Wen Yang: After the 18th National Congress, Chinese society needs more theoretical explanations

Wen Yang: After the 18th National Congress, Chinese society needs more theoretical explanations. The "18th National Congress" was held as scheduled. General Secretary Hu Jintao spoke in...

Wen Yang: Chinese society after the 18th National Congress needs more theoretical explanations The "18th National Congress" was held as scheduled. In his report titled "Unswerving?", General Secretary Hu Jintao once again reiterated that China's path is to "develop socialism with Chinese characteristics" and emphasized the importance of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, "Three Represents" and his own The consistency and coherence between the "Scientific Outlook on Development" proposed by the Communist Party of China and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China made it clear that these are "the guiding ideology that the party must adhere to for a long time", and highlighted the unwavering determination to adhere to this path by "neither taking the old path of isolation and rigidity, nor taking the evil path of changing flags." Xi Jinping further explained in the ensuing discussion that the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China "clearly declared to both inside and outside the party, at home and abroad, what flag our party will raise, what path it will take, what mental state it will take, and what goal it will continue to move towards." As we all know, the strong self-confidence and determination of the Chinese Communist Party today are mainly derived not from beautiful and solid theories, but from successful practice. It has been a comprehensive and in-depth political and economic practice for more than 30 years that has not only achieved the rise of China, but also continued to expand with China's rise. There is an opinion that in today's era, having no theory is also a theory, especially in the sense of denying the "modernist" theory that blindly pursues grandeur, system, and completeness. "No theory" and "rejection of theory" are even wiser and more in line with the spirit of the times. Looking back at history, the early Chinese Communist Party was actually a believer and practitioner of the "modernist" theoretical system of the Hegelian-Marx line. The transition from "advancing with the times" in that era to "advancing with the times" after the reform and opening up indeed coincided with the transition of the world spirit from "modernism" to "postmodernism." However, this cannot be used as a ready-made excuse for inaction in ideological exploration and theoretical construction. Especially for the Chinese academic community, its main task is to create ideas and construct theories, rather than just muddle along with the tide of pragmatism and deconstructive language carnival. On the eve of the 18th National Congress, my friend Han Zhu published the article "The Flat Structure of Chinese Society", which was like a lightning bolt, once again trying to break the current chaotic state of political theory about China's path. In my opinion, this article is a rare breakthrough in the field of Chinese political science in recent years. The theoretical model constructed in the article has extremely strong explanatory and predictive power. Some of them can even be regarded as theoretical elements of the "Hanzhu Theorem", which can not only be applied to explain Chinese society, but can even be expanded into "theorems" that explain the entire human society and have general sociological significance. Its original theory can be briefly described as follows: After China experienced three major historical changes: the land privatization movement, the formation of the estate inheritance system, and the establishment of the county system during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, it led to the collapse of the foundation of the aristocratic political system and entered a flat populist society in advance. The social structure was flattened, the aristocratic class maintained by blood inheritance was lost, and populism prevailed. Therefore, how to form a stable social order became the biggest problem. Ancient Chinese society adopted the "examination" and "conquest", and eventually formed the imperial examination system to select talents and artificially create a class of managers based on merit. The emergence of Confucianism provided a set of soft hierarchical concepts for the civilian society where the aristocratic system had collapsed, which played a role in preventing social chaos and collapse. In my opinion, this can be the key to understanding why Chinese society is very different from Western society and Japanese society. Just because of the Confucian doctrine of orderly order and distinction between high and low, the extremely populist China is regarded as a hierarchical society. At the same time, based on the decentralization movement between nobles and kings, Western civilization, which has continued the blood hierarchy for more than two thousand years, is revered as the homeland of equality and freedom. In the words of Han Zhu, "There is no greater misunderstanding of the differences between Chinese and Western civilizations!" ” More importantly, from this theory, it is not difficult to deduce corresponding theories about the populist nation-building and populist economic system in modern China, and it is also not difficult to establish a deep theoretical explanation of the political expression of “Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, Three Represents, and the Scientific Outlook on Development.” Consider China's modern history as a grand transition process from a populist polity to a populist economy that occurred under the combined influence of internal and external factors. The above political theories are nothing more than theories that are more or less suitable for practical guidance and response to various specific historical circumstances during this transition process. The reason why China's populist society and the historical process from a populist polity to a populist economy are completely different from the West and unique is not because of other reasons. Once the internal logical connection between China's modern political theory and the modern historical movement of Chinese populist society is discovered, the rationality and applicability of each of these theories will be understood. Thanks to Han Zhu's pioneering ideological exploration, Chinese society after the 18th National Congress will increasingly need new theoretical explanations. Starting from the theoretical assumption of a flat populist society, China's original political theory construction can be promising. Attached: Han Zhu's article link "The Flat Structure of Chinese Society", "Populism and Modern China" November 9, 2012