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Xinmin Said That While "in The National Ideology

Posted on:2002-07-13Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:Y Q ChenFull Text:PDF
GTID:2206360122466548Subject:Chinese philosophy
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Liang Qi-chao was a great influential both in Chinese recent culture and in politics reform. This thesis aims at his thoughts about nationalism in the period of "New people theory". A new discovery of this thesis is the core of Liang's nationalism is connected with Meiji thoughts in Japan.As a kind of political theory, nationalism view nation as the highest human group, which is different from the "Great Unity " and from the individualism of liberalism. It insists that the unity of a nation should be preferable to democracy and freedom, therefore the individual should devote for his nation without any additional condition. All are shown in Liang's "New people theory ".First, Liang 's theory changed the "World group" into "Nation group". In other words, the relation of group-individual in political ethics was the debate on public-individual between the individual and the group. Liang abandoned the ideal of "Great unity " according to the social theory in Meiji times in Japan. Fukuzawa Yukichi worked out a theory, which insisted the patriot should be an egoist of his country. And Nakamura Masano also insisted that people should devote for the health and happiness of their country, which different from the early idea that the evolution with lead to full benevolence and full beauty.Second, Liang's freedom idea was also incline to nationalism. He so-called freedom did not mean the political liberty including rights, personality, democracy, and so on. He meant the spiritual freedom under conscience, connecting reality with ego. This kind of idea of freedom tied with national organism became the important basis of nationalism, which raised the national freedom and at the same time suppressed the individual rights and personality. About the problem between freedom and authority, Liang thought that China should practise open-minded tyranny, which meant tyrannizing on the nation but not on the people, just like Meiji times in Japan.Additionally, Liang used traditional resources, Wang Yang-ming's philosophy, to cultivate such a kind of people, who was patriotic and inclined to taking actions. He demanded social actions under the innate knowledge, which was originated from "the extension of innate knowledge" and "the identification of knowledge and action" by Wang. The main character of the research about Yang-ming's philosophy in Japan was the unity between "the identification of knowledge and action" and reform ofsociety. It was also a complexity of Wang's philosophy and bushido which was a law not written in the paper but in people's heart. Its power lied in practical action indeed. Liang used Wang's philosophy as a basis of his theory just because the action-directed inclination of the research of Wang in Japan.But Liang's social ideal, nationalism, didn't bear, as it did in Japan. Even his theory could not be a main one in the theory circle. Viewing it in the history of thoughts, there were some handicap factions. First of all, for China had no her own symbol of nation for a long time, it was very difficult to cultivate an ideal of nationalism. The politics in China was so useless and corrupt that the symbol of nation was eroded badly. But the absolutely political power in Japan was pride of their nation and their country. Second, the traditional idea of "Ren" was not suit for Liang's thoughts. Chinese culture holds an idea that one should abide by conscience but not the emperor. That was different from the religion-like feeling, which was hold out by Japanese directed to Japanese Emperor. Therefore it was very difficult for Chinese to accept the tyrant political authority of nationalism.What is more important is the interaction and inter-melting among different thoughts. On the one hand, the Great unity tradition was looked forward to by the socialism and the anarchism. Their radical ways was more appealing for the people than the nationalism's conservative idea. The other hand, the individualism of liberalism also demanded personality and rights be revered, therefore the nationalism was object ra...
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