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New Enlightenment (China)

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A slogan in the former residence of Hu Yaobang, who was the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party from 1982 to early 1987.
Nothing to My Name (1986) by Cui Jian, the "Father of Chinese rock", was regarded as the beginning of Chinese rock music.[1] The song became a symbol of the 1980s of China, and rock music was viewed as one of the most direct forms of enlightenment in China.[1][2][3]

New Enlightenment (simplified Chinese: 新启蒙; traditional Chinese: 新啟蒙), or the New Enlightenment movement (simplified Chinese: 新启蒙运动; traditional Chinese: 新啟蒙運動), was a massive social and cultural movement in mainland China that originated in the late 1970s and lasted for over a decade.[4][5] Growing out of the "1978 Truth Criterion Discussion" during the Boluan Fanzheng period, the New Enlightenment was widely regarded as a new wave of enlightenment within the Chinese society since the May Fourth Movement in 1919.[6]

The theme of the New Enlightenment movement included promoting democracy and science, embracing humanism and universal values such as freedom, human rights and rule of law, while opposing the ideology of Cultural Revolution and feudalism.[7] The movement gave rise to a number of new literature genres such as the scar literature and the misty poetry, meanwhile aesthetics also became a popular topic in society.[8] In addition, the growth of publication industry, the birth of new music genres such as Chinese rock, and the rise of Chinese film industry all contributed significantly to the New Enlightenment.[2] Notable leading figures of the movement included Fang Lizhi, Li Zehou, and Wang Yuanhua.

The New Enlightenment movement ended due to the Tiananmen Square massacre in June 1989. After Deng Xiaoping's southern tour in early 1992, however, the academic and intellectual circle in mainland China thrived again but became divided, forming two major schools of thought: the New Left and the Liberalism.[9][10] On the other hand, as the capital market and market economy expanding in China, traditional intellectuals quickly lost their leadership role in social development which they enjoyed during the New Enlightenment in the 1980s, meanwhile entrepreneurs and business elites became increasingly influential.

Origin

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See also: Democracy Wall and Beijing Spring

After the Chinese Cultural Revolution ended in 1976, Deng Xiaoping and his allies launched the "Boluan Fanzheng" program in 1977 to correct the mistakes of Cultural Revolution and, by the end of 1978, Deng replaced Hua Guofeng as the paramount leader of China.[11][12] During the power struggle with Hua, Deng and his allies started the "Truth Criterion Discussion" in May 1978, which not only helped Deng win the power struggle over Hua, but also became the origin of the New Enlightenment movement in mainland China.[9][11][13]

History

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Publication

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Wang Yuanhua, an intellectual who was often credited for coining the term "New Enlightenment" in the 1980s, founded the journal New Enlightenment in Shanghai in 1988.[14][15][16] Wang himself participated in a short-lived Enlightenment movement initiated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the 1930s, and in the 1980s he called on renewal of the enlightenment philosophy from the May Fourth Movement in 1919, which included promoting democracy and science.[15][17] Li Rui, Wang Ruoshui, Liu Xiaobo, Gu Zhun and a number of other CCP officials and notable scholars published articles in the New Enlightenment journal.[16][18][19] However, the journal soon ceased its operation in 1989 due to the Tiananmen Square massacre.[16]

Pu Zhiqiang publicly defended the World Economic Herald, which was forcibly shut down by Jiang Zemin in Shanghai before the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

In 1980, Qin Benli founded the World Economic Herald, which later became the forefront for promoting and defending freedom of press as well as freedom of speech in mainland China.[20] In 1984, Jin Guantao and others began to publish the Toward the Future Book Series, which played a major role in introducing "universal values" and a variety of other modern concepts into the Chinese society.[9] Both the Herald and the Book Series were banned due to the Tiananmen Square massacre, but the ban of the latter was lifted after Deng Xiaoping's southern tour in 1992.[20]

Social activities

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A spectrum of activists and social groups with different thoughts became active in the 1980s, from further developing traditional Chinese culture by learning from western civilization, to embracing Total Westernization.[9][14] For example, Liu Xiaobo, who later won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, once said in an interview in 1988, that "it had taken 100 years of [British] colonialism to bring Hong Kong up to what it is, and given the size of China, it would certainly need 300 years of colonization for it to become like what Hong Kong is today. I even doubt whether 300 years would be enough."[21][22] The TV documentary River Elegy in 1988 is another well-known example of making self-criticism over traditional Chinese culture.[23][24][25]

Meanwhile, Fang Lizhi, then vice president of University of Science and Technology of China, was an influential figure in promoting democracy and human rights.[26][27][28] In his famous speeches in 1986, Fang noted that "Democracy is not a favor bestowed from above; it should be won through people's own efforts."[29] Fang said publicly, that "We should not place our hope on grants from the top leadership. Democracy granted from above is not democracy in a real sense. It is relaxation of control".[30]

Literature and films

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After the Cultural Revolution, a number of new literature genres emerged in the late 1970s, including the scar literature and the misty poetry.[31][32] The former reflected on the Cultural Revolution and the disasters that it brought to Chinese society, while the latter expressed the true emotions of individuals through its unique style and has been described as a continuation of the enlightenment tradition of the May Fourth Movement.[31][32]

Leaders of the fifth generation of Chinese filmmakers: Zhang Yimou (left) and Chen Kaige (right)

The 1980s saw the rise of the fifth generation of Chinese filmmakers, notably Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou, who directed a number of "enlightening" films such as the Yellow Earth (1984), King of the Children (1987) and Red Sorghum (1988).[33]

Aesthetics and arts

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In the 1980s, Chinese society experienced an "Aesthetics Fever" (美学热), which was an integral part of the "Cultural Fever" (文化热) and the New Enlightenment movement.[14][23] Being one of the top aestheticians in China in the 1980s, Li Zehou was responsible for starting and leading the "Aesthetics Fever"; his celebrated work The Path of Beauty: A Study of Chinese Aesthetics was widely read and has been translated into several languages.[34][8][35][36] Li was also one of the first intellectuals to publicly endorse the Stars Art Group as well as the misty poetry.[37]

The '85 New Wave was regarded as the birth of Chinese Contemporary Art, when a group of young artists drastically changed the landscape of China's fine art by introducing Western elements in their works starting in 1985.[38][39] The artistic practices in the '85 New Wave were regarded to be culturally enlightening and thought-liberating.[40]

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Deng Lijun was regarded as the "Enlightenment teacher of love" due to her pop music songs.[41]

Since the opening of China in the late 1970s, Mandarin popular music or Mandopop from Taiwan and Hong Kong had made a wide-spread and long-lasting impact on Chinese society.[42][43] Most notably, the pop songs by Deng Lijun, known as the "Eternal Queen of Asian Pop", were believed to have an "enlightening" effect on humanism.[42][43] On the other hand, Homeland Love (乡恋) by Li Guyi in 1980 was considered to be the first pop song from within mainland China.[44]

In 1986, Cui Jian debuted his rock song Nothing to My Name which became the beginning of Chinese rock.[1][2][3] According to aesthetician Gao Ertai, Cui Jian and his rock music may be the only form of art that could have an "enlightening" effect at the time, and China needed Enlightenment.[3]

Resistance and repression

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The development of the New Enlightenment movement met a variety of resistance from within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since the beginning.[9][14] As early as in 1979, Deng Xiaoping, then paramount leader of China, proposed the "Four Cardinal Principles" which soon became the official boundary of political liberalization in mainland China and was incorporated in the China's Constitution in 1982.[45]

In 1983, left-wing conservative power within the CCP launched the "Campaign against spiritual pollution", opposing Western-inspired liberal ideas.[9][14][46] In 1986-87, the conservative power launched the campaign "anti-Bourgeois liberalization", as a response to the 1986 Chinese student demonstrations.[47][48] Hu Yaobang, then General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, was forced to resign due to his sympathetic stance on student movements.[47][48]

In June 1989, the New Enlightenment movement ended due to the Tiananmen Square massacre, which also ended China's political reforms in the 1980s.[9][31][10][49]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c "Cui Jian: Father of Chinese Rock 'N' Roll". UCLA. June 3, 2005. Archived from the original on 2024-01-05. Retrieved 2024-10-04.
  2. ^ a b c Matusitz, Jonathan (February 2010). "Semiotics of Music: Analysis of Cui Jian's "Nothing to My Name," the Anthem for the Chinese Youths in the Post-Cultural Revolution Era". The Journal of Popular Culture. 43 (1): 156–175. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5931.2010.00735.x.
  3. ^ a b c Guo, Yongyu (2022-04-16). "狂欢、舞蹈、摇滚乐与社会无意识" (PDF). Personality and Social Psychology (in Chinese). 美学家高尔泰认为摇滚乐承担起了"启蒙"这一歌手可能根本没有想到的也不愿意承担的时代使命： 也许摇滚乐是中国目前唯一可以胜任启蒙的艺术出式了。因为理论界的范围大狭窄，起不了大面积的启蒙影响，而音乐是一种特殊的语言，它能起到任何其他方式都达不到的作用。中国需要启蒙……
  4. ^ Li, Huaiyin (October 2012). "6 Challenging the Revolutionary Orthodoxy: "New Enlightenment" Historiography in the 1980s". Reinventing Modern China: Imagination and Authenticity in Chinese Historical Writing. University of Hawaiʻi Press. ISBN 9780824836085.
  5. ^ Chen, Yan (2007). "意识形态的兴衰与知识分子的起落—— "反右"运动与八十年代"新启蒙"的背景分析" [The rise and fall of ideology and intellectuals—background analysis of the Anti-Rightist Campaign and the New Enlightenment in the 1980s]. Modern China Studies. 3.
  6. ^ Wu, Guanjun (2014). "Chapter 2: New Enlightenment as Modernization". The Great Dragon Fantasy. pp. 121–156. doi:10.1142/9789814417921_0003.
  7. ^ Li, Huaiyin (October 2012). "6 Challenging the Revolutionary Orthodoxy: "New Enlightenment" Historiography in the 1980s". Reinventing Modern China: Imagination and Authenticity in Chinese Historical Writing. University of Hawaiʻi Press. ISBN 9780824836085.
  8. ^ a b Roker, Jana S. (2019). Following His Own Path: Li Zehou and Contemporary Chinese Philosophy. State University of New York Press. ISBN 9781438472478.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g Xu, Jilin (December 2000). "The fate of an enlightenment: twenty years in the Chinese intellectual sphere (1978-98)" (PDF). East Asian History (20). Australian National University: 169–186.
  10. ^ a b Xu, Jilin (April 2005). "啟蒙的自我瓦解" [The Self-Disintegration of the Enlightenment] (PDF). Twenty-First Century (88) – via Chinese University of Hong Kong.
  11. ^ a b Wu, Wei (2014-02-24). "70年代末中国的思想启蒙运动" [The Enlightenment movement in the late 1970s in China]. The New York Times (in Chinese). Retrieved 2024-10-04.
  12. ^ Wang, Xiaoxuan (2020). Maoism and Grassroots Religion: The Communist Revolution and the Reinvention of Religious Life in China. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-006938-4.
  13. ^ Li-Ogawa, Hao (2022-01-02). "Hua Guofeng and China's transformation in the early years of the post-Mao era". Journal of Contemporary East Asia Studies. 11 (1): 124–142. doi:10.1080/24761028.2022.2035051. ISSN 2476-1028.
  14. ^ a b c d e Wang, Xuedian. ""80年代"是怎样被"重构"的？" [How the 1980s was re-constructed?]. Phoenix New Media. Retrieved 2024-10-05.
  15. ^ a b Xu, Jilin (May 3, 2012). "Enlightenment and Chinese Civil Society: The Cases of Wang Yuanhua and Li Shenzhi". University of Southern California. Retrieved 2024-10-04.
  16. ^ a b c Li, Rui (2010-09-30). "王元化与新启蒙" [Wang Yuanhua and the New Enlightenment]. Ai Sixiang. Yanhuang Chunqiu. Archived from the original on 2015-06-06.
  17. ^ Xu, Qingquan (2008-05-21). "王元化："五四的儿子"走了" [Wang Yuanhua, "son of the May Fourth Movement", has passed away]. Sohu (in Chinese). China Newsweek. Retrieved 2024-10-05.
  18. ^ 新启蒙: 时代与选择 (in Chinese). Hunan Education Press (湖南教育出版社). 1988. ISBN 978-7-5355-0713-6.
  19. ^ 新启蒙: 危机与改革 (in Chinese). Hunan Education Press (湖南教育出版社). 1988. ISBN 978-7-5355-0743-3.
  20. ^ a b Zhou, Mi (2010). The rise and demise of the World economic herald, 1980-1989 (Report). Arizona State University.
  21. ^ Sautman, Barry; Hairong, Yan (2010-12-15). "Do supporters of Nobel winner Liu Xiaobo really know what he stands for?". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-10-05.
  22. ^ Fallows, James (2010-10-21). "Liu Xiaobo and the '300 Years' Problem". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2024-10-05.
  23. ^ a b Wang, Jing (1996). "High Culture Fever". University of California Press. ISBN 9780520202955. Retrieved 2024-10-05.
  24. ^ Kristof, Nicholas D. (October 2, 1989). "China Calls TV Tale Subversive". The New York Times.
  25. ^ Zhu, Ying (2012-06-05). "The Inside Story of When China's State-Run TV Criticized the Party". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2024-10-05.
  26. ^ Wines, Michael (April 7, 2012). "Fang Lizhi, Chinese Physicist and Seminal Dissident, Dies at 76". New York Times.
  27. ^ "The Most Wanted Man in China: A journey from scientist to enemy of the state". Institute of Advanced Studies. 2016-10-10. Retrieved 2024-10-04.
  28. ^ Wang, Dan (2012-04-15). "王丹：方励之是80年代启蒙时期的代表人物". Radio France Internationale (in Chinese). Retrieved 2024-10-04.
  29. ^ "Fang Lizhi and Freedom". Wall Street Journal. April 8, 2012.
  30. ^ Munro, Robin (September 1987). "The indiscreet thoughts of Academician Fang". Index on Censorship.
  31. ^ a b c Pei, Minxin (June 3, 2019). "Tiananmen and the end of Chinese enlightenment". Nikkei Asia. Archived from the original on 2019-06-03.
  32. ^ a b Sun, Jilin (2004). "Rise and Noise: From Misty Poetry to the Third-Generation Poets". OSTASIEN Verlag. Retrieved 2024-10-04.
  33. ^ Han, Chen (2008). "啟蒙時代的電影神話──關於第五代電影的文化反思" [The myth of film in the age of Enlightenment] (PDF). Twenty-First Century (73) – via Chinese University of Hong Kong.
  34. ^ Ames, Roger T.; Hershock, Peter D., eds. (2018). Li Zehou and Confucian Philosophy. University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-7289-2. JSTOR j.ctvvn0qg.
  35. ^ Li, Zehou (1994). The Path of Beauty: A Study of Chinese Aesthetics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-586526-4.
  36. ^ Blocker, H. Gene (1996). "Review of The Path of Beauty: A Study of Chinese Aesthetics". Journal of Aesthetic Education. 30 (3): 114–117. doi:10.2307/3333328. ISSN 0021-8510.
  37. ^ "李泽厚：80年代青年的启蒙导师". Phoenix New Media. 2008-12-10. Retrieved 2024-10-05.
  38. ^ "'85 New Wave: The Birth of Chinese Contemporary Art". UCCA Center for Contemporary Art. Retrieved 2024-10-05.
  39. ^ Fair, Beijing Dangdai Art. "Beijing Dangdai Art Fair". Beijing Dangdai Art Fair. Retrieved 2024-10-05.
  40. ^ Huang, Zhuan (2015-08-20). "作为思想史运动的85新潮美术". Sina. Archived from the original on 2024-04-26. Retrieved 2024-10-05.
  41. ^ "八十李泽厚 寂寞的先知". Sohu. Southern People Weekly. 2010-06-12. Archived from the original on 2024-04-24. Retrieved 2024-10-05. 有人这样概括：在80年代，邓丽君是爱情的启蒙老师，李泽厚是思想的启蒙老师。
  42. ^ a b ZENG, Yi; LIU, Siyue (2022-08-03). "Songs into the Mind: Populism, Civil Society, and the Fans Culture of Teresa Teng between the Taiwan Strait: 14th Annual Conference of the International Society for Cultural History". 14th Annual Conference of the International Society for Cultural History – via Lingnan University.
  43. ^ a b Tao, Dongfeng (2015-05-10). "不要低估邓丽君们的启蒙意义". Ai Sixiang (爱思想). Archived from the original on 2024-04-24.
  44. ^ Chen, Nan (2019-09-30). "Everything to their names". China Daily. Retrieved 2024-10-05.
  45. ^ "Cardinal Principles". Oxford Reference. Retrieved 2024-10-05.
  46. ^ LEVY, Richard LevyRichard (2016-08-18), "Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign", Berkshire Encyclopedia of China, Berkshire Publishing Group, doi:10.1093/acref/9780190622671.001.0001/acref-9780190622671-e-17, ISBN 978-0-9770159-4-8, retrieved 2024-10-05
  47. ^ a b Tong, James (April 1988). "Editors Introduction". Chinese Law & Government. 21 (1): 3–17. doi:10.2753/CLG0009-460921013. ISSN 0009-4609.
  48. ^ a b Baum, Richard (March 1995). "Deng Liqun and the Struggle Against "Bourgeois Liberalization", 1979-1993". China Information. 9 (4): 1–35. doi:10.1177/0920203X9500900401. ISSN 0920-203X.
  49. ^ Wu, Wei (2015-06-04). "Why China's Political Reforms Failed". The Diplomat. Archived from the original on 2023-04-13. Retrieved 2020-05-03.

Further readings

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