Abstract
This article discusses the temporalization of space central to the mainstream discourse of European modernity: a discourse which hierarchized all cultural spaces into a temporal narrative enabling Europe’s self-portrayal as the emancipatory future of humanity. This discourse created a gap between the perceived particularism of non-European cultures (seen as traditional) and the universalism of a modernity associated with the contemporary cultures of Europe and North America, while portraying modernization as a passage from the former to the latter. Chinese intellectuals who adopted this metanarrative therefore faced the following challenge: how can Chinese particularism be adapted to a culture of modernity regarded as universal? While May Fourth iconoclasts answered this question by simply rejecting the idea that an accommodation between Chinese particularism and modern universalism was possible, other intellectuals attempted to argue that at least some aspects of Chinese culture could still be of value within the context of modern universalism. This article discusses an interesting instance of such an attempt at negotiating the perceived tension between the modern discourse of universalism and the particularism of Chinese culture, as provided by Liang Shuming in Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies. This work attempted to show that Chinese culture could still be of value within the context of modernity by providing a new metanarrative which peripherized the role of Western culture in the process of modernization. This article suggests, however, that by adopting a portrayal of modernization as a passage from particularism to universalism, Chinese culture could be reauthorized, within Liang’s metanarrative, only at the cost of being de-complexified, homogenized, and de-historicized; only at the cost of being no longer Chinese.
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Notes
I borrow the expression “temporalization of space” from Johannes Fabian, who discusses, in Time and the Other, the denial of coevalness at work in anthropology—that is, the denial that the anthropologist and the people he or she studies belong to the same historical era—as a form of spatialization of time. I have reversed his expression in order to emphasize space rather than time, since the former is the main topic of this essay and of the conference at which it was presented. See Johannes Fabian, Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983).
See Charles Taylor, “Two Theories of Modernity,” in Alternative Modernities, ed. Dilip Parameshwar Gaonka (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001), 172–196
By “unbridgeable gap,” I do not mean that no culture could pass from one to the other, but rather that tradition and modernity were often conceptualized as self-enclosed wholes independent from one another. The passage from tradition to modernity was thus often regarded as a historical caesura which needed to be constantly renewed. On this, see Jürgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987), 6–7.
Chang Hao 張灝, “Zhongguo jindai sixiangshi de zhuanxing shidai” 中國近代思想史的轉型時代 (The Transitional Period of Modern Chinese Intellectual History), Ershiyi shiji 二十一世紀 (Twenty-First Century) 52 (1999), 29–39.
As such, Chinese intellectuals working during this period were not only seeking wealth and power for the nation (as Benjamin Schwartz argued more than half a century ago), but also a universal ideal which could provide meaning and telos to the process of modernization. This tension between nationalism and universalism was pointed out by Chang Hao in Chinese Intellectuals in Crisis: Search for Order and Meaning, 1890–1911 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 2.
Zhang Taiyan (章太炎) is an exception to this. His critique of the teleological understanding of history central to modernity is rather exceptional in modern Chinese intellectual history. See Viren Murthy, The Political Philosophy of Zhang Taiyan: The Resistance of Consciousness (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 135–167.
On the iconoclasm of May Fourth, see Lin Yü-sheng, The Crisis of Chinese Consciousness: Radical Antitraditionalism in the May Fourth Era (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1979).
On this, see Chow Kai-Wing et al. ed., Beyond the May Fourth Paradigm: In Search of Chinese Modernity (Lanham: Lexington, 2008).
The reader might find that this question resembles that of Joseph R. Levenson in Confucian China and Its Modern Fate: A Trilogy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972). His description of modern Chinese intellectual history as revolving around the theme of a tension between the concepts of “history” and “value” certainly echoes my discussion of the tension between a purportedly universal modernity and a Chinese culture regarded as particular. Where I differ from Levenson is that he himself assumed the universality of the metanarrative of modernity, which meant that China had no choice but to modernize through a process of freeing itself from its own traditions, now perceived as mere museum artifacts. As such, attempts to revalue tradition made by modern Chinese intellectuals had to be explained by irrational means—an emotional attachment to tradition, in Levenson—since a rational mind would have undoubtedly accepted the universality of the Western sciences and of modern culture in general. My approach differs from this outlook in the sense that I regard the metanarrative of modernity as a powerful discourse but also as a historical construct serving particular historical purposes, not as an objective description of a historical fact. As such, my interest in the modernization discourse lies in how Chinese intellectuals could attempt to re-authorize Chinese tradition discursively within the context of a metanarrative which was designed, in the West, to make non-European traditions valueless in the first place. I do not assume that the reason why Chinese intellectuals would attempt at demonstrating the value of Chinese culture is necessarily irrational; rather, I am interested in the discursive tools and rhetorics which were at the disposal of Chinese intellectuals critical of the iconoclasm of May Fourth.
Liang Shuming, Dongxi wenhua jiqi zhexue 東西文化及其哲學 (Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies), in Liang Shuming quanji 梁漱溟全集 (The Complete Works of Liang Shuming), ed. Committee of the Academy of Chinese Culture (Jinan: Shandong Remin, 2005), vol. 1, 338; Liang Shuming, Les cultures d’Orient et d’Occident et leurs philosophies, trans. Luo Shenyi (Paris: You Feng, 2011), 10. All translations are mine unless specified otherwise, and all are based on the Chinese version rather than the French translation.
Liang, Dongxi wenhua, 381; Liang, Cultures d’Orient et d’Occident, 57.
Liang, Dongxi wenhua, 382; Liang, Cultures d’Orient et d’Occident, 58.
Liang, Dongxi wenhua, 381; Liang, Cultures d’Orient et d’Occident, 58.
Liang, Dongxi wenhua, 381–382; Liang, Cultures d’Orient et d’Occident, 58.
On the three stages of modern history, see Liang, Dongxi wenhua, 493–495; Liang, Cultures d’Orient et d’Occident, 195–198. On Liang’s view of history, see also Thierry Meynard, The Religious Philosophy of Liang Shuming: The Hidden Buddhist (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2011), 30–37; Lin Anwu 林安梧, “Liang Shuming and His Theory of the Reappearance of Three Cultural Periods: Analysis and Evaluation of Liang Shuming’s Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies,” Contemporary Chinese Thought 40, no. 3 (Spring 2009); Wang Yuanyi 王遠義, “Ruxue yu makesizhuyi: xilun Liang Shuming de lishiguan” 儒學與馬克思主義: 析論梁漱溟的歷史觀 (Confucianism and Marxism: An Analysis of Liang Shuming’s View of History), Taida wenshizhe xuebao 臺大文史哲學報 (Humanitas Taiwanica) 56 (2002), 145–195; Yang Zhende 楊貞德, “Renxin yu lishi: Liang Shuming baoshouzhuyi zhong de jinhua lunshu” 人心與歷史——梁漱溟保守主義中的進化論述 (Human Heart and History: The Evolutionary Discourse in Liang Shuming’s Conservatism), in Zhuanxiang ziwo: jindai Zhongguo zhengzhi sixiangshang de geren 轉向自我: 近代中國政治思想上的個人 (Turning towards the Self: The Individual in Modern Chinese Political Thought) (Taipei: Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica, 2009), 331–384.
Liang, Dongxi wenhua, 528, 533–534; Liang, Cultures d’Orient et d’Occident, 237, 244. On the fact that Liang saw the end of history as a Buddhist salvation from desire and suffering, and for suggestions that Liang had always remained a Buddhist throughout his life, see John. J. Hanafin, “The ‘Last Buddhist’: The Philosophy of Liang Shuming,” in New Confucianism: A Critical Examination, ed. John Makeham (New York: Palgrave, 2003), 187–218; and Thierry Meynard, “Is Liang Shuming Ultimately a Confucian or Buddhist?,” Dao 6 (2007), 131–147.
On the sinicization of Western culture, see Liang, Dongxi wenhua, 503–512; Liang, Cultures d’Orient et d’Occident, 206–218.
Liang therefore resembled the most iconoclastic of May Fourth thinkers in rejecting the historical culture of China. This means that nobody had truly understood Confucius, according to Liang, although some Neo-Confucians had come closer than others: Wang Yangming (王陽明), Wang Gen (王艮), and Dai Zhen (戴震), for example. On this, see Liang, Dongxi wenhua, 472–477; Liang, Cultures d’Orient et d’Occident, 168–175. Implied in this discourse was the claim that Liang himself was the first Confucian to have achieved a complete grasp of Confucius’ ideal. Guy Alitto points this out in The Last Confucian: Liang Shu-ming and the Chinese Dilemma of Modernity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 104.
On intuition, see Liang, Dongxi wenhua, 452–457; Liang, Cultures d’Orient et d’Occident, 141–148. Regarding Bergon’s influence on Liang’s notion of intuition, see An Yanming, “Liang Shuming and Henri Bergson on Intuition: Cultural Context and the Evolution of Terms,” Philosophy East & West 47, no. 3 (1997), 337–62. On social harmony, see Liang, Dongxi wenhua, 480; Liang; Cultures d’Orient et d’Occident, 178. Regarding the relation between intuition and the unity of heaven and the human, see Wu Chan-liang 吳展良, “Western Rationalism and the Chinese Mind: Counter-Enlightenment and Philosophy of Life in China, 1915–1927” (PhD diss., Yale University, 1993), 111, 183–184; Wang Zongyu 王宗昱, Liang Shuming 梁漱溟 (Liang Shuming) (Taipei: Dongda, 1992), 121–124; and Guo Qiyong 郭 齊勇 and Gong Jianping 龔建平, Liang Shuming zhexue sixiang 梁漱溟哲學思想 (The Philosophical Thought of Liang Shuming) (Beijing: Peking University Press, 2011), 93.
See Liang, Dongxi wenhua, 392 (on the three paths being holistic wholes distinct from one another, and embarked on different paths, see also 441); Liang, Cultures d’Orient et d’Occident, 68 (128).
On this, see the author’s article “Textual Authority and Its Naturalization in Liang Shuming’s Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies,” Monumenta Serica 65, no. 1 (June 2017), 127–149.
On these two aspects of rationality, see Liang, Dongxi wenhua, 485, 504; Liang, Cultures d’Orient et d’Occident, 184, 208–209. It must be noted that Liang’s book, despite his best intention, does rely on rationality, and does divide the world into distinct cultures based on unique and independent wills, a claim which seems to break the true unity of the universe Liang claims can be accessed through intuition.
On this, see Fang Keli 方克立 and Cao Yueming曹躍明, “Liang Shuming de feilixingzhuyi zhexue sixiang shuping” 梁漱溟的非理性主義哲學思想述評 (A Critique of Liang Shuming’s Non-Rational Philosophical Thought”), in Cong wusi dao xin wusi 從五四到新五四 (From May Fourth to New May Fourth), ed. Yu Yingshi 余英時 and Bao Zunxin 包遵信 (Taipei: Shibao wenhua, 1989), 360–366; and Zheng Dahua 鄭大華, Liang Shuming yu xiandai xinruxue 梁漱溟與現代新儒學 (Liang Shuming and Modern New Confucianism) (Taipei: Wenjin, 1993), 133.
The Confucian notions of filial piety (xiao 孝) and ritual and music (liyue 禮樂) would help re-establish a natural and emotional bond between people which had been broken by Western rationality. On this, see Liang, Dongxi wenhua, 466–469; Liang, Cultures d’Orient et d’Occident, 161–164.
It should be noted that Western culture is, from another perspective, also natural, in the sense that it is the necessary (and thus natural) first step of human history. Yet this natural first step is also one that breaks the unity of the natural world and the natural bond between people by creating a distance between the knower and the known object (a category which includes other human beings).
On this, see the following article by the author: “Tradition and Modernity in Liang Shuming’s Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies,” Philosophy East & West 68, no 2 (April 2018).
On this fetishization and simplification of cultures in Liang’s discourse, see Chen Lai 陳來, “Liang Shuming de Dongxi wenhua jiqi zhexue yu qi wenhua duoyuanzhuyi” 梁漱溟的東西文化及其哲學與其文化多元主義 (Liang Shuming’s Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies and Its Cultural Pluralism), in Xiandai Zhongguo zhexue de zhuixun: xinlixue yu xinxinxue 現代中國哲學的追尋——新理學與新心學 (The Search for Modern Chinese Philosophy: New Cheng-Zhu Studies and New Lu-Wang Studies) (Beijing: Renmin, 2001), 23–24; Zheng, Liang Shuming, 69; Lin Anwu, “Liang Shuming and His Theory of the Reappearance of Three Cultural Periods,” 30. On the tendency of modern Chinese intellectuals to portray the Chinese tradition as a homogeneous whole, see also John Makeham, “Disciplining Tradition in Modern China: Two Case Studies,” History and Theory 51 (2012), 89–103.
Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon, 1978).
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I would like to thank Carine Defoort for her comments on an earlier draft. I would also like to thank the National University of Singapore for providing funding to present an earlier draft of this article at the 2016 East–West Philosophers’ Conference.
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Major, P. Rethinking the temporalization of space in early Republican China: Liang Shuming’s Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies . Int. Commun. Chin. Cult 4, 171–185 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40636-017-0089-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40636-017-0089-y