略论近代中国的民族反省

Notes on Modern National Reflection

“近代中国的民族反省”,是指近代中国人对本民族的不足——特别是民族心理、民族精神之缺失的批判性的自我体认。大体说来,近代民族反省经历了对器物、制度与文化根本之不足进行反省的三个阶段。从国民性批判及民族精神反思的意义上说,近代民族反省则经历了鸦片战争之后启蒙的发轫、甲午战争之后国民性反思浪潮的涌起与五四时期国民性批判达到高潮这样三个阶段。自省、旁观、比较成为近代民族反省尤其是国民性批判的三重视野。针砭劣根性、解剖病源、构建民族精神即新国民性,是近代民族反省思潮重点关注的三个问题。

In a broad sense, the national reflection had experienced three stages, that is, from a sense of implemental deficiency to one of institutional deficiency, and then to one of cultural deficiency. And if viewed from its focuses on criticism of national characters and national spirits, the national reflection had also experienced three stages, i.e. from the initial stage of enlightment after the Opium War to the formal reflection of national characters after the 1894 war between China and japan, and then to the national climax of reflection in the May Fourth Movement. Self-reflection, onlooking and comparison constitute three fields of vision for the modern national reflection, whose three focuses were harsh criticism of deep-rooted bad habits, definite diagnosis of their causes, and how to reconstruct new national characters with the cultural traditions home and abroad, including the outstanding national spirits. Thus, there was recognition of outstanding national spirits as well as criticism of the morbid national characters in modern thoughts.