The Voice of the Individual

4 April 1993, Paris (paper presented at the Nation, Society and the Individual symposium held at Stockholm University)

I AM HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS WHENEVER the name of a collective is invoked; I actually become afraid that this collective name will strangle me before I have the chance to say anything. "Chinese intellectuals" is a collective noun that I cannot, of course, represent, and I am terrified that if it represents me I will be annihilated. However, it happens to be one of the issues for discussion today, and it may be said to be a very important issue.

In the period from the failure of the Hundred Day Reforms in 1898 to the 1911 Revolution, what were known in the West as intellectuals began to appear in China. Before that, in my view, China's intellectual class consisted only of scholars or gentry, who, while greatly concerned about individual conduct and about literature, also emphasized the spiritual. They esteemed moral perfection, but that morality was limited to Confucian ethical standards. The nature-orientated philosophy of the Daoists led to non-action, and the nirvana of the Buddhists further eroded individuality. Neither the eccentric behavior of the famous scholars of the Wei and Jin dynasties nor the sprouting of urban culture at the end of die Ming dynasty were able to provide the Chinese intellectual class with the soil that could produce individualism. Individualism is in fact a recent product of the rationalist traditions of Western Protestant culture and the subsequent flourishing of capitalism.

Chinese intellectuals did not form a social class that was independent of the ruling power until the new culture movement of the May Fourth period, following the collapse of feudal imperialism and the flooding of Western thinking into China. An awareness of modern individualism came about with the introduction of Western political thinking; it primarily fulfilled a political need, and the need to acknowledge the value of an individual's spiritual activities was secondary. The result was that Chinese intellectuals, as individual thinking persons, came to speak to society in the name of the individual.

However, this ideal situation did not last. By the 1930s, just a decade later, domestic turmoil, foreign threat, revolution and war again hopelessly embroiled Chinese intellectuals in political struggles to save the nation and the people. Whether they were aware of it or not, and perhaps for reasons beyond their control, they transformed themselves into the tools of political factional fighting, or were used as tools by the political factions. Although small numbers of them tried to maintain their independence, it was difficult for them to continue thinking and writing. This has been the tragic experience of China's modern intellectual class from its very inception.

These circumstances meant that at the same time as affirming their spiritual worth as individuals, Chinese intellectuals had to free themselves from the tenacious grip of political conflict. Unlike their Western counterparts, it was hard for them to separate learning and literary creation from politics, and to be able to fully realize their personal worth in the realm of purely spiritual activities. Either they entered politics or they were subjected to political harassment, and for close to a century there has been interminable political turmoil. Today Chinese intellectuals are reviewing history not to blame their predecessors, but to find a way of extricating themselves from this nightmarish predicament. This, I think, is a good starting point for discussion of the problem.

Criticism of history cannot replace criticism of present reality, and criticism of present reality cannot replace present reality itself. The present reality is that China's intellectuals remain in the same predicament. There is still no guarantee of basic human rights such as freedom of speech, publishing and news reporting. When Chinese intellectuals who have gained such rights abroad research and discuss the general relationship between the individual, society and the state, they find it impossible to forget the specific situation in China, and they undertake their research on China's history and present reality in order to sort themselves out. Since they cannot change history and cannot save monolithic China, they would do well just to save themselves.

Is it a historical necessity for Chinese intellectuals to place the heavy burden of saving the nation and the race upon their shoulders at the same time as affirming their personal worth? Is it possible for Chinese intellectuals to have a slightly better fate? Is it possible not to be a savior or a sacrifice while asserting the individual's value and independence? Under the totalitarian government of China these possibilities are indeed slight. 

This is not to say that the elite of China's first generation of intellectuals did not champion the worth of the individual; indeed, the courageous effort and uncompromising stance of Lu Xun and Hu Shi remain unmatched by anyone in China's current intellectual world. However, not being able to take control of politics and instead falling foul of endless political faction fighting, Chinese intellectuals have suffered extreme hardship. Undeniably, political participation has been a matter of individual choice, but this widespread choice by Chinese intellectuals reveals an inherent weakness unrelated to China's social reality.

Having censured the deep-rooted nature of Chinese nationalism, it is now time to consider an inherent weakness in Chinese intellectuals themselves. The self-worth that was promoted with fanatical fervor during the May Fourth period made it generally difficult for Chinese intellectuals to withstand the onslaught of political tides, because this form of self-worth was a romantic sentiment, not a mature rational understanding of the notion. Its origins did not lie in the French rationalism of the Enlightenment but in Nietzsche's German philosophy of the Superman, so it was not true individualism but a tragic belief in the supremacy of the individual. 

This newly awakened self was very fragile, and when suddenly confronted by the collective interests of the race, nation or class, it easily fused into a single entity - a bloated big self - that became the spokesperson of the race, nation or class. As a result, the spiritual autonomy of the individual was easily swallowed up by the collective will of the race, nation or class. Whether it was Lu Xun-style revolutionary radicalism, Hu Shi-style liberalism, Guo Moruo-style capitulation to communism or Zhou Zuoren-style surrender to imperialism, it all came under the flag of saving the nation and the people, even if at times the aim was only to save oneself. This self interest is, I fear, characteristic of Chinese intellectuals, even if, from the standpoint of China's old intellectual class of scholars and upright gentlemen, the moral conduct of these individuals is beyond reproach.

Although Chinese intellectuals had to some extent been influenced by Western individualism, being the progeny of traditional Chinese literati culture they ultimately were not able to extricate themselves from the overweening influence of the ancestral land that was a part of traditional Chinese ethics. It must be recognized that it is this deeply entrenched patriotism that is the greatest psychological obstacle to any unwavering affirmation of the individual's worth by Chinese intellectuals.

Only the few who went abroad were able to overcome this obstacle and, by teaching in Western universities or finding some means to a livelihood away from their ancestral land, to maintain a certain degree of freedom in their writing and creative work. Yet whenever the feeling of patriotism assailed them they would rush back to their beloved homeland, where they would again fall foul of this predicament, or become utterly frustrated and despondent.

I see this sort of patriotism as a trap for Chinese intellectuals. What is nowadays called "China sentiment" is in fact a form of psychosis from which Chinese intellectuals must free themselves.

Chinese intellectuals have never clearly separated the concept of nation from their notion of the individual. Because individuality has always been repressed in China's traditional culture, any articulation of human rights will stop at the right to personal existence, and there are only ever very cautious attempts to encourage freedom in the spiritual activities of the individual. "The scholar may be killed but not humiliated" and "To kill oneself is benevolence" are sayings that refer to moral integrity, but are associated with the sacrosanct ethics of loyalty to the ruler, and have nothing to do with the individual's freedom of thought. As long as ideology is truth one can die without fear, and even if a Western ideology suddenly becomes the truth for saving the nation it will be similarly endowed with ethical lustre. Chiang Kai-shek's nationalism and Mao Zedong's communism were both empowered by reverting to the ethical traditions of feudal imperial China. It was therefore difficult for the fledgling individualism of Chinese intellectuals to ward off the onslaught of the totalitarian state, which had its foundations in this deep-rooted collective subconscious.

I believe that it is the responsibility of Chinese intellectuals today to destroy this modern myth of the nation. The reason why it is so difficult to affirm basic human rights, especially the right to freedom of thought, is because the burden of patriotism on Chinese intellectuals is too heavy. The nation's political authority has always restrained the individual by imposing the collective will, and beyond a certain point this is invasive and harmful to the individual's basic human rights, and amounts to repression. Whether it be in the name of the race or of the people, state dictatorships that infringe upon or deny the individual's right to freedom of thought are guilty of committing human rights crimes. 

For almost a century the Chinese intellectual world has had no shortage of heroes who have been killed or freely sacrificed themselves for the nation, the people or even a political party, yet there have been' very few to publicly proclaim their willingness to risk their lives for the sake of the individual's right to freedom of thought and self-expression. To rebel against one's ancestral land or become the enemy of the people is considered the most serious of crimes, and for Chinese intellectuals the psychological pressure of morality is harder to endure than being subjected to physical harm. This to some extent explains why many intellectuals of the left wing and within the Communist Party have willingly risked their lives for the nation and the revolution and why they rushed to acknowledge their crimes when the political authorities they had supported suddenly labeled them as rightists or counter-revolutionaries. 

Chinese intellectuals opposed feudal ethics and political authority with extraordinary valor, yet when confronted by this modern superstition - the myth of the nation - they seemed to have their hands tied and be totally helpless. This was because the superstition had its source in the national psyche; it was more deeply rooted than any kind of ethics, and it was sustained by fear. In any confrontation it was the individual's life pitted against the huge national collective, and the individual's survival instinct made it impossible for him not to be terrified. The feudal empire had collapsed, but the feudal ethical system, with its web of loyalties to the ruler, had mutated into a race-based patriotic sentiment that exerted an equally powerful moral force. When those in control of the nation made use of the power at their disposal to activate all the machinery of propaganda, it was easy for them to manufacture such a fallacy. What the individual seemed to confront was no longer a finite number of people controlling them, but the whole nation, or rather that abstract notion that had been given the name of "the race" or "the people". This is a strategy commonly used in modern totalitarian politics. The more loudly catchwords like patriotism and nationalism are shouted the more suspect they are. Chiang Kai-shek's "The nation is supreme", and in more recent times Mao Zedong's "Dictatorship of the people", also came under the flag of patriotism. 

If it is argued that for Chinese intellectuals the dream of an independent, wealthy and strong China has stifled freedom of thought, then their collective consciousness must be suffering from some congenital defect. This was first manifested as communist thinking began to take root in China: intellectuals failed to distinguish between those who work with the mind and other social classes, such as workers and peasants. They persisted in thinking of themselves as the spokespeople of the masses and thus often overlooked their own special rights. In fact, the spiritual work of the intellectual requires an affirmation of individual worth more than it requires the general economic, political and educational rights to which workers, peasants, laborers and merchants are also entitled.

On coming to power; the Chinese Communist Party had a far superior understanding of the need for this separation than the Chinese intellectuals, and it reduced the social status of intellectuals to below that of workers and peasants. However, from the 1930s Chinese intellectuals - not just tl1e left-wing intellectuals, but also the many liberals who became Bolsheviks or who recast themselves as part of the masses - began abrogating the right to freedom of thought that they had won during the May Fourth period. It may therefore be said that impoverishment of the thinking of Chinese intellectuals had set in prior to the dictatorship of the proletariat. 

As a social class, Chinese intellectuals have not had a strong consciousness of themselves as individuals and generally have not confronted society as individuals, although a feeling of loneliness often revealed itself in Lu Xun's early writings. In fact, it is precisely in the uncompromising independence of the individual that the creative spirit lies. When the intellectual confronts society as an individual, his existence is more real. If the self of the intellectual is dissolved in the collective big self, or what is known as "we", the individual self no longer exists. 

The position occupied by Chinese intellectuals at present requires that they first strive for their basic human rights as individuals living in modern times. Apart from the right to survival, these include the right to freedom of thought - that is, freedom to speak:, write and publish without political sanctions and without having to pay a high price for this right. 

After 1949 the Chinese Communist Party took charge of the livelihood of intellectuals, and, through its policy of reforming their thinking to the service of the people, took away their capacity for independent existence. Their right to independent thought was also restricted to increasingly narrow guidelines, as stipulated by the Party, with slight transgressions resulting in severe punishments. This therefore determined that any debates in the Chinese intellectual world became political struggles, even factional clashes within the Communist Party. In the fields of scholarship, literature and the arts, there could be no individual creations, because even these areas had been turned into tools of propaganda for the Party, and intellectuals themselves were carrying out orders as cogs in the national machinery under its leadership. This totalitarian politics reached a high point during the Cultural Revolution: intellectuals had no guarantee of space for a private life, their personal security could be threatened at any time, and countless numbers of them were branded as rightists. 

Needless to say, intellectuals did not protest, and fleeing from tl1is all-pervasive dictatorship was virtually impossible - apart from the exceptional case of tl1e violinist and composer Ma Sicong. On the contrary, it was only from within the Party that the likes of the extraordinary veteran of the opposition faction, Chen Yi, with his intellectual origins, were bold enough to take a stand and retaliate. All of tl1is took place in tl1e name of the revolution, and later on the collective will was brought to an even higher level of concentration, which manifested itself as the worship of Mao Zedong's leadership. Lu Xun's being elevated to the status of a divinity was another outcome of this political need. Humankind's primitive superstitious belief in spirits re-emerged as a superstitious belief in the race, the nation and the leader. As an individual, the intellectual is neither a disciple nor a hero, and likewise, when threatened by the collective, Chinese intellectuals were unable to escape the physiological instinct of fear that is a universal human weakness. 

In the 1980s Deng Xiaoping's policy of reform and opening up to the outside world meant the relaxing of stringent restrictions on thinking, literature and the arts, and as a result Chinese intellectuals gained a limited amount of private space. Alongside the political struggle for democracy, there was a resurgence in individuality and consciousness of the self, and Nietzsche's philosophy of the Superman, with its romantic notion of saving the world, once again became a powerful intellectual tide. And Chinese intellectuals once again re-enacted their historical roles, as heroes of the race and tl1e nation, and as victims. 

At the same time there began a new trend that represented a shift from the fight for the individual's space to exist to the fight for the individual's space for spiritual activities. This non-politicized wave of thinking amongst Chinese intellectuals, it should be noted, was also a political battle to get rid of the controls of government ideology, but it no longer linked the freedom of the individual with the fate of the nation and the race. 

It was difficult at times to absolutely separate these two trends of thinking, and sometimes they would clash. When the latter was promoted the former often exerted moral pressure on it, and in the latter's ridiculing of the former it was often forgotten that what the latter promoted was only possible with the backing of the former. This clash of ideas within the ranks of Chinese intellectuals was due to the fact that they had not yet liberated themselves from the shadow of history. 

I do not oppose intellectuals who go into politics. In my own case, while I have no intention of going into politics, I have no compunctions about publicizing my political opinions. Political views, even political activities, can be associated with the individual intellectual's creative activities; the two areas are not mutually exclusive. Whether intellectuals go into politics, or simply devote themselves to pure scholarship or pure literature, is a matter of individual choice, and all sorts of choices are possible. 

However, if all Chinese intellectuals are swept into politics then the misfortunes of the Chinese intellectual world since May Fourth will inevitably be repeated. I have heartfelt reverence for the many intellectuals who went to the extent of sacrificing their lives for the nation, the people and democracy, but I also grieve for those intellectuals who did not want to go into politics but through no crime of their own ended up committing their own scholarly and artistic lives to the grave. This generally has not constituted a problem for intellectuals in the West, but Chinese intellectuals have had to pay too high a price. My reflecting upon the history of Chinese intellectuals today is an attempt to somehow reduce the occurrence of such misfortunes. 

I do not think that China will suddenly change before the end of the century and that Chinese intellectuals can expect work conditions in the near future that approach those of their counterparts in the West. In China, ideological controls on intellectuals have not been removed, and with the addition of the cultural commercialization brought about by market economics, a twofold pressure has been created. If the present generation of Chinese intellectuals continue the old dream of their predecessors it will still be difficult for them to avoid becoming funerary objects in the political struggles of Party factions. The large numbers of Chinese intellectuals who went to live abroad in exile after the Tiananmen events of 1989 experienced an awakening, and if they were able to shake off that persistent China complex and do what they chose to do, it was an even greater awakening. 

The spiritual creations of the intellectual are the acts of the individual. The individual will feel lonely within his social environment, but his creations will be more authentic than any created by some made-up collective, however wonderful its slogans. 

Fleeing, of course, is by no means the purpose of life. It is merely a strategy for self-preservation. Under the weight of reality, even more important is spiritual fleeing. It is impossible for creative activities - culture - to transcend real existence, so what intrinsic value do they have? The difference between thought processes and animal instincts in humans is reflected in their capacity to imagine, and culture is the crystallization of this. Human transcendence of matter and spiritual transcendence of the external world are totally dependent on this capacity, and it is only in the spiritual world created by the imagination that the freedom of the individual's consciousness can be fully realized. However, given the circumstances of both past and present reality, when the individual seeks to realize his will, passionately imagining himself as a hero who will save the world but failing to think rationally about it, he will necessarily become a hero of the race and the people, and then a political martyr. If he demands that others be martyred along with him, this will amount to the collective suicide of China's intellectual world. In the fields of scholarship, literature and the arts, if the expression of the self expands to the exclusion of the choices of others, and the self only is revered as God, probably it can only lead to the individual's insanity.

Whether it is in the name of the collective, the race, the ancestral land or the people, the expansion of the individual's will and the unlimited bloating of the consciousness of the self manifest themselves as extremisms that will lead to the loss of freedom and the destruction of the self. While realizing one's individual freedom, that of others must be respected, and this is in effect a limitation. The democracy of modern societies is fow1ded on basic human rights that involve limited freedom. Responsibility and cooperation, respect and tolerance are necessary preconditions for realizing the will of the individual and the expression of the self in modern societies.

Looking back at the numerous debates in the Chinese intellectual world over this past century, it would seem that it was hard to break out of the mould of negation for the sake of negation and criticism for the sake of criticism; this was also the case in re-evaluations of Chinese traditions. In the cultural thinking of China during the past hundred years, fighting has won over building up and criticism has won over creation. The violent principles of criticism and antinomy have considerably impoverished modern China's cultural thinking. 

Tradition or reform, Chinese spirituality or Westernization, to criticize or to inherit, Chineseness or modernity, literature or politics - for the sake of literature, life or the people; class nature, the nature of the people, the Party's nature, human nature or individuality - who is to arbitrate? Eastern or Western, authentic or inauthentic, form or content, realism or modernism, Third World or postrl1odernism, even modernism or postmodernism - all such debates are traps. The conditions, the arguments and even the conclusions of such debates are decided beforehand, and if one becomes involved one need not bother thinking about escaping. It is essential for Chinese intellectuals to break out of this mindset of fighting for quick solutions, to avoid the trap of debates and each go his own way, because these interminable disputes lead nowhere. 

Throughout the past century the Chinese intellectual world has attempted to find the truth from the West. Let us for the time being not concern ourselves with whether or not truth exists. But the communism that swept the world from World War I until after World War II is bankrupt, and the socialism that was popular in Western Europe after World War II is in critical decline, while traditional Western liberalism, though surviving, is facing one crisis after another. Instead, it is racism that has suddenly reared its head. At a time when Chinese intellectuals are in the process of throwing off the myth of the nation and striving for political democracy, whether they will be able to avoid falling into the lair of racism again and to firmly uphold the independence of the individual's conscience remains problematic. 

The present is a time when ideology has crumbled and theory has imploded. There are fashions every year, but they are changing more and more quickly, so that there is no longer a reliable mainstream. I think this might well be called a period of no isms, because ideologies have been replaced by ever-changing methodologies. 

The only way for the individual to find a standpoint in this world is to doubt. What I refer to as "to doubt" is an attitude, not an ism. In constructing one's spiritual world, to doubt may be considered a standpoint to some extent. Since logic actualized through language is unreliable, linguistic narration provides nothing more than various possibilities. Moreover, the self only exists within a network of perceptions whose actualization depends on their being expressed in language. In other words, the existence of the self is nothing but its expression in language, and the affirmation of the self is embodied in the existence of one's unique language. What one has expressed in language requires no verification, and indeed, verification is impossible. The individual comes to the world from the dark realm of the self via language and there is a certain amount of communication with others. If he does not somehow get himself killed, commit suicide or go insane, he will benefit from some form of rationality that is based on doubt. 

I am a Chinese writer, only one person, and I cannot represent others. China for me is not that huge race or abstract nation; it is simply the cultural background that manifests· itself in my writings, the culture's impact on me since my birth, and the modes of thought, nurtured by the Chinese language, that I use in my writings. I also acknowledge the influence of Western cultures, and I am interested in the other cultures of Asia and the cultures of African races and others. The idea of a pure racial culture in this era of cultural fusion is a slogan to cheat people, and nothing more than a myth. 

It is the fate of the individual not to be able to attain ultimate truth, whether he calls it God, the other shore or the other side of death. The awareness that an individual is able to attain is what I call rationality, but it is not an ism. 

I AM HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS WHENEVER the name of a collective is invoked; I actually become afraid that this collective name will strangle me before I have the chance to say anything. "Chinese intellectuals" is a collective noun that I cannot, of course, represent, and I am terrified that if it represents me I will be annihilated. However, it happens to be one of the issues for discussion today, and it may be said to be a very important issue.

Tôi rất hơi bị nghi ngờ cứ mỗi khi tập thể lên tiếng. Tôi sợ nó bóp cổ tôi lè lưỡi ra, trước khi tôi thốt ra, dù chỉ một lời. "Tầng lớp trí thức Tầu" là một danh từ tập thể mà tôi không thể đại diện, lẽ dĩ nhiên, và tôi sợ đến khiếp vía, nếu nó đại diện tôi, thì tôi sẽ tan biến vào hư vô!

Tuy nhiên, đây là một đề tài rất quan trọng.

Kể từ thất bại của Những cuộc cải cách 100 ngày, năm 1898, tới Cách Mạng 1911, trí thức, như là chúng ta biết đến nó, qua quan niệm của Tây phương, bắt đầu xuất hiện ở TQ. Trước đó, theo tôi, giai cấp trí thức TQ chỉ gồm có những bậc văn nhân tài tử, những nhà học giả; họ, ngoài chuyện rất quan tâm tới cách ứng xử cá nhân, và văn chương, còn chú tâm tới yếu tố tinh thần. Họ mong sự toàn thiện, toàn mĩ, theo những tiêu chuẩn đạo đức của đạo Khổng. Triết học hướng về thiên nhiên, thuận theo thiên nhiên của đạo Lão đưa đến không hành động, đạo Phật không coi trọng cái thân. Cách ứng xử kỳ cục của những học giả của những triều đại Wei và Jin, sự ló dạng của văn hóa đô thị ở cuối triều Ming, tất cả đều chẳng thể nào cung cấp cho giới trí thức TQ một mảnh đất, để từ đó mọc lên chủ nghĩa cá nhân. Chủ nghĩa cá nhân thực ra là sản phẩm mới mẻ của những truyền thống duy lý của văn hóa Tín lành Tây phương  và sự nở rộ tiếp theo của chủ nghĩa tư bản.

Trí thức TQ không tạo ra được một giai cấp xã hội độc lập, so với giai cấp cầm quyền, cho đến thời kỳ văn hoá mới 4 Tháng Năm, tiếp theo sự sụp đổ chế độ phong kiến và cơn lũ tư tưởng Tây phương vào TQ.  Một ưu tư về chủ nghĩa cá nhân hiện đại manh nha xuất hiện cùng với sự khơi mào của tư tưởng chính trị Tây phương, nó đáp ứng nhu cầu chính trị, trước tiên và sự thừa nhận giá trị của những hoạt động tinh thần của một cá nhân chỉ là thứ yếu. Kết quả là, những trí thức TQ, như là những con người suy tư, bắt đầu nói với xã hội, như là từng cá nhân.

Than ôi, tình trạng lý tưởng này không kéo dài. Tới thập niên 1930, tức là muời năm sau đó, những hỗn loạn ở trong nước, sự hăm dọa của nước ngoài, cách mạng, và chiến tranh, tất cả lại xô đẩy trí thức TQ vào những cuộc xung đột chính trị để cứu quốc gia và dân tộc. Liệu họ có ý thức được, hay không, và có lẽ, những duyên do tại sao, thì vượt ra khỏi tầm kiểm soát của họ, bởi vì họ, chính họ, tự biến thành những món đồ để cho những đảng phái chính trị lợi dụng để giết hại lẫn nhau. Mặc dù có một dúm nhỏ trong số họ, cố gắng giữ sự độc lập của mình, nhưng thật khó khăn vô cùng đối với họ, trong cái việc suy nghĩ và viết lách. Đây là cái kinh nghiệm bi thảm của giai cấp trí thức hiện đại TQ, ngay từ khi trứng nước của nó.

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Ui chao, sao giống Mít thế, những ngày trước Cách Mạng Mùa Thu 1945!