Cultural Values In Transformation

This dissertation is a study of cultural values in transformation focusing on the individualization of Chinese educated youth,specifically those who were born in the middle of 1980s. The purposes of the study are to find out: 1) to what extent,Chinese educated youth have become individualized; 2) in what way(s) they have become more individualized than in other(s); 3) if individualization in China has experienced the same process as that in the West.To understand the individualization of Chinese educated youth, it is necessary to have a good understanding of its origins in the developed Western countries, which have already moved into a"post-modern"period, and then to cross-culturally compare the individualization in the West with that in China, which is still a developing country. By comparing the individualism in the West and the emergent individualism in China, we can have a better understanding of what the Chinese youth are like today.Individualism in the West is the product of a complex past, a long process which was necessary to produce what we see in the present. The process of individualization in the West can be divided into two phases: one is for the realization of ambiguous individualism and the other, for the realization of unambiguous individualism (Lukes, 1984). In the first phase, it was not individualism but collectivism that was the mainstream ideology in Western societies as most people held to communal and family values. In the second phase, individualization made huge inroads, and individualism became the mainstream of Western societies with the United States as the representative. These two categories are instrumental in understanding the development and nature of individualism in the West. Individualization in the West is mainly displayed through a process of three emancipations: emancipation from God, emancipation from the state and emancipation from the family.Then, this dissertation gives a detailed account of traditional Chinese holistic/collectivistic cultural values so that a clear picture can be obtained as to how individualized the present-day Chinese youth have become and in what ways.Holism/collectivism is a philosophical and cultural idea claiming that the whole cannot be taken apart and that every apparent whole can be understood only in the context of the larger whole. Parts exist only within wholes, with which they have inseparable relations. What should be stressed here are two points: First, the holistic viewpoint usually places more emphasis on the whole rather than on the parts. Second, the parts are not independent or autonomous, since they have inseparable relations with the whole, and among themselves. These are two principles of the holistic ideology of ancient China.By conducting diachronic and synchronic studies of China's social-cultural transformation in the reform era, i.e., the 1980– 2000 Chinese Youth debates and fieldwork amidst present-day students at Harbin Institute of Technology, this dissertation illustrates a new and significant trajectory taken by Chinese educated youth. The Chinese Youth debates show a development of individualism, and the historical record– not only in terms of social structure, but also in terms of dominant worldviews as expressed through popular and official culture– confirms that this degree and kind of individualization is a new phenomenon. Simply put, equivalent values could not be found in any periods of Chinese history, even during the New Culture Movement. The Chinese youth in this survey have discovered their"self", with a strong sense of independence, autonomy, self-responsibility, and self-realization, expressing a strong orientation towards individualism.The survey conducted at Harbin Institute of Technology indicates that the educated youth try hard to be true to themselves, focusing on their own self-realization,"freeing"themselves from traditional and official values, and no longer holding"lofty goals", i.e., working for their family, work unit or motherland. They work hard for their own material achievements, deeply believing in technological power, and the necessity of competition for efficiency, since in their minds both individuals and the country have to be efficient in order for them to become super persons (qiang ren) and for the country to become rich and strong. Their widespread acceptance of individualistic concepts, and the obvious orientation of most students towards individualistic development, as explicitly shown in their responses to the questions, support the hypothesis that individualization is a significant part in the transformation of traditional Chinese cultural values in the reform era. Careful analysis of the two studies clearly reveals that the individualization of the educated youth has taken a different path, and three transformations– transformation of traditional values, transformation of proletarian ideology and transformation of family consciousness– have been summarized as the features in the individualization of the Chinese educated youth.