The Transformation Of Confucianism And The New Cultural Movement

Attacking Confucianism and language movement are the two main symbols of the New Cultural Movement. And the two symbols are directly related to the historical process that elites of Confucianism such as Kang Youwei and Zhang Taiyan meditated the problems of Confucian traditions and tried to find out solutions when they confronted the task how the nation could survive after 1898, or they failed to do it, which led to more deep cultural crisis. This dissertation tries to demonstrate this historical process and call the New Culture inner problems resulted in the transformation of Confucianism. The study underlines the historical process of the making of the New Culture's key values, which apparently is different from the way of contemporary relevant studies that used to trace traditional resources from the New Cultural Movement. Otherwise, the study looks forward to changing the stereotypes of the New Cultural Movement, historically opening up the routes for modern transformation of Confucianism and activating the pluralistic contents of the New Cultural Movement.Kang Youwei and Zhang Taiyan were both considered as the most important but definitely different representatives of modern Confucian thoughts. According to the complicated relationships consisting of them and their students as successors and enemies, based on new materials, exploring new problems, the study focuses on Kang Youwei and Zhang Taiyan's true problems they encountered in the history of the transformation of Confucianism and responses in the New Cultural Movement, analyzes the making of New Culture under the background of the great changes taking place in the political field in modern China, the traditional academic diversities and the conflicts with European or Japanese thoughts. There are four chapters in this dissertation because the historical impetus of the transformation came from four aspects. First, under the threat of Japanese imperialism, the elites had to face the Confucian discourses absorbed by the theory of Meiji Japan's National Polity and differentiate it from Chinese Confucianism in this trans-cultural context. After going into exile to Taiwan because of 1898's coup d'etat, on the one hand Zhang Taiyan continued to argue with Kang Youwei, on the other hand he gradually realized Japanese kind of Confucianism and tried to point out ethical political and religious differences between two countries' Confucianism. This trend of anti-Confucianism lasted in the New Cultural Movement.Second, the encroachment of Christianism impacted the structure of traditional belief, and the politics of modern China ceaselessly influenced the elites' attitude to other kinds of religions besides Confucianism, which made them ponder what the orthodox belief should be and the relationship between orthodox and unauthorized cults in China. That is to say, the conflicts of orthodox and unauthorized cults in modern China happened not only between Confucianism and other kinds of religions but also among different factions existing within Confucianism itself. The faction represented by Zhang Taiyan that resisted to God criticized Kang Youwei's faction that acknowledged God as the worst unauthorized cult and finally merged with the anti-Confucianism tide in the New Cultural Movement.Third, catalyzed by the thought of "citizen", Confucianism that used to be the ideology of traditional imperial society had to transform to fit for the new citizen. Kang Youwei and his student Liang Qichao outlined two ways as building churches or institutes to make Confucianism fit for the new citizen. However, because of restoration of monarchy for two times in early years of Republic China, Chen Duxiu and other New Cultural people who deeply believed in citizen theory considered Confucianism as slavery ethics and tied it to the policy of restoration of monarchy so that they fiercely attacked Confucian ethics, which meant Confucianism hadn't conquered the biggest obstacle for its modern transformation.Last but not least, the elites who used to professionally study Confucian canons by philology now replied the doubts that depreciated their studies meaningless and constructed a new national ideal by their philological knowledge, through which they found out modern professional orientation. Zhang Taiyan broke philology for just archeology away from canon study, turned it into modern useful philology as dealing with living languages and built his national ideal "returning to dialects". In the New Cultural Movement especially language revolution that most participators were Zhang Taiyan's students such as Qian Xuantong, Zhou Zuoren and Shen Jianshi, Zhang's design was selected and succeeded, at last became useful resources for New Cultural people to actively build Chinese national language and literature.