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According to Isaiah Berlin's "enlightenment," for "enlightened" countries like Germany, Russia, and China, enlightenment actually has the dual meaning of "civilizational consciousness" and "cultural self-consciousness." Enlightenment meant integration into the universal civilization of Western Europe, represented by Britain and France in the 18th century, but this civilization was not a natural continuation of the cultural traditions of its own people, but was alien and taken. Civilization is foreign, while culture is indigenous and itself, which gives rise to tension and confrontation between culture and civilization.
Xu Jilin, a professor and historian at East China Normal University, believes that in the process of the development of China's modern intellectual history, there has always been an inherent tension between "civilization consciousness" and "cultural consciousness." On the one hand, "civilizational consciousness" requires the subject to move closer to the universality of 18th-century Western European civilization and respond positively to the Anglo-French Enlightenment, which emphasized human reason. On the other hand, "cultural self-consciousness" requires the "enlightened" to adhere to their own national particularities, discover the unique value of their own culture, and use the nationality of local culture to oppose the universality of Western European enlightenment civilization.
Xu Jilin regarded the May Fourth New Culture Movement as a "civilizational consciousness." In the cultural controversy of salvation and survival, both the native and Westernized factions are based on the universal human stance, comparing the advantages and disadvantages of Chinese and Western civilizations, and trying to find a future way out of Chinese culture in the overall trend of the development of human civilization. However, "cultural self-consciousness" has been obscured and drowned in the tide of controversy: what is the cultural identity that belongs to Chinese? Does Chinese culture have its own subjectivity? More than a hundred years have passed since the May Fourth Movement, but the balance between "civilization consciousness" and "cultural consciousness" is still unresolved. Recently, in the "Tianren Lecture Hall" sponsored by the School of Philosophy and Social Development of Shandong University, Xu Jilin once again threw this core issue of reconstructing the subjectivity of Chinese culture into the public eye.
Towards modern times: the displacement and tearing of civilization and culture
Xu Jilin believes that as an "enlightened" country, in the process of moving towards modern times, the history of China and Germany has a high degree of similarity. Although the Enlightenment took place in France and Scotland in the 18th century, the American scholar James Schmidt pointed out: "The question of 'what is enlightenment' is uniquely a german question." For England and France, enlightenment is the process of "coming out of the cave" from religious obscurity to rational civilization, which means that man replaces God with his own reason, becomes the decision-maker of history, and means the awakening of human subjectivity. Xu Jilin believes that "what is enlightenment" is not a problem for Britain and France, because in Britain and France, culture and civilization have the sameness: the universal modern civilization advocated by the Enlightenment is a natural extension of the national culture of Britain and France, and the identification with universal civilization also means the identification with the subjectivity of national culture. In modern German, civilization (Zivilisation) means a value or essence that belongs to all mankind, while culture (Kultur) emphasizes the differences between peoples and the characteristics of individual groups. Xu Jilin therefore believes that unlike the universality implied by the word "civilization", "culture" refers not to the existential value of abstract "people", but to the value created by certain specific peoples or ethnic groups. For the recipients of modern civilizations like Germany and China, civilization and culture were not identical, and the Enlightenment thus had an inherent tension between "civilization" and "culture."
In the lecture, Xu Jilin further explained the "displacement" of the main body of civilization and culture in the historical development: ancient Chinese civilization, as one of the axis civilizations of the world, once constituted the universal civilization of the East Asian world, and ancient China was both the main body of its own national culture and the main body of world civilization, so the civilization identity and cultural identity were once isomorphic. However, in the late imperial period, in the process of "moving toward modern times" after the Opium War, Chinese culture was driven off the throne of world civilization by the Western European civilization represented by Britain and France, and degenerated into a localist culture. Therefore, "after modern times, for China, the subject of civilization and the main body of culture have undergone a historical dislocation. The universal civilization of Tianxiaism has thus fallen, and the original unity of civilization and cultural identity has begun to tear apart. This is the abuse of the enlightenment dilemma of the past century. ”
The controversy between "Tianxiaism" and "Yixia Distinction" in ancient China has evolved into a confrontation between the "modern civilization theory" centered on the West and the "modern nationalism" based on racial consciousness in modern times. After entering 2000, this set of contradictions evolved into a hidden debate between universal values and Chinese particularism. According to Xu Jilin's observation, many issues and debates in public opinion in the current era can be attributed to the internal tearing and confrontation between culture and civilization.
The Value Blind Spot in the May Fourth Debate: What is the Subjectivity of Chinese Culture?
When Xu Jilin sorted out the history of modern thought, he divided modern intellectuals into "two generations of enlighteners." The first generation was the New Wave school of scholars and doctors in the late Qing Dynasty, represented by Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, Yan Fu, Zhang Taiyan and others; the second generation of enlighteners were the first generation of intellectuals in the early Min, such as Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao, Hu Shi, Lu Xun and so on. In the new cultural movement, the first generation of enlighteners are often regarded as "half new and half old" figures by the second generation of enlighteners, whether it is Kang Youwei's "National Soul Theory" emphasizing that "all those who are the country must have self-reliance", or Liang Qichao's "National Nature" talked about "the nature of the country, like the humanity of man", although the first generation of enlighteners advocate "Western learning for use", but on the whole still adhere to the unshakable nature of the foundation of Chinese culture. At the same time, the second generation of enlighteners was internally divided into the all-round Westernization school represented by Chen Duxiu, Hu Shi and others, and the spiritual retro faction represented by the "Xueheng school" of the anti-new cultural movement. Chen Yinke, who is regarded as the spiritual leader of the Xueheng school, believes that "it is necessary to absorb imported foreign doctrines on the one hand, and on the other hand, not to forget the status of the original nation." In general, in the May Fourth Civilization Controversy, the conflict between the two generations of Enlighteners can basically be summarized as the opposition between the total Westernization and the Chinese cultural theorists.
Bronze statue of Chen Yinke in front of the former residence of Chen Yinke, Sun Yat-sen University (Source: Visual China)
However, the polemical perspectives and strategies of the opposing sides are actually highly overlapping, xu Jilin pointed out: "The opposing sides are not from the perspective of what kind of culture China needs, but from the perspective of world civilization and from the universal human position, to compare the advantages and disadvantages of Chinese and Western civilizations." "Both opposing sides regard Chinese and Western civilizations as two civilizations of very different natures and even opposites. For example, Li Dazhao of the "new school" and Du Yaquan of the "old school" both believe that Western civilization is a dynamic civilization, while Eastern civilization is a quiet civilization, and Chinese and Western civilizations "are different in nature, not in degree." At the same time, in Xu Jilin's view, the perspectives of both sides of the debate are "civilized", not "cultural". For example, in the last section of "Ou Youxin Video", "The Great Responsibility of Chinese to World Civilization", Liang Qichao once elevated "the consciousness of civilization" to the highest value of life: "The greatest purpose of life is to contribute to all mankind, and the construction of a country is only a means of the evolution of all mankind... China has a 'great responsibility' in the future, that is, to "use Western civilization to expand my civilization, and then use my civilization to subsidize Western civilization, so that it can be combined into a new civilization." ”
Xu Jilin pointed out, "When the new cultural movement is immersed in a cosmopolitan and universal comparison of civilizations, there is a real question that is obscured by the surging tide of the times: What is the subjectivity of China's local culture? In other words, what is the cultural identity of Chinese?
Xu Jilin's research reveals that the seemingly opposing positions of the holistic Westernization and Chinese-based cultural theorists actually share a common theoretical premise - cultural instrumentalism. "Both sides believe that culture is not a life experience that comes from the depths of inner emotions, not an object of identity that settles down, and that culture is only an effective tool to meet the needs of human beings." Xu Jilin believes that this is a kind of "false cultural self-consciousness", a kind of anti-cultural basis that has been hollowed out of the actual connotation of national culture. Culture is the individual's belonging to the group, the pursuit of the roots of history, in this regard, Xu Jilin more agreed with the view of Zhang Junjie, the "alternative cultural nationalist" at that time, in Zhang Junjie's view, "for a nation or a person, culture is not an external tool that can be chosen at will, but a life itself that is intrinsic to human nature, internal to history, and internal to the subject's choice." This understanding of "cultural self-consciousness" did not really become the theme of the times until after the "9/18 Incident" in 1931.
Step out of the two laws: reconcile "good" civilization with "our" culture
The "main body of civilization" of modern civilization theory is no longer China, but the West, but the "cultural subject" of modern nationalism is the Chinese nation that has yet to be enlightened, Xu Jilin further asked, "In the tearing between the main body of civilization and the main body of culture, does China need the consciousness of civilization or the consciousness of culture?" It is true that civilization and culture each answer different questions, with civilizations responding to "what is the universal good of mankind" and culture answering "what is our special value." In the view of the Westernizationists, the universal "good" of human civilization also applies to China, and Chinese culture cannot stand on its own standards; while the natives believe that there is no universal civilization that is universal and universal, and that "our" is "good". So, is it possible to get out of the contradiction between civilization consciousness and cultural consciousness?
Xu Jilin believes that at the time of the centenary of the New Culture Movement, we still have two real problems that have not yet been solved: First, how to transform the universal "good" in global civilization into "our" culture suitable for Chinese soil? Second, how to extract the "good" of universality in the modern sense from the particularity of "our" historical tradition and practical experience? He said that these are the two core propositions of the reconstruction of Chinese cultural subjectivity.
In Xu Jilin's view, the localization of Buddhism is a very exemplary success story of transforming "good civilization" into "our culture". Chen Yinke once regarded the founding of the Song Dynasty "Cheng Zhu Lixue" as a strategic response of Chinese intellectuals to the invasion of Buddhism, arguing that Cheng Zhu Lixue "took the essence of Buddhism and annotated the Four Books and Five Classics, called clarifying ancient learning, but actually absorbing paganism." Claiming to honor Kong punctuate the Buddha is actually the righteousness of the Buddha. It has been impregnated and stained, and has become one with the sectarian traditions of Confucianism." In Chen Yinke's view, the essence of Cheng Zhu Lixue is to Confucianize and Taoistize Buddhism, an alien civilization, and in this vivid cultural example, the Chinese people can glimpse how the long-standing Chinese civilization has internalized foreign civilization into the structure of local culture.
Image source: Visual China
At the end of the lecture, when asked how to deal with the tension between foreign and indigenous ideas, Xu Jilin quoted the "paleo-stratum theory" of Maruo Maruyama, a historian of Japanese political thought. Maruyama believes that local thought is neither a copy of extraterritorial ideas and theories, nor is it an absolute "spontaneous" product, but the unity of the contradiction between the absolute influence of foreign culture and the stubborn survival of the "ancient layer". Xu Jilin further explained that the development form of culture is "stacked layer by layer", just like the stacking of different rock layers in geology. At the top are abstract theories and doctrines, which are always gradually moved down to the more ancient layers with the absorption of foreign ideas. However, in the process of localization, foreign ideas will also be rebounded by the "ancient layer" and thus change. Xu Jilin said, "The traditional ideas symbolized by the cultural layer are like a discordant 'bass' that runs through the entire symphony, which is always harmonizing, correcting and absorbing other sounds." Traditional culture is what Maruo Maruyama calls 'stubborn bass'. ”