Chen Duxiu's Modernization Idea At The Early Age Of New Culture Movement

This paper mainly focuses on the content and meanings of Chen duxiu's modernism idea during the early age of New Culture Movement. In this period, based on the evolutionarily, Chen Duxiu proved that the development of society was a increasing progress from the low-level to the high-level, and then he pointed out that China should walk on the road of modernism. Comparing Chinese culture with the western's, Chen Duxiu changed the relationship of "Chinese" and "Western" into "Old" and "New", then reached the value-judgment of "lag" and "advance", finally concluded that China should get rid of the old and create the new and welcome the westernization road.Chen Duxiu regarded the revolution of idea about culture value as the key point of Chinese modernization and tried to use the western modern culture, especially the "democracy" and the "science", to create the new value system. At the early age of New Culture Movement, Chen Duxiu understood the "democracy" based on the positivism and the key point of democracy was individual independence and freedom, which had the feature of liberalism, while he understood the "science" based on the scientific view of humanitarianism and have an obvious scientific trend. There was conflict when Chen Duxiu rebuilt the value. He emphasized on the right of person and focused on the individual freedom, as well as called on "do good both to him and others" to deal with the relationship between individual and society, while he also protested that the society was the paramount. In the same way, he protested science with the trend of "science should take the place of religion", however, he advocated the Christianity to rebuild the value, which showed the conflict during the process of "get rid of the old" and "create the new" and the conflict didn't solve until he accepted the Marxism.