Wikipedia

New Enlightenment (China)

New Enlightenment (simplified Chinese: 新启蒙; traditional Chinese: 新啟蒙), or the New Enlightenment movement (simplified Chinese: 新启蒙运动; traditional Chinese: 新啟蒙運動), was a massive social and cultural movement in mainland China that originated in the late 1970s and lasted for over a decade.[4][5] Growing out of the "1978 Truth Criterion Discussion" during the Boluan Fanzheng period, the New Enlightenment was widely regarded as a new wave of enlightenment within the Chinese society since the May Fourth Movement in 1919.[6][7]

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

The theme of the New Enlightenment movement included promoting democracy and science, embracing humanism and universal values such as freedom, human rights and rule of law, while opposing the ideology of Cultural Revolution and feudalism.[4][8] The movement gave rise to a number of new literature genres such as the scar literature and the misty poetry, meanwhile aesthetics also became a popular topic in society.[9] In addition, the growth of publication industry, the birth of new music genres such as Chinese rock, and the rise of Chinese film industry all contributed significantly to the New Enlightenment.[2] Notable leading figures of the movement included Fang Lizhi, Li Zehou, and Wang Yuanhua.

The New Enlightenment movement ended due to the Tiananmen Square massacre in June 1989.[10] After Deng Xiaoping's southern tour in early 1992, however, the academic and intellectual circle in mainland China thrived again but became divided, forming two major schools of thought: the New Left and the Liberalism.[6][11] On the other hand, as the capital market and market economy expanding in China, traditional intellectuals quickly lost their leadership role in social development which they enjoyed during the New Enlightenment in the 1980s, meanwhile entrepreneurs and business elites became increasingly influential.[11]

Origin

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See also: Democracy Wall and Beijing Spring

After the Chinese Cultural Revolution ended in 1976, Deng Xiaoping and his allies launched the "Boluan Fanzheng" program in 1977 to correct the mistakes of Cultural Revolution and, by the end of 1978, Deng replaced Hua Guofeng as the paramount leader of China.[12][13] During the power struggle with Hua, Deng and his allies started the "Truth Criterion Discussion" in May 1978, which not only helped Deng win the power struggle over Hua, but also became the origin of the New Enlightenment movement in mainland China.[6][12][14]

History

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Publication

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Wang Yuanhua (王元化), an intellectual who was often credited for coining the term "New Enlightenment" in the 1980s, founded the journal New Enlightenment in Shanghai in 1988.[8][15][16] Wang himself participated in a short-lived Enlightenment movement initiated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the 1930s, and in the 1980s he called on renewal of the enlightenment philosophy from the May Fourth Movement in 1919, which included promoting democracy and science.[15][17] Li Rui, Wang Ruoshui, Liu Xiaobo, Gu Zhun and a number of other CCP officials and notable scholars published articles in the New Enlightenment journal.[16][18][19] However, the journal soon ceased its operation in 1989 due to the Tiananmen Square massacre.[16]

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

In 1980, Qin Benli founded the World Economic Herald, which later became the forefront for promoting and defending freedom of press as well as freedom of speech in mainland China.[20] In 1984, Jin Guantao (金观涛) and others began to publish the Toward the Future Book Series, which played a major role in introducing "universal values" and a variety of other modern concepts to the Chinese public.[6] Both the Herald and the Book Series were banned due to the Tiananmen Square massacre, but the ban of the latter was lifted after Deng Xiaoping's southern tour in 1992.[20]

Social activities

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A spectrum of activists and social groups with different thoughts became active in the 1980s, from further developing traditional Chinese culture by learning from western civilization, to embracing Total Westernization.[6][8] For example, Liu Xiaobo, who later won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, once said in an interview in 1988, that "it had taken 100 years of [British] colonialism to bring Hong Kong up to what it is, and given the size of China, it would certainly need 300 years of colonization for it to become like what Hong Kong is today. I even doubt whether 300 years would be enough."[21][22] The TV documentary River Elegy in 1988 was another well-known example of making self-criticism over traditional Chinese culture.[23][24][25]

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

Literature and films

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After the Cultural Revolution, a number of new literature genres emerged in the late 1970s within Chinese society, including the scar literature and the misty poetry.[10][31] The former reflected on the Cultural Revolution and the disasters that it brought to Chinese society, while the latter expressed the true emotions of individuals through its unique style and has been described as a continuation of the enlightenment tradition of the May Fourth Movement.[10][31] Ba Jin, a notable Chinese writer, called on the Chinese society to establish Cultural Revolution museums in order to prevent a second calamity of this scale:[32]

"Let history not be repeated" must not be an empty phrase. In order that everyone sees clearly and remembers clearly, it is necessary to build a museum of the "Cultural Revolution," exhibiting concrete and real objects, and reconstructing striking scenes which will testify to what took place on this Chinese soil twenty years ago! Everyone will recall the march of events there, and each will recall his or her behavior during that decade.

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

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

Aesthetics and arts

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In the 1980s, Chinese society experienced an "Aesthetics Fever" (美学热), which was an integral part of the "Cultural Fever" (文化热) and the New Enlightenment movement.[8][23] Being one of the top aestheticians in China in the 1980s, Li Zehou was responsible for starting and leading the "Aesthetics Fever"; his celebrated work The Path of Beauty: A Study of Chinese Aesthetics was widely read and has been translated into several languages.[9][34][35][36] Li was also one of the first intellectuals to publicly endorse the Stars Art Group as well as the misty poetry.[37] The "Aesthetics Fever" was believed to have inspired people to reflect on and discuss their revolutionary ideology and the way of living.[38]

The '85 New Wave was regarded as the birth of Chinese Contemporary Art, when a group of young artists drastically changed the landscape of China's fine art by introducing Western elements in their works starting from 1985.[39][40] The artistic practices in the '85 New Wave were regarded to be culturally enlightening and thought-liberating.[41]

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Deng Lijun was regarded by some as the "Enlightenment teacher of love" in China in the 1980s, thanks to her pop music songs.[42]

Since the opening of China in the late 1970s, Mandarin popular music or Mandopop from Taiwan and Hong Kong had made a widespread and long-lasting impact on the Chinese public.[43][44] Most notably, the pop songs by Deng Lijun, known as the "Eternal Queen of Asian Pop", were believed to have an "enlightening" effect on humanism.[43][44] On the other hand, Homeland Love (乡恋) by Li Guyi in 1980 was considered to be the first pop song from within mainland China, which exhibited truthful elements of humanity and echoed humanism.[45][46]

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

Resistance and repression

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The development of the New Enlightenment movement met a variety of resistance from within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since the beginning.[6][8] As early as in 1979, Deng Xiaoping, then paramount leader of China, proposed the "Four Cardinal Principles" which soon became the official boundary of political liberalization in mainland China and was incorporated in the China's Constitution in 1982.[47]

In 1983, left-wing conservative power within the CCP launched the "Campaign against spiritual pollution", opposing Western-inspired liberal ideas.[6][8][48] In 1986–87, the conservative power launched the campaign "anti-Bourgeois liberalization", as a response to the 1986 Chinese student demonstrations.[49][50] Hu Yaobang, then General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, was forced to resign due to his sympathetic stance on the student movements.[49][50] Fang Lizhi, Wang Ruowang and Liu Binyan who played important roles in the New Enlightenment movement were all expelled from the CCP by direct order from Deng Xiaoping.[51]

In June 1989, the New Enlightenment movement ended due to the Tiananmen Square massacre, which also ended China's political reforms in the 1980s.[6][11][10][52] In an official government report, Chen Xitong, then mayor of Beijing, labelled certain activities of the New Enlightenment as "some political gatherings with very wrong or even reactionary views".[53] Another CCP official was quoted to have claimed that "while the May Fourth Movement created the CCP, the New Enlightenment movement intends to create an opposition party."[17]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c "Cui Jian: Father of Chinese Rock 'N' Roll". UCLA. June 3, 2005. Archived from the original on 2024-01-05. Retrieved 2024-10-04.
  2. ^ a b c Matusitz, Jonathan (February 2010). "Semiotics of Music: Analysis of Cui Jian's "Nothing to My Name," the Anthem for the Chinese Youths in the Post-Cultural Revolution Era". The Journal of Popular Culture. 43 (1): 156–175. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5931.2010.00735.x.
  3. ^ a b c Guo, Yongyu (1994). "狂欢、舞蹈、摇滚乐与社会无意识" [Carnival, dance, rock music and social unconsciousness] (PDF). Personality and Social Psychology (in Chinese) (4): 34–39. 美学家高尔泰认为摇滚乐承担起了"启蒙"这一歌手可能根本没有想到的也不愿意承担的时代使命： 也许摇滚乐是中国目前唯一可以胜任启蒙的艺术出式了。因为理论界的范围大狭窄，起不了大面积的启蒙影响，而音乐是一种特殊的语言，它能起到任何其他方式都达不到的作用。中国需要启蒙……
  4. ^ a b Li, Huaiyin (October 2012). "6 Challenging the Revolutionary Orthodoxy: "New Enlightenment" Historiography in the 1980s". Reinventing Modern China: Imagination and Authenticity in Chinese Historical Writing. University of Hawaiʻi Press. ISBN 9780824836085.
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Further reading

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