Self-Identity and the Problematic of Chinese Modernity

Kwok-kan Tam

The "self" is much studied in psychology, psychoanalysis and anthropology, and is variously equated with the concept of "agent," or "subject." When considered as the site of consciousness, particularly in the Western dichotomy between body and mind, the self is examined in relation to subjectivity . When Descartes says "I think, therefore I am," the "I" is a mind, which can be considered separately from the body. But in cultures other than that of the West, such as the Chinese, the "self" is both body and mind. The notion of self is culture-specific, and there lacks a universal definition that can be accepted by all cultures. Trajectories of the Self Self is as elusive a concept as subject. There are theorists who believe that the self is a category of the mind, but there are others who think that it is a physical entity which can be objectified for scientific study. Other binary notions of the self include those of subject vs . object, fact vs. construct, structure vs. process, unity vs. fragmentation, consistency vs . inconsistency, and stability vs. instability . In any event, the self must be the "lived" self, which can be considered both as the "experiencing I" and the "experienced me." The self can be examined from many different vantage points, but central to the problematique of identity is the conception of the self in three aspects : (1) Self as an autonomous entity (2) Self as a product of discourse (3) Self in the self-other relationship Before one knows "who" one is, one has to ask "what" oneself is. After all, in the I?", the "I" must be defined before one can find a satisfactory question of "who am answer for the "who." As the site of consciousness, rationality and imagination, the self is accorded primacy by Western philosophers such as Descartes, Hume and Berkeley. The self is seen as self-contained, self-present, self-identical, self-constituted, the originator of actions, the center of certitude, and the locus of truth. Such an essentialist approach posits the unity of being and the closedness and ready accessibility of reality as well as the epistemological privileging of the self that is considered to be unitary (Dissanayake 273) . This perspective of the self, which Jacques Derrida has characterized as constituting the metaphysics of presence, has been vehemently challenged by poststructuralist thinking . Opposed to the essentialist approach to the self is the view that attempts to decenter, deconstruct, and disperse the self into the play of discourse . Heidegger considers language as the site for the emergence of the self and the disclosure of being. Such an idea has a deep and abiding impact upon contemporary understanding of the self as product of discourse . In the same way, Nietzsche argues for the will to power and figurality of language as modes of reconfiguring the self. Drawing upon the theorizations of such thinkers as Heidegger and Nietzsche who disdains the idea of the

self, the poststructuralists seek to highlight the shaping power of discourse in molding selfhood. They reject the idea of an autonomous and sovereign self, arguing that ideas of selfhood are produced by powerful discursive formations that are closely related to culture . Such an approach privileges discourse over selfhood (Dissanayake 274). The Marxists argue for the socio-cultural formation of the self. In the view of Althusser, the function of ideology in the positioning of people as subjects, who are thereby "subjected," plays a crucial role in the sociocultural formation of the self (38-9) . In psychoanalysis, Lacan sees the self as a nexus of linguistic formations, which are embodiments of social relations (44) . In terms of power and subject, Foucault regards selfhood as a complex and variable function of discourse (777-795) . In the same vein, Barthes undermines the self by positing it as a fiction . In these heated debates, the feminists pose the formation of self as a problem of gender . All these views seek to downplay the ontological significance of the self. This dualism between the autonomous and self-present self and the notion that cultural construction of the self has generated much debate in recent times. The idea of an autonomous and sovereign self is obviously not tenable, but to regard the self as a mere product of discourse and as a fiction also fails to address the question of agency . The Chinese Self Under the Confucian Discourse Different from the Western notions, the traditional Chinese conceives the self as a body-mind process of socialization, in which little heed is given to the psychoanalytic, as well as the metaphysical, aspect. The Western model of identity formation, with an emphasis placed on the ego as described by Erik Erikson, does not seem to be illuminative to the issue of Chinese identity in this context . The earliest reference to the self is made in the word shen [body] in Confucian classics. As pointed out by Roger T. Ames and other scholars in the book Self'as Bodv in Asian Theory and Practice (1992), the traditional Chinese self is a body-mind concept . The cultivation of the self in the ideal Confucian moral order is equattec with the cultivation of both body and mind. Within the moral network of familial and social relations, the Chinese self is a relatively stable self objectified into a network of relation with others . According to Confucianism, the Chinese moral self is defined as "the center of relationships" in the family as well as society ; it is the basis of a cultivating process, in which the person lives and cultivates (himself) for the purpose of perfecting his self to better serve others (Tu 231) . As succinctly summed up in Daxue [Great learningl : "Cultivating oneself, regulating the family, governing the state, and bringing peace to the world," such a Confucian view reveals a strong sense of collectivism, communitarianism and disciplining activity in traditional Chinese culture, in which the self is defined mainly as a relational role-self, but not as an independent individual self. The realization of the self lies in the realization of one's role, which is culturally prescribed. The traditional Chinese regarded the self as primarily a role-self, expressed in familial and social relationships . This role-self is summed up in the Confucian thought as in the following : "Let the ruler be ruler, the minister minister, the father father, and the son son" (Analects, XII 1 1) . In this relationship a person is not an independent individual, for he has little individual identity or individuality, and lives mainly to fulfill dutifully the various roles expected of him . Individuality is only allowed within the

limits of roles . Self-awareness in traditional Chinese culture, if there is any, is therefore presented mainly as role-awareness, and identity crisis is seldom conceived as a problem of self-identity in the traditional Chinese consciousness . In his book, Zhongguo wenhua de shencheng jiegocti [The deep structure of Chinese culture], Sun Longji also points out that the Chinese concept of ren [human, and benevolence, to borrow D. C. Lau's translation] is derived from the mutual relationship between two human beings, in which the idea of the individual is absent. Harold H. Oliver brings up the point in his essay "The Relational Self" that the relational self is only part of a self-other relation and is actually a no-self. Defined in such a way, the traditional Chinese self is a product of Confucian discourse, and it actually has been negated as an agent. The traditional Chinese concept of self speaks of a person's relation, not to oneself, but to others with himself as an object only and not as a subject . Thus selfhood is emphasized, but not the constitution of the self in relation to psychology and social formation . Numerous examples can be found in Chinese history and literature to show effect of the Confucian discourse on the construction of the Chinese self. Briefly summarized, the traditional Chinese self is a relational role-self, an object-self, as well as a no-agent self constructed merely as a product of Confucian discourse which is psychologically and politically repressive. Legacy of the May 4th : Subject, Identity and Modernity The major legacy of the May Fourth 1919 new culture movement can be summarized in the emergence of the Chinese concept of a person as an individual after the disintegration of the Confucian self. To the May Fourth intellectuals, being scientific was taken to be the first criterion for measuring the validity and progressiveness of ideas . This scientific attitude entails the challenge of established traditional beliefs. The same attitude was applied to democracy, which stood for new political institutions involving a new view of the self in relation to others . Hence, science and democracy were considered as both the opposite and remedy of the Confucian discourse as it advocated a completely new view of social relationships . This is the central idea of Chen DUxiU ' S program of democracy as delivered in the leading intellectual journal Xingingnian lNew youth] in 1918 . The Confucian discourse, which emphasizes the reciprocal ruler-subject/fatherson relationships (Tu 234) and is based on the emperor of as a "well-established, permanent, and pivotal locus" within the traditional cosmic order, was challenged (Schwartz 283). Examples of this rebellious attitude can be found in modern Chinese literature, in which the new intellectuals are portrayed as awakened individuals struggling to live a life as an individual free from the stranglehold of socio-familial relations . The disintegration of the Confucian self based on authority and subordination can be found vividly in the literary portrayal of the life of the awakened Chinese . In the writings of Lu Xun's generation, there is already the advocacy of the concept of man as an individual and as a person . Lu Xun was among the early few intellectuals who introduced the revolutionary spirit of European romanticism and individualism as an antidote to the collapsing Confucian moral order in his seminal essays "Moluo shili shuo" [On the power of Mara poetry] and "Wenhua pianzi lun" [On cultural differences], and introduced to the Chinese the sense of the individual as an existential self. With the launching of the Literary Revolution and the call for the

introduction of Western thoughts to replace Confucian ethics during the early days of the May Fourth era, the Chinese intellectuals were eager for a complete revolution in culture in the later 1910s. Hu Shi, the spokesman of the May Fourth cultural movement, strongly attacked the Confucian moral order as dying institutions in China in his revolutionary manifesto "Yibusheng zhuyi" [Ibsenism] in New Youth in 1918. To Hu Shi, traditional Chinese institutions of law, religion, and morality were all based on the Confucian concept of self, and they should be regarded as social evils embracing selfishness, slavishness, falsehood, and cowardice . The individual was seen as always repressed by society, and Hu Shi thought that only when traditional society collapsed would the individual be free from all traditional bondage . With the propagation of Western-inspired notions of the self as a free agent and subject, independent of a passive object-relation to others, by such awakened Chinese intellectuals as Lu Xun and Hu Shi, a new morality combining iconoclasm with individualism came into being . This iconoclasm promoted by both Lu Xun and Hu Shi led to the massive introduction of social and political anarchism during the May Fourth 1919 Movement, which aimed at completely undermining any authoritative social institution, particularly the Confucian socio-moral discourse of human relationships, and liberating the individual self from repression . As Zhou Zuoren clearly pointed out in his May Fourth manifesto, what China needed is a "Literature for Man" [Ren de wenxue], which promoted such an individualistic belief of freedom as "to have the will to be responsible for one's self" (19). As a result, the younger generation in China was awakened to a new world of experience and ideas grossly identified as individualism . The Leading May Fourth writers, such as Lu Xun, Guo Moruo, Tian Han and Mao Dun, often depict their young protagonists in conscious defiance of tradition and all kinds of socio-moral bondages that pose as obstacles in their journey to individual freedom . Of immense interest to the reader is the different resolutions offered in their works, which reveal the authors' own ideological inclinations, social visions, as well as their moral choices . Their works can thus be regarded not only as a new discourse on the self, but also as manifestations of the young Chinese intellectuals' moral dilemma and/or self-searching in transitional China. Problematizations of Modern Chinese Subjectivity Portrayed in the May Fourth literary works is the self as an awakened individual, a lonely fighter who becomes increasingly aware of his or her self as an individual in relation to others in family and society . To the new generation of Chinese, the self is represented as the "experiencing I," the subject of knowledge and action . Captured in these literary works is the spirit of the time when China's youths were groping for means to transform themselves from their old role-selves to take up a new identity characterized by free expressions of the self. These works further portray the sacrifice, sufferings and ordeals involved in the struggle for self-responsibility and self-realization. Although the generation of the May 4th, as well as that of the 1990s, succeeded in "saving" the self from the Confucian discourse (and the Maoist discourse of a collective self), the lack of a cultural heritage that can sustain the ontological configurations of the self leaves the modern Chinese in much puzzle about the new selfhood and identity. Individualism becomes synonymous with selfishness, the self is subordinated

under the collective self (or "gigantic self"), and personal-identity is displaced by national identity. Subjectivity, problematized in modernity by Jurgen Habermas and understood as the psychological and emotional state of the subject in literature, has been discussed by many scholars as a prominent feature of modern Chinese literature that can represent its demarcation from traditional literature .' In my discussion of the identity of the self, 1 shall adopt some of the views expressed by Anthony Giddens in his book Modernitv and Self ldentity and by Stephen Frosh in Identity Crisis : Modernity, PsvchoanalY.sis and the Self. In both of these works, the self is seen as a reflexive project : "We are not what we are, but what we make of ourselves" (Giddens 76) . Identity is seen not as "object identity" as discussed by the philosopher David Hume, and the self under modern conditions is an amorphous self, which is "always in the danger of being undermined, of withering away or exploding into nothingness" (Frosh 187). Self-identity "is not something that is just given, as a result of the continuities of the individual's action system, but something that has to be routinely created and sustained in the reflexive activities of the individual" (Giddens 76), which, as a coherent phenomenon, presumes a narrative . Lu Xun's short story "The True Story of Ah Q" and Han Shaogong's "Homecoming" [gui chu lail respectively stand for the Chinese problematization and quest for self-identity in the May 4th and in the 1980s . In Lu Xun's story, the anti-hero Ah Q is represented as a literary figure symbolic of the Chinese national character at the end of the Qing dynasty who is caught and lost in between the conflicting values in the dichotomy of tradition vs. modernity, revolution vs. anti-revolution, urban values vs . rural morality, and the role-self vs. the individual self. Ah Q's rejection by his fellowvillagers actually can be problematized as a lack of self-identity in the Chinese cultural transition from tradition to modernity. His amorphous character as a picaro is due not to his withering self, but largely to his inability to fulfill the roles expected of him in traditional rural society as a result of instability in social relations . The story can be read as the tragedy of Ah Q's lack of self-identity, as well as his failure in its construction . It is a renunciation of the Chinese tradition in search of a new subjectivity . While Ah Q's problem lies in his lack of self, Han Shaogong's story "Homecoming" depicts the impossibility of constructing a self-identity in socialist China in the 1970s . In this story the narrator is confused about his own self as he is recognized by the people of a village where he has never set foot before . Taken to be another person, the narrator gradually loses his original identity and begins regard himself as the person other people think him to be. But later when he meets one of his previous friends in an inn during to travel, he is called by his original name Huang Zhixian : My friend called me "Huang Zhixian ." "What?" "What do you mean what'?" "What did you call me'?" "Aren't you Huang Zhixian?" "Did you call me Huang Zhixian?" "Didn't I call you Huang Zhixian?" I was stunned, my mind a complete blank. Oh yes, I was in an inn . In the passageway, mosquitoes and moths were fluttering about the dim light bulb, and

there was a row of make-shift beds, just beneath the mouthpiece of the phone there was a fat head snoring . But was there someone called Huang Zhixian in this world? And was this Huang Zhixian me'? I'm tired, I'll never be able to get away from that gigantic self. Mama! ' (1834; "Homecoming" 20) Although in the story it does not indicate clearly whether it is traditional Chinese culture or the Communist ideology that has repressed the self of the Chinese, the "Mama" in last line of the passage quoted above actually may refer to both . The political overtone that "gigantic self" carries makes it seem more appropriate to refer to the Communist collective self than to the Confucian collective self. This is a contemporary case of Chinese "diaspora," in which all boundaries, geopolitical and cultural, are lost. There is not pre-given locus of identity, and what remains is a wandering subject. Yet, the confusion of identity and the impossibility of constructing a self-identity are related in such a way that it is both the tradition traditional Confucian discourse and the Communist discourse that have discouraged the construction of a self-identity by asking seriously the question : "Who am 1?", instead of simply "taking the question as one of positioning - I am a Chinese, I am a member of the Communist Party, 1 am a member of my clan, etc ." (Cheung xii) After all, is this not a familiar device in identifying oneself in the Chinese tradition? Numerous examples of such character identification can be found in traditional Chinese fiction and drama. Added to the complexity of tradition is the process of identity formation in the self-other relation, in which identity is not just what one thinks one to be, but more often than not it is an issue of what one is regarded by other people . Whether it is in the 1900s or in the 1970s, tradition still seems to play a role in the Chinese formation of identity, self or social. Is there Chinese modernity which is separable from tradition? Or can one regard Chinese modernity as a transition from tradition? On what grounds and in what sense is Chinese modernity possible`? But anyway, the search for a modern subjectivity remains to be a hallmark of Chinese modernity .

Notes I Modern Chinese subjectivity has become a widely discussed topic in recent years in the field of modern Chinese literature and intellectual history. Please see the following authors for details of discussion . Chou, Ying-hsiung . "Zhongguo xiandangdai zhiwo yishi chutan" [A preliminary study of subjectivity in modern and contemporary China], ed., Zhongguo xiandcingdai wenxue tanvan [Studies in modern and contemporary Chinese literature], ed Chen Binaliang (Chan Ping-leung) ( Hong Kong: Sanlian, 1992) 16-25. Wendy Larson, "Female Subjectivity and Gender Relations : The Early Stories of' Lu Yin and Bing Xin," Politics, Ideology, and Literarv Discourse in Modern China, ed. Liu Kang and Xiaobing Tang (Durham : Duke University Press, 1993) 124-143 . Leo Oufan Lee, "In Search of Modernity : Reflections on a new Mode of Consciousness in 20th Century Chinese History and Literature." Ideas Across Cultures : Essays in Honor of Benjamin Schwartz, ed. P.A. Cohen and M. Goldman (Cambridge: Harvard East Asian Monographs, 1990) 109-136 . ` The text quoted here is based on Martha Cheung's English translation in Homecoming ? and Other Stories . In Martha Cheung's translation, "gigantic 1" is used for juda de wo, but in the cultural and political contexts of the story, I have decided to change it to "gigantic self" in my quotation .

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Daxue Gui chu lai

Guo Moruo Han Shaogong Hu shi Lu Xun shen

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Tian Han Xingingnian Yibusheng zhuyi Zhou Zuoren 7