Postmodernism in China

Ouyang Kang

1) The fate of Western thought including postmodern thought in China may be divided into two periods since 1949

The first stage is 1949 to 1978.  Since 1949, almost all Western thoughts and philosophies were criticized and refused as a part of capitalist spirit in China including Professor Whitehead and his process thought. Chinese readers can only learn Western philosophy as a kind of opposite text reading materials in some special informal published books. Professor Whitehead and his process thought

The second stage started since 1978; the attitude to Western philosophy and culture has been greatly changed. Western cultures and Western philosophies were introduced into China more and more and their influences have greatly increased. Since 1990’s, the postmodern thought coursed more and more attentions by Chinese scholars. But more Chinese scholars only know Derrida, Foucault, and Lyotard and their deconstructive postmodern thought. That really coursed some misunderstandings to postmodern thought. Objectively to see, Professor Zhihe Wang and his colleagues have done some very important works to introduce the constructive postmodern thought into China and played very active and positive roles to the spread of postmodern thought in China. The publishing of the serial books and papers on constructive postmodern thought in the middle of 1990s was one of the most important events of it.

However, there are still different kinds of attitudes to postmodern thought. Some still keep very sharp and strong critical attitude to postmodern thoughts and published some papers to criticize postmodern thought including constructive postmodern thoughts. However, more and more scholars held more open and rational attitudes to postmodern thoughts and try to understand them better in order to get some enlightenment from postmodern thoughts and postmodern movements.

I myself noted the influence of postmodern thought recently and try to get some enlightenment from it in order to develop my own philosophy thought. There is a chapter on postmodern social sciences in my book named Philosophy of Humanities and Social Sciences. The book will be published very soon. One of my papers on that topic may have been published in China now.

However, though my knowledge of postmodern thought is still very limited, postmodern thoughts have become one of the hottest topics in China now. I am sure that its influence will increase very quickly.

2) What can we learn from process philosophy and postmodernism? 

First, we noted that many postmodernists have very strong consciousness of social responsibility. They keep the critical attitudes to main trends of Western capitalist society; especially its evil sides and want to get ride of their negative functions to human life. They deeply concern the fate and the future of human being. They gave many useful suggestions in order to help society to develop itself in a more rational direction and with a better way. The main trend of western society may not like the critical voice of postmodernism, but postmodernism may really help the society to know its own problem and develop itself better on their way to the future.

Second, from the methodology angle, we can get much enlightenment from Process Philosophy. For example, Professor Whitehead and his colleagues paid very close attentions to Values and stressed its special position in the philosophical thinking. They asked to understand the world as a whole and stressed the methodology of Holism. They emphasized the original thought and especially social original thought. He stressed the relationship and especially stressed the interaction and the cooperation between the individuals. They stressed the process and thought the world as a kind of evolutional development process, and so on. Though these thoughts are not only belong to Whitehead and the process thought thinkers, but also Whitehead and his colleagues have made some special contribution at these aspects, so their ideas certainly should be treated as one of most valuable resources. Actually, I do think that many of these thoughts are combatable with the new understanding of Marxism, especially Karl Marx’s original thought.

Third, constructive postmodernism and their suggestions may be great benefits to care the modern illness, to reduce the possible negative function of capitalism, and to prevent the possible disasters in a globalization time. They strongly asked to construct a kind of new science in order to unify the sciences/technology with humanism, to unify the individuals and society in order to beyond the absolute individualism, to prompt the co-existence of different kind of cultures, to protect the nature and to construct a harmony world, and so on. Since the developing direction of western countries will continue to lead the world development, it is certainly the positive contribution to the rational development of world civilization.

Fourth, postmodernism is very helpful to help the developing countries to understand Western society better and to make sure what is their own right way to go. Most postmodernists live in Western society and know the inner contradiction and conflicts of capitalist very well. While most of the developing countries are trying their best to learn from Western kind of the modernization, postmodernists have pointed out the problems of Western civilization. These will be great helps to the developing countries to find their rational way, to avoid the mistake, and to reduce the unnecessary cost of their development.

Fifth, as a Chinese scholar, I especially noted that many postmodernists are very friendly to Chinese people and Chinese culture. The Center of Process Studies has set up an good example at this aspect. Many postmodernists stress the importance of Chinese culture to overcome the modern problems and try to find the enlightenment from traditional Chinese culture. This will certainly stimulate Chinese scholar to study their own traditional culture, to discover the possible resources, to enlarge its influences in the further development of world culture.

3). Some questions to postmodern thought

However, there are some questions need to think and research more careful.

First, if all modern spirits have out of the date? Is today’s world a really postmodern world? Actually the world is still in its process of modernization. May we say that modernity is still the right direction to today’s world? Both in reality and spirits are the same. If this is true, how can we think the full realistic foundation of postmodern thought?

Second, is postmodern thought useful to the developing countries, like China? To what extend and to what degree it is useful? What are the universal meanings of postmodern thought to today’s world? Or it is only limited in some developed countries?

Third, how can we criticize/deconstruct/destroy modern Western society more rational and more acceptable to the main trend of Western society? How can we put the postmodern thought into practice?

Fourth, I highly admire attitudes of constructive postmodern thought and its positive functions. However, how can we distinguish it clearer with deconstructive postmodern thought? It is necessary and/or possible? How can we get ride of the absolute and negative influence of postmodern thought especially the deconstructive postmodern attitudes?

Fifth, will it still work or not if we do not related process thought with religion or theology? While postmodern thought stress the create nature of human being, if it is very necessary and unchangeable to connect postmodern thought with religions and theology?

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