Reconstruct The Meaning World Of The Youth Of The New Culture Movement

On the "outlook on life" and related semantic fields,this paper examines how the May 4th pioneers reconstruct the meaning world of youth from the perspectives of common sense,value ethics and spiritual beliefs.In the transitional period of"resetting all values," the May 4th Movement broke the traditional value system of people’s settling down and made people fall into the abyss of spiritual loss,and "life became a problem".Therefore,the New Culture Movement was followed by a series of discussions on "worldview and outlook on life",which resulted in a number of representative events:the promotion of the "new youth outlook on life" around 1919,the "debate on science and outlook on life" in the thinking community around 1923,and the "philosophy of life" was listed as a public compulsory subject in senior middle schools after the educational system reform in 1923.Among them,the years around 1919 and 1923 were two heated periods of discussion on the "concept of life" in the intellectual world.The main subject of the first discussion on outlook on life is "society and human beings",which runs through the spirit of "democracy";The subject of the second discussion on outlook on life is ’culture and human beings,’ which is mixed with science,nature of mind,religion,beauty and emotion,materialism and other multiple beliefs.The themes of successive discussions on "outlook on life" correspond to the two spiritual banners of"democracy" and "science" respectively.It also shows a progression the progress from’democracy’ ethics moral category to ’science’ belief meaning category.Chen Duxiu seems to have noticed the significance difference between "democracy" and "science"for a long time."To support democracy,one has to oppose Confucianism,rituals,chastity,old ethics,and old politics.To uphold science,one must oppose the old arts and religion."As weapons of thought,"democracy" and "science" correspond to different levels of meaning world.Around 1919,under the concept of social evolution,the new youth fiercely criticized the old ethics and social relations,such as the "three cardinal guides and five constant virtues".The spirit of ’democracy’ is imagined as an liberating force that can break through all shackles and clear up all kinds of autocratic idols,leaving behind a pure social network of freedom and equality among all people.Thus,under the trinity of "human,democracy and society",the ultimate meaning and real life of human beings are reconstructed,so it can be called the outlook on life of"democracy".Since the 1920s,the voice of the bankruptcy of Western(material)civilization has been increasing day by day,and the arguments of Eastern and Western cultures have revived and focused on national character.In the view of cultural conservatives,the bankruptcy of western civilization is attributed to the scientific mechanical outlook on life,so they advocate to re-examine the traditional theory of mind and nature and the spirit of humanistic virtue.Hu Shih,Ding Wenjiang and other scientific intellectuals who believed in science,defended and publicized the belief of "scientific outlook on life".In addition,the disadvantages of the European War and Western civilization,making the Russian-style social path a concern of the time.At the end of the debate,the outlook on life of Marxist historical materialism advocated by Chen Duxiu has attracted many young people because it could systematically explain the past-present-future.In the "outlook on life debate" in 1923,cultural conservatives,liberals,and Marxists propagandized the outlook on life under their own world understanding,reshaping the meaning world of youth belief.Around the same time of the debate on "science and outlook on life" in 1923,the educational community added the ’Philosophy of Life’ course to the high school of the Republic of China through educational reform.Philosophy of life has multiple interpretations because of its dual identity of academic concepts and teaching courses:the scope of "ethics" in a narrow sense,the general philosophical concept that reflects the problems of life in a broad sense,the self-expression that carries the traditional thought of "philosophizing Confucianism" and common sense education for youth.As a compulsory course in senior high school,the mainstream of "Philosophy of Life"textbook writing is based on Hu Shi ’s "Ten Commandments of Life," which extracts the scientific common sense of biology,psychology,society and ethics as the foundation of young people ’s scientific outlook on life,and realizes Hu Shi ’s expectation expressed in the debate on outlook on life.This scientific common sense or discipline common sense outlook on life,because of the minimum consistency,basically will not cause anyone’s resistance.But it started from the most daily world picture and launched the secret subversion of the youth "meaning world"...