How Should We Read China?

Although I have enough thought to face the disregard of many Chinese readers on the "reading China" series, the fact has gone further than my speculation. This set of good Sinology has been launched since the end of 2001. Until recently, the publication of the entire series of books has not been aroused by the readers. Instead, the situation is rather light: in addition to the editor, the plator has been sighing before and after the series, and the collective critics in the book review group have not heard of it, so the academic achievements of this excellence seem to be ignored by us.

In this edition, the author wrote: "Su Xiao" and "Gao" are half the present and half the paradigm. Liu Dong has stated the readers' mental suffering in the general order of this book: "the more systematic introduction of a living external academic discourse, the more severe and severe disordered the original civilization base will be."

On the one hand, Mr. Liu is worried about our "rigid and aging mind. We must allow our hearts to open up to all academic research in China". On the one hand, we worry that "once we lose the initiative of reading and thinking, we will be unable to extricate ourselves from other people's discourse field, and we will be covered by other people's unique problem consciousness, and even from this time we can hardly describe our own experience, exposing the blindness of cultural analysis aphasia and academic insight."

I personally think that Mr. Liu's worries are too much to invoke his deep sense of colonialism and nationalism.

In searching for many reasons for the rigidity of our mind and the aphasia of cultural analysis, if we place the influence of Sinology on China in a dominant position, this will surely obscure the real reason why our academic level is pale in recent years.

Moreover, once the above thinking set is formed, the so-called "solid premise that does not lose self-identity, and can form a positive mutual feedback with the real world" becomes a hollow mask.

From the perspective of "reading China", we may find it easier to find the main reason for our aphasia.

The construction of the hinterland, which is a new evaluation of some major issues in modern Chinese history, adopts a lot of new information. It is believed that the development of some regions has caused the development of other regions.

The Chinese rural and socialist countries concentrated on a series of reforms carried out by the Communist Party in the rural society during the war and after the victory of the revolution, and then discussed the relationship between the state and the rural society, the leadership of the state and the local cadres.

The theme of "saving history from nation states" pforms the problem consciousness from national formation to national construction and historical writing, and also causes widespread shocks and influences in academia.

In the revolutionary China: the Yanan Road, it is believed that the "Yanan road" makes the policies that the majority of the peasants own greater power, such as rent reduction, interest reduction and tax reform, and the cooperation and cooperation among other groups, triggering a relatively primitive democracy in China.

I mean, I am afraid there is no academic space in mainland China in the past few decades. Why should we worry too much about the participation and coverage of foreign academic affairs?

The reality is so obvious that the problem of academic freedom in China's academic construction today should be the first.

Under this premise, what kind of achievements have we got to make good reciprocal feedback with the world?

I believe the editor's intention is to display an academic system.

If the above 4 books focus on the present, then the other 4 books are to excavate the more distant history; in another way, we can also understand that the former is more inclined to the category of politics and economy, and the latter is an analysis of culture, philosophy, and collective unconsciousness.

The two aspects complement each other and constitute the system of contemporary Sinology.

Meng Zi's philosophy of mind has tried to achieve a more mature understanding of human nature through argument.

The philosopher of the sage tried to correct the misunderstanding of Chinese philosophy by westerners for several hundred years, and cleared up the western scholars' prejudice against "no philosophy in China" and opened up a new way of deep dialogue between Chinese and western philosophy and culture.

The discussion on the paradigm of Chinese studies is clearly trying to build on the paradigm, pointing out that in many cases, the ending of our works is different from the original assumptions on them.

The Huairou far man is no longer looking for the so-called truth in the heavy fog of history like most historians. On the contrary, he regards various representations as a part of historical entities. This multiple statement itself carries a lot of historical information. Therefore, when other historians are diligent in textual research and authenticity to purify history, He Weiya put all kinds of different statements in his vision and made a rational comparative analysis.

The value of the methodology is highlighted here, together with the academic freedom mentioned earlier. I believe that the "reading China" series has shown us one of the most rational ways to read China at the moment.

Especially when information channels continue to be artificially clogged, the initiative to bring Overseas Sinology achievements is at least a bit more down-to-earth than talking about national academic aphasia and the bubble of Overseas Sinology.

To read the rural itch in a real way: to truly show the survival of a village and the survival of a group of farmers, I am a real rural man. He has been in the countryside before he was 18 years old, and after graduating from school, he served as a Secretary for 6 years in a local government in Northwest Hunan. This experience made me understand the specific life style of farmers and understand how local governments manage the rural economy.

For this reason, I have always been interested in works like "Chinese country, socialist country" and so on.

I even designed an academic plan myself. When I was free, I went back to the village where I was born and lived there for several years, observing the specific life of the villagers, and using my knowledge of economics, sociology and anthropology, which I have learned over the years, to truly show the existence of a village and the survival of a group of farmers.

This idea has become a task that is pressing on my mind. As long as I close my eyes, the appearance of my hometown will emerge. They are blocked, petty, stubborn, and how much time has passed. Their existence seems meaningless, because they do not have their own texts.

The appearance of "China country, socialist country" once again made me itch, at least in my reading area, the work I am going to do is like this.

The doubts that have been piling up in my mind for many years have been answered in this book, such as the series of reforms carried out by the Communist Party in the rural society during the war and after the victory of the revolution, from the reduction of rent and interest rates to mutual aid groups and cooperatives to the people's commune of the great leap forward. What kind of impact has it brought on specific villages and specific farmers? What is the relationship between peasants and wars? What is the relationship between them and the hot nation building, including their relationship with traditional culture, the relationship between state and rural society, the relationship between state leaders and local cadres, and the relationship between local cadres and farmers?

As three political, sociological and historical professors, Freeman, Bi Kewei and Selden have gradually formed five major problems in China's rural areas: repeated discussions with villagers and many cadres in the state, province, prefecture, county, commune, village and street. The problems of power in the Chinese Communist Party, the continuity of national culture, the promotion and containment of new nationalism, the policy of absolute socialist countries and the power of peasants, etc.

I think it is reasonable for three authors to deduce the rational reasoning.

For example, the author believes that 1949 is not an economic watershed.

After a long period of mass pformation, the private property has been wiped out to the maximum extent, and the organization has attached class composition to farmers, and has used confiscation and violence to attack the imaginary class enemies. On the one hand, this situation has actually appeared in large scale in 1949, and people can only learn to play.

On the other hand, this state is spreading, rapidly extending to the new era and becoming a mainstream social form and economic form.

This description is quite shocking.

One fact that nobody would like to admit is that in 1978, it was not even a watershed. At least today, the issue of land property rights of Chinese farmers is still a vague concept. The pulling force of the rural economy is still an administrative action rather than a market.

Of course, such a problem is beyond the scope of this book, but it is this book that has triggered our thinking about the current rural problems.

I have been advocating empirical academic methods. I have been searching for similar works in the "reading China" series in memory, hoping to further understand its value in a comparative way.

The first thing to think of is William Hinton's turning over. Now it seems that in the late 40s of the last century, its praises and gestures, while exaggerated, ignored the crisis. However, Xin Tong's novelists, journalists, sociologists and historians have the same style of writing, which is still valuable for the current academic research.

Fei Xiaotong's Jiangcun economy is bound to be a comparison.

Since Mr. Fei had revealed the importance of sideline, trade and pportation to the peasant economy in the survey of last 30s, when he returned to the bow village survey after the collectivization of Chinese rural economy, he saw the decline of the rural economy. We believe Mr. Fei Xiaotong knows more than anyone knows what has been lost and what is losing in China's rural areas.

In this way, Mr. Fei's book is limited to a narrow time, so he lost the foresight of the historical track.

Recently, Gao Wangling read the survey of Chinese peasants' "anti behavior" in the people's Commune by the mainland scholar, the Communist Party History press, 2006.

In fact, this is a book about how Chinese farmers steal food in the age of starvation.

Eating is the theme, stealing is the way.

Chinese farmers in an era almost used the technology of "thief" to steal some food for themselves, so that they would not starve to death.

Such a theme is valuable.

There are few works on famine in China in the past three years. Only a few articles start from the macro perspective. This book starts with the experience of a specific farmer, and really goes deep into the daily life of farmers.

However, its limitations are quite obvious: the subject matter is relatively narrow, and the material is relatively insufficient, especially the lack of data.

This leads the author to intervene with literary methods, which weakens its literature value.

How should we do knowledge? The reminder of "reading China" series is very conspicuous.

In Europe and America, quite a number of new generation of Chinese researchers have experienced a process of change. From the general recognition of Mao Zedong's social pformation after 1949, to sober thinking and serious and serious academic research, many thought-provoking conclusions have been drawn.

They start from the microcosmic and carry out theoretical analysis on the basis of a large number of meticulous field investigations. Obviously, this is different from our mainland's emphasis on macro analysis, which is different from how to formulate policies and how to affect the single and one-way research methods in rural areas.

I noticed that the authors of these works are very strict positivist style.

Three scholars in China rural and socialist countries have been engaged in this research since 1978, and have gone through 13 years before and after their publication.

The authors lamented: "how many counties in Raoyang, especially the village of Wugong, have helped us, even if they can cause inconvenience to them."

Since 1978, three scholars and villagers there have seen their children grow up and have their own children.

They happily participated in the wedding ceremony of the peasants, and also wreathe wreaths in front of the farmers' graves.

They also slept on the big Kang of the old folks, ate delicious dumplings, drank Hengshui old white stems, enjoyed the Hebei Bangzi, and even robbed robbers on the remote field roads.

In those days, scholars and farmers established relations of respect, trust and friendship.

This situation is in sharp contrast to the academic atmosphere in the domestic academic research, which is eager for quick success and instant benefit, with a superficial view and a partial pursuit of quantity and neglect of quality.

In terms of methodology, European and American scholars show a new paradigm.

They actively adopt the methods of anthropology, sociology and economics, which are very different from our traditional methods of history.

Traditional methods lay stress on textual research and discrimination, emphasizing on using existing literature to illustrate their views.

This has led to a methodological crisis in our academic research, and our academic career is in jeopardy as well as the previous academic freedom and utilitarian coloring.

"Reading China Series" (part)