A Comparative Study Of Liang Qichao's "Theory Of New People" And Lu Xun's Thought Of "Building Man"

When we discuss the ideological trend of reflection of "national characters",Liang Qichao and Lu Xun are both existence that can't be ignored.Their arguments about "national characters" have become an important cultural resource of the Chinese enlightenment thought in twentieth Century with their excellent theoretical construction.Besides,it participates in the process of the transformation of Chinese modern culture.In this paper,we hope to ponder over the inheritance and diversification between "theory of new people" and thought of "building man" by making a comprehensive comparative study and observe the rule of the evolution of intergenerational culture,so as to further understand how modern enlightenment thought explore,learn and develop in a number of dimensions about China and the West?the tradition and the modernity?the group and the individual,and so on.The introduction part firstly explains the origin of the thesis.In the modern history of China,Liang Qichao and Lu Xun,as the representatives of the Wu Xu period and the May Fourth period,both play a very important role.The theory of"national characters" proposed by them come together to form a clue about the enlightenment of ideas.Therefore,there is a basis for comparison between Liang Qichao and Lu Xun.Secondly,this part defines the core concepts of "theory of new people" and thought of "building man".In a nutshell,they are all enlightenment plans put forward at the beginning of 20th century in light of the reality of the backwardness of the quality of Chinese people.At last,we make a literature review on the existing research results on this topic to clarify the significance of this study.The first chapter mainly talks about the inheritance of Liang Qichao and Lu Xun's theories of "national characters".First of all,by a brief analysis of the correlation between Liang Qichao and Lu Xun in the historical dimension,we take it as a factual background information for later comprehensive comparison of the two enlightenment ideas.Then,we analyze the acceptance between their theories of"national characters".Liang Qichao and Lu Xun both focus their attention on the proposition of enlightenment of man's thought,showing similarities in two aspects.First,both Liang Qichao and Lu Xun regard "evolutionism" as the starting point for constructing the theory of enlightenment,which enables them to stand above a critical position from the very beginning.Second,Liang Qichao and Lu Xun produce many similar arguments in the specific process of criticizing citizens' ill-behave,which mainly points to the attack on ignorance?slavery?rhathymia?apathy and falsity.The second chapter explores the different spiritual connotation between the"theory of new people" and the thought of "building man" at two different cultural levels.The idea of "building man" transcends the existing framework of the "theory of new people" and shows a new face.First of all,as far as the idea of "a person" is concerned,"citizen" that Liang Qichao talks about has not essentially escaped the concept of grandiose meaning such as class,class and country,and it has always regarded "group value" as its own value principle.Lu Xun,on the other hand,hold"man" as a self-contained concept independent of the external entity,which embodies a principle of "oneness".In addition,on the way of improving "national characters",Liang uses his "macroscopic vision" to recognize the connection between human nature and the external environment and advocate his own enlightenment ideal through positive moral education and intellectual education.Meanwhile,Lu Xun's vision is focused on the "inner spirit of the subjective".He advocates cultivating the"warriors of spiritual world",whose self-representation can stimulate "the inner voice" and "the light of heart" of other people,and ultimately realize the goal of "go to me".In the second chapter,we have analyzed the connotation of the theory.The third chapter mainly discusses the characteristics of verbal expression.Liang's political paper has a feature of "the slogan" because of its design about "word" and "sentence",having a strong motivating effect.Lu Xun,s thought of "building man" is persistent in real life.Compared with Liang Qichao,Lu Xun pays more attention to using the image thinking of "direct demonstration of ice" as the principle of literary creation.Behind the heterogeneous manifestation,the real implication of two different consciousness of identity,"savior" and "a person who diagnoses",is implied.The conclusion part summarizes the significance of Liang Qichao and Lu Xun in the process of intergenerational change of culture.During the "intergenerational period",they no longer focus on the implement aspect and the system aspect,but aim at the man himself.It is in line with the main theme of the evolution of modern Chinese culture and thus has the effect of promoting the evolution of intergenerational culture to some extent.At the same time,the significance of the coordinate point lies in the law of the intergenerational evolution of the culture that indicated by the differences between them.The most notable one is the return to the noumenon of human being.A more conscious cultural consciousness which backtrackings oneself hides under it.And the spread of this concept shows profoundly how culture is transformed and fused between tradition and modernity for a new meaning system.From it,we can also investigate one or two sides of the transformation of cultural modernization.