The Mentality Of The Beijing-tianjin Region In The Lower End Of The Qing Gentry (1860-1920)

The westernization was an important strategy to learn from the occidental culture in modern times, and the May 4th movement was a cultural movement which reflected Chinese traditional culture more thoroughly and which constructed a new culture. It was sixty years old in which had taken place profound changes that were unprecedented about politics, economy and culture in Chinese society from the westernization to the May 4th movement. Furthermore, there were many interacting contradictions among which impacted, blended and counterbalanced each other to push forward the modernizing of the Chinese society.Liang-ji was a common lower-middle-class gentleman in the Capital Area at the late Qing Dynasty and the early years of the Republic of China, who had been witnessing totally the course of each historic events of the period. The Manners and speeches of all his life were determined by the cultural environment of which involved Chinese and the western elements and his status and position. The Capital Area was the political and cultural center of the late Qing Dynasty. On one hand, as the cultural center, the specially dense characteristics of autocratic domination had result in the conservatism of the cultural environment so that Confucianism, especially neo-Confucianism of the late Qing Dynasty was the main content in the mind of all over the Capital Area, which affected the paces of freeing their minds tardily on account of breaking away from the heavy trammels of the traditional culture. On the other hand, as the center of politics, there would be lots of sharp differences between the exotic cultures and the originals in short run because torrent of the entrance of the western culture owning to the invasion of the western powers and various solutions of political reform to save the country which contained the elements of western culture swarming into here. The short-term differences would interfere with the action or progress of some original people in agreement with the other projects of modernization of China in modern times.As a traditional gentry, Liang-ji's thoughts were inculcated with traditional culture that belonged to Confucianism, especially neo-Confucianism, which influenced him constantly comply with the thinking paradigms of neo-Confucianism, namely Sagely Within and Kingly Without when analyzing and deciding the facts of a case. He always more emphasized the coral significance of the individual morality and the ethics to the social development. Moreover, owning to vested interest, Liang-ji naturally approved the existing law and order. But due to the status of lower middle class, Liang-ji also had been feeling the impressive sufferings of the lower people in the national crisis so that he could liable to realize the importance of the western culture to China because of the strong awareness of suffering and the traditional idea of government. As a result, he hoped that the government could absorb the essence of the western culture on the basis of traditional culture to solve the tough questions of China so that China could come to revive in the future. This was a thought of reformism of Liang-ji.The coral issue of people is the question that how to cope with the relationship of the cultures of East and West in the course of saving the country at the era of social transformation. All his life of Liang-ji had clarified the journey of absorbing the western culture of the lower-middle-class gentries in the Capital Area, which indicated the principle of Chinese learning for fundamentals, Western learning for practical application. At the period of the Sino-French War, Liang-ji, which was younger, had come into being the view of situation of sharp transformation. He realized that the western culture was not the so-called barbarians as the prejudice from the other traditional people. At the period of the Sino-Japanese War, Liang-ji had a constructive stand that China should follow the example of Japan to induct the western learning. In the times of the Reform Movement of 1898, he advocated the reform to get rid of the outdated custom, but he did not agree with the radical guideline by the capitalist reformers. Up to the times of the New Deal, he joined actively the movement of the enlightenment of the lower-class people due to a purpose of saving the nation by education, which was based on the modernization. At the period around 1911, he had gone along with the try of the regimes of the constitutional monarchy and the republican system. But he did not understand the fundamental reasons of the failures of them and did not realize that the feudal system and the thoughts associated were the answer, but not only the moral decay. So his idea that improving the level of the morality of the people was critical to say the country was futile certainly. But the idea was exactly his thinking foundations of not identifying the views of the New Cultural Movement entirely.The differences of the guidelines between Liang-ji and other reformists at various periods reflected his different understanding about the eastern and western cultures, and showed that the traditional gentries did not agree with the thinking pattern of dualism, namely, there was only an either-or choice, such as the omnipotence of civil rights, the omnipotence of constitutional monarchy, the omnipotence of republican system and the omnipotence of Democracy and Science. Liang-ji maintained the view of consonance and compromising of different culture in order to integrate the East and the West on the ground of pragmatism, which reflected his idea of Chinese learning for fundamentals, Western learning for practical application. Certainly, the fundamental reason why he did not adjust to the trends of the eras was that he had not understand the shortage of the traditional culture, which indicated the thinking limitation of people of former times.