Various ideological trends in China society during the New Culture Movement? Don't be too specific ... just say it briefly, thank you.

The May 4th New Culture Movement, as an ideological and cultural movement transforming from tradition to modernity in the history of China thought, has its diversity and complexity in the special historical context. Among them, three representative ideological trends, conservatism, liberalism and radicalism, cut in from different perspectives, constructed their own different discourse rights, and finally influenced the evolution of China Thought and its political value orientation after the May 4th Movement in different ways. However, under these three seemingly different ideological trends, what is hidden is the vitality factor of the traditional culture that comes down in one continuous line.

Judging from its direct historical reasons, the New Culture Movement was to criticize Yuan Shikai's "respecting Confucius and restoring ancient ways" movement in the cultural field in the early years of the Republic of China. From its long-term historical origin, China intellectuals who inherited the modern history of China from Lin Zexu and Wei Yuan, under the pressure of external forces, began to understand western civilization and reflect on Chinese civilization from the emotional standpoint of saving the nation. From the cultural point of view, this kind of understanding and thinking will inevitably have a sustained and stable traditional value orientation system due to the powerful external force, which also determines the difficulty of its reform and transformation in the ideological and cultural field. This makes conservatism have its own rationality and value in this specific historical context. "Under the background of colonial modernization, when the local cultural value is mainly under the external pressure of western modernity rather than the internal challenge of traditional self-change, the driving force of this value change is often limited. The strong western culture in outland can impact the superficial value norms of traditional culture, but it is difficult to touch its deep value principles. Even in the most intense and conscious anti-traditional new culture movement, the stability and historical inertia of this local culture are still obvious. " [1] This colonial context under the external force also gave birth to liberalism as a prudent gradual process and radicalism as a short-term hurricane. The May 4th New Culture Movement initiated a short and significant ideological enlightenment in China's modern history in the interwoven debate of these three thoughts.

Conservatism takes Oriental Magazine edited by Du Yaquan, National Heritage edited by Huang Kan and Liu and Xue Heng edited by Wu Mi as the main positions, and makes relatively conservative statements at different stages.

In the first stage of the cultural debate between the East and the West (19 15 "New Youth" was founded-191954), Du Yaquan published a series of articles on the cultural differences between the East and the West under his father's pen name, and started a debate with Chen Duxiu. In his article "Static Civilization and Dynamic Civilization", he pointed out: "In our view, western civilization and China's inherent civilization are different in nature, not in degree; China's inherent civilization can just save the disadvantages of western civilization and help the poor of western civilization. Western civilization is as rich as wine, our civilization is indifferent as water, western civilization is as beautiful as meat, and our civilization is as rough as vegetables. Those who have been poisoned by China wine and meat should be treated with water and vegetables. " [2] It is emphasized that the differences between Chinese and western cultures are only nature rather than degree, and the so-called "Chinese style and western use" theory is derived from this nature difference. He also believes that the fundamental difference between eastern and western cultures is due to the differences in social history and geographical environment, that is, the so-called "static" society and the so-called "dynamic" society. In view of Du Fu's proposition that eastern civilization helps western civilization "poverty" by quietness, Li Dazhao insisted on "using the specialty of western civilization to help the poverty of our static civilization". He also urged young students to go all out to study western civilization, learn the scientific spirit of the West, and carry out a fundamental sweep of "never-static ideas and inertial attitudes". Chen Duxiu, on the other hand, played the banner of "science" and "democracy" in this debate, and contended with feudal culture with the spirit of democracy and science. 19 18 in July, he firmly advocated that "if we are determined to innovate, we should adopt a new western method in everything, and we don't need to make trouble with any national quintessence or nonsense about national conditions." [3] thus opening the precedent of "total westernization".

In the second stage (1965438+after the May 4th Movement in 2009), conservatives represented by Zhang put forward the so-called "theory of harmony between the old and the new". Zhang claimed: "The conciliator is the essence of social evolution. The society is constantly developing, that is, social interests, hopes and emotional hobbies are constantly being reconciled. " [4] He pointed out that the evolution of the universe can only be "migration" but not "transcendence", and everything in the world is a mixture of old and new. Therefore, the correct attitude should be "innovation" and "revival". "Starting a new game materially, or eager to revive the old game, and the moral necessity of reviving the old game is greater than starting a new game." The reason is that "the old is the new foundation. Without the old, there is no new. If you are not good at preserving the old, you must not welcome the new." In the article "Material Innovation and Moral Innovation", Li Dazhao refuted Zhang's viewpoint of "Material Innovation and Moral Rejuvenation" with historical materialism for the first time. He pointed out: "The new morality not only occurs with the requirements of living conditions and society, but also changes with the changes of matter. Material is new, morality is new, material is old, and morality is old. " [5] Zhang pointed out that the evolution of society is not "migration", but a process from "latent change" to "mutation". After the "mutation", it becomes a new society, and the "new" after the mutation does not represent the old, and there is an essential difference between the two. The phenomenon of mixing the old and the new exists, but it is only "* * * existence", not "reconciliation". Some scholars believe that the author himself agrees that this is actually the resurgence of the theory of "Chinese style and western use". In the debate at this stage, conservatives tried to explain the possibility of harmonious coexistence between old and new cultures from the perspective of demonstrating cultural continuity, thus blurring the boundaries between the old and the new. Conservatives overemphasize the standard culture while ignoring the leap from quantitative change to qualitative change, and also confuse the relationship between "* * * existence" and "integration" in cultural development.

The disillusionment with western civilization caused by the outbreak of World War I further strengthened this standard cultural psychology. Conservatives represented by Liang Liang (Liang Qichao and Liang Shuming) expressed their extraordinary views in the third stage of the debate. Liang Qichao stood on the ruins of postwar civilization in Europe, expressing the feeling that "the whole European society at the end of19th century was gloomy and autumn", while Liang Shuming demonstrated his own standard cultural view from the perspective of "philosophy of life". Liang Shuming first assumed that European civilization "intends to advance", Indian civilization "intends to retreat" and Chinese civilization "intends to be self-sufficient and harmonious", and then led to the revival of Chinese culture in the future. It is necessary to reject the unrealistic Indian culture, but also to oppose the "new culture movement" that completely adopts western culture and take the "suitable second life" that China once took. Liang Shuming's philosophy has a strong color of personal idealism, as he himself said: "Since I entered middle school at the age of fourteen, I have been driven by an upward heart to pursue two questions: one is the question of life, that is, why people are alive; The second is the social problem, that is, the China problem. Where is China going? " [6] The question of life and the question of China are two central propositions of Liang Shuming's philosophy, and for these two issues, Liang himself is the key concern. "When I was young, I was stimulated by the China problem, and I felt deeply about the problems of life. I couldn't help myself. Compared with the current China problem, the life problem is much broader, more fundamental and more profound. " [7] Liang Shuming's philosophical orientation of paying attention to life made him think more about the China problem at that time from the perspective of ethics rather than politics, life rather than survival, which greatly influenced Zhang Junmai and other neo-Confucians. In Hu Shi's Reading Mr. Liang Shuming's Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophy, Liang Shuming criticized that he attributed the nature of western culture, China culture and Indian culture to three different ways, which was a general "nonsense", and accused him of attributing the differences among the three cultures to rationality, intuition and quantity, and describing the differences in the historical development of any nation as fundamentally different characteristics among nations. Hu Shi pointedly pointed out: "We must realize that Mr. Liang is a person who loves to seek quasi-truth and is always dominated by his own thoughts. "Knowing these two meanings, you can boldly read his books, and then you will hopefully understand the' insightful' parts of his books and the parts that are too subjective or arbitrary." [8] The Xue Heng School actually continued the idea of "Chinese style and western style". "Some people think that the new culture movement since the May 4th Movement was the Renaissance in China, but in fact this new culture movement is only the rise of westernization in China." [9] Wu Mi believes that the New Culture Movement does have its value in "spiritual stretching", but it also excludes "old Chinese and Western cultures", that is, Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism.

When we review the views and opinions of these conservatives in the New Culture Movement, it is hard to say that they tend to be conservative or opposed to change politically, and it is hard to say that they follow the tradition or remain unchanged in culture. In fact, they hardly discuss China from a strict political level, and they also show an anti-traditional tendency when dealing with cultural issues. Modern neo-Confucianists put forward the ideas of "returning to the original and innovating" and "combining the three systems", trying to create a new democratic orthodoxy and a new scientific academic system from the Confucian orthodoxy, which is actually a reinterpretation of Confucianism in a brand-new historical context. However, these conservatives are bound to be dominated by their standard cultural complex, taking the affirmation of tradition as the bottom line of their cultural concepts, thus showing relative conservatism. "This group of conservative intellectuals are not political conservatives who completely deny the existing social and political order, but only cultural conservatives or cultural conservatives. What they need is to discuss the value of culture on a purely cultural level, and their conservative attitude towards culture-morality is just a purely cultural attitude. This kind of conflict and confrontation, in the final analysis, is the expression of the conflict between instrumental rationality and value rationality in a specific historical situation. Radicals realize that the development of instrumental rationality is the fundamental motive force of western modernization, but they regard this motive force as the whole of western modern civilization and think that the modernization process of China must be driven by instrumental rationality. Conservative intellectuals, on the other hand, take the maintenance of value as their natural mission. They don't want the development of instrumental rationality, but believe that the modernization of society cannot be separated from value rationality. " [10] In this regard, Yu Yingshi once said: "In fact, there was hardly a conservative in the history of China's thought in the 20th century, because no one established a theory that advocated keeping China's tradition unchanged and rejecting all western influences. From the so-called Chinese Westernization Theory to China's cultural standard theory, to the total Westernization Theory, and then to Marxism–Leninism, the basic orientation is change. The only difference is how much, the way and the speed of change. Therefore, the so-called' radicals' are close to total change, rapid change and drastic change, and the conservatives are close to gradual change and slow change. " [1 1] In the specific historical context of the May 4th Movement, we need not be too harsh on conservatism. From the perspective of pure culture, these cultural conservatives who stayed in the traditional positions have made many new interpretations of traditional culture, which have exerted a subtle influence on the so-called modern and contemporary Neo-Confucianism who tried to revive China culture after the May 4th Movement. Conservatism also has its historical rationality in this new culture movement under the influence of external forces.

Liberalism founded Endeavour, Modern Review and New Moon after the 1920s, Independent Review in the 1930s, and Independent Time Theory and Observation in the late 1940s, which made arduous explorations for the pursuit of democratic political ideals. As the most controversial trend of thought in the new culture movement, liberalism is the most difficult to fight for the right to speak. It was criticized by conservatives for advocating western civilization, liberalism and individualism. Especially after the war, the disadvantages of western civilization were undoubtedly exposed, which made the once vibrant liberalism fall into a more embarrassing situation. It seems that they can't find strong arguments to resist the attacks of conservatives, and they themselves have to turn from full worship of western civilization to a certain degree of reflection. In advocating individual liberation and gradual political change, attacked by radicalism, liberalism stumbled under double pressure until it was finally submerged in the radical wave of revolutionary discourse power. However, we can't ignore that liberalism still shows an unusually close relationship with tradition in its series of viewpoints and practices. In the study of Chinese studies, Hu Shi's doctoral thesis A History of hundred schools of thought in Pre-Qin Dynasty opened up a new field of hundred schools of thought studies. The Outline of China's Philosophical History published by 19 19 is actually the philosophical outline of hundred schools of thought in Pre-Qin Dynasty. In the process of sorting out the national heritage in the late May 4th Movement, Hu Shi repeatedly claimed that he did not advocate "modern prose" or "ancient prose". On the one hand, he inherited the skepticism of modern Confucian classics, on the other hand, he accepted the realistic textual research method of ancient Confucian classics to get rid of its limitation of believing in the ancient times, and combined it with Huxley's skepticism and Dewey's empiricism, which provided a set of scientific methods for sorting out national heritage. In China's traditional literary concept, novels belong to "light reading" and cannot be elegant. Hu Shi regards the collation and research of ancient novels as an important part of the study of Chinese studies, and thinks that they are also the objects of academic research, on an equal footing with traditional Confucian classics and historiography. Hu Shi also pointed out: "The literature of temples can be studied, but the literature of Caotian should also be studied. From a historical point of view, today's children's love songs have the same status as "Three Hundred Poems"; Novels circulating among the people have the same status as Gao Wen Dian Shu. " [12] The traditional factors in Hu Shi's outlook on life are also quite remarkable. He emphasized that individual "ego" depends on social "ego", and social "ego" is limited and infinite; "Self" is dead and "self" is immortal. "My present self bears great responsibility for the infinite past of the immortal self; For the infinite future of the immortal' big self', we must also bear great responsibilities. I need to always think about how I should try to make use of the present' self' so that I can live up to the infinite past of' self' and not hurt the infinite future of' self'. " [13] In the article "I", Yi Baisha not only expounded the individual personality significance of the self, but also emphasized the idea that "ego" is more important than "ego". He believes: "There is the spirit of sacrificing one's self and the power to create the world's big self ... so the two complement each other and are not contradictory. In order, there must be me first, then the world. In terms of importance, there will be a world without me. If there is me, there is no me and there is no me. I am inseparable from the world for an instant. If there is no me, there is no me, there is no me. Individuals die, but the world is big. " [14] Obviously, this thought is a combination of "ego" and "ego", which advocates the ideal of social collective life and bears the distinct imprint of China's traditional Confucianism.

Radicalism takes New Youth, founded by Chen Duxiu, as its main position. Due to the transcendence in the later period of the New Culture Movement, radicalism finally gained the leadership in China's ideological and political field with overwhelming revolutionary discourse power. Lin Yusheng once pointed out that there was a fierce overall anti-traditionalism during the May 4th Movement, but when he analyzed Chen Duxiu's overall anti-traditionalism, he also had to admit that "Chen Duxiu affirmed that the positive value of Confucianism is the lowest common denominator of all moral systems, so he did not explicitly admit that some elements of Confucianism did not have its integrity. Although this contradiction logically destroyed his whole argument against Confucian holism, Chen Duxiu never seemed to notice it. Even if he realizes it, he can't face it squarely, because as a way to solve problems, ideology and culture dominate his thoughts. In the final analysis, his common sense can't compare with the power of forging his deep-rooted China cultural tradition. " [15] On the issue of Confucianism, Chen Duxiu said: "Confucius is one of the quintessence of China, which has had the greatest influence on social psychology and politicians for thousands of years, and was a famous product of society at that time. We should definitely admit it. However, our research today is a question of whether Confucianism can be implemented in this world and whether it is beneficial. " [16] He also said: "In fact, the essence of Confucius is a systematic ethical theory based on Confucianism. Religion and metaphysics are not good at it. Although its ethical theory is not feasible today, it is a famous product of feudal times in patriarchal society. Those who are dissatisfied with us regard it as an ethical theory that is not suitable for modern society, but it still dominates people's hearts today and thinks it is a huge obstacle to the progress of civilization. " [17] On the issue of outlook on life, Chen Duxiu advocated that "an individual in society is like a cell in the human body" and that "life is alive, the individual is impermanent, and society is real" [18] In his view, "real life is the eternal life left by an individual in society, which is a major problem in life." [19] Li Dazhao also expressed his own views on the issues of individual and society, "big ego" and "small ego": "With its (big ego) absolutely unifying its (small ego) relative, controlling its color with its emptiness, and adjusting its differences equally, it is possible to take the cause of the universe as my career and the youth of the universe as my youth. The universe is endless, that is, there is no end to youth, that is, there is no end to self. " [20] On the issue of political orientation, some scholars even think that radicalism finally chose Marx and socialism, which is also the mapping of utopian ideals derived from traditional culture. Yun pointed out: "Socialism is not produced in theory, but in fact; It is not produced by intelligence, but by emotion. [2 1] Zhang Hao, an American scholar, also pointed out in the article "Criticism and affirmation of the May 4th Movement": "As far as thinking is concerned, the May 4th Movement is indeed a contradictory era. On the surface, it emphasizes science and advocates rationality, but in fact it is an era of boiling blood and emotional agitation; On the surface, the May 4th Movement was based on the Western Enlightenment's emphasis on knowledge, but it had a strong romantic color in its bones. " [22] For the May 4th intellectuals, the charm of socialism first lies in its equal and harmonious moral values, not its economic progress and efficiency. After experiencing the disillusionment of western civilization, the intellectuals of the May 4th Movement began to seek the "third civilization" in order to obtain a world view of unity of reason and value, and socialism was undoubtedly to their taste. Enlightenment intellectuals who initiated the ethical revolution, after experiencing the disillusionment of western civilization, returned to ethics to seek value resources. They not only demonstrated western socialism with moral rationality, but also reiterated China's value ideal. The ideological trend of ethical socialism in the late May 4th Movement not only enriched the idealistic resources in China's traditional thoughts, but also contributed to the utopian spirit of lofty ideals. " [23]

To sum up, the author thinks that the three major ideological trends of conservatism, liberalism and radicalism in the May 4th New Culture Movement all contain traditional cultural factors to some extent. The May 4th New Culture Movement is not a fierce all-round anti-traditional movement as some scholars think. On the contrary, they can't get rid of the profound influence of traditional culture from beginning to end. The reason why they show a radical, conservative or moderate attitude is based on their different perspectives on the China issue and their different value orientations towards western civilization. It goes without saying that the May 4th Movement developed and strengthened the concepts of "revolution" and "democracy". However, because it is inevitably mixed with traditional factors, it seems irrational and romantic, which makes the whole thought after the May 4th Movement more and more radical and completely drowns the possibility of dialogue between multicultural orientations in the early May 4th Movement. As Thomas Harding, an American anthropologist, said, "When a culture is forced to change by external forces, this change will only reach the degree and effect of not changing its basic structure and characteristics."