Anticipating Community, Producing Dissent: The Politics of Recent Chinese Intellectual Praxis

Gloria Davies

《The China Review An Interdisciplinary Journal on Greater China》 2卷2期 (2002/11) Pp. 1-35

摘要

This paper explores the ongoing debate between the ＂liberals＂ and the ＂New Left＂ in relation to the rhetorical and discursive strategies adopted by various authors on both sides of this ＂ideological＂ division. In articulating the need for greater democracy and social justice in presentday Mainland Chinese society, these authors deploy tropes and concepts drawn from a wide range of Chinese and EuroAmerican sources. Their common anticipation of community - the word that is now most frequently used in Anglophone scholarship to signify the common good -has produced dissent and debate, primarily because of the different ways in which these authors have formulated their vision of the common good. This paper also examines the foundational concepts and values that underpin ＂liberal＂ and ＂New Left＂ conceptualizations of the common good, and situates their differently formulated concerns in the context of both globalization and a transformed Chinese party-state, whose current ideology shares much in common with the economic rationalistic doctrine of neo-liberalism.