Literature and Literary Theory in Contemporary China by Zhang Jiong

Author:Zhang, Jiong
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2017-05-19T04:00:00+00:00

Therefore, the point is not to acknowledge whether the intellectuals have the duty of educating and enlightening the people but how to educate and enlighten them and whether to be educated before educating. Some “elites” and “enlighteners” who pose as “teachers” and regard themselves as “spiritual aristocrats” look down upon the people, even thinking of the people as the ignorant mob, and needn’t learn from and combine with the people from the start. In their opinion, Marxism even has been “behind the times.” Only “democracy,” “freedom” and individual departmentalism of bourgeois, which have been spread for hundreds of years, are the panacea that is sold here and there without sparing any effort so as to “enlighten” the people. Isn’t it a historical retrogression? In fact, what they sell now had been sold from t he 1911 Revolution to the founding of the People’s Republic of China, by those intellectuals named as “democrat individualists” as called by Dean Acheson, the secretary of state of the United States during 1949–1953. The historical practice proves that such views of “elites” have been already rebuffed and won’t work. However, until the 1980s, some “elites” still wanted to turn back the wheels of history. Doesn’t it prove that these “enlighteners” not only lack a sense of history but also deviate from the historical practice of the masses of the people in China?

The integration of literature and art with the people is involved in two related propositions: One refers to that writers go deep among the life of the people and share a common fate both in life and in spirit with them; the other refers to that the relationship between works and the people – the works should extensively express life, thoughts and emotions, in which the artistic forms the people love should be created with a great effort. Of course, in the process of the creation of works, it should not be refused to absorb the advantages of and draw lessons from the cultures of other countries and other nations. Today, each country and each nation will never be in a closed status because of the development of science and technology and of the developed communication which led to frequent exchange of both personnel and information. It is common sense to absorb the advantages of and draw lessons from other countries and other nations in order to benefit the development of culture and literature and art of our own country. However, this does not mean that we can deviate from our people, negate our own national tradition and head for so-called “wholesale Westernization.” The essence of “wholesale Westernization” is wholesale capitalization. In fact, it is an old song that Hu Shi once tirelessly sang. As the capitalism is not a through road in China, “wholesale Westernization” also has already been rejected by the Chinese people. While we Chinese people have been proceeding on the socialist road for half a century and attained great achievements in the cause of the construction of socialist modernization though

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