Title: Subjectivity and Realism: The Cultural Politics of Hu Feng's Theory of ‘Subjective Fighting Spirit’
Abstract: Abstract In 1940s China, a renowned leftist intellectual, Hu Feng, proposed a theory of 'subjective fighting spirit' for the writing of realistic fiction, which provoked a heated debate. This paper intends to re-examine this significant event. After analyzing the content of this theory and the historical subtext, this paper suggests that this theory contains a political agenda, which should be understood in relation to the cultural politics of modern China. The divergence of his view on contemporary Chinese society (and its culture) from the CCP's is the major reason for his disagreement with Mao's vision of a new culture. This shows competition for cultural hegemony in the field of cultural production at the time. Keywords: Hu FengSubjectivityRealismSubjective Fighting SpiritCultural Hegemony Notes 1Hu Feng, Hu Feng Pinglunji (Hu Feng's Collected Critical Essays), 3 vols (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1984), Vol. 3, p. 22, also see pp. 292–293. 2The so-called 'May Fourth Movement' was an anti-imperialist, cultural and political movement. It grew out of the student demonstrations that took place in Beijing on 4 May 1919, which protested against the Chinese government's attitude towards the Treaty of Versailles, especially the items regarding the Shandong Problem. The demonstrations marked the upsurge of modern China's anti-imperialistic, patriotic nationalism. The term 'May Fourth Movement', however, often refers to a broader period during 1915–1921, which is also called 'New Culture Movement'. For reference, see Chow Tse-Tsung, The May Fourth Movement: Intellectual Revolution in Modern China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960); Vera Schwarcz, The Chinese Enlightenment: Intellectuals and the Legacy of the May Fourth Movement of 1919 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1986). 3The so-called 'May Fourth Movement' was an anti-imperialist, cultural and political movement. It grew out of the student demonstrations that took place in Beijing on 4 May 1919, which protested against the Chinese government's attitude towards the Treaty of Versailles, especially the items regarding the Shandong Problem. The demonstrations marked the upsurge of modern China's anti-imperialistic, patriotic nationalism. The term 'May Fourth Movement', however, often refers to a broader period during 1915–1921, which is also called 'New Culture Movement'. For reference, see Chow Tse-Tsung, The May Fourth Movement: Intellectual Revolution in Modern China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960); Vera Schwarcz, The Chinese Enlightenment: Intellectuals and the Legacy of the May Fourth Movement of 1919, pp. 314–315. 4The so-called 'May Fourth Movement' was an anti-imperialist, cultural and political movement. It grew out of the student demonstrations that took place in Beijing on 4 May 1919, which protested against the Chinese government's attitude towards the Treaty of Versailles, especially the items regarding the Shandong Problem. The demonstrations marked the upsurge of modern China's anti-imperialistic, patriotic nationalism. The term 'May Fourth Movement', however, often refers to a broader period during 1915–1921, which is also called 'New Culture Movement'. For reference, see Chow Tse-Tsung, The May Fourth Movement: Intellectual Revolution in Modern China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960); Vera Schwarcz, The Chinese Enlightenment: Intellectuals and the Legacy of the May Fourth Movement of 1919, p. 20. 5Terry Eagleton, The Ideology of the Aesthetic (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), p. 71. 6Marie-Claire Bergere, The Golden Age of the Chinese Bourgeoisie: 1911–1937 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986). 7Hu Feng, Hu Feng's Collected Critical Essays, op. cit., Vol. 3, p. 20. 9Hu Feng, Hu Feng's Collected Critical Essays, op. cit., Vol. 3, p. 19. 8Kirk Denton, The Problematic of Self in Modern Chinese Literature: Hu Feng and Lu Ling (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998), p. 98. 10Hu Feng, Hu Feng's Collected Critical Essays, p. 66. 11Hu Feng, Hu Feng's Collected Critical Essays, p. 333. 12Hu Feng, Hu Feng's Collected Critical Essays, pp. 328–329. 13Kirk Denton, The Problematic of Self in Modern Chinese Literature, op. cit., p. 102. 14Hu Feng, Hu Feng's Collected Critical Essays, op. cit., Vol. 3, p. 331. 15Hu Feng, Hu Feng's Collected Critical Essays, Vol. 2, p. 383. 16According to the Marxists, 'Of course we have a given biological make-up, resulting from the evolutionary history of our species. This condition does not fix what we do, either collectively or individually. What makes us human is our conscious, social, purposively directed activity, and this produces the content of our biological form. Our relationships with nature and with each other are defined by our productive activity: we are what we do'. See Cyril Smith, 'The Standpoint of Socialized Humanity' in Cyril Smith, Marx at the Millennium (Chicago, IL: Pluto Press, 1996), p. 67. 17Kirk Denton, The Problematic of Self in Modern Chinese Literature, op. cit., p. 134. 18Hu Feng, Hu Feng's Collected Critical Essays, op. cit., Vol. 3, p. 352. 19Hu Feng, Hu Feng's Collected Critical Essays, Vol. 1, p. 300. 20Kirk Denton, The Problematic of Self in Modern Chinese Literature, op. cit., 83. See Hu Feng, Hu Feng's Collected Critical Essays, op. cit., Vol. 1, 96–99. Zhou Yang criticizes this article in his 'Xianshizhuyi shilun' ('Thoughts on Realism') in Wenxue zashi (Journal of Literature), January 1936, reprinted in Zhou Yang, Zhou Yang Wenji (Collected Writings of Zhou Yang), 2 vols (Beijing: Renmin wenxue, 1984), Vol. 1, pp. 152–162. Hu Feng refutes the criticism in his 'Xianshizhuyi de 'xiuzheng' ('A Correction for Realism'). See Hu Feng, Hu Feng's Collected Critical Essays, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 341–352. Zhou Yang made another exchange, to which Hu Feng replied with his. 21Kirk Denton, The Problematic of Self in Modern Chinese Literature, op. cit., p. 59. 22Kirk Denton, The Problematic of Self in Modern Chinese Literature, 57. He also notes that they did this 'as a way of empowering themselves and maintaining their elite status', ibid. 23Hu Feng, Hu Feng's Collected Critical Essays, op. cit., Vol. 3., p. 17. 24Hu Feng, Hu Feng's Collected Critical Essays, p. 18. 25Hu Feng, Hu Feng's Collected Critical Essays, p. 326. 26Hu Feng, Hu Feng's Collected Critical Essays, p. 348. 27Hu Feng, Hu Feng's Collected Critical Essays, p. 21. 28See Donald Gibbs (ed.), 'Dissonant Voice in Chinese Literature: Hu Feng', in Chinese Studies in Literature 1 (winter, 1979–1980), pp. 11–12. 29Hu Feng, 'Huiyilu' ('Memoire'), Xin wenxue shiliao (Historical Materials for New Literature), 1 (1987), p. 35. 30Hu Feng, Hu Feng's Collected Critical Essays, op. cit., Vol. 2., pp. 322–323. 31Hu Feng, Hu Feng's Collected Critical Essays, p. 323. For the English translation of the article, see Kirk Denton (ed.), Modern Chinese Literary Thought: Writings on Literature, 1893–1945 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), p. 489. 32Hu Feng, Hu Feng's Collected Critical Essays, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 1. 33Hu Feng, 'Huiyilu' ('Memoire'), op. cit., p. 87. 34Hu Feng offered his theory when he went out in the internal power struggle within the Leftist League. Thus, Kirk Denton argues: 'It is not coincidental that Hu Feng's writings on literature began to take a heterodoxical turn precisely at the point that he became institutionally disenfranchised. The literary field was the only place Hu Feng could turn to assert for himself the political authority he had lost within the League. Without an institutional affiliation and at odds with the League's increasingly doctrinaire policies and the bureaucrats who tried to enforce them, Hu Feng began to develop his theories of subjectivism'. For a detailed account of the power struggle, see Kirk Denton, The Problematic of Self in Modern Chinese Literature, op. cit., p. 82. 35Liu Kang, Aesthetics and Marxism: Chinese Aesthetic Marxists and Their Western Contemporaries (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000), p. 94. 37Hu Feng, Hu Feng's Collected Critical Essays, p. 241. 36Hu Feng, Hu Feng's Collected Critical Essays, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 234, 241. 38In this struggle for cultural hegemony with the Chinese Communists, Hu Feng tried to appropriate Mao's ideology, ingeniously turning its priority around, in order to support his own agenda: 'the purpose of ideological struggle is to destroy the ideological machinery of the dark forces, and to propel our practical struggles, through which the thought reform can be eventually accomplished'. Ibid., Vol. 3, pp. 341–342. We can clearly see from this statement that thought reform, which is a code word for transformation of class consciousness, was set by the author as the end of 'ideological struggle', whereas for Mao, this is the starting point for intellectuals to set out to create politically correct work. Thus Liu Kang aptly observes, 'Basically, Hu Changed the meaning of thought-reform from an intellectual's self-education to cultural critique'. Liu Kang, Aesthetics and Marxism, op. cit., p. 98. 39See for instance, Hu Feng, Hu Feng's Collected Critical Essays, op. cit., Vol. 3, p. 21. 40In answering the possible accusation that his theory of literary exposure would produce a picture of the people as 'demons and monsters', but not a 'nice, elegant, strong, and healthy' humanity such as the content of the discourse of 'the people' promoted by the CCP, Hu Feng's answer is that 'their doughtiness and goodness, which make them bear with the heavy burden of labor, is simultaneously leading themselves to various psychological states of resignation, which was a result of various forms of feudalism', ibid., p. 349. In other words, the goodness of the people, according to him, is not the inborn goodness of the people as working class, that is supposedly superior to the ruling class according to the Communist ideology of class analysis, but only their personal characters. Hu's view is based on a humanist discourse. 41Arif Dirlik, 'Mao Zedong and Chinese Marxism', Marxism in the Chinese Revolution (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), p. 75. 42Hu Feng, Hu Feng's Collected Critical Essays, op. cit., Vol. 3, pp. 22–23. 43Hu Feng, Hu Feng's Collected Critical Essays, p. 21. 44Liu Kang, Aesthetics and Marxism, op. cit., p. 108. 45This is what we derive from his theory. In real practice, there is a different story, however. As many scholars have observed, Hu Feng in real life was quite high-handed, arbitrary and coercive in dealing with other intellectual writers who held different views from his own. They even predicted that, even if his proposal was accepted by the CCP and should he become the party's cultural leader, his behavior would not be softer than the leaders he critiqued at the time. 46Eagleton, The Ideology of the Aesthetic, op. cit., p. 3. 47Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 145. 48Kirk Denton, The Problematic of Self in Modern Chinese Literature, op. cit., p. 22. 49See Arif Dirlik, Marxism in the Chinese Revolution, op. cit.
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-04-20
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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