Abstract
In the theory of globalization there is controversy between cultural universalism and particularism. Cultural universalists believe in the ‘enlightenment mode of history’, namely, ‘time overcomes space — a condition in which the other in geographical space, will in time, come to look like an earlier version of us’. Cultural particularists, in contrast, argue that different quests for modernity took place in very specific social and cultural environments, ‘in response to unique circumstances’. It is thus impossible to engage in global ‘intercultural communications’ concerning different quests for modernity.2
For a more detailed and systematic discussion on this topic and relevant historical case studies, see Simei Qing, ‘Chinese and American Visions of Peace, Modernity and Identity: Visions and U.S.-China Interactions, 1945–1960’, dissertation, Michigan State University, 1994. I would like to thank many scholars’ critical comments on earlier drafts of this chapter, particularly those of Warren I. Cohen, Michael Geyer, Norm Graham, Akira Iriye, Steven Levine, Gil Rozman, Michael G. Schechter, and Lewis Siegelbaum. Certainly they bear no responsibility for the final draft.
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Notes
Prasenjit Duara, 4Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995): 5–6;
Frank Ninkovich, ‘Culture, Power, and Civilization: The Place of Culture in the Study of International Relations’, in Robert David Johnson (ed.), On Cultural Ground: Essays in International History (Chicago: Imprint Publication, 1994): 9.
George Kenan, American Diplomacy (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1961);
Warren I. Cohen, Dean Rusk (New York, 1982): 18–22.
Quoted from Michael H. Hunt, Ideology and US Foreign Polity (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1987): 1.
Sun Yat-sen, ‘The Guiding Principle of the Huang Pu Military Academy’, (2 July, 1923);
also, Ren Zhuoxuan, Guofu de datongsixiang [The Founding Father’s Ideas on the Great Commonwealth] (Taiwan, 1969): 1;
also, Chiang Kai-shek, On the Three People’s Principles (Wuhan, 1926): 2–3.
Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It (New York: Vintage, 1974): 12.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Complete Writings (New York: William H. Wise, 1929): 235–40.
Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1955): 5–6;
J. David Greenstone, The Lincoln Persuasion (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991); Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword: 20.
Daniel T. Rodgers, Contested Truths — Keywords in American Politics since Independence (New York: Basic Books; 1987): 212–23.
John Herman Randall Jr, The Career of Philosophy — From the German Enlightenment to the Age of Darwin, 2 vols (New York: Columbia University Press, 1965): 2:235;
Donald J. Munro, The Concept of Man in Contemporary China (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977): 3–20.
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Charles Scribner, 1958).
Ibid.; also Max Weber, ‘The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism’, Essays in Sociology, trans, by Hans Gerth and C. W. Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946): 309–13;
Edmond Burke, Selected Works (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1904): 180–1.
Benjamin Schwartz, ‘Some Polarities in Confucian Thought’, in Confucianism and Chinese Civilization, Arthur F. Wright (ed.) (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1964): 4–5; and Confucius, Analects, IV/15: If ordinary people should be greatly encouraged to pursue their material wealth, a Confucian scholar should be instead content with a simple life, working on the beauty and purity of heart and soul, or the unity between oneself and humanity.
Liang Qichao, Ouyou Xinyinglu Jielu [Extract from a Trip to Europe], (Shanghai, 1907) 33;
also Liang, Wang Jinggong Zhuan [The Biography of Wang Anshi], (Tianjing, 1909): 79.
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Liang Qichao, Ganshe yu Fangren [State Intervention and Free Competition] (Tianjing, 1909).
Zhou Jingsheng, Sun Zhongshan Xiansheng Jingji Sixiang [Mr Sun Yat-sen’s Economic Thought] (Taiwan, 1967): 28, 321–38, 342–59.
Liang Qichao, Ganshe yu Fangren [State Intervention and Free Competition] (Tianjing, 1909): 9–11.
Drew R. McCoy, The Elusive Republic — Political Economy in feffersonian America (New York: W. W. Norton, 1982): 20–26;
Mario Einaudi, The Early Rousseau (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1967); Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees: or, Private Vices, Public Benefits (London, 1714);
David Fate Norton, David Hume (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982).
Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, trans. J. Finley (New York: Modern Library, 1951), pp. 103–4.
Also, Wilson Carey McWilliams, ‘On Equality as the Moral Foundation for Community’, in Robert H. Horwitz, Benjamin R. Porver, et al (eds.), The Moral Foundation of the American Republic 3rd ed. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1986): 193–4; and Records of the Federal Convention, I: 424. After the War of 1812, in which the United States was almost defeated by Great Britain — partially due to a lack of large-scale manufactures in the United States — many Jeffersonian Republicans had to admit the need to develop certain large-scale manufactures. They were still convinced, however, that the combination between a rural economy, artisan workshops and certain advanced manufactures should ensure that a ‘labouring poor’ would not emerge in America. They still believed that an economy of ‘machine’ in the garden should be the best economic system for the republican polity.
Sean Wilentz, Chants Democratic (New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1982): 253–96.
Henry George Jr, The Life of Henry George (New York, Doubleday, 1930);
Mary P. Ryan, Cradle of the Middle Class (1790–1865) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981): 145–6;
also Anna George De Mille, Henry George, Citizen of the World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1950);
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Ibid.: 287. For the British economist Keynes, who first suggested the concept of the positive state, nineteenth-century state socialism sprang from the doctrine of laissez-faire: ‘Both equally laid all their stress on freedom, the one negatively to avoid limitations on existing freedom, the other positively to destroy natural or acquired monopolies.’ State socialism is thus a political protest against the disastrous social consequences of laissez-faire. With the concept of the positive state, Keynes claimed, the extremes of uncontrolled free competition would be overcome, and therefore there would be no need for ‘the opposite extreme of state socialism’. See, J. M. Keynes, ‘The End of Laissez-Faire’, in Alan Bullock (ed.), The Liberal Tradition, from Fox to Keynes (London: A. & C. Black, 1956): 256.
Aristotle, Politics, pp. 1257b–1266b; Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, trans. T. Nugent (New York: Hafner, 1949): 3–5;
also Crane Brinton, John B. Christopher, and Robert Lee Wolff, Civilization in the West (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1964): 201–39.
Complete Works of Sun Yixian, ed. Zhang Lei (Beijing, People’s Press, 1983), 4: 98.
Peng Ming, History of the May 4 Movement (Beijing, Renmin chubanshe, 1956): 522–89.
Shi Cuntong, Huiyi wangshi [Memoir] (Chongqing, 1944): 177–90.
Cai Hesen, ‘Cong wuzhengfuzhuyi dao shehuizhuyi’ [From anarchism to socialism] in Xin Qingnian [The Journal of New Youth] (Beijing, Winter, 1920); Zhou Enlai, ‘Wo dui shehuizhuyi zhi sikao’ [A reflection on socialism], Xin Qingnian (Spring, 1921).
Also see, Gilbert Rozman (ed.), The Modernization of China (New York: Free Press, 1981): 96, 98. Also see, Wui Guangqi, ‘Qingdai houqi zhongyang jichuan chanizheng tizhi de wajie’ [The Collapse of the Centralized Financial System in Late Qing Period], Lishi Yanjiu (1986): 1;
and Dwight Perkins, Agricultural Development in China 1368–1968 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1969).
Hu Han-min (ed.), Zongli Quanji [Complete Works of the Premier]: 509–10; also, Zhang Qicheng and Guo Zhikun, Sun Zhongshan shehuikexuan sixiang yanjiu [A Study on Sun Yat-sen’s Political and Social Theory] (Anhui, Renmin chubanshe, 1985).
Patrick Cavendish, ‘The “New China” of the Kuomintang’, and Jack Gray, ‘Conclusions’, in Jack Gray (ed.), Modern China’s Search for A Political Form (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1969): 138–86, 336.
Liang Qichao, ‘Xinmin lun’ [On the New Citizenry] (Shanghai, 1902); Hu Hanmin (ed.), Complete Works of the Premier: 1: 70.
Raymond Aron, Main Currents in Sociological Thought (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publisher, 1965): 253–4, 256.
The Federalist Papers, No. 11, and No. 39; Alexander Hamilton, Works, ed. Henry Cabot Lodge, 12 vols (New York, 1904): 2: 67–74;
Martin Marty, Forword, in Mark G. Toulouse, The Transformation of John Foster Dulles (Mercer University Press, 1985): xi–xii; Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition: 8;
Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1976): 233–4.
Liang Chi-chao, Deyujian [On Moral Education] (Guangzhou, 1905): 76–8.
Li Zehou, Zhongguoxiandaisixiangshigang [History of Contemporary Chinese Thoughts] (Beijing, 1988).
W. W. Rostow, ‘The Problem of Achieving and Maintaining a High Rate of Fxonomic Growth: A Historian’s View’, American Economic Review, 50/2 (May, 1960): 111; and Girvetz, op. cit.: 371.
Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996): 23; and Michael Prowse, ‘A Nation of Extremes Bound by One Creed’, book review of Seymour Lipset’s American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword, Financial Times, 6 June 1996.
Emile Durkheim, On Morality and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973);
and Robert Wuthnow, Meaning and Moral Order (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987): 187–214.
For a systematic examination of current debates on the relationship between national culture and globalization, see Frederick Buell, National Culture and the New Global System (Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press, 1994).
Akira Iriye, Across the Pacific (Chicago: Imprint Publications, 1992): 63–4.
See, for instance, Robert W. Cox’s article, ‘Towards a Post-hegemonic Conceptualization of World Order: Reflections on the Relevancy of Ibn Khaldun’, in James Rosenau and Ernst-Otto Czempiel (eds), Governance without Government: Order and Change in World Politics (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992): 132–59.
Roger Fisher, Beyond Machiavelli (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994): 144.
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Qing, S. (2000). Chinese and American Discourse on Modernity and Identity in the Modern Era: Issues of Cultural Universalism and Particularism in the Theory of Globalization. In: Aulakh, P.S., Schechter, M.G. (eds) Rethinking Globalization(s). International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-62425-6_6
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