From: 31he@gw.wmich.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.taiwan,soc.culture.china
Subject: Re: The Future of Chinese Culture (reply to wavelet)
Date: 23 Jul 92 11:53:43 EST
Followup-To: soc.culture.taiwan,soc.culture.china
Organization: Western Michigan University

HI:

	The discussion was very interesting, however, I was wondering what
is the meaning of TI, could you please tell me?


Sincerely
Xiaoxia 



In article <76343@ut-emx.uucp>, joe@astro.as.utexas.edu (Joe Wang) writes:
> In article <1992Jul20.031514.41736@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> wavelet@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
>>          Ha! I have learnt something from you. Please give people
>>      your definition of "culture" first.
> 
> Ha! I've learned something from you too.  :-) :-) :-)
> Go look in a dictionary for the definition.  :-) :-) :-)
> 
> me> There is no way that the evolving Taiwanese culture can be much
> me> different from the Mainland culture assuming that no one is isolating
> me> themselves.
> 
> wavelet>          Ha! How about "TI"?
> 
> Chinese culture will absorb even TI.  There are currently four
> cultural schools of thought among Mainland intellectuals.  These are:
> 
> 1. The "blue ocean" group, including Su Xiaokang.  These people say
> that China's problems have been because China is a river culture while
> the Western societies have been ocean cultures and to survive China
> must transform itself into an ocean culture.
> 
> 2. The roots or "xungen" group, including Li Tuo.  These people
> believe that the ideological campaigns of the CCP have cut them from
> their cultural past and a true sense of self.  To reclaim this
> cultural past, they wish to debunk the domainant Han culture and probe
> the collective unconscious of the Chinese people by writing about
> border regions and pre-Han or non-Han peoples.
> 
> 3. The "modern Confucian" group, include Tu Weiming.  These people
> believe that the "Confucian ethic" is one of the major factors
> responsisble for the prosperity of the four dragons and call of a
> rebirth of Confucian thought to cope with the problems of the Western
> world.
> 
> 4. The "experimental" group, including Can Xue wish to experiment with
> unconventional use of language as well as probing a personal and
> objection vision.
> 
> Notice that I didn't mention anything to do with Communism or Marxism.
> Among older intellectuals, there are those who still believe in
> Communist principles but who feel that Chinese leaders have betrayed
> those principles.  Some call for more democracy in order to bring the
> party closing to the people (Liu Binyan is an example of this group).
> 
> Younger Chinese intellectuals seem now to doubt even the principles of
> the Communist framework.  The few people who I've seen that support
> Communist/Maoist principles all seem to be Westerners.  While the
> Communist Party may last a long time, Communism (and particularly
> Maoism) as a cultural force is dead.
> 
> For now, the Communist Party is surpressing any real development of
> these four schools of thought and any real debate between them.
> Ultimately, the power of the Communist Party will be reduced and you
> will begin to see a debate between these four schools about "What does
> Chinese culture mean?"  The ultimate answer to this question is likely
> going to involve a little from each of the four schools of thought.
> 
> Now about how this relates to Taiwan and TI.  If you take away the
> experimentalist school, you will see exactly the cultural debate on
> Taiwan.  The ruling KMT ideology is supposedly "modern Confucian,"
> while TIers advocate "blue ocean", "roots", or sometimes even "modern
> Confucian" ideas. 
> 
> Just as the economic rhythms of the Mainland and Taiwan are already
> interlinked.  So are the cultural rhythms.  TIers don't seem to
> realize that even as they demand "independence" the fact that the
> whole framework of debate is identical to the cultural debate on the
> Mainland shows that Taiwan indeed is not culturally independent in any
> meaningful sense of the word.
> 
> Right now, cultural development on the Mainland is frozen because the
> government there is afraid of even the smallest challenge to its
> political power.  This freezing of cultural development began in 1987
> with the firing of Hu Yaobang and the campaign against "bouroigeise
> liberalism."  Because this freezing of the cultural debate on the
> Mainland began at the same time that major contacts between Mainland
> and Taiwan, the cultural debate in the two places have not had time to
> merge.
> 
> My prediction is that once the cultural climate on the Mainland
> improves that this will happen.  Some ex-TI intellectuals will find
> themselves arguing on behalf of the "blue ocean" group.  Others will
> find themselves as part of the "roots" group and will write about how
> the Taiwanese experience provides a unique element in the collective
> unconsicous of Chinese.  Still others will find themselves cooperating
> with "modern Confucians" in the Mainland, trying to piece together a
> Confucian renaissance.
> 
> The debates between people in the 21st century are not going to be
> "Chinese versus Taiwanese" but rather they are likely to be between
> the four schools of thought that I mentioned with advocates of each
> on both the Mainland and Taiwan.  
> 
> And I don't see any way for TI to avoid this.  The more you talk about
> the "oceanic" culture of Taiwan, the more you will help the "blue
> ocean" group.  The more you try to develop HoLo and investigate the
> aboriginal peoples, the more you will help the "roots" group.  The more
> you try to create a separate Taiwanese identity, the more you will 
> deepen the Chinese one.  
> 
> So in culture as with economics, you can't "go away."
> 
> So yes, Mr. Wavelet.  Chinese culture will absorb even TI.
> 
> 
> 
> 
Newsgroups: soc.culture.taiwan