New Enlightenment (China)

A slogan in the former residence of Hu Yaobang, who was the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party from 1982 to early 1987.
Nothing to My Name (1986) by Cui Jian, the "Father of Chinese rock", was regarded as the beginning of Chinese rock music.[1] The song became a symbol of the 1980s of China, and rock music was viewed as one of the most direct forms of enlightenment in China.[1][2][3]

New Enlightenment (simplified Chinese: 新启蒙; traditional Chinese: 新啟蒙), or the New Enlightenment movement (simplified Chinese: 新启蒙运动; traditional Chinese: 新啟蒙運動), was a massive social and cultural movement in mainland China that originated in the late 1970s and lasted for over a decade.[4][5] Growing out of the "1978 Truth Criterion Discussion" during the Boluan Fanzheng period, the New Enlightenment was widely regarded as a new wave of enlightenment within the Chinese society since the May Fourth Movement in 1919.[6][7]

The theme of the New Enlightenment movement included promoting democracy and science, embracing humanism and universal values such as freedom, human rights and rule of law, while opposing the ideology of Cultural Revolution and feudalism.[4][8] The movement gave rise to a number of new literature genres such as the scar literature and the misty poetry, meanwhile aesthetics also became a popular topic in society.[9] In addition, the growth of publication industry, the birth of new music genres such as Chinese rock, and the rise of Chinese film industry all contributed significantly to the New Enlightenment.[2] Notable leading figures of the movement included Fang Lizhi, Li Zehou, and Wang Yuanhua.

The New Enlightenment movement ended due to the Tiananmen Square massacre in June 1989.[10] After Deng Xiaoping's southern tour in early 1992, however, the academic and intellectual circle in mainland China thrived again but became divided, forming two major schools of thought: the New Left and the Liberalism.[6][11] On the other hand, as the capital market and market economy expanding in China, traditional intellectuals quickly lost their leadership role in social development which they enjoyed during the New Enlightenment in the 1980s, meanwhile entrepreneurs and business elites became increasingly influential.[11]

  1. ^ a b "Cui Jian: Father of Chinese Rock 'N' Roll". UCLA. June 3, 2005. Archived from the original on 2024-01-05. Retrieved 2024-10-04.
  2. ^ a b Matusitz, Jonathan (February 2010). "Semiotics of Music: Analysis of Cui Jian's "Nothing to My Name," the Anthem for the Chinese Youths in the Post-Cultural Revolution Era". The Journal of Popular Culture. 43 (1): 156–175. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5931.2010.00735.x.
  3. ^ Guo, Yongyu (1994). "狂欢、舞蹈、摇滚乐与社会无意识" [Carnival, dance, rock music and social unconsciousness] (PDF). Personality and Social Psychology (in Chinese) (4): 34–39. 美学家高尔泰认为摇滚乐承担起了"启蒙"这一歌手可能根本没有想到的也不愿意承担的时代使命： 也许摇滚乐是中国目前唯一可以胜任启蒙的艺术出式了。因为理论界的范围大狭窄，起不了大面积的启蒙影响，而音乐是一种特殊的语言，它能起到任何其他方式都达不到的作用。中国需要启蒙……
  4. ^ a b Li, Huaiyin (October 2012). "6 Challenging the Revolutionary Orthodoxy: "New Enlightenment" Historiography in the 1980s". Reinventing Modern China: Imagination and Authenticity in Chinese Historical Writing. University of Hawaiʻi Press. ISBN 9780824836085.
  5. ^ Chen, Yan (2007). "意识形态的兴衰与知识分子的起落—— "反右"运动与八十年代"新启蒙"的背景分析" [The rise and fall of ideology and intellectuals—background analysis of the Anti-Rightist Campaign and the New Enlightenment in the 1980s]. Modern China Studies. 3.
  6. ^ a b Xu, Jilin (December 2000). "The fate of an enlightenment: twenty years in the Chinese intellectual sphere (1978-98)" (PDF). East Asian History (20). Australian National University: 169–186.
  7. ^ Wu, Guanjun (2014). "Chapter 2: New Enlightenment as Modernization". The Great Dragon Fantasy. pp. 121–156. doi:10.1142/9789814417921_0003.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference :23 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Roker, Jana S. (2019). Following His Own Path: Li Zehou and Contemporary Chinese Philosophy. State University of New York Press. ISBN 9781438472478.
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference :5 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ a b Xu, Jilin (April 2005). "啟蒙的自我瓦解" [The Self-Disintegration of the Enlightenment] (PDF). Twenty-First Century (88) – via Chinese University of Hong Kong.