“五四”:一种新文化哲学的考察

May-4th Movement:A New Investigation of Cultural Philosophy

从新的文化哲学考察,"五四"是伟大的,同时它也是一个伟大的未完成。"五四"的伟大在于它给中国思想文化和社会开了个头,而它的未完成在于只靠一次思想启蒙运动不能解决中国所有的问题。"扫荡废物,催发新生"是鲁迅对"五四"精神的概括。鲁迅在解释"五四"运动的时候,强调过两个问题,一个是白话文运动,一个是文体的革新。他认为白话文运动是成功的,但是白话文既可作进步思想的文章,也可用来做腐朽思想的文章。"五四"时期尝试了很多新文体,小说的地位被抬高,而小品文的成功还在小说、戏剧、诗歌之上。解剖国民性、改造国民性是鲁迅当时作为思想文化和社会改革过程中的一个命题提出来的。他对国民性思考的出发点和归宿点与西方传教士明显不同。鲁迅的文学观到了后期,更重视大众性,有人说这是鲁迅文学思想的人民性,我认为与其叫它人民性还不如叫民间性,鲁迅从来没有使用"人民"这个词来说文学。

In terms of new cultural philosophy, the May-4th Movement was a great and an unfinished great movement. It was great because it initiated a new start for Chinese ideology and culture and Chinese society, and it was unfinished because one enlightening movement could not solve all the problems China was faced with. Lu Xun mentioned two issues emphatically in his interpreting the May-4th Movement： the vernacular Chinese movement and the new style movement. He thought the vernacular Chinese movement was successful, for both progressive and retrogressive ideas could be represented in vernacular Chinese. In the May-4th Movement, many new styles were attempted, which helped elevate the position of novels, which was, however, not as popular with people as critical essays. In his late days, Lu Xun showed more concern with popularity. Although some scholars think Lu Xun＇ s literary thought is of affinity to the people, I＇ d rather introduce the term ＂folk character＂, for Lu had never discussed literature in terms of ＂the people＂.