Hu Shih's Ideas Of Human Rights And Rule By Law And Its Contemporary Values

After the mid-19th, the staple in China was to solve the problem of the state independence and the nation's modernization. In the process of the Chinese nation's deepening consideration on this problem, intellectuals in May 4lh period made outstanding and precious spiritual contributions. Hu Shih was among the most active and most noticeable ones. As the representative of Chinese liberal learners in the 20th century, in actively reacting to the slogan of "science and democracy" initiated by the new-culture movement, he opposed feudalism and advocated individual liberation to achieve spiritual freedom, he called for making laws to secure human rights and emphasized value restructuring and human recognition.As the result of influence of the western culture and system, Hu Shih's ideas of human rights and rule by law sprouted when he studied in America. He advocated energetically individual liberation and perfect individualism in the May 4th period. At the end of 1920s and the beginning of 1930s,aiming at the situation of human rights destroyed severely under the Kuomingtong's dictatorship and autocracy, Hu Shih and others initiated the movements of the human rights and solemn criticized and attacked the "one party dictatorship". As a result, Hu and his comrades were suppressed by the Kuomingtong government. In his later years, Hu Shih still worked hard for the freedom of spirit and speech and definitely claimed that toleration was more important than freedom, as well he asked the government and non-government for the generosity to the dissidents. Therefore, Hu Shih's ideas of human rights and rule of law developed in phases in accordance and intrinsic unanimous with the particular way in which the Chinese society developed. That is to say, he pursued the individual proper rights from beginning to end.However, in the early 20th the historical environment the Chinese and western enlighteners lived in differed a lot. In the old Chinese society, the idea of individual rightsas prevalent in the western world being absent, the individual was not the center; the ideal of society was not individual freedom and equality but social order and harmony; the legitimacy of the government was not decided by consent of a single person or of the whole in despotism that had been existent for thousands of years when facing the capitalism attacks and invasions, it surprisingly continued. Therefore, compared with the capitalist enlighteners in the west, Chinese enlighteners met with much tough tasks. They must try to do away with the traditions and at the same time engage themselves in the modern transformation of the Chinese society. In that particular history background, Hu Shih was doomed to go through many spiritual tortures and sufferings. Especially under the threat of collapse of state and extinction of the Chinese nation, Hu Shih's ideas aiming at the Chinese society's modern transformation, being futile to the actual situation had to retreat from the fierce political conflicts.On the one hand, the intrinsic theoretical shortcomings of Hu Shih's ideas of human rights and rule by law kept themselves from getting rid of or surpassing many difficulties. After a flash in the pan, they immediately slept into a dilemma. Chinese traditional politics and culture influenced the concepts of human rights and rule by law which were opposite to Confucian morals, to face unprecedented challenge when they entered into a complete distinctive culture. On the other hand, the twists and turns of the world, the disasters of era and nation, and his own close-relating double identities combined to prevent his proposition from being realized. As the capitalists' powerful arms, human rights and rule by law were so obviously useful in opposing feudalism, but the order and stability that they relied on to exist and grow were the very things the Chinese society lacked of at that time. Hu Shih put emphasis on ideas' reasonableness and originality while neglected the social and historical prerequisite that it depended on to appear and develop...