An article written in 1990: it looks a little naive now ,but key points are not outdated
The Major Weaknesses of Chinese Culture
and the Modernization of China
By Ding Hong
It's not caused by accidental historic factors, in my view, that China has been put behind all along in the modern international competition. The inherent weakness of Chinese culture itself determines that China would have been pushed out of the ranks of advanced countries for a considerably long time when human civilization developed into the stage of industrialized society . The slower the self-transformation and self-renewal of Chinese culture is, the higher the price paid by Chinese nation for backwardness would be. The tragic nature of modern history of China since 1840's is just the concrete expression of such price. However, in another respect, the continuity of long-standing Chinese culture which is different from ancient Egyptian culture and Mesopotamia one (represented by Babylon culture) shows the especially indomitable vitality of Chinese culture, so I believe, Chinese culture is able to realize rejuvenation and revival of a great nation --Chinese nation --is also with historic certainty. The problem is: How should we facilitate and speed up this process? I think it is the most crucial to face up with the inherent weak points of Chinese culture, to absorb the excellent elements from foreign cultures and to realize the remolding of the national ideological quality from intellectual circle to various social stratum through education. Nowadays when we talk about the material civilization of western developed countries, we are used to tracing back to the Industry Revolution beginning in Britain to look for reasons, but I think that only the period from European Renaissance of 14th century to the Enlightenment of 18th century is the source of modern prosperity of the west. In my opinion, the major problems facing Chinese society is: The task raised by the May 4th Movement has not been fulfilled (interrupted by the political campaigns solving more urgent problems); the anti-feudalism mission for China has never been accomplished since the Revolution of 1911, the heavy historical burden, feudalism, has sill been shouldered by Chinese people. When a crisis appears in a culture, a process of developing what is useful and healthy and discarding what is not in it is tremendously necessary, which is the only way leading to the regeneration and development of this culture. When treating traditional culture, it is nonsense to talk in generalities about so-called "discarding the dross and selecting the essence "(a principle repeated by most Chinese books). What's essence and what's dross is not so distinct as 1 plus 1 is 2. I think that the major weakness of Chinese culture exists in the following aspects:
(1) Neglect the value of individual life and personalities of people, lack the respect for and understanding of individual dignity and reason
The main stream of Chinese culture comes from Confucius school. Different from Christianity which gained a status standing up to monarchical power as an equal in the Middle Age in Europe, Confucianism had long been used as a tool for Chinese feudal monarchs to maintain their rule. The main reason why Confucianism exerts more extensive and more profound influence on Chinese culture, comparing to the other schools of thought occurred during the period from pre-Qin times to the early years of the Han Dynasty is the involvement of political force. The various development and evolution were brought about on the need of ruling class to control common people ideologically from the time when DongZhongShu of Han Dynasty proposed rejecting all other schools and upholding Confucian uniquely thus making it classics and guiding ideology of ruling class to the time when a Confucian school of idealist philosophy of the Song and Ming Dynasties developed Confucianism into a theoretical moral system stressing the preservation of heavenly principles (feudal ethics) the elimination of human desire. In fact, the thinking of the founder of Confucianism, Confucius, has a color of humanism to a considerable extent. For example, his remarks "Don't impose whatever you don't want to do on others" inherently affirms people's desire. The Confucius doctrine with benevolence as its core also displayed the concern about individual life and affirmation of individual value. Although the Confucian school of pre-Qin Dynasty attached great importance to morality, what it emphasized was the demand of people's inner heart and did not stress monarchical power, upholding that common people are supreme. However, DongZhongShu got rid of such things with individual reason as people's inner demand and turned them into the three cardinal guides (ruler guides subject, father guides son, and husband guides wife) and the five constant virtues (benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and fidelity) as the fundamental ethical code. He abandoned the political thinking stressing the value of people, developed Confucianism to a hierarchy composed of heaven, earth, monarch, parent, teacher. All these transformations were theoretical explanation made in an attempt to facilitate monarch 's controlling people and enslaving people ideologically to maintain feudal rule. So the popularity of Confucian culture has come true through a propagating process from above to below in the society lasting thousands of years, which basically turned out contrary to the process of Renaissance and Enlightenment which was propagated from below to above, namely, spreading and infiltrating to the common people from intellectual and then gradually influencing politics. Because Confucianism became a tool used for emperors to a great extent, its original color of humanism got thinner and thinner, besides, the value of people it stressed referred to that of general people, there is a wide gap between it and western humanism which thinks highly of individual value and individual power. Chinese nation never attaches importance to individual and there has never been individualism in Chinese culture. This is because Chinese centralized rulers continually strengthened the idea that monarchical power was bestowed by heaven, thus making feudal hierarchy and feudal patriarchal clan system deep-rooted so this is also one of the reasons why Chinese feudal society lasted for thousands of years but the seeds of capitalism never bears fruit. The capitalist economy requires competition, which inevitably calls for the initiative, creativeness and struggling of individual. The competition needs to be fair thus demanding individual equality and individual freedom. As a result, the growing-up of capitalism needs a culture background of confirming individual reason, respecting and safeguarding individual right, and pursuing individual happiness. The culture elements of such background existed as early as the times of Athens Republic in Ancient Greece and was further developed and perfected by the ideological liberation movements such as Renaissance and Enlightenment thus making vigorous development of capitalism in Europe a certainty. However, in China, such culture backgrounds or soil never appeared, it is not strange at all that the development of capitalism walked with extreme difficulty. The problem is: Why did such soil never appear? I think an important source is the atheism tradition of Chinese culture.
(2) The non-religious nature and atheism tradition of Chinese mainstream culture constrains the appearance of humanism and individualism, causes that despotism strikes root in the hearts of the people
Although there are Taoism and Buddhism in Chinese culture, both of them did not occupy the status of mainstream culture. Confucius culture was marked with evident color of atheism as Confucius said: "Stay at a respectful distance from ghost." This kind of atheism culture makes Chinese a very secular nation who lays stress on reality, pays no attention to next life, and doesn't pursue spiritual "other shore world ". Such non-religious nature is seldom found in other great civilization of the world. Chinese people have not a god or deity to worship, thus can only worship a person or authority. Chinese people have not a specific spiritual goal to purse but generally hold an awing and prostrating attitude towards natural power, so called "heaven". However, there is not a complete set of religious theory in china (Even Chinese Buddhism doesn't emphasize on pursuing "the other shore world" by effort), so Chinese incarnate their awe and veneration towards "Heaven" to a specific man, an emperor who praises himself as the son of Heaven and the representative of "Heaven". The helplessness of Chinese displayed due to the limits of productive force level when facing powerful natural force was transformed into a sort of superstition to special individual and authority as well as the whole feudal hierarchy. However, the situation of the west makes a sharp contrast to that of China .In Europe, the worship to God in the Middle Age restricted to a great extent the authority of monarchs. Every one is equal in front of God, everyone needs to listen respectfully to the instruction of God and to wash off his or her sin before he or she can ascend to paradise at the very last thus reaching happy "other shore world". Although Christianity has its negative effect of anti-science and suppressing human's reason, it culturally restricted the development of autocracy. The following religious reform movement was just an illustration of this, which emphasized individual can directly establish the connection between person and God to realize the spiritual goal of Christianity without through priest class or through the leadership of church or pope. This itself is a challenge to authority and personal idolatry. This idea that there is no privilege in secular world became later the ideological basis of French Revolution in 1789. Comparing to the West, the atheism tradition of Chinese Culture makes Chinese people to incarnate a certain spirit, a certain faith to a individual .For example, Chinese uphold the spirit of righteousness, they consecrate the memorial tablet of the representative of such spirit, Guangong (a famous general), like enshrining and worshipping divinities so that they deify such a person with both virtues and defects in reality world and make him consummate and unattainable. Even so is a martial general, to say nothing of emperor who is regarded as dragon among people and the son of heaven, therefore common people is comparatively worthless. In this sense, for thousands of years, Chinese have never had real conception of "citizenship"; Chinese are always subjects. In Chinese's eyes, emperor is a deified man who is different from themselves. Emperor is the son of Heaven, common people are all sons (or daughters) of emperor. Emperor is obedient to sky and common people should be obedient to emperor. On the analogy of this, son should be obedient to father, wife to husband, the young to the old, so that a set of feudal hierarchy, feudal patriarchal clan system and centralized dictatorship becomes very natural and very reasonable. Even after Qing Dynasty was overthrown in 1911, emperor was gone and republic was founded, the sediment of this culture psychology did not change at all. Though without the appellation of emperor, people still expected that some one with special and extraordinary power like emperor can lead them, mange them. When people are eager for political honesty, they look forward to the reappearance of BaoQintian (an honest official in Song Dynasty whose surname is Bao. In Chinese, Qintian means blue or green sky, which is used as an analogy to a just judge. A recent popularity of a Taiwan TV series BaoQintian is just the reflection of such psychology.), instead of trying to strive for rights and interests for themselves by their own force. The tradition of worshipping authority not only leads to long-standing political autocracy, what is more serious is that it severely strangles the personality of Chinese national character, becoming Chinese a nation who is superstitious, blindly following, lack of independent thinking and independent personality, and lack of criticism, initiative and originality. A society without individuality is certainly a society without creativeness. A society in which people 's personality are fully respected and everyone's potential and creativity can be brought into full play is bound to create highly developed civilization. The power and prosperity of today's United States, I think essentially originated from the core of American culture: individualism. Observing from the difference of the culture development history, what westerners worship is something spiritual (God, other shore world), but what Chinese do is the special persons in a real world. That is an important reason for the occurrence of individualism in the west and autocracy in China.
(3) The Pan-moralization tendency is the root of lack of reason and science in Chinese culture
Another reason for the autocracy tradition is Pan-moralization and deficiency of reason in Chinese culture. The various theories of past ages have long been centered on a core: person's moral accomplishment and ethic code. From Confucius' remark : Cultivate one's moral character , manage your family before you can rule a country or win a state power.to Zhuxi's remark :Preserve heavenly principles and eliminate human desire., the main content of the research of Chinese academic circles has always been the study of Confucian classics whose key issues have all long been moral preach and interpersonal relationship .The dominant status of morality which becomes the guide of everything in life and the Pan-moralization trend which infiltrates into every levels of Chinese culture leads two serious consequences: one is the suppression of law, the other is the suppression of reason by morality.
An American with Chinese origin, HuangshiYu (Chinese name) argued in his book Wanli 15th Year (Chinese translation title, published by Sanlian Publishing House in Shanghai) that it is the crux of every problem that China has replaced law with morality for two thousands years, reaching the climax in Ming Dynasty. From the political perspective, the rulers of successive dynasties relied not on just and complete laws and systems which could be used to conduct quantitative and technical management of economy and legal rule, but on simplified, causal, and rigid ethic code and ideology which embodied the characteristic of Pan-morality politics. For example, the ruler of Ming Dynasty asserted: " The government administers its subjects by not laws but ethics in The Four Books (The Great Learning, The Doctrine of the Mean, The Analects of Confucius and Mencius)." From the perspective of judicial system, the ruler didn’t provide the specific regulations and legal basis by means of legislation, but made the moral principles established by The Four Books the fundamental basis of legal judgment. Even technical problems had to be translated into moral issues before they are sent to emperor for judgment decision which was made always in the name of the good or the evil thus concealing the rights and wrongs of the actual cases. Obviously, this is the root of political corruption and autocracy.
I find that in Chinese language, you will find the number of commendatory terms or derogatory ones in Chinese vocabulary is much bigger than that in English glossary while that of neutral terms in Chinese is far smaller than that in English. Chinese people prefer making value judgment on everything to making objective, neutral, and scientific analysis by reasoning. They concern whether it’s good or bad more than what and how it is .In this sense, they lack the scientific spirit and reason, comparing to westerners. The past Chinese intellectual seldom studied with reason the nature, the relation between people and nature as well as human nature. They spent most of their time and energy studying the relationship between persons and among people, but not person himself or herself and nature itself, thus causing the Pan-moralization and deficiency of reason in Chinese culture. Of course, this is connected with not only the status of hired scribbler and the dependency on ruling class of Chinese intellectual, but also Chinese imperial examination system whose content was mainly Confucian classics. This kind of culture stressing only on ethic study and classics textual research led to the lack of natural science as well as humane and social science with reason. For example, when a Chinese scholar studies human, he researches on the spiritual realm which people should reach and how they can become highly moral thus the relation between them in a whole society can be most harmonious. However, what a western scholar concerns the most is authentic human nature: the need, capability of people, the means by which people make their need come true and the relationship between people and nature, between people and society. Only with this sort of reason could bring about the Enlightenment Movement challenging theocracy of Christianity which essentially affirmed that people are all similar, all can hold reason, all can find the right and discard the wrong by the exploration of themselves, the power and effort of people themselves can influence their own life and destiny to a great extent, people do can pursue happiness with reason. This thought about human's reason became later the ideological source of western democratic system. On the contrary, in China, the dominant status of the study of Confucian classics in culture after uniquely upholding Confucianism in Han Dynasty directly led to culture autocracy and obscurantism. The grand occasion of culture prosperity when a hundred schools of thought contended in the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 B.C.) was gone, what's more serious is that it makes Chinese to fail to foster the attitude with reason towards themselves and nature, fail to foster the confidence with individual and the understanding of individual value. What Chinese concern about is only harmonious inter-personal relation and the establishment of stable social order, not people themselves. Once a social crisis broke out (such as the social upheaval at the time of dynasty replacement), the people always place hope on a hero or sage who step forward bravely and salvage the public in suffering .The social culture without independent personality which is characterized by independent thinking, independent judgment and independent choosing is the hot bed of autocracy. Western society does pay attention to moral norm but it shows a diversity of value judgment on specific issues under the common spiritual belief because western culture believes that individual can be with reason and can make the judgment between the good and the evil, between the right and the wrong through practical experience and lessons. However, Chinese morality is mainly a external standard which serves a stable social order and is neither an outcome of a thinking with reason nor the result of coordination between individual needs and social ones, but a product meeting the need of ruling class. Undoubtedly, there are many excellent elements in the traditional moral concepts of Chinese nation, nevertheless, the ethic code system which was continually strengthened and extended by the study of Confucius classics of past ages makes Chinese to overemphasize interpersonal relation. A lot of time and energy in a person's lifetime are spent on coordinating the relations between he or she with others, with the society, and with all sorts of complicated social norms .The natural development of people's personalities was restricted to a great extent, observing standard and harmonizing relations are even regarded more important than people's ability and creativity themselves. This value idea has been deeply influenced Chinese up to now, which is portrayed by a popular saying: What you can rely on today's society is first relationship, second ability. On the other hand , the culture over-stressing on interpersonal relationship is most likely to lead to hypocrisy of personality, the lack of sincere and realist atmosphere in a society in which everyone must spend much time and energy guarding against other's getting up to little tricks behind his or her back, instead of focusing on the improvement of work and life. In China, an usual phenomenon is that when your superior disagrees with your opinion, he or she would probably say: I will consider and study it for a while. In fact, that's equivalent to negating it for your superior will never think of it again. If a person thinks his leader's plan is very bad, he or she may say: It's good, but it would be better if something is added. he /she will never says: This plan is bad because. In a work unit, when your colleague has a complaint against you, he or she will never tell you in face what he/she thinks you are wrong but comment on your misdeeds to others behind your back, propagate this criticism widely among your colleagues, even playing little tricks against you in the dark. Highly complex interpersonal relationship and powerful social standards become this one of the most intelligent nations with the greatest potentialities in the world a nation of which so called one person is a dragon, ten persons are ten worms. Comparing to this, in American movies, we often see a plot like this: a policeman who likes single-handed action thus often get into trouble was called into his superior's office, after a stormy reprimand made by his superior, he was not outdone in the least , and argued strongly on just grounds, giving tit for tat. Both sides held on to one's own views thus inevitably making some impertinent remarks, but the lower level didn't have any misgivings of "relation" to the higher level at all, not to say with a lot of Chinese style talking technique such as making overtones in remarks, making words mean more than they say, or attacking by innuendo. By the end , the policeman said with curt finality: I know what I should do, then stalked off with the slam of door. Despite the superior's anger, the following plot is still that the cop braved into the den by himself and subdued criminals thus rendering outstanding service. In the course of this, the superior didn't produce a personal grudge against him due to last quarrel or made things hard for him by abusing his power (so-called in Chinese giving sb. tight shoes to wear). On the contrary, at the time of the cop's victorious return, he said: Well done, Bill. This kind of thing is inconceivable in Chinese society because Chinese culture repels such guys.
(4) The Chinese culture's exclusiveness of foreign culture is an important reason for China's modern backwardness
Although the Chinese culture in Tang Dynasty is broad-minded for it incorporated things of diverse nature, that in other historic stages is generally with strong exclusiveness of foreign culture. Besides, the key is that Chinese culture before Qing Dynasty never encountered the challenge of more advanced one. Though before that time, northern nomadic nations repeatedly advanced south in China's history and in Yuan and Qing Dynasties, foreign nations conquered China so that the culture of northern nations also exerted some profound influence on that of China, but by the large, it was assimilated by the latter. This is actually an inevitable outcome that elementary culture would surely learn from more advanced one after collision with it. Tang Dynasty is the openest period to foreign culture in China's history, but that's the openness to other cultures derived from the self-confidence of a worldly advanced culture under the atmosphere of power and prosperity, the openness was the need of a great and proud country to demonstrate its national power. In another respect, its existence was because absorbing some culture elements simultaneously from neighboring weaker nations would not threaten the foundation of Chinese culture. This sort of absorption was complementary, the major content of the openness of Chinese culture was to provide Chinese culture for foreign nations to learn from. The input of foreign culture was brought in together with this learning: It was not that Chinese wanted to learn actively from other nation's culture on their own initiative so as to perfect themselves. Chinese never thought of learning from others on their own initiative. This conceited psychology had remained until the middle of Qing Dynasty. Even after western powers blew open China's door by warships and big guns, even after China suffered successive defeat and humiliation, even after Chinese society was in a serious crises and Chinese culture was challenged grimly, many of Chinese people were still not willing to learn from the west which they regarded as uncivilized savage and blamed the defeat on poor performance of weapons. What the Westernization Movement in the latter half of the 19th century learned was the material of the west, not the culture. At that time, The view that Chinese traditional learning is the fundamental basis and western technology can be used as a means was the manifestation of this culture exclusiveness.. The destruction of Beiyang Navy (a fleet of Qing Dynasty equipped by western arms) fully proved that without the culture reform and ideological transformation on the basis of absorbing the culture composition of advanced civilization, a declining civilization is impossible to rejuvenate. The material shell can never save an ailing nation. By the revolution in 1911 in which Qing Dynasty was over-thrown, what China began to learn was the system of the west, still not culture. Although republic system was introduced into China, the culture idea of feudal autocracy was still deep-rooted, so, Chinese society was the same old stuff with a different label, thus the restoration to monarchy by YuanShikai was not strange at all. As pointed out by Luxun (a famous Chinese writer), China's problem lies in the quality of countrymen. How to improve it Opinions differ. In my view, the key obstacle of China's modernization is the lack of a culture movement or ideological liberation movement, which can exert widespread and profound influence on various social stratums like the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, did. One of the important contents of such movement should be to absorb, to digest, and to make use of the excellent ingredient of western culture. When facing foreign culture, China's neighbor, Japan, makes a sharp contrast to China. I think today's Japanese modernization is the result of the success of the culture fusion between oriental and occidental one, which has been striven for by Japan since Meiji Reform. The biggest strong point of Japanese nation is good at learning from others but not copying other countries' model mechanically. On the basis of fully digesting its essence, Japanese transformed western civilization according to the national culture tradition of Japan. For example, western free market competition system was introduced in Japan's economy with national cultural characteristics such an emphasis on the coordinating role played by the government among big enterprises by carrying out industry policy, the efforts made by enterprises to combine the individual interests with the interest of the whole industry and country so as to avoid the internal loss caused by over-competition with each other by complying to the industry policy and joining hands in winning foreign competitors. The Japanese management model, draws experience from westerners but adding its own culture whose incentive of work is not individual material interests as in western countries but fostering a faith and host feeling to the corporation like a family member actively and voluntarily making contribution to the family. (Obviously, it's the product of the combination of the western enterprise system with the clan idea and that of subordination to a collective in Japanese traditional culture). Although all sorts of Japanese features different from western ones, the basic social structure of Japan is western style, including the framework of its political, economic, scientific and technological and cultural systems which all are learned from the west. As early as Meiji Reform times, Japan didn't stay on the material level of introducing foreign advanced technology, but deeply investigated and drew on a lot of experience in the western systems of politics, education, military, and economy. Japanese even introduced many western life styles in many fields, including some life custom such as clothes and food. For example, the Valentine Day and Christmas Day becomes Japanese festival. At the same time, they don't abandon their own traditional festival, don't discard kimono while dressing western-style clothes, don't throw away the rice ball or raw fish flake while eating hamburger. However, in China, it caused much criticism from many people that some youngsters celebrate Christmas. A few years ago, a great disturbance across China was raised because of the requirement of wearing Bikini in the international contest. These little examples showed the poor culture tolerance and strong exclusiveness of Chinese people. The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 was not only the war between Chinese navy and Japanese counterpart, but also the contest between an old ,traditional, close, conservative culture and an open, enterprising culture with the fusion of western one . The defeat of China in this war made clear to all that without absorbing fresh flood and discarding the load, a culture lagging behind in the tides of modern civilization is bound to be tossed to the rear by other nations in the fierce competition of human civilization , the consequence of which is the suffering of the state and the people. Many Chinese people regard absorbing foreign culture as worshipping and holding blind faith in things foreign ,others see learning from foreign countries as losing national integrity. In fact, this is the reflection of the sense of inferiority in their inner heart. Acknowledging backwardness is not self-abased , that I am worse than you now doesn't mean I will be inferior to you for ever. The rise and decline of a civilization, the ups and downs of a country's national strength in human history are very ordinary things . Only those who don't think of reform when facing backwardness will ruin the future of Chinese nation. On the problem of absorbing foreign culture, I think the crux is to transcend the stage of introducing material results. In order to emulate many developed countries in the next century, China must deeply study ,fully digest and reasonably absorb the fruits of spiritual civilization in western culture. I oppose to overall westernization, and I think , the situation of which will never really occur in China because Chinese culture has a powerful assimilating force. A lot of things from the west would be surely changed once coming to China. After absorption, the western culture is bound to hybridize with Chinese thus "Chinesenized". The fundamental tradition of Chinese culture itself would never disappear, so, I think , firstly, it should not be worried that absorbing other things would throw away things of ancestors . The collision and fusion between two culture would not cause that one swallow up the other, but would infiltrate to and influence on each other, fusing and becoming a brandy-new culture different from both Chinese traditional one and western one whose birth, maybe, represents the coming of the times of the Pacific Ocean , the rise of a new civilization ,and the revival of a great nation. Learning, digesting and absorption are the prerequisite of the culture rebirth, like the relation between a teacher and a student . A student must simulate and learn from the teacher first before he or she can surpass the latter. Simulating is for surpassing and the premise of surpassing. The world trend is the diversity of culture, the fusion of various culture would create more advanced one. The United States, as a nation furnace and the only super power in the world offers us an example; Japan, from a student of the west to today's powerful competitor and challenger of the west, offers us another one. China, I believe, as long as learning from others' strong points to offset her weakness, must be able to transform them and bring forth new ideas to them on the basis of absorbing western culture and finally transcend them. The dawn of the 21st century will be bound to appear on the vigorous and ever-changing land of China.
