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Order in Chinese Society: Analysing the Insight of Eric Voegelin and the Twentieth Century Writer, Lu Xun (Part I)

The aim here is to examine the ordering principle in Chinese society drawing on the philosophical insights of Eric Voegelin and one of China’s greatest literary figures Lu Xun.  Part II,  will provide more detail of some of the underlying issues on why the political order in China has not moved from what Voegelin called the ‘cosmological mode’ to the anthropological type characterized by some modern democratic societies.

This article presents Lu Xun’s penetrating analysis of Chinese society through some of his most famous literary works.

By exploring Lu Xun’s perceptions of the complexity of the political and social situation in China, his thought can yield a comparative framework on which to investigate order in twentieth century China. Some points of convergence are presented between Lu Xun’s thought and Voegelin’s understanding of order in society. To understand the complexity of the social and political situation of China in the early twentieth century, it is necessary to briefly give some background history.

Under the Ch’ing dynasty, established by the Manchus (1644-1911), the empire had expanded and gained a certain prosperity and stability.  For almost three hundred years China was ruled by the Ch’ing, which was the second non-Chinese dynasty since the T’ang dynasty to rule over China. The Manchus were considered by the Han Chinese as foreign rulers.[1]As one writer states: “The Chinese inhabitants were turned into Manchu bond servants (that is, slaves) and were forced to wear their hair in a queue (pigtail) and to shave the rest of their heads in the Manchu fashion.”[2]During the Ch’ing dynasty the Manchus were not allowed to marry Chinese and Manchus were not allowed to bind their feet.” By the end of the nineteenth century, however, the Ch’ing government was weak. The Confucian officials who supported the Manchus conceded only a minimum amount of change to meet the challenge from the West.[3]The formidable intrusion of foreign forces into China had begun in the 18th century with Britain taking the lead. The British had forced the country to open to trade after China’s defeat in the Opium War (1839-42). The treaty of Nanking (1842) had secured land concessions to foreign powers.[4] The Chinese government was faced with problems on all sides. Not only was China challenged externally by foreigners, it lacked a strong, internal direction from its own rulers. Exacerbating these problems was an increase of population to about 430 million, without a corresponding increase in productivity – as well as the ever present uncertainty of internal uprisings such as the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864).

To meet these challenges, both external and internal, the Confucian officials debated whether Chinese learning could remain at the heart of Chinese civilization, while Western learning could take a subordinate role. The proposition was expressed in terms of the traditional Neo-Confucian dichotomy between t’i (substance) and yung (function), that is, Western means for Chinese ends. Some argued that the basic pattern of civilization could remain sacrosanct while at the same time some Western technology could be introduced.  This procedure initially allowed the adoption of military techniques, with other areas of modern knowledge gradually added.[5]The policy may have maintained Confucian traditions but for most of the population, particularly women and peasants, Confucianism had for a long time ceased to be meaningful.

As one writer expressed this:

“It thus becomes abundantly clear that, for all its ornamental value, and humanizing effect, Confucianism was always a tool, never the master, of the traditional Chinese state, which during the entire imperial age remained highly authoritarian.[6]

The political order in China was very unstable after the overthrow of the Imperial system in 1911. A ferment of political ideas abounded in China. The most important was the nationalistic political movement connected with Sun Yat Sen [1866-1925]. He had elaborated his “Three Principles of the People” i.e. nationalism, democracy and the people’s livelihood. These ideas had a strong influence on the Kuomingtang (KMT) and also on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).[7] Both groups were to have a major influence on shaping  the political structures of China.  In the beginning, there was some interaction between the two groups but in their struggle to gain supremacy they broke off relations.  In 1927, Chiang Kai Chek, who was then leader of the KMT, took action and attempted to restrain the rapidly growing CCP.  He devastated their incipient group in Shanghai and then established his own government in Nanking. His goal was military unification of the country, and in this he was supported by the business community who were in favor of a national revolution but not a social one.[8]

Chiang’s approach to Confucianism was ambivalent.[9]At first he took a pragmatic approach, arguing, “If we do not exterminate the red bandits [CCP] we cannot preserve the old morals and ancient wisdom handed down from our ancestors.”[10]However, in 1927,  he  ordered the abolition of Confucian rites and used the funds for public education on the grounds that:

“The principles of Confucius were despotic. For more than twenty centuries they have served to oppress the people and to enslave thought. . . As to the cult of Confucius, it is superstitious and out of place in the modern world. . .China is now a Republic. These vestiges of absolutism should be effaced from the memory of citizens.[11]

Yet, some time later, he was urging his officers to spend their leisure in studying The Four Books. The KMT were not philosophers, but men of action and they took from Confucius whatever seemed likely to promote internal order. They stressed the importance of li (rites) which they discussed incessantly but it is difficult to know what exactly they meant by this notion.[12]

Confucianism was useful to Chiang because it was Chinese and could restore the national soul[13]and at the same time reinforce his own position. He saw the Restoration model[14] as an ideal and strove to revive Confucian ideology.[15] Li Tsung-jen described this ideology as Chiang understood it:

For over 4000 years the Chinese people were knitted together by a moral code, apart from a common written language, the same blood strain and a cultural heritage. The code of morals expounded by Confucius and the rest of our sages is the only reason Chinese exist as a people and as a country. This code of morals distinguishes Chinese from other people by defining the correct relationship between parents and children, husband and wife, brother and sister, teacher and student, friend and friend.[16]

However, the “code of morals” must be distinguished from the virtues that Confucius taught (jen and chih and so on); Confucianism had now been hardened into a “code” devoid of spirit. Arthur Wright distinguishes between the old Confucianism (Confucius’ teaching) and the new Confucianism.  He comments:

The new Confucianism not only updated Confucian thought, it added new imperatives unknown by the more permissive and amorphous Confucianism of earlier centuries. It is the new Confucianism that insists on segregation of the sexes and complete subordination of women. It is the new Confucianism that gradually develops the concept of loyalty from what it was – a relationship ultimately determined by the conscience of the subject – into what it became – an imperative to unquestioning and total subordination to any ruler, however idiotic or amoral he might be. The new Confucianism was more totalitarian in intent than the old had been, in that it gave the monarch authority to police all private as well as public morals and customs, to extirpate heresy etc. No wonder that later emperors found in it the justification for gathering to themselves more and more of the power they formerly shared with the literati.[17]

When in 1917, the Russian revolution succeeded, many young Chinese intellectuals were inspired to change their country in a similarly radical way.  Confucianism was something to reject. They were supported in this resolve by ideas from such thinkers as Immanuel Kant, John Dewey, Bertrand Russell and others. These thinkers were an inspiration for those who were tired of the old ways and were looking for something new to meet the new political and social challenges. The publication of the New Youth Journal wherein new ideas were propagated vigorously challenged the Treaty of Versailles (1919). They contended that the government had given concessions to foreign powers. To voice their protest they gathered in great numbers against the government – an incident now called the May Fourth Movement.

Lu Xun’s own life (1881-1925) spanned this volatile, historical period. China was forging a path as a modern nation and at the same time attempting to preserve its national characteristics. He was born on September 25th, in the city of Shao-hsing, Cheking Province[18]while the Ch’ing Dynasty was still surviving but was encountering serious difficulties with foreign invaders. He was educated in a school where he learnt English and had the opportunity to read foreign literature. His preference was for Russian, the Eastern European writers, and the literature of “oppressed peoples”, those who displayed “a spirit of militant resistance”.[19]He responded to works which were “realistic” and “symbolic.”[20]He argued that written composition (wenzhang) distorted the true nature of the self-interpretation of a society. The unofficial literature (xiao-shuo) rather than classical literature (wenzhang) was his choice.[21]At first he considered China required stability and some reform of the government, but later he changed; he became more radical and rejected Confucianism[22] as an ideology that stifled the creative energies of individuals.

Lu Xun’s concern was in the underlying problems of order in China, which he diagnosed as the apathy of the individual. He was convinced that exceptional individuals had the power to change society but only through an intellectual and spiritual revolution. When established values were breaking down he wished to explore the individual’s definition of existence.[23] He gave precedence to aesthetics and spiritual and ethical components over political ideology, insisting:

“If we want to work out a policy for the present, we must examine the past and prepare for the future, discard the material and elevate the spirit, rely on the individual and exclude the mass. When the individual is exalted to develop his full capacity, the country will be strengthened and will arise. Why should we be engrossed in such trivialities as gold, iron, congress, and constitutions?”[24]

Lu Xun regarded the individual as unique and as a source of creativity necessary to bring order to society. It was his contention that China needed “real men,” that is, those who acquire virtue and act towards others in an open and humane way. Unless the individual is allowed freedom of spirit the problem of disorder will continue in China. The solution, he said, must take account of the individual’s desire for good. It is not only those at the top who are oppressive but also those below. In fact the problem was that each member in society oppresses the other – the whole hierarchical structure of society has become a force of oppression.[25]

Lu Xun is singular among the May Fourth writers in that he did not reject his Chinese culture entirely, but recognized in the history of literature, art and ancient writings notions that expressed the authentic Chinese experience. In his writing, he freely resorted to symbols, character archetypes and capsule statements filled with metaphorical layers of meaning, impressionistic descriptions and psychological insights. His main interest was to absorb the counter-traditions, unofficial history, myths, and poetry.[26]He said he was able to “numb the pain in his soul” by returning to the ancients.[27]The popular, traditional arts such as village operas were of interest, because he saw that art and literature must be drawn from human experience, not constrained by “culture” and removed from reality. His interest was in those periods that had not yet been fettered with formalism[28] and he embraced a cultural-spiritual approach to the study of literary history.[29]As Ou-Fan Lee remarks, Lu Xun was unprecedented in that he explored the history of Chinese fiction in order to look at the bigger issues.[30] He questioned why a certain type of fiction had come into being and in what way it reflected  moral values.

Lu Xun’s primary interest in literature was to nourish the human spirit, for literature possessed an emotional power to illuminate principles that underlie the “subtle mysteries of life” in a way impossible for science. However, literature that was consonant with conventional morality was rejected. He argued that writers were often geniuses who rebelled against narrow morality by running “counter to the common disposition” of their contemporaries.  The writers of genius for him, were the Poets of Mara[31]  (a term drawn from the Indian god). These poets, writers and artists were strong and uncompromising, sincere, truthful and scornful of convention; by their powerful utterances, a national rebirth could be brought about.[32]

In his essay, “The Power of Mara Poetry” (1907), he celebrated a number of Western individuals – “warriors of the spirit” who in their struggle against stagnant forms of mediocrity had prophetically shaped history.  These lone individuals were the ones who could swing the historical pendulum of “cultural extremities” by reacting against the crass materialism of the masses.[33]Yet, he asks, where are such warriors now? Who raises a voice for truth, who are the leaders of goodness, beauty and health? He queries, “Where are those who utter heart warming words, who will lead us out of the wilderness? Our homes are gone and the nation is destroyed, yet we have no Jeremiah crying out his last sad song to the world and to posterity?”[34]

Lu Xun’s consciousness of the significance of the individual[35]began when he was studying medicine in Japan. The following incident is a key to Lu Xun’s perception of the importance of the individual, and the failure in the national character. After this realization, he changed the direction of his life. He relates:

“I do not know how much progress has been made in recent years in the methods of teaching bacteriology, but in those days lantern slides were used to show the forms of microscopic life. Sometimes, slides of places and current events were shown to fill up the time at the end of the lecture. It was the time of the Russo-Japanese war and there were naturally a great many war slides shown. I sometimes applauded, following the example set by my Japanese classmates. But on one occasion, I suddenly encountered Chinese faces on the screen. One of them was bound, surrounded by others, all of strong build, but betraying a stupid and vacant expression. According to the caption, the one who was bound was a spy for the Russians and was about to be beheaded by the Japanese military as a warning to the populace, while the crowd that surrounded him were there to enjoy the show.”

“I went to Tokio [Tokyo] before I finished the school year, for this experience made me realize that medicine was not a very important thing, that the people of a weak and backward country could only, no matter how healthy and strong in body, become material for and spectators of senseless warnings to the populace, and that their sickness and death need not necessarily be considered a misfortune. The most important step, I reasoned, was to change their spirit, and the most important means for achieving that end was literature. Thereupon, I decided that I would devote myself to the promotion of a literary movement.”[36]

What particularly appalled him was not only the physical brutality depicted on the slide, but also the moral obtuseness of his fellowmen (Chinese students) observing the scene. To him they appeared oblivious of the tragedy being played out before them and had evinced no empathy for the victim who was a member of their own nation. Lu Xun considered that they appeared as if they had come simply to “enjoy the spectacle.” Such spiritual apathy caused him to be painfully aware of the distance, moral and physical, that separated him from his compatriots.[37]The experience was to leave a lasting impression and to become the substance of his literature.

Diary of a Madman – ‘Cannibalism’

His essay, “The Diary of a Madman” was a violent attack on society. It boldly declared that for four thousand years Chinese history in reality had been a chronology of a cannibalistic culture.[38] Lee Ou-fan suggests that the tone of this essay is in line with the prevailing anti-traditionalism of the May Fourth intellectual stance.  Other writers had also popularized the notion lijiao chiren (eating people) which suggested that the established rituals and moral tenets in Chinese culture had the effect of cannibalizing the Chinese people, literally eating away their spirit. Chinnery, discussing the influence of Western literature on The Diary of a Madman, remarks, “The central idea of the story is that society is cannibalistic and that orthodox Confucian morality was merely a cover for cannibalism.This idea was in tune with the anti-Confucianism of the New Culture Movement.”[39]However, by turning the May Fourth slogan [lijiao chiren] into an extended metaphor in a fictional work, Lu Xun had heralded the “call to arms” for the “generals” of the publication, The New Youth.[40]

Further examination of The Madman, reveals a picture of someone with an increasingly sharpened perception of reality.The Madman’s growing “insanity” provides the basis for the process of unusual cognition which will lead to full realization of the inhuman nature of society and culture. The imagery in the story intensifies the theme by external signals such as sensory perceptions, exemplified by snarling and glances from a dog and a neighbor, gossip and comments from people on the streets. Increasingly, these perceptions lead to doubts and introspection, as the Madman questions the rationale of ordinary reality. His questioning prompts him to gaze beyond his immediate environment, to his country’s historical past through the reading of texts.[41]By combining his observations of people’s behavior towards each other, Lu Xun was able gradually to obtain an insight into what he termed cannibalism in Chinese history.[42] He deconstructed the intended meaning to declare that human beings possess animal instincts which can at times be crueler than animals.[43]What he had in mind was to present a “counter perspective” of China’s cultural heritage. Lee Ou-fan explains that, “The Diary of Madman”, points to a kind of purposeful reversal of values. What it implies is that official history, typically considered  “civilized,” is in reality “barbaric” and that history disdained by Confucian officials was of greater interest.[44]The alternative version points to an alienated dissent, epitomized by the perennial frustration of doomed prophets, who invariably being ahead of their time must suffer the fate of misunderstanding and persecution by the very people they wish to serve. The larger allegorical themes of Lu Xun’s subsequent works must be understood from this perspective.[45]

Lee Ou-fan suggests that the Madman’s insight can be taken at two levels. One explores the question of cannibalism and the other considers the nature of human evolution.[46]Both levels are important if one is to understand what Lu Xun regards as the true nature of “real men.” Lu Xun declared that the Chinese people possessed an ingrained slave mentality which arose not only from external forces but also from an internal feature of the national character.[47]He attributes this slave mentality to the “dark Confucian ideas which need to be wiped out.” He wrote, “Brother, probably all primitive people ate a little human flesh to begin with. Later, because their thinking was changed, some of them stopped eating people and tried so hard to do what was right that they changed into men, real men. But some are still eating people – just like reptiles.”[48]Lu Xun attributed this slave mentality to the hierarchical system laid down in China since the earliest times.  In ironic tones he observed, “the excellent system decided by the ancients” and that “there are ten suns in heaven, ten degrees among men; so those below serve those above, and the ruler waits on the gods. Thus, princes are subject to the king, ministers to the princes, knights to the ministers… [and so on down to the lowest slave].”[49]He pointed out that even if “the lowest slaves have no subjects, we need not worry… for they have wives and children who rank even lower… Thus, in this cycle everyone is all right, and whoever dares to object is condemned for trying to rise above his station.”[50]

He criticizes the present situation observing that, “China’s ancient spiritual civilization has not been destroyed by the ‘Republic’. The only difference is, the Manchus have just left the [cannibalistic] banquet….China is nothing but the kitchen where these feasts are prepared.”[51] “Cannibalism” had been long entrenched, to change the course of history, it is necessary to change the national character. Lu Xun perceived Chinese society as an enmeshing net:  once born into this net it was difficult to escape the pervasive influence of its culture.[52]

To attain some semblance of humanity, it was necessary to face the facts and reveal all the appalling aspects of Chinese society. He increasingly felt the urgent need to raise the moral consciousness of China and for this reason, “The Diary of a Madman” assumes great significance.[53] Yet, the picture of China appeared so dark that at times, Lu Xun felt it was almost impossible for it to change at all.[54] He wrote:

Everything requires careful consideration if one is to understand it. In ancient times, as I recollect, people often ate human beings, but I am rather hazy about it. I tried to look this up, but my history has no chronology, and scrawled all over each page are the words: ‘Virtue and Morality.’ Since I could not sleep anyway, I carefully went over it for half the night until I began to see the words between the lines, the whole book being filled with these words, –ch’ih jen (‘eat people’).[55]

The only way to combat the problem was to change the character of the individual by the acquisition of knowledge (wisdom). At the same time, he felt that humans themselves conspire against their own evolution.  Because of their long history of “cannibalism,” he considered it was not possible for the Chinese to change into “real men,” for they appeared locked into a vicious cycle of existence “wanting to eat others and at the same time afraid of being eaten themselves” until they are wiped out altogether.[56] He observed, “What we Chinese call civilization is really only a feast of human flesh for the delectation of the rich. What we call China, is only the kitchen where this feast is prepared.”[57] In this statement, Lu Xun not only castigated the behavior of the rich towards the poor, but insisted that most people can be potentially victims and cannibals, like the crowds who glared at the Madman on the street. He had written: “These people – some of then have been pilloried by the magistrate, some have had their wives taken away by bailiffs, some have had their parents driven to suicide by creditors; yet they never looked as frightened and as fierce as they did yesterday.”[58] Chinese society was permeated with “cannibalism” through and through:  “Wanting to eat men, at the same time being afraid of being eaten themselves, they all look at each other with the deepest suspicion … ”[59] The whole society appeared static and oppressive. It was the hierarchical system that allowed the degradation of the individual.[60] He added with irony, “we have already prepared ourselves well in advance by having noble and common, great and small, high and low. Men may be oppressed by others, but they can oppress others themselves. They may be eaten, but they can also eat others. With such a hierarchy of repression, the people cannot stir, and indeed they do not want to. For though good may come of it if they stir, trouble may also result.”[61]

Added to this depressing picture, was the additional problem of the presence of the foreigner. He observed, “But more and more people, including some foreigners, are praising China’s ancient civilization. I often think that if any foreigner coming here were to frown in disgust and show his hatred for China, I should thank him from the bottom of my heart; for such a man would not batten on our people’s flesh.”[62] He recalls:

“This tyranny towards our own people and submission to foreigners is surely the same as the old hierarchy. China’s ancient spiritual civilization has not been destroyed by the ‘Republic’ after all. The Manchus have simply left the feast: that is the only difference from the past… .”

“Our vaunted Chinese civilization is only a feast of human flesh prepared for the rich and mighty. And China is only the kitchen where these feasts are prepared.  Those who praise China because they do not know this are excusable, but the rest deserve to be condemned forever![63]

He accused the hierarchical system of deadening the people’s feelings for each other. The hierarchy imposed from ancient times had “estranged men from each other, they cannot feel each other’s pain; and because each can hope to enslave and eat other men, he forgets that he may be enslaved and eaten himself.” He proclaims that from the earliest time of Chinese civilization “countless feasts – large and small – of human flesh have been eaten” heedless of the cries of the weak. He declares, “Feasts of human flesh are still being spread even now, and many people want them to continue. To sweep away these man-eaters, overturn these features and destroy this kitchen is the task of young folk today![64] However, Lu Xun realized that even the young were as susceptible to the same attitudes as their elders.  He reflects on his unpleasant memories of the first May 4th demonstration.  He writes, “how politely the military just beat unarmed teachers and students with the butts of their rifles, looking as intrepid as cavalry charging over a field of young shoots, while the students fled with cries of alarm like sheep before tigers or wolves.” If this display was not enough he then observed “students banded together to attack their enemy”.  He questions their unruly behavior and notes, “Did they not also knock down some children they came across? And at school did they not spit at their enemies’ children and force them to run home? Is this not just like the old tyrants’ idea of exterminating whole clans?”[65] Lu Xun’s vision of society appears dark but as he himself stated it was necessary to look at the facts before a cure could be applied.  It was very difficult to examine the social situation in preparation for some solution, because of the prevailing negative behavior of people towards each other.

Metaphors: The High Wall – The Iron House

The vivid imagery of “cannibalism” used to describe the oppressiveness and the loss of order in Chinese society was accompanied by another  metaphor: the “high wall” or in some texts the “iron house”. The fetters of the old society had reinforced a hierarchical division of people and on this account Lu Xun declared things had come to such a pass that the ability to communicate between members was nigh  impossible. The “iron room” metaphor suggests that each member of society was imprisoned and hence prevented from real communication. Lu Xun was mindful of the lack of awareness of the social and political issues from his contact with those publishing La Jeunesse. An oppressive silence appeared to reign by the failure to arouse any sympathetic interest or even opposition. To describe such an ominous situation Lu Xun used the phrase the “iron room”. He reflected, “Supposing there is an iron room which has absolutely no window or door and is impossible to break down. Supposing there are many people fast asleep in this room and they are being gradually suffocated to death. But since they will pass from sleep to death, they will not experience the fears and sorrows of approaching death.” Ironically, he asks if the writers of La Jeunesse should raise people from their inertia would not “these unfortunate few suffer the inescapable agonies of death.  Do you think that you are doing them a kindness?” On the other hand he thinks, “But if a few should wake up, you cannot say there is absolutely no hope of breaking down the iron room.” Debating thus within himself Lu Xun came to the conclusion he should contribute to the paper. “Therefore I ended by promising to write something for him. This was The Diary of a Madman.”[66]

Although Lu Xun complied with his friends’ request for an article, he had strong reservations of any success. He exhibited the same sense of the hopelessness of the situation in his essay on the “Great Wall.” He wrote, “I always feel there is a great wall surrounding us: its material is made of old bricks from ancient times and the new bricks which have been added reinforce it. These two kinds of things have combined to form a new wall which hems us in.”[67] In this way Lu Xun was condemning the feudal laws that bound society.  What was needed was to be more broadminded and open to new ideas, “to free ourselves from our fetters to appreciate any future genius.”[68] He remarked, “The Chinese always have an air of ego-mania, unfortunately, it is not the ‘ego-mania’ of an individual but the collective kind of ‘patriotic ego-mania’”.[69] Such “collective mania” and “patriotic mania” were negative forces used to forge group unanimity against dissidents, and to declare war against the small minority of the talented.  He commented on those in power, “They themselves have no special talents to boast of, so they turn their country into their double image; they elevate its customs and institutions to great heights for praise. In glorifying their national essence they naturally glorify themselves.”[70]Lu Xun reflected,  “Unfortunately China is very hard to change. Just to move a table or overhaul a stove probably involves shedding blood; and even so, the change may not get made. Unless some great whip lashes her on the back, China will never budge.”[71]

Lu Xun increasingly felt that no matter what superficial changes came about, ultimately in the popular mind the old order would persist. The main problem was that the reform itself was  erected  upon the substratum of tradition and could never be separated from it.  The old does not disappear but becomes the foundation for everything that is later built.[72] China’s weakness lay in intellectual and moral terms.  Its greatest deficiency was a lack of sincerity and love between people. The cure required was the re-establishing of “real men” and then order in society could develop. He said, “We must honor the individual and free spirit.  If this is not done China will wither and die. In the past China was materialistic and distrustful of genius … and so destroyed it with materialism and imprisoned it with mob rule. China’s collapse was thereby hastened.”[73]

Although Lu Xun’s picture of Chinese social reality appears harsh his assessment of the problem had raised new questions. He realized that unless the basic problem was resolved, which was to allow freedom of expression, nothing, could be achieved. Lu Xun’s diagnosis of the deep-seated problem in China is in line with other great thinkers already referred to. There was Plato who had argued that a periagoge (turning around) was necessary  (Parable of the Cave)  and St. Paul’s  metanoia (change of mind, nous). Confucius himself had put forward his innovative interpretation of the sage together with his emphasis on the importance of the great virtues (jen, compassion, chih, conscientiousness, li, relationships and so on).[74] Each of these thinkers had recognized that true order arises only when the individual (to be distinguished from individualism) is acknowledged.  Similarly, Voegelin referred to “the order of the soul”, and elaborated on Plato’s discovery that the psyche is the site of transcendence. Lu Xun and Confucius never referred specifically to “transcendence”; however, they always recognized the importance of the whole man. Their perception of spiritual reality was not limited to “moral codes,” but included a morality that required the practice of the virtues. For Lu Xun, the hope of establishing order in China rested on the principle of allowing “real men” to develop. Only when this freedom is allowed in society can any real change arise.[75]

Lu Xun’s hope for the future was clouded with pessimism. He was convinced that no matter what superficial changes came to China ultimately the old order would prevail. His essay, “The Popular Mind” noted that “even after all these years [our] opinions are still the same. The modern mind is in fact extremely ancient.” Earlier he had remarked that “although the names are new, the opinions are as they always were …. [The Chinese may] wish to have their skills new, [but] they want their thought to be old.”[76]

 Lu Hsun and the CCP

Because there can be some confusion regarding Lu Xun’s political stance, it is necessary to look at Lu Xun’s position in relation to the CCP. His literary destiny has been irrevocably bound up with the Communist ideology, even though he distanced himself from party politics in his lifetime. Goldman declares that, “Ironically the great revolutionary was praised by Mao Tse-tung and his party. Lu Xun adopted a rather skeptical attitude toward revolution. His deeply rooted skepticism expressed more than seven decades ago is today proving highly insightful”. Goldman argues that Lu Xun’s thought had been distorted by the CCP to fit their own political slant. “Like the traditional Chinese dynasties, the Communist Party has often used famous figures for its own political purposes. And, more than any other person in the twentieth century, perhaps, the Party has used the prestige of China’s pre-eminent modern writer, Lu Xun, for a wide variety of political, ideological, and factional purposes.”[77]Goldman points out that the Party, since Lu Xun died in October 1936, has reinterpreted his life many times to justify their various changes of policy. His work has been twisted to reflect values that were foreign to him. The Party used his work as a blueprint of the Communist future.[78] Yet, as Goldman notes, “At the end of his life, he fiercely criticized the Party organization in Shanghai as well as the Guomingdong, but he has been presented as an obedient follower of both the Party and Mao.” The Party opposed the idea that literature was a weapon with which to fight injustice, inequality, and government wrongdoing.[79]

Lu Xun’s association with the Revolutionary Left began in late 1932; and this was only to encourage the young to do something for their country, which was being divided up by the Great Western Powers and at the same time being invaded by the Japanese. The hope for China was bleak. The deeper problem for Lu Xun lay in changing the national character.

Several decades after Lu Xun’s death, his aspirations for change in Chinese attitudes were fulfilled only to the extent that the old society was destroyed by the Communist party; but his old fears were realized. The socialist revolution largely equated the transition of power from one “emperor” to another, but did not alter the fundamental political structure.[80]Mao compared himself to the Ch’in emperor[81] and exercised power in the same totalitarian fashion. Commenting on the turn of events, Lu Tonglin states, “Ironically, cultural nihilism in this case has literally led to a repetition of history in its most conservative and regressive aspect, the imperial system.”[82]

The Chinese have been slaves of the emperor and his officials: with the coming of the Communists they have become slaves for a second time. The deep seated problem that Lu Xun so clearly articulated still remained. The creative minority still do not have a voice. Goldman points to a speech made in 1981, by the journalist Wang Ruoshui who characterized the Cultural Revolution as a “gigantic catastrophe for our party and our people.” Wang asked, as did others, how it was possible for just a few people, led by Mao, to throw a great nation of 800 million people … into such utter chaos? He pointed out that the root of the problem rested in the anti-rightist campaign.  He stated, “From that time on many intellectuals no longer dared to speak and to criticize shortcomings in the party’s work” and that, “speaking out was treated as a crime.”  Wang Ruoshui argues that failure to speak out constitutes a problem  in China to the present day. “That the masses dare not criticize the party is very harmful to the party and is very dangerous.”[83]

Goldman remarks that Wang Ruoshui became a strong advocate of human rights in 1988.  He [Ruoshui]  stated, “Why could such a situation of an individual reigning above the law,  his authority crushing everything, happen in the Soviet Union and again in China,  but could not happen in countries like England,  France and the United States?”[84] Wang Ruoshui argued that to attribute the problem to the cult of personality alone was an insufficient answer since it was the system itself that was responsible. The system had encouraged the suppression of peoples’ rights because “systems change people”.[85] 

Lu Hsun and Voegelin

In investigating the underlying malaise in Chinese political order some meeting points arise between Lu Xun and Voegelin. Even though at times Lu Xun’s work has been hijacked by the Communist Party, there is a renewed interest in his thought. The reason is that what he had to say is of perennial concern for all.  By perennial interest is meant something that pertains to human nature, no matter what time or place: his work is profoundly concerned with man’s tension in existence. It is on this level that several points of convergence between Voegelin and Lu Xun can be drawn.  The most pertinent relate to the fact that each thinker insisted on the need for a full potential of human participation in the full structure of reality. Voegelin insisted on the need to recognize the transcendent dimension in human existence.  Lu Xun was acutely aware of the need for the spiritual, to the extent that he saw the need for society to allow freedom for the creative spirit of man in order to influence the open society.[86]To explore this insight in more depth I look at three aspects: first, the importance of a disinterested criticism of society; second, the image of the “intellectual disease” (“spiritual disease” – Voegelin); and third, the comparison of society to that of an “iron house” (“closed society” – Voegelin).

1. Critique of Society

Both Lu Xun and Voegelin insisted on the need for the critic of society to be fearless.  Lu Xun, the social realist, had stated that “in times of crisis the writer must above all be a fearless critic of society, tough and honest” and that “the brave man draws his sword against the strong; the coward goes against the weak.” He contended that “not only must the writer dare to call a prostitute a prostitute and a hero a hero but he must also challenge those who would make the prostitute a hero and the hero a prostitute.” [87]For him, “The writer’s task is to react and fight back immediately against what is harmful…to resist and attack.”[88]He took his writing seriously and held that, “Works which are opiates will perish along with those who administer or take narcotics. The essays which live on must be daggers and javelins which, with their readers, can hew out a bloodstained path to a new life.”[89]He readily criticized those who would make light of the problems of society under the form of humor and warned that in China “humour must become satire directed against society or degenerate into … common joking.”[90]Such an attitude he considered reprehensible, for it avoided reality and was an abdication of social responsibility.[91]

He also insisted that the writer’s task is to react and fight back against injustice. The writer should expose injustice and tear down the mask of righteousness. As Mills remarks on Lu Xun’s intensity, “His own work made him shudder because it was like the ‘cry of an owl reporting things of ill omen’; the more correct the report, the more disastrous for China. It was like a losing game.  So, like a street peddler of rusty nails and broken crocks, he simply ‘spread out’ his zawen (essays) hoping someone would find something useful. They were expendable.” His views shifted through the years but he was always “true to himself.”[92]

Lu Xun undeviatingly pursued the problem of the “Chinese national character.” He was well aware that centuries of oppression from Confucianism together with despotic governments had so molded the Chinese character that he felt it was impossible to change.  He made it clear that he did not reject Confucian ideology only to replace it with other ideologies, even Marxism. Chinese attitudes must change from a slave mentality to what he called “real men”. Lu Xun criticized the lack of an interior self (what in his parable of Ah Q[93]he called a slave mentality) which means one who only lives by “instinct” or passions. He argued that unless there was a modicum of self awareness (the Confucian teaching of self-cultivation of the virtues) there would be no change.  Lu Xun held that “the superior man (chun tzu) in the true Confucian sense, is one seeking true humanness, jen. At the same time, he also carefully announced that his philosophy of the “individual” was not a program of selfish indulgence, but a philosophy to free the individual’s creative potential.[94]He stressed the teaching of Confucius (jen, altruism) and opposed selfish indulgence.[95] He also recognized the superiority of the intellectual/spiritual element of man over the material, as did Confucius; he sought not merely speculative knowledge but that wisdom which leads to self-cultivation and the good of others.

Lu Xun’s critique of society takes a comprehensive view of society. Voegelin also insisted that the philosopher must be one who resists disorder in society in his attempt to develop right order in his soul.[96]He, too argued that resistance against disorder was not merely against the system of government or against structures of society, but against forces that deform the spirit and dignity of the human being.  Resistance to this disorder includes opposition to those ideological forces that continue to reduce human nature to the material level only and fail to acknowledge the full structure of reality. It is in this sense that Voegelin’s analysis is illuminating. “Philosophy” as Voegelin understood it has its origin in the resistance of the soul to its destruction by society. This philosophy is an act of resistance illumined by conceptual understanding.[97] Hence, the philosopher is one who is in opposition to the sophist.[98]The philosopher struggles against the forces of destruction in society which are alien to the true order of existence.[99]

2. ‘Spiritual Disease’

The second point of convergence is that both writers referred to an intellectual/ spiritual “disease.” Lu Xun in his diagnosis of the nature of the Chinese character had referred to this as an “intellectual disease” (ssu-hsiang shang ti ping).[100] He used the image as a medical analogy, and elaborated on the idea by extending it to that terrible congenital disease of the human body, syphilis.  He referred to the Chinese character as one molded by “dark and confusing ideas” (hun-luan ssu-hsiang).[101]Lin Yu-sheng comments, the image may seem crude, unfair, and even quite bizarre to one not involved in the May Fourth iconoclastic movement, but to Lu Xun the image “not only conveyed, through the analogy of the organic effect of syphilis on the human body, his conception of the organismic effect of the intellectual disease on the Chinese people, but also expressed his horror and disgust about the very nature of the Chinese people.”[102]The intellectual disease had affected people like syphilis, in every sphere of activity, and made Chinese tradition, which itself was the product of these activities, totally abhorrent for him.  Even if the Chinese managed a new start it was uncertain whether they would be able to rid themselves of the “dark and confusing elements in the blood vessels.”[103]The character of a people once formed was difficult to change; the important thing was the will for change,[104] which can be achieved by “wiping out the dark and confusing ideas” in the minds of the people.  He referred to “the books of Confucianism and Taoism which helped to spread darkness and confusion.”[105]

 In a similar way, Voegelin had used the phrase “spiritual disease.”  He explains:

“Society can destroy a man’s soul because the disorder of society is a disease in the psyche of its members.  The troubles which the philosopher experiences in his own soul are the troubles in the psyche of the surrounding society which press on him.  And the diagnosis of health and disease in the soul is, therefore, at the same time a diagnosis of order and disorder in society.”[106]

Voegelin argued that disorder in society has its roots in the psyche of man, and therefore to regain order in society it is necessary to restore the health of the soul. The “health of the soul” is explained in The Republic, in a dialogue which expounds the just life of the individual. The dialogue is enlarged to “become an inquiry into order and disorder in society, because the state of the individual psyche, in health or disease, expresses itself in the corresponding state of society.”[107]The word “disease” is qualified by the term “spiritual” (Voegelin) or “intellectual” (Lu Xun). A spiritual disease in Voegelin’s exposition refers to the loss of the life of reason.  Lu Xun’s use of “intellectual disease” refers to an absence of moral orientation by the individual in the political life of society. The explanation of the “disease” relates to the loss of righteousness (chih), humanness (jen), conscientiousness (chung) and altruism.  Without “the life of reason” or Confucian sage-virtues the order of the soul and the order of society cannot be realized.

3. ‘Closed Society’

The presence of the “intellectual /spiritual disease” is connected to the third notion which is the “closed society” (Voegelin) or the “iron house” (Lu Xun). Lu Xun was deeply conscious of the cultural and hierarchical division that existed in Chinese society. It was not only between rich and poor but between male and female, young and old, the rulers and the people. In fact, the “walls” had become so fixed that society could be likened to an “iron house”, an image which conjures up a society oppressive to the point of suffocation of spirit.[108]

Voegelin referred to a “closed society” is when all the essential substances, such as organism, person and society are closed.[109]He explains that society is closed when the reality of the transcendent dimension (Plato’s Good, Thomas Aquinas’ Being) is dismissed from public consciousness. Then the national spirit becomes entirely focused on itself. Voegelin argues that an extreme form of this is manifested in communism, fascism or national socialism.[110]The process of closure can be drawn out over centuries. The long- term consequence is that in such a society the creative potential of the individual is stifled to the point that noetic reason can never flourish as an ordering  force in society.[111]

Spiritual Renewal of the Individual

In his essay “Equivalence of Experience and Symbolization of Order,” [112] Voegelin claimed that “what is permanent in the history of mankind is not the symbols but man himself in search of his humanity and his order.” [113]Lu Xun was very conscious of the existential state of the “Chinese man” as evoked in his penetrating writings which were critical of the social order in China. The problem, he argued, could only be solved by a spiritual  renewal of the individual.

Lu Xun’s perception of reality is similar to Confucius’s approach in a respect for “heaven” (T’ien), but that is all. However, indirectly he argued that China had need of something to move from the “broken images” of the past to some spiritual renewal.  In his essay on the “European man” he argued that “the complex origins of the splendor and power of European civilization” is found in “a monistic factor”, that is, “the nature of European man.”[114]Lu Xun perceptively recognized the need for the potential of the individual to be allowed to act as an ordering force in society. Hence, his reference to “European man.” He was acutely aware of the difficulty of implementing principles of democracy and human rights in a political structure which appeared to have lost the essence of its national character.  He saw only a society where “people eat people”, ch’ih jen.

The Problem of ‘Merging’

Some commentators question why Lu Xun’s thought never quite broke free from the particularity of his Chinese world view. Lin Yu-sheng writes that the Chinese world view gives emphasis to the idea of the unity of Heaven and man (tianren heyi).[115] Transcendent reality in the Chinese context is understood as immanent in the cosmos, of which man is an integral part.  The transcendent is never separated from the cosmos which is a specifically Chinese view.[116]Lin Yu-sheng explains:

The Confucian conception of the unity of Heaven and man (or the unity of the mind of Tao and the mind of man) entails that transcendental meaning is immanent in human life and is to be found by human  effort rather than created by human will and thinking.  The Confucian man is not separated from the cosmos; the Tao has both an objective aspect in the cosmos and a subjective aspect in man’s mind. Since man, whose nature partakes of the Tao (or Heaven), is endowed with innate moral and intellectual energy and judgment by which he can recognize the meaning of Tao in the cosmos his effort to find meaning will never be an alienated act – an effort solely within the subjective self in confrontation with a blind and meaningless world.[117]

The idea of merging is a determining element in Lu Xun’s consciousness; and although he recognized the importance of the individual, his strong link to the cosmological experience seems to impede him from moving out of this mould. Thomas Metzger observes that in Neo-Confucian thought there is conjoining between the external world and the individual’s consciousness.[118] He points to the idea of merging of consciousness and the external world in Lu Xun where “the self oscillated erratically between the status of a victim and that of demigod. The self had immense capabilities, but they could be exercised only in a slippery cosmic arena.”[119]Metzger’s reference to the “slippery cosmic area” emphasizes the absence of differentiation between the transcendent and immanent in Lu Xun’s thought.

Although Lu Xun’s experience of reality still retained its cosmological characteristics, he appears to have moved tentatively towards the anthropological type of truth[120]as did Confucius, with his comprehensive recognition of the potential of the human being.  In this respect Lu Xun’s work should be regarded as an “achievement of consciousness.”[121]His struggle, bordering on despair at times, arose not only from the political situation which offered little hope for renewal from the traditionalists who had supported the Emperor; the KMT who were corrupt and self-seeking, in fact were a new breed of warlords, or the Communists. His despair in fact was rooted in the acute realization that the youths who supported the CCP were not going to prevail because the core of the problem lay in the national character.  Lu Xun could see the enigma acutely but  his “despair” overshadowed any hope to redeem the situation. The key point in understanding Lu Xun lay in the fact that he understood China had exhausted its “substance.”

From this examination of Lu Xun’s thought in the framework of Voegelin’s analysis of order, I would argue that Lu Xun’s brilliance is exhibited in his willingness to recognize that Chinese substance was exhausted, and it was imperative to look for something new. Political ideology was devoid of real creativity and power to change the deficiency of the national character. There was a persistent pattern, the imperial rule, the war lords, then the KMT and finally, the Communists.  Even the behavior, exhibited by the young students, revealed latent tendencies to “eat men” and so Lu Xun’s illumination of the problem of society appeared “dark” indeed.

It must be observed that Lu Xun’s concern for China was of a Confucian character displayed in the significance he gave to renewing the national character – the chun tzu notion.  He lucidly realized that three thousand years of civilization had not made any impression on the nature of man, an indication for a “spiritual revolution.”

The phrase a “leap in being” is useful here.  Why did not a “leap in being” appear in the Chinese experience?  Although, Lu Xun himself never used the phrase, I would argue that he was grappling with the need for China to move towards the anthropological human type. (Hence his oblique reference to the monistic European human type.)  He did not want an utopian new world of the communists – a so-called “paradise,” but recognized that the problem lay in renewing the substance of the soul. 

The present state of China perpetuates the loss of order. As Ho Ping-ti observed, in spite of the loquacity of Western-trained Chinese intellectuals, Western democratic thoughts and institutions have never really found a place in twentieth century China except for Marxism-Leninism. This ideology,“not only fits China’s unbroken tradition of autocracy but has helped to ensure the Maoist state is more authoritarian than ever before.”[122] Ho Ping-ti  elaborates:

“First, the prevailing of the civilian idea in traditional Chinese government administration should not blind us to the hard fact that every dynasty was founded on military strength or by the transference of military power…. But the success and duration of a dynasty depended primarily on the ability of the founder and his successors to keep the imperial army effectively centrally controlled and to design various institutional checks by which to forestall the rise of regional military contenders.  From the dawning of the first empire in 221 B.C. to the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 there had not been a single exception….”

“In contrast to the weakness of European monarchies which aided the rise of democracy, the persistent historical fact is that the Chinese state has always derived its ultimate power from the army, and this has largely predetermined its authoritarian character.”[123]

On this somber note the discussion concludes, for while economic rationalism may successfully prevail in some pockets in China, for the vast majority, life has changed little  politically or economically. The progress towards Lu Xun’s vision of reality is slow, as one Chinese writer imprisoned for nine years found to his cost.  Reminiscent of Lu Xun, when he did “speak out”[124]Bo Yang complains:

“Actually, the Chinese in China are worse off today than they were in the nineteenth century. The most depressing thing is now, over the past hundred years, almost every hope that the Chinese people have embraced has gone up in smoke. And whenever a fresh hope appears on the horizon, promising some improvement in people’s lives, it invariably ends up causing them great disappointment and making the situation worse. And when another hope appears, promising similar progress, it too ends up bringing in its wake only further disillusionment, greater disappointment and more horrendous disasters.”[125]

“Not only have foreigners bullied us; what is worse, for centuries we’ve been tormented by our own kind – from tyrannical emperors to despotic officials and ruthless mobs.”[126]

“Why must Chinese people who have the guts to speak the truth suffer so terribly? I have asked a number of people from the mainland why they ended up in prison. Their answer was, ‘Because I said a few things that happened to be true’. And that’s the way it is. But why does telling the truth land one up in such unfortunate circumstances?  The way I see it, this is not a personal problem, but a fundamental flaw in Chinese culture.”[127]

“We Chinese should neither blame our parents nor our ancestors, but rather the culture that our ancestors have bequeathed us. This huge country with one quarter of the world’s population, is a pit from which it cannot extricate itself.  When one observes the way people in other countries carry on interpersonal relations, I envy them.  The traditional culture of China has conferred upon the Chinese a wide range of unseemly characteristics.”[128]

The underlying question remained, as Lu Xun wrote: “Since the revolutionaries will replace the old rulers in a revolution, why should the people trust their new rulers more than the old if human beings in power cannot surrender their possessive nature?”[129]

He wrote:

“Revolution, counter-revolution, non-revolution. The revolutionaries are killed by counter-revolutionaries. The counter-revolutionaries are killed by the revolutionaries. The non-revolutionaries are sometimes taken from revolutionaries and killed by the counter-revolutionaries, sometimes taken for counter-revolutionaries and killed by revolutionaries, and sometimes killed by either the revolutionaries or the counter-revolutionaries for no apparent reason at all.”

“Revolution, revolution, revolution… .”[130]

 

Notes

[1]Conrad Schirokauer, A Brief History of Chinese and Japanese Civilizations (New York: Harcourt and Brace Jovanovich, 1978), p. 326.

[2]Ibid.

[3] Schirokauer,  A Brief History of Chinese and Japanese Civilizations,  1978, p. 446.

[4] Mary C. Wright, The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism: The T’ung-Chih Restoration, 1862-1874, (New York: Atheneum, 1966), p. 10.  The British [Alcock] minister reported:

To this question of change and the introduction of sweeping and large reforms, both the hopes and fears of Western Power are attached. To it also is undoubtedly linked the future destiny of the Empire, and a third of the human race which constitutes its population … It has now to be decided whether the political system, clogged with such worn out materials, and decrepit with age, is susceptible of a regeneration, and a new life of adaptation to modern exigencies and foreign civilization; or whether it is to be dissolved by a process of decomposition and degradation, more or less progressive and complete with all their consequences within and without the Empire. [Cited in Wright,  p.315, n.11, [China. No.5. (1871), p. 83, Alcock to Stanley, Dec. 23, 1867.]

[5] Schirokauer,  A Brief History of Chinese and Japanese Civilizations, 1978, p. 449.

[6]Ho Ping-Ti, “Salient Points of China’s Heritage”, in Ho Ping-ti and Tsou Tang, eds., China in Crisis, Vol.1, China’s Heritage and the Communist Political System (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968),  p. 15.

[7]Schirokauer,  A Brief History of Chinese and Japanese Civilizations, 1978, p. 484.

[8] Ibid., p. 487.

[9] Mary C. Wright,  The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism, 1966, p. 303.

[10] Cited in Wright, The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism, 1966, p. 303, refer to n. 16 [Lu – shan hsün-lien chi, I, 212-131].

[11]Cited from Wright, The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism, 1966, p. 304, see n. 23 [Léon Wieger, Chine moderne, Sienhsien, 1921-31, VII, 79].

[12]Wright, The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism, 1966, p. 306. Wright notes that Chiang Kai-shek referred to these virtues not in positive terms but because he saw them as a means to order, discipline and rules. “In the view of the Kuomingtang ideologists, Confucianism was the most effective and cheapest means ever devised by man for this purpose. They saw that the Confucian order had held together because certain canons of behavior had been hammered in by precept and example so effectively that deviation from them was nearly impossible.”

[13]Ibid., pp. 306-308.  Wright explains that the idea that people are to be virtuous rather than acquire clothing and food; the Kuomingtang defined revolution in 1935 in the opposite sense of  “new” – the idea  that “the Chou dynasty was new, new in the sense of slow adjustment and renewal of ancient and unchanging principles”.

[14]Ibid., This model  had been initiated by K’ang Yu-wei in his “Hundred Days Reform”.

[15]Wright, The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism, 1966,  p. 310 [Lo Erh-Kang, Hsiang-chün hsin-chih, p. 63, 75-80. (Changsha, 1939)].

[16]Cited from Wright, The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism, 1966, p. 311, refer to n. 65.

[17] Arthur Wright, “Comments by Arthur Frederick Wright”, in  China in Crisis: China’s Heritage and the Communist Political System, Vol. 1, 1968, p. 39.

[18]A good account of important events in the life of Lu Xun is found in Chi-Chen Wang, “Lusin: A Chronological Record, 1881-1936”, China Institute Bulletin,  3  (1939), pp. 96-125.

[19] Lee Ou-fan, “Genesis of a Writer: Notes on Lu Xun’s Educational Experience, 1881-1909,” in Merle Goldman, ed., Modern Chinese Literature in the May Fourth Era (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1977), p.183, n. 89, cites Wm. R.Schult, “Lu Hsun: the Creative years” (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Washington, 1955), p.  99.

[20]Lee Ou-fan,  “Genesis of a Writer: Notes on Lu Xun’s Educational Experience, 1881-1909,”  p. 188.

[21]Lee Ou-fan, Voices from the Iron House: A Study of Lu Xun (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press,  1987), p. 29.

[22]It is important to note that Lu Hsun wrote a book on Chinese literature. It is necessary to distinguish between “Confucius’ teaching” and “Confucianism”.

[23] Lee Ou-fan, Voices from the Iron House: A Study of Lu Xun , 1987, p. 39.

[24] Cited in Lee Ou-fan,  “Genesis of a Writer: Notes on Lu Xun’s Educational Experience, 1881-1909”, p. 181. See  n. 79, LXQI, 1, pp. 44-51.

[25]Lu Hsun,  Lu Hsun, Selected Works, Vol. 2,  p. 162.

[26] Lee Ou-fan,  Voices from the Iron House: A Study of Lu Xun , 1987,  p. 41.

[27]Ibid., p. 27.

[28]Ibid., pp. 30-31. Lee Ou-fan writes, “Lu Xun intended to write … with some bigger issues: How and why did certain works come into being and become popular? How did fiction reflect changes in the values and mores of a certain period and throughout the ages?  How did social, political, and religious factors and trends condition or shape fictional creation? … an index to the temper of an age and the ‘soul’ of a people” (p. 31).

[29]Ibid., p. 38.

[30]Ibid., p. 39.

[31]Ibid., p. 22. See also Irene Eber, “Reception of Lu Xun in Europe and America”, in Lee Ou-Fan, Lu Xun and His Legacy, 1985.  Eber writes, “Lone heroes with no relationship to society are a problem in Marxist criticism, because if they are alone they cannot be positive. Marxist critics have attempted to identify only positive heroes in Lu Xun’s works”, and also notes that “The figure of Ah Q reflects Chinese reality and represents the high point of typicalness in modern Chinese literature” (p. 269).

[32]Lee Ou-fan,  Voices from the Iron House: A Study of Lu Xun, 1987, p. 21. See also Harriet C. Mills, “Lu Xun: Literature and Revolution”, in Merle Goldman, ed., Modern Chinese Literature in the May Fourth Era, 1977, p. 192.

[33] Ibid., p. 21. See n. 72 [Fen, LXQI, Vol.1, pp. 63-100]

[34] Ibid.

[35] Voegelin states, “This simultaneous outbreak of the truth of the mystic philosophers and prophets has attracted the attention of historians and philosophers ever since it came into full view with the enlargement of the historical horizon in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.”(CW5:136)  Also Voegelin refers to the Chinese experience that never culminated in an act of transcendence  hence there was   “less-than-full  conception of man I shall call anthropomorphic ”. (CW28: 28)

[36]Cited by Chi-Chen Wang “Lusin: Chronological Record”, China Institute Bulletin, 3 (1939), p.106. The quotation came from Lu Xun’s Cheers (Na han.), Preface dated Dec.3, 1922. The title suggests “cheering from the sidelines” in contrast to active participation.

[37]Marston Anderson, The Limits of Realism: Chinese Fiction in the Revolutionary Period, (California: University of California Press, 1990), p. 78.  See also Lee Ou-Fan, “Genesis of a Writer,” in Modern Chinese Literature, 1977, pp. 178-179.

[38]Lee Ou fan, Voices from the Iron House: A Study of Lu Xun, 1987, p. 54.

[39]J.D. Chinnery, “The Influence of Western Literature on Lu Xun’s Diary of a Madman”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies University of London, 23 (1960). Refer to  p. 314, n.1,  an article by Wu Yu in Xin Qingnian entitled “Cannibalism and the Doctrine of Propriety” in which he wrote concerning Lu Xun: “…he has torn away the disguise of the knavish dissemblers who wear the mask of propriety in order to eat people”. VI, 6, 578-80.

[40]Lee Ou-fan, Voices from the Iron House: A Study of Lu Xun, 1987, p. 54.

[41]Ibid., “At several junctures, the protagonist cites what these ‘books’ said over the centuries – from the Zouzhuan. (The Zuo Commentary) to Bencao gangmu (The Catalogue of Flora and Fauna) – an act reminiscent of Lu Xun’s own scholarly research” (pp.54-55).

[42]Lee Ou-fan,  Voices from the Iron House: A Study of Lu Xun, 1987,  p.55. He notes, “there is an increase of animalistic overtones dog, wolf cub”, there is a refrain of the Mencius view of the slight difference between man and brutes.

[43]Ibid.

[44]Ibid., p. 54. “The Madman is regarded as insane by conventional society in the same way as Xi Kang and other ‘sages of the Bamboo Grove’ in the Wei-Jin period had been taken as ‘crazy’ and immoral by defenders of the mingjiao (prescribed teaching)”.

[45]Ibid.

[46]Ibid., p. 55.

[47]Lu Xun felt that the 1911 revolution had been betrayed.  In 1925 he had written “It Suddenly Occurred to me”.

I feel that for a long time there has been no such thing as the Republic of China.

I feel that before the revolution I was a slave and that after the revolution I was soon betrayed by the ex-slaves and became their slave.  I feel that it is necessary to start everything afresh. (Under My Lucky Star, p. 9). Cited by Chi-Chen Wang in “Lusin: Chronological Record.” 1939,  p. 118.

[48]Cited in Lee Ou-fan, Voices from the Iron House: A Study of Lu Xun, 1987, p. 56. See n.13, p. 209, the quotation is from LXQJ, Vol. 1, pp. 429-31.

[49]Lin Yu-sheng, The Crisis of Chinese Consciousness: Radical Anti traditionalism in the May Fourth Era (Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1979), pp. 121-123, see  n. 51. [Lu Xun, “Teng-hsia man-pi.” Fen, LHCC, 1:314-15.] Lu Hsun cites,  “From the record of the seventh year of Duke Chao” (535 BC) in the Tso-chuan.

[50]Ibid.

[51]Ibid.

[52]Ibid., p.120. Lin Yu-sheng comments that the statement “‘Save the children’, is a desperate cry; but no inference can be drawn from the internal logic of the piece to indicate a realistic hope of saving children. On the contrary, the madman feels that the children whom he has encountered all harbor cannibalistic intentions. This is not surprising, since they have all been brought up and socialized in a cannibalistic society – in the words of the madman, ‘They must have learned [it] from their parents.’ [ Lu Hsun “K’uang-jen jih-chi,” Na-han, LHCC,1: p. 10]

[53]Lee Ou -fan, Voices from the Iron House: A Study of Lu Xun, 1987, p. 53. Lee writes, “But Lu Hsun has reinvented the form with an extremely subjective point of view unprecedented in Chinese diarist literature:  it registers the ravings of an allegedly insane person suffering from a case of worsening persecution complex.  Moreover the diary itself is preceded by a pseudo-preface written by an implied author in a typical classical style and voicing a conventional set of values.”

[54]Ibid., p. 199. “It is above all Lu Hsun’s critical spirit that defines his personal integrity and his intellectual conscience. And if ‘Lu Hsun’s spirit’ is still needed today… [it is in the] notion of ‘literature as a spiritual inquiry’, creative writing as a form of restless probing of  self and society”.

[55]Lin Yu-Sheng, The Crisis of Chinese Consciousness: Radical Anti-traditionalism in the May Fourth Era, p.119 [Lu Hsun, “K’ang-jen jih-chi,” Na-han, LHCC, 1:12].

[56] Lee Ou-fan, Voices from the Iron House: A Study of Lu Xun, 1987 p.56. The Madman’s story has also an enigmatic ending, a cry to “Save the children!”  The appeal is in line with the May Fourth  thinkers  yet the true story’s ending is mentioned in the beginning where it is implied that the author announces that the Madman is  “cured” of his madness, thus annulling the validity of everything in the Diary, including the final message.

[57]Cited in Chinnery, “The Influence of Western Literature on Lu Xun’s Diary of a Madman”, 1960, p.315, [Lu Xun quanji, I].

[58]Ibid., p. 315. Chinnery cites from Lu Xun, Selected Works,  Vol. 1, 1957, p. 10.

[59]Ibid., See n. 2, [Lu Xun quanji, 1, 314].

[60]Ibid., pp. 314-315.

[61]Lu Hsun, Lu Hsun, Selected Works, Vol. 2, Translated by Yang Xian Yi and Gladys Yang (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1980), p. 155.

[62]Ibid., p. 153.

[63]Ibid., p. 156.

[64]Ibid., p. 157, “Some notions by the Lamplight”, written in April, 29, 1925.

[65]Ibid., p. 162.

[66]The quotation is cited by Chi-Chen Wang in “Lusin a Chronological Record”,  China Institute Bulletin, 3 (1939), p. 111. It is found in the preface to Lu Hsun’s , “Cheers”.

[67]Lu Hsun, Selected Works, Vol. 2,  p. 167.

[68]Ibid., p. 98.

[69]Cited in Lee Ou-Fan , Voices from the Iron House: A Study of Lu Xun, 1987, p.69 [Lu Xun, “Nola zouhou zenyang” (What happens after Nora leaves Home) Fen (The Grave), LXQJ, Vol. 1, p. 163.

[70] Lee Ou-Fan, Voices from the Iron House: A Study of Lu Xun, 1987,  p. 69.

[71]Lu Hsun,  Lu Hsun, Selected Works, Vol. 2,  1980,  p. 92.

[72]Lee Ou-fan, ed., Lu Xun and His Legacy (California: University of California Press, 1985), p. 112. Refer to Lin Yu-sheng, “Lu Xun, The Intellectual”, p. 112. Lin Yu-sheng remarks that Lu Hsun’s “nihilism” is different from that of  Turgenev  and Dostoevsky.

[73]Lu Hsun, Selected Works, Vol. 2 , “Waiting for a Genius”, pp. 95-99.

[74]The distinction between “virtues” and “moral code” is made here.  The former demands the behavior of the whole man, that is, knowledge and actions, whereas moral codes can be kept and be considered as conventions of society without any spiritual element being acknowledged.

[75] Voegelin writes, that one of the postulates of classical politics is “The ‘quality’ of society depends on the degree to which the life of reason, actively carried out by a minority of its members, becomes a creative force in that society.”(CW11:181)

[76]Cited in Theodore D. Huters, “Hu Feng and the Critical Legacy of Lu Xun”, [Lu Xun, “Renxin hen gu” (The Popular Mind is ancient), Re feng (Hot Wind ) Lu Xun quanji (Complete Works, 1981, Vol. 1 3352] in Lee Ou-fan, Legacy, p. 131.

[77]Merle Goldman, “The Political Use of Lu Xun in the Cultural Revolution and After,” in Lu Xun and His Legacy, 1985, p.180.

[78]Ibid.

[79]Ibid., pp. 180- 181.

[80]Lu Tonglin, Misogyny, Cultural Nihilism, and Oppositional Politics, Contemporary Chinese Experimental Fiction (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1995), p. 17. See n. 51, where Lu Tonglin cites Harrison Salisbury, The New Emperors: China in the Era of Mao and Deng (Boston: Little Brown, 1992).

[81]Ibid., p. 26.  See n. 4, where Lu Tonglin cites Mao Zedong, “Qingyuan chun:xue” (Snow), in  Shici.

[82]Ibid.

[83] Merle Goldman, Sowing the Seeds of Democracy in China: Political Reform in the Deng Xiaoping Era (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1994), pp. 51-52, n. 52. Goldman cites Wang Ruoshui, “An Important Lesson of the ‘Cultural Revolution’ Is That We Must Oppose the Personality Cult,” Jing bao (March 1989), pp. 66-69, JPRS-C, no. 89078, July, 1989, p. 4. See also, Goldman, Sowing the Seeds, 1994, p. 250.

[84]Goldman, Sowing the Seeds of Democracy in China: Political Reform in the Deng Xiaoping Era, 1994, p. 250, see n. 48.

[85]Ibid., pp. 250-251. Goldman refers to Rong Jian who in late 1988 believed that “Chinese intellectuals were spiritually destroyed …by the transformation of the world outlook that went on for years… As a result, they came to believe that they [were] not critics, but somebody to be criticized”. Goldman comments, “They had lost their role not only as critics of the government but also as spokesmen for the people”.  See n. 53.

[86]Chinnery, “The Influence of Western Literature on Lu Xun’s Diary of a Madman”, 1960, p. 320. Chinnery points out that Lu Hsun saw the struggle against society largely in individual terms, an idea commonplace in traditional literature.  Although the idea of a sharp contradiction between the individual and society was emphasized in literature  there was also the situation where the non-conforming scholar could be forced into a position of isolation.

[87] Harriet C. Mills, “Lu Xun: Literature and Revolution – From Mara to Marx”, in Merle Goldman, Modern Chinese Literature in the May Fourth Era, 1977, p. 220.

[88] Mills, “Lu Xun: Literature and Revolution – From Mara to Marx”, in Merle Goldman, Modern Chinese Literature in the May Fourth Era, 1977, p. 218.  She writes that his criticism of society extended to topics such as “public policy, particularly Guomindong censorship, government terror and the policy of non-resistance to Japan. There were also subsidiary themes – defects in the Chinese character, the government’s attempted revival of Confucianism, and the classical language and the popular reaction to it.” His aspirations were strong because he wished  “to help those who are working to benefit  the Chinese masses.”

[89]Quotation from Mills “Lu Xun: Literature and Revolution – From Mara to Marx”,  p. 220.

[90]Ibid.

[91]Ibid.

[92]Ibid.

[93]Refer to Irene Eber, “Reception of Lu Xun in Europe and America”, in Lee Ou-Fan, Lu Xun and His Legacy, 1985, p.269. “The figure of Ah Q reflects Chinese reality and represents the high point of typicalness in modern Chinese literature”.

[94]Mills,  “Lu Xun: Literature and Revolution-From Mara to Marx”,  1977, p. 191.

[95]Ibid., Mills writes that his philosophy was aimed to “free the creative potential of men like Stiner, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Ibsen, and especially Nietzsche. To hamper the free development of such genius spelled disaster, because these rebellious, dissatisfied, and searching minds not only hastened the demolition of the past’s outmoded processes but pointed the way forward to new stages in man’s ever evolving struggle.”.. . “What was true in philosophical terms was true for literature”.

[96](OH3: 69) Also CW 34: p. 93. Voegelin writes, “The term philosophy does not stand alone but gains its meaning from its opposition to the predominant philodoxy. Problems of justice are developed in the abstract but in opposition to wrong conceptions of justice, which in fact reflect  the injustice current in the environment. The character of the Philosopher himself gains its specific meaning through its opposition to that of the Sophist, who engages in misconstructions of reality for the purpose of gaining social ascendance and material profits.” (p.94).

[97] OH 3:69

[98] OH3: 68-69

[99] OH3: 69, Voegelin refers to The Republic and sees this as pointing to the necessity of recognizing that  for order to be restored, “the restoration must be at the strategic point of the “ignorance of the soul” by setting aright the relation between man and God. … On the level of conceptual symbols, Plato expresses his insight through the principle that society is man written in larger letters” (368d-e).

[100]Lun Yu-sheng, The Crisis of Chinese Consciousness, 1979, p.117.  See n. 28.

[101]Ibid., p. 116.

[102]Ibid., p.117.

[103]Ibid., see n. 29.

[104]cf periagoge, Gk. a turning around, Plato’s term for the cognitive and moral orientation toward the True and the Good as such.

[105]Lin Yu-sheng,  The Crisis of Chinese Consciousness, p. 117. See n. 31 [Lu Hsun “Sui-kan lu san-shih-pa.” HCn,5,5:17,or Je-feng, LHCC,1:390].

[106]Voegelin, Order and History, Plato and Aristotle, Vol. 3, 1957,  p. 69.

[107]Ibid., p. 70.

[108]William Lyell, translator,  Lu Xun, Diary of a Madman and other Stories  (Honolulu: University Press, 1990), p. xxiv. Refer also to Chiu-yee Cheung,  “Beyond east and west: Lu Xun’s apparent ‘Iconoclasm’ and his understanding of the problem of Chinese traditional culture”, Journal of Oriental Society of Australia , 20 & 21 (1988-89), pp. 1-20.

[109]Voegelin, “Growth of the Race Idea”, 1940,  p. 303.

[110]Ibid.,  pp. 306-7. He elaborates the stages:

“The first step in this direction is taken with the idea of  state sovereignty setting up every political  unit as closed within itself, not recognizing a common transcendental power centre,  overshadowing them all, as did the power theory of Dante. A second step is the idea that the legally and politically closed unit should be closed economically, too, an idea which was worked out most elaborately in Fichte’s Closed Commercial State. And the third step is taken when the political unit is supposed to be also a spiritually closed unit having as its living force a national spirit, much as the organism has its ‘formative urge’ (Blumenbach), or the personality its ‘demon’ (Goethe), or ‘energy’ “(Carus).

[111]People are regarded merely as “masses” or expendable commodities.  Zhi Sui-li wrote that in a meeting with Nehru, “Mao considered the atom bomb a ‘paper tiger’ and that he was willing that China lose millions of people in order to emerge victorious against the so-called imperialists. ‘The atom bomb is nothing to be afraid of,  China has many people. They cannot be bombed out of existence. If someone else can drop an atomic bomb, I can too. The deaths of ten or twenty million people is nothing to be afraid of.’ Nehru was shocked”.  Refer to Zhi Sui-li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao (London: Chatto & Windus,  1994), p.125.

[112] CW 12

[113] CW 12:115

[114]Lin Yu-sheng, “The Complex Consciousness of Lu Hsun”, in The Crisis of Chinese Consciousness, 1979, p. 113.  See n. 20 [Lu Hsun, “wen-hua p’ien-chih lun”. Fen, LHCC,1:193].

[115]This aspect was examined at length in thesis, Section 8. 2.

[116] Western thought in classical and Christian philosophy makes a clear distinction between transcendence and immanence.

[117]Lin Yu-sheng, “The Morality of Mind and Immorality of Politics: Reflections on Lu Xun, the Intellectual”, in Lee Ou-fan, Lu Xun and His Legacy  ( Berkeley, University of Calif. Press, 1985), p.115.

[118]See reference to Thomas Metzger, Escape from Predicament, Neo-Confucianism and China’s Evolving Political Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), p. 134, in Theodore Huters, “Blossoms in the Snow: Lu Xun and the Dilemma of Modern Chinese Literature”, Modern China, 10  (1984),  p. 49.

[119] Cited in Huters, “Blossoms in the Snow, Lu Xun and the Dilemma of Modern Chinese Literature”, Modern China, 10 (1984),  p. 49.

[120]See Voegelin, New Science of Politics, 1952, p. 70. The anthropological principle refers to man as the measure of society because God is the measure of his soul (Plato and Aristotle).

[121]Voegelin uses the idea of “advance”, “leap of being” or “achievement” in relation to consciousness not in a progressivist sense but in a philosophical sense of differentiation of the three “human types”: cosmological, anthropological and soteriological.

[122] Ho Ping-ti, “Salient Points of China’s Heritage”, in Ho Ping-ti and Tsou Tang eds., China in Crisis: China’s Heritage and the Communist Political System, Vol. 1. (1968), pp. 1-37 and p.15.

[123] Ibid., pp. 15-16.

[124]Bo Yang, The Ugly Chinaman. And the Crisis of Chinese Culture (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1991).  In the Preface,  Bo Yang writes, “In the 1960’s, I wrote a number of newspaper columns in which I criticized various inequalities and injustices in Taiwan society. Because of what I wrote the Kuomingtang government accused me of being a ‘communist spy’, jailed me, and attempted to get a military tribunal to sentence me to death.”  Bo Yang was released from prison in 1970.

[125]Ibid.,  p. 5.

[126]Ibid., p. 7.

[127]Ibid., p. 8.

[128]Ibid., p. 10.

[129]Lu Tonglin, Misogyny, Cultural Nihilism, and Oppositional Politics, Contemporary Chinese Experimental Fiction,  1995,  p. 17. See n. 50.

[130] Lu Hsun’s “Little Observation” (hsiao tsa-kan) is cited by Chi-Chen Wang in “Lusin: A Chronological Record1881-1936”. China Institute Bulletin, 3 (1939), p. 119.

Voegelin describes he problem of “revolution” as a movement. He states:

“Let us examine the basic concepts. Aristotle speaks of a metabole or kinesis of society, that is, of movements and overthrows of a relatively permanent established order. He inquires why a relatively stable, balanced order enters into disorder; because when one knows the causes of disruption, then one can possibly work out institutional recipes for avoiding disorder. His posing of the problems thus primarily pragmatic. In general, disorder arises on account of stasis. The concept is usually translated as revolution. This is not only wrong but also obscures a quite important process because stasis means to “to fix” or “become rigid.” When someone becomes hardened in a position and offers resistance to the smooth interplay of society, then order enters into disorder. Because in reaction to the hardening of one position others become rigidified into counterpositions; there arise conflicts that lead to upheavals. The problem of rigidification is at the center of the theory pf revolution: Institutions start to decline when for one reason or another the process of rigidification sets in.” (CW11: 197)

 

This is the first of two parts with part two available here.

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Claire A. Rawnsley is an Independent scholar. She completed an Honours Thesis "On Women in China" and a Ph.D. on Eric Voegelin’s work at University of Queensland. She has spent time working in China and Hong Kong and research in East Timor; and her present interest is the theology of mysticism.

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