Transcendence And Salvation: Mysticism And Political Ideologies In The Modern China

The dual core concepts of generalized mysticism are transcendence and salvation. Mysticism in this definition does not conflict with science, humanities nor reason, but embodies these concepts. The mysticism in this sense could be interpreted as a kind of generalized humanism, speculating on and questing for the ultimate unknown existence, in order to help human beings better survive in the dual framed world of orders and significance.The mysticism itself, splitting into three traditions of the kingship order, magisterium order and spirit order, interrelated with as well as contradicted to each other, continuously engenders self-negation and sublation to realize the power of self improvement, maintaining the vigor of system renovation. If the mysticism being considered as a moving concept, then the three traditional order systems could be interpreted as its materialized expressions. Kingship order is the authority of mundane order. Magisterim is the organized power to counter balance and restrict the kingship order. And the individual spirit order could digest the rigidity and alienation of these two organized authorities. Connecting with the God, the mysticism transcends human's limited (limitation of) cognition and capacity to act, and contains the profound experience and anxiety of the insignificance and the possible corruptibility; thus the mysticism itself has mobility, a function against rigidity and dogmatism.The mysticism in the western culture has developed adequately in these three powers, forming the dual political tradition with self renovation vigor. While in China, the mysticism was developed insufficiently in the latter two powers, forming the extremely powerful but rigid kingship as a centralized politics. Because the characteristics of equipment rationalization and secularity humanization were generated too early in the ancient China, the mysticism has not gone through the steps of self-development and maturity; i.e. the progress is interrupted. In the path of heaven-Tao-virtue-sagehood, sage did not become a kind of counterbalance against kingship, but indeed was taken advantage of by the kingship. In the ideology structure forming from the end of Zhou dynasty to Han dynasty, the external transcendence did not exist, while the internal transcendence killed the personality instead of exalting spirits, and the salvage temperament was diluted by the namely pursuing-goodness. These factors co-acted and made the mysticism developed only alone the kingship direction. Meanwhile none of the Confucianism, the Taoism, and Buddhism has helped the magisterium order and the spirit order form in the thousands of years' history.During the conflict, collision and syncretism of eastern and western ideologies in the modern China, the mysticism ontributed plenty ideology resources to help these two cultures to communicate. Almost the whole intelligentsia that were deeply influenced by the Chinese traditional cultures and endeavoring to absorb western thoughts, as well as the various popular politic thoughts, are in some kind of underlying and embedded connection with these mysticism resources. Although the political and social thoughts such as liberalism and anarchism are the products of modern rationalism, their tough survival in China indeed is the result of difference between eastern and western mysticism orders. The strong power of regalia together with the absence of magisterium order and spirit order makes some main contestations of liberalism lose comprehension and support in China, main contestations such as emphasizing personal rights, regime facility trend, and no trust in government, and also makes some main contestations of anarchism tend to be profound paradox. The utopianism of universalism gradually developed into self-contradictory nationalism and authoritarianism, which is one of the paradox examples. The Marxism assembles the western traditional thoughts and agrees with eastern traditions at the same time. The integrality of this theory, the pursuit of temporal Utopia, the temperament of transcendence and salvation, all these fulfilled the needs of China at that time and greatly helped Marxism succeed in China. But the profound and huge differences between the eastern and western traditions lead to the variation of Marxism in its progress of localization. The analysis of the thoughts of Kang Youwei and Liu Shipei in someway is also helpful in understanding Chinese modern intellectual's anxiety, original from the conflict, collision and syncretism of thoughts, and their tough exploring in political choosing.