation of general social reality in the process of society, starting from individual people and individual things. As a result, ordinary people who are individuals have also begun to become the protagonists of history. This principle put forward by Marx has lasted for a long time, and to this day, it is still the most essential intellectual wealth in the social sciences. Order and Chaos also begins with individual people and individual events: the first large-scale social upheaval in China in the late 1970s, the story of the return of millions of intellectuals to the city in a short period of time. As the subtitle of the book, "The Social Miracle of Transitional China," shows, this kind of large-scale population migration can be called a "social miracle" in any country in human history. It's just, how could this "social miracle" happen? What kind of driving force can contribute to this "social miracle" and thus promote the irreversible "transformation" of Chinese society?

In the 1960s and 1970s, a total of about 178 million "intellectual youth" were sent from the cities to the countryside, but this large-scale population migration was unsuccessful. At the end of the 1970s, the wave of "intellectual youth" demands to return to the city was stronger than a wave, and the government was under great pressure that the employment problem alone could not be solved. However, it is the most humble appeal that drives a large-scale "social miracle": "go home". Chen Yingfang wrote: "Zhiqing's 'return to the city' demand has not only evolved from the needs of individual life into a problem of social fairness, but more importantly, it has directly transformed from an economic and political issue into a common human sentiment and family ethics issue of parent-child reunion. In various other petitions, manifestos, slogans, poems, propaganda books, etc. of Yunnan Zhiqing in the same period, there are a large number of expressions such as 'flesh and blood reunion' and 'return, children'. (p. 67) Many things that everyone has seen but have never been noticed have become Chen Yingfang's most powerful arguments: the documentary literature "We Want to Go Home", the Zhiqing documentary "I Want to Go Home", "Strive to Go Home", "Finally Go Home", and even the TV series "Deng Xiaoping at the Turning Point of History", which was grandly launched by CCTV, when describing Deng Xiaoping's crucial decision at the Central Committee Meeting on the issue of Zhiqing's return to the city, still said a sentence of "let the child come back" with the power of "going home". Ended the controversy within the hierarchy" (p. 68). In this regard, the author commented, "Zhiqing became a 'child', and returning to the city became a 'homecoming' - the family, its role, and ethics were jointly initiated by various forces", creating the first "social miracle" of transforming China.

Rousseau once said in The Social Contract: "The oldest and only natural society of all societies is the family." (Social Contract Theory, Vol. 1, Chapter II) His idea of the social contract then began with talking about the relationship between the members of the "family" and moved toward the social contract relationship between people, exploring the construction of the social community. Similarly, Chen Yingfang "familyized" society and called it "normalization of social life." Millions of "intellectual youths" of middle school students went to the mountains and went to the countryside, and since then they have gone from the city to the countryside, and the citizens have become farmers, "not taking away a single cloud." The philosopher or the wise man arranges his life and destiny for all people in his contemplation, which is of course an abnormal social life.

Chen Yingfang found that "familyization" not only contributed to the normalization of social life, but also played an irreplaceable role in China's economic miracle in the following decades, such as the "demographic dividend" often called "demographic dividend", and in the reform of state-owned enterprises, a large number of laid-off workers often rely on family mutual assistance in the absence of public security. Without "familyization", whether it is the most important enterprise reform in the five major market reforms, or the economic miracle that has lasted for decades, it is unimaginable! It can be said that Chen Yingfang's discovery of "familyization" has suddenly become simple because of her return to the most basic structural unit of society, so that the once seemingly intricate and complex chinese social problems have suddenly become simple. In Chinese academic circles, Chen Yingfang's view from "unit" to "family" corrects the widely circulated view of changing the "unit system" to "project system", and solves a very important and at the same time unavoidable problem in the study of contemporary Chinese social transformation - the coherence of social transformation. Just as Hobbes once proposed the famous "decomposition and synthesis method", he first decomposed the problem continuously, decomposed it to the basic elements that can no longer be decomposed, and then used reason to synthesize it, because the "family" happens to be the basic structural unit of Chinese society after the collapse of the "unit system", so based on its synthesis, it also makes Chinese society in the era of "reform and opening up" easy to understand.

However, where there is structure, there is hierarchy, as Arendt once said, "Hierarchy itself is shared by the commanding and obeying, both sides agree with the legitimacy and legitimacy of hierarchy, in which they have a predetermined and solid position for each other" (Arendt, Between Past and Future, translated by Wang Yinli et al., Translation Lin Publishing House, 2011, p. 88), a society from home to country must have a hierarchical identity problem that needs to be explained. From here, we come to the second theme of the book, "Fluid Identity Between Hierarchies."

After the "masses" leave the "units of the mass movement" and "go home". All scholars in the world engaged in Chinese social studies are faced with a new problem: the question of where the "masses" are going. After "going home", what is the identity of the "masses"? Could they disappear from the social fabric?

On this issue, the study of Chinese society in western academic circles at first, in the context of the post-Cold War socialist camp turning to Western countries and intending to turn to civil society, naturally took "civil society" as a frame of reference to study. Yves Chevrier, a well-known French sinologist and former director of Europe's largest center for the study of modern and contemporary China, published a hundred-page paper in 1995 entitled Yves Chevrier, La question de la société civile, la Chine et le chat du Cheshire, tudes chinoises, vol. XIV, 2 (automne). DOI: 10.3406/etchi.1995.1237),) encompasses almost all the important Studies of China in the French-speaking world under the umbrella name "Civil Society Issues" and deals coherently. There is a reason to say it is "important". But scholars in the humanities and social sciences are mostly aware of the almanac school, and it is easy to know the new historical turn of the annals school in the 1970s. It is said that after the new historiography turned, it split into many different subdivisions and thus fragmented. But that is only the opinion of others, not the opinion of the scholars of the Annals school themselves. For the Annals school, every discipline is not a matter of naming a name and establishing a brand, but requires comprehensive and sufficient serious research from several aspects such as the definition of the scope of the discipline, the definition of conceptual terms, the criticism of historical materials, the construction of methodology, the construction of disciplinary meaning, and the history of controversy and debate, in order to establish a new subdivision discipline. After such an academic construction, on the one hand, all new disciplines are interconnected at the bottom, both interdisciplinary and non-fragmented; on the other hand, to extend their tentacles into all other humanities and social science disciplines, including sociology, have the ambition of dominating the world through historiography. Therefore, Severley's thesis has the momentum to open up a "Chinese science" under the new historiography of the annals school. Today, we criticize afterwards that scholars at that time somewhat took it for granted that the "masses" had become "citizens", and then used "civil society" as a general clue to observe and evaluate the social development of China. This approach is bound to be difficult to succeed, but that does not mean that scholars will give up easily. Interestingly, fifteen years later, Severley made a comeback. In 2010, he wrote a nearly 100-page introduction to a thick collection of Chinese research papers entitled "From the Problematic City (cité) to the Habitable City (ville): Yves Chevrier, De la Cité problématique à la Ville habitée: Histoire et historiographie de la société urbaine chinoise au XXe siècle, in Yves CHEVRIER, Alain ROUX et Xiaohong XIAO-PLANES (éd.), dir, Citadins et citoyens dans la Chine du XXe siècle, Paris, ditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme , 2010, pp.15-101.), still dealing with the big problem of fifteen years ago, but the theoretical framework has returned from "civil society" to Weber sociology. Cité uses the connotation of the ancient Greek city-state, with the connotation of a secular political community, which is the term of Weber's sociology, while the city (ville) is only a place where people live, lacking the connotation of order. From this change in the title alone, it can also be seen that European heavyweight scholars have abandoned the understanding of "civil society" and taken a step back to re-examine the changes in Chinese society from Weber sociology, and confirm that China's urbanization has not moved towards the secular cité described by Weber, but has stayed in the livable city (ville). If we understand these trends in contemporary Chinese studies in European academic circles, we will know how Professor Chen Yingfang has taken a step further in the direction of "city". In the above examples, we can see a change in the approach to research that major European Scholars on China have adopted. However, we say that no matter how it changes, what remains unchanged is that these research approaches have always been to look at China from the perspective of scholars, and the research made is always "China in the eyes of others", and it is always not like "China itself".

Professor Chen Yingfang's sociological research is exactly a complete return to "China itself", in the evolution of Chinese society itself, put forward neither "national" nor "citizen" "citizen" research path, which is so unique, we can even call it "peculiar citizens": the past "masses", ah, it turns out that you are here now!

In the nineties, the international communist movement entered a low ebb. The Chinese government hopes to achieve the "great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation", and the "people" of the nation-state will become a new possible identity of the "masses" after "returning home", and it is the identity that the official hopes. However, in the course of implementation, due to changes in the form of social economy, it has once again changed unexpectedly. Chen Yingfang observed that in the process of modernizing the status of peasants, many scholars at that time called on the state to give farmers and migrant workers more and more equal "national treatment", but unfortunately, the peasants who went to the city were not very appreciative, and they preferred to become "citizens" rather than "citizens".

They have no interest in the government-led "national" identity, and they are ignorant of the "citizen" identity imagined by the West, but they are well aware of the benefits of "citizen": following the household registration status of the past 1950 years, binding various citizen treatment, including housing security, educational resources, urban public service facilities and other social welfare. With the household registration of the city where you live, you can enjoy the treatment of citizens and participate in the social security system. This system of security has not yet reached farmers and may be far away. To some extent, the peasants have always been "nationals" and have always silently assumed the obligation of "the rise and fall of the country and the responsibility of the husband". But compared with the "citizens", the peasants are also "nationals", but they are not equal. That is, there is actually a huge inequality between the people and the people, in contrast, between the citizens, but more equal. In this way, it is only natural for peasants to pursue the status of "citizens". At the same time, as summarized in Chen Yingfang's survey, the living principle of "peasants" is the "principle of survival needs". Once you become a "citizen", it means getting rid of the "principle of survival needs" and rising to the "principle of meaningful life". This improvement in the quality of life is something that the status of "national" cannot provide, or even has been suppressed over the past few decades.

From 1978 to the beginning of the 21st century, China underwent massive urbanization. In this process, the peasants who left their homeland and the acquaintance structure society in the traditional countryside did not become "citizens" or "citizens", but became "citizens" who pursued profits. At this point, we find that Chen Yingfang's sociological works are not only works that understand the vast social changes in China's reform and opening up era, but also works that help understand why the economy has achieved a miracle of development. It is precisely these profit-seeking "citizens" released from the "units" who, again relying on the WTO and other mature international market rules, have re-relied on the WTO and other mature international market rules to organize themselves again in the context of "integrating with international standards" at the turn of the century, and their value has doubled. Once so connected, a Chinese and an American are only different in political and legal senses, not in economic sense. At this time, Chinese, in their own identity, neither pursue the "national", nor realize the "citizen", but also fully yearn for the "citizen", all these conditions provide a heavenly opportunity for the international capital for profit that can not be dreamed of: doing the same or even more labor with the Americans, but there is neither political demands nor rights appeals, only for a "meaningful life". No wonder international capital is excitedly hailing China's "demographic dividend." Yes, it is this "peculiar citizen" that attracts the world's profit-seeking capital, and under the mature market rules they provide, the "citizens" create great value, creating the prosperity of the Chinese market and the take-off of the economy. Therefore, from the "livable city " (ville) those who strive for "meaningful life" and strive for profit, a path of sociological research of "citizens" who are different from "citizens" and "citizens" has been opened up, and at the same time, a "third way" for us to study the miracle of contemporary Chinese economy has been outlined. Of course, when we say "the third way", we do not mean exactly "the third way", but borrow the word to express a new research path that jumps out of the dilemma.

"Urbanization" was once a major thread in western research on social change in China. However, among the many researchers, who would have thought that the most clear and clear clue to the study of China's "urbanization" was the clue of "citizens"? Indeed, no one could have imagined that this is the characteristic of sociology. Sociology is not a subject of contemplation, but of action: just ask the person what identity he wants to be, and the best answer is available. In this way, the author closely follows China's own social reality, uses the fieldwork methods of sociology, is neither arrogant nor arrogant, and in the most natural way, finds this "citizen" research path that may bring excitement to scholars studying China all over the world.

Order and Chaos: The "Social Miracle" of Transforming China contains a serious study of many details of Chinese society, not only the above two points. But just the above two points, for a person who is deeply concerned about China's destiny, may already help him open the black box of the key changes in Chinese society in the past two or three decades, and explore the mysteries that are difficult to know. For professional scholars engaged in Chinese studies, this is first of all a rigorous and standardized academic work, followed by the work of a scholar with outstanding academic intuition, and the third is that it is full of enlightening problem awareness, which can still lead many later generations to continue to deepen and open up new research.

If there is any criticism of this work that contains treasures that still have yet to be excavated, the first thing is that these "treasures" are still buried too deeply, and to read deeply, there are certain requirements for the reader's knowledge reserve. Second, from the point of view of a historian, I can't help but hope that the author will write more stories with plot twists like "citizens and people", in short, historians will always blame sociologists: If you can write more like history, it would be better. However, for those readers who are deeply concerned about China's fate and try to solve the real problems of society, I believe that they will find enough treasures to help them better understand this often overwhelmed era.