The Ebb and Flow of Individualism in China

Abstract

In this brief but wide-ranging conversation, Liu Zaifu and late philosopher Li Zehou discuss the nature and history of individualism in China. Was there individualism in China before the reformers of the late nineteenth century encountered French and English Enlightenment philosophers? Is Daoism a sort of individualism native to China, or is it something different? What is good about individualism, and what is bad about it? What are the proper limitations to the individual? Much of this discussion centers around Lu Xun, his brother Zhou Zuoren, and the May Fourth movement, which is contrasted with later periods of the twentieth century in China. This dialogue first appeared in the 1995 book Farewell Revolution (Gaobie geming).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Liu Zaifu

Liu Zaifu (1941–) is a renowned contemporary Chinese literary critic and scholar. He served as the Director of the Institute of Literature at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing and the Editor in Chief of Literary Review (Wenxue Pinglun 文学评论). He has lectured at different universities, including the University of Chicago, the University of Stockholm, and the University of British Columbia as a visiting scholar or visiting professor. Since 1994, he has been a Visiting Fellow at the University of Colorado Boulder. From 2002 to 2010, he was an Honorary Professor at the Center of Chinese Culture of the City University of Hong Kong. He has published more than one hundred books, varying from scholarly and theoretical works to collections of essays, including Lu Xun and Natural Science (Lu Xun he ziran kexue 鲁迅和自然科学) in 1977, A Biography of Lu Xun (Lu Xun zhuan 鲁迅传) in 1981, Lu Xun’s Aesthetics (Lu Xun meixue sixiang lungao 鲁迅美学思想论稿) in 1981, The Theory of Character Organization (Xingge zuhelun 性格组合论) in 1986, Farewell Revolution (Gaobie geming 告别革命, coauthored with Li Zehou) in 1995, and a five-volume series entitled Records of Exile, to name a few.

Li Zehou

Li Zehou (1930–2021) was one of the most important modern scholars of Chinese philosophy, aesthetics, and intellectual history in the twentieth century. Li founded the most important Chinese philosophical academic journal Philosophy Research (Zhexue yanjiu 哲学研究) in 1955. He was a prominent figure in the so-called Great Debate on Aesthetics (Meixue da taolun 美学大讨论) of the 1950s and 1960s. His works on Chinese aesthetics, including The Path of Beauty (Meide licheng 美的历程) in 1981, The Chinese Aesthetic Tradition (Huaxia meixue 华夏美学) in 1988, and Four Essays on Aesthetics (Meixue si jiang 美学四讲) in 1989 were central to the period known as the Chinese Enlightenment in the 1980s. Li also wrote widely on classical and traditional Chinese philosophy, the concept of subjectivity, theories of modernization, as well as Chinese and comparative ethics. Li moved to the United States in 1992 and resided in Colorado.

Andrea Lingenfelter

Andrea Lingenfelter is an award-winning translator, poet, and scholar of Sinophone literature. Her numerous translations include Ghosts City Sea, selected poems of Wang Yin, published in 2021 by Seaweed Salad Editions; The Changing Room: Selected Poetry of Zhai Yongming (Northern California Book Award winner); Hon Lai Chu’s The Kite Family (NEA Translation Fellowship grantee); Li Pik-wah’s (Lilian Lee) Farewell My Concubine and The Last Princess of Manchuria; and Mian Mian’s Candy and Vanishing Act. Her second collection of translations of Wang Yin’s poetry, A Summer Day in the Company of Ghosts, was published by New York Review Books in August 2022. She teaches both literary translation and the literature and film of the Asia-Pacific at the University of San Francisco.