A Study On The New Enlightenment In 1930s

Enlightenment started from Rennaissance in Western Europe. However, in china, the enlightenment campaigns, in a strict sense, appeared after the Opium War and became the motive power of the semi-colonial, semi-feudal society. History can serve as mirror to reflect the rise & fall. Nowdays, the reevaluation of the history of Chinese ideological enlightenment not only helps to look into the trace of ideological &L cultural development, but also helps to guide the construction of socialist culture with Chinese features. Nevertheless, the study on enlightenment at present is very narrow and is only limited to several great campaigns such as Constitutional Reform & Modernization in 1898 and May 4th Movement etc. There is a lack of investigation of some other minor campaigns, thus the logical association of enlightenment history is broken. For this reason, in the thesis a study is carried out on the New Enlightenment in the 1930s on the basis of original historical material and attempts to make a breakthrough in this field. The thesis is divided into three parts.Part One: History investigation of New Enlightenment. The factors to be investigated are the main causes and developmental process viewed from the perspective of history. New Enlightenment broke out for three reasons: increasing national crisis; overflowing cultural countercurrent; and uncompleted new cultural movement. It was sponsored in September 1936 and had undergone four stages: sponsorship-development-climax-fading out. The curtain fell down at the end of 1939.Part Two: Analysis of New Enlightenment. The spiritual essence, ideological features and historical status are illuminated from the perspective of culture. In terms of spiritual essence, the enlightenment falls into three aspects: patriotism, democracy and construction of new culture. Its new tendency is reflected in five aspects: reality in goal, nationality in tool, reason in attitude, popularity in subject and science in philosophy, On the one hand, it plays an important role ininhistory of modern Chinese ideology and culture. On the other hand, it reveals some defects: lack of belief, indifference to the development of individual character, incomplete criticism of feudalism. The defects are caused by particular circumstances, economical foundation and weak leadership.Part Three: The realistic significance of New Enlightenment. The lessons from New Enlightenment are analyzed from the perspective of reality. Ideological enlightenment at present assumes a new aspect. The pattern "opening up-innovation-reason" will be the inexorable option in the enlightening thought at our times. Opening thought contains two respects: creating free and democratic environment and absorbing all the productions of civilization. The contents of innovation are thought liberation on the one hand and social system reform on the other. Rational thought means following the principles of truth, practice and gradualism.