Antinomies of culture and critique of modernity

A critique of modernity based on the antinomies of culture

Culture is a concept with rich contents. Since Tylor in 1871 proposed that the concept of culture had more than one hundred connotations, its semantic history has expanded dramatically. However, even so, it remains a controversial problem to define the concept of culture in contemporary philosophy. There is still no common or universal definition of culture. Generally, the definitions of culture can be divided into categories such as descriptive, normative, structural, historical, and so on. The basic consensus among these complicated definitions is that culture is a complex which includes knowledge, belief, art, ethics, law and custom as well as habit accepted by all the members of a society. In this sense, the logic of economics and politics can also be understood within the framework of culture.

Márkus’s conception of culture has its own particular characteristics. His focus is on modern culture. In his view, the concept of culture, which we talk about today, is the product of modernity. It is the concentrated expression of modernity. ‘It is only under condition of modernity, that the ways people live and act in the world, and also the manner they understand this world, are conceived by them as constituting a form of culture’ (Márkus, 1994: 15). I infer three key points from his theory. First, antinomy is a prime feature of cultural modernity. Secondly, the antinomy of culture is one of the key dynamic factors in the development of modernity. Thirdly, it is the maintenance of antinomies rather than the abolition of them that overcomes the crisis of modern culture.

Márkus takes antinomy as core in the theory of modern culture. First of all, he makes a distinction between two culture concepts: anthropological culture and value-marked culture. He points out that the modern concept of culture is itself characterized by a systematic ambiguity. The term has two distinct and interrelated meanings. On the one hand, it has a broad anthropological sense which designates some all-pervasive aspect of the biologically non-fixed forms of human behaviour. With this anthropological culture, the members of a community can live and act in the world in ways that are mutually comprehensible. On the other hand, culture can be understood in a narrow or value-marked sense which designates a circumscribed and narrowly-specific set of social practices and their objectivations, such as the arts and the sciences (Márkus, 2011: 437). The culture of modernity is imprinted and defined by the irreconcilable co-existence and struggle of these two logics in the historical Enlightenment. The Enlightenment invented the broad, anthropological concept of culture in its struggle against particularistic traditions. This implied not simply unstoppable change but also the conferring of a unique direction upon change toward the realization of a humanly created and constituted project of Enlightenment. In Márkus’s eyes, the universally valid ends can be provided only by culture in its narrow sense, that is, by ‘high’ culture as a complex of sui generis value-creating activities. Just as the broad concept of culture was intended to replace the idea of fixed and binding traditions, value-marked culture aspired to replace the spiritual, irrational power of religion as ultimate orientation concerning the ends of life. Márkus points out that the fundamental cause of the fact that the two paradoxical senses can be combined together under the concept of ‘culture’ lies in the origin of the culture of modernity. He finds the historical and logical origin of the two concepts of culture in the project of the Enlightenment. The anthropological concept of culture and the value-marked concept of culture reflect two aspects of the same Enlightenment. Therefore, the antinomy of modern culture is the expression of the most defining event of modernity, whose features have infiltrated into many different fields.

Secondly, Márkus criticizes two tendencies that try to abolish the antinomies of culture. In the face of antinomies and divergences of modernity culture, there have been theoretical attempts which try to reconcile such conflicts and contradictions. These attempts are the advanced scientization and romantic aestheticization. The two cultural programs presume either–or directions, reflecting the cultural struggle of absolute opposites. The trajectory of struggle entailed the absolute rejection by each party of the other party. This is a kind of hegemonic contest. Each party aims to make the other party become a supplement to its own programs. Márkus points out that these two programs – Enlightenment and Romanticism – reflect the confrontation of the two cultural concepts which express the contradictory processes of modernity. In the view of Márkus, what they promised and tried to achieve – the idea of a scientifically-designed, rational society versus that of the aesthetic realization of imagined, close communities – are not so much distant utopias, but rather present dangers. Nor is it possible – as he tried to illustrate – to ascribe some stable, constant social-political significance to either of these tendencies, even as an open project. Márkus points out that this idea amounts not to the overcoming of the contradictions of modernity, but to the abandonment of modernity itself, because it denies that conflictual, agonistic pluralism is the basic source of its dynamism. Thus he criticizes the illusion of these two programs and analyses the cause of the failure of these two ideals:

The idea of ‘reconciliation’ certainly implies something other and more than this mutual advancement of opposed tendencies through the constant struggle of institutionally separated realms, each striving for exclusive universality. It demands the establishment of a well-defined and stable space for each within an encompassing, preferably moral framework. For this very reason, however, this idea amounts not to the overcoming of the contradictions of modernity, but to the abandonment of modernity itself, for it denies that conflictual, agonistic pluralism that is the basic source of its dynamism. (Márkus, 2011: 651–2)

The May Fourth Movement and antinomies of Chinese culture

The theory of cultural modernity proposed by Márkus is a critique of cultural crisis principally from the perspective of western modernity. However, as a matter of fact, we find that there are also antinomies of culture in modern China. Basing myself on the theory of Márkus, I want to analyse the development of modern Chinese culture and the contradictions of that culture that began in the May Fourth Movement. In brief, the May Fourth Movement was an anti-imperialist, cultural, and political movement that grew out of student demonstrations in Beijing on 4 May 1919. At the end of the First World War, in 1918, China was convinced it would be able to reclaim the territories occupied by the Germans, at that time Shandong Province. However, it was not to be. More than 5,000 students from Peking University protested the Chinese government’s weak response to the Treaty of Versailles, especially the Shandong Problem. The May Fourth Movement was part cultural revolution, part social movement. So, my broader use of the term May Fourth Movement will often refer to the period during 1915–21 that is more usually called the New Culture Movement. The Chinese culture of modernity which broke with traditional culture began in the May Fourth Movement. During this historical response of anti-aggression and anti-feudalism, the Chinese were seeking a road to revival and enlightenment. However, the results were unsatisfactory. The enlightenment in China was a ‘trilogy’. It was achieved through three continuous steps against the historical background of saving the nation from extinction. The May Fourth Movement was the third stage.

The first stage can be called the Westernization Movement. The leading representatives were Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang, who were important ministers in the late Qing dynasty. They drew upon the experience and lessons of the failures of two Opium Wars and decided to take the way, as Wei Yuan a scholar-bureaucrat put it, of ‘learning the merits of the foreign to conquer the foreign’. They believed that they could keep the enemy out of the country so long as they imported advanced technology from foreign countries, especially advanced military technology. However, the Westernization Movement was torn to shreds by the failure of the westernized Beiyang Navy in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894. People then realized that only a reform of the political system could improve China’s situation.

The second stage can be called the Political Reform. In the 103 days from 11 June to 21 September 1898, the Qing emperor Guangxu ordered a series of reforms aimed at social and institutional changes. The effort reflected the thinking of a group of progressive scholars including Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao and Tan Sitong. The imperial edicts for reform covered a broad range of subjects. They tried to reform the academic and civil service examination systems, the legal system, the governmental structure, the defence establishment, and the postal services. The edicts attempted to modernize agriculture, medicine and mining, and promote practical studies instead of Confucian orthodoxy. However, the opposition to the reform movement was intense among the conservative ruling elite. Empress Dowager Cixi staged a coup on 21 September 1898 and forced the young reform-minded Guangxu into seclusion. The Hundred Days Reform movement ended with the new edicts being rescinded and the execution of six of the reform’s chief advocates. But the reaction from on top was illusory from the beginning. It took place at a time when the central government was losing more and more control over territorial China. The country could only deal effectively with such challenges by modernizing its political and economic system. Yet most people in the ruling elite could not give up their Confucian mentality. Because of the failure of the Hundred Days Reform in 1898, the ‘political reform’ stage came to an end. As a matter of fact, modern European history reminds us that both political reform and revolution were difficult to achieve without some kind of Enlightenment of ideology and culture. Recalling the painful reform experience, the intellectuals argued that the task was to fundamentally transform the cultural psychology of the Chinese. In other words, they had to replace the moribund mentality of Confucianism with a culture of modernity.

Thus the third stage is the May Fourth Movement or the New Culture Movement. The representatives were Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao and Lu Xun, who were the earliest Marxists in China (Yu Wujin, 2010: 8). The propagations of Marxism and communism led to qualitative changes in Chinese culture. People were increasingly accepting of Marxism and communism. They believed that, by overturning the old society, they could build up a new world in which everyone was equal. New ideas, like freedom and equality, spread. This was a form of modern culture. It appealed to people to break the bonds of traditional culture and accept modern culture.

With the May Fourth Movement the antinomies of culture spread in China. Three notable antinomies emerged. The first was the antinomy between foreign culture and native culture in the Chinese culture of modernity. This corresponded to the antinomy of anthropological and value-marked culture in Márkus’s theory. According to Márkus, culture in the broad sense is both universal and particular. In China, on the one hand, the foreign, western culture represented the general attribute. On the other hand, the native, Chinese traditional culture represented particularity. The conflict between these two kinds of culture was obvious in the May Fourth Movement. From that Movement, the Chinese people understood that it was learning science, technological knowledge and the humanistic spirit from the West that could make China prosperous and powerful in the future. In the western world abstract values such as freedom, democracy, equality, social justice and seeking after truth were viewed as universal. These values were the foundation of the modern spirit. In fact, these values were also valid in every developing country that was seeking to modernize. However, the fact that western countries, as the de facto representatives of western culture, were invaders in the history of modern China left a deep scar on the memories and emotions of Chinese people. The evolution of Chinese modernization was driven by the forcible invasion by western countries. Such an implacable modernity resulted in two different kinds of mood with the same aim of self-improvement: a strong and urgent desire to reform and break with tradition on one hand, and nationalistic desires to protect traditional Chinese culture on the other hand. Thus the Chinese culture of modernity always hovered between two extremes: either emphasizing the importance of universal values, emphasizing the necessity of learning from western culture, or else emphasizing the particularity of China and the importance of nationalism, in other words, ‘total westernization’ versus ‘blind rejection of foreign things’.

The second antinomy was the antinomy between critical logic and constructive logic in China’s culture of modernity. This corresponds to the antinomy of two types of logic in Márkus’s analysis of the Enlightenment. In the mid-19th century, invaded by the forces of industrial civilization, China realized the most unprecedented change of the past two millennia. In addition to the capitalist mode of production, the introduction of an Enlightenment manner of thinking had a great impact on the feudal political order and the traditional culture system of China. The New Culture Movement contained two orientations: On one hand, it was the negation of traditional culture. In the economic sphere, the capitalistic mode of production progressively replaced the small-scale peasant economy. In the political sphere, the democratic regime was taking the place of the feudal autocracy. Meanwhile, there was an urgent demand to break the bonds of cultural tradition. This was an attitude of negation. On the other hand, there was an affirmation of new culture, the culture of modernity. The collapse of traditional culture resulted in a change in national psychology. It demanded the establishment of a new cultural order that could guide and orient life. If the two types of logic in the Enlightenment bred the antinomies of cultural modernity in the western world, then the two types of logic in the May Fourth Movement, the negation of tradition and the affirmation of a new culture of modernity, were the source of the antinomies of Chinese culture under the context of modernity in China.

The third antinomy was the internal antinomy of the constructive logic, the opposition of science and humanism, in the Chinese culture of modernity. Again there is a parallel with Márkus’s theory. The third antinomy corresponds to Márkus’s antinomy between the arts and the sciences. The biggest prejudice that the May Fourth Movement removed was the idea that tradition was an unalterable principle. In its place people needed to make rational judgments according to scientific standards. Under the banner of ‘Democracy and Science’, technology and knowledge provided a kind of positive strength for the formation of a new cultural order. From then on, ‘scientification’ was generally accepted as a self-evident standard that was the new basis of Chinese cultural modernity. This exerted a significant influence in China for a century onwards. However, from the standpoint of Márkus, the scientific standard established in the New Culture Movement was precisely an effort to eliminate antinomies. The richness, heterogeneity and variety of cultural forms were replaced by a sole ‘scientific’ standard that was paramount above all others.

The respect for science gradually turned into scientism, a system of beliefs, a new ‘religion’. Scientism is an ideology founded on the belief that science can solve all problems. It implies that science is omnipotent. The more advanced the science is, the more problems that can be solved. Scientism purports to solve all issues about life. According to this view, people should comply with scientists in everyday life, or else their behaviour is likely to offend scientific laws. However, with the development of science and technology, a crisis arose in Chinese culture. The culture of modernity in China became rigid because everything was running according to pseudo-scientific principles. This was a cultural crisis in which the richness of literature and art were lost, and the humanistic spirit and aesthetic taste were corroded by science. As an important part of culture, art became subsidiary to science. The prevailing scientism led to the neglect of the human and social sciences, and a neglect of the humanistic spirit and humanist care. Thus, there was a paradoxical situation in the development of modern Chinese culture: On one hand, official theorists held conferences constantly emphasizing the importance and necessity of science; on the other hand, self-employed and private scholars always criticized the loss of humanistic spirit and reiterated the necessity for humanistic care.

The antinomy between science and the humanist spirit which can be traced to the May Fourth Movement is evident in contemporary China. Márkus’s critique of the culture of modernity provides us with a critical perspective with which we can evaluate the successes and failures of the New Culture Movement. There is no doubt that the May Fourth Movement was positive in several respects. However, when a historical event of fundamentally antinomical character leads to a unified cultural position that eliminates antinomies and dissolves tensions, the consequence of this is negative. If the antinomies of culture are denied, ‘science’ will outweigh or smother ‘art’; if the antinomies of culture are denied, the active role of emotion and art will be replaced by reason and science. The one-sided and simplified model of thinking, and the accompanying spiritual shackles that prevailed for a long time in China, were not broken down until ‘the great discussion about truth’ in 1978. The values of ‘personality’, ‘pluralism’ and ‘diversity’ began to receive more attention. The Chinese culture of modernity has been developing and making innovations with the contention of different schools of thoughts since then. As Márkus suggested, the positive importance of cultural tension is precisely the critical and compensatory functions provided by the antinomies of culture.

The significance of Márkus’s theory from the perspective of China

Márkus’s explanation of the antinomies of modern culture is very distinctive. He regards the antinomies of culture as the dynamic mechanism of modernity. Márkus did not want to construct a comprehensive theoretical system that provided only a singular vision of what modernity is. His emphasis was on diversity and cultural options: he showed that the culture of modernity developed in an indeterminate and uncertain way through the interaction of various countervailing forces. In Adorno’s terminology, the culture of modernity is a ‘constellation’. Thus, the culture of modernity in his theory is an open category. In this sense, it is enigmatic with unlimited possibilities. This makes Márkus’s theory of cultural modernity attractive: this is also, I think, why Agnes Heller called Márkus’s theory a ‘normative scepticism’. A similar theoretical disposition applies to the case of China. The Chinese culture of modernity cannot – and will not – follow the past experience of western culture, since it is a special configuration of modernity. But, as with modernity in the West, the potential of Chinese modernity resides in the particular form and the dynamic mechanisms of the antinomies of its modernity culture.

Chinese theories of modern culture focus on the relevance and tension between traditional culture and the culture of modernity. If the western culture of modernity is ‘hot’, ‘dynamic’ and pattern-breaking, the Chinese culture of modernity is ‘cold’ and ‘continuous’, a cultural pattern that attaches more importance to the realization of self-renewal and self-creation in continuity with traditional culture. Chinese traditional culture is very stable and has lasted for a very long time. The social structure and public order remained largely unchanged in China even when an old dynasty was replaced with a new one. Confucianism is one of the representatives of Chinese traditional culture. It is not merely a doctrine, theory and school of thought. It is also the spiritual foundation whose roots have penetrated into the life and mind of the Chinese people. It appears as the mode of life, custom, habit, consciousness, and emotion of everyday life. It has become an important component of the national psychology and national character of the Chinese. ‘Propriety’, ‘kindheartedness’ and other concepts of Chinese traditional culture endow us with the meaning of life. As this culture has deeply penetrated into the everyday life of the Chinese people, it has become the backbone of their common lifestyle. Even though the culture of modernity has gradually become mainstream in China, the values of traditional culture have left an indelible imprint on the mind of the Chinese people. These values remain valid and are still the measure of civilization and the good education of a modern people. In this sense, although the New Culture Movement announced modernity to Chinese culture, Chinese scholars insisted on interpreting and rethinking the culture of modernity from the perspective of traditional culture.

As far as the reality of Chinese culture of modernity is concerned, Fei Xiaotong, a famous cultural theorist of China, put forward the slogan of ‘cultural consciousness’ in the period of transformation. ‘Cultural consciousness’ means that the people in a certain cultural context should have ‘a clear consciousness’ about their culture and its origin, formation, characteristics and tendencies of development. Therefore, the aim of Chinese cultural modernity is neither to recommend ‘cultural regression’ or ‘restoration’, nor to achieve ‘total westernization’. Cultural consciousness is useful to increase the autonomy of our own culture, and to consolidate an independent position in a new environment and new era. The process of cultural consciousness is hard and long. Most important of all is for a people to be clear about their own culture and also other cultures. This is helpful so that cultures might complement each other. Only by having a clear grasp of Chinese culture can cultural consciousness be realized (Fei Xiaotong, 2004: 1–6). Fei Xiaotong’s view represents the standpoint held by many scholars of Chinese cultural modernity. The Chinese culture of modernity should not be divorced completely from the matrix of Chinese traditional culture. On the contrary, the reasonable factors in traditional culture provide a perspective for self-reflection and for correction of the culture of modernity. For example, in Chinese ancient books and records, culture means that people coloured their bodies to show their difference from nature. Culture is the result of human activity. In this sense, culture is humanization. Therefore, in Chinese traditional culture, humanity is the executant of culture. Culture cannot exist without human beings.

However, in the development of Chinese modernity culture, there was a trend to scientization by taking science and technology as core and downplaying humanism. The standards of hard science were often considered universal for research in all subjects, including the social sciences. Therefore, the Chinese culture of modernity which began at the end of the Qing Dynasty and was established in the May Fourth Movement turned towards a method of ‘seeing only material factors and ignoring the human factor’. The ‘opposition between human and nature’ emphasized the overcoming of nature by the human factor. When western scholars who stand at the ‘other pole’ of modern culture of modernity reflected and criticized ‘scientism’ and ‘centralism’, Chinese scholars turned to Chinese traditional culture. For example, the doctrine of Tai Ji is held in high esteem in Chinese traditional culture. It basically means the ultimate ‘unity of human and nature’. Chinese traditional culture has always objected to the view of ‘making the best use of everything endlessly’. It maintains that the relation between human and nature should be concordant. At the same time the viewpoint that espouses the scientizing ‘opposition between human and nature’ is useful for preventing the Chinese culture of modernity from going to the other extreme of reconciliation with nature. Chinese cultural theorists have been examining the tension between the culture of modernity and the Chinese traditional culture for generations since the May Fourth Movement. The tension is between Chinese traditional humanistic culture versus emphasizing the factors of reason and science in the culture of modernity, advocating the positive factors of the Chinese traditional culture versus criticizing disadvantages of cultural modernity.

Chinese scholars emphasize the immanence of modern culture. This shows that culture is inseparably intertwined with economy, politics and other fields. In this respect, the theory of Yi Junqing is representative (Yi Junqing, 2011). He divides culture into two aspects: exterior culture and immanent culture. Exterior culture refers to literature, art, religion and other independent ideological fields. These cultural activities are external to politics and economy. Although they interact with them, they exist independently. Immanent culture refers to culture that is all-encompassing, omnipresent and internal to all fields of society and human activities. Yi Junqing argues that internality is the fundamental characteristic of culture. Generally, as the objectification of human praxis, culture is the stable way of living and the mode of activity that is formed in human history. Through habit, knowledge, belief, values, ideals, mental mechanisms and other factors, immanent culture regulates the individual life and impacts on the development of human beings. Culture is not only closely linked with human activities but it is also closely connected to the functioning of society. As mechanism, schema or drive factors, culture is internalized in all fields of society such as politics, economy, everyday life, etc. Therefore the antinomies of cultural modernity are not only expressed in cultural and ideological fields but also in the economic and political system. They appear as conflicts and contradictions between different operational economic models and different social systems. Thus, the antinomies of culture and the tension between different fields are the dynamic factors of modernity. In short, Chinese theories of modern culture are distinctive. On one hand, traditional culture is an important source for cultural modernity, a constructive force on the development of culture; on the other hand, any single factor such as culture, politics and economics does not have priority to explain history. The culture of modernity is a permeable complex that is integrated with the everyday life of a people and their society.

Modernity is an unfinished project. It has accelerated the progress of society and the development of science and technology. It promotes communication between different cultures. As the external expression and the internal characteristics of modernity, culture can provide a perspective for understanding the world and self-reflection. In China today a crucial issue is how to develop Chinese modern culture. The biggest difference between modern culture and traditional culture lies in the openness of the former. The culture of modernity is open to other cultures and is self-recreating through communication. It is two-dimensional: on one hand, comprehensive and pluralistic; selective and innovative on the other hand. In light of this the importance of Márkus’s theory is his dialectical attitude towards the culture of modernity. He criticizes the efforts that lead the culture of modernity to crisis by movements that deny its antinomies. Meanwhile he affirms the positive compensatory function of the antinomies of cultural modernity. His view and standpoint are important for understanding and interpreting Chinese cultural modernity. The greatest significance of his theory lies in the fact that we need to look for a development path suitable for a Chinese culture of modernity that constructively harnesses its antinomies and sublimates the tension between the realistic context of China and the theories of western scholars.