Ideology and Social Movement in China - Research Paper Example

Download file to see previous pages This interrelationship is of great significance in the development of Chinese culture, social movement and modernization.
Thesis Statement: The purpose of this paper is to investigate what happens to ideas and ideologies when they are transplanted to settings other than their own original time and context. The main focus will be on Confucianism applied to the challenge of modernization in China, modern western liberalism in pre- and post- May 4th era, and Marxism in both pre- and post- 1949 China.
Until 1917, Chinese literary language was regarded as the key cultural domain or “the national essence”, and was one of the few elements of China’s tradition that did not succumb to the challenge of modernization presented by western imperialism4. The Chinese Civil War (1927 to 1949) drew to a close with the Chinese revolution of 1949 and later led to the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).
By this time, traditional Chinese culture was believed to have expired, though the decline began soon after 1895. However, Mao Tse-Tung, the Chinese communist leader and others believed that modernization was “a self-renewal of China’s inherent tradition…of thought and culture,”5 and this was the basis on which Western sciences and technologies were transplanted into China while rejecting the socio-political and ideological culture of the West. From the end of the 1970s, contemporary and modern western philosophical trends were gradually incorporated into Chinese ideologies, eliminating dogmatism and old traditional thought hardened by lack of reform.
Confucius (551-479 BCE), the Chinese philosopher, thinker and educator, established various guidelines towards living human life optimally. Confucianism has deeply influenced Chinese philosophy and ideologies. One thousand years before the conceptualization of humanism in the West, Confucianism stressed on the value of humanity, the very first school of thought to do so. Besides Confucianism, other schools of the Chinese tradition include: “Taoism, Mohism, Legalism, Buddhism, Logicianism, etc”. ...Download file to see next pagesRead More