The ‘golden age of cultural theory is long past’,Reference Eagleton 1 and we have now entered an era of ‘post-theory’, in which literary and cultural theory is no longer as ubiquitous nor as powerful. Theory is only effective in interpreting literary and cultural phenomena around us, while ‘post-theories’ are increasingly concerned with real life and work. Among post-theories, post-humanism is becoming increasingly influential not only in the West but also in China. As a cultural and intellectual trend, it has drawn the attention of literary critics and humanities scholars as well as of scientists who are interested in the humanities and recognize their importance and function in a world-class university. Although China has not yet completely joined the postmodern society, it shows many postmodern symptoms, especially in some metropolises and fast-developing coastal cities. In the post-human era, traditional humanism encounters science and technology and is threatened by the latter. Still, as a humanities scholar I think that science should not necessarily be opposed to the humanities. We might mediate between science and the humanities, and even bridge the gap between the two. In China, this is what happened when, during the New Culture Movement (1915–1923), both science and humanism were enthusiastically introduced into China. Together, they helped push forward China’s grand project of modernity. The current article first reflects on the tradition of humanism and its evolution in modern China, and then moves on to the rise of post-humanism in the contemporary era.
Humanism in Modern China
China has a rich humanist tradition dating back to when Confucianism was popular and influential among intellectuals as well as ordinary people. Confucius himself was first of all a teacher, keen on disseminating his doctrines among his disciples as well as ordinary people. Contemporary Neo-Confucianists still give full play to his insightful humanist ideas. Humanism as a European cultural and intellectual trend, however, came to China in the early twentieth century through translation. 2 Its success was due to its encountering the appropriate cultural and intellectual soil in China at the time. In the past decades, domestic Chinese scholars have seen the significance of the New Culture Movement chiefly lie in its revolutionary spirit of anti-feudalism and anti-imperialism. The role played by humanism was largely obstructed and even severely criticized because it was viewed as part of bourgeois ideology. Accordingly, domestic Chinese scholars usually regarded the May 4th movement in 1919 as the beginning of China’s New Culture Movement, which in turn was seen as the beginning of the unique Chinese project of modernity, an alternative one in the context of global modernity or modernities.Reference Ning 3 In recent years, following research done by overseas sinologists, and from a cultural and humanistic perspective, more and more Chinese scholars have come to realize that the actual beginning of the New Culture Movement can be traced to 1915, with the founding of the influential intellectual journal Xin Qingnian (New Youth) in Shanghai. By then, some eminent Chinese intellectuals and writers, such as Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren, had already put forward, in their literary or critical works, the idea of ‘literature of human beings’ (ren de wenxue), thus starting the turn toward humanism in modern Chinese literature and culture. This constituted a creative and constructive application of the European concept of humanism in the Chinese context.
Important intellectual figures such as Hu Shi, Chen Duxiu, Lu Xun, Cai Yuanpei, Qian Xuantong and Li Dazhao, who either were educated in the West or had a profound attachment to Western learning, took the initiative in launching an ideological and cultural movement of ‘anti-tradition, anti-Confucianism and anti-classical Chinese’ in an attempt to thoroughly modernize China. To this end, some progressive Chinese intellectuals engaged in large-scale translation of Western learning as well as humanities and literary works. European thinkers and philosophers, such as Nietzsche and Marx, were frequently quoted and discussed in the Chinese context. So-called social Darwinism was very popular among humanities intellectuals. As a result, the two ‘gentlemen’ introduced from the West in China – Mr De (democracy) and Mr Sai (science) – undoubtedly influenced the development of China’s science and democracy throughout the twentieth century. But to them should be added one more ‘gentleman’, that is Mr Hu (humanism), who for a long time was neglected, but who has in fact coexisted with the other two up to the current era. New Youth offered a good forum for leading Chinese intellectual figures to publish extensively on the then advanced Western learning, both science and humanities. Thus, Chinese science and technology as well as humanism advanced, paving the way for the introduction and dissemination of Marxism in China.
Like any other new intellectual and cultural trend, in China as in the rest of the world, the birth of the New Culture Movement was severely criticized. Conservative Chinese intellectuals accused it of practising Westernization and abandoning the Chinese cultural tradition. It is not surprising, though, that the New Culture Movement, although still controversial among today’s intellectuals for having destroyed Chinese cultural, and especially Confucian, tradition, resonated with almost all the leading Chinese intellectuals at a time of transition from an old feudal and totalitarian to a new, modern and relatively democratic country. The New Culture Movement advocated democracy over totalitarianism, promoted science over superstition, a new ethics rather than the old moral standards, and a new modern language and literature. Although it is called a cultural movement, its political and ideological colour is also very remarkable. Due to the fact that numerous Western and Russian ideologies and cultural and intellectual trends were introduced in China through translation, including Marxism, Nietzsche’s philosophy of superman, Spencer’s Social Darwinism, Freud’s psychoanalysis, and anarchism, the movement stood for overall Westernization, in the process of which traditional Chinese learning represented by Confucianism was severely attacked and classical Chinese was totally abandoned while vernacular Chinese was enthusiastically promoted and practised among ordinary people. A modern Chinese literary canon took shape, largely under Western influence. This is the real significance of the movement when we evaluate it from a historical point of view. Confucianism goes through a revival in contemporary China, but it does so reconstructed and combined with a sort of ‘Sinicized’ Marxist doctrine. It has been purged of its feudalistic ideas, and has been infused with a humanistic spirit. And however controversial the New Culture Movement otherwise may have been, it incontrovertibly encouraged the development of both science and humanism.
During the May 4th period, science as advanced Western learning did not conflict with humanism. It is precisely the introduction of science into China that helped establish comprehensive universities in the modern European sense. Eminent intellectuals, such as Yan Fu and Cai Yuanpei, although they were chiefly humanities scholars, took the initiative to translate Western scientific works and thus to introduce the Western scientific spirit in China. Lu Xun, one of the major modern Chinese writers and humanities thinkers, first majored in medicine in Japan. After he saw a film in which Chinese labourers were cruelly bullied and insulted, he changed his major to literature. With his medical knowledge and skill he could only save individual patients, whereas through literature he sought to save the entire Chinese nation. Thus, the New Culture Movement, apart from its revolutionary significance, also has a great humanistic and scientific significance for it helped emancipate Chinese people from the darkness and ignorance of a feudalist society. In commemorating the centenary of this historical event, we cannot but evaluate the two important heritages the movement has left, as well as its great contribution to global culture and humanism in an objective way. And when we discuss post-humanism in the Chinese context now, we should not forget that the Chinese tradition of humanism is not only a ‘translated’ Western concept but also draws on rich domestic resources.
The Rise of Post-humanism as a Challenge to Humanism
From the above, it is clear that when we talk about post-humanism today, we cannot do so without mentioning its precursor, humanism. Nor should we neglect the scientific spirit highlighted in the New Culture Movement. In the present age of globalization, though, along with the rapid development of science and high technology, more and more people have started to question the value and function of man himself. Thus, traditional humanism, focused on Man, as well as the humanities, with human beings and their actions and expressions as their major research object, are inevitably in crisis. When the global financial crisis struck, the humanities were often first affected, either institutionally incorporated or with their funds cut or personnel reduced. Today’s young students popularly hold that it is not useful to study humanities subjects, for they find they cannot then compete in the job market. Nor could they live a decent life in big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou. In contrast, in the post-industrial society it is the machine that is increasingly conspicuous and ubiquitous, and that takes over people’s jobs. In China today, young people almost cannot survive if they have lost their smart phone, for it is this device that regulates all their work and life, and they find it intolerable to be separated from it. Confronted with the powerful function of the machine, then, one cannot but raise the question: will Man still control the machine and make use of it as before? This is a tough issue confronting scientists and engineers as well as theorists and other humanities scholars. So-called post-humanism is a response chiefly from literary theoretical circles. But what is post-humanism? And does the rise of post-humanism mean the end of humanism? If not, what relationship does it have to traditional humanism? This is what I will deal with in this section.
Like various other ‘post-theories,’ post-humanism – inspired by Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction and other postmodern theories – challenges traditional humanism in an attempt to deconstruct the latter. As Greg PollockReference Pollock 4 puts it in his review of Cary Wolfe’sReference Wolfe 5 What Is Posthumanism? (2009),
For Wolfe, posthumanism is the set of questions confronting us, and the way of dealing with those questions, when we can no longer rely on ‘the human’ as an autonomous, rational being who provides an Archimedean point for knowing about the world (in contrast to ‘humanism,’ which uses such a figure to ground further claims).Reference Pollock 4
For Wolfe, human beings have come to occupy a new position in the universe, and have become ‘nonhuman subjects’ in a place merely inhabited by them.Reference Wolfe 5 For the longest time, people have thought of conquering nature as their grand project. As a result, the relation between human and nature in many cases is one of opposition. In the face of various natural disasters, though, individual human beings appear rather tiny and weak. In post-humanism, in contrast to anthropocentrism, human beings share with all other living beings in nature the resources of our earth. In this state of coexistence and mutual dependence, human beings are not necessarily the masters dominating other species. Although their position is still particular, they also suffer from the challenges and threats raised by nature. All this has long been described in literary works of all countries.
Post-humanism also resets the relation between human and his/her invented thing: the machine. Spurred on by the hope for a better, or at least an easier, life we continuously invent new and advanced machines for the purpose of reducing our labour and benefit ourselves as well as our offspring. Modernity concretizes this vision. With the rapid development of science and technology, the role of the machine has grown continuously. Machines with advanced intelligence and a variety of functions are now widely used in almost all fields. While this is certainly efficient and convenient for people to emancipate themselves from hard labour, it also means that large numbers of skilled workers are being pushed into the ranks of the unemployed. More worryingly still, humankind may no longer be able to control or dominate some of its creations. In a sense, this is part of what Jean-François Lyotard defined as the postmodern condition:
Postmodernity is not a new age, but the rewriting of some of the features claimed by modernity, and first of all modernity’s claim to ground its legitimacy on the project of liberating humanity as a whole through science and technology. But as I have said, that rewriting has been at work, for a long time now, in modernity itself.Reference Lyotard 6
In this sense, we could say that postmodernity is a sort of ‘extended’ or ‘enlarged’ modernity in a new era. The same is true of post-humanism, which bears close relations to its precursor humanism, although it is characterized by developing against and beyond the latter.
Post-humanism signals the increasing alienation of humans brought about by a change in mankind’s function on earth. Over the past two decades, the production and continuous innovation of computers, smart phones, and advanced cyborgs have brought about revolutionary changes to contemporary people in their life and work. Many manual jobs have been taken over by machines. With the fast development of the internet, people can do their shopping with their smart phones instead of going to physical department stores. With the rise of internet bookstores, scholars no longer need ‘real’ bookstores, which unfortunately are fast disappearing. Young people have become slaves to machines, especially to their smart phones, without which they could hardly live and work easily and comfortably. Some patients would not survive without the help of the cyborg. Thus, the traditional relation between man and machine has been reversed: it is not the human who rules the machine, but rather, the machine (the result of science and technology) that is more or less in control of man’s destiny nowadays. This is the phenomenon closely observed by many post-humanist theorists.
Reflecting on the good and bad consequences brought about by modernity, people have already realized that in the postmodern era human beings cannot always control their own destiny, nor that of the earth on which they live. Still, Neil Badmington, in ‘Theorizing Posthumanism’, concludes that ‘The human, in short, is absolutely distinct from the inhuman over which it towers in a position of natural supremacy.’Reference Badmington 7 Badmington, then, remains optimistic and confident of the future development of mankind. Likewise, my view is that, whichever way post-humanism develops, it will not mean the complete replacement of the function and role of humanity. Humankind’s existence is challenged by various factors, but in its constant fight against and negotiation with nature it finally survives ever more comfortably. Natural disasters may well kill a number of people, but they can never destroy all of humankind. Apart from a powerful life force, the existence of humankind is also supported by certain emotions.
Literature is a means of expressing a person’s emotions and subtle feelings. In the postmodern era, machines may indeed replace many things done by humans, but when it comes to sophisticated mental labour, machines still hardly compare to a human. Computers have steadily become smaller physically, but the amount of information they can handle has grown even more steadily, and their functions have become more and more diversified and complex. It is therefore not surprising that some people predict that in cross-cultural communication, machine translation will gradually prevail. Yet, anyone familiar with Google’s translation function knows that when it comes to sophisticated literary texts, with subtle symbolic meaning and colourful images, Google always makes mistakes. Excellent literary works are created by writers with profound knowledge, elegant sentiments, and skilful writing techniques, which can hardly be replaced by any other means of representation and translation, including machine translation, because only intelligent people can appreciate and enjoy elegant cultural products, including literature. And only those excellent translators who have a wide knowledge and great literary and aesthetic accomplishment can translate sophisticated literary works into their mother tongues.
Post-humanism, then, may well be an intellectual trend challenging traditional humanism, but it does not have a clear-cut theoretical tendency. This is its weakness. As Badmington puts it: ‘Posthumanism, I want to suggest, needs theory, needs theorizing, needs above all to reconsider the untimely celebration of the absolute end of “Man”’ (Ref. Reference Badmington7, p. Reference Benjamin10). Badmington realizes the limits of human power, but he still emphasizes that post-humanism should be supported by theory since the people-oriented humanist doctrine rests on solid theoretical foundations. He even invites two of the leading post-theorists, Derrida and Lyotard, to try to use their postmodern tools to shake the foundations of Descartes’ ratio:
But if Descartes is famous for his descriptions of the human, he also told fascinating stories about the inhuman. There is, in fact, a passage in the Discourse on Method that reads to me like seventeenth-century science fiction. … If, the argument runs, there were a machine that looked like a monkey, it would not be possible to distinguish between a real monkey and the fake—at the level of essence—because the fact that neither the animal nor the machine could ever exercise rational thought means that there would be no essential difference. (Ref. Reference Badmington7, p. 17)
Greg Pollock seems to agree with Badmington in the latter’s definition of humanism when he posits that ‘All humanisms share some conception of freedom—autonomy, agency, intention, and rationality are popular ones—that secures exceptional ontological value for humans through nonhuman lack’ (Ref. Reference Pollock4, p. 235). And Pollock sees Wolfe, in his What Is Posthumanism?, as pertinently deconstructing the binary opposition between humans and other species, and between humans and nature, thereby reducing Man to his original role as only one of the living things in nature. Post-humanism works together with ecocriticism and animal studies to critique and deconstruct the long-lasting anthropocentrist mode of thinking. More than these other contemporary humanities paradigms, though, it raises the question of humankind’s relationship to science, and of the relationship between science and the humanities.
In the final section of this article, I will address so-called digital humanities, which may well serve as a good example of humanities embracing science.
Humanities Embracing Science: Toward a Digitized Humanities
At present, humanities scholars are talking a lot about the topic of ‘digital humanities’ as if with its scientific methods it could save the humanities from crisis and establish a new relationship between science and humanities. But some conservative humanities scholars are very afraid of popularizing this new field, fearing it signals the demise of the humanistic spirit and of interpersonal communication. They try to resist such a scientific trend by maintaining their humanistic position. In the West, some humanities scholars would rather correspond with their friends and relatives by mail than by email. In China, some old-fashioned humanities scholars still insist on handwriting their works rather than computerizing their manuscripts, in an attempt to save Chinese calligraphy, whose practical value will be less and less conspicuous even though its artistic value will always be preserved. In short, they do not welcome scientific and technological methods intervening in their intellectual life and humanities research. But, one may ask, will these people effectively prevent such a scientific trend from coming to us? The answer is definitely no, as the trend is so powerful that it is beyond anyone’s expectation and resistance. If not then, how shall we deal with this impact as humanities scholars? I think that digital humanities may well solve the problem and will at least bridge the gap between science and humanities.
Digital humanities is a new field of research and teaching at the intersection of computing and the humanities, and, if implemented appropriately, combines scientific technology with humanistic intelligence. It studies both digitized and born-digital materials and combines methodologies from the traditional humanities and social sciences with computing tools. As a new interdisciplinary field, digital humanities renews traditional humanities research, introducing computing methods, and digitizing research results. It has brought more convenience and efficiency to the humanities, and brought humanities studies closer to scientific research.
The birth of digital humanities marks yet another revolution in traditional humanistic study, with the help of scientific methodology and spirit. The same is true of literary production in the contemporary era. According to an authoritative report by the Chinese Writers Association, internet literature has become increasingly popular. 8 In parallel to the popularization of internet literature and online bookstores, a large number of physical bookstores have closed, and subscriptions to almost all literary magazines in contemporary China have fallen sharply. At the same time, more and more electronic journals are appearing online. In the past, when we travelled by plane or train, we always brought some books or magazines with us as we did not want to waste time during our trips. But now, we just bring a smart phone, with which we could read on the train, or a tablet computer or an iPad, with which we can read on a plane. At the same time, online versions of newspapers and magazines are also offered to us. We can even listen to music, or watch movies, on these machines. Thus, it is not surprising that we often hear that ‘the printed book is disappearing’, ‘literature is dead’ and ‘literary studies are dead’. Since literature is often reported to be dead, what is the use of the humanities in general? Although this is only the consequence of digital literary production and circulation, it has already very much upset humanities scholars, and generated worries about the future of the humanities.
In recompense, we are offered more conveniences. We don’t have to work hard to revise our handwritten manuscripts again and again. Those old manuscripts will eventually end up in a museum. We just revise our manuscript on computer and send the final version without any trace of revision to the publisher. And the publisher will have it published as quickly as possible, sometimes first online and then in print version, and sometimes merely online rather than in print form.
Digital humanities, however, goes further than this. Kathleen Fitzpatrick puts it thus:
For me it has to do with the work that gets done at the crossroads of digital media and traditional humanistic study. And that happens in two different ways. On the one hand, it’s bringing the tools and techniques of digital media to bear on traditional humanistic questions. But it’s also bringing humanistic modes of inquiry to bear on digital media.Reference Lopez, Rowland and Fitzpatrick 9
This raises the question of whether, since humanities studies can be digitized, their research results will be evaluated like scientific research results. I think the answer is both yes and no.
To judge the quality and authoritativeness of a natural science or social science journal we usually consider its impact factor. If the journal is not among the frequently cited publications it is not regarded as authoritative or prestigious. An individual article that is not quoted upon first appearance is not viewed as valuable, and will soon be submerged in the enormous mass of papers being published, especially in such an age of big data. But in evaluating a humanities journal, we cannot necessarily use the same method, for the research results of the humanities need historical accumulation and the test of time. Some of the humanities intellectuals and scholars, such as Nietzsche, Foucault and Lacan in the West, and Wang Guowei and Wu Mi in China, may well have been controversial or even overlooked in their lifetime, but sooner or later they may be ‘recognized’ or ‘rediscovered’, even after their death, so that they have a ‘continued life’ or ‘afterlife’.Reference Benjamin 10 The same is true of a humanities work. We cannot make a quick judgement by merely looking at an article’s citation record within a short period of time, for sometimes it takes a long time for people to recognize the value of a humanities publication. We should rather look at whether the publication in question has made any advance on earlier research. Sometimes the value of an excellent article, like that of its author, is not necessarily appreciated by the author’s contemporaries, but it may well be ‘rediscovered’ by future researchers. In order not to miss a really outstanding scholar and her or his research result, we should combine qualitative assessment with quantitative analysis to make an objective and appropriate judgement. We could first use digital means to measure how a scholar, or her or his work, is influential or even controversial. Then, we could gather the opinion of specialists. In combination, this should lead to a fair evaluation. Even so, we still might make a wrong judgement every now and then. Still, it will at least be more objective and fair than when left exclusively to an individual, or a few people, without scientific analysis.
In short, digital humanities, like digital literary production and circulation, serves as a bridge linking humanities and science. As humanities scholars, we have no reason to resist this trend, but rather should adapt ourselves to the process of digitization to make it serve our research and publications. When looking at the impact science has on humanities, we should not necessarily consider it a threat or a challenge, but we should rather objectively evaluate the efficiency and convenience scientific means have brought us. In this way, we will make science more efficiently aid our humanities research. In the final analysis, the humanities should not necessarily be opposed to science, but rather embrace them where possible.
Ning Wang is Zhiyuan Chair Professor of Humanities at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Changjiang Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Tsinghua University in China. He was elected to the Academy of Latinity in 2010 and to Academia Europaea in 2013. As well as numerous books and articles in Chinese, he has authored two books in English: Globalization and Cultural Translation (2004), and Translated Modernities: Literary and Cultural Perspectives on Globalization and China (2010). He has also published extensively in English in European Review, New Literary History, Critical Inquiry, boundary 2, Modern Language Quarterly, Modern Fiction Studies, ARIEL, ISLE, Comparative Literature Studies, Neohelicon, Narrative, Semiotica, Journal of Chinese Philosophy, Journal of Contemporary China, Telos, Perspectives: Studies in Translatology, and so on.
