A few days ago I discussed this question with someone: is a college student’s mission to study diligently, or should one play some kind of political role? Of course, a university is not merely a vocational technical school; it is not meant to cultivate “talent” but to cultivate “persons,” and as a fully developed person, one naturally includes one’s social and political role as well as one’s historical mission. There is no question about that.
However, when students bring up college students’ political role, what comes to mind are only all kinds of thunderous “student movements”; in other words, if one says that students should bear a political mission, it seems to mean nothing more than staging some large-scale incident.
Mass movements are of course a political activity, but to shoulder one’s political mission in this way is in fact the most extreme and least predictable of methods; in other words, it is by no means a normal way. Moreover, in the actual Chinese situation, not to mention that the organization and opportunity for student movements are becoming harder and harder to come by, even if one were to launch an event on the scale of twenty years ago, it would still be difficult for the fate of students to mobilize a comprehensive response from the whole society.
So, if there is no longer the right time, place, and human support for carrying out student movements, should students just study hard, improve themselves every day, and devote themselves single-mindedly to scholarship? Not at all. Political mission does not have only that one mode of being borne. Since ancient times, the Chinese understanding of political mission has tended to be so simple and narrow, and this has to do with China’s traditional social structure: the power structure of Chinese society is a simple two-pole model of “officials—commoners,” with those in power being officials and those without power being commoners; there are only these two forces. “Officials” constitute a whole; officials protect one another, and from top to bottom they jointly carry out a ruling power. “Commoners” are also a whole; in general there are only two kinds of “officials—commoners” relations: in the good case, “officials act as masters for the people,” and in the bad case, “officials drive the people to rebel.” Students, or intellectuals, or the literati, however, are in the transitional stage between officials and commoners; the way they participate in politics is either to become officials or to return to the rank and file. This has always been so. Modern Chinese students either strive to enter officialdom, or else rebel like a peasant uprising; it is almost impossible to think of a third road on which to play a political role.
But the Western tradition is different. From ancient times, they have not only had such a binary “officials—commoners” structure; there has always also been an intermediate realm, and within this realm there is still a plural structure, neither simply rulers nor simply the ruled. The ancestor of the word University is “guild”: corresponding organizations formed by various trades and professions are autonomous bodies, managing internal affairs on their own and negotiating externally as a whole. This plural, self-governing model is of course not confined to universities and guilds; it is also embodied in Western society in institutions such as the church, feudal lords, knightly orders, commercial companies, and so on. That is to say, besides the absolute ruling class and the absolute ruled class, there exist all kinds of relatively autonomous structures. The ecology of power is more diverse, the layers more complex, and thus it does not, as in China, simply regulate power relations through the mechanism of “officials driving the people to rebel.” Autonomous forces do not assert their power through fierce, life-or-death resistance; they do not necessarily have to confront the authorities, nor are they trying to rule over the masses. First and foremost, they are merely preserving themselves: independent existence itself is already a political role being borne.
Although modern China has irreversibly and comprehensively Westernized, what has been Westernized is only superficial imitation. If only it were Chinese essence, Western application, that would be fine; but then the Chinese essence itself has somehow been lost. If one says that contemporary college students should bear certain political missions, then I think the first is to strive for autonomy—not to have us strive for anti-corruption, not to have us strive to change the entire social system and environment. The mission of college students is not to replace the government in implementing policy, nor is it to represent the masses in carrying out rebellion; both of these are the most extreme situations. What is more basic about students as students is, first, self-independence. When self-independence is lacking, one should first strive for self-independence and strive for autonomy.
For the authorities as well, they should also change their thinking. Being content with the traditional binary “officials—commoners” structure cannot maintain long-term stability and order. Just like the succession of dynasties in traditional China, once a dynasty passes its years of peak prosperity, its decline and even collapse become unstoppable. Once popular rebellion has begun, suppression is the only method left; but popular resentment will only grow deeper and deeper. After several eruptions of accumulated resentment, the state machine grows increasingly weak and weary, and in the end can only renew itself through dynastic replacement. If a plural, autonomous public sphere were formed to serve as a buffer and regulator, if it merely required the preservation of its own independence and did not necessarily have to rebel against the bureaucracy, what would be bad about that for the rulers?
Of course, saying that one should first strive for autonomy rather than rebellion does not mean that courage, or even fierce struggle, is not needed here. What I want to say is only that struggle needs to find the proper point of reference; it should not necessarily demand a transformation of the entire social system. Do not always try to represent others, and still less try to represent everyone. To say that intellectuals are the conscience of society is only to say that they ought to be sensitive to the times and to fate; it does not mean that intellectuals should speak on behalf of all the people in society. Most people in society are utilitarian and indifferent; we cannot represent them. The distinctive feature of intellectuals lies in their independence—that is to say, they can represent themselves. If struggle is needed, then first one should not put forward any demands on behalf of society as a whole, but should put forward demands as oneself, demanding one’s own independence. For example, we can struggle for the proper autonomy of every small field—for instance, one section of Weiming.
June 3, 2010
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- Yi Wu
2010-06-03 19:36:30
“‘If a plural, autonomous public sphere were formed to serve as a buffer and regulator, if it merely required the preservation of its own independence and did not necessarily have to rebel against the bureaucracy, what would be bad about that for the rulers?’”
This is inevitably a transformation of the power structure. For those who were originally governed but now demand autonomy, this itself is actually a kind of resistance to the existing bureaucracy.
Of course, seeking autonomy is a very good choice for idealist action. But this requires perseverance, because many times progress is so insignificant that it easily makes one tired and abandon it.
To form an awareness of autonomy, one first needs to spread the awareness of the true self. Otherwise, whether officials and commoners or college students, all will demand perfection and shirk responsibility from their own standpoint. - Yi Wu
2010-06-03 19:41:25
Also, what I thought of yesterday was that the content of Chinese primary and secondary education, in the humanities, is really too shallow and disordered, and the degree of emphasis placed on the so-called sciences is really a bit too high. Junior and senior high school students should be thinking more about broader topics—love, life, society… but they are given no opportunity. Institutional education actually has the capacity to help and guide in this respect. But to put it bluntly, the current system of education has simply failed to set a good beginning from the lowest grades… It is still, at bottom, a problem of thought, namely: “What is an ideal person?” “Why educate?”
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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