review_dialectic of the chinese revolution_ from utopian ism to hedonism

8/2/2019 Review_Dialectic of the Chinese Revolution_ From Utopian Ism to Hedonism

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College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University

Dialectic of the Chinese Revolution: From Utopianism to Hedonism. by Jiwei CiReview by: Richard MadsenThe China Journal, No. 38 (Jul., 1997), pp. 171-173Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the College of Asia and the Pacific, TheAustralian National UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2950340 .

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REVIEWS

Dialectic of the Chinese Revolution: From Utopianism to Hedonism, by JiweiCi. Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1994. vii + 281pp. A$32.50(paperback).Writing in what he calls the 'philosopher's way', the author tries to giveus a new way of thinking about the Chinese revolution. His interpretiveframework owes most to Nietzsche, with important influences from Hegel andthe Frankfurt School. Though Ci uses a large number of works in Westernpolitical theory, his bibliography cites few works on China. Ci writes assomeone who has experienced much of the history of that revolution and is

steeped in its culture but who thinks about it through the lenses of Westernphilosophy. His book is a profound, original interpretation of the Chineserevolution's moral logic.Unlike many interpreters, including myself, who have seen Maoism as akind of revolutionary asceticism ? a transcendent moral vision that called onits followers to sacrifice themselves for the good of the collective ? Ci sees itas a sublimated hedonism. By this he means that the Maoist moral project wasultimately based on a promise of this-worldly satisfaction rather than, as forexample with ascetic Christianity, on other-worldly salvation. Maoismenjoined its followers to struggle against the self for the sake of the publicgood, not because such struggle was good in itself or because Mao's followerswould be rewarded in an after-life, but because their efforts would create astronger, materially prosperous China, which one day would obviate the needfor constant struggle and self-sacrifice.Many Chinese under Maoism deeply internalized this utopian vision. Thismade Mao's totalitarianism 'subjectively invisible' and thereforeoverwhelmingly strong. However, there was a limit to the credibility of thisvision, which was set by the limit of how far into the future the Maoists couldpostpone hedonistic self-gratification. When Mao plunged the country intochaos in the Cultural Revolution, while calling for nothing less than ceaselessrevolution, he postponed the hedonistic fulfillment of the revolutionarypromise too far into the future for people to bear. They gave up hope in therevolution and gave up faith in Maoism. What remained then was nihilism,which the author defines as 'a situation in which reality and meaning havebecome so separated that the gap between them no longer seems to offer the


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172 THE CHINA JOURNALpossibility either for the meaningful interpretation of present reality or forhope-inspired action with a view to the future' (p.5). In the way Ci defines it,nihilism cannot be a permanent, satisfying intellectual position. It is a call forsome new meaning and for a new social and moral equilibrium.Out of the nihilism of the post-Maoist era, then, came two new trends ? ade-sublimated hedonism and political liberalism. Like Maoism itself, thepolitical liberalism of the late 1980s was in the end based on a sublimatedhedonism. When dissidents called for freedom and democracy, they saw thesenot as goods in themselves but as the most efficient means to eventuallyachieve widespread material gratification. 'When the government crushed thedemocracy movement, what it sought to eradicate was not its underlyinghedonism but only the political products of its sublimation', (p.8). With thehope for democracy stifled, people now turned to the de-sublimated hedonism? the instant gratification ? of an emerging consumer society. The anti-individualistic collectivism advocated by the Maoists and the sociallyresponsible individualism advocated by the democracy movement now gaveway to an unrestrainedly selfish individualism, which produced an atomizedcitizenry quite amenable to authoritarian political control.In the author's view, 'the chances are ... that, barring major economicsetbacks, hedonism will continue to flourish .... As long as the need forsublimation ? the source of all politics ? keeps being reduced, theproblematic of Chinese society will shiftmore and more from political controlto technical management' (p.241). People will no longer be sublimatedhedonists who give themselves over to the collective because of faith in autopian promise, but self-centered, de-sublimated hedonists who live forpresent enjoyment within an iron cage.The circular movement from hedonism to utopianism to nihilism back tohedonism is presented, in 'the philosopher's way', not so much as a social-psychological or a political process as a logical process but more as amovement of ideas than of people. The author does not attend to the complexideal and material interests of different sectors of the Chinese population, norto the complicated political struggles and historical contingencies that shapedthe Chinese revolution. He hypostasizes the billion people of the People'sRepublic into a unitary China driven dialectically by grand ideas. This style ofdiscourse will be frustrating to those who follow the historian's way or thesocial scientist's way. It will probably be frustratingto professional academicphilosophers, who now prefer more tightly focused, delimited arguments.There is something old-fashioned about the grandness and abstractness of Ci'sinterpretation. It might be better characterized as the 'theologian's' rather thanthe philosopher's way.Yet I found his argument stimulating and compelling. Though theargument is complex, the book is beautifully written,with graceful sentencesand arresting turns of phrase. It is presented with great conviction and passion.The explication of the underlying logic of Maoism seems quite plausible,though there will undoubtedly be room for other interpretations of the Maoist


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REVIEWS 173project. The author's Western philosophical apparatus, for example, draws outthe logic of those parts of Maoism that were imported from the West, but itdoes not easily grapple with those parts that were adaptations to Chinesecultural traditions.A world-historical event like the Chinese revolution needs bold thinkerswith big ideas to take its measure. The structure of modern Western academiakeeps most scholars focused on narrow specialties and keeps them fromgrappling with such big ideas. We should be grateful to Jiwei Ci for directingus to the ultimate questions and grand themes which a great revolutionproperly challenges us to consider.

Richard MadsenUniversity of California, San Diego

Mass Politics in the People's Republic: State & Society in ContemporaryChina, by Alan P. L. Liu. Westview Press, Boulder, 1996. xiii + 251pp.US$65.00 (hardcover), US$19.95 (paperback).The focus of this work is best indicated by the subtitle, if revised to 'state

versus society'. The four main chapters are concerned with peasants, workers,students and ethnic separatism. With the partial exception of the 'adversarialsymbiosis' between the state and industrial workers, Liu emphasizesthroughout the social groups' antagonism and resistance to the state during thewhole Communist period, and especially during recent years. He attempts togo beyond generalized statements concerning state-society relationships bymobilizing a broad comparative social science literature, by reviewingdevelopments over the Communist period, and by distinguishing amongdifferentparts of Chinese society.His approach is undermined by drawbacks in Liu's analysis. For a start,his conceptual framework is both overblown and underdeveloped. There is nolack of conceptual apparatus in the introductory chapter, but often the reader ismerely exposed to the confusion and mystification of social science jargon.This is most evident in an extended discussion of 'public opinion', raising abewildering series of concepts, definitions, analytical distinctions, charts andclassification schemes with reference to a wide range of literature. It is not atall clear how any of this assists in Liu's later analysis. There are occasionalreferences to such concepts throughout the work, but usually they merely putinto different language points which could easily be made in a much morestraightforward and clearer fashion.

On the other hand, there is far too little attention paid to the crucialconcepts in Liu's discussion, especially that of the 'state'. The introductionconcentrates on 'three aspects of the Chinese state ... its self-perception, past

review_dialectic of the chinese revolution_ from utopian ism to hedonism

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