Cultural Forms Of Modern Public Discourse

Lunyu is one of the important magazines in modem Chinese literary history, and the Lunyu Party was named after it. There has been relatively little research on the Lunyu Party in the past, and further systematic researches are expected. Sorting and studying contemporary popular magazines is one of the indispensable primary steps for correctly understanding and grasping the conditions and development of modem Chinese literature and culture during a certain period of the history. This dissertation, instead of making a smattering summary on the magazine of Lunyu or the Lunyu party, puts emphasis on the spiritual world of modern Chinese civil intellectuals represented by the magazine. With close illustration and careful discussion on a great deal of literary materials, this paper intends to make some conclusion and compensate for the present study on modem literary history.The dissertation conducts the discussion mainly from the three perspectives:Firstly, the cultural tendency of the magazine Lunyu. This chapter mainly discusses the contrasts and choices between the oriental and Western cultural cultures in Lunyu. On the standpoint of Chinese folk culture and in the rational spirit of modern common intellectuals, the magazine chose from Chinese and Western cultures the most natural and humanistic elements as its structure of cultural value. Lunyu criticized the cultural stream of restoring the ancient ways, destructured the traditional temple culture represented by Confucius, and developed the value of common literature through talking about ghosts. All these are the presentation of their cultural tastes.Secondly, the political facts of the magazine Lunyu. Politics is one of the most important forms in culture. Modern Chinese society at that time was at a special turning point, but the traditional political culture still had deep-rooted influence, and the western-style democracy had not yet entered Chinese political system. Lunyu took the political stand of the folk people, paid attention to the democratic thoughts and the enlightenment of the civil minds, and reconsidered the drawbacks of traditional Chinese political culture with criticisms on the political reality.Thirdly, the humanistic problem of the magazine Lunyu. The fundamental problem of the modernization of a country is the modernization of the people, the criticism on traditional culture and the exploration into the backwardness of thepeople in the magazine were to build modem independent personality. This point is revealed through surveying and criticizing the common servility in the bureaucracy, intellectuals and the female groups.The study on the magazine Lunyu shows that the enlightenment spirit was still the center of new literature in the 1930s and 1940s, except that the subjects, the objects and the form had undergone certain changes with passing of time. The enlightenment in Lunyu has more secularity, popularity and modernity that were required of in modern civil society. As the prevailing social conditions now are similar to the 1930s, the researches on the spiritual world of civil intellectuals of that era are now still of great significance.