A Stlldy On Value Nihilism In Current China

Value Nihilism is a state of existence or emotional experience that permeates commonpeople’s life in the context of modernity. From the perspective of academic research, ValueNihilism is part of the study of values or outlook on life. Values are the anchor of individuals’life and the basis of their specific behaviors. For various reasons, once the individual fallsinto the plight of confused values and even value nihilism, their ideals, beliefs and pursuitsare no longer meaningful. The most direct cause of Value Nihilism is the individual’s innerconfusion and conflict over values, which directly leads to the decline of their spiritual world.When the individual faces such fundamental questions as "why" to live or "how to" live, theyexperience the feeling of helplessness and confusion in actions. This negative experiencetends to spread to other people, affecting more victims and aggravating their despair and an"eschatological" complex. When people lose correct values and ideals of life, both individualand social development will be deviated.With the reform and opening up going to a new stage, China faces various socialproblems and conflicts. The changes in social structure, distribution system and employmentlead to contradictions and conflicts in individual’s value choices. The experiences ofmodernity include: values distortion, losing moral ideals, faith crisis, trapped by materialism,and suffering from anxiety and confusion. Value Nihilism erodes Chinese people’s life. Thepresent study analyzes the root causes of Value Nihilism, reveals its evolution trajectory,investigates various ways it affects people’s life, and explores the possible solutions in thecontemporary Chinese context. The study aims to form common values that are recognizedby the whole society under the guidance of the core socialist values, to lead individual’s valuechoice on the basis of full respect for individual’s free development of spirit and personality.The dissertation is divided into five parts. The first part traces the origin of Nihilism andValue Nihilism and distinguishes Nihilism as a value concept from Nihilism as an ontologicalterm. Different from the ontological Nihilism, a reality of non-existence in contrast to thereality of existence, Value Nihilism refers to the inner feelings and emotional experience ofthe individual. With a long history and tradition in the western culture, Nihilism evolves andbecomes increasingly prevailing in today’s world which is characterized by commodityeconomy, scientific and technological progress, and decline of religious influence. While modernity induces the outbreak of Nihilism, how to stop the erosion of Nihilism becomes animportant academic issue.The second part mainly inspects various schools of Nihilism and their evolution in bothChinese and western cultures. Three Chinese schools are mentioned. Taolism is recognized asthe backbone of Chinese culture and the core belief of Taoist Nihilism is “to govern by doingnothing”, which can be exemplified by such ideas as skepticism, denial of uniform socialvalue standards, escape from the reality of life, pursuing freedom of thought, and promotingthe “hermit” image. The advocates of Metaphysics, another philosophical school in Wei andJin Dynasty, witnessed the darkness of the society and greatly suffered from both materialshortage and spiritual dilemma as a result of frequent wars, so they developed a negativeattitude and wished to escape from reality, and, in the real life, they played worldly wise anddid empty talks. Zen Buddhism, the third school of Chinese Nihilism, believes that thesensuous world is all illusory and it denies the meaning of life. The Western Value Nihilismgoes through three stages. First, Christianity, which rose after Roman Empire had collapsed,exaggerates the Deity. The second state is called Rationalism in the modern capitalist period.Rationalism rejects all knowledge derived from the senses of experience, and condemns it asillusory. It leads to a negative view of human. At the third stage, Modernism rejects traditionand thus totally eliminates the significance of the meaningful world. Contrary to thesetheories and thoughts, Marxist doctrine criticizes the harm done by Value Nihilism. Marxismholds that social practice is the source of values and plays a key role in individuals’realization of subjectivity and in the fulfillment of their historical missions. These communistbeliefs have opened up a new perspective of life and proposed solutions to "why" and "howto live".The third part explores the social background of Value Nihilism and expounds andevaluates the different forms Value Nihilism has taken in the period of China’s socialtransformation. China in the twentieth century had the double mission of saving the countryand enlightening its people. Some advanced intellectuals learned and borrowed new ideasfrom the western countries, introducing and translating western philosophies such as theanarchism, nihilism, liberalism, and socialist and Marxist theory. They disputed over howChina should cope with the relation between its own culture and the foreign ideas andinvoked heated discussions about social values. However their opinions were divided, their discussions led to skepticism towards traditional Chinese values and a nation-wide mood ofnihilism. They are all wrong in ignoring the Marxist materialistic dialectics that holds that weshould remove the dross while keeping the essence.Since the founding of People’s Republic of China, value construction, as the core ofcultural construction, has been centered upon promoting the value of serving the people,adhering to collectivism, and developing patriotism to unite the people. But, in the new era ofreform and opening-up, these established values come into conflicts with new ideas whichcome along with the increasingly frequent economic and cultural exchanges with othercountries. Especially in the context of globalization, value conflicts demonstrate at both themacro and micro levels. At the macro level, there are the contradiction between serving thepeople and pursuit of self interest, the conflict between collectivism and individualism, andthe contest between patriotism and cosmopolitanism. At a micro level, individuals areshocked, confused, and helpless when they marvel,“Lei Feng, the moral role model ofChinese people, has gone abroad” or when they read the book “Why is the Road of LifeGetting Even Narrower?” by Pan Xiao, a Chinese writer. On the whole, Chinese ValueNihilism is inevitable and rational on the one hand, and transitional and temporary on theother. But the problem should not be ignored, its hazards and root causes should be analyzed,and countermeasures studied.The fourth part analyzes the consequences of Value Nihilism in four aspects: orientationcrisis, loss of will power, corrosion effect, and collapse of groupness. Firstly, value orients theindividual’s life and loss of value affects his or her orientation mechanism, causing problemswhen the individual makes decisions or makes choices. The reason for Value Nihilism lies inthe change of Chinese traditional social structure from stable family-based units to increasedmobility of population from rural areas to urban cities. Delocalization leads to isolation,insecurity, and loss of identity, all of which induce a widespread sense of Value Nihilism.Secondly, when the spiritual world becomes empty, individuals are extremely easy to lose thewill power but indulge in the chase of materialist enjoyment, popular culture, and the pursuitof novelty and excitement. The pessimistic mood prevailing among the common people ismanifested in many popular slogans such as “Everything is nothing”,“I am just a legend”,“complex at the end of the century”. Thirdly, wrong values corrode correct values. Somecommon wrong ideas include life-is-a-game, money worship, hedonism, and extreme individualism. These ideas prevail in the society and blur the line between right and wrong,corrode correct values, and disintegrate and subvert the traditional culture. Fourthly, thecollapse of groupness exacerbates social atomization. Cultural identity is significant forindividuals’ emotional states and value pursuits. When modernity leads to the crisis ofidentity, individuals suffer from the loss of cultural orientation, they experience intenseanxiety and psychological and behavioral conflicts, which finally lead to the split of commonvalues and negation of the collectivistic viewpoint. Meanwhile, globalization aggravates flowof population and national nihilism. It seems that the tendency of social atomization andValue Nihilism interact with each other.The fifth part explores four main paths that can lead to the termination of Value Nihilism.The first path is to reflect upon and improve value construction and to enhance individuals’consciousness of value. Market economy enslaves human beings by emphasizing money andmaterial aspects of life but clouding the existence of self. To raise individuals’ awareness ofvalues should be accomplished on the basis of care for people’s spiritual needs and spiritualgrowth. The second path is to do theoretical work to clarify the pros and cons of the variousprevailing values and to find the root of Value Nihilism so that effective countermeasures canbe found. These measures may include reflecting upon the way of current ideological andpolitical education, adopting effective methods of educating people, cultivating criticalthinking, and guiding people to choose their values and faith in a rational way. The third pathis to emphasize the leading role of the core social value system, to guide the public to makechoices in accordance with the requirements of the core values of the society, and to build ascientific value system. The fourth path is to promote the whole nation’s value innovation inthe process of participating in the social, economic and political reforms. Practice is thesource of values and the foundation of life. Once individuals take part in the enterprise, theycreate the meaning of life. They realize that they are creative and have great potentials; theycan not only create a meaningful life for themselves but also fulfill the historical mission ofthe time.