五四的局限

The Limits of the May Fourth

五四新文化运动致力于建立中国的现代性文化应予以充分肯定,但五四新文化运动在"现代化道路"上的局限更为明显:一是在对中国文化理解上,由于没有将不可改变的八卦原始文化符号与儒、道对其的解释区别开来,所以导致"反传统"的全盘否定中国文化的看法;二是以西方现代文化思想为新的"经"去"宗",所以就改变不了所要反对的儒家思想和人格的依附性文化,培养不了对中西方思想均审视批判的现代理性精神;三是五四在很多具体提法上是肤浅的。这突出表现在"自主的"呼唤远大于"自主何以可能"的理性追问,也表现在认识不到"奴隶人格"根本上在于做"既定思想的奴隶"。

Although it should be fully confirmed that the New Cultural Movement of the May Fourth makes efforts to construct China's modern culture, its limits in constructing modernism in China is more obvious. Firstly, the Movement did not distinguish the unalterable primitive signs of the Eight Trigrams from their interpretation made by Confucianism and Taoism, resulting in a complete denying of Chinese tradition and culture. Secondly, since western modern culture and thoughts were taken as the new standard while Chinese tradition was denied, it is impossible to alter the opposed dependent nature of Confucianism and Chinese personality, and to cultivate the modern rational spirit which critically examine both Chinese and western thoughts. Thirdly, many thoughts proposed in the Movement are but skin-deep, which is highlighted by the eager call for 'being independent' rather than the rational inquiry into 'how it is to be independent', and by its innocence in figuring out the essence of 'slave personality' lies in 'to be slave of fixed thoughts'.