On Wu Mi's Conservatism.

• Author: Woei, Ong Chang

Although broad tendencies that may be labeled "conservative" can be traced throughout history, to categorize any group of intellectuals as "conservative" is to invite philosophical debate. Karl Mannheim maintained that conservatism as an "ism" only emerged in the West in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century and was an inseparable component of the triad conservatism/liberalism/radicalism. [1] Benjamin I. Schwartz went further. Referring to such prominent figures as Edmund Burke, he argued that "it is often asserted that conservatism was a reaction to the French Revolution, but it is probably more correct to say that the doctrine of conservatism rose in dialectic reaction to certain trends of the Enlightenment." [2] However complex the concept of conservatism may be, it should not be studied in isolation but regarded as a reaction to certain movements characterized by the intention to change the old system.

The "Critical Review" school.

Although it is probably impossible to provide an incontrovertible definition of "conservatism," the term is both convenient and useful for evaluating the thought of a special group of early twentieth century Chinese intellectuals widely known as the "Critical Review" (CR hereafter) or Xueheng school. CR was a monthly journal first published in 1922 by certain members of the faculty of the

Southeastern University in Nanjing. This school of thought was conservative in that it directly opposed the New Cultural Movement (xin wenhua yundong) led by such famous thinkers as Hu Shi (1891-1962), Chen Duxiu (1879-1942), Li Dazhao (1889-1927), and Lu Xun (1881-1936). Among the CR scholars, Wu Mi was certainly the most active. Moreover, he was the chief editor of most issues of the journal, which remained in publication until its demise, after eleven years of bitter struggle, in 1933. [3]

Influenced by Babbitt.

Wu Mi graduated from Tsinghua University in 1916. In the following year, he went to the United States to study at Harvard, from which he obtained an A.M. degree in 1921. While at Harvard, he had the opportunity to study with Irving Babbitt (1865-1933), one of the leading thinkers in the West during the first third of the twentieth century. Wu Mi was fascinated by Babbitt's ideas, which were known as the New Humanism, and by Babbitt's respect for ancient Eastern philosophy, including Buddhism and Confucianism. Other prominent CR scholars who were taught by Babbitt or influenced by his work include Mei Guangdi (1980-1945), Hu Xiansu (b1894), Liu Yizheng (1880-1936), and Guo Binhe (?).

After graduation, Wu Mi returned to China. He immediately confronted a situation in which supporters of the New Cultural Movement were attacking Confucianism and other forms of traditional thought, also known as "national essence," as the origin of evil and the source of China's backwardness. Believing that the destruction of the "national essence" would be harmful to China, Wu Mi soon engaged in resistance to the ideas of the New Cultural Movement.

The New Cultural Movement

According to Chow Tse-tsung, the New Cultural Movement, also known as the May Fourth Movement, covered a period from about 1917 through 1921. The students and intellectual leaders in this group (henceforth designated as the "New Intellectuals"), supported by the rising patriotic and anti-Great Power sentiments of the public, promoted an anti-Japanese campaign and a vast modernization movement that aimed to build a new China through intellectual and social reforms. [4] For the New Intellectuals, modernization involved two crucial elements, science and democracy, which were absent from the traditional culture. They thus regarded the introduction of Western culture into China as the most urgent task.

"Science" as a god.

The overwhelming zeal for science, however, did not really facilitate the true spirit of scientific research. Instead, as various scholars have pointed out, the primary concern of the New Intellectuals was to use "science" as a weapon to attack traditional beliefs and philosophy. They venerated science to such an extent that it became a virtual god, an entity beyond doubt or criticism. [5] The worship of science nurtured a strong current of "scientism," which vastly overrated the usefulness of science. As Daniel Kwok put it:

Conditions during the first half of the twentieth century in China discouraged the wholesale application of science but encouraged an intellectual appreciation of it, which we may call "scientism." Scientism, in general, assumes that all aspects of the universe are knowable through the methods of science. Proponents of the scientific outlook in China were not always scientists or even philosophers of science. They were intellectuals interested in using science, and the values and assumptions to which it had given rise, to discredit and eventually to replace a traditional body of values. Scientism can thus be considered as the tendency to use the respectability of science in areas having little bearing on science itself. [6]

Two kinds of naturalism.

The scientistic misuse of science was first displayed systematically and massively in the writings of Yen Fu (1853-1921). Drawing parallels with Darwin's Theory of Evolution, Yen Fu warned the Chinese that they could be eliminated if they were not sufficiently competitive in the modern world, much as, according to Darwin, the weaker species are eliminated by natural selection in the natural world. Yen Fu was applying the law of nature to human society. In many ways, Yen Fu's thought was consistent with the naturalistic way of thinking that attained great influence in the United States in the nineteenth century. In the view of Irving Babbitt, Utilitarianism and Romanticism, initiated by Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) respectively, were the two streams of thought most representative of naturalism. The former affirmed that human happiness could be obtained through the manipulation of the laws of nature. In the words of Babbitt, Baconianism "always will encourage the substitu tion of a kingdom of man for the traditional Kingdom of God--the exaltation of material over spiritual 'comfort,' the glorification of man's increasing control over the forces of nature under the name of progress." [7] Meanwhile, Rousseauism, asserting that man is naturally good and becomes wicked only through flawed institutions, rejected all kinds of "unnatural" control and restriction of the individual. As Babbitt quoted the French critic Gustave Lanson, Romanticism "exasperates and inspires revolt and fires enthusiasms and irritates hatreds; it is the mother of violence, the source of all that is uncompromising." [8]

The New Cultural Movement, as interpreted by Wu Mi, was nothing more than an encomium of naturalism in a Chinese way. He was well aware of the radical intention of the New Intellectuals to destroy completely the institutions and mind-set of the traditional society in the name of science and democracy...