A Study Of Liu Yizheng 's Thought In The Background Of Xueheng School

The magnitude of culture has been unprecedentedly emphasized worldwide since the advent of new century. It is universally acknowledged that nowadays the competition does not stop at economic, political and military arenas, but it also permeates into the deeper cultural ‘soft power’competition. Today, China is committed to the construction of cultural power which helps to achieve "Chinese Dream”, the rejuvenation of China. As the ruling party of the Communist Party of China stresses that, ‘a nation’s prosperity always depends on cultural prosperity. Therefore if there is no culture to develop and carry forward, there is no Chinese dream’.This is viewed as the essence of cultural construction.Today, the primary problem before us is how to build our culture in an open society, meanwhile,to embrace the world culture to maintain the cultural uniqueness of our nation. The American scholar Samuel P. Huntington answered this question from a perspective in the book,‘WHO ARE WE?-The Challenges To America’s National Identity’, pointing out that ‘Anglo Protestant Culture’ helps the United States continue to keep itself in American at all. What is it meant to preserve our own cultural uniqueness? This is the ’core issue’ that intellectuals debated last century when China was in the disaster of national subjugation. In the beginning of 1980 s,the Chinese circle of thinkers gave a century review of the criticism on the May 4th Movement and the conservatism against the thoughts arising from New Cultural Movement. The theoretical and practical significance of these reviews have been continuously discovered.Against this background, the thoughts of Xueheng School, which vehemently and thoroughly opposed New Culture School, won a wide range of attention among the academic circles. While combing the academic thoughts of Xueheng School, researchers found that the thoughts of Liu Yizheng(Liu), Master of Chinese Culture,have won an in-depth researches, though these researches seem insignificant compared with Liu’s academic status and academic thoughts. This essay attempts to give an insight of Liu’s theoretical systems as well as his thought operation in his background featuring Xueheng School in order to make contribution to the promotion of this master’s academic thoughts. This essay discusses the origin, development and dissociation of Xueheng School. In the comparison with humanism from‘Traditional School’, ‘New Culture School’and ‘Irving Babbitt’, the characteristics of Xueheng School were deeply discussed and the outstanding status and unique influence of Liu were revealed. Furthermore, Liu’s thoughts on culture, history, Confucian and education etc.are elaborated upon, and the social influence and contemporary values of his thoughts are reflected upon.;In the chapter of Liu’s cultural views, his cultural concepts featuring integration and innovation and theory of ‘the integration of Chinese and Western cultures’ as well as theory of ‘the westernization of Chinese culture’are discussed.;In the chapter of Liu’s Confucianism views, his thoughts on Confucius, moral argument of Confucianism, and Confucian systems with ‘etiquette’ as core are discussed.;In the chapter of Liu’s educational views, his educational philosophy of ‘taught to be adults’ and traditional education theory and modern education theory featuring liberationist approach are combed.;In the chapter of Liu’s historiographical views, his historiographical perception of ‘practicality’is discussed from three aspects, namely, the history of ethics, history of awareness and the history of righteousness.In the chapter of his influence of thoughts, his academic impacts on his disciples Miu Fenglin, Lin Sun and Zhang Qiyun are introduced. The last chapter witnesses the systematic reflection upon his thoughts, which discloses his conservative culture-nationalism orientation against the context of ostensible conflict between tradition and westernization and the conflict between anti-Confucianism tradition and nationalism. The reflection also brings about three dualities:1)Liu opposed classical Chinese while did not reject vernacular Chinese; 2)opposed literary revolution while did not oppose literary improvement; 3)advocated the maintenance of Confucian culture while did not stick to the conventional cultures. From the holistic perspective of his thoughts, critics is made on his comparison between the traditional Chinese thought and western advanced thought, though his eternal values of Chinese cultural thoughts is affirmed in this dissertation. It is acknowledged that this master’s thought and spirit bear time significance and theoretical values considering their incondensible roles in disseminating national culture, building up national culture confidence, enhancing cultural ‘soft power’ and propelling the harmonious development of society in China.