Political Cognitivism and Political Behaviorism——A Response to Han Gan

Han Gan's article can be found at this link: https://weibointl.api.weibo.cn/share/94145504.html?weibo_id=4420840546350060&from=groupmessage&isappinstalled=0

Han Gan's "Political Beliefs and the Logic of Political Practices of the People in Mainland China" (hereinafter referred to as "Political Beliefs") was published on the media on September 18. The core point of the article appeared in the response to my July article. . "Lao Zhu: The "De-politicization" and "Re-politicization" of the Middle Class" is a case-based observation of political phenomenology, which can be regarded as a review of the article I wrote in May, "Seeing China from an Interview with Ren Zhengfei" A Supplement to Elite Value Consensus. Through these two articles, I try to outline the core values of the Chinese middle class. In "Ren Zhengfei", I contrast it with the official ideology and point out the gap between the two. In "Lao Zhu" , I want to show more how the official ideology has re-influenced this value in recent years. As Han Gan said, this approach presupposes that the political concept of a certain social group in China (the middle class) is worth studying, but he believes that the political concept of contemporary Chinese mainlanders is the "semantic content" of political beliefs. , is not that important, especially the political views of those Chinese who support the Chinese government. Because, "the Chinese people's political beliefs are not so much wrong as they are invalid." This "invalidity" is mainly reflected in the fact that the Chinese people's political beliefs and political practices are "cut off". Han Gan therefore called on those concerned with China's reforms to pay more attention to "the way political beliefs are used, or the way they exist."

This article has obvious flaws, but it is not that it is not worth taking seriously, rather, it is worth taking so seriously despite its obvious flaws, which shows that its advantages are more obvious in other areas. Although Han Gan and I have fundamental differences in our approach to this issue, the purpose of this article is not to completely deny the rationality of his framework. I prefer to point out some points that are difficult to explain under his framework to help him improve, and at the same time, I (our) approach is completely presented to advance the process of subsequent discussions.

Before that, I have to do a little necessary clarification of his framework.

Han Gan's articles are full of insights that make people ponder from time to time when they read them. In many places, I agree with his judgments. These judgments of mine come from my daily observation and thinking, not from the summary of some literature. I think he may be the same. For example, in "What Kind of Young People Does This Country Need", I wrote that the authorities have different levels of fear for groups that agree with their political stance, such as nationalists and Confucians. They are afraid that angry youths will take to the streets to smash Japanese cars and foreigners In addition, he is afraid that clan forces will organize and confront the government; Han Gan expresses it more directly in his article "Political Beliefs": "The core function of the stability maintenance system is to eliminate the freedom of action of civil organizations, and the second is to identify the political position of the people. In "Eight Years of Beijing" I distinguish between "secular pursuit" and "transcendental pursuit", while Han Gan distinguishes "existential logic" and "political logic" in "Political Belief", we It is believed that among contemporary mainland Chinese, the former seriously overwhelms the latter.

Some parts of "Political Beliefs" I don't mean anywhere like that, but I appreciate the insights implicit in his generalizations or descriptions. The most important insight in it is his assertion in Section 3:

“People hold political beliefs precisely on the premise that they are not beliefs in action.”

In Han Gan's view, since Chinese authorities are wary of publicly expressing any political demands, politics cannot be discussed openly in mainland China. Therefore, "any belief that can be expressed openly and explicitly is either not a political belief, or at least not generally recognized as a political belief." Therefore, "a political belief exists and functions politically on the premise that it is generally not believed that it is It is a political belief.” That is, political beliefs cannot play a political role as themselves, but they can play a political role as “moral beliefs, etiquette norms, or habits of life.”

The second section of "Political Beliefs" also has some observations that fit our intuition very well. This observation also has a lot to do with the stability maintenance mechanism of the authorities. Because the authorities pay less attention to the political position itself than to political organizations and actions, it is not enough for them to stand on the right side, the important thing is not to "engage in politics": "Mainland people can do anything about what There is a high degree of sensitivity to the rules of what cannot be done, what can be said and cannot be done, what can be thought and what cannot be done, etc.; has a very keen ability to identify the political force that is substantially present; The complex relationship between the three is highly nuanced."

The above two parts are extremely wonderful descriptions of political phenomenology, and I can even add some examples for him. For example, in the eyes of most mainland Chinese, it is very "naive" to be "friends" because of political differences. During the #MeToo movement in 2018, Liu Yu's article caused serious tears among progressives. Wu Guanjun was deleted and blocked by many people because he expressed his support for Liu Yu, so he posted a paragraph in the circle of friends to the effect of "That's it, what about it", and at the end he called on everyone to learn how to "be friends". This seems to prove to a certain extent the "ineffectiveness" of political beliefs in current China.

I have also noticed that some Chinese scholars who have studied the governance structure of the Chinese Empire would argue that there was "multiculturalism" within the empire. These scholars' usage of "multiculturalism" is clearly different from the contemporary Western usage of the term. It seems that as long as political power does not eliminate all cultures other than the mainstream culture, it can be called "multicultural". In other words, if a culture is wiped out by political power, the responsibility lies with the bearer of that culture rather than the political power itself. It must be that the former has crossed the boundaries of its own activities and will lead to disaster. Similarly, a considerable number of contemporary Chinese sincerely believe that China has "freedom, equality, democracy, and the rule of law." They believe that as long as the Chinese people have enough knowledge about where and when political power is "present" Sensitivity, then you can enjoy these modern values while maintaining a proper distance from power. This is a paradoxical phenomenon: some scholars who pursue the classical political system instead say that the current problem is that China is "too free, too egalitarian, and too democratic."

An interesting thing has arisen: if our characterization of the mentality of the Chinese in the second example of the previous paragraph is correct, then it does not mean that the political beliefs of those Chinese people are invalid, only the political beliefs of those people. Unlike mainstream contemporary Westerners, this "difference" involves both parties' understandings of the relationship between political power and those values. The Chinese can act on the basis of political beliefs that are different from those of the West, which means that the Chinese's sensitivity to the presence and presence of power is compatible with the validity of Chinese political beliefs.

However, Han Gan lacks a clear definition of the term "Chinese" mentioned in his article. In some places, I feel that he is referring to the Chinese people from ancient times to the present. Most of the time, I know that this refers only to the contemporary mainland Chinese, but the year from which the "contemporary" is counted is since 1949, since 1978, Since 1989, or since 2012? I personally think the most reasonable option is since 1989, because Han Gan's "depoliticized" explanatory framework (existential logic absolutely overrides political logic) is obviously not suitable for understanding the rebels of various factions during the Cultural Revolution The behavior of the students is not even suitable for understanding the behavior of those students in front of Tiananmen Square. So if I guess right, the "Chinese" in the article "Political Beliefs" refers in most places to the Chinese under the "post-Tiananmen order".

Even if we can roughly determine the time period Han Gan refers to as "Chinese", I am still disturbed by the full term judgment he uses. Not only do I think his assertion in Section 3 does not apply to current political opponents, Nor does it apply to the many regime supporters since 1989.

The unclear definition of "Chinese" is not the only problem. Han Gan has two definitions in the use of "politics", one is "a group and public affairs that affects every corner of social life". ", and the other is "can't care, can't do" things. When he said "political belief" and "political practice," he used the first definition, and when he said "politics," he used the second. We tentatively believe that the first definition is appropriate, but the second definition, even in Han Gan's own context, does not make sense: when we say "politics" on a daily basis, we do not always refer to those who "can't care about" In his context, "politics" is of course "can't care, can't do" things, but the latter is not equivalent to "politics", "can't care, can't do" things Outreach is much bigger than "politics".

Although Han Gan has made a lot of elaboration around "political belief is invalid", I still feel that he has not explained this proposition clearly enough. In addition to the passage we quoted above, there is this sentence: "The problem is not what people believe, but what they don't seem to be doing - either can't do it, or won't do it - what they seem to believe. things, no matter how right or wrong these beliefs are.” Combined with what he said later, what Han Gan meant was: even if mainland people hold political beliefs, they do not practice those beliefs, no matter whether they cannot practice them or not. Reluctance to practice is all because existential logic overrides political logic.

What kind of beliefs can be called "political beliefs"? Even if we apply Han Gan's first definition of "politics", we still can't get an intuitive impression. In the most intuitive sense, an ordinary person's "political belief" mainly includes the The performance of policies, governance, and evaluations of political action, and in rare cases "political beliefs" are a reflection of the political theories and political values that a person espouses.

Suppose there is a person whose content of his political beliefs is a positive evaluation of the ruling party, and what he does can be properly described as "supporting the ruling party". In the framework of Han Gan, how should we understand this person's behavior? Han Gan answered this in the article: "The overall loyalty to the community follows the logic of existentialism, rather than the logic of any political concept." to act according to the choice of development", what Han Gan seems to mean is that when that person is doing what can be properly described as "supporting the ruling party", he is not based on his positive evaluation of the ruling party, but Because doing so is conducive to their own survival and development.

This position cannot easily be fully justified, unless in each such act it can be identified that it brings "benefits" to the actor for its survival and development, or the actor can reasonably believe that the act will bring This kind of benefit is the same as the defense dilemma faced by "psychological egoism" in ethics, but this time it is not aimed at all human beings, but only contemporary Chinese mainlanders. For example, there is such an obvious cause-and-effect relationship between their political beliefs and political actions among those fans who went out on Instagram for "Brother Ah Zhong", do we have to put a "In order to be accepted by People's Daily"? The "existential logic" of praise? Han Gan seems to think that as long as activities are not transferred from "online" to "offline", they still fall into the category of "political beliefs", and this distinction may not be valid for the authorities (otherwise, some of the work of the Internet police will be redundant. ), let alone discussed as serious political theory.

If we weaken this position, it seems that we can get a more reasonable position: Han Gan can not deny that ordinary people can act based on political beliefs, but when such actions conflict with existential logic, they will follow the existential logic. rather than acting according to one's own political beliefs. We can cite some "die-hard" political opponents as counter-examples, but since such political opponents are very few, their presence is not sufficient to challenge the validity of this position. But in fact, for what Han Gan wants to achieve, the problem with this position is not that it is difficult to defend, but that it is so defensible that it applies not only to contemporary China, but also to contemporary Western democracy. nation. In any country, when political logic conflicts with existential logic, there are very few people who are willing to give up the latter and act in accordance with political beliefs. If there is any difference in China, it can only be said that for China's political opponents, the probability of conflict between political logic and existential logic is much higher than that of an opponent in a Western democratic country. However, since we are discussing political psychology rather than the use of power by different regimes, if this weakened position can hold, it can hold true in contemporary China as well as contemporary Western democracies, and the people in mainland China and Western democracies are equally true. The people, politically and psychologically, are not fundamentally different. In this way, there is nothing novel about Han Gan's assertion of contemporary Chinese political psychology. His assertion that the political psychology of the Chinese people is "pre-modern" and "pre-political" is also untenable.

In my opinion, the above-mentioned problems arise not only because Han Gan lacks a definition of the scope of the subject he discusses, but also largely because his dichotomy between "political logic" and "existential logic" is unreasonable . In ancient times, there was a saying that "the gentleman is equal to righteousness, and the villain is equal to profit". If it is said that "existential logic" is barely equal to "benefit", it would be far-fetched to say that "political logic" equals "righteousness". In fact, "political logic" includes not only "righteousness" (value commitment), but also "interest" (interest judgment). Politics itself is a certain coordination of the relationship between self-interest and public interest, and political value is actually a reflection of the relationship between a certain type of personal interest and public interest. This understanding of "politics" does not presuppose that we are on the side of the latter in the debate between "political moralism" and "political realism," because it recognizes that moral principles can find your place. This is not to say that people who put aside interests and only talk about political ideals and moral principles absolutely do not exist in this world, but real politics itself contains complex interests. More importantly, the opposition between "political logic" and "existential logic" will not only lead to conceptual contradictions, but also does not necessarily conform to the political psychology of the Chinese people. The content of a person's political beliefs is to support the ruling party, which may be the result of ideological indoctrination, but it may also be based on their own interests. Is it because there are their own interests, "supporting the ruling party" is not A political belief?

Han Ganhui believes that even if this is a political belief, contemporary mainland Chinese with this belief do not practice this belief. Here, we must clarify: what is the practice of a political belief? According to him, to practice a political belief is to take political action according to the semantic content of the political belief, and since the authorities prohibit any type of political action, mainland people "cannot" or "will not" practice any kind of political action. political beliefs. I think this understanding of "practicing political beliefs" is narrow, or rather, "ad hoc" by him for his discourse. For many political beliefs, they merely express a value judgment, and the practice of these political beliefs does not prescribe any way of action. Just like the previous example, the content of a person's political beliefs is a positive evaluation of the ruling party. As long as what they do can be properly described as "supporting the ruling party", then they are practicing their own political beliefs. It is not necessary to "engage in politics" to "support the ruling party".

A further problem is: even if a political belief does not play a political role in itself (that is, as Han Gan said, "a political belief exists and plays a political role on the premise that people generally do not think that it is a political belief"). , but as long as there is a correspondence between this political belief and its political role, the person who holds it is also practicing this political belief. If a person is required to act politically in accordance with the semantic content of political beliefs, does that exclude all means to achieve the end? So instead of saying that contemporary mainland Chinese do not practice political beliefs, it is better to say that they have their own special ways of practicing political beliefs.

Therefore, when Han Gan said that "Chinese people accept power only because it is coercive force, not because it conforms to a certain ideal of political power," he is exaggerating. I don't know if Han Gan here presupposes that only "procedural legality" is legal, but aside from the definition of "legality", even if we simply talk about "why the Chinese people accept power", then it should be Acknowledging that ideology as well as performance can produce popular support for the regime. There are some people who accept power only because it is coercive force, and confronting this coercive force does not conform to their existential logic, but it is not ruled out that some people accept power because they truly recognize the ideology behind it, and Some people accept power because they believe that the regime best promotes the long-term substantive interests of all citizens. The latter two kinds of people, the first one obviously cannot be understood by existential logic, and the second one proves again that the dichotomy between "political logic" and "existential logic" is unreasonable.

Combining Han Gan's ideas together, we get a very strange picture: the political wisdom of contemporary mainland Chinese is used to identify where power is present and when it will be present, and the source of power and its power. Its use (the so-called "legitimacy" issue) lacks reflection, total acceptance, or even if they have reflections on the process, these reflections do not affect their actual actions. The root of all this lies in the ubiquitous power and its logic of maintaining stability, that is, power is far more vigilant to political actions than to political positions. Existential logic also plays a role in it, because power itself cannot be changed at all, so it can only be accommodated or avoided. Any thinking beyond existential logic is of no use.

The logic inside this picture is very strong: the logic of existentialism is the major premise, the vigilance of power against political action is the minor premise, and the conclusion is the sensitivity of the Chinese people to the presence of power (section 2), and the invalidity of the political beliefs of the Chinese people (section 2). Section III). However, I doubt that in the study of political phenomenology, we should establish such a tight logical relationship between various intuitions. It seems to me that both the major and minor premise and the first conclusion have an intuitive basis (although taking them to the extreme is problematic), but the logical deduction component of the second conclusion predominates.

The bigger problem with this picture is that, on the one hand, it overestimates the "political awareness" of the Chinese, as if the Chinese can not only discern the presence and presence of power, but also achieve their political goals in a rather tortuous way , that is, disguising it as something other than a political purpose. This is of course an ideal situation, the authorities may have such expectations, but the people do not always achieve, otherwise the country's stability maintenance spending will not continue to climb. On the other hand, it underestimates the "subjectivity" of the Chinese. According to Han Gan, the Chinese are still "pre-modern" and "pre-political", and they cannot practice their political beliefs. Implicit in his description of the Chinese is a behaviorist theory: it seems that classical conditioning, positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement, and social learning are sufficient to shape most Chinese patterns of behavior, at least in relation to power.

Emphasizing China's "subjectivity" has been the direction of the efforts of Chinese nationalist theorists in the past two decades, who have devoted themselves to excavating the special effectiveness of China as a unique civilization in terms of political system, social morality and academic system, in order to counter " Western Universal Values". Many political slogans put forward by the ruling party in recent years also echo their efforts, such as the "four self-confidences": road self-confidence, theoretical self-confidence, institutional self-confidence and cultural self-confidence. If understood according to Han Gan's framework, what these statist theorists are doing is based on existential logic, that is, pure political speculation. I don't deny that some of them (probably the majority) are indeed political speculators, but others, as well as those who are influenced by this statist theory (probably not a few), really practice this set of political beliefs. In this sense, they are really "subjective". If the other party thinks they can only follow existential logic because they are statists, then it will not help the perfection of liberal scholarship.

So far, the differences between Han Gan and I on the research approach are quite obvious. I believe that contemporary Chinese mainlanders, whether they are supporters of the ruling party or their political opponents, are able to practice their own political beliefs, which means that they have the will to act, and it also means that the external environment exists to act. space (even in ways that are concealed by means of twists and turns). I do not believe that political logic can be independent of existential logic, and that judgments about self-interest constitute, at least in part, the source of political belief, and therefore I am opposed to opposing political and existential logic. And it seems to me that political beliefs are not just expressions of preferences and interests, they are truth-apt.

It is not contradictory to say that judgments about self-interest constitute, in part, the source of political beliefs, and to say that political beliefs do not merely reflect individual interests and preferences. On the one hand, judgments about self-interest constitute the starting point for many people to think about politics, and political beliefs must give personal interest its due place. This is different from moral beliefs. Some moral beliefs can be discussed without personal interests (Kant's moral philosophy is exactly what it requires), but political beliefs cannot only contain value commitments. Judgments about personal interests are political beliefs. an important part of the proof. On the other hand, judgments about personal interests in political beliefs must undergo numerous tests, and ultimately must achieve some form of coordination with public interests. Here, it is not "arbitrary" that any form of coordination is reasonable.

Based on the above point of view, I call my research position "political cognitivism" (referring to the definition of cognitivism in philosophy and psychology), and correspondingly, I call Han Gan's position "political behaviorism" ". What he calls "existential logic" is very close to "operant conditioning", except that power constitutes the main source of positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement, which is crucial to the behavior patterns of contemporary Chinese mainlanders shaping effect. This kind of "political behaviorism" can be further extended: the reason why Chinese people are good at "seeing the micro and knowing the writing" is sometimes precisely because of "classical conditioning". , are various signs associated with the role of power, because "wei" always appears with "zhi", so it is possible to "see the micro and know the writing". Some people do not need to go through the process of "classical conditioning" and "operator conditioning" mentioned above, but only through "imitation" or "social acquisition", that is, observation from those who have mastered this set of behavior patterns. and learning.

Therefore, although I share similar political beliefs with Han Gan, it is difficult for me to agree with his assertion that:

"The Chinese's general support for the regime and the state - which indeed underpins their actions - is not understood as a political opinion, but something they talk about privately or avoid talking about as a political opinion. , in fact, has no real political effect.”

If what Han Gan is saying here is right, then it will be difficult for us to understand contemporary history since 1989, or even Chinese history since 1949. Because if his assertion included the Chinese from 1949-1978, he would have to interpret the cultural attack, military defense of the various rebel factions during the Cultural Revolution as acts motivated by an existential logic, which would face serious difficulties: we could say that the rebellion The pie's actions are manipulated by power, but it's hard to say they do it to avoid being hurt by power. If Han Gan's argument only includes Chinese people since 1989, then he must explain how the logic of power has evolved since the reform and opening up, and why the Chinese people could still practice their political beliefs before the reform and opening up, but not after the reform and opening up. Can. This would lead to the conclusion that the regime after reform was more "pre-modern" and less politically liberal than before.

Of course, it is not impossible to draw such a conclusion (some leftists think so), but the discussion in the article "Political Belief" is too static, so that I have the illusion that this is a kind of national criticism. I can provide a historical interpretation from the perspective of political cognitivism: since the late Qing Dynasty, the Chinese have gradually entered a state where they can practice their political beliefs, but since 1978, we have indeed experienced a stage of "depoliticization". At this stage, the ideology of "communism" was gradually diluted, and the official no longer talked about "class struggle", but this does not mean that the Chinese have no political beliefs, or that they no longer practice political beliefs, but It means that in the political beliefs of the Chinese people, ideology has become less and more judgments about interests are mixed. .

Of course, many of Han Gan's observations and judgments are well-founded: the political beliefs expressed by the Chinese on certain occasions cannot really be understood according to their semantic content, and it is likely to be an expression of "ceremony", or It's a "defensive" camouflage. There may indeed be a so-called "existential logic" behind this. An example is the common private gatherings in Chinese society where members of the system are present. If the party members are not friends who trust each other, then in order to take care of the face of the members of the system, and to avoid causing trouble, it is customary to talk about the system. The good news is that such expressions of seemingly political beliefs do not actually play the role of political beliefs.

However, when Han Gan's argument wants to reach the conclusion that "contemporary mainland Chinese people do not practice political beliefs", I feel that he is "arrogant". Most Chinese people do try to avoid politics, they may hold certain political beliefs, but these political beliefs are unreflected, even fragmented, and they do not produce any political action or political effect in themselves, at this point On the other hand, China is indeed different from Western democracies. However, this does not mean that the political beliefs of contemporary mainland Chinese are not worth studying. Some groups, such as activists on different issues, the middle class, and various types of people in the system, have more rationalized political beliefs than the general population. The masses can also produce direct or indirect political actions and political effects.

Not only do I think that the "depoliticization" since 1978 can be best explained in terms of political cognitivism, I also think that a disturbing trend of "depoliticization" may follow. One of the manifestations of "re-politicization" is "mass fighting against the masses", which is likely to occur between the people who support the ruling party and those who have doubts about the ruling party. From a macro perspective, this kind of "mass fighting against the masses" is likely to occur only when provoked by power, but in specific cases, there must also be spontaneous actions. Some people within the power do want to suppress all political action, but others may wish to use the power of the "patriotic masses" to achieve better governance.

I think I have fully demonstrated the problems in this article by Han Gan, and I have also made a clearer presentation of my (our) research approach. It should be noted, however, that the debate on political cognitivism and political behaviorism is not echoing the long-standing debate between “reform” and “change” within liberals. Political behaviorism is far from simply calling for political action, and political cognitivism does not contain such a program: Progressives can achieve the transformation of Chinese politics by gradually changing the cognitive state of the Chinese people. Also, although I have provided numerous defenses of political cognitivism in this piece, they have not overwhelmingly destroyed the political behaviorist positions, which I believe are important in understanding the political psychology of contemporary mainlanders in China There are reasons for this, and if the ensuing discussion can further refine the two frameworks, or produce some form of fusion, then this debate will be very good.