Chapter 11 The "Fourth Five-Year Plan" Generation - Notes on the Sociology of Knowledge

one The sense of belonging to "generations" has a tendency to increase significantly in contemporary times. What sociological significance does this mean for contemporary culture? Comte has already considered the issue of "generation" from the perspective of sociology, especially the issue of the continuation of "generation".Mannheim compares specific social groups to social rock formations, and Generation is one of the social rock formations.If we examine the social stratum of "generation" from the standpoint of cultural sociology, we can more accurately diagnose the important characteristics of current hidden cultural trends, discourse orientation and existing problems.

Proposing the "Fourth Five-Year Plan" generation as a sociological generation problem has clear limitations.First of all, it only refers to a group of social strata in a specific social-historical interval, and the scope of stratification is very limited, that is, the intellectual stratum; It is also mainly carried out within the scope of the sociology of knowledge.Therefore, the sociological investigation of the "Fourth Five-Year Plan" generation is to see through the internal structure of the current cultural-spiritual movement, and to see through the phenomenon of radical changes in the current cultural spirit that are relevant to individuals and society.

two The reason why I use the well-known "Fourth Five-Year" event as the symbol of the "Fourth Five-Year" generation is mainly because of symbolic needs. The "Fourth Five-Year" generation as a historical and cultural event has far more meaning than the "Fourth Five-Year" movement itself as a political event, just as the "May Fourth" generation as a historical and cultural event has far more meaning than the "Five-Five" movement as a political event. Four" movement itself. The "May Fourth" generation has become a historical and cultural event in the past, while the "Fourth Five-Year" generation is an ongoing historical and cultural event.The introspection and criticism of the "May Fourth" generation is an external, post-introspection criticism—post-criticism, so it has formed a traditional inheritance or rejection relationship with the "May Fourth" generation.The introspection and criticism of the "Fourth Five-Year Plan" generation is internal and self-reflection and criticism—pre-criticism.We are among the "fourth five" generation, which is constructing what will be regarded as "tradition" by history.The sociological investigation of knowledge of the "Fourth Five-Year" generation must lead to the self-examination and self-criticism of the "Fourth Five-Year" generation.This is a pre-sociocultural critique concerning the self.

three The "May Fourth" generation had a decisive impact on the development of modern Chinese society in terms of academics, literature and art, politics, spiritual quality, social form, and historical orientation.In this regard, at least two issues must be considered: 1.The discourse that the so-called social development has historical laws to follow has been challenged.A certain era is the product of a certain type of knowledge, artificial rather than historically necessary.Furthermore, the "Fourth Five-Year" generation must be responsible to themselves and society and its unpredicted form for the types of knowledge and concepts they put forward.Because, 2. Is the "May Fourth" generation really so outstanding?Didn't they make conceptual mistakes in the confusion of the times and history?Sociology of knowledge is supposed to clarify this issue, and from this leads to the sociological analysis of the general relationship between era society-knowledge type-social action. Not only a single type of knowledge was produced, it was an "era of a hundred schools of thought".Why one type of knowledge can achieve effective social action and establish an ideological system is undoubtedly an interesting topic for the knowledge society.

Of course, the "May 4th" generation did not simply either inherit or reject the "May 4th" tradition—an extremely vague label, an ideological term, and they never claimed to be better than the "May 4th" generation.The problem is only that the type of society and culture rejected by the "Fourth Five-Year" generation was to a considerable extent caused by the intellectual concepts adopted by a certain type of intellectuals in the "May Fourth" generation through social actions. Since the "Fourth Five-Year Plan" generation, they are more worried and more careful in the specific situation of the era society-knowledge type-social action.

Proposing the "Fourth Five-Year" generation as a topic of knowledge sociology, in my opinion, the first and main purpose is to stimulate the inner self-criticism of the "Fourth Five-Year" generation, which is at the same time social Cultural critique.Therefore, this topic can only be proposed by the "Fourth Five-Year Plan" generation themselves. Most of the social and cultural critiques of the "Fourth Five-Year Plan" generation of intellectuals point to the past, but now they seem to turn more or less toward themselves and the present. Four For the division of "generations", there is a clear distinction between age groups in physiology, which is based on the biological rhythm of life and death.But from the perspective of sociology, the division of "generations" is different.Sociology is not only based on the natural facts of life, it must take into account the social-historical facts of politics, economy, and culture.Mannheim pointed out in his article "The Sociological Problem of Generations" that the social homogeneity of "generations" is based on the factual nature of life-death biological rhythms, but it is not derived from this factuality.In other words, the sociological investigation of the same attribute of "generation" should grasp the transformation of body-spirit-spirit, which must be related to the transformation of society-historical structure.

I would rather look at the "generation" identity of the "May Fourth" generation and the "Fourth Five" generation more in sociological terms than in the factual aspects of biological rhythms, because it is clearly a social phenomenon rather than a biological one. phenomenon, although I follow Mannheim's definition in principle. I divide modern Chinese intellectuals into four groups of generations: the "May Fourth" generation, that is, the generation that grew up at the end of the last century - the beginning of this century, and entered into social and cultural roles from the 1920s to the 1940s. A small number of members are still playing social and cultural roles; the second generation group is the "liberated generation", that is, the generation that grew up in the 1930s and 1940s, entered the social and cultural roles in the 1950s and 1960s, and has not yet withdrawn from the role; the third generation The group is the "Fourth Five-Year" generation, that is, the generation that grew up in the late 1940s to the end of the 1950s, and entered the social and cultural roles in the 1970s and 1980s; It grew up in the 1970s, and will fully enter the generation of social and cultural roles from the 1990s to the beginning of the 21st century.

Of course, this distinction is ambiguous on the level of age, and the substantive factors may be related to personal social life experience, education and individual spiritual choices.As for the differentiation phenomenon in the generation group, it should also be considered.However, this division is generally feasible, and its primary basis lies in: 1.Society of politics, economy and culture—the internal transformation of historical mechanism; 2.The types of knowledge carried by the various generational groups constitute the actual visible social conflicts in the current culture. Another problem related to this is the succession of "generations" (Generationsfolge).It may be said that the "Liberated Generation" and "Game Generation" are the successors of the "May Fourth" generation and the "Fourth Five-Year" generation respectively.This is not only evidenced by social conflicts or convergences between types of knowledge in current cultures, but also by differences or convergences between forms of psychic feeling and spiritual qualities.Therefore, I regard the "May Fourth" generation and the "Fourth Five-Year" generation as the substantive social rock formations of Chinese culture in this century, and they mark the substantive faults in China's modern cultural society.

Fives Sociology of knowledge is not a history of cultural thought.It is not within my field of vision to delve into the "May Fourth" generation. My main interest, as mentioned above, is the inner social and cultural self-criticism of the "Fourth Five-Year" generation. Sociology of knowledge is primarily concerned with the internal relationship between types of knowledge and society.In this century, there have been three huge "human earthquakes"--Nazism, Stalinism, and the ten-year Cultural Revolution. The "Fourth Five-Year" generation has a special entanglement with one of these three human epicenters: participation-exit-reflection.This forces the investigation of the sociology of knowledge on the "generation" of intellectuals to be more directed to a special topic: the meaning intention underlying the type of knowledge.Sociologist Scheler made a major contribution to the study of this topic in his book "Forms and Society of Knowledge".

Most intellectuals of the "Fourth Five-Year Plan" generation had individual involvement in social and historical evolution first, and then had knowledge education and training in colleges.This is similar, at least in generative form, to the generation of European (especially German) intellectuals that emerged after World War I and World War II.The so-called "Three New Whampoa" that was popular back then was quite sociologically stimulating. The intellectual value intention of the "Fourth Five-Year Plan" generation is necessarily and intrinsically related to specific and concentrated historical and social events.

However, strictly speaking, although the "May Fourth" generation is not like the "Fourth Five-Year" generation, it is quite uniform that first there is a strong overall social investment, and then there is a clear selection of knowledge types. It is still not unique in one generation-such as the case of Xiong Shili.Not only that, the "May Fourth" generation of intellectuals was also formed in a series of major social changes and turmoil.In this regard, the overly direct connection between the value intention of the knowledge type and the relevant domain of life is not a substantial difference between the two generations.In fact, the scientific, economic, cultural, political, and educational national salvation and the introduction of various Western thoughts during the May Fourth era, at least in form, were repeated by the Fourth Five generation. The substantive difference probably lies in: Although the two generations had a strong overall social investment beforehand, the substantive connotation of the social investment is different, and the nature of the social and historical events themselves is also absolutely different. It is the reason why the value intentionality of knowledge types differs between generations, and it is the reason that makes the re-examination of the value intentionality of knowledge types an urgent problem. six Although the "liberated generation" did not have a strong social investment in the first place, the social participation of this generation of intellectuals and their involvement in the ten-year Cultural Revolution are also eye-catching.In terms of knowledge types and value intentions, the "liberated generation" is quite special.In my opinion, the primary feature is the ideological unity and integration of knowledge types and value intentions.From the perspective of sociology of knowledge, the knowledge types and value intentions of this generation have been effectively woven into the ideological discourse texture and organizational mechanism from the very beginning.It must be noted that ideology is by no means just a set of quasi-intellectual ideas, but a set of effective social mechanisms.In addition, the ideology of the knowledge types of this generation is still directly related to the social and historical domain, and the integration of ideology is to a large extent active participation rather than passive adoption, which still stimulates interest in the sociology of knowledge on the subject of value intentions. It can be understood from this that although this generation has experienced many social hardships, it is still difficult to lose sight of ideological discourse and organizational operations in terms of knowledge types and value intentions.For example, even some intellectuals in this generation who are inconsistent with the existing ideological discourse have ideological discourse functions in their statements.It is well known that many rightists are actually leftists, and it is not a difficult mystery from the perspective of sociology of knowledge. As far as the topic of knowledge sociology is concerned, as the active successor of ideology, how to connect the "liberated generation" with the "May Fourth" generation may also have some stimulating topics to do. seven The "Fourth Five-Year" generation is obviously not the successor of the existing ideology. In this regard, this generation group has similarities with the "May Fourth" generation in form: they are all destroyers of the existing cultural system, discourse " "traditional" rebels.The two cultural crises in China in this century were provoked by these two generations respectively. Cultural crisis and belief crisis are the exterior and interior of each other. Fundamentally speaking, cultural crisis indicates the substantive rupture of the meaning intention behind the type of knowledge. The cultural crisis provoked by the "Fourth Five-Year" generation is deeper than that of the "May Fourth" generation in terms of levels, and the rupture of meaning and intention implied in it is even more serious. This can be seen from the sociological perspective of the "Game Generation" can see.Therefore, I prefer to consider the cultural crisis from the specific category of the meaning intention of "believe". The crisis here has a double meaning: first, it is the crisis caused by the shake of the traditional meaning discourse, and then it is the crisis lurking in the process of repositioning the meaning discourse. The "May Fourth" generation interrupted the traditional discourse of meaning at least formally.They stand out from rebelling against "tradition", and actively and eagerly reposition the discourse of meaning, followed by social actions transformed from repositioned firm beliefs. At the end of the Cultural Revolution, I once showed a bad poem entitled "Looking for the Truth" to a writer who had become famous in the 1930s and 1940s and later served as a senior cultural cadre but was still under supervision at the time, and asked him for advice.He immediately pointed out that "searching for the truth" was the experience of his generation, they found it, and we should not have such thoughts. This anecdote is quite illustrative.From the perspective of the sociology of knowledge, the implicit question here is whether sincerely believed conscious intentions can guarantee that meaning-intentional objects are true. The reorientation of the meaning intention of the "May Fourth" generation directly pointed to the Western concept of meaning.However, the reorientation of meaning intentions does not delve into the knowledge types of Western meaning concepts from the perspective of the whole and traditional roots, but more hastily adopts various ideological trends produced in the nineteenth century.And this historical period is exactly the era when nihilism suddenly gathered in the West. Such a repositioning of the meaning and intention of the "May Fourth" generation group is undoubtedly related to its own social and historical factuality, and this type of knowledge orientation mode was established long before the "May Fourth" generation group—for example, Wang Guowei. The foundation has been laid.However, we still cannot admit that this is an inevitable reorientation. In fact, there are other orientations. Eight The "Fourth Five-Year" generation did not stand out from rebelling against existing knowledge types and meaning discourses.If we sincerely believe that this character is not lacking in the "fourth and fifth" generations.However, the "Fourth Five-Year" generation has moved from sincere belief to sincere disbelief.This opens up the problem that sincere belief does not directly infer that meaning-intentional objects are true.The question remains: what is the intentional object of belief, and what is the basis of the meaning form of this object. However, this has already involved the problem of phenomenology of meaning, and it is not a topic that should be discussed too much in the sociology of knowledge.From the perspective of the sociology of knowledge, the above problems have shown that there is also a crisis lurking in the process of repositioning the discourse of meaning.Furthermore, the reorientation of the "Fourth Five-Year" generation has also been exposed to this kind of crisis. The "Fourth Five-Year Plan" generation moved from sincere belief to sincere disbelief, which provided the conditions for the objective error of rejecting meaning discourse, and also presented new dangers. The danger is twofold: on the one hand, in the process of reorienting the discourse of meaning already differentiated by the "Fourth Five" generation - the "May Fourth" generation also experienced this differentiation, which may repeat the "May Fourth" Some mistakes of the times, for example, the value intentional object of a type of knowledge at that time took the historical form as the value foundation, and this will eventually have its own consequences: the accident of history will one day mock this value intention itself. The various types of knowledge that have emerged in the "Fourth Five-Year" generation should take on the task of self-criticism of value intentions. On the other hand, in the process of the "Fourth Five-Year" generation from sincere belief to sincere disbelief, there has been a tendency of "belief in nothing", and this tendency will continue unabated.According to reports, a female student at Wuhan University attempted suicide. When asked about the cause of suicide, she replied: Open the book, and now I see Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud everywhere, nothingness, emptiness, boredom... ...In fact, the "belief in nothing" of the "Fourth Five-Year" generation has been transformed into social action as a new orientation of meaning discourse. "Believe nothing" is essentially a kind of belief, and likewise constitutes a type of knowledge that believes—truely believes—"disbelief" and emptiness.The social actions that result from this type of knowledge are obvious: idleness, sex, fashion, indifference, lip service (chat).If the "Fourth Five-Year" generation does not use self-criticism as a criticism to carry out social and cultural criticism, then at least in form it has inherited a certain type of knowledge from the "May Fourth" generation. Nine On the whole, the "Fourth Five-Year" generation group has a similarity with the "liberated generation" in form, which is the idealistic character combined with the meaning and intention of "believe". Idealism should also be placed in the scope of the sociology of knowledge. It is not only related to types of knowledge and discourse of meaning, but also to a broader issue of intellectual character. Idealism is already different in the two generations mentioned above, and the key point involved here is still the essence of idealism rather than just a matter of form.To put it simply, the idealism of the "Fourth Five-Year Plan" generation has undergone substantial changes, and its sentimental quality is extremely heavy. In the "Fourth Five-Year Plan" generation, idealism has become more of a spiritual quality than a meaningful discourse.This quality means that no matter how boring and depressing the world is, there is still something beautiful, worth cherishing, and moving. The "Game Generation" has despised this quality from the very beginning, laughing at the very very very very intention to "believe," the respect for the precious and sacred, the intellectual type itself.This generation group inherited the "believe in nothing" intention differentiated from the "Fourth Five-Year" generation group, and promoted it philosophically, and quickly found a companion in the West.This generation has the urge to actively anomie any type of knowledge, to enter a game space whose rules are the game itself.From the perspective of spiritual character, their major feature is that they no longer know what it means to be moved.The spiritual character of Chinese intellectuals will face new challenges again. ten From the perspective of world culture in the twentieth century, the "Fourth Five-Year" generation is also related to another increasingly noticeable cultural phenomenon: exile culture. Exile has existed since ancient times, but the mass exile of culture is a special phenomenon of the twentieth century.I can at least point to the Russian exile culture of the 1920s to the 1940s, the German exile culture of the 1930s to the 1940s, and the exile culture of contemporary Eastern Europe. A large number of outstanding philosophers, theologians, writers, and poets such as Koff, Lowski, and Bunin; the center of the latter's exile is the United States, which produced the social and cultural criticism tradition of the Frankfurt School, and emerged Horkheimer, Addo Ernaud, Bloch and a large number of outstanding cultural thinkers.The culture in exile starts from its own experience of nationality, and surpasses the nationality itself, becoming unique.Types of knowledge with broad influence. I'm reluctant to say that the "Fourth Five" generation is already constituting a culture of exile, but social facts seem to increasingly provide the stimulus.This issue is quite complicated.The Chinese intellectuals who lived in Europe and the United States earlier than the "Fourth Five-Year Plan" generation were at least in exile in form.As for the exile culture of the "Fourth Five-Year Plan" generation, at least it has formed a social trend. My concern with this question is, of course, limited to the sociology of knowledge, that is, if there is a culture in exile, then its types of knowledge and its discourse of meaning will be fascinating questions: whether it can also be learned from Starting from the special life related field of nationality, it transcends the narrowness of nationality and enters the basic existential context. So far at least, the material provided by sociology does not make me feel confident.Not only that, but even the consideration of cultural typology makes people feel unconfident.Anthropologist Mead's research shows that the quality of culture determines the quality of people to a considerable extent.The quality of Chinese culture is still somewhat regrettable.In this regard, the introverted social and cultural self-criticism of the "Fourth Five-Year Plan" generation guided by the sociology of knowledge is probably more pertinent. February 1989 Shenzhen