Cultural Politics Should Proceed with Caution: Also on the Re-politicization of Literary Theory

In speaking of the direction taken by literary theory since the 1990s, Mr. Yao Wenfang gave a fairly accurate summation. He said: “The logical course of literary theory, having run to this point, seems to have rounded a bend, and things have turned back the way they came. The politics from which we had earlier parted with a respectful bow at the crossroads where political appeals were turning toward aesthetic appeals—just now, at the turning-point where aesthetic appeals are turning toward cultural appeals, we meet it once more, unexpectedly.” (1) And he keenly points out that this “politics” is not that “politics”: it has already transformed itself, at a single bound, from “social politics” into “cultural politics.” This is very much to the point. Here, what I should like to add is this: the one who plays at this politics is likewise not the one who played at that politics. In those years, literary theory was forbidden to speak of wind and moon; it was permitted to speak only of “politics”—which is to say, it could not but be “politicized.” The one who toyed with theory was the one who got “politicized”: he had to stand on a political standpoint, take up the posture of standardized political framing, and brandish the political cudgel—so that if play did not mean pinning his opponent to the ground, it meant being struck down to the ground by political power in the political game. But upon entering the 1990s, scholars had only just gained a moment's breathing-space in the realm of the aesthetic, only just snatched up the mirror of aesthetic self-love, when they turned about and took up playing at politics once more. Differing from before, this time it was an active sally; no one was forcing them to play at politics; truly and indeed, it was they themselves who wanted to be “politicized.” Or perhaps they were political animals to begin with, a disposition hard to reform; and once class struggle was no longer spoken of day after day, year after year, the itch became hard to bear—that maddening itch—so they fished out today's “politics” and clapped over their heads the protective umbrella of “culture.” This both scratched the itch of doing politics and saved them from making a spectacle of themselves; indeed they could even, in so cultivated and refined a manner, put on quite a dashing display.

But what I should rather say is that this re-politicization is by no means so much cause for celebration; what is most worrying is precisely those persons who play at cultural politics. If one examines them carefully, it is not hard to find that, beneath surfaces that differ, there are still those who have, with perfect consistency, made no substantive change—and that is the lack of a backbone and of independence.

In those years, men of letters and scholars had to play politics along ready-made lines of thought; they were not supposed to, and ought not to, have heads of their own. That was an age that demanded a standpoint and forbade a head, because others had long since designed for you a ready-made standard thought; you had only to fall into rank and follow, to keep close behind in parroting imitation, copying the set patterns—and that would do. Otherwise, you would have to remold yourself without the least mercy, fighting selfishness and repudiating revisionism, remolding yourself until you had no thought or temperament of your own, not the least little bit of personal “private heart,” and had become one of those uniformly manufactured creatures with nothing human about them but a class flavor. After a lapse of many years, this state of affairs seems to have improved somewhat, but it has not in fact advanced far: their heads and their thought are still no better than before, while their standpoint has already been lost—only that, once every three or five days, they perform a “gorgeous turn,” resembling a dazzling political spiral. For example: yesterday, in pursuit of the latest Western fashion, mouths full of foreign airs and tones, like fake foreign devils; today they at once change costume and switch face, pin on a queue, don a long gown and mandarin jacket, knock their heads in worship, and—in the manner of thoroughgoing national essence—peddle their patriotic learning. Just imagine: with people of this sort going to play at cultural politics, who knows what they will play out? At most it can only be an Ah-Q-style politics.

How could Ah Q not speak of politics—he even made revolution: coiling up his queue and sticking chopsticks in it, twisting the toughness out of Little Nun Niu, beating up Master Qian's eldest son; for all that he did not in the end mount the dragon-throne, he had quite the revolutionary air. Supposing Ah Q's revolution had succeeded, then the village's earth-god shrine would just have served as the bridal chamber for the new licentiate's young bride; Wu Ma should then have been carried in on a sedan-chair, and Little Nun Niu might just as well be taken as a concubine. At that point Ah Q would pretty much have overturned the whole order between himself and Old Master Zhao—and yet the world would have gone on just as before.

Today's cultural politics, I fear, can hardly escape this very fate. The cultural politics that speaks of the body often falls into body-worship; the cultural politics that expounds postcolonial theory cannot then break free of its entanglement with extreme nationalism. Look at those who, raising the “Western-style” banner of postcolonial theory, defend “national tradition” and defend “national essence”—the way they go about it always makes one feel, look at it how one will, that something is awry.

The Ah Q spirit that Lu Xun criticized in those years is as alive as ever today; but Lu Xun has not been as fortunate as Ah Q. It is said that he was taken in by a Western missionary's “trick,” donned the colored spectacles of Orientalism to spy upon his own compatriots, and as a result saw only the scabs on Ah Q's head, uglifying the Chinese, and objectively providing the Western colonizers a pretext for conquering the East—or, at the least, a touch of the “running-dog who helps the idle” suspicion. This is truly a case of thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river. That cultural politics should be played to this very point—not only did Lu Xun never foresee it, but even the “friendly nations” who invented postcolonialism must feel “astonished.”

Even one so penetrating and incisive as Lu Xun will not infrequently meet with things that exceed his reckoning. For instance, he once wrote about manuscript fees, and inadvertently fell into the reputation of a youth's spiritual mentor; he was willing to die quickly and rot at once, so as to avoid being clung to and sucked at, wound about, by swarms of flies—yet unexpectedly he has been tossed and turned over and over to a degree no one could have imagined: from being forced to have three “great” caps pressed upon his head, to becoming a political cudgel; from being held up as a divine sage, to having his “acupoints sealed,” being “smeared with dung,” and made into a “caricature.” The conjuring transformations of Chinese-style politics are something Lu Xun, even if he came back to life, could not divine—still less could he, with eyes wide open, augur them. Harder still to imagine is that, according to some who have looked into it, the ancestral founding-father of today's “angry youth” turns out to be Lu Xun himself. This too is not without cause. Did not Lu Xun say that, if anyone near his end should urge him to repent, his attitude toward his foes and grudges would still be: “Let them go on hating me; I forgive not a single one.” So obstinate, hating to the very end—as against the “angry youth,” he has it and to spare. Yet does not the conduct of this “angry founding-father,” running counter to the ancestral teaching of “loyalty and forbearance,” constitute the very wellspring of the “angry youth”? Even if the “angry youth” read no more books, and least of all read Lu Xun's books, Lu Xun can hardly escape this share of the blame. As we now build a harmonious society and a great nation rising, what is wanted is the compliant, not the “angry youth”; and so this “angry founding-father” Lu Xun has come, too, to the time when he ought to be invited out of the textbooks. One only hopes that Lu Xun may henceforth rest in peace, and that China may, by this, also be able to sleep soundly.

From the standpoint of the theory of evolution, a man must surely keep pace with the times. This is, broadly speaking, not wrong. Compared with the Ah Q of those years, today's men of letters and scholars are more refined by one degree: they are skilled in the survival-craft of the consumer age—or, one might say, they have added a layer of slipperiness. For example, in the past they delighted in guessing the leadership's intent and forecasting political trends; over and above this, they have now learned to spy into privacy, seize on business opportunities, recruit customers, manipulate the media, and court the crowd to snatch a price. In a word, among those who today play at cultural politics there is no lack of those who chase the latest fashion and seize on the lucky chance: among such people, cultural politics is played as if it were a commodity to be traded—or used as a stake to fish for profit; or, with an eye to the crowd, to snatch fame and renown… “Cultural politics,” and all such talk, is precisely the freshly arrived new amusement; these people are by no means sincerely intent on using it to comment on the times, to dissect culture, to reform life—they merely borrow it to make a novel show of standing apart.

What must be made clear is this: I am by no means opposed to the cultural-political turn of literary theory; on the contrary, I hold this turn to be very meaningful. I only stress that this turn requires caution—that it requires a precondition, namely an independent standpoint and a head of one's own.

To this, some may take strong exception. “Independent standpoint,” “a head of one's own”—is this not just what Kant called “thinking for oneself”? Is it not precisely the “rational subject” that cultural politics seeks to demolish? Indeed, the cultural-political turn of literary theory does occur within the postmodern context; it opposes every kind of “grand narrative,” and casts doubt upon the intellectual legacy of modern Enlightenment, the subject included. It employs the means of historicization and contextualization to reveal that the subjecthood of the human did not drop down from heaven as a “Sister Lin,” but was “constructed” by modern Enlightenment thought; on this basis it disenchants the subject, strips it of its eternity, breaks the superstition surrounding it, and so shakes the whole modern theoretical edifice built up with the rational subject as its starting point. Yet it is precisely the method of historicization and contextualization that gives away those who, in the West, trumpet the “post-” theories: they themselves are precisely the “subject” constructed by Enlightenment thought, unable to wipe from their bodies the historical scars, that birthmark from which they came. The postmodern theories, including the “turned” literary theory, have as their important characteristic exactly this reflection upon modernity; they render problematic every kind of already-settled, common-sense modern theory, placing it in the position of being doubted and interrogated. But just ask: can a man who has no independent standpoint and no head of his own carry out such reflection? By the same token, the method of historicization and contextualization can also be used to test whether the heads of Ah Q's descendants already belong to themselves.

The reason cultural politics is so esteemed today lies, on the whole, in a new understanding of power. People see that power is not only adept with the long sleeves of the political stage; in fact it also conceals itself in every nook and corner of social life, permeating cultural and discursive activity. Among different nations, identities, and discourses, there exist, everywhere, relations of power: whether you can open your mouth and speak, what you say, and how you say it—all attest to and bear out your power-relation to others. The re-politicization of literary theory rests precisely upon such a precondition. Yet this is by no means an aimless advocacy of an unscrupulous tearing-open of the bellies of literature or culture. Through discourse-analysis it reveals the latent relations of power, with the aim of critiquing the discourse of power, and especially of resisting cultural hegemony. When a certain discourse usurps power, or even authority, and becomes the appointed hegemonic discourse, it not only crowds out and suppresses other voices, throttling the moans of the weak; it will also steal into the unconscious depths of every member of society, taking the place of his own inner voice. And so people forget, or even lose, the capacity to “speak their own words”; they open their mouths to speak, take up the pen to write, and yet, knowingly or unknowingly, can only speak others' ready-made set patterns, willingly tagging along after power. Literary theory has the responsibility to make such a dissection, to challenge the menace of hegemony, to break through the screen of power, to bring to light those latent things rooted in the unconscious of language, to expose and lay bare the maladies, to make them known to the world, and so to inspire people to germinate anew the desire to speak their own words, to learn to give voice to themselves. Its fundamental aim lies in letting the human truly become human, become a man who can speak his own words, master of his own fate, righteous and upright. This is what determines theory's standpoint: it must take the human as its standard, oppose hegemony, oppose power, and seek an equal dialogue. And some who play at cultural politics are exactly the opposite: with a posture of empty floating they deliberately utter startling words, with the aim of catching the eye, scheming for the media's attention, hoarding up power-capital for themselves, so as to gain mastery of discourse. It is for just this reason that they all the more take such masters as Lu Xun for their subject-matter, and, in order to set up their own image, wantonly overturn Lu Xun's. This is not to say that Lu Xun may not be commented upon. A re-evaluation, a truthful appraisal, is proper, is indeed necessary; and yet it ought not to disregard the facts, ought not to depart from the historical context, and still less ought it to lack the most basic value-standpoint and standard.

These people, who on the surface speak so glibly, and whose words carry such an air of confidence, do so for the reason that behind them stands the trend of postmodernist thought as their support. Those “old shopkeepers” who invented Enlightenment thought—are they not now likewise criticizing Enlightenment, doubting the project of modernity, as if about to smash their own signboard? Well then, let us turn about and rap a little on our “May Fourth” forebears—would that not just catch this fashionable tide! Here they forget one basic fact: that those forebears stood on China's own soil and spoke of China's own affairs. What our forebears strove to attack was feudalism and colonialism; they grudged neither a lifetime's effort nor even life itself to push forward China's modernization. Even today, we still find ourselves in an age where the pre-modern and the modern coexist—or, one might say, mingled with some degree of the postmodern—and modernity is still the most principal, most urgent task of the present. In view of this reality, the principal content of the Enlightenment legacy—science, democracy, freedom, independence, and the like, rather than any traditional rites of the so-called national treasure (whose essence is feudal hierarchy)—is one of the important intellectual resources. Enlightenment, naturally, has its own limitations; Western modernization was accompanied at the same time by external expansion and bloody colonization, the maladies of which grow ever more manifest today, after modernization has been accomplished; and a more searching reflection upon and critique of it has its full rationality. But when we apply others' discourse to speak of our own affairs, and yet shut our eyes to the facts, then we can hardly avoid the absurd, and even the preposterous. It is not that Lu Xun donned the colored Orientalist spectacles to distort his own compatriots, but that today's Ah Q, facing the kaleidoscope of postcolonialism and all manner of cultural politics, is played until his head spins—to the point where, like his ancestor, he no longer knows what his own surname is.

Ah Q's amnesia has by now bred a collective forgetting-sickness in society. While we are intoxicated with the daily growth of wealth, looking somewhat like the life of a consumer society, dreaming the post-modern dream, we ought indeed to be reminded, sober-minded: that we still in fact stand on a parched and cracked soil, still thirsting for the rain-and-dew nourishment of science and democracy.

Any individual must mirror himself against others before he can possibly see himself clearly; the existence of others is the condition of knowing oneself. A nation is likewise: if it had no external intellectual resources, no “other” to serve as a mirror, then perhaps to this very day we would still be steeped in the fond dream of the “Celestial Empire,” day after day reckoning up the legacy left by our ancestors and complacently congratulating ourselves. The self-knowledge of the human, the awakening of a nation, must alike borrow the help of an “ex-centric” standpoint, and this requires drawing on external thought. Naturally, drawing on it is by no means simple borrowing-and-using; it is a mirroring and a dialogue, undertaken so as to step out from the center of one's own culture and finally form one's own independent standpoint—not the standpoint of the ancients, nor of foreigners. A truly valuable cultural critique requires just such independence. Once the ex-centric position is lost, no cultural critique can be carried out; and once this position, set at the ex-centric, loses its own independence, then it may truly fall into the rut of Orientalism.

What is most worrying is this: suppose those descendants of Ah Q anxiously and impatiently take up the great mirror and the box and trunk, and go seeking cultural politics in an all-pervading, all-embracing manner; and suppose they, like Ah Q biting his son, make a great commotion of it, so that they can toss culture about until the chickens fly and the dogs leap. When every wrinkle of culture is examined one by one for politics, and all alike exposed to the glaring light, and moreover inspected and scrutinized through others' heads to clear away whatever differs—then it will be like renovating an old house, all the more turning the many-colored into a single hue. The old social politics seemed to have an affinity with the politician and the one to be enlightened; but today's cultural politics is bound up, breath and pulse, with every person. People can only live within culture. Once culture is trodden by politics into an unrecognizable mess, then the spiritual home is ruined, and the human will have nowhere to hide.

(Author's affiliation: School of Humanities, Wenzhou University)