Evolution of Chinese intellectuals' thought over two decades

• Source: The Global Times
• [23:54 May 31 2009]
• Comments

Fast changes

China was experiencing drastic and rapid changes at that time, said Zhang Yiwu. “The difficulties were what we paid for that transition. An absolutely ideal mode could never appear.

“Chinese were so poor in the past that they had a strong desire to change their life and make the country powerful and this spirit turned into a strong power to drive economic development.”

As a young teacher in the 1990s, Zhang found students attended classes just for credits and often slept no matter how interesting the lesson was. Outside class, they discussed real-life issues and problems with Zhang.

For example, they discussed the popular TV drama Desire with Zhang. In Zhang’s eyes, this show embodied the changes of 1990s mass culture.

“At that time, I felt that the Chinese had found their spiritual sustenance and they started to believe they could change their life,” said Zhang.

Facing advantages and disadvantages brought about by the market economy, Chinese intellectuals began to split into “liberalism” and “the New Left”, Xu Youyu wrote in his blog. They disagreed on the root of social evils in that period: the former believed the old power system obstructed healthy development of a market economy in China while the latter criticized the market economy and insisted on resistance.

Entering the 21st century, with no specific ideology dominating the Chinese people, the rapid development of the Internet provided intellectuals with space to express their ideas.
 
In the 1980s, Zhang Yiwu kept himself away from sensitive topics like human rights.

“To choose such a topic means to deny and break from society in the 1980s,” Zhang said.

He said “we have more space” nowadays.

Such changes also appeared in philosophy. Fang Jun at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences wrote in his article “Basic Trend of China’s Philosophy Studies at the Turn of the Century” that at the initial phase of China’s reform, philosophy studies focused on the criteria for truth to assist reform in ridding it of ideological barriers.

As reform went deeper, focus shifted to fundamental subjects of the world philosophy community, such as how to overcome or prevent a “culture crisis” after industrialization.