The Irrational Tendency In Enlightenment Written By Wang Guowei

In the central part of 19th century, the roaring development of capitalism in the western world as well as the according crazy colonial expansion led to the ancient China faced with an unprecedented challenge and comprehensive crisis, awakening the natives especially the modern intellectuals' sense of hardship. They positively tried to seek a way to revive the motherland, in the process, realizing the huge distance between the Oriental and the West civilizations, they sprouted the idea of learning from the west. From the Statecraft School and the Westernization School to the later Reformation School, the pioneers turned their eyes to the western civilized systems, from learning the manufacture methods of machines to borrowing their advanced political systems, their scope got more and more deepening. Among them, Liang Qichao, with unique insight of an initiative thinker, did the best in combination of natives spiritual state with the establishment of a modern country and drew up the curtain for the early 20th century Enlightenment Movement. Derived from the rational spirit of Enlightenment Movement in France in the 18th century and through reformation democracy , he strengthened the consciousness of national community. This kind of initiative thought based on the rational consciousness took up mainstream in the thought circle. In the same contemporary, Wang Guowei, facing the life directly and desiring the exposure of own soul represented the irrational option under the mainstream consciousness which attached great importance to rationality, compensated the neglect toward human beings by advocating life and continued the road of Enlightenment with irrational awareness. From self- extrication, he deduced the enlightening strategies of the society, in which the tragic awareness and emphasis on arts conveyed the connotations of ideological climate at the end of the century.In the late years of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning years of ROC, uncivilized phenomena were flooded everywhere. In this situation, Wang Guowei initiated to enrich natives inner world from the point of emotional promotion, and consoled people's emotions with art and aesthetics. Influenced by voluntarism pessimistic ethics in the Schopenhauer Arther philosophy, Wang Guowei shows great approval toward the tragic consciousness, holding that the tragedy has person's inner world purified, thus having huge enlightenment function to life. He has a persistent preference to the "talent"complex, namely the talented artists can express true life experiences and rich life emotions, which enable the average to obtain emotional culture in the process of experiencing beautifulness. The basic intention in his opinions primarily correspond to Schopenhauer Arther's the "talent" dispute, Nietzsche's "superman" saying. Wang Guowei emphasizes art has "the use of useless", in other words, art can not only promote one's emotional state but maintain the dynamic life, raise humans' life essence, and play a vital role in the purification of hearts and comfort mentality. Wang Guowei's Enlightenment road follows the emotional texture, concerns with human inner world, and tries hard to renew the spiritual space through the emotional inspiration so as to have the humanity develop toward the healthy direction. He probes the Enlightenment issues towards the innermost feelings of own life which is a thought-provoking inquiry of the meanings and further belongings of life, his choice represents the firm belief in individual personality. Standing from the modern humanism, Wang Guowei shows great concern for individual life. With the starting point of research on human, his Enlightenment views stress fully the emotional comfort, provides the value attachment for beings' development and illustrates the concern to humanistic moods. Absorbed in the positive opinions on individuality and the irrational thoughts in the modern aesthetics in the western world, Wang Guowei borrows them to save the souls of present social beings, which is definitely a representation of unique thinking of the prospect of China.