Study On The New Culture Heterotopia Of The"Min Guo Conservatism"

For the sake of modernization reflections, the thesis redefining the origin and development of Chinese conservatism, thus puts forward "Min Guo Conservatism" for the first time, a new perspective for the study of Chinese conservatism. In the course of the study, the thesis creatively starts from the side text ignored by most researchers to probe into "Min Guo Conservatism", thus it provides a new topic for the study of Chinese conservatism. In terms of methodology, the thesis firstly utilizes speculative knowledge from various disciplines synthetically, especially Michel Foucault's heterotopia theory, to make an interdisciplinary study on "Min Guo Conservatism" at micro and micro level, thus it creates a new perspective for the study of Chinese conservatism.Michel Foucault has explained his heterotopia theory on many occasions, from which we can abstract various characteristics of the heterotopia. These characteristics correspond to the "Min Guo Conservatives" in that the conservatives struggle to make a choice between traditional culture and western culture to construct their new culture so as to realize their ideological and cultural goal for salvation and survival.The "Min Guo Conservatives" has elucidated the new culture, seen from a macro level, as a new cultural heterotopiato. In the meantime, at micro level, one can see the precarious heterotopia, the surveillant heterotopia, the adjustable heterotopia and the compensatory heterotopia in it. The first chapter is based on the characteristics of the precarious heterotopia. That is, it makes use of the precarious consciousness or disastrous color that is inherent in the heterotopia to elucidate their concern about the nation and the people in the "Min Guo Conservatives"' construction of the new culture. While the construction of the new culture by the "Min Guo Conservatives" originates from their reflections on modernization, especially on westernization, but their first step in their interpretation of the ideological and cultural claims begins with drawing a social picture full of hidden troubles and survival risks. With the defects of western culture fully exposed by the first World War and the values of Chinese traditional culture ignored, the "Min Guo Conservatives" are care-laden by the fashion of advocating westernization and belittling tradition at the time. Most importantly, both the fashion of advocating westernization and the trend of belittling tradition aggravate ethical anomie and moral decay. Apparently that is a hindrance for salvation and survival.Objectively speaking, the social picture drawn by the "Min Guo Conservatives" has some constituents of excessive worrying, like reality, but it is not entirely realistic, so it is a heterotopia full of hardships. The second chapter and the third chapter of the thesis focus respectively on characteristics of the surveillant heterotopia and the adjustable heterotopia. That is, the former is combined with characteristics of the limited openness to the outside world within limits, and the latter is combined with characteristics of the heterotopia in stressing maintaining its peculiar property and conforming to the trend of the times. Both show the "Min Guo Conservatives'" attitude of rethinking western culture, inspecting traditional culture, and their selective principle of learning from western culture and continuing traditional culture in their constructing of their new culture. In the evaluation and choice of western culture, the "Min Guo Conservatives" not only point out those misunderstandings of the westernized thought and behavior, but also reinterpret the true value of western culture, thus further expanding the extension of western culture in Chinese's eyes. They select actively what they need from western culture, and abandon or hide what they don't want at the same time. Therefore, their attitude to the western culture is neither exclusive nor fully receptive, with their heterotopia monitor functioning. In the evaluation and choice of traditional culture, the "Min Guo Conservatives", on the basis of correcting those deliberate misreading and belittling traditional culture, try their best to restore the true meaning of traditional culture represented by Confucianism, and strongly advocate the inheritance or continuation of traditional culture, especially of the traditional ethics and morality. Their advocacy of traditional culture focuses on revealing its value of adapting to the environment, hence their construction of the heterotopia exhibits characteristics of conforming to the trend of the times. In fact, the choice of western culture in the surveillant heterotopia and the option of tradition culture in the adjustable heterotopia are two sides of the new cultural heterotopia constructed by the "Min Guo Conservatives". Their ultimate goal is constructing a new culture which harmonizes the traditional culture and western culture, so as to break away from the dilemma of salvation and survival. The new culture not only can be compared and contrasted with the pure western culture, but also pure traditional Chinese culture, thus, through this process, the advantages can be gained and disadvantage of both can be discarded. However, the purpose of the new culture construction by the "Min Guo Conservatives" is not to show the superiority of the traditional culture, but to learn from other cultures and transform traditional culture so as to promote the survival and development of Chinese nation. As a result, the fourth chapter of the thesis deals with the characteristics of the compensatory heterotopia. That is, it draws the characteristics of the heterotopia in the filthy or chaotic reality space to elucidate the lofty conception about the new culture made by the "Min Guo Conservatives" who combine the traditional culture with western culture in their imaginative description of different western images.Through discussing the construction of the heterotopia in the side-text written by the "Min Guo Conservatives", the thesis reveals the "Min Guo Conservatives"' strong precarious consciousness and patriotic thought under the conservative superficies. The "Min Guo Conservatives" are in fact not conservative. On one hand, the traditional culture advocated by the "Min Guo Conservatives" is not traditional Chinese culture without changing at all in the conventional sense, but traditional culture improved to adapt to situation. On the other hand, although the "Min Guo Conservatives" strongly oppose the view of westernizing thoroughly, they don't exclude absorbing western culture of valuable reference selectively and restrictively. As a matter of fact, the "Min Guo Conservatives" are not only strongly aware of the damaging effects of the western culture on traditional culture, but also foresee the urgency and necessity of constructing a new national culture. Therefore, the new culture heterotopia constructed by the "Min Guo Conservatives" helps to arouse or reiterate national consciousness, country consciousness and international competitive consciousness hidden behind.