Depoliticized Political Theory——Wang Hui's Left-wing Stance and "Nationalism"

First published in "Thinking" issue 44

If one were to ask which mainland scholar has the greatest international influence in contemporary Chinese thought circles, the answer is likely to be Wang Hui. David Harvey, in the chapter "Neoliberalism with Chinese Characteristics" in "A Brief History of Neoliberalism", has extensively quoted Wang Hui's English book " China's New Order "; When Wang Hui was caught in the "plagiarism" incident in 2010, Western left-wing scholars headed by Slavoj Zizek issued a statement in support of Wang Hui, viewing the incident as a conspiracy of Chinese liberals. However, compared with the international general belief in Wang Hui's left-wing stance, domestic academic circles generally compare Wang Hui to a nationalist. Liberal scholars needless to say, even among scholars who express admiration and sympathy for Wang Hui, they are more discussing his "The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought" than his "Politics of Depoliticization" . Depoliticized Politics has been published for more than ten years, and its few serious comments form an embarrassing and bizarre contrast to Wang Hui's great influence.

On the surface, it seems plausible to see Wang Hui as a nationalist, especially after 2010: he holds an academic sense of nationalism, not only does all of his discourse base itself on China issues, but he also Quite consciously speaking from the standpoint of China and the Chinese Communist Party, if there is anything in China that he will criticize, it is probably only Chinese capitalists and Chinese intellectuals. In his writings, articles and interviews, he has never questioned the rationality and legitimacy of the CPC's leadership of China, and it can even be said that most of his discourses can be used to justify the CPC's leadership. He not only does not question the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, but also regards some policy shifts that are difficult to reconcile with left-wing positions as a manifestation of "the party's error correction mechanism." He opposes the hegemony of the West and capitalism, but never talks about the hegemony of the Chinese Communist Party ("leadership" and "hegemony" also happen to be two common translations of hegemony, but when Wang Hui talks about the Chinese Communist Party, he only Talking about "leadership", not "hegemony"), this kind of hegemony targets various groups in the country, and he always avoids talking about the oppressive aspect of the CCP. If Wang Hui is a non-statist intellectual, his above-mentioned behavior seems difficult to explain.

Liberal scholars often mention Wang Hui's statist tendencies. For example, Xu Youyu talked about the differences between liberalism and the New Left on the issue of "individual and state" in "The Separation and Combination of the New Left and Liberalism": "The New Left believes that individuals depend on the state to exist, and without a strong government, citizens cannot enjoy any rights." Xu Jilin in "Nationalist Thought Since Entering the 21st Century" believes that since 2010, Wang Hui, "From summarizing the unique experience of China's rise since the founding of the People's Republic of China 60 years ago, to affirming the 'nationalization of political parties' and the fact that the party-state represents the general interests of the people," Wang Hui has turned from the downward line of "judging the people's way" to "replacing the people". The ascending route of the King's Way. When Rong Jian criticized Wang Hui's nationalism in "The Personality of a Revolutionary and the Philosophy of Victory", he simply compared him to Heidegger, the German philosopher who defected to the Nazis, and compared him to the moment when he wrote such an article on Lenin's birthday. Called the "Heidegger moment": "Wang Hui's academic ability is of course incomparable to Heidegger's, but the difference in academic ability does not prevent them from becoming staunch statists in their respective countries and different historical periods. In other words, showing the same attitude and stance towards the supreme rulers of their respective countries, and making corresponding theoretical responses.”

Some commentators believe that Wang Hui's position is complex and difficult to summarize with "statism", which is why there are so few domestic reviews of his articles, and other scholars of equal weight - such as Liu Xiaofeng and Gan Yang - In comparison, many of Wang Hui's discourses are incomprehensible, not only because his academic language is more obscure than others, but also because his discourse methods are extremely subtle. This complexity and subtlety is particularly evident in Depoliticized Politics: The End of the Short 20th Century and the 1990s. In it, Wang Hui has a split evaluation of the Mao Zedong era, the reform and opening up, the new Enlightenment in the 1980s, and the "exit of thought, and academic debut" in the 1990s. While it is divided into two, Wang Hui has other aspects of emphasis. For example, although he acknowledges the "amazing achievements" of reform and opening up, he is more focused on vigorously criticizing the "neoliberal" logic contained in reform and opening up. Regarding the trend of "rethinking radicalism" that appeared in the early 1990s, he admitted that there were objective historical reasons for its emergence (1989), but he believed that these reflections were superficial and conservative, including Gan Yang's "Abandoning "Democracy" and Science", establishing "Freedom" and "Order"". This division into two and grasping the main aspect of the contradiction is precisely the tradition of dialectics. In this dialectic, the position of "left-wing" is clear, but "statism" is more vague, or in the eyes of his supporters, it is just an accident: when the position of left-wing coincides with nationalism, Wang Hui Looking like a statist, Wang Hui is an anti-statist when left-wing positions conflict with statism. Presumably for this reason, his supporters regard Depoliticized Politics as his most authentic political philosophy work, and loathe any criticism that is too stance.

I also think that past liberal criticisms of Wang Hui's statist stance have been unconvincing. They either proceeded from the overall standpoint of the New Left, and pushed from the overall statism of the New Left to Wang Hui's statism; or they selected his unrepresentative articles, locked certain words in them, and deduced Wang Hui from the statist tendencies of these words. his own nationalist tendencies; either rebuke him for his admiration for the personality of revolutionaries from the Great Purge of the Soviet Union, rebuke his admiration for the Cultural Revolution from the mutual disclosures and armed struggles of the Cultural Revolution, and infer him from his ignorance of certain historical facts. political stance. This is probably enough to make Wang Hui's statist leanings clear to those with the same stance, but it's always unavoidable for neutrals to be confused.

The main purpose of this article is to prove that Wang Hui is not a scholar of nationalism in the general sense, or that we can only talk about Wang Hui's "nationalism" in a special sense; similarly, he is not a leftist in the Western sense. It is also self-indulgent for the Western left to see him as its own kind in China. His criticality is not aimed at the biggest oppressor of his political context, and can even be used by the latter; his left-wing stance is unique. The contradictions with "statism" that ran through all his periods, and his inability to reconcile them effectively, made his left-wing positions the sacrificial party most of the time; most importantly, Chinese progressives could not See Wang Hui as something to unite with, but to draw lessons from Wang Hui’s theoretical legacy to chart and reshape its own agenda.

depoliticized politics

In order to clarify Wang Hui's complex position, we must start with his concept of "politics". Not only does the concept feature prominently in his "The Politics of Depoliticization," it also appears frequently in "The Birth of the Century," as well as in his unedited articles and interviews. We want to see if Wang Hui has a consistent use of "politics". This is not to say that "politics" can only have one meaning, but that even if "politics" has multiple meanings in Wang Hui's writings, these meanings whether they can form a coherent position. Because "The Politics of Depoliticization" and "The Birth of the Century" are anthologies, and the articles in the anthologies are written at different times, our citations and discussions are mainly centered on the articles, and the time of the articles' writing is explained, so that everyone can identify and analyze Wang. Hui's thinking trajectory.

Zhang Yongle made a distinction on Wang Hui's concept of "politics": "The latter "politics" in "depoliticized politics" points to the everyday understanding of politics as a struggle for power and interests, but the first "politics" ' but implies a normative concept of 'the political', which refers to active subjectivity and action in the public sphere. Depoliticization means depriving political subjects of the possibility of political intervention in the public space." If Zhang Yongle's analysis can summarize Wang Hui's usage of "politics", then Wang Hui, who "values the active subjectivity and action of the public sphere", certainly cannot be easily classified as a statist. The stance of Xu Jilin has changed, so that his tendency to nationalism has become stronger and stronger. In fact, Xu Jilin's article "Nationalism" implies this meaning.

The academic community generally agrees with Wang Hui's statement that the politics since the reform is "depoliticized politics", but most people's understanding of "depoliticization" is not completely consistent with Wang Hui's own use. Understand it as "de-class struggle" and "de-ideology", and most intellectuals welcome "de-class struggle" and "de-ideology", but Wang Hui's own attitude is obviously It's a pity for "depoliticization". For this kind of dislocation, Wang Hui himself has a certain responsibility. For example, in his article "Depoliticized Politics, Multiple Compositions of Hegemony, and the Disappearance of the 1960s", he believes that the "depoliticization process" has the following two characteristics: 1. It is the "de-theorization" in the ideological field, which is manifested in Deng Xiaoping's "not arguing"; the second is the end of the line struggle within the party, which is manifested in the focus on economic construction and "crossing the river by feeling the stones." In this way, there seems to be nothing wrong with other people's generalization of these two characteristics as "de-ideological" and "de-class struggle".

In "The Politics of Depoliticization", Wang Hui himself defines "politics" in more detail (although he emphasizes that this is only "temporary"), and tries to define "depoliticization" more precisely on this basis. ":

First, politics is a subjective and active field, not an objective structure, or a field of subjective and objective unity produced under the action of subjective initiative.

Second, political activities are the leading behaviors of active subjects, so politics and leadership issues are closely related.

Third, any political subject must be maintained in a relationship between political subjects (whether it is an enemy-friend relationship or a dialogue relationship). No matter how to cancel this relationship, it will inevitably constitute a negation of political subjectivity. .

Therefore, the so-called "depoliticization" refers to the following phenomena: the negation of the freedom and agency of the subject that constitutes the premise and basis of political activities, the value, organizational structure and leadership structure of the political subject under specific historical conditions, The complete cancellation of the game relationship that constitutes a particular politics or the placement of this game relationship in an apolitical false relationship.

Wang Hui's definition of "politics" and "depoliticization" in this way has not made the concept itself any clearer. We have to analyze his specific discussion to see if we can make "politics" and "depoliticization" possible. There is a more intuitive presentation.

With the help of Alessandro Russo's research on the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Wang Hui mentioned "the depoliticization of itself in the 1960s": "The factional struggle and violent conflict made the open political debate, diverse Sexual political organization and the resulting political culture are on the verge of crisis, providing an opportunity for the party-state system to re-engage and consolidate.” This shows that for Wang Hui, open political debate, diverse political organizations, and The corresponding political culture is "politics," while factional struggles and violent conflicts are "depoliticization." This is the source of the difference in the understanding of the Cultural Revolution between Wang Hui and most contemporary Chinese intellectuals. For the latter, there was no real open political debate and diverse political organizations in the Cultural Revolution, only factional struggles and violent conflicts, so what they understand by "depoliticization" is that they are no longer based on ideological positions and class origin. Criticism and factional struggle is not a bad thing. But Wang Hui believes that "depoliticization" is based on development and social stability, and suppresses open political debate and diverse political organizations, which is equivalent to throwing away children and bath water. It should be noted that it is not only liberal intellectuals who have such a different understanding of the Cultural Revolution from Wang Hui. In Taking Beauty as a Mirror, Liu Xiaofeng, a cultural conservative, also uses the violent conflict of the Cultural Revolution to satirize Cambridge University. The party's reckless promotion of "radical democracy".

In many places in Depoliticized Politics, Wang Hui understands "politics" in this way. On this basis, he reinterprets some concepts that have been abandoned by the mainstream, giving them new connotations. These concepts are also crucial to understanding Wang Hui's concept of "politics". The first is the "line struggle". As to why this concept is spurned, Wang Hui's explanation is similar to our explanation of why "depoliticization" is welcomed by intellectuals: "Because of the lack of institutional conditions to ensure the continued and healthy development of these theoretical and policy debates, Debates and differences are often 'resolved' in the form of power struggles. After the Cultural Revolution, many victims of political struggles completely rejected the concept of 'line struggle' out of abhorrence for 'line struggle'." But Wang Hui believes that , the early line struggles did not take the form of armed struggles, but were dominated by theoretical debates and policy debates. Not only that, but theoretical debates and policy debates also laid the foundation for later reform and opening up, as many issues involved in reform and opening up emerged in the theoretical debates in the mid-1970s, such as "whether commodity production can produce capitalism, distribution according to work or not." Will it produce bourgeois rights?” etc.

In the 2010 article "The Experience of China's Rise and the Challenges It Faces", Wang Hui also repeated the importance of line struggle and theoretical debate: "As a political party's line error correction mechanism, theoretical debate, especially public theory Debates have played an important role in the self-adjustment and self-reform of political parties and countries. Due to the lack of a democratic mechanism within the Communist Party, line struggles often turn into power struggles that are ruthlessly attacked, but these factors should not overshadow line debates and theoretical debates important role in its history." In Wang Hui's view, line struggle and theoretical debate are not only an important manifestation of "politics" in the Mao era, but also "the party's line error correction mechanism." Wang Hui even used this to explain Why hasn't China undergone drastic changes like the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries. But why do line struggles always turn into relentless power struggles again and again? Is it just because of the lack of democratic institutions within the party? I'm afraid more explanation is needed here.

Depoliticization of the concept of class

Another important concept is "class". "Depoliticization" does come with the blurring or fading of the concept of class. This is a joy to many intellectuals, because they will no longer be labeled as "stinky old nine", but Wang Hui doesn't see it that way, not only because he holds a left-wing position, but because he holds A definition of "class" different from that of ordinary scholars, and this definition, in his view, is in line with the spirit of Marx.

He deduces several requirements of Marx's concept of class, which, like those of "politics", fail to make the concept itself clear.

First, no matter how complex the picture of class relations is, class consciousness and class struggle are always constrained by the fundamental class structure, and will certainly manifest as a conscious transformation of specific production relations or class structure; second, class is a relational concept , that is, a certain class can only be defined in its relationship with other classes, so that class relations include inherent, fundamental, and objectively based antagonisms based on the specific relationship between exploitation and exploitation; third, The antagonism between classes is a necessary condition for the formation of classes, that is, without the situation of class antagonism, the class itself cannot be formed; and only by creating the situation of class antagonism, can the subject of the class be produced.

The reason why this concept is closely related to the concept of "politics" is that the emergence of "class" requires subjective initiative, as Wang Hui said: "Class is an 'objective' existence, but this 'objective' existence does not It does not imply the existence of class politics. Only when a class acquires its own political subjectivity can a class as a political class exist and class politics will be stimulated.” In the vernacular, a person’s original origin does not completely determine His "class" (so Wang Hui also agrees with Yuluo Ke's criticism of "blood theory") also needs to take into account his class consciousness and his relationship with other class subjects, and class subjectivity can be transformed, provided that It is necessary to accept "social transformation" or "self-transformation". Therefore, Wang Hui's concept of "class" is a "political class".

Also based on the concept of "politics," Wang Hui's "class struggle" does not presuppose "violent forms of physical destruction or forceful control," which is consistent with the exclusion of violent conflict from politics. Wang Hui believes that the Chinese Communist Party also has this kind of consciousness in the process of conducting class struggle. For example, they have always emphasized the need to avoid extremes in land reform, "oppose the encroachment of the land of the middle peasants, generally do not change the land of the rich peasants, and distinguish the rich peasants from the landlords. and many more". The excessive violence in the Chinese revolution arose from the “depoliticization” of the class concept itself, “that is, placing the political concept of class under the framework of objectivity, and launching a “class struggle” through top-down coercion.” That is, Said that because some people do not realize that classes are political and can be transformed, they can only use a depoliticized way to carry out class struggle, and can only physically destroy or violently suppress opposing classes. This made the Cultural Revolution depoliticized.

In some other articles and interviews, Wang Hui also expressed similar meanings. For example, in 2012-13's "Representational Break and "Post-Party Politics", he also criticized a class concept that was both "positivist" and "essentialist": "Not only the right, but also some leftists believe that In the 20th century, relative to peasants and other social classes, members of the working class occupied a very limited place in Chinese political life, and the bourgeoisie was immature, so modern revolutions could not have a socialist character, and the working class could not be called The real leading class." What are the positivist and essentialist concepts of class? Speaking of Luxembourg's criticism of the Russian Revolution at a reading conference on "The Birth of the Century" held at Tsinghua University on December 23, 2020, he said: "Luxembourg did not realize that the category of class cannot be just at the economic level. , to understand in a static way, but should understand class, class relations and class politics from political changes; to understand the formation of political classes is much more complicated than static property rights relations. This can be said to be the most important in China's later experience. important."

This shows that the class concepts of positivism and essentialism are based on static property rights relations at the economic level, while the class concept in Wang Hui’s ideal is dynamic and generated “based on political and economic analysis”, that is to say, It is necessary to consider the political and economic relations in which the subjects are located, as well as their class consciousness and the possibility of transformation through struggle and transformation. "The 'lineage theory' and identity theory (or composition theory) during the Cultural Revolution were based on the depoliticized concept of class." Under this framework, Chinese revolutionaries could "place the peasantry in the proletarian revolution Therefore, even if the working class in the empirical sense is small, the Chinese revolution led by the Chinese Communist Party and participated by the vast number of Chinese peasants is still socialist in nature.

In Chapter 6 of "The Birth of the Century" written in 2017, "Prophecy and Crisis (2): The October Revolution and the Chinese Revolution", he commented on the Outline of the Chinese Soviet Fundamental Law: "The Chinese Revolution and its socialist pursuits It is first manifested in its political structure, political subject and political concept, and then it is manifested in the change of economic level and production form. Without the Soviet power, this agrarian revolution, which has little direct connection with the working class, would not be called "proletarianism". "The revolution under the leadership of the class." This echoes the content of his article "Representational Break", which also argues that the nature of the revolution cannot be discussed in terms of the number of workers participating in the empirical sense. Later, he simply refers to the peasantry as the proletariat: "The peasantry as a proletariat is not merely the result of a subjective political process, this proposition is itself a product of the globalized division of labor in the age of imperialism... The Chinese revolution must transform the peasantry class As the main body of the revolutionary people, this historical destiny means that this revolution cannot arise naturally and spontaneously from the class character and aspirations of the working and peasantry classes, but must be fought through military, political, production and life struggles. Transform the class character and appeals of its members. This is a highly politicized historical process.” Similarly, he also talked about the tragedy that would happen if the concept of class lost its political character: “Whether in the Yan’an period or after the founding of New China , the frequent occurrence of unjust, false and wrongful convictions arising from intra-party struggles and the abuse of the concept of class, if one considers all levels from the central to the region, there are countless incidents of the same nature.” In Wang Hui, The misuse of the class concept does not mean the randomness of the class concept, but refers to "the rigidity of class boundaries".

The above shows that Wang Hui has not given up his special understanding of "politics" and "class" until recent years, so I don't think there is a phased transformation in Wang Hui. But since there are so many places in his discourse about the "expansion of class concept struggle" leading to wrongful convictions, strong control, and violent conflicts, and expressing a negative attitude, does Wang Hui ask whether the people behind these tragedies What is the root cause? In fact, in both the article "Politics of Depoliticization" and "The Birth of the Century", he attempts to give reasons for this. In the former, he starts from the disappearance of the property rights connotation of the class concept, the increasingly vague issue of class representation in the Communist Party, and the emergence of a bureaucratic state in the Chinese Revolution. Innovation and transformation, by stimulating political debate and political struggle within the party and in the whole society, avoid the degeneration of revolutionary parties after they come to power. However, "once this political conception of class is rigidified into a structural and stable concept of essentialism", it will stifle the theoretical exploration and free debate that embodies political dynamism and turn it into a brutal struggle between different groups of people and merciless blows. There are three problems here: First, if the increasingly vague class representation of the Communist Party is one of the reasons for the Cultural Revolution, and the rigidity of the concept of class is also the reason for the violence of the Cultural Revolution, then Wang Hui's ideal concept of "class" should be "both It can't be blurred or rigid." What kind of state is this? Wang Hui did not explain. Second, why does political dynamism manifest itself as "theoretical exploration and free debate" instead of "brutal struggle" and "relentless attack"? Since Wang Hui regards the relationship between the enemy and ourselves as a kind of relationship between political subjects, why is "brutal struggle" and "ruthless attack" not the embodiment of political initiative? Third, the above explanation is suspected of circular reasoning, because it attributes the violence during the Cultural Revolution to the enlargement of class struggle, and traces the source of the enlargement of class struggle to the “depoliticization of the concept of class”, but according to his As defined above, the violence in the Cultural Revolution itself was a manifestation of "depoliticization". Is "depoliticization" redundant in the causal chain here? In "The October Revolution and the Chinese Revolution", the analysis he gave was also unsatisfactory: "The rigidity of the concept of class and the Bolshevik tradition, which Luxemburg criticized for disregarding democratic forms, resolved intra-party politics in a way that resolved contradictions among the people. The possibility of disagreement is lost or partially lost.” This is nothing more than the “depoliticization of the concept of class,” with the addition of “ignorance of democracy” and the expansion of the contradiction between the enemy and ourselves, but in Wang Hui’s definition, the latter two are themselves It's "depoliticized". This makes people suspect that Wang Hui himself does not know the relationship between cause and effect.

culture and politics

We can summarize: Wang Hui’s understanding of “politics” is a dynamic, non-essentialist, and subjectively active field that places subjects in complex relationships to play against each other, confront and transform. These are not only political definitions, but even Wang Hui's own methodology itself. Commenting on his "The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought," Zhang Yongle wrote: "When faced with a binary opposition, Wang Hui's typical way of thinking is to avoid either choice. There seems to be an instinctive aversion to making connections in the middle. For him, static oppositions often miss the complexity of history, and he seeks to deconstruct these oppositions, removing the dynamics of history from a rigid conceptual framework Liberate. This instinct helps Wang Hui discover new problems and set new agendas.”

Therefore, for Wang Hui, the manifestations of "politics" include: political debate, theoretical exploration, social autonomy, and political struggle within the party-state system (Wang Hui has a special usage of "party-state", which we will discuss in (discussed later), as well as unprecedented activity in the field of political organization and speech; and "depoliticization" is manifested in: polarized factional struggles that eliminate the possibility of social autonomy, political models that transform political debate into power struggles, and political The class concept of sexuality is transformed into an identity-only essentialist view of class.

In an article and an interview with the New Culture Movement, Wang Hui expanded the use of "politics" to a certain extent. Both articles appeared in 2009, the year after he had just published The Politics of Depoliticization. The article is "Variations of Culture and Politics: War, Revolution, and Ideological Warfare in the 1910s" (published twice as a compilation, both titles have been changed), and the interview is "What is the politics of the "May 4th" Cultural Movement? >. In it, "politics" not only has the characteristics mentioned at the beginning of this section, but also reflects the connection with other fields and the possibility of mutual transformation.

In "Variations of Culture and Politics", Wang Hui talked about why Chen Duxiu intervened in politics in a way that was disconnected from politics, citing a passage of Chen Duxiu's words: "We are not ignoring political issues, but because of the political issues since the 18th century. Already bankrupt, we are about to create a new politics on the basis of society; we do not want a constitution, but we want to create in society the substance that naturally needs a new constitution." Old politics - the politics of the state, the politics of the parties, the parliament There is a big problem in the politics of the people, so we have to break with it and return to society to create a new political foundation. This is the purpose of the "New Culture Movement".

In "What is the politics of the "May Fourth" Cultural Movement? 》, Wang Hui made a clearer discussion on the relationship between politics and culture, ethics and values:

Culture in the New Culture Movement is not a category that can be separated from politics. The confrontation between culture and politics is just a strategy, a strategy used by Chen Duxiu and others to intervene in politics. But this strategy is not only a strategy, because starting from culture to intervene in politics means reconsidering what politics is. It's a question of value, and it's a question of judgment. This is why "attitude" has such an important place in this movement. All politics has its own culture. Culture is a strong autonomous force, a force that creates politics. Doctrine is both cultural and political. If party politics is just structural power, without real ism, ideology, or value, it can only be depoliticized politics . Political conflict is, in a certain sense, a conflict of values and a conflict of cultural ideas. A very important contribution of the New Culture Movement is that it provides a new cultural foundation for new party politics, and that it provides an ethical core for politics—the core of politics is ethics and values, and the core of political confrontation and debate is also ethics and value. value.

This must involve the concept of "cultural politics" that the New Left likes to refer to. The so-called "cultural politics", Wang Hui explained in depth in the same article, that is, in a special historical environment, culture itself is also politics, and politics is manifested through culture. The connotation of politics has changed, and the boundaries of politics have been expanded. Originally, "the politics of the country, the politics of political parties, and the politics of parliament" now include "family, gender, class, language, literature, labor," etc. In cultural movements, people not only raise new political issues, but also create new ethics and values, which in turn create new political movements.

In the above quotation, Wang Hui once again mentioned "politics of depoliticization", which means that his usage of "politics" here is consistent with the so-called "politics" of "depoliticization". The "politics" of 'depoliticization' has the same connotation as the "politics" of depoliticization. Wang Hui also emphasized that in Chinese classical roots and Latin roots, "culture" is a dynamic process, and his "politics" is also a dynamic process, so the culture in the New Culture Movement is "with (traditional) politics". Fractured politics”, while “state-centered” politics is “depoliticized politics.” Culture and politics can be transformed into each other, and there is no necessary boundary between politics and other fields.

It is worth mentioning that Takeuchi had a very similar expression of such a relationship between culture and politics in "Lu Xun": "Lu Xun's literature, in terms of the content it embodies, is obviously very political. To be called a representative literary scholar of modern China is also in terms of political significance, however, its political character is the political character endowed by rejecting politics.” Considering that Wang Hui also studied Lu Xun, it is difficult to Imagine that he had never read Takeuchi's good Lu Xun study, but whether Wang Hui concealed his good "reference" to Takeuchi here or not, such a concept of "politics" seems to be difficult to incorporate into the category of "statism". In fact, in "What is the politics of the "May Fourth" Cultural Movement? ”, some of Wang Hui’s expressions may be closer to “anti-statism”. For example, he said that the task of the New Culture Movement was to "create a new politics on the basis of society" to counter state-centered politics, and in "Variations of Culture and Politics" he even said: "The State-centered politics, that is, 'statist' politics, is 'depoliticized politics'." Literally, Wang Hui is critical of statism. He also said that Chen Duxiu wanted to liberate politics from the relationship of "the state and politics are completely consistent" by talking about culture and society, which shows that Wang Hui believes that politics outside the establishment is more authentic than politics in the establishment. Of course, he was talking in the context of the Republic of China, and he quickly changed the topic: "New politics is not the same as denying the concepts of state and political party, but to re-endow these concepts with new connotations. Or start from new values to regulate its political nature.” Of course, “new politics” refers to the later revolutionary politics and socialist politics, so what is the relationship between the state and politics under the new politics?

nationalization of parties

Here we come back to the article "Politics of Depoliticization". We mentioned earlier that the "party-state" mentioned by Wang Hui is not the same thing as the "party-state" in general. Wang Hui's "party-state" refers to a state system centered on party politics, so in his view, whether it is a one-party dictatorship, multi-party cooperation or even competition, it can be called "party-state". Wang Hui believes that in the party-state system, political parties are both political organizations and political movements. Their purpose is to reshape the country and society with their own values and ideals. The relationship between the subject, the political party and their respective social foundations is gradually blurred, and the relationship between the political concept of the political party and its political practice is also increasingly lacking in internal coherence. The "state-party" system was established. Wang Hui called this process "nationalization of political parties." The social foundation of political parties and the connection with the masses gradually weakened, and political parties became "quasi-state institutions." . In "Representational Break", he said: "The nationalization of political parties refers to the fact that political parties are increasingly subordinate to the logic of the state, and not only their functions but also their organizational forms are gradually isomorphic with the state, thereby losing the political party's role as a political organization and a political movement. One of the hallmarks of the nationalization of political parties is the “representational fracture”, which is concentrated in the fact that on the one hand, political parties transcend the previous class category and claim to represent universality, but on the other hand, they are more alienated from the masses, especially the masses at the bottom. . This is happening in the contemporary West as well as in contemporary China, which is why he refers to "the passing of the 1960s".

Wang Hui collectively referred to the still-moving one-party dictatorship and multi-party politics as "party-state" and erased the difference between them, which is bound to attract controversy. Some people think that even if we can agree to a certain degree of political participation in the Mao Zedong era, Western countries have the freedom to form political parties, while China's multi-party cooperation system is only in name, and it is impossible to generate new political parties. It is hard to imagine that there is no freedom to form parties. Under these circumstances, it is possible to talk about "political participation", and Wang Hui seems to think that the level of political participation in Mao-era China was a bit higher than in the West under capitalism. When he said that both the Chinese and Western systems after the 1960s can be called "national-party", the controversy is probably even greater. Even if Western political parties do have a "representational fracture", the basis for their multi-party system is still there, and it is impossible for the country and political parties to be as isomorphic as China. Moreover, looking at Wang Hui's two articles "Depoliticized Politics" and "Representational Fractures", they mentioned the problem of multi-party democracy in the West. In fact, they mixed various problems into one (political convergence, bureaucratization, parliamentary The relationship with the market is getting closer), and the main problems in the past and the main problems are not necessarily the same problem (such as the political intensification in recent years). Wang Hui’s analogy is actually confusing the difference between one-party dictatorship and multi-party competition. Mix up different topics.

In any case, after all, he mentioned the nationalization of political parties in China, and expressed a critical attitude towards it, which shows that he may not be a nationalist as generally understood. But even so, Wang Hui's critique of China's political party nationalization is confusing. Wang Hui believes that there are two forms of political party nationalization: one is the bureaucratization of political parties in the pre-reform period, and the other is the marriage of political parties and capital arising from the trend of government corporatization in the process of marketization. Here it is puzzling: it is okay to take bureaucracy as a form of party nationalization, but why can the "marriage of political parties and capital" be called "party nationalization"?

In Wang Hui's writings, the proliferation of neoliberalism and the trend of party statization go hand in hand, and there are inextricably linked between the two. Therefore, when he criticizes party statization, he is more likely to criticize party statization. Neo-liberalism. He describes the marriage of political parties and capital in more detail in Depoliticized Politics. Wang Hui believes that the "depoliticization" of contemporary China also involves a process of "political transactions". The traditional political elites who hold political power trade with special interest groups and transnational capital. The former uses their power to engage in "property reform." ”, allowing the latter to unjustly occupy a large number of interests, and then legalize this unjust possession in the name of “clear property rights and legalization”. As a result, "the boundaries between the power elite and the bourgeoisie are gradually blurred, and political parties are gradually transformed from a class-based organization to a declassified one", and at the same time, new social inequalities are "naturalized", that is, legalized become the result of natural competition. Qin Hui has also exposed the hidden injustice in the process of "privatization" since the 1990s in several articles. I don't have much objection to this. Did not make it clear. If the nationalization of a party is the fact that the class represented by the party is becoming more and more unclear, and the political value originally promised by the party is increasingly disconnected from its political practice, then what Wang Hui described above is not the nationalization of the party, but the party. Interest grouping, because the class it represents is not unclear, but shifts from the proletariat to the bourgeoisie represented by special interest groups and transnational capital, and likewise, it is different from the political value it originally promised (socialist equality). ) is indeed disconnected, but it is not without the promise of new political values (efficiency and development of capitalism).

In Depoliticized Politics, Wang Hui has a very special logic, that is, in the Mao era, politics and the state, politics and political parties, and political parties and the state were not only separated, but also in a tense relationship , and after the reform, the separated and tense relationship between politics, political parties, and countries disappeared. In my opinion, this actually shifts the focus of the question. What should really be asked is "the relationship between political power and society", not "the relationship between political parties and the state". In the Mao era, no matter whether the political party and the state were integrated or in tension, political power penetrated into every aspect of social life. It gives the society a little space for freedom. Although this freedom does not have much institutional guarantee and is gradually taken away, it is at this level that the liberals support "depoliticization". Moreover, even though there was tension between the party and the state in the Mao era, this tension did not bring about the freedom of speech and politics that Wang Hui affirmed; The so-called "Four Freedoms", "Three Generations Meeting", etc., were only short-lived, but the military's influence on the country reached its peak during the Cultural Revolution.

The most important thing is that Wang Hui's "state-party" system and "nationalization of political parties" are actually not the same as what we generally call "nationalism". What Weber calls "rationalization." What we generally mean by "statism" has at least three meanings: first, it believes that the will and interests of the country override the will and interests of all social, economic, cultural and other fields; second, it supports the expansion of the country's power and how it operates; third, The goals of the state define the goals of society as a whole, as well as the identities and goals of individuals. Regarding these three points, we must look at them in the political context after 1949: although Wang Hui believes that "state-centered" politics is "depoliticized politics", he aimed at the politics of the Republic of China; Although he mentioned "the establishment of a democratic system related to the market and the transformation of anti-market forces into ethnocentrism, statism and totalitarianism", he did not say what such a democratic system is, especially, How can such a democratic system coexist with a one-party dictatorship? Wang Hui's criticism of "nationalization of political parties" does not mean that he is criticizing "nationalism." On the contrary, it is more likely that he is using the "state" as a shield, and by criticizing the state-party, he is a political party that truly monopolizes political power behind the state. Covering up, no matter how the "country" is attacked, the Chinese Communist Party and the "primitive spirit" behind it are unscathed. He is indeed not an average statist, he is much smarter than an average statist.

Wang Hui's Paradox

Let us repeat the previous judgment: the above differences do not represent a phased turn, and this contradictory discussion runs through Wang Hui's various periods. Wang Hui's most obvious statist tendencies are "The Experience of China's Rise and the Challenges It Faces" (2010), "The Uniqueness and Universality of China's Path" (2011), "The "Tibet Issue" Between East and West (Part 2)" (2011), "The War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea from the Perspective of China in the 20th Century" (2013), but "Representational Break" was written in July 2012, and "October Revolution and Chinese Revolution" was written in 2017 year.

On the same issue, we can see that he often has different attitudes. For example, he explicitly criticized "the marriage of political parties and capital" in "Politics of Depoliticization" and "Fracture of Representation", while "The Rise of China", which was written in the middle of these two articles, also emphasized the "nationalization of political parties". However, it is obviously more focused on expressing the purpose of representing the interests of the majority of the people in a socialist country, and it is emphasized that China's reforms have always been stable in the financial system, land system, and state-owned enterprise system, and have not strayed from that purpose.

Even in the same article, a state of coexistence of both tendencies can often be found. For example, in the most critical article "Depoliticized Politics", Wang Hui said that the "de-state process" produced by intellectuals and social criticism did not provide the effect of "repoliticization", but was incorporated into another layer a process of "depoliticization". "In contemporary China, the 'anti-socialist ideology' disguises its internal connection with the new state and its legitimacy with an anti-state appearance, and is thus nothing more than an anti-state state (i.e., an 'imperial ideology' ') ideology, the new state ideology itself has a supranational character, and thus often manifests itself in attacking the 'state' position from a transnationalist perspective."

This may seem like a critique of "compradorism" at first glance, but Wang Hui's remarks seem to be saying that this kind of neoliberal anti-statism is actually not thorough enough, because they are not really against the state power, but only Anti-state ideology (socialism) and state apparatus, for example, neoliberals show an anti-state stance on the one hand, but demand legalization and institutionalization on the other hand, and the latter is an important part of state construction . Later, he also said: "The political struggle is mainly focused on the key issue of who controls the state power or the value orientation of the state power. Once the distinction between the state power and the state apparatus is eliminated, it will also eliminate the field of political activities. the necessity of territorial and political struggle to transform a political issue into an apolitical or depoliticized 'de-state process'."

When we talked about the concept of "politics" earlier, we have indeed neglected the second point made by Wang Hui, that is, politics and the issue of "leadership" are closely related. Combining the above passage, is it possible that Wang Hui's meaning is: It is not enough to criticize the state apparatus, but also to criticize the regime itself, and even to criticize it is not enough, but also to seize the regime itself? Of course, he should not support neoliberals seizing power, because the society established in that way is still "depoliticized". If there are such a group of people who want to build a society with broad democratic participation without letting the market and capital intervene in such democracy, will such a group of people seize power, will Wang Hui support it? If so, Wang Hui's position is probably similar to Schmidt, the German jurist before the Nazis came to power. Schmidt once reminded the Weimar government to use political decisiveness to remove the anti-constitutional political party like the Nazis, otherwise the Weimar Republic would eventually be difficult to preserve. In the end, when the Nazis came to power, he accepted the rule of the Nazis without too many psychological obstacles. Because in his opinion, Hitler is the sovereign who dares to make decisions. Schmidt didn't support the Nazis from the beginning, he just wanted to see someone with political decisiveness, who he would support. Similarly, Wang Hui doesn't necessarily agree with the current regime. He just wants to see "politics", and he will support whoever can restore "politics".

This speculation is a bit bold. Before commenting further on this speculation, let's take a look at Wang Hui's attitude towards another form of nationalism. This also facilitates us to have a more comprehensive understanding of his position. This kind of nationalism is the nationalism of Du Yaquan, the editor-in-chief of Oriental Magazine from 1910 to 1920. Du Yaquan's statism does not exactly match our definition in the section on "Nationalization of Political Parties." Based on Du Yaquan's several articles and Wang Hui's interpretation, his "statism" has the following meanings: 1. Putting the state as the center, placing state power above individual rights; 2. Defending the unity and independence of the country; 3. Focus on the continuity of the country itself; Fourth, China is not a simple nation-state, but a civilized state. If you want to say that Wang Hui is a nationalist, then Wang Hui may be closer to a nationalist in the sense of Du Yaquan.

Du Yaquan used his statism to oppose "politicalism," which has nothing to do with what Wang Hui said about "politics", but referred to democratic constitutionalism, which is to take the government as the center and transform the internal environment of the country as the primary goal. The center of gravity is to pay attention to the power of the group, to extend the rights of the people, and to limit the power of the state. In Du Yaquan's view, given the situation of the Republic of China at the time, if the "politicalism" was emphasized too much, the country would inevitably have internal divisions, and foreign enemies would also take advantage of it. The primary task at that time was to preserve the country, on the one hand, the territory of China, and on the other hand, the preservation of Chinese civilization.

On the other hand, Du Yaquan was another opponent of Chen Duxiu's argument, and he fought many times in battles over whether Eastern and Western civilizations could be reconciled. But it is worth mentioning that the "state-centered" politics criticized by Chen Duxiu and the "politicalism" criticized by Du Yaquan have the same target, namely parliamentary politics and party politics. There is not much objection. Their differences lie in where China's future should go. Du Yaquan believes that China does not need to blindly worship and copy the Western political model, but should combine its own civilizational traditions and explore a political system that suits it. What Chen Duxiu considered was how to create new political subjects, new political issues, new political values, and new political ethics through cultural innovation.

Both are praised by Wang Hui. The former is reflected in The Rise of Modern Thought in China, and the latter is reflected in the anthologies such as Depoliticized Politics and The Birth of the Century. Wang Hui had considerable sympathy for Du Yaquan, and he wrote more about him than Chen Duxiu. He commented on some of Du Yaquan's remarks, with a faint sense of self-substitute: "The issue of the size of the government can neither be discussed in the dual relationship between tradition and modernity, nor can it be analyzed in the dual relationship between democracy and autocracy. It can only be examined in the context of the crisis of modern politics itself.” More appropriately, his position seems to be a synthesis of Chen Duxiu and Du Yaquan. Not coincidentally, Du Yaquan himself once proposed the idea of reconciliation. For example, in 1918, Du Yaquan published "The Reconciliation of Contradictions", which mentioned that if there are some similarities or overlaps between the two oppositionalisms, they can be reconciled (such as socialism and nationalism). In "Bridging between old and new ideas", Du Yaquan also asserted that "a new civilization will be born in the harmony between Chinese tradition and the new civilization of Europe in the 20th century". To borrow Hegel's terminology, if Du Yaquan and Chen Duxiu are thesis and antithesis, then the synthesis should come from Du Yaquan's side.

How Progressives Treat Wang Hui's "Legacy"

At the beginning of the article "The Historical Roots of China's "Neoliberalism", Wang Hui said something meaningful: "The theoretical practice and social movements against neoliberalism contain various contradictory elements - radical, moderate , conservative elements. In my opinion, the main task of the progressive forces in contemporary Chinese society is to prevent these elements from developing in a conservative direction (including those that try to return to the old system), and strive to promote the transformation of these elements to make them Be the driving force for wider democracy and freedom in China and around the world.”

Written in 2000, at a time when the debate between liberalism and the New Left was in full swing, Wang Hui, judging from the phrasing of the quotation, described himself as part of a "progressive force." Twenty years later, liberalism has been divided into conservatives and progressives (especially after Trump's defeat), and the positions of progressive liberals on many public issues are closer to feminists and the new generation of the left. . So, how do these broad progressives deal with Wang Hui's argument?

Here I have to mention the group of Mao Zuo youths who briefly appeared on the stage of history in the Jasic Movement in 2018. On the issue of the Cultural Revolution, they are very close to Wang Hui's position. For example, they believe that the Cultural Revolution was initiated by Mao to solve the increasingly serious problem of bureaucratization within the party. "Freedom" and great democracy are superior to the Western constitutional democratic system. Tactics and martial arts are not in line with the spirit of the Cultural Revolution... Their political plans for the future are probably similar to those of Wang Hui in his book Depoliticized Politics. The expressed tendency is similar: resist the marriage of political parties and capital, and let the working and peasant class truly be the masters of the country. But their attitude towards the current regime is much clearer than that of Wang Hui, and they decisively put their ideas into practice. Other progressive factions may not agree with their interpretation of history and judgment of the status quo, but they basically agree with their words and deeds.

In Wang Hui's interpretation of the Cultural Revolution, the part related to historical facts can be left to historians for analysis. We will only talk about theoretical issues here. First of all, as we said earlier, his concept of "class" is not clear, although he makes abstract explanations and gives examples. On the one hand, in his article "The Politics of Depoliticization" and many other articles, he opposed the rigidity of the concept of class, which he believed made the Cultural Revolution begin to depoliticize; Criticize the increasingly vague nature of this state-party system as depoliticized.

This is confusing: if there is no relatively clear way of determining a person's class affiliation, how can one be sure that a party's class representation has become blurred? If there is such a way, why does the concept of class become rigid? It can neither be blurred nor rigid. How to grasp the degree of this? We are not questioning Wang Hui’s ability to make this judgment, but he did not clearly state how to judge, nor do we question the existence of such a judgment method, but the problem is that this method is obvious Ordinary people cannot easily grasp it, or even if most people grasp it, there will definitely be differences in judgment. Wouldn’t this difficulty and difference in judgment also make class struggle violent? For the same person, some people judged him to be a member of the exploiting class, while others judged him not. Those who judged "yes" decided to resort to violence, because "revolution is not a dinner party," what would Wang Hui say?

In the final analysis, Wang Hui did not make it clear how the rigid concept of class led to violence. One conceivable situation is that a person who would be classified as an exploiting class according to the general class classification method might be classified as a working people if his class consciousness and his relationship with other class subjects are taken into account. a member, so that he should not experience violence. However, Wang Hui did not expect that if class consciousness and his relationship with other class subjects were taken into account, a person who was originally classified as a working people might also be classified as an exploiting class and thus be subjected to violence.

Of course, Wang Hui also expressed his opposition to resorting to violence in class struggle, because people can be reformed, and using violence is equivalent to denying people's subjective initiative. If Wang Hui meant to oppose all actions that resort to violence in class struggle, then this is not easy to hold in the Marxist tradition, because the revolutionary teachers did not completely oppose violence. Mao Zedong's complete words were: "Revolution is not a dinner party, an essay, or painting or embroidery. It cannot be so elegant, unhurried, polite, gentle, courteous, and thrifty. Revolution is a riot, a violent act of one class to overthrow another." Of course, we can definitely think of some Saying quits to limit this passage, but the question remains: how do ordinary working people judge when they can resort to violence and when they can't?

This is why line struggles always turn into violent factional struggles, because the judgment of class is full of all kinds of subjectivity. People in the revolutionary era are always easy to judge those who are opposed to their own views as class enemies. As for when violence can be used against class enemies and when not, the judgment here is also full of subjectivity. We do not deny the possibility that those with revolutionary personality can make accurate judgments, but when great leaders delegate this power to ordinary people, what guarantees they can do it every time make a correct judgment? Therefore, Wang Hui's concept of a "non-ossified" class is fundamentally unavoidable to make the class struggle violent.

This can explain why Wang Hui used "depoliticization" to explain the failure of the Cultural Revolution, because he could not give a really convincing explanation at all. The reason why the concept of "depoliticization" has become popular in academic circles and some public opinion circles is that it has indeed grasped an important trend after reform, but to use it to explain the failure of the Cultural Revolution is pure abuse. The expansion of class struggle is rooted in the "depoliticization" of the concept of class, and the cultural revolution's tendency to violence is also rooted in "depoliticization", so why is it "depoliticized"? Wang Hui didn't have any explanation, because any further explanation would touch his fundamental position. "Depoliticization" was a redundant concept in the causal chain of the Cultural Revolution. After Ockham's razor was used, there was nothing of value left in this causal chain.

Rather than using "depoliticization" to explain the failure of the Cultural Revolution embodies some kind of insight that is incompatible with liberalism, it represents some leftists' reluctance to face the huge gap between their theory and reality, and their reluctance to confront them. The hard lessons of putting theory into practice. Nowadays, the common usage of the concept of "depoliticization" is different from Wang Hui's original intention. It also refers to discussing issues aside from factors of political power. Regarding the evolution of the application of this concept, we might as well make mistakes and continue to use them, but we don’t have to accept Wang Hui’s theoretical mission of “depoliticization”.

In my opinion, Wang Hui's most important contribution lies in his concept of "politics". Schmidt and Arendt (Hannah Arendt) are far away from scholars who emphasize the concept of "politics", while John Rawls and Chantal Mouffe are nearer. Wang Hui's "politics" Concepts are similar to theirs, but not quite the same. Besides, we can also find the shadow of Wang Hui's concept of "politics" in Chen Duxiu, Mao Zedong, Gramsci and Habermas.

In a nutshell, Wang Hui's concept of "politics" has four points. In addition to "subjective initiative," "leadership," and "relationships between political subjects," which he himself summed up, there are also "dynamic connections." Wang Hui's emphasis on subjectivity corresponds to his emphasis on political participation and social movements. This is similar to Arendt's concept of "politics", which is almost bound to public "action". together. Unlike the latter, Wang Hui's concept of "politics" does not form a field independently, nor is it separated from the rest of society, which is fully reflected in his discussion of Chen Duxiu's claims. When Wang Hui talked about the importance of leadership in "politics", he was undoubtedly influenced by Gramsci, but there was also a faint trace of Schmitt's discussion of the sovereign. "The relationship between political subjects" includes "friend-enemy relationship" and "dialogue relationship". Of course, "friend-enemy relationship" benefits from the discourses of Mao Zedong and Schmidt, while "dialogue relationship" includes Arendt's communicative actions and Habermas's theory of communicative behavior comes first. As for "dynamic connection", this is what I summed up for Wang Hui. When he discusses the concept of "class" and Chen Duxiu's views on "culture and politics", it can be seen that Wang Hui's concept of "politics" emphasizes dynamic connection That is, on the one hand, it does not make the judgment of essentialism, and on the other hand, it emphasizes its transformability with other fields. That's why I think his concept of "politics" has the spirit of his whole methodology behind it.

Since the emphasis on political dynamics is an important part of Wang Hui's concept of "politics," an extremely important question arises: how to understand Wang Hui's discourse on political participation and social movements? In "The Ideological Roots of China's "Neoliberalism", he has this passage:

Here, what needs to be discussed in particular is how to form a democratic supervision mechanism through the interaction between social movements and institutional innovation, so as not to rely on the state to supervise the nouveau riche in general, but to prevent the state from taking power and local governments through democratic mechanisms at different levels. Group corruption. In this sense, it is extremely important to form the public space at various levels by what force and in what way. In my opinion, this hybrid system must be built on the basic premise that ordinary citizens advance public discussions about public decision-making at different levels through social movements, public discussions, etc. Here, the formation of social movements and public spaces at different levels is a particularly important intermediate link, that is, public discussions and social movements take place not only in national public spaces, but also in various local public spaces. , so that ordinary citizens can discover social issues in the public domain that are closely related to their daily arrangements.

I support this remark, and anyone who takes a critical stance on statism will not disagree. In "The Politics of Depoliticization," he said: "Today, the analysis of any power must be placed in the context of a network of power, and in any single direction to cast oneself as an opponent is a Suspicious." Isn't this the "intersectionality" of third-wave feminism? It should be noted that there is a possibility of overlapping and superposition of oppression in multiple dimensions such as class, gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. In "Fracture of Representation" he says:

To say that there is no class politics in the 20th century sense today does not mean that there are no active class movements and civic politics that intervene in political, economic, ecological and cultural issues in various forms. Social movements have political potential, but they may not be able to generate new politics, because under the conditions of financial capitalism, social movements are often infiltrated by the capital system.

There is nothing wrong with being vigilant about the penetration of social movements by the market and capital.

What he said is not wrong in isolation, but if we pay attention to the context of his words above, we will find that his emphasis on political participation and social movement is carried out in the context of criticizing neoliberalism , he hardly mentions political participation and social movements when talking about the oppressive nature of the state, and rarely talks about what kind of system the state needs to establish in order to guarantee the people's right to political participation and to initiate social movements. Moreover, the two sentences quoted in the previous paragraph carry a kind of exacting of "perfect protesters". He seems to be saying that as long as you are not an all-round opponent, you are not an opponent, and as long as there is any point in your movement Capital participation (for example, the Ford Foundation once funded some NGOs in China), you are not a real social movement.

The most serious thing is that Wang Hui never imagined that in today's China, the state itself is becoming the core of multi-dimensional oppression. Human rights lawyers and non-profit organizations with a liberal overtone may not be the objects of Wang Hui's sympathy. Does he know that since 2018, women's rights organizations and religious groups have gradually become the targets of political attacks. Forced into exile, some in prison. This year has intensified. On Chinese public platforms, a large number of feminist activist accounts have been banned, and LGBTQ groups have been completely silenced. Not only that, but even the left-wing associations and left-wing youths closest to Wang Hui’s position disappeared from the public sphere after the 2018 movement was suppressed. If Wang Hui is a sincere critic, why is he silent on this situation?

I personally think that Wang Hui's silence is not only because his left-wing stance is not sincere, but also because he places too much hope and preference on the Chinese Communist Party. In Wang Hui's view, the Communist Party of China is not only the only possible carrier of communist ideals in the present world, but also the only possible force to succeed imperial China and socialist China. Wang Hui's contemporary "nationalists" also used theories to continue the ambitions of imperial China and socialist China, but Wang Hui and their approach were not exactly the same. Gan Yang once proposed "connecting the three traditions", that is, the three traditions of Confucianism, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. Some other scholars, such as Liu Xiaofeng, Kang Xiaoguang, and Daniel Bell, believe that the core of the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party lies in "meritocracy", and what imperial China advocates is also a kind of meritocracy, which is where civilization continues. Wang Hui's recognition of socialist China, of course, includes anti-imperialist and modernization, but the parts he cares about most are the agrarian revolution, people's war and cultural revolution. On the surface, these are not only related to the political tradition of Chinese civilization. Incompatible, or even mutually exclusive. That's why his statist comrades generally hold a negative view of the Cultural Revolution.

However, if Wang Hui's approach is likely to succeed, that is, to connect the traditions of imperial China with the most revolutionary parts of socialist China, it can only rely on Takeuchi's good theory. In fact, I think that Wang Hui's current work is all moving forward in accordance with the ideas set by Takeuchi Yu, who has expressed the concept of "self-regeneration can only be achieved by self-denial" in many articles. When talking about why he disbanded the Chinese Literature Research Association, he said: "For me, the research association should be constantly growing. It must always be self-denial. It does not contain death, life, no questioning thoughts, no To accomplish a culture of generative development in its own power is meaningless to me." Elsewhere, he adds: "Creation can only take place through actions, only by actions of self-denial. "

Takeuchi has a high evaluation of China's modernization (modernization), and conversely believes that Japan's modernization is a failure. The failure of Japan's modernization lies in the fact that it accepted the ideas of European modernity too easily without substantial resistance, so that it lost its "subjectivity" and "ideal". In contrast, although China became a semi-colonial for a hundred years, it had "lofty" ideals and made a real "resistance" to modern European ideas. The ultimate manifestation of this resistance is Lu Xun's literature. In his terminology, modern Japan is "turning", while China is "returning to the heart." "If turning is outward movement, turning inward is turning inward. Turning is reflected in self-preservation, turning occurs in self-renunciation. Turning is mediated by resistance, turning has no medium."

It is generally believed that in the process of modernization, Japan has retained more of its own spiritual traditions (such as Bushido), national establishment (emperor system) and way of life, so it is not a complete Westernization, but Takeuchi does not think so. He believes that Japanese culture is a turning culture, and precisely because it has not experienced a "historical rupture" such as revolution in modern times, there has never been a historical change such as "splitting the past to give birth to new life, and reviving old things." "In Japan, new things must be obsolete, and there is no regeneration of old things." Regardless of whether Takeuchi's understanding of the modernization of China and Japan is accurate or not, the idea is quite obvious: if we understand China's revolution in the sense of "splitting the past with new life, and reviving the old" (including Land Reform, People’s War and Cultural Revolution), or, in other words, if the socialist revolution is regarded as the “medium” for China to achieve self-rebirth through self-denial (in Takeuchi’s case, the Chinese medium is Lu Xun), then in theory, Such a continuation of civilizations seems to make sense. On the surface, China's revolution is a negation of imperial China (anti-feudalism), but in fact, Chinese civilization can only be reborn through social revolution in all aspects, and such modernization is generated from within and has a subjectivity. .

Wang Hui did not express this idea in his own writings and articles. Compared with his colleagues, who sought similarities from imperial China and socialist China, this approach seems to be brilliant, but it also has drawbacks. Takeuchi is a pure scholar, but Wang Hui is a left-wing scholar, which is the biggest difference between the two identities. It does not mean that a pure scholar has no political stance, but that his stance and theories may not point to any political action, but left-wing scholars, especially left-wing scholars like Wang Hui who emphasize political activism so much, cannot be limited to " Explain the world", but also "transform the world". The use of "self-denial and self-rebirth" is used to continue imperial China and socialist China. In this process, "revolution" is a medium and a link in this historical theory. After the theory is completed, each link is fixed. Similarly, "revolution" " also fixed. The discussion of the Chinese revolution has become nostalgic, and the call for the personality of the revolutionaries has become a "salutation to the martyrs", gradually becoming "static" and "landscape", completely losing the "political" he emphasized.

Epilogue

At the end of this article, some points must be clarified: First of all, I am not criticizing the New Left from a purely liberal point of view. In fact, I agree with what Wang Hui said, the liberal/New Left dichotomy is not too big. Meaning, there is indeed a distinction between progressives and conservatives within liberalism, and many of the new left's problem consciousness is worth inheriting. But I don't think the statist/anti-statist distinction is false. As I said before, the state has become the core of multidimensional and intersecting oppression. To deny the existence of these oppressions, or to justify these oppressions, requires a very sophisticated theory to support. In fact, I don't think any serious discussant of contemporary Chinese politics can shy away from this question, and efforts to dissolve the statist/anti-statist distinction, or to reduce it to a left/right debate, lack depth of.

However, distinguishing between statists and anti-statists does not mean that anyone who participates in public discussions should be rigidly classified as statists or anti-statists. Wang Hui is not someone who can be simply classified as a statist. For example, he is critical of bureaucracy and the exchange of power and capital, and is positive about freedom of speech, organizational diversity, political participation, and social movements. . However, many of his expositions are ambiguous and even contradictory. There are of course reasons for his methodology, but his harshness towards opponents and tolerance towards the ruling party, his "landscaped" left-wing stance It is indeed a stark contrast to his ambition to continue civilization. This not only makes his "critical" discourse easy to be integrated into the overall stability maintenance mechanism, losing most of its critical effectiveness, but also fails to play any guiding or inspiring role in the "politicization" of progressive forces, only It causes the people inside to be lost in thought and confused in direction.

We mentioned Du Yaquan's "statism" in the section "Wang Hui's Paradox". If Wang Hui is a statist, he should be closer to Du Yaquan's "statism", that is, on the one hand, he wants China's Independence and reunification, on the other hand, requires the continuation of Chinese civilization. If Chen Duxiu refers to "cultural politics", then Du Yaquan refers to "civilization politics", and the "cultural politics" advocated by contemporary Chinese New Leftists has actually integrated Chen Duxiu's "cultural politics" and Du Yaquan's "civilization politics" ". If anyone is likely to complete the theoretical mission of continuing Chinese civilization, then Wang Hui is also one of the strong candidates. Such a mission came to Wang Hui. For him, revolution, left-wing stance, and progressivism would have other functions besides being a vase and decoration within his theory?

Wang Hui may really oppose the nationalization of political parties, or the unity of political parties and the state, but what he fails to take into account is that no matter whether the political parties and the state are unified or not, as long as there is no one that restricts the operation of political power and guarantees the people's basic political Participating in the right system, the oppression from political power will inevitably arise, and the political initiative advocated by Wang Hui will either not appear, or will appear at the same time as violence. The separation of the political party and the state, although one of the conditions for political initiative, is not the key. Without institutional guarantees, the separation of the political party and the state will gradually lead to factional struggle and violent conflict, while the unity of the political party and the state will gradually lead to factional struggle and violent conflict. , it will suppress all different voices, so it is nothing more than a cycle between total conflict and total suppression. Wang Hui's delusional attempt to avoid fundamental institutional reflection through a concept of "depoliticization" is exactly the left-wing version of "covering one's ears and stealing the bell."

If Wang Hui has a political theory, then his theory is fundamentally "depoliticized," even according to his own definition of "depoliticized."

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