History of 20th Century Chinese Intellectuals

Author: Xu Jilin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-04-01
Features: The 20th century just passed was a period of intense changes and turbulent fluctuations in Chinese history. In just one hundred years, it witnessed three eras—the Qing Dynasty, the Republic of China, and the People's Republic of China—resulting in major transformations in politics, military affairs, society, and culture that had never occurred in the preceding thousands of years. According to Mr. Lu Xun's observation, it was a great era. In such a great era, everything changed, and everything was washed away in the tsunami of the times. So, what transformations did the intellectual elite, as the social elite, undergo? Simply put, they faced a major transition from ancient scholar-officials to modern intellectuals. This major transition was both a shift in values in the sense of intellectual history and a transformation of identity, status, and roles at the level of social history. Regarding the former, I have already elaborated on it in the Essays on the Intellectual History of Twentieth-Century China, edited in 2000. The selection of this book, however, focuses on the latter, studying this major transition from the perspective of intellectual social history and the interaction between social politics and cultural thought during this process.
The 20th century was a period of intense changes and turbulent fluctuations in Chinese history, marked by transformations that had never occurred in the preceding thousands of years. For the intellectual elite, as the social elite, it was a major transition from ancient scholar-officials to modern intellectuals. This major transition was both a shift in values in the sense of intellectual history and a transformation of identity, status, and roles at the level of social history. The selection of this book focuses on the latter, studying this major transition from the perspective of intellectual social history and the interaction between social politics and cultural thought during this process.
The society in which modern intellectuals lived was no longer a "four-tier society" centered around scholar-officials, but an "atomized society" without a center. This atomization manifested as a disconnection between the state and society, as well as a disconnection among the various social strata. In such a chaotic state, intellectuals not only lost their intrinsic institutional ties to the state but also developed a strong sense of alienation from it. Moreover, the large number of intellectual elites leaving their hometowns, leaving the countryside, and entering cities meant that they detached themselves from the traditional folk society, losing their kinship, geographical, and cultural roots. In traditional China, scholar-officials served as the central link between the state and society. Modern intellectuals, however, were not only alienated from the state but also detached from society, becoming free floaters with no attachments.