The Call On The Wilderness

The "Debate on the Humanitarianism"(hereafter referred to as the Debate) taking place from 1993 through 1995 is one of the most noteworthy cultural events of China in the 20th century. The brief two year long episode is unprecedented given its large number of participants, numerous levels of complexity, clashing perspectives, far-reaching scope of discourses, and diverse foci of arguments. All these features give birth to the immense glamour of the event, which is eye-catching, thought-provoking, and prone to criticism. However, the past ten years have witnessed little, if any, thorough academic research has been carried out except a number of shallow enumeration and pigeonholing, So, the subject of the thesis shares some levels of novelty, and I wish I can make my due contribution to fulfill the gaps in the contemporary academic history and cultural history. The thesis is divided into three sections. Section 1 discusses the origin of the Debate. First, the Debate originated in a literature crisis. An article entitled The Remains on the Wilderness –A Crisis of Literature and Humanitarianism, which was published in Issue 6 of Shanghai Literature in 1993, stands for the curtain-raiser to the far-reaching Debate. The standpoints put forward by Wang Xiaoming in the article have drawn the attention and agreement of a large number of intellectuals, but also have been questioned by many others. This has led to the deepening of the Debate. Second, the thesis briefly summarizes the trajectory of China's humanitarianism, in particular the historic evolution of the humanitarian movement in the 20th century, in order to shed some light on the ideological genesis and historical background. Third, the thesis analyzes who the key participants of the Debate were and where they were based. The author conducts empirical research based on a large amount of data and tables to illustrate the regions and sectors affected by the Debate and summarize the basic stands and altitudes of various intellectual schools and subdivisions involved in the process. The thesis draws the conclusion that the Debate is primarily confined to within the academics and centered in Shanghai and Beijing and expanded to across the nation. This is an academic discourse, meanwhile has sizeable social repercuss-ions. Section 2 expounds the main points of the Debate. On the basis of extensive literature review, the thesis elucidates four key questions throughout the Debate. First, what is the humanitarianism? This question defines the scope of the concept. The thesis makes an inventory of representative viewpoints of Yuan Jin, Wang Gang, Xu Jilin, Wang Bingbing, Wang Shuo, Wang Meng, Zhang Rulun, and other writers or scholars and illustrates my own inclination as well. Second, whose humanitarianism is it? What sit in the center of the question is the disputes on humanitarianism as a universal principle and individual practice. I assert that the different opinions stressing humanitarianism as a universal principle or as individual practice is nevertheless superficial and the truly critical but unfortunately missing debate should be whether humanitarianism is individualism-based or collectivism-based. The question also has implication for whether the care about humanity is ultimate care or contemporary care. Either from the perspective of individuals, or of the intellectual community, or of the entire humanity, any utopian cultivating the human ideals can only survive in the care for the real world. This not only stands for the significance of practice, but also the value of humanitarianism. Third, is there any humanitarianism? This question centers on the loss and fading of humanitarianism in China. The author points out that Qu Weiguo raised a number of constructive perspectives among various arguments on the question whether there is humanitarianism and whether humanitarianism has been lost. However, his perspectives were to a large extent ignored by the subsequent debates and thus generated little influence on the following discussion process. Fourth, how to rebuild the humanitarianism in China? Some of the most influential viewpoints include: Chen Sihe's proposition on "social consciousness of intellectuals", Wang Gang's proposition on "the search for new status", Wang Yichuan's proposition on "from enlightenment to communications", Wang Bingbing's proposition on "the scale of the heaven", etc. In addition to the above-listed four key questions, I also touch upon another important question: "Fundamentally, what were they...