The polarization of Chinese intellectuals and the polarization of public opinion

Made in late June this year

Recently, because of Hong Kong's anti-revision bill, not only domestic public opinion has been polarized, but the rift between Chinese intellectuals has once again been highlighted. Professor Zhao Dingxin, who is far away from the University of Chicago, just happened to write an article in "21st Century", saying that in recent years, there has been a trend of polarization in Chinese public opinion. It was so repressed that liberal intellectuals regained sympathy. Tian Feilong, an associate professor of Beihang Law School who published an article on the Hong Kong incident in Observer.com, attributed the split among intellectuals to the liberals' "pioneering the Cultural Revolution". He believes that the liberals' own intolerance led to the The creation and expansion of divisions.

On June 13, that is, three days before two million people peacefully marched in Hong Kong to protest the "Send to China Regulations", Tian Feilong published "Anti-Amendment Bill Movement Drags Down the Rule of Law in Hong Kong" on "Observer.com", in which he wrote To: "More importantly, this extreme confrontation and unrestrained pursuit of international intervention fully and comprehensively exposed the political nature of the Hong Kong opposition that is uncooperative, has no bottom line, and harms national interests, and also exposed the US's super power over Hong Kong. Influence and 'shadow governance'. This will inevitably remind the central government to seriously face the structural political challenges in Hong Kong's governance, and force the central government and the SAR government to more actively review and improve Hong Kong's security and education legal systems, and make them more comprehensive Accurately implement 'one country, two systems' and the Basic Law, more rationally and rigorously promote the organic integration of central government governance and SAR autonomy, and more rationally and efficiently promote the development of the Greater Bay Area and the integration of Hong Kong into the national governance system and the overall development of policy science Design and institutional coordination.”

This article aroused widespread disgust among liberal intellectuals. Rong Jian, a scholar outside the system, forwarded Tian Wen to Professor Gao Quanxi, who had helped Tian Feilong. Professor Gao replied: "This person has been shameful for a long time! There is a huge divide, and the distinction between the left and the right of the political and constitutional school is very different. I was not his mentor for a long time, and Qianfan did not recognize this disciple." Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University Law School, also said to Tian Feilong in his group of teachers. : "Different positions can be tolerated, but some of your remarks are obviously meant to cater to, which is disappointing and sad. You are one of the most talented classmates. I hope you can use your talents in the right way, not for vanity and petty gain. Confused and lost the basic conscience bottom line of scholars. People's life is very short in the long river of history, but the political climate is unpredictable, and your words in black and white will remain forever. How will you face your peers with this word in the future? Even future generations? I hope you think carefully! People can be without talent, but they cannot be shameless!"

The two paragraphs of Gao Quanxi and Zhang Qianfan seem to be more intense in terms of tone, but in terms of rhetoric, Zhang Qianfan's words are obviously more serious. It is pointed out that Tian Feilong is suspected of "speculation". Interestingly, Tian Feilong's attitude towards the two replies was completely reversed: "Gao's reply made me extremely disappointed, and I lacked responsibility for both personal and public affairs! Teacher Qian Fan is not bad, only criticized and warned in the group of teachers!" It stands to reason that a scholar with "outstanding talent" should not fail to see the importance of criticism. The only explanation is: in Tian Feilong's position, Gao Quanxi was only someone who had helped him, while Zhang Qianfan was his nominal teacher. Taking closeness and distance as the standard of response, especially in front of a group of people who claim to have faith in Confucianism (Tian Feilong’s response was first posted in the New Confucian group in mainland China, and then circulated), it was especially popular.

What is more noteworthy is that Tian Feilong attributed the two teachers' attitude towards him to "the liberals took the lead in the Cultural Revolution", and believed that this was "an important phenomenon in the history of contemporary Chinese thought" and "marked the disappearance of an intellectual generation." . Not only Tian Feilong, Ren Feng, an associate professor at the National People's Congress, also said that because of political stance, "human relations are broken" and "drawing the line" can not help but remind people of the Cultural Revolution. This matter is fermenting in public opinion, and there are many people who accuse liberals of "authoritarianism" and "intolerance". In their view, the main point of liberalism is to "tolerate" different positions, and Hu Shi even said that "tolerance is more important than freedom" (although both Zhou Baosong and Zhang Xuezhong of the liberals have criticized this proposition); Tian Feilong's article, according to His own statement, "Just to put forward an understanding", is to discuss political issues at the academic level. If you disagree with his point of view, you can write an article to point out his fallacies; big-name scholars openly cut off their ties with young scholars, which is a big problem for later scholars. For the author, it is undoubtedly a major blow to his career, exceeding the limit of academic debate, so it makes people wonder whether liberalism itself is also a "dictatorship".

Zhao Dingxin's "The Biggest Potential Danger in China", published in the June 2019 issue of "Twenty-First Century", also attacked liberal intellectuals, although in Zhao's view, liberalism has not caused problems in recent years (according to Zhao's time segment (i.e. 2014-present) is the root cause of the tearing of public opinion, but also the main reason for their own loss of moral high ground in the previous stage (2003-2014). Zhao Dingxin believes that after 2000, liberal intellectuals began to deteriorate, as shown in: "First of all, most liberal intellectuals are also beneficiaries of reform and opening up, and their increasingly rich income limits their words and deeds. The goal of most people is increasingly limited to exposing the darkness of society, rather than directly pursuing the Western democratic system. From the point of view of those in power, this is actually a group that has been largely institutionalized. Second, this group There are three main sources of corruption: one is, of course, the various opportunities that have emerged in the rapid economic development; Suppression often gives them a moral advantage, and their moral advantage and the right to speak become a source of corruption; third, for a long period of time, there is no counter-force that can match this group in Chinese society. , and the lack of effective restraint is an important cause of corruption.”

Surprisingly, Zhao Dingxin attributed the polarization of public opinion in recent years to the excessive suppression of the liberals by the "two-faced" left, which led to the latter regaining widespread sympathy: "At the moment, the people of China are stable and the society is stable. The most challenging to political stability is the 'two-faced' leftists. These people are not only large in number, but also hold various powers. Although their 'left' actions are all opportunistic purposes, their actions are deeply rooted in Destructive consequences. They fuel all kinds of irrational left-leaning forces in society, destroy all kinds of rational middle voices that appear online and in society, and lead all sectors of society into a situation of great anxiety and disappointment, which are extremely It's true." He cited Lu Wei, the director of the Cyberspace Administration of China, who was sacked in 2017 as an example. Lu Wei made Zhou Xiaoping and Hua Qianfang popular, ruined the reputation and credibility of the "Self-Going Five", and had a negative impact on various online Rational rhetoric cracking down on "ruined the growing middle voice on Weibo".

In my opinion, Tian Feilong and Zhao Dingxin's attributions have a common flaw: they both use a rather crude reductionism to attribute a complex process to the quality of a certain type of person. Since the 1990s, intellectuals have been divided again and again, and the group that originally belonged to "liberals" has dwindled in the process. In the past 30 years, there have been three major divisions of intellectuals. The three major splits are: the New Left split from liberals in the 1990s, the cultural conservative split from liberals in the 2000s, and the radical split from liberals after 2012. Today's "tear state" is mainly the confrontation between the first two groups of New Leftists and cultural conservatives who split off against the radicals and liberals.

In the 1980s, among Chinese intellectuals, there was a consensus of "enlightenment liberalism". They had experienced the devastation of the Cultural Revolution and had a general antipathy to Mao-style communism, so they wanted to return to the May Fourth Movement and the West. To absorb nutrients from modern and contemporary thinking, and to let China return to the grand avenue of modern civilization. Among them, the two most influential groups of intellectuals are the editorial board of "Towards the Future" headed by Jin Guantao and Liu Qingfeng, and the editorial board of "Culture: China and the World" headed by Gan Yang. The editorial board of "Culture: China and the World" includes the most important figures in the contemporary Chinese ideological circle. In addition to Gan Yang, there are also Wang Qingjie, Chen Jiaying, Zhao Yuesheng, Xu Youyu, Liu Xiaofeng, Liu Dong, Du Xiaozhen, Li Yinhe, Chen Pingyuan , Chen Lai, Zhou Guoping, Qian Liqun, Yan Buke, Guo Hongan, etc.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, major events took place in China, Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. The Soviet Union disintegrated, and all Eastern European countries became capitalist democracies. Only China's political power remained under the leadership of the Communist Party. This also had a huge impact on Chinese intellectuals. There is a group of intellectuals who believe that China must establish a strong "national capability" in order to resist the "subversion" of capitalist countries, represented by Wang Shaoguang, Hu Angang and Cui Zhiyuan, while another group believes that since the market reform, China has experienced serious problems. The disparity between the rich and the poor and the corruption of officials have given up some of the advantages of the original socialist system. The representative of this view is Wang Hui. Both groups challenged the "enlightenment liberal consensus" in the 1980s, believing that China could not copy the Western development model, but they did not take traditional Chinese Marxism, but resorted to Western Marxism and communitarianism. and contemporary political theory to criticize the universal humanitarian thought in the West, so it is called the "New Left". It is worth noting that Gan Yang, who was studying for a doctorate in the Social Thought Committee of the University of Chicago at this time, also published "Liberalism: Aristocrats or Commoners" to criticize the liberal ideas of the 1980s, and began to use the "New Left" Or "liberal left" (unlike later left liberals) calling themselves.

At the same time, the enlightenment of the 1980s has also been deeply reflected within the liberals. On the one hand, they are encouraged by the upheaval in the Soviet Union and East Asia and the end of the Cold War, which they believe fully validates what Francis Fukuyama called the "end of history": liberal democracy is the common future of all human societies. On the other hand, they also gave their own explanations for why China failed to follow the "end of history", and Li Zehou's "farewell to revolution theory" was put forward in this context. This theory holds that the several failures of China’s transformation since modern times were all burdened by radical ideological trends. If China is to be successful in its transformation in the future, it must take the road of gradual improvement: China must say goodbye to revolution before it can become a liberal and democratic country. Otherwise, the fate of dynasty replacement will never be escaped.

The New Left and the liberals (or "liberal conservatives") of this period, seemingly divided, actually identified with the status quo in their own way. In the view of the New Left, China is moving in the direction of enhancing national capabilities, represented by the "tax-sharing system" reform. Through this reform, the central government has greatly increased fiscal revenue, which is used for China's infrastructure construction and the improvement of the national economy and people's livelihood. . From the perspective of liberals, China is also moving in the direction they envisioned. During this period, a series of "liberal" reforms appeared: the restructuring of state-owned enterprises, the marketization of housing, education and medical care, and the application to join the WTO, etc. , they believe that over time, economic reform will promote political reform. Although in the 1990s the New Left and the liberals debated quite a few theoretical issues and social issues, they had a basic consensus on accepting the current leadership of the Chinese Communist Party in China.

After 2000, the debate between New Culture conservatives and liberals gradually replaced the debate between New Left and liberals. There are mainly two groups of cultural conservatives, one group is the "Shi faction" headed by Gan Yang and Liu Xiaofeng, and the other group is the "Mainland New Confucian" represented by Jiang Qing, Kang Xiaoguang and Chen Ming. The origin of the debate between the former and liberalism seems to be a little personal: around 2000, Gan Yang introduced Leo Strauss to Liu Xiaofeng, and Liu Xiaofeng quickly pulled up his old student friend and introduced Strauss. The works of his disciples and his disciples were translated into Chinese, and he edited the "Classics and Interpretations" series, which became "Culture: China and the World" for a while. Like Gan Yang, Liu Xiaofeng has undergone several academic transformations since the 1980s, and finally the two of them gathered under the "Strauss" banner. Strauss's critique of liberalism focuses on "nihilism": in Strauss' view, since Machiavelli, modern political thought has gone through Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Marx, Nietzsche and Heidegger, Becoming more and more nihilistic, the solution lies in re-introducing the classical political thought represented by Plato to re-establish the value foundation for modern society. Liu Xiaofeng and Gan Yang believe that Strauss' criticism is fatal to liberalism, and introducing Strauss into China can hedge against liberalism's "hegemony" in Chinese intellectual circles.

The rise of New Confucianism in the mainland was not directly related to Gan Yang and Liu Xiaofeng, but the two camps later became intertwined. In the 1990s, Jiang Qing turned from Edmund Burke's conservatism to "political Confucianism". developed his own philosophy of "kingdom politics". Jiang Qing believes that traditional Confucianism has two dimensions, one is "Xinxing Confucianism" represented by "Song and Ming Neo-Confucianism", and the other is "Politics Confucianism" represented by "Gongyang Studies". The "New Confucianism in Hong Kong and Taiwan" represented by Mou Zongsan, Tang Junyi, Xu Fuguan and their disciples only developed "Mind-nature Confucianism", and his "kingdom politics" reintroduced "political Confucianism" into the stage of contemporary Chinese thought. China's future political system must be based on "political Confucianism" in order to have "triple legitimacy" (transcending sacred legitimacy, historical and cultural legitimacy, and public opinion legitimacy) and truly surpass the Western liberal democratic system .

These two groups of cultural conservatives, one group advocates returning to Western classical political thought, and the other group mainly returning to Chinese classical political thought, seem to have little connection. However, Shi's criticism of liberalism broke the "superstition" of the domestic intellectuals on Western modern thought, and just opened up a path for both Chinese and Western classical political thought. Shi himself has gradually moved from Western classical political thought to Chinese Classical Political Thought. Gan Yang himself, with the help of the concept of "Unifying the Three Traditions" of "Gongyang Studies", proposed that contemporary China has also integrated the three Traditions of "Confucianism, Mao and Deng", and has a strong civilizational creativity. Liu Xiaofeng also published research works on Confucianism and modern Chinese political thought on the basis of explaining Strauss, and called Mao Zedong the "Holy King" of modern China. A considerable number of mainland New Confucians (such as Kang Xiaoguang) also believe that a Confucian civilization can be re-established on the basis of the Chinese Communist Party. It was in this way that the Shi faction and the Mainland New Confucianism came together. They further united some new leftists, and a camp of "cultural-political conservatives" that spanned the left and right was formed.

The emergence and gathering of cultural conservatives is actually due to the rise of China and its ideological crisis. Since China's accession to the WTO, China's GDP has been growing at an alarming rate every year, catching up with various old developed countries all the way, and surpassing Japan in 2010 to become the second in the world. China has become the world's factory with the most complete industrial chain in the world, and private enterprises that can compete with first-class companies in the international market have begun to emerge. In 2008, when the global financial tsunami occurred, the Chinese government maintained stable growth of the Chinese economy with its strong financial and control capabilities. The growth of China's national strength has stimulated the ambitions of some cultural conservatives. They are not satisfied with making China one of the "forests of nations in the world", nor are they satisfied with the international order dominated by the United States. civilized state" and re-create a new "world order". On the other hand, while "performance legitimacy" (Zhao Dingxin's concept) is growing, some cultural conservatives have long seen the shortcoming of China's "ideological legitimacy". Since China's class structure has changed, in the long run, Marxism must be sublated. Ganyang's "Tongsantong" and Jiang Qing's "kingdom politics" both have the intention of "replacement". Jiang Qing wanted to directly replace Marxism with Confucianism, while Ganyang's replaced Marxism with "Mao". The other mainland New Confucians that came later basically followed the line of "both Confucianism and Marxism". They not only recognized the Communist Party of China as the only legitimate ruling party in China, but also recognized that Marxism was the ideological foundation of China today. Constantly use Confucian concepts to explain Marxism to ensure the success of the "ideological transformation".

Unlike in the 1990s, liberals appear powerless in arguments with new opponents. "Liberalism, Tolerance and Nihilism" by Zhou Baosong of Hong Kong and "Pluralism and the Good Life: Exploring Two Misunderstandings of Strauss's Political Philosophy" by Qian Yongxiang of Taiwan can be regarded as the responses of liberals in the Chinese academic circle to Shi Pai , but under the "Strauss fever", the continental liberal camp has not developed a systematic discourse that can compete with the "Shipa theory", especially in this theory, which also includes the mortal enemy of liberalism Karl Schmidt. Zhao Dingxin judged that the period from 2003 to 2014 was the period when liberalism lost ground in public opinion, thus causing a "normal distribution" in the public opinion circle. The advantages. That is to say, the "war situation" in the intellectual circles did not quickly spread to the public opinion circles, and the defeat of liberalism in the intellectual circles did not affect the status of liberalism in the public opinion circles. The decline of liberal speech in the public opinion field has nothing to do with their own corruption. The root cause is the comprehensive suppression of public power. The climax of the suppression was in 2015: the introduction of the Charity Law, the arrest of 709 lawyers, the arrest of Weibo "Public Knows" are all blocked...

After 2015, liberalism, both in the intellectual and public opinion circles, has entered an extremely difficult period. In 2016 and 2018, two more big discussions took place within the liberal camp, leading some to break away from "liberals" again. When Mr. Yang Jiang died in June 2016, a voice emerged. This kind of voice believes that Yang Jiang and her deceased husband Qian Zhongshu have always focused on "being wise and protecting themselves" when they were alive, and they have not fulfilled the responsibility of "iron shoulders and morality", and they are not enough to serve as models for intellectuals. Some influential liberal intellectuals defended Yang Jiang and his wife: In extreme times, they have not participated in the persecution of anyone, which is rare, and demanding intellectuals with too high standards is a kind of "moral kidnapping." ", it can even be said to violate the principle of "negative freedom". Other liberal intellectuals, who are equally important, responded by saying that evaluating intellectuals has nothing to do with negative freedom; talking about "negative freedom" in a country without "freedom" is, for intellectuals, a A great irony; at present, it is more important to strive for "positive freedom" first, without "positive freedom", there is no "negative freedom".

Controversy also occurs not because one of the parties has a moral problem, but in a political environment of continuous high pressure, the tendency to want to escape and want to be aggressive will be magnified. In favor of the "positive liberty" side, some people have begun to abandon the title of "liberal" and call themselves "reformists" or "radical reformists." Although these "reformists" have not proposed a viable way to replace the "reformists" they oppose, the consensus of "gradual reformism" has been completely broken or even bankrupt within the liberals.

A schism with a bigger impact on liberalism was the #MeToo movement in 2018. When #MeToo first emerged, it was supported by most liberals because it attacked corrupt academics within the system, but as #MeToo entered the “public circle”, especially after Zhao Sile’s accusation against Xiong Peiyun, liberals Questions about #MeToo began to intensify. In late July, Liu Yu, a liberal female scholar, posted her 17 views on #MeToo on the Moments. She believed that the accusation form of #MeToo was suspected of being a "big character poster", which quickly detonated public opinion. On the one hand, liberal intellectuals reposted and admired it, and on the other hand, feminists expressed disappointment and anger towards Liu Yu. It is worth mentioning that in 2016, those reformists who criticized "negative freedom" basically stood on the side of #MeToo. They formed a "radical faction" together with feminists and were not satisfied with the liberals' constitutional rule of law, With limited purposes or values such as procedural democracy, liberals appear increasingly isolated in public opinion.

Apart from the background of the global #MeToo movement, the split between the radicals and the liberals is also due to the political environment in China. Since the current leaders came to power, in addition to cracking down on liberals in an all-round way, they have also introduced a number of policies that directly conflict with women's rights. For feminists who defend women's rights by attracting public attention, the authorities see them as a thorny object of stability. In early 2015, when the "Five Sisters of Feminism" were taken away by law enforcement and closed for several days, tensions between feminists and the authorities reached a peak, and even Hillary Clinton tweeted her solidarity. The emergence of #MeToo, although it does not meet the expectations of the liberal party on the way of change, in an environment where all horses are in a hurry, through the legitimate demands of the disadvantaged, it unites all groups that are critical or negative of "patriarchal autocracy". This is a major breakthrough in the history of contemporary social movements in China. The negative reaction of the liberals to #MeToo can be seen as their anxiety that the speed of social change is faster than their own predictions, and it is a sign that the gradual reformism of "leading social progress with the rising water level of ideas" is completely divorced from China's reality.

Yet the split between radicals and liberals did not strengthen liberal enemies like the previous two splits. The New Left split from the liberals, not so much that they pinned their hopes on the Chinese government to improve the state's ability to correct official corruption and social injustice in the reform process while developing, but to say that "only the state has the ability to correct corruption and injustice" It is a justification for the current regime. The cultural conservatives split from the liberals, not so much that they saw the possibility of China's revival of Confucian civilization under the leadership of the Communist Party, but that "only the Communist Party can revive Confucian civilization" also provides a justification. In other words, they split from the liberals with statist motives behind them. The state is not only a means, but also an end in itself. Even if the state does not meet their expectations in some ways, they will not give up on the absolute support of the country. In their view, liberals are the spokesmen of capitalist civilization, trying to completely Westernize China, and the number one enemy of all the values they hold dear.

There is no such statist motive behind the split between radicals and liberals. The only reason is that, compared with the liberals, their criticism of the system is more thorough, their legitimate demands are more uncompromising, and the acceptable means of change are more flexible. Some of the benefits brought by national development are also unwilling to bear the cost of social change, and they just want to wait for the time to change. But in the fundamental direction, both radicals and liberals are anti-statist, and they both oppose unbridled power and comprehensive conservative national policies, which makes their split only temporary.

Zhao Dingxin believes that the polarization of public opinion exists between the "left and right". This is not only a simplification, but also a lack of understanding of the situation in China's intellectual and public opinion circles in recent years: the two sides torn apart today are not "left" and "right". ", but between "statists" and "anti-statists". Due to China's special contemporary history, China's "left" has a very complex context, but it still contains the connotation of "egalitarianism". It is hard to imagine that an extreme anti-egalitarian like Liu Xiaofeng can actually be called a "leftist". The alliance of the New Left and the cultural conservatives opposed to the liberals actually includes nationalists on both the left and the right at the same time, and the use of "leftists" to cover them is really a mess. On the other side, there are "left-wing liberals" among the anti-statists, as well as "radical feminists", "Marxist feminists", etc., which cannot be classified as "rightists" either. In the past two years, many "left-wing youths" who have surfaced in the past two years have publicly declared their "anti-statism" stance (including some Mao leftists), which has also broken the stereotype that "left" must contain "statism" in the past.

If my analysis can be established, Zhao Dingxin and Tian Feilong's attribution to the polarization of the concept market is also extremely one-sided. At the level of public opinion, liberals have always been dominant in 2012, but in the intellectual world, liberal intellectuals have experienced two splits since the 1990s, and on their opposite sides, they have gathered a powerful force across the left and right . After 2012, liberals were completely suppressed by the regime, and liberals were sharply marginalized both in the intellectual and public opinion circles. The current state of polarization of public opinion is, of course, partly due to the civil backlash against the government's excessive repression, but the more important reason is that the radicals split from the liberals have adopted a more flexible agenda setting than the liberals, and For wider social mobilization, they and the liberals formed an anti-statist camp to counter statist voices in intellectual and public opinion circles. This is why the voice of support for Hong Kong's anti-amendment bill in the public opinion circle is stronger than expected, and it is also the reason why Tian Feilong, who distorts the facts, is collectively boycotted by liberal intellectuals in the intellectual circle.

Some people may not understand why I want to talk about the division of the intellectual world. After all, Zhao Dingxin is only talking about the public opinion world, not the intellectual world. Is it clear enough? This probably stems from my understanding of China's special national conditions. In my opinion, China's concept market is still inseparable from the influence of intellectuals, but the trend of intellectuals will not spread to public opinion so quickly. Without the enlightenment of the liberals in the 1980s, the public opinion circle today would not have used so many liberal "public reasons", and without the theoretical "effort" of cultural-political conservatives in the intellectual circle, the statism of today's public opinion circle would not have been There are so many shells (for example, how many theoretical resources did the grandstanding Zhao Haoyang absorb from the New Left?). Without clarifying the divisions in the intellectual circles, we will not be able to make clear the polar opposition between statism and anti-statism in the public opinion circle.

Of course, I did not say that the initiative of the intellectual world is the source of division and opposition. On the contrary, the division of the intellectual world and the opposition of the public opinion world are mostly caused by major changes in the situation. For example, major events in the social camp in the late 1980s and early 1990s, as well as corruption and injustice in Chinese society, caused the split between the New Left and the liberals, the rapid growth of China's national power in the 1990s and 2000s, and changes in the class structure , also led to the rise of cultural conservatives. Zhao Dingxin's article not only made a mistake in depicting the changes in Chinese public opinion, but also made a simplistic and moral mistake in the attribution of the change in public opinion, which has to be said to be very regrettable.