Epilogue
EPILOGUE
Both Liang Shu-ming and Chang Chun-mai turned to "rationalism" in the post-May Fourth period, though in very different ways and with very different interpretations of rationalism. A great many of the May Fourth romantic literati also turned to "Marxist idealism" after the 1927 revolution. These changes reflected the end of the speculative, idealistic, and romantic May Forth mentality, and the beginning of a more serious, practical, and contentious period of systems-building --be it political, social, or intellectual. The Philosophy of Life of the May Fourth period was absorbed and transformed into Confucian rationalism. At the same time, the literati, artistic, and individualistic Romanticism of the May Fourth period was converted into a religious, collective, and revolutionary romanticism which manifested itself most clearly in the Communist movement. Pragmatism and liberalism, with their calm and rational attitude, remained the utopia of some intellectuals, but still failed to excite the passion of most of the Chinese. Lacking passion, there is little that anyone can achieve in history.
The change described above, however, had a very complex intellectual and socio-political background that could only be briefly summarized here. Let us start with our major protagonist, Liang Shu-ming. Within years after the publication of THWH (Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies), Liang found his early years' advocacy of instinct, impulse, and naturalism problematic. After immersing himself more deeply into "the psychology of Confucianism," he realized that it is necessary to distinguish the Confucian teaching about impartial empathy and affection from natural and social instincts or impulses.[1] He assigned this impartial feeling a new name --li-hsing.[2] To Liang, li-hsing is related to, but also clearly distinguished from the speculative, calculative, analytical, and concept-building reason (li-chih). In his Hsiang-ts'un chien-she li-lun (The Theory of Rural Reconstruction), Liang clearly defined the two terms:
When one person has nothing occupying his mind, and when you can communicate with him most easily, it is reason (li-hsing). Reason is the antithesis of violence and ignorance. . . Reason is "[to be] placid, understanding, and empathetic (p'ing-ching t'ung-hsiao erh yu-ch'ing)." In our seminar, I said: The Chinese definition of reason is different from that of the Westerners. What the Westerners mean by reason is, of course, to be placid and understanding too, but not "to be empathetic." . . . The French rationalism, as an antithesis of British empiricism, founded its theory on abstract sciences like mathematics, astronomy, etc. The rationality they found was the result of extreme calmness. . . There are two kinds rationalism, one is the French rationalism, the cold and analytical reason; the other is the Chinese rationalism, that is to be placid, understanding, and empathetic. The words "to be empathetic" are the most important, because they refer to the "rationality of affection (ch'ing-li)."[3]
Liang believed that both Chinese and Western ideas of reason feature a kind of impartial mentality that makes communicative action between people possible.[4] Their difference, however, is that Chinese rationalism refers primarily to people's adequate and impartial affection, while Western rationalism refers mainly to objective and impartial thinking. Chinese rationalism, as Liang defined it, is not the product of reasoning, but the result of direct, intuitive, and sincere feeling.[5] It is not surprising, therefore, that Ho Lin, a distinguished Hegelian scholar and an admirer of Liang, took Liang's idea of li-hsing as intuition instead of reason.[6]
Liang's interpretation of Chinese rationalism came almost entirely from Confucianism. The definition of reason in his theory was the Confucian canon of "the rationality of affection." The basic elements of this kind of rationality, he believed, were the traditional Confucian teachings of the five basic relations between people (wu-lun).[7] Chinese rationalism and the five basic relations, Liang maintained, were the basis of the entire Chinese civilization; and he believed that this fact showed that the basic design of the Chinese value system, though somewhat problematic, was and would be highly reasonable. At the same time, to Liang, the premise of being rational is to be "placid and understanding." This is a doctrine he inherited from the Neo-Confucianism teaching of self-cultivation, which is a special way of character building that features a warm, intimate, and harmonic relationship with the world. The world view created by this kind of mental training would be very different from that cultivated by the more dominant, aggressive, anthropocentric, and subjectivity-centered modern Western rationalism.
Since the late Ch'ing period, Confucian ethical teachings had been criticized by many as being obligatory and inhuman. Liang's theory of Chinese rationalism was in fact a powerful response to these criticisms. By returning to the original spirit of these ethical teachings, Liang tried to convince people that Confucian ethics is not superimposed social control, but, at least originally, the result of true and impartial affection (yen). To defend Confucian rationalism in this way was a continuation of his earlier understanding of the teaching of universal compassion in Confucianism.
Although the basis of Liang's thought was still the universal compassion and impartial feeling, it is clear that later Liang paid attention not only to the foundation of Goodness but also to the ethical structure derived necessarily from this foundation. This is a significant improvement and a rectification of the moral fundamentalism he inherited from the late-Ch'ing thinkers. The late-Ch'ing thinkers felt that their historical responsibility was to break all the bondage so as to create a brave new world. Therefore, they tried to return to the foundation and origin of love and energy in human nature; and accused all the existing orders of being deceptive. Nevertheless, after the entire old system collapsed, the question for Liang in the 1920s was how to create a new order in a total chaos. Intuition, voluntarism, Philosophy of Life, and moral fundamentalism could enhance human spirit, but they were no candidates for the basis of a new order. In the end, the Confucian ethic, now reinterpreted and rejuvenated by the Philosophy of Life, was his choice.
With the new emphasis on order and rationality, his criticism of Western rationalism became less sharp. The contrast between a world view of becoming and a world view of being was no longer emphasized, and he put behind him many of the basic conflicts between Western rationalism and Chinese mind he once so keenly discovered. Liang now tended to believe that since both reason and li-hsing are products of a "placid and communicative" mentality, the conflicts between the two should be resolved. In fact, his new proposition was that li-hsing should be the substance and master, and reason should be utility and tool.[8] The ideal combination of the two would create an exemplary civilization. But he forgot that, as he himself once pointed out, Western rationalism has unique origins and characteristics, and its substance is not li-hsing. The conflicts between them proved greater than he thought; and these conflicts, as we will see, were one of the major causes of the failure of his social reform.
Before commencing the study of Liang's social practice, I would like to introduce the philosophical turn taken by another prominent philosopher of life, Chang Chun-mai, so as to have deeper understanding of both Liang and Chang's thought. Unlike Liang, Chang's change did not originate in a new understanding of human psychology, but was motivated mainly by his social observations. Chang turned to rationalism and criticized his early years' anti-rationalism during the later-half of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Seeing the terrors committed by the Nazis during World War Two, he realized that anti-rationalism could lead to violence toward others, racism, the suppression of academic freedom, oppression of basic human rights, and authoritarianism.[9] Moreover, from his observation of the many cases of social unrest and political revolutions in Europe after the World War One, he also felt that the Bergsonian promotion of action, adventure, and the endless struggle initiated by life-drive could lead to endless chaos.[10] Although he was still sympathetic to Bergsonism, Chang now believed that "action and adventure should be controlled by reason."[11]
Turning to rationalism does not mean that Chang discarded all his earlier positions. In terms of metaphysics, Chang still believed in the basic dichotomy of mind and matter. As a result, he was still strongly against mechanism and materialism. He also maintained his belief in German idealism, and opposed Russell and others' New Realism.[12] In terms of epistemology, he still insisted that there was a basic difference between natural science and social studies, and rejected scientism. The major transformation in Chang's philosophy was in the field of ethics, where he found a new dichotomy between human understanding (li-chih) and li-hsing.
This new dichotomy was inspired primarily by Kant's division between pure reason and practical reason. Chang, however, drew strong analogy between Kant's theory of practical reason and Confucian "moral rationalism (te-chih-chu-i)." To Chang, human understanding is like a knife, a powerful but potentially dangerous instrument. It must be supervised and guided by the moral agency of practical reason. Enlightenment rationalism, the basis of modern Western civilization, he asserted, focused on knowledge and epistemology. The theory of practical reason, having been criticized by Russell and other positivists, was not really accepted by the Westerners. With Westerners' emphasis on understanding (li-chih) instead of on practical reason (li-hsing), true rationalism does not prevail, and endless struggle in human society is unavoidable. In comparison, he maintained, Confucian moral rationalism has been imbedded in the Chinese mind since antiquity. It could be the basis for a healthy and reasonable society. Therefore, he believed, since the Westerners excelled in developing human understanding and the Chinese had a superior theory of moral rationality, the two cultures are complementary.[13]
The major problem with Chang's synthetic theory is that he did not really see what distinguishes Greek and Enlightenment rationalism from the Chinese rationality. Therefore, he underestimated the difficulty of synthesizing a positivist attitude of using human understanding, Kant's theory of practical reason, and "Confucian rationalism." With the immediate need to restore social order, Chang, like Liang Shu-ming, returned to rationalism. Having accepted this premise, both Chang and Liang tended to neglect the difference between Western and Chinese rationality, and emphasize their similarities. The complex and often conflicting relations between human understanding, practical reason, and Confucian ethical teachings had not been adequately confronted.
Both Chang and Liang, in their post-May Fourth period, agreed that human understanding should be controlled by a higher moral agency, and they tended to believe that moral rationality and human understanding have the same origin. It seems that it was the holistic and correlative mode of thinking and the traditional tendency to create a coherent and monist world view that lead both Liang and Chang to believe in the feasibility of a new synthesis. The two may indeed have things in common, but the discrepancies between knowledge and morality, knowing and action are still unresolved questions today. It cannot be helped that both Kant's theory of practical reason and Confucian ethics are treated by many as moral beliefs that are difficult to fully demonstrate by human understanding.
Both Liang and Chang did not change their basic views toward instrumental reason. That is, they admitted its usage, but denied its omnipotence. Moreover, they both advocated an ethical Confucian rationalism, though with very different interpretations. While Liang ascribed the basis of his rationalism to the Confucian teaching of affection, Chang tended to equate Confucianism with a universal moral rationality. In both cases, Enlightenment rationalism was treated with reservation.
Finally, their turning to rationalism further proved our assertion that in their earlier years, a counter-Enlightenment attitude was inseparable from a world view of becoming, moral fundamentalism, dynamism, and revolutionary pathos which prevailed in the late-Ch'ing and the May Fourth Period. Cultural issues were the focus of attention of intellectuals in the May Fourth Period, while the post May-Fourth period was dominated by socio-political problems. Philosophy of Life has vast meaning in terms of ethics, aesthetics, and man's search for meaning; but its economic, legal, and political assertions are not very persuasive in a modern world. It can offer the Chinese the spirit and momentum to struggle, but it is not an order or system builder. What China needed the most in her struggle for modernization was the establishment of an efficient and responsible central government, and a "rationalized" economic order. Counter-Enlightenment and anti-rationalist thought was destined to diminish while China's first priority is to modernize herself. Nevertheless, what once existed never really disappeared. It just went underground.
Both Liang and Chang, as heirs of the activism of Confucianism, were not just speculative philosophers. They were also leaders of major political and social movements in modern China. In order to fully understand the meaning of their philosophy, we have to investigate how their ideas affected their social practice, which was most significant after 1927.
Based on his ethical beliefs and his conviction that Confucian rationalism could make good use of Western rationalism, Liang promoted his famous rural reconstruction movement in China from 1927 to 1937. Liang made it clear that his affection-oriented, Confucian ethics-based social reconstruction could not develop in the urban, capitalist area in which people's minds had been occupied by mechanistic and calculative reasoning and had lost their unaffected empathy towards man and nature. Country people, he said, maintained more traditional virtue, and related more closely and affectionately to nature and to each other than did city people. Empathy-oriented "reason" (li-hsing), therefore, could only be cultivated in the country. Liang, just like Thomas Jefferson, called the country the "real home of mankind." The city, though necessary, was auxiliary to country life in his system.[14] This proposal was clearly a result of his very idealistic Philosophy of Life and, unfortunately, his lack of an adequate understanding of modern economy.
Liang's rural reconstruction movement was rather successful in certain rural areas before the Japanese invasion. Nevertheless, the entire movement was destroyed after 1937. The fatal flaw of this movement was that it did not assume independent political or military power. In peaceful times, it could indeed significantly improve the well-being of the rural area, and could be tolerated or even supported by certain warlords and the Kuomintang. However, when fierce power struggles began, it just could not stand the blows from outside.
When Liang's rural reconstruction is compared to another rural movement -- the Chinese Communist movement, which prospered under the Japanese invasion -- the causes of the failure of Liang's plan became even more apparent. The strength of the Chinese communist movement came mainly from their independent military power, Leninist-style organization, quasi-religious belief in revolutionary tenets, and the aspiration and loyalty excited by the promise of fundamental change in personal economic and social status. Lacking these, Liang's system of rural reconstruction was too weak to survive in a warring China. In terms of organization, since the basis of Liang's philosophy was the Neo-Confucian Philosophy of Life, it resisted the rule of law and forced discipline by nature. The entire organization of his rural reconstruction depended on people's self-respect, moral commitment, and voluntary participation.[15] This kind of moral and ethical linkage is noble, but also fragile in the face of organized military and political power. In terms of force, since the Confucian Philosophy of Life treasured harmony and disdained the ideas of violence or struggle, it tended to try to solve all problems by long-term moral encouragement and cultivation. As a result, there was no theoretical basis for Liang's rural reconstruction to build its own army. In terms of its appeal to the younger generation, the attraction of the age-old Confucianism, understood as the cause of all the problems in China by many, could not compete with the new, Western, "scientific" Marxism. In comparison to the Confucian Philosophy of Life, the Marxist revolutionary vision was much more powerful in arousing people's revolutionary pathos and their will to devote themselves to it completely. Consequently, the success, necessarily and unfortunately, belonged to the revolutionary romanticism of Communism.
During the Communist reign, Liang's thought went through a complex process of self-doubt and self-reassurance. He ultimately retained his early years' socialist belief that capitalism, which relied largely on people's self-centered desires and self-promoted reason, would decline. He believed that the future society would be a socialist one based on sincere and impartial compassion and affection of people for each other.[16] He viewed humankind as evolving from the pursuit of individual and instinctive needs to the search for higher and nobler compassion. The realization of these ideals, unfortunately, does not seem to be feasible in the foreseeable future.
It is undeniable that the failure of both Liang's ideals of Confucian rural reconstruction and of socialist society implied a crisis in his effort to develop a dialogue between Confucian rationality and Western rationalism. The ruthless success of urban capitalist economy, individualism, legal society, democracy, and rational organization over Liang's ideal of a country-based economy, socialism, morality-and-art-oriented society, and ethical organization seems to indicate the success of modern Western rationalism over Liang's socialistic Confucian rationalism. Nevertheless, since the problem Liang's theory had much to do with his lack of adequate knowledge of modern economy and society, his proposal was by no means the only possible dialogue between Confucianism and modernity. Chang Chun-mai's socialist democratic ideals, for example, was a more feasible model.
Although Chang's philosophy was not as original and inspiring as Liang's, his social practice was more successful, and his ideals more feasible. This has a lot to do with his better understanding of modernity. Chang was famous for his life-long advocacy of democracy, the drafting of the 1946 constitution, and being founder and leader of the Social Democratic Party. All of these are inseparable from his Confucian background and the western training he received. As a follower of the Philosophy of Life and Confucianism, Chang's social and the political career suffered from many problems similar to those that Liang faced.
The humanistic, philanthropic, and socialist elements in Confucianism made Chang a life-long supporter of Social Democracy. In order to promote his ideas, Chang and his friends founded the Chinese Nationalist Socialist Party in 1932.[17] Being strongly influenced by the German Social Democratic Party, this party called for peaceful reform, and the separation between political party and the military. It denounced class struggle, and advocated full democratic rule, respect for individual rights and political freedom. It also tried to create a balanced economy which included socialist and capitalist elements. With these peaceful and noble ideals, it called for gradual reform.[18] Its ideals sound reasonable, peaceful, and well-balanced. Nevertheless, the appeal, organization, and strength of Chang's socialist democratic party were not comparable to those of the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang. What the younger generation demanded at that time was a religion that promised to solve all political, social, economic problems thoroughly and quickly. Democratic Socialism was no such religion, and it failed to capture people's minds and will with its humanistic and democratic plan.
Both Liang's traditional model and Chang's more Westernized Confucian model failed. Does this indicate the necessary supremacy of Enlightenment rationalism, and the diminishing of Confucian li-hsing? Not necessarily. As discussed in previous chapters, Enlightenment rationality and modernity have many problems themselves. Liang and other New Humanists' criticism of the phenomena of alienation, reification, objectification, loss of meaning, and fragmentation in modern society are still valid today. These problems were a major cause of the insistence of Liang, Chang, and many others' on maintaining Confucian ideals in a modern world. Although they sometimes failed to grasp the real power and meaning of Enlightenment rationalism, this does not mean that their criticisms of Enlightenment are unsupported. Their advocacy of universal compassion, impartial feeling, and communicative rationality are still relevant in today's world. Their effort in trying to forge a dialogue between a world view of becoming and being, between instrumental rationality and value rationality, and between the East and West remains inspiring.
Moreover, as a true heir of Chinese tradition, the Philosophy of Life is moderate and constructive, while its historical rival, revolutionary romanticism, is much more vehement and destructive. They both developed from the collective will to create a new China. Although revolutionary romanticism dominated in a warring China, the Philosophy of Life and Confucian rationalism may better suit the need of the Chinese in a more peaceful and constructive period. In fact, as many contemporary Chinese believe, socialist Democracy may well be a good choice for the future of Communist China.
Even so, the tension between the Chinese tradition and Enlightenment rationalism will still exist. In the West, a fundamental problem of modernity is that Enlightenment rationality dominates in the public domain, while Romantic pathos tends to rule personal life. The huge tension between the two is a problem that has existed since the time Enlightenment, and is still unresolved. The Chinese Philosophy of Life, as an embodiment of counter-Enlightenment elements in Chinese traditions, faced a similar problem. Both and Liang and Chang's post-May Fourth effort to search for a unified rationality did not seem to have solved this question either. The true dialogue is still pending.
[1]This development started immediately after he finished THWH and concluded in his Jen-hsin yu jen-sheng, a development that spanned over fifty years. Here we will only briefly summarize the results. (Ref. Liang, Jen-hsin yu jen-sheng, 81-90)
[2]Literally, li-hsing refers to the part of human nature (hsing) that knows and defines what is right (li). Li-hsing was originally the Chinese translation of reason. Nevertheless Liang's special usage of li-hsing does not correspond to what we usually mean by reason.
[3]Liang, Hsiang-ts'un chien-she li-lun, 181. This book was published in 1937, but the lectures collected in this book were given somewhere between 1928 to 1936.
[4]Also see Liang, Chung-kuo wen-hua yao-i, 125-128.
[5]In his Chung-kuo wen-hua yao-i, a book written in 1949, however, Liang, maintained that the impartial feeling and human understanding have the same roots and are inseparable (Ibid., 128). This assertion originated from Liang's interpretation of the evolution of reason and impartial feeling in the natural history of human being. But his interpretation seems to be speculative and problematic.
[6]Ho lin, Che-hsueh yu che-hsueh-shih lun-wen-chi, (Peking, 1990), 457-58.
[7]Liang also promoted a man-to-society relation that was believed to be necessary in forming new-style, effective organizations in China. He, like many of his contemporaries, believed that China should learn from the West about the man-to-society loyalty (Ibid., 175-176).
[8]Liang, Jen-hsin yu jen-sheng, 85; Chung-kuo wen-hua yao-i, 125-128.
[9]Chang, Chung-hsi-yin, 118.
[10]Ibid., 120. Chang was first strongly attracted by the Bergsonian vitalist world view of becoming in 1920. Nevertheless, despite the emotional attraction, he also had some doubts about this world view from the beginning. With this internal conflict, he did not develop his philosophy from Bergsonian view of becoming. Rather, as discussed in chapter five, he chose the Euckenian idealist dichotomy between mind and matter as the basic principle. After his turning to a "Kantian and Confucian rationalism," he further limited the usage of Bergsonian vitalist world view of becoming to the realm of motivation. (Ibid., 44-45)
[11]Ibid.
[12]Ibid., 121.
[13]Chang, Chung-hsi-yin, 122-23.
[14]Liang, Hsiang-ts'un chien-she li-lun, 181-86.
[15]Ibid., 186.
[16]Liang, Jen-hsin yu jen-sheng, 80.
[17]Chang was a socialist from the time he studied in Germany. With Chang Tung-hsun and Hu Shih-ch'ing, he founded the Chinese Nationalist Socialist Party in 1932. In 1946, this party merged with the Chinese Constitutional Democratic Party to form the Chinese Socialist Democratic Party.
[18]Chung-kuo min-chu-she-hui-tang chung-yang-tsung-pu ed., Chang Chun-mai hsien-sheng pai-ling ming-tan chi-nien lun wen-chi, 124-130.