Confucius And The 20th Century, Three Major Social Thought

The period from the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 to the May 4* Movement sees a turning point of traditional Confucian ideology to its modernity. During this period, the breakup of feudal imperial system causes the appearance of triple crisis - political, social, and ethical crisis, and modern Chinese intellectuals are divider into two poles - radicalism that opposes Confucius and conservatism that supports it; different opinions on modernity, and the approaches to it break modern intellectuals up to three camps including liberalism, Marxism, and cultural conservatism, resulting in the existence of different attitudes towards Confucius.Cultural conservatism supports Confucius and approves his humanism and ethical value. Liberalism and Marxism belong to radicalism, and on the surface, they are both critical and negative towards Confucius. But there are some differences between them. After the May 4th Movement, political and radical colour in liberalism gradually fades away, and some Hong Kong and Taiwan liberalists even begin to appreciate Confucian tradition in . the 1950s and 1960s. On the contrary, restricted to political and ideological confine, Marxists' critique of Confucius continually deepens, and finally results in the nationwide anti - Confucius movement during the "Cultural Revolution". However, both liberalism and Marxism consciously or unconsciously accept Confucius' Neishengwaiwang thinking and his Ren theory. They oppose the shackles, hierarchy and suppression of "Li" by using the independence, equality and democracy of "Ren" , and they believe that people can be freed from the feudal ethic code by means of "Ren". Therefore, the essence of their anti - Confucius movement is to oppose Confucius with Confucian thinking, but in actuality, they all approve Confucius' value. In a word, none of liberalism, Marxism, or cultural conservatism opposes Confucius' humanism tradition. In other words, the essence of Confucius' way fits in with the modern society.This paper, by means of the equal dialogue and argument between Confucius and the three ideological trends in both traditional and modern discourse background, refutes the simple opinion of supporting Confucius or opposing Confucius held by the 20th century academia. It comes to the conclusion that in essence, both conservatism and radicalism oppose feudal ethic code with Confucian Ren theory, and both of them approve Confucian humanism. Besides, this paper studies the characteristics and defects of liberalism, Marxism and cultural conservatism in China through analyzing the surface differences of their attitudes towards Confucius.