“知更鸟”:近代中国的“时代意识”

"Robin" :The Consciousness of the Times in Modern China

"时代意识"指时人对其自身所处时代的感知和定义。传统中国以盛世、浊世、衰世、乱世等概念标记时代。在转型时期的近代中国,面临"大变局"的国人对时代的感知成为一大历史难题,民国的"大时代"概念即印证国人时代意识的多歧性。这是因为时代定义由单维的"史鉴"演变为"历史"和"世界"双轨并行的认知机制之后,造成了认知层面的混乱。从"时代"概念的演变和使用来看,近代中国的时代意识空前强烈。但章士钊对梁启超的"知更鸟"之喻也说明,近代转型期启蒙者的时代意识具有明显的模糊性特征。

The consciousness of the times refers to people’s perception and definition of their own era.Traditional Chinese people marked different times with notions like prosperity,corruption,decline and chaos.In the 19th and early 20th century,when facing with the "great changes",how Chinese people perceived the times had become a major historical problem.The ideas like "great age" in the Republic of China confirmed the diversity of Chinese people’s consciousness of the times.The definition of the times evolved from "mirror of the history",which was one-dimensional,to "history" and "world",which was parallel.This resulted in the epistemological confusion.In terms of the change and frequency of the ideas,the consciousness of the times in modern China was unprecedentedly strong.However,Zhang Shizhao compared Liang Qichao to "Robin",which showed the ambivalence of the contemporary people’s consciousness of the times.