As many friends know, I mentioned on some occasions that one thing I want to do in recent years is to "reflect" on my academic career in the past 60 years and "settle accounts" for the pen and ink I spent.
The theme of "the application of social science and the modernization of China" means a process, that is, the process of applying the conclusions drawn by those of us who are engaged in human and social research to real life and achieving concrete results. However, for an old man who has been away for more than 60 years, it reminds me of more complicated problems. Everyone who knows it knows that I once won the Marin Noszky Prize in World Applied Anthropology. I won this prize naturally because I have written many articles in my life, many of which have long been called "applied research". I also pointed out that my research is applied anthropology in China, with the purpose of understanding China and promoting China's progress. With this in mind, you must know that there have been different comments on my research and its "application value" and views on China's modernization at home and abroad for 60 years.
Last September, when I was gathering with friends in Wujiang, a friend from England mentioned my classmate Edmund from England. The differences between Professor Edmund Leach and me in anthropological values. Ricky and I are Malinowski's classmates, so to speak. Rich insists that anthropology is a pure intellectual movement, but I think anthropology can't get its due value if it doesn't proceed from reality, really participate in the lives of people being studied and have certain practical ambitions. Ricky has died before me, so I can't have a face-to-face argument with him, so I can only "talk to myself" when he is away. In China's Speech on Anthropology (1993), I not only responded to Richie's comments on China anthropologists in theory, but also acknowledged the influence of the traditional brand of China intellectuals on my "applied research" and the Confucian values of "applying what I have learned", especially the influence of "learning from foreigners" since the Ming and Qing Dynasties. However, I believe Ricky must know that the differences between us are not all racial differences between academic traditions, but also different understandings of the social science system, or even a little further, and may be different views on the arguments in social science values.
Weber once used "worthless sociology" to describe social science, and also used the word "phonation" to describe scholars' pursuit and academic orientation. The so-called "value-independent sociology" requires sociological researchers not to observe social facts and not to interfere with the objective existence of society with personal and social values. If it must be translated, the word means "sociology that has nothing to do with value judgment" As for the word "duty", I still can't find the corresponding Chinese vocabulary. In fact, it refers to both a talent and an inspiring wisdom divorced from social reality, which may be equivalent to the word "duty" in Chinese. Richie's statement is generally an anthropological extension of Weber's theory, one of the founders of social science. The difference between us is not an isolated and accidental phenomenon, but the same problem in social science. Ricky doubts the values of my academic practice, and I often doubt whether "worthless xociology" is possible.
What's the problem? Here, I don't want to repeat the description of the differences in academic traditions, but want to mention the common things of scholars. Personally, I don't think this is not a personal act when I write an article and publish it, but it will have a certain effect on others. There are good and bad things that happen, and I never think it's my problem. At the advanced anthropology seminar in Beijing at the beginning of this year, I remembered that when I was a child, I saw my grandmother pick up every piece of paper with words, gather it in the stove and burn it, and teach us to respect words. I laughed at my grandmother since I was a child. She is really an old superstition. Now that I have reached my grandmother's age, I understand the cultural significance of "respecting and cherishing word paper". Writing words on paper has become a thing that can bring happiness and misfortune to everyone and cannot be underestimated. Once I understand my grandmother's behavior and lessons, my mood is quite heavy, because I have so little respect for word paper in my life. I want to write whenever I want, publish it in newspapers and magazines, and even compile a book, which has inadvertently swept the society at home and abroad. If I do publish some articles that are harmful to people, I can't help but say that they are harmful to people. So I often think of my grandmother's last words recently, and feel that I should look back at my past articles and works. Of course, I don't want to burn my life's work like Tolstoy. Works that have gone through the world cannot be burned by fire. At the same time, I also understand that I wrote so many words, not only my personal works, but the mentality of China intellectuals at that time. I don't have to decide whether this is right or wrong, and I don't have the ability.
I don't know if Ricky had the same problem in his later years, but I believe he can understand the significance of my old grandmother's "respecting calligraphy" and understand that no academic work has no social influence, but the influence is only the difference between good and bad and the scope of social space, so I think it is unrealistic to talk about "worthless sociology" After 60 years of academic career, looking back and thinking deeply, we might as well spend more words on self-criticism. I used to go my own way, but only in recent years did I come back to ask questions and think about the relationship between academic value and social value. I thought of a word called "cultural consciousness" not long ago. Today, I want to give an academic explanation to this vocabulary similar to telephone. I think these four words can represent my rethinking of humanistic values.
Looking back on my academic career, it has been 60 years since the Jiangcun survey in 1936 to last year. As the old saying goes, it is a flower. Now let me start with Jiangcun's economy. I have repeatedly stated that this book can be said to be a willow tree I planted unintentionally. Teacher Marin Noszky commented in the preface that this book can be said to be a milestone in social anthropology. Not only did I not think of it, I didn't even fully understand it. In other words, when I was investigating in Jiangcun, I didn't consciously push anthropology further. I was a young man at that time. I don't have this vision and ambition. Even when I was investigating in Jiangcun, I didn't expect to write a book. Under the kind arrangement of my sister, I went to Jiangcun to recuperate. From the photos inserted in this book, you can also see that I am leaning on crutches, my face is ill, and I am getting old before I get old. I was deeply impressed and inspired by the silk factory of the farmers' cooperative. I want to leave some records for this "industry going to the countryside" and start making an investigation in Jiangcun.
This unintentional sapling, nourished by soil and rain, survived and grew up. The thesis was written, printed and published, and teacher Marin Noszky prefaced it. What is written in the preface? I just glanced at the proofs of the books sent by the publishing house before returning to London. To tell the truth, I don't remember much. It was War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression who occupied my mind at that time. I remember that I didn't know that Hankou and Guangzhou had fallen until the ship docked in India. At that time, my companion and I were busy with visa procedures for landing and transit in Vietnam. The first time I saw the English version of jiang village economy was 1948 in the study room of Tsinghua Shengyin Hospital. This book has been published for ten years.
I went ashore from Saigon and returned to my motherland through the estuary. After I arrived in Kunming, Yunnan, I followed the train of thought of teacher Marin Noszky, and continued to carry out rural investigation on the edge of Dianchi Lake. Later, when War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression ended and the civil war broke out, I began to join the democratic movement. During this period, I only completed the Chinese and English manuscripts of Three Villages in Yunnan in my academic work, and the English version was named "The Great China" suggested by Mr. Marin Noszky when he was eating at the same table. The Chinese version of Three Villages in Yunnan was not officially published until 1990. In a word, my understanding of jiang village economy is gradually formed. My current thinking is that the purpose of Mr. Marin Noszky's writing this preface does not seem to be to comment on my book completely, but to express his old feelings and new worries accumulated in his own mind through this preface.
At that time, Marin Noszky was facing the grim situation of the Second World War, and his mood was very heavy, so he said, "Our modern civilization may be facing the ultimate destruction at present." When introducing me, he emphasized that I was a "young patriot". He told me that I would have the opportunity to become an anthropologist who studied my own nation, and he really used his research results to "serve mankind". He even revealed that he was "impatient with his work", and he condemned many anthropologists at that time with "curiosity and unreality". He also blamed himself for "anthropology, at least for me, is a romantic escape from our over-standardized culture". These words, in my opinion, are the resentful words of a scholar who lost his motherland under the imperial power of the vast colonies. But in order to express his confidence, he went on to say, "I think the progress of anthropology oriented to truly effective scientific analysis of human society, human behavior and human nature is unstoppable." In order to achieve this goal, the study of human science must first leave the study of the so-called uncivilized state, and should enter the study of a large number of more advanced cultures of nations that occupy an important position in economy and politics in the world. "
I repeat these words to point out that after Mr. Marin Noszky pulled modern anthropologists from his study to a "field" full of fresh air, he made it clear that he would pull anthropological research from barbarian fields to civilized communities. In the development of anthropology, he made great contributions to the first step from research to field, but the second step from barbarism to civilization was never realized in his life. He hopes that his next generation will complete his task. The gap between "literary differences" seems to be difficult to cross at present. This is a new worry that I realized in the heart of teacher Marin Noszky. I asked myself, how did I seem to have accidentally crossed this "literary gap"? This preface by Mr. Marin Noszky once again answered this question for me. He said in a paragraph at the end of the preface: "All the observations of the author are dignified, detached and unbiased. It is understandable that a China person has an antipathy to western civilization and the politics of western countries. But there is no such sign in this book. In fact, through my personal contact with the author and his colleagues in China, I have to envy them for their lack of national prejudice and hatred-we Europeans can learn a lot from this moral attitude. " The answer he gave me is rooted in the cultural differences between China and Europe, that is, the basic differences in moral attitudes. Teacher Marin Noszky thinks that China people don't have national prejudice and hatred like Europeans. Whether this generalization is correct remains to be proved. I often look at myself and always feel that there is no prejudice against foreign nationalities in our traditional culture, but it is different from Europe and America. As I mentioned in the lecture of the seminar, the "literary differences" reflected by European and American anthropology have always been regarded as the differences of human nature. Even in the 1930s, some people doubted whether the indigenous people's minds had the rationality that white people in Europe and America thought people were human beings. Many scholars in western anthropology deny that barbarians have logical thinking. In Marin Noszky's time, this question would be debated by him. Witchcraft is not out of lack of empirical logic.
In our traditional culture, there are also differences between foreign countries and Xia countries, but Confucius has always advocated "teaching without division." Teaching is a culture that can be learned, and class is the essential difference. Seeing that he couldn't go his own way in the Central Plains, Confucius wanted to float on the sea with a fork, and even expressed his willingness to move to Jiuyi, and frankly believed that Yixia was just a cultural difference. If he is educated, he will be transformed into China. The essence of human beings is the same, and no essential difference can be changed. Through my behavior and thoughts, I saw the moral differences between China and Europe and America in the eyes of teacher Marin Noszky. Perhaps it is this difference that naturally opened up the "literary field" when I entered the field of anthropology, so it can also be said that it was opened up by cultural quality.
At the same time, I must also point out here that as a China scholar, the reason why I can transcend cultural prejudice is probably closely related to the world cultural pattern in which my country is located. Since modern times, western culture has been on the rise, and through the extension of its power, it has created its own "hegemonic" position in the world economy and culture for hundreds of years. Looking at yourself and others with such a condescending attitude may not be able to adopt an attitude of "asking for advice modestly". It was not until thirty years after the death of teacher Marin Noszky that western scholars gradually realized this.
1978, a book called Orientalism was published. The author Professor Said once said: "Modern oriental scholars define themselves as different from others. They are heroes who saved the East from chaos, alienation and grotesque. Their research reconstructs the language, customs and even spirit that have disappeared in the East. Their role, similar to that of champollion, is that he excavated the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt from the Rosetta stone pile. In the view of orientalist scholars, orientalist techniques, such as lexicography, grammar, translation and cultural interpretation, have restored and promoted the cultural values that serve the ancient and classical orient and made contributions to philosophy, history, rhetoric and academic schools. However, in the course of history, the disciplines of orientals and oriental scholars will inevitably change. The meaning of "Oriental" has changed from classical "Oriental" to modern "Oriental", and Orientalism has also changed from a traditional discipline to a part of contemporary culture. However, no matter how Orientalism and Orientalism change, it is difficult to avoid the initial traces. This trace is manifested in the hope of continuing to exert the power to transform or rebuild the East. In short, after transforming the East into a part of the modern world, oriental scholars can celebrate their achievements and status and be proud of their actions. Their pride comes from seeing themselves as creators of the new world, and this pride is the same as when God created the old world. " (Quoted from Wang Mingming's The Power of Cultural Imagination —— Reading Said's Orientalism: "Article")
Said pointed out that Orientalism has experienced two "advances" since19th century. The first time was1from the middle of the 9th century to the end of the First World War. During this period, Britain and France acquired a large number of colonies in the world, and the study of colonies became a necessity of colonial administration. At the same time, the acquisition of large colonies provided an opportunity for the study of Orientalism to investigate and collect materials, so Orientalism appeared a "golden age" in universities such as Paris and Oxford, and many materials came directly from linguists, historians, anthropologists and archaeologists living in colonies. The second "progress" of Orientalism occurred after the Second World War. During this period, the world pattern has changed dramatically again. After World War II, the colonial status of many eastern societies was liberated, and the hegemony of the West was transferred from Britain and France to the emerging United States. The old hegemons (Britain and France) naturally try to maintain their traditional position, and orientalism research is still "protected" as a "national treasure". However, the emerging hegemon, the United States, supports more strategic regional studies and extends the study of Orientalism to all parts of the Pacific Rim and Asia. Most of these regional studies take "cross-cultural understanding" as the slogan, but they have made great contributions to maintaining the hegemonic position of the United States in the world pattern. In these two periods, Orientalism has inevitably undergone many changes, but the deep structure of its narrative and discourse research system has not deviated from the tradition.
What the book Orientalism points out is not only effective for Orientalism in the West, but also effective for modern social sciences in the West. In modern western social sciences, there is a concept of "duality" with two sides. There is a dividing line in this concept of duality, which divides the world into two parts: the west and the east. Moreover, he thinks that the West is a strong native land and Asia is a defeated and distant "foreign country". It is also believed that Asia represents a potential danger, and its mysterious culture cannot be explained and operated in the western scientific system, which may pose a challenge to the west in the future. In the works of Orientalism, this dualism is always described as the opposite of complementarity.
Professor Said pointed out to us that Orientalism is closely related to the western capitalist world system that has gradually grown up since16th century. The eastern and western systems created by the capitalist world system are actually regarded as the relationship between "tradition" and "modernization" in sociology and economics. In the research of sociology and economics, the East is often regarded as traditional and ancient, while the West is regarded as modern and emerging. This further "rationalizes" the theory that19th century East is "the burden of white people". The theory of "white burden" regards the eastern tradition as the burden of westerners or the "heresy" that the west should educate. A series of "modernization" theories produced in the west are directly related to this oriental view.
I have been bullied in the process of contact between eastern and western cultures all my life, so I can avoid the prejudice of mainstream culture against other people's cultures. In many works, I can really refer to and comment on western viewpoints extensively, and even emphasize the power of the weak "grassroots culture" or "small tradition" in the internal structure of China culture, which is quite different from the view that the culture of the weak ethnic groups is incompatible with the "advanced culture" in the world structure.
It must be pointed out that the concept of cultural inclusion is not to be conservative, nor to realize what Professor Wallace called "revival". Under the impact of foreign dominant culture, standing in the position of bullied weak culture, the temporary sense of revival is worthy of sympathy. However, when this attitude develops to the point of rejecting foreign cultures and becomes another ethnocentrism opposite to western centralism, it may ignore the ruthless reality of "survival of the fittest" in world cultural relations. I'm thinking about a problem that has been bothering me recently. In the high-level seminar on anthropology held in Beijing, in view of the crisis of national survival, some people put forward the contradiction between "preserving culture" and "preserving people". This problem is particularly prominent among the ethnic groups with a very small population in China, but in my opinion, it is not unique to these ethnic groups, but the identity of modern people or post-industrialized human beings, and it is a difficult problem worthy of our attention and in-depth thinking by people who study culture. "Preserving culture" and "retaining people" should not be a serious problem, because people's life and culture are inseparable. My teacher thinks that culture is to meet people's needs in life. However, after the formation of the world system centered on the west, there has indeed been a great crisis in non-western culture. Can these cultural types meet people's needs under the strong cultural impact from outside? In social science, the concept of "modernization" is probably put forward to answer this question.
There are many theories about modernization that first developed in the west, and it is difficult to generalize them, but they follow the same path. Emile Durkheim, a pioneer of French sociology, believes that there are two kinds of societies in the world. Among them, one is a "traditional society" and the other is a "modern society". The former shows the stability of group organizations within society, while the latter shows multiple social division of labor. "Modernization" refers to the transformation from the former to the latter. Max from Germany? Weber believes that "modernization" means industrialization and bureaucracy, which means rationalization, that is, the process of effective use of capital, the process of reducing input and increasing output, the process of defeating competitors and the process of meeting consumer demand. Weber called this process "the spirit of capitalism". Although Durkheim and Weber are completely different in many ways, they emphasize the same essence. "Modernization" means "Westernization", otherwise "East" will be transformed into a social form of "West". In Said's view, all these "modernization" ideas are based on the theory of stage linear evolution, and the so-called "modern society" (essentially "western society") is regarded as the future prospect of "traditional society" (essentially "eastern society"). These views are all left over from the old times, which shows the role of Orientalism prejudice in western academic circles in the past. However, once the eastern society refuses to accept the cultural transformation in the process of modernization, how can they let their people live in this world of "natural selection"?
This is not a new problem. In my life, the issue of cultural tradition and modernization, from the "dispute over the use of tools" to the "dispute between Chinese and Western cultures", and even the current debate at home and abroad about the relationship between Confucian culture, small tradition and modernization, has been continuously affecting academic thinking. Many people want to build their own society into a society that is different from the original and comparable to the western society. Under this premise, the oriental society has the characteristics of pursuing modernization and modernization. The western modernization theory, which is full of orientalism prejudice, often becomes the guiding ideology of non-western politics, which makes the west, as a "different culture" of the East, have the prospect of the development of oriental culture in imagination, thus falling into the trap of cultural hegemonism centered on Europe and America. However, how to "cure" this cultural and psychological crisis, how to avoid the above trap, and what theory should be adopted in academic expression?