Skip to content

第一章 生平背景

一、一朵会思想的「臭花」

1.1 六四之后：被鲜血与坦克滋养的精神世代

1989 年，抗议者聚集于北京天安门广场。这场运动起初是 4 月间为悼念前总书记胡耀邦所举行的活动，抗议者把他视作（或塑造为）中共党内自由化与改革之声音的代表。这场活动后来发展为一场全国性的示威。在此之前，党内政治斗争中，与胡耀邦同属改革派、并继任其位的赵紫阳已经败北。主张对学生示威采取强硬路线的政治保守派的重新掌权，意味着一场血雨腥风即将来临。

当夜，军队奉命清场。士兵们手持武器、驾驶坦克，轻易突破了学生们脆弱的防线。尽管广场上几位核心知识分子领袖通过谈判，促使军方同意开辟一个角落让学生安全撤离，但整个清场过程中的冲突仍导致许多抗议市民和学生伤亡。随后，20世纪90年代出现了与中国经济自由化极不相称的强力政治管控与清算。这些记忆不仅给当时参与抗议的知识分子和市民留下了身心创伤，也深刻影响了尚未能参与其中的年轻一代。王怡正是在六四之后的氛围中成长起来的那一代人。

1.2 早年的王怡：在作弊中慢慢成长

王怡 1973 年 6 月 1 日出生于四川省三台县。母亲是国民党军官的女儿，在共产党统治下的中国被划为反革命；父亲王正方是当地一所高中的语文教师。和当时许多知识分子一样，王怡的父亲在毛泽东时代的政治运动中深受创伤，刻意回避政治和公共事务。作为家中独子，王怡承载着中国父母对下一代普遍寄予的殷切期望。直到上大学前，对王怡而言，父亲与老师的角色合二为一，他的父亲正是他的高中老师。这种特殊的关系培养了他对中国文学的非凡素养。上初中时，王怡与父亲发生肢体冲突，这种建立在刻板方式上的教育模式方被打破。1

在一篇题为〈在作弊中慢慢成长〉的文章中，王怡回顾了他这一代人的教育经历，生动地记录了那个自上而下渗透整个教育体系的「作弊文化」。2从少先队员宣誓仪式、教师为公开课所撰写的剧本，到他实习所在法庭中法官的腐败与滥权，没有一个环节不充斥着谎言与造假。尤其是在八九六四的悲剧之后，王怡回忆道：「所有的教育者开始合谋为一个时代作伪证……一遍遍的在政治课、语文课，在时事政治的考试中背诵领袖的讲话，构成了我们这一代人几乎全部的精神成长」。3面对一个由谎言构筑的教育结构，作弊成了抵抗体制对人心强暴的唯一自我保护手段。即便如此，到了高考结束之时，「绝大多数的人终其一生，也再不能将那些精神深处的大粪打整干净了」。4

这一经验突显出六四时期的知识分子与大学生与六四后的未成年一代之间一项至关重要的差异。对前者而言，六四是属于他们的。他们具有一种毋庸置疑的主体意识，并且在思想禁锢刚刚解除、思想界如火如荼的「黄金十年」中扮演了重要角色。他们成为意见领袖，成为社会良心的代表。在「中华民族复兴」这一宏大叙事之下，这培育了一种诠释学生运动失败与创伤的特定方式：六四事件的悲剧被描述为整个民族的悲剧，抗议者的失败被描述为中国的失败。王怡对这一忽视「细微而私密的精神创伤」与「个人苦难」的叙事并不满意。5在与一位六四运动领袖的辩论中，他写道：「在1989年及其以后，整个社会没有人来顾及未成年人的精神史，没有人去考虑未成年人的灵魂。整个杀人现场没有把儿童清场。甚至整个社会合谋在整整一代孩子的面前作伪证。」6六四后一代的这种愤怒，不仅指向国家与政府，也指向 1989 年时整个成年社会，包括那些把自身苦难抬至高位的民运活动家。所以，当那位运动领袖建议大家都应当为六四之后所作的那些不真诚的言论忏悔时，王怡拒绝接受这一邀请，回应道：「这是你们的耻辱。不是我的。」7

这一背景帮助我们理解为何王怡日后会加入以 2008 年诺贝尔和平奖得主刘晓波为代表的右翼自由派阵营。这一阵营强烈的个人主义基调，与他所抵抗的、把全体中国人之命运强行统一起来的宏大叙事截然相反。除此之外，刘晓波还对六四运动有着特别深刻的反思。与一些参与者多少有些英雄式地、聚焦于事件中及其后他们所遭遇的政府暴力的写作不同，8刘晓波关于六四事件的回忆录9更像是对自己以及参与运动的同僚所作的深度灵魂审讯。它毫不掩饰地记录抗议者经历的种种试探与软弱，包括滥用金钱、争夺领导权与话语权、自我膨胀，以及在群众的喝彩中丧失初心。这加深了刘晓波对清场过程中的伤者与死者的责任感与负罪感。这种内省吸引了王怡，并成为这位六四后知识分子接续六四传统的桥梁性范本。10然而，王怡对前辈的指控以及试图与他们的罪划清界限的做法，仍然影响了他的早期写作，并凸显出他与刘晓波在思想上的若干微妙差异。

1.3 思想清理：成为自由派公知

1992 年，王怡考入四川大学法学院。他回忆说：「大学对于我和许多同龄人的重要性，首先意味着一场大扫除的可能。」11在此期间，他主要通过自学经历了一场思想上的彻底更新。《剑桥中国史》驱散了高中历史课所植入的意识形态偏见。阅读东西方现代诗，帮他清除了从中国正规教育系统中残留的意识形态污染。但对他而言最重要的是，他「在大学最后一年接触到自由主义，感到所有的代价终于开始赢得了回报」。12

当然，这种思想上的解放并未把王怡从谎言与造假的现实中释放出来。在大学最后一年，为完成实习要求，王怡在法院担任实习书记员。他亲眼目睹整个系统的腐败，包括索贿、欺压百姓，以及为掩护上级而集体作伪证。因此，实习的第三个月，他便开始旷工，最终通过伪造自己的实习鉴定表通过了实习。13对当下的司法体系彻底绝望、又不愿再次作弊的王怡，最终于 1996 年决定到成都大学任教，帮助那些已经从教育系统中侥幸逃脱的学生清除遗留的毒素，并使自己「生在大粪中，依然可以开出鲜花」。14

王怡逐渐以法律学者与公共知识分子的身份崭露头角。尤其是在胡锦涛逐渐接班的所谓知识分子与政府的蜜月期期间，那时中国对网络言论的管制尚未能够「把果冻钉在墙上」15。他成为中国新兴的网络政论场中一颗闪亮的明星，并结识了许多日后成为维权运动重要伙伴的自由派知识分子，其中包括刘晓波最亲近的一位好友，异见作家余杰。余杰援引《箴言》中「铁磨铁，磨出刃来」一语形容这一关系。16他回忆道，当他读到王怡的文章时，「那种感觉，就好像独自秉烛在黑暗的隧道中走了很久，突然发现迎面有一束光，原来是另一个秉烛行走的人」。172000 年代初，刘晓波担任独立中文笔会会长时，余杰与王怡也都担任要职，成为刘晓波的左膀右臂。2005 年，王怡代表刘晓波出席国际笔会的年会，发表演讲，呼吁全世界相信自由这一普世价值的写作者群体关注并支持在中国遭受政治迫害的作家，演讲获得了热烈反响。

二、六四后异见人士的关切

2.1 中国社会的意识形态真空

依照大卫·艾克曼（David Aikman）的看法，自 1980 年代改革开放以来，中国面临着「一种意识形态真空」。随着共产主义意识形态的破产，中国人需要重新探索经济发展与政治改革的意识形态基础，这为基督教的迅猛发展开辟了道路。18这一说法对解释 1980 年代以来某些地区基督教的迅速扩张或具一定合理性，但仍不足以描述文化与知识界对宗教的关切，以及基督教在该领域被接受的历史。换句话说，正如刘晓波所指出的，六四后的知识分子与他们的前辈之间存在一个关键差异：「新一代自由知识份子转向了对超越价值的寻求——既为自己的自由信念寻找超世俗的价值支撑，也为新制度的建立寻找文化的和伦理的依托。」19如下所论，这一差异意味着，1980 年代由共产主义幻灭所腾出的意识形态空间并不是真正的真空；在那躁动的黄金十年中，依然完好无损地存在着一个深植于其漫长历史的中国传统意识形态根基。

这一根基可以被称为儒家，更精确地说，是儒家的士大夫传统。当然，这一论断立刻会遭遇一个明显的反驳。自从20 世纪以来，中国在追求现代化的进程中，儒家是被批判与压制的明显对象。1919 年的五四运动，标志着中国人渴望成为现代的、民主的国家的最初表达。「迎接德先生（民主）与赛先生（科学）」与「打倒孔家店」成为知识分子中最流行的口号。其后在共产主义统治之下，儒家更被视作一种过时的、必须被根除的意识形态与文化而遭到压制。在此过程中，儒家把根据地转移到香港与台湾，以「新儒家」为代表，力图在民主、现代社会中复兴儒家。基于这些理由，似乎不可设想 1980 年代知识分子会以儒家为其意识形态根基。然而，正如许多中国自由派知识分子所论，尽管儒家作为一种学派或学说衰落了，整个民族主义的文化沉淀，却作为「贤德的统治者与知识分子」之形成所依托的本质性文化逻辑而保留下来。20

毛泽东对儒家教导的微妙偏好正说明了这一点。如 安妮-马利·布雷迪（Anne-Marie Brady） 所指出的：

毛泽东曾反对「拜孔子、读儒书、旧伦理和旧思想」。然而吊诡的是，众所周知，毛泽东最爱的床头读物却是儒家治国经典《资治通鉴》与《二十四史》。21

除毛泽东的阅读偏好之外，改革开放后官方政治理论中迅速恢复儒家这一现象，亦表明这背后的故事远比所述更为复杂。22有鉴于此，我们需要一种更为整全的诠释视野，认真考量儒家传统的多重层次性，以及这些层面如何在不同历史处境中被协调、传承与延续。即便统治者压制儒家道德教导、打压儒家学者，儒家关于贤君治世的政治想象，依然可以成为重要的灵感源泉。新儒家在港台的发展，与儒家统治资源在中国大陆的演变，两者路径的分歧，为观察中国士大夫与统治政权之间适应性共生结构提供了绝佳的参照点。前者对应民主政治环境，放弃了以道德圣王为基础的传统政治框架，转而寻求在心性儒学的基础上实现"民主的绽放"。23另一方面，正如共产党政权与儒家之间微妙关系所揭示的：在大陆，儒家的治理教导仍以一种与其道德教义相分离的方式，继续启发着大陆的统治者。

儒家的道德理想，通常可以概括为"内圣外王"。24按《大学》的论述，这一理想由内而外涵盖四个维度：修身、齐家、治国、平天下。25这说明，儒家道德人格的范式，传统上只有嵌入一种同质化的社会政治想象之中，才能被完整理解，其道德使命也才能充分实现。举例来说，孔子的弟子樊迟曾问孔子何为"孝"，孔子答道："父母在，事之以礼；死，葬之以礼，祭之以礼。"这里值得注意的是，孔子所说的"礼"，其指涉是特定的——它指向周朝（公元前1045年至公元前771年）的礼乐制度。礼乐制度相传由周公所创，其主要功能在于支撑周代封建社会秩序的稳定。礼制以宗法制度为基础，对社会各阶层从宗教祭祀、政治事务到日常生活的一切行为，均加以规范和引导。正如李泽厚所指出的："由于礼是一套完整的行为规范体系……它与'美'密切相关。"26"礼要求对个人的感官行为、活动和言语，以及其感官经验，实施直接的限制、引导和管控"，也只有通过这种规范，"一个人才能成为完整的人，实现真正的人性"。27音乐是这种审美政治化的内在组成部分。在以"稳定"为目标的政治社会框架下，音乐从来都不只是纯粹的审美事务，而是始终以圣贤明君的德治为中心。如《礼记》所言：

是故在宗庙之中，君臣上下同听之，则莫不和敬；在族长乡里之中，长幼同听之，则莫不和顺；在闺门之内，父子兄弟同听之，则莫不和亲。故乐者，审一以定和，比物以饰节，节奏合以成文。所以合和父子君臣，附亲万民也。是先王立乐之方也。28

这段长引文的意义不仅在于它表明中国传统音乐源自王者，以社会和谐为目标，更在于它揭示了贯穿其中的、不同社会阶层之间理想和谐的同质性。情感倾向于被外物所感动并塑造；因此，王者所制之乐为情感提供原则、规范其表达，并赋予其恰当之形式。29尽管人在不同的社会关系——如君臣、父子、师生——中承担不同的义务，但所有这些义务皆统一于体现在古代圣王行为表现中的同一原则之下。

孔子宣称"吾从周"30，由此确立了儒家以古为鉴的传统，使其致力恢复古代盛世想象中的稳定秩序。士大夫无疑是这一复古使命的主体。尽管圣王之治与大同社会已不复存在，礼乐制度却是一种可以恢复的制度，圣王所体现的道德原则仍然可以被教导和传承。因此，君子这一儒家道德人格的楷模，连同内圣外王的理想及其所预设的宗教政治想象，永远无法与帝王身旁的帝师角色完全切割。31即便在孔子所处的时代，道统隐没、贤士仕途困顿之际，他们仍以家国天下为念，始终将政教昌明视为首要责任。

这便揭示了为什么尽管五四运动打着现代化、西化、废除儒家的旗号，实质上在许多方面仍是儒家士大夫传统的延伸。它首先是一场由知识分子（现代士大夫）所领导的爱国运动，旨在拯救中国脱离西方殖民列强的压迫与剥削。更重要的是，它的爱国核心仍深深植根于「天下」这一传统儒家世界观之中。近年，政治儒学在中国大陆日益获得关注，作为官方背书并对外输出的学说兴起，甚至有国教之势。32于是，「天下」概念也重新成为焦点，被推举作为西方自由主义国际关系秩序的替代方案。尽管在理论细节上有所不同，天下论的共同目的，乃是提出一种以汉族中国为中心、四海皆兄弟的地缘政治模式。33其辩护者主张，它能取代西方自由主义以利益竞争与分配为基础的模式，而代之以一种秩序井然、有德的国际关系模式。

值得注意的是，与中国的政治利益相呼应，天下世界观蕴含着对西方民主政治的批判，而其基调由儒家的「贤能政治」所定。34「天下」是一个无外、因此涵盖一切人之意志的世界概念；而作为西方发明的民主，则未能反映人民真正的意志。相反，在天下世界观中，道德与智识精英比那些随波逐流、易受操纵的庸人更了解人民所需所欲，因此他们的看法理应被赋予更大的权重。35

正如其当代倡导者所言，这种贤能政治并非晚近的发明，而乃中国文化内在的组成部分。36它赋予了知识分子参与五四运动的力量，这场运动的最终目的是民族的伟大复兴。五四运动的双重启发意义很能说明问题。一方面，中国共产党许多重要成员，如陈独秀和李大钊，都在其中崭露头角。而中国共产党领导人，从毛泽东到当今的习近平，也持续不断地推崇这场本质上被定义为爱国运动的五四运动，挖掘其反帝反殖民的元素，以激发民族主义热情。37另一方面，作为一场知识分子要求社会改革的运动，五四的抗议者也被1989年的抗议者们广泛视为应效仿的典范。38 因此，对1989年事件持对立解释的两个阵营，共同分享了五四传统的精神土壤，而这一传统本身从根本上来自儒家士大夫文化的滋养。知识分子救中国的话语模式在1980年代主导了知识界的论述，为1989年运动的爱国性质赋予了独特的形态。

1989 年 4 月 22 日，抗议者采用了向皇帝跪谏这一传统做法，希望邓小平能够接受学生的请愿。刘晓波回忆当时的学生领袖普遍觉得「只有他们能够代表全国人民的民主要求，只有他们是中国的救世主」，他自己也深陷于这种英雄气氛之中。39六四知识分子对士大夫传统的承袭，表明 1980 年代对马克思主义的幻灭其实并未真的造成意识形态真空。相反，天安门大屠杀以及随后整个社会对该事件之记忆的控制、遗忘与扭曲，反倒成了一个真正的契机，使得那根深柢固的民族主义意识形态得以松动。这便为 1990 年代以后的知识分子打开了空间，让他们在精神废墟中寻求新的开端，舍弃民族复兴这一统治性的话语，以一种新的语言重新出发。

2.2 自由派的审美与宗教意识

为了回应那种传统的、政治化的审美观，六四后知识分子所追求的自由主义改革，势必也包含审美理论上的革新。作为中国文学博士，刘晓波以其审美理论著称，被誉为文坛黑马。据余杰介绍，刘晓波的博士论文是其审美理论的集大成之作，核心有两点："美即是冲突"与"审美自由"。40这些观念从今天的角度来看，尤其在西方学术界的眼光下，未必算得上多么的石破天惊，但他对所谓的新时期文学的激进批判，在那个时代颇具开创性。它摒弃了当时流行的寻根美学进路，在审美理论与反传统主义之间架起了一座桥梁。

对改革开放后的中国知识分子而言，人的解放与审美的解放相辅相成。在各种文学形式中，诗歌被普遍视为"最高的语言"。411980年代后成为现代中国诗歌代表的朦胧诗，以朦胧的意象探索主体的内心世界，批判性地反思现实，在当时被普遍视为体现了一种反抗精神和批判力量。然而，对于刘晓波和王怡这样的自由派诗人而言，对朦胧本身的热爱，恰恰是专制在文人心中遗留的枷锁的证明。42他们对朦胧诗人普遍试图回归中国传统文化寻根的批评，确实呼应了一个重要的区分：1980年代知识分子中普遍的回溯性倾向，与后来自由派政治异见人士寻求新的起点之间的差异。43

因此，自由派最根本的审美突破，在于颠覆了那个长期以来把和谐作为中国审美标准的预设。在中国文化所根深柢固的、井然有序的世界观中，人的身体与欲望必须服从于自上而下的形式约束与等级规范。借助弗洛伊德的心理框架，刘晓波的「冲突即美」把审美重新定义为人本能欲望的展演，以及人之「本我」（id）的解放。44审美由此变得本质上具有抵抗性。正如他所言：

无论以何种形式呈现，文明本质上都是压抑性的。中国传统伦理中存在大量这一类无意识因素，皆指向对本能欲望的压抑。仁、忍、贞、忠、孝、无为等伦理规范，几千年的封建传统下渗透进中华民族的无意识心理结构，严重地奴役了中国人生命的本能。45

为解放生命的本能，这群自由派挑战了朦胧诗人从《论语》所承袭的「哀而不伤」之传统46。他们偏爱情感的直接表达，甚至在文学作品中诉诸粗口与性意象47，并把自己的诗歌定义为「悲叹」。这种「悲叹」反映了在一个充满社会对个体之压制、超我对本我之压制的现实中，人之生命的「悲剧」。48

对新的解放性文学与美学的追求，构成了自由派对超验维度的关切。1980 年代，刘晓波写下了那句名言：「中国人的悲剧是没有上帝的悲剧。」49正如邢福增所观察到的，刘晓波这一阶段的宗教意识，是被他在当时「文化热」中对「全盘西化」的关切所启发的。50儒家的道德绝对主义蕴含着一种关于人性的尚贤式乐观主义，催生了一种自负的智识人格。51这种精英式的道德自恋，在审美领域中最鲜明地体现于传统音乐体制之中——它被界定为道德与智识上之优越者「塑造人心」之使命的一部分。因此，自由派的政治异见者必然把政治压迫视为与审美密切相关之事。

对刘晓波而言，与这种道德自恋恰当对照的，乃西方基督徒的「原罪」意识。「西方人的"原罪"感让他们经常面对内心世界的邪恶、软弱和犯罪感，而中国人的"乐感"使之无法正视自己的内心真实。」52人性的解放与实现，依赖于穿透人因自我恐惧而产生的理性或道德的自我遮蔽，去坦然面对本能与潜意识的欲望。在压抑的现实中，刘晓波指出，潜意识欲望只能通过攻击他人或自我虐待方能实现，而「就其生命的深度而言，自我虐待要远远胜过冲击他人」。53为使这种自虐成为可能，必须存在一个对人之罪与不完美的完美对照，而神就承担了这一角色。54

六四之后，刘晓波的自我审讯采取了更为根本的形式：对自我怀疑本身的怀疑。他对自己的忏悔感到不安。当他说「我不是英雄」时，他难以分辨这种内省有多少是真诚的，又有多少是出于自我撇清与自我保护。最终，他甚至为否认「英雄」这一标签而感到内疚——因为在他看来，一个完全没有英雄式自我意识的人，根本不应该有这一困扰。55读到这种程度的自我怀疑，有些人甚至认为「残酷到失去了起码的公正」，乃至怀疑刘晓波是否「有精神自虐症」。56

在刘晓波转向更谦卑的自我怀疑过程中，他对基督教资源的接触主要来自当时由中国文化基督徒所翻译的自由主义神学著作；其中，汉斯·昆（Hans Küng）是对他影响最深的一个人。汉斯·昆的《论基督徒》（On Being a Christian）深深感动了他，他意识到：「尽管自己生长在毫无宗教背景的无神论文化之中，但自己并非无可救药，自己的灵魂深处还是有宗教性虔诚」。57神乃是人之宗教意识或终极关怀所指向的对象，并「提供了存在物的首要渊源、首要意义和首要价值」。58在此基础上，人不必在悲剧的现实中绝望地生存——因为对神的信仰使人能「在死亡导致的恐惧和无意义面前，为生存提供值得活下去的勇气和意义」。59神与人被理解为彼此依存。神之存在需要人之意志的决断与人文之爱的实践，亦由此得以确证。60但如果神不存在，则人的忏悔与殉道式的决断也就毫无意义。61

刘晓波从英雄式的自虐转向宗教性的忏悔，伴随着他对神看法的变化。在前者中，人有限的存在必须以一种完美的存在为对照，方能显出其悲剧；在后者中，要使人之自我怀疑具有意义，则必须有一位救赎之神作为悔改的对象。然而，无论在哪种模式中，神都作为一种形上学预设出现，对应于人之内在的自救、自我成长的能力，或人之心理结构。这一发展进路，与 1980 年代中国文化热中文化基督徒接纳基督教的历史是一致的。

综观上述历史轨迹，面对士大夫意识形态的崩解，从80年代到90年代，知识分子异见人士的思想重心从民族主义式的现代化热情，转向了后现代的、虚无主义式的个体存在中的抵抗与挣扎。刘晓波在1980年代具有开创性意义的悲剧性审美关怀，使他在大屠杀后的意识形态废墟中，承担起连接两代人的角色。他对王怡和其他后来者影响深远，不只体现在审美和政治层面，也包含了对宗教主题的浓厚兴趣。这场运动的参与者，踏上了寻找一种新语言的旅程，这种语言直接指向使人性解放和自由成为可能的超验基础。无论采取何种形式、触及何种主题，写作都是、也必须是这一抵抗使命的组成部分。这催生了主题与体裁的多元化，在政治社会评论之外，孕育出丰富的文学与艺术创作。所有这些都与六四事件的创伤记忆、对真正公民社会的追寻，以及中国知识分子未能实现的那个理想中"广场上的共和国"，62血肉相连、难以分割。

下一章将以这一引导自由派知识分子政治思想与行动的视野为背景，开始探讨王怡的法律与政治理论。刘晓波的影响将时常可见，两人观点之间的细微差异也将一一浮现。这些差异乍看之下或许微不足道，却将以一种潜移默化的方式，推动王怡后来的归信历程和他对上帝的理解，并最终引领他走上一条追求真正公民社会的独特道路。

Footnotes

  1. Wang Yi, "Wo yu fuqin" 我与父亲 [Me and My Father], collected in Lin Lu, Qiuyu maili: Huiyi Chengdu qiuyu zhifu 秋雨麦粒：回忆成都秋雨之福 [Soaring Seeds: Blessings of Early Rain Fellowship in Chengdu] (Kaohsiung: Kernel of Wheat Publishing House, 2020), 90-94. ↩

  2. Wang Yi, "Zai zuobi zhong manman chengzhang" 在作弊中慢慢成长 [Gradually Growing in Cheating], in Bufucong de jianghu 不服从的江湖 [The Disobedient Underworld] (Shanghai: Shanghai sanlian shudian, 2003), 109-114. ↩

  3. Ibid., 112. one's mind. Even so, by the end of the university entrance exams, "almost no one's mental world was clean."4 This experience highlights a crucial difference between the intellectuals and university students of the June Fourth generation and the underage post-June Fourth generation at that time. For the former, June Fourth was theirs. They had an unquestionable sense of subjectivity and played an important role in the golden decade when the ban on thought had just been lifted, and the intellectual world was in full swing. They became opinion leaders and representatives of society's conscience. Within the grand narrative of national rejuvenation, this has fostered a particular way of framing the failure and trauma of the student movement: the tragedy of the June Fourth Incident is presented as the tragedy of the entire nation; the failure of the protesters is the failure of China. Wang Yi was dissatisfied with this narrative, which ignores "subtle, private spiritual trauma" and "personal suffering."5 In a debate with a leader of the June Fourth Movement, he wrote: "In 1989 and after, no one in the whole society took into account the spiritual history of juveniles. No one considered the souls of juveniles. The entire killing scene was not cleared of children. Even society as a whole conspired to perjure itself in front of an entire generation of children."6 This anger of the post-June Fourth generation was directed not only at the state and the government but also at the entire adult society in 1989, including the pro-democracy activists who exalted their own sufferings. Therefore, when the movement leader suggested that everyone should repent for the insincere comments made after the June Fourth, Wang Yi resisted the invitation, responding: "This is your shame, not mine."7 This background illuminates why Wang Yi later join the rightist liberal camp represented by 2008 Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo. The camp's strongly individualistic tone runs ↩

  4. Ibid. ↩

  5. Wang Yi, "Liuyue shi zui canren de yuefen" 六月是最残忍的月份 [June Is the Cruelest Month], in Yu Shen qinzui 与神亲嘴 [Kissing God] (Chengdu: Early Rain Reformed Church, 2007), 361. ↩

  6. Ibid., 362. ↩

  7. Ibid., 363. counter to the grand narratives he resisted, which forcefully unified the fate of all Chinese people. Beyond this, Liu offers a particularly deep reflection on the June Fourth Movement. Unlike some participants who wrote more or less heroically, focusing on the government's violence they encountered during the event and thereafter,8 Liu's memoir of the June Fourth incident is more like a deep soul interrogation of himself and his fellow participants in the movement.9 It is an unapologetic record of the trials and weaknesses of the protesters, including the misuse of money, struggle for leadership and discourse power, self- aggrandizement, and loss of initial ideals amidst the applause of the masses. This deepened Liu's sense of responsibility and guilt for those who bled and died in the process of clearing out the protests. Such introspection attracted Wang Yi and became a bridging model for this post-June Fourth intellectual to connect to the June Fourth tradition.10 However, the accusation against his predecessors and his attempt to draw a line against their sin still influenced Wang Yi's early writings and accentuated important nuances between his thoughts and Liu's. 1.3. Ideological Clean-Up：Becoming a Liberal Public Intellectual In 1992, Wang was admitted to the Law School of Sichuan University. He recalls that "the importance of the university to me and many of my generation meant, first and foremost, the possibility of a thorough cleaning."11 During this period, he experienced a complete renewal of thoughts mostly through self-study. The Cambridge History of China dispelled the ↩

  8. See, for example, Chai Ling, A Heart for Freedom: The Remarkable Journey of a Young Dissident, Her Daring Escape, and Her Quest to Free China's Daughters (Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, 2011); and Wu'er Kaixi, Wei ziyou er zishou: Wu'er Kaixi de liuwang biji 为自由而自首：吾尔开希的流亡笔记 [Surrendered for Freedom: The Exile Notes of Wu'er Kaixi] (New Taipei City: Gūsa Press, 2013). ↩

  9. Liu Xiaobo, Mori xingcunzhe de dubai: Liu Xiaobo de "Liusi" huiyilu 末日幸存者的独白：刘晓波的「六 四」回忆录 [The Soliloquy of a Doomsday Survivor: Liu Xiaobo's Memoirs of the "June Fourth"], 2nd ed. (Taipei: China Times Publishing, 2017). ↩

  10. Liu Xiaobo does define his confessing reflection as religious. "If there were no God in the world, human beings would be holy, neither evil nor penitent. But that is just 'if'. Without God, man's sins would be meaningless; God exists for man's sins. So humankind has a choice between two realities: a world with God, sin, and repentance, or a world with sin, no God, and no repentance. I chose the former, which is why I have written Mori xingcunzhe de dubai." Ibid., 11. ↩

  11. Wang, "Zai zuobi zhong manman chengzhang", 112. ideological biases implanted in his high school history classes. His reading of modern poetry from both Eastern and Western traditions cleared away residual ideological contamination inherited from China's formal education system. But for him, the most important thing was that he "encountered liberalism in the last year of university and felt that all the costs had paid off."12 Of course, this emancipation of thought did not free Wang from the reality of lies and falsification. During the final year at the university, to fulfil the internship requirement, Wang worked as a court clerk. He witnessed the corruption of the entire system, including asking for bribes, oppressing the ordinary people, and collectively giving false testimony to defend the superiors. Therefore, already in the third month of his internship, he began skipping work, and eventually passed the internship by forging his own appraisal form.13 Despairing of the current state of the judicial system and not wanting to cheat again, Wang finally decided to go to Chengdu University to teach in 1996, helping the students who had managed to escape from the education system to clear away the poison left behind and become "a smelly, but thinking flower."14 Wang gradually gained prominence as a scholar in law and a public intellectual. Especially during the "honeymoon" period between the intellectuals and the government when Hu Jintao gradually took over power, during which Internet speech control in China had not yet been able to "nail the jello on the wall,"15 he became a shining star in China's emerging internet political opinion forums and made friends with many liberal intellectuals who later became important partners in the human rights protection movement, including the dissident writer Yu Jie, one of ↩

  12. Ibid. ↩

  13. Ibid., 113. ↩

  14. Ibid., 114. ↩

  15. This description of China's internet control programme came from former US President Bill Clinton. However, as James Griffiths writes, "[i]n the years since Clinton's speech, China's censors have mostly proved him wrong. They have nailed the jello to the wall more securely and easily than even the most hardened cynic would have imagined in 2000." James Griffiths, The Great Firewall of China: How to Build and Control an Alternative Version of the Internet, 2nd ed. (London: Zed Books, 2021), 43. the best friends of Liu. Yu invokes the phrase from Proverbs, "iron sharpens iron," to describe this relationship.16 He recalled that when he read Wang's articles, "it was like walking alone in a dark tunnel with a candle for a long time, and then suddenly realising that there was a beam of light in front of me, and it turned out to be another person who was walking with a candle."17 In the early 2000s, when Liu was the president of the Independent Chinese PEN Center, Yu and Wang also held important positions and became Liu's right-hand men. In 2005, Wang attended the annual conference of the International PEN on behalf of Liu and delivered a speech calling for a community of writers who believe in the universal value of freedom to show concern and support for politically persecuted writers in China, which was met with great enthusiasm. 2. The Concerns of Post-June Fourth Dissidents 2.1. The Ideological Vacuum of Chinese Society According to David Aikman, since the 1980s reform and opening up, China has faced "an ideological vacuum". With the ideological bankruptcy of communism, the need for Chinese people to rediscover the ideological basis for economic development and political reform opened the way for the dramatic growth of Christianity.18 This may plausibly explain the rapid expansion of Christianity in certain regions from the 1980s onwards but still falls short of describing the religious concern and the history of the reception of Christianity in cultural and intellectual circles. To put it into perspective, as Liu points out, there is a crucial difference between the post-June Fourth intellectuals and their predecessors: "The new generation of liberal intellectuals turned to the search for transcendent values — both for the supra-secular ↩

  16. Yu Jie, "Tie mo tie, mochu ren lai: Huainian yu Wang Yi zai yiqi de shiguang (shang)" 铁磨铁，磨出刃来： 怀念与王怡在一起的时光（上） [Iron Sharpens Iron, Sharpening the Edge: Remembering the Time with Wang Yi (First Part)], Chengguang Xuehui 承 光 学 会 [Inherit Institute], 12 October 2020. https://www.inherit.live/post/铁磨铁，磨出刃来：怀念与王怡在一起的时光（上）. ↩

  17. Ibid. ↩

  18. David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2003), 15. support of their liberal beliefs and for the cultural and ethical underpinnings of the new system."19 As discussed below, this difference implies that the ideological space vacated by the disillusionment with communism in the 1980s was not a true vacuum. There was a traditional Chinese ideological foundation deeply rooted in its long history, and that remained intact during that golden decade of turbulence. The foundation can be called Confucianism, or more precisely, the Confucian scholar- official tradition. Certainly, such an argument immediately runs into an obvious objection. In China's pursuit of modernisation from the twentieth century onwards, Confucianism was an obvious target of criticism and repression. The May Fourth Movement in 1919 marked the first expression of the Chinese people's desire to become a modern, democratic state. "Welcoming Mr. De (democracy) and Mr. Sai (science)" and "Down with Confucius" became the most popular slogans among the intellectuals. Later, under communist rule, Confucianism was supressed as an outdated ideology and culture that needed to be eradicated. In this process, Confucianism shifted its base to Hong Kong and Taiwan, exemplified by New Confucianism, which seeks to revive Confucianism in a democratic, modern society. For these reasons it was inconceivable that Confucianism could be appealed to as the ideological foundation of the intellectuals of the 1980s. However, as many Chinese liberal intellectuals have argued, despite this decline of Confucianism as a school or doctrine, the whole nationalist cultural deposit remained an essential cultural logic underlying the formation of virtuous rulers and intellectuals.20 ↩

  19. Liu Xiaobo,"Zai richang shenghuo zhong jujue shuohuang: Yu Jie wenji xu" 在日常生活中拒绝说谎：余 杰文集序 [Refusing to Lie in Ordinary Life: Preface to Yu Jie's Collected Writings], Jinian Liu Xiaobo纪念 刘晓波 [I Have No Enemies], 24 June 2002. http://liuxiaobo.info/blog/archives/6073. ↩

  20. For a representative of liberal intellectuals' reflections on the influences of the scholar-official tradition on modern Chinese intellectuals, see Liu Xiaobo, Zhongguo dangdai zhengzhi yu Zhongguo zhishi fenzi 中国当代 政治与中国知识份子 [Contemporary Politics and Intellectuals of China] (Taipei: Tonsan Publications, 1990). Mao Zedong's subtle appreciation of Confucian teaching illustrates this point. As Ann- Marie Brady points out: Mao Zedong opposed "the worship of Confucius, the study of the Confucian canon, the old ethical code and the old ideas." Paradoxically, it is well known that Mao's favourite bedside reading was the Confucian governance classic A Mirror for Governance (Zizhi tongqian) and the Twenty-Four Dynastic Histories (Ershisi shi).21 In addition to Mao Zedong's reading preferences, the rapid restoration of Confucianism in official political theory after China's reform and opening up also shows that the full story is far more complex.22 A more holistic interpretative vision is necessary. The multilayered character of Confucianism, and the ways these layers are coordinated has sustained and transmit the Confucian tradition across historical contexts, must be considered. Even when rulers suppressed Confucian moral teachings and scholars, their imagination of wise governance could still serve as an important source of inspiration. The divergence in the development of New Confucianism in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and of the Confucian ruling resources in mainland China, provides an excellent reference point for observing the adaptive symbiotic structure between Chinese scholars and the ruling regime. The former, corresponding to the democratic political environment, abandons the traditional political framework based on the moral rule of virtuous kings and seeks to achieve the "blossoming of democracy" on the basis of Xinxing ruxue (心性儒学 Mind Confucianism).23 On the other hand, as the subtle ↩

  21. Anne-Marie Brady, "State Confucianism, Chineseness, and Tradition in CCP Propaganda," in China's Thought Management, ed. Anne-Marie Brady (Oxon: Routledge Abington, 2012), 59. ↩

  22. After the reform and opening up of China, there emerged the so-called New Left in China, which attempted to re-lay the foundation for the existing communist politics. Among them, there is a strong tendency to revive the Confucian tradition. See, for example, Gan Yang, Tong san tong 通三统 [Integrating Three Traditions] (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2007); Ding Yun, Rujia yu qimeng: Zhexue huitong shiye xia de dangqian Zhongguo sixiang 儒 家与启蒙：哲学会通视野下的当前中国思想 [Confucianism and Enlightenment: Chinese Thought Today in a Context of Philosophical Convergence] (Beijing: Sanlian chubanshe, 2011). ↩

  23. One of the most important representatives of this approach is Mou Zongsan, Zhengdao yu zhidao 政道与治 道 [The Way of Politics and the Way of Governance] (Taipei: Xuesheng shuju, 1961). Mou's theory will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 5. relationship between the communist regime and Confucianism reveals, the latter's teaching of governance continues to inspire the rulers of Mainland China in a way isolated from its moral doctrines. Generally, the moral ideal of Confucianism can be summarized as "inner sagehood and outer kingliness" (neisheng waiwang 内圣外王),24 which, according to the Great Learning (Daxue 大学), encompasses four dimensions, from the inner to the outer spheres: "cultivating the person" (xiushen 修身), "regulating the family" (qijia 齐家), "governing a state rightly" (zhiguo 治国), and "tranquilising the world" (ping tianxia平天下).25 This suggests that the Confucian paradigm of the moral person traditionally can only be comprehensively understood and its moral mission properly realized when embedded in a homogeneous socio-political imagination. For example, when Fan Chi, one of the disciples of Confucius, asked Confucius what was Xiao (孝 filial piety), Confucius answered: "That parents, when alive, should be served according to propriety; that, when dead, they should be buried according to propriety; and that they should be sacrificed to according to propriety."26 What is important here is that when Confucius mentioned the "propriety", it had a restricted reference to the Liyue (礼乐 ritual and music) system in the Chinese Zhou dynasty (周朝, 1045 BC – 771 BC). The main function of the ritual and music system, which is said to have been established by the Duke of Zhou, was to support the stability of the social order of the feudal Zhou Dynasty. The rituals were based on the patriarchal system, and guided all social classes on all aspects of behaviour, from religious rituals and politics to daily life. And as Li Zehou points out, "[s]ince the rites comprise a complete system of ordered norms for behavior, … they have to do with 'beauty'."27 ↩

  24. The term neisheng waiwang was firstly proposed by the Taoist Zhuangzi, but was later absorbed and widely adopted as a Confucian concept. See Zhuangzi, Zhuangzi: The Complete Writings, trans. Brook Zyporyn (Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company, 2020), 267. ↩

  25. The Great Learning (Daxue 大学), in The Chinese Classics, 2nd ed., vol. 1, trans. James Legge (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1960), 359. ↩

  26. Li Zehou, The Chinese Aesthetic Tradition, trans. Maija Bell Samei (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2010), 13. "[T]he rites required the direct restriction, direction, and control of the individual's sensuous behavior, activity, and speech, as well as his or her sensory experiences" and only through this "can one become a complete person and achieve a genuinely human nature."28 Music is an intrinsic part of this politicisation of aesthetics. Premised on a political and social framework in which "stability" was the goal, music was always more than a purely aesthetic subject, but rather centred on the virtuous rule of the sage kings. As the Book of Rites puts it: Therefore in the ancestral temple, rulers and ministers, high and low, listen together to the music, and all is harmony and reverence; at the district and village meetings of the heads of clans, old and young listen together to it, and all is harmony and deference. Within the gate of the family, fathers and sons, brothers and cousins, listen together to it, and all is harmony and affection. Thus in music there is a careful discrimination (of the voices) to blend them in unison so as to bring out their harmony; there is a union of the (various) instruments to give ornamental effect to its different parts; and these parts are combined and performed so as to complete its elegance. In this way fathers and sons, rulers and subjects are united in harmony, and the people of the myriad states are associated in love. Such was the method of the ancient kings when they framed their music.29 The significance of this long quotation lies not only in that it shows that traditional Chinese music originated from the king with social harmony as its goal, but also in its revelation of the homogeneity that runs through the ideal harmony between different social classes. Emotions tend to be moved and determined by external objects. Therefore, the music made by the kings provides the principle, regulates their expressions, and gives them appropriate forms.30 ↩

  27. Ibid. ↩

  28. The Book of Rites (Liji 礼记), English-Chinese version, trans. James Legge (Beijing and Washington: Intercultural Press, 2013), 183-184. ↩

  29. "They (the musical notes and measures made by the ancient kings) gave laws for the great and small notes according to their names, and harmonised the order of the beginning and the end, to represent the doing of things. Although people may have different obligations in different social relationships, such as ruler- subject, father-son, and teacher-student, these obligations are all unified under the same principle embodied in the behavioural manifestations of the ancient sage kings. When Confucius declared that "I follow Zhou,"31 it determined the Confucian tradition's retrospective character, orienting it toward restoring the stability of the imagined heyday of the ancient dynasties. Scholar-officials were certainly the subject of this retrospective mission. Although the ancient politics of the sage kings and the Datong (大同 Great Unity) no longer existed, the ritual and music system was a restorable institution, and the moral principles the sage kings had embodied could still be taught and passed down. Therefore, the image of "junzi" (君子), the Confucian model of a moral person, with the idea of "inner sagehood and outer kingliness," and the religious-political imagination it presupposes, can never be totally disconnected from the role of the state teacher by the side of the emperor.32 Even when, as in Confucius' own time, the principle was eclipsed and the official careers of moral scholars were frustrated, they remained bound to concern themselves with the nation and the world, consistently regarding the flourishing of the polity as their primary responsibility. This shows why the May Fourth Movement, despite its banner of modernisation, westernisation, and abolition of Confucianism, was essentially an extension of the Confucian scholar-official tradition in many respects. It was, first and foremost, a patriotic movement led by intellectuals (modern scholar-officials) aimed at saving China from the oppression and Thus they made the underlying principles of the relations between the near and distant relatives, the noble and mean, the old and young, males and females, all to appear manifestly in the music." Ibid., 177, parentheses added. ↩

  30. Confucian Analects, 160. ↩

  31. Whether junzi is a universal model or limited to certain social classes, such as nobles or scholars, in Confucianism is still under discussion. But in any case, this does not affect my argument here. Even if the Analects does represent an attempt to universalise the ideal of junzi, it does not mean that it is thus free from the top-down perspective of the ruling group in defining moral obligations. For essays emphasizing the universal character of Confucian concept of junzi, see, for example, Hsu Cho-yun, Ancient China in Transition: An Analysis of Social Mobility 722-222 B.C. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1965), 158-174; and Donald Munro, The Concept of Man in Early China (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 2001), 23-26. For opposite views, see Erica Brindley, "'Why Use an Ox-Cleaver to Carve a Chicken?': The Sociology of the Junzi Ideal in the Lunyu," Philosophy East and West 59/1, 47-70. exploitation of Western colonial powers. More importantly, its patriotic core remained deeply rooted in the traditional Confucian worldview of "tianxia" (天下, all-under-heaven). In recent years, political Confucianism has gained increasing traction in mainland China, emerging as an officially endorsed and exported doctrine, and even threatening to assume the status of a state religion. Consequently, the concept of tianxia has also come back into focus, promoted as an alternative to the Western liberal order of international relations.33 Although there are theoretical differences in detail, the common purpose of tianxia theories is to offer a geopolitical model of universal brotherhood centred on the Han Chinese state.34 Its defenders propose that it can replace Western liberalism's model based on the competition and distribution of interests with a well-ordered and virtuous model of international relationships. It is worth noting that, echoing the political interests of China, the tianxia worldview entails a critique of Western democratic politics, for which the Confucian "xianneng zhengzhi" (贤能政治 political meritocracy) sets the tone.35 Though tianxia is a concept of the world that has no outside (wuwai 无外) and therefore incorporates the will of all people, democracy as a Western invention fails to reflect the true will of the people; on the contrary, in the tianxia ↩

  32. On the close relationship between the proposal of tianxia worldview and China's "Belt and Road Initiative", see Jiwoon Baik, "'One Belt One Road' and the Geopolitics of Empire," Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 20/3 (2019), 358–76. ↩

  33. The discussion of the traditional "Hua-Yi" (Chinese-Barbarian) distinction clearly reveals this. In the geopolitical imagination of tianxia, Hua is the Han Chinese civilisation at the centre and Yi is the other peoples at the periphery of this map. Confucian cultural identity plays an essential role in this distinction. As Ning An et al. point out, "[a]ccording to Confucian values, it was legal for Yi groups to hold dominant positions only if they accepted Hua culture. That is, Yi groups had to erase their so-called 'barbaric' features if they were to occupy state positions. Hua culture thus became a kind of 'civilisational' standard." Ning An et al., "Towards a Confucian Geopolitics," Dialogues in Human Geography 11/2 (2021), 223. For other discussions on the relationship between Hua-Yi distinction and the geopolitical imagination of China, see, for example, William A. Callahan, China: The Pessoptimist Nation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 19-28; Jinman Park, "Is the Chinese Government's Increase in Development Co-operation with Africa the Revival of Sinocentrism?" Geopolitics 20/3 (2015), 626- 644. ↩

  34. One of the most important classical references to this is in the Book of Rites. "When the Grand course was pursued, a public and common spirit ruled all under the sky; they chose men of talents, virtue, and ability; their words were sincere, and what they cultivated was harmony." The Book of Rites, 100. Daniel A. Bell suggests that it shows that "even an ideal that has been compared to 'higher communism' would need a state governed by those with above-average moral judgment and intellectual ability." Daniel A. Bell, "Introduction," in Jiang Qing, A Confucian Constitutional Order: How China's Ancient Past Can Shape Its Political Future, eds. Daniel A. Bell and Ruiping Fan, trans. Edmund Ryden (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), 20n36. worldview, the moral and intellectual elites know better than the mediocrities who go with the flow and are susceptible to manipulation what people need and want, and therefore their views should be given more weight.36 This kind of meritocracy, as its contemporary advocates claim, is not a recent invention but an intrinsic part of Chinese culture.37 It empowered the intellectuals' participation in the May Fourth Movement, whose concern was ultimately the great rejuvenation of the nation. The movement's bilateral inspiration is telling. On the one hand, many important members of the Chinese Communist Party, such as Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao, made their mark in it. And leaders of Communist China, from Mao Zedong to today's Xi Jinping, have continuously praised the May Fourth Movement defined essentially as a patriotic movement, drawing out its anti-imperialist and anti-colonial elements in order to stir nationalist passion.38 On the other hand, as a movement of intellectuals demanding social reforms, the May Fourth protesters were also widely regarded by the 1989 protestors as a paradigm to be emulated.39 Thus both opposing camps of interpreters of the event of 1989 share the same spiritual ground of the May Fourth tradition, which itself was fundamentally nourished by the Confucian scholar-official culture. The grammar of "intellectuals saving China" dominated intellectual discourse in the 1980s, giving a distinct shape to the 1989 movement's patriotic character. On 22 April 1989, protestors adopted the traditional practice of "kneeling remonstrance" to the emperor, hoping that Deng Xiaoping would accept the students' petition. Liu recalled ↩

  35. See Zhao Tingyang, All under Heaven: The Tianxia System for a Possible World Order, trans. Joseph E. Harroff (Oakland: University of California Press, 2021), 32-35, 249-255; Jiang, A Confucian Constitutional Order, 31-43; and Daniel A. Bell, The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015). ↩

  36. "Tianxia is of course a concept from Chinese antiquity but is not a concept that applies only to China." Zhao, All under Heaven, 1. ↩

  37. See, for example, Brady, "State Confucianism, Chineseness, and Tradition in CCP Propaganda," 57-75. Xi Jinping also gave a speech in 2019 praising the patriotism of the May Fourth Movement and encouraging young people to learn from the spirit of the movement. See Eduardo Baptista and Steven Jiang, "Xi Jinping Praises a Historic Student Protest. It Could Never Happen Today." CNN, 30 April 2019, https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/30/asia/xi-jinping-may-4-anniversary-intl/index.html. ↩

  38. See, for example, Chai, A Heart for Freedom, 103-104. that the student leaders at the time generally felt that "only they could represent the democratic demands of the whole nation, only they were the saviours of China," and that he himself was also deeply caught up in such a heroic atmosphere.40 The inheritance of the scholar-official tradition by the June Fourth intellectuals shows that the disillusionment with Marxism in the 1980s did not really create an ideological vacuum. On the contrary, the Tiananmen massacre and the subsequent control, forgetting, and distortion of the memory of the event by the whole society became a real opportunity to loosen the deep-rooted nationalist ideology. This opened space for post-90s intellectuals to seek a new beginning amid the spiritual ruins, abandoning the ruling grammar of "national renaissance" and starting anew by seeking a new language for what they were about. 2.2. The Aesthetic and Religious Consciousness of the Liberals In response to the traditional, politicised view of aesthetics, the liberal reforms pursued by post-June Fourth intellectuals inevitably included innovations in aesthetic theory. As a doctor in Chinese literature, Liu became renowned for his aesthetic theories and was regarded as a "black horse" in the literary circle. According to Yu, Liu's doctoral thesis,41 the culmination of Liu's aesthetic theory, consists of two core points: "beauty is conflict" and "freedom through aesthetics."42 These ideas may hardly be considered groundbreaking today, especially from a Western academic perspective, but his radical critique of the so-called "New Period Literature" was pioneering in that era. It abandoned the popular "root-seeking" aesthetics approach and built a bridge between aesthetic theory and anti-traditionalism. For intellectuals after the reform and opening up of China, the liberation of humanity goes hand in hand with the liberalisation of aesthetics. Among the various forms of literature, poetry ↩

  39. Liu, Mori xingcunzhe de dubai, 235-240. ↩

  40. Yu, Wo wuzui, 91. is widely regarded as the "highest language."43 Misty poetry, which became representative of modern Chinese poetry after the 1980s, focused on exploring the subject's inner world and critically reflecting on reality through misty imagery. It was generally regarded as reflecting a spirit of defiance and critical power at that time. However, for some liberal poets, such as Liu and Wang, the love of "mistiness" itself stood as evidence of a shackle left in the hearts of the literati by the dictatorship.44 Their critiques of the widespread attempts by the Misty poets to return to traditional Chinese culture to "search for their roots" indeed echo the distinction between the retrospective tendency among intellectuals in the 1980s and the later liberal political dissidents' search for a new beginning.45 Therefore, the most fundamental aesthetic breakthrough of the liberals was the reversal of the long-standing presupposition that harmony was the criterion of aesthetics in China. In the well-ordered worldview ingrained in Chinese culture, human bodies and desires must be subjected to formal constraints and regulated status from above. By drawing on Freud's psychological framework, Liu's idea of "conflict as beauty" redefines aesthetics as the performance of human life's instinctual desires and the liberation of the human "id".46 The aesthetic thus becomes inherently resistant. As he puts it: Civilisation, in whatever form it takes, is essentially repressive. There is a great deal of this kind of unconscious element in traditional Chinese ethics that points to the repression ↩

  41. Ibid., 171. ↩

  42. "When between us and the word, stands the dictator. Writing cannot be beyond politic.… Misty is also a product of despotism. The introduction of the misty poem in the history of literature is consistent with the stifling and rejection of works that are not aesthetically misty enough, that push the authoritarian away from us and from the word with greater force. What do you mean, 'not misty enough'? Only an idiot would think it's not aesthetically pleasing enough. Politics participates in the sifting of poetry, and aesthetics participates in the sifting of politics." Wang Yi, "Yuyan, zhengzhi he xinyang—'Rugu shalong' de zaixian yanjiang" 语言、政治和信仰—"如故沙龙" 的在线演讲 [Language, Politics and Faith—An Online Lecture on "RGForum"], in Linghun shenchu nao ziyou 灵魂深处闹自由 [Revolution in the Depth of Soul] (Taipei: Christian Arts Press, 2012), 225. ↩

  43. See Wang Shuo and Lao Xia, Meiren zeng wo menghan yao 美人赠我蒙汗药 [The Beauty Gives Me Knockout Drops] (Wuhan: Changjiang Literature & Art Publishing House, 2000), 93-96. Lao Xia was an alias used by Liu Xiaobo to pass the publication censorship. ↩

  44. Liu, Shenmei yu ren de ziyou, 147-149. of instinctual desires. Ethical norms such as benevolence, forbearance, chastity, loyalty, filial piety, inaction, etc... have permeated the unconscious psychological structure of the Chinese nation over thousands of years of feudal tradition, and have seriously subjugated the instincts of the Chinese people's lives.47 Aiming to liberate life's instincts, these liberals challenge the tradition of "grief without being hurtfully excessive," inherited by the misty poets from the Analects of Confucius.48 They favour the direct expression of emotions, even resorting to profanity and sexual imagery in their literary works,49 and define their poetry as "lamentation", which reflects the "tragedy" of human life under a reality full of suppression of the individual by society and that of the id by the superego.50 The search for new emancipatory literature and aesthetics constitutes liberals' concern with the transcendental dimension. In the 1980s, Liu penned a famous sentence—"the tragedy of the Chinese people is the tragedy of the absence of God."51 As Ying Fuk-tsang has observed, Liu's religious consciousness at this stage was inspired by his concern for "totalistic westernisation" in the "cultural fever" (wenhua re 文化热) of the time.52 The moral absolutism of Confucianism entails a meritocratic optimism about humanity, which gives rise to an ↩

  45. Ibid., 146-147. ↩

  46. Yu, Wo wuzui, 171. Cf. Confucian Analects, 161. ↩

  47. Liu Xiaobo's love of swear words was well known. He even titled a poem to Liao Yiwu, a poet friend who also loved vulgar language and imagery, "Tamade, Liaotutou laile" 他妈的，廖秃头来了 (Damn It, Baldy Liao Is Coming). Collected in Liu Xiaobo, Tiechuang hou de ziyou 铁窗后的自由 [The Freedom behind Bars], ed. Yu Jie (Taipei: Lordway Publishing, 2017), 346-349. Although Wang's speech and writing were more moderate, he liked to use sex as a political metaphor in his early works. See, for example, Wang Yi, "'Guojia anquan' shi yige tao" 国家安全是一个套 [National Security Is a Condom], in Meide jingdong le zhongyang 美得惊动了中央 [So Beautiful that the Centre Is Startled] (Self-published, 2004), 11-12. ↩

  48. Liu, Shenmei yu ren de ziyou, 155. ↩

  49. Liu Xiaobo, "Kuangwang bi zao tianze: Lun Zhongguo wenhua de daode zhishang de zhiming minwu" 狂妄 必遭天责：论中国文化的道德至上的致命谬误 [Arrogance Will be Punished by Heaven: On the Fatal Consequences of Moral Absolutism in Chinese Culture], in Beiju, shenmei, ziyou 悲剧・审美・自由 [Tragedy, Aesthetic, Freedom] (Taipei: Storm and Stress Publishing, 1989), 74. ↩

  50. Ying Fuk-tsang, "Liu Xiaobo and the Metaphor of Cross: An Intellectual Journey of a Post-Tiananmen Dissident," in Yearbook of Chinese Theology 2017, ed. Paulos Z. Huang (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 52-53. arrogant intellectual personality.53 This elitist moral narcissism is most clearly manifested in the aesthetic area in the traditional music system, which is defined as part of the mission of "mind shaping" of the morally and intellectually superior. Hence, these liberal political dissidents could not but see political oppression as closely related to aesthetics. For Liu, the appropriate contrast to this moral narcissism is the Western Christian sense of original sin. "Westerners' sense of 'original sin' often leads them to face the evil, weakness and guilt of their inner world, while Chinese people's 'sense of optimism' makes them unable to face their inner reality."54 The emancipation and realisation of human nature depend on penetrating the rational or moral self-concealment that arises from mankind's self-fear and facing up to instinctive and subconscious desires. In an oppressive reality, Liu points out that subconscious desires can only be realised by attacking others or by self-abuse, and that "in terms of the depth of its life, self-abuse is far superior to attacking others."55 For this kind of self-abuse to be possible, there must exist a perfect counterpoint to humankind's sin and imperfection, and God takes on that role.56 After the June Fourth, Liu's self-interrogation took an even more fundamental form—the suspicion of self-suspicion. He felt uneasy about his confession. When saying "I am not a hero," he found it difficult to distinguish how much of this introspection was sincere and how much was motivated by self-clarification and self-protection. In the end, he even feels guilty for denying the label of hero, because a person completely devoid of heroic self-consciousness should not have this problem in his eyes at all.57 Reading such a degree of self-suspicion, some ↩

  51. Liu, Zhongguo dangdai zhengzhi yu Zhongguo zhishi fenzi, 55. ↩

  52. Ibid. ↩

  53. Liu, Shenmei yu ren de ziyou, 156. ↩

  54. Liu's explanation of this transcendental orientation is far from specific. As Yu Jie puts it, the origins of Liu's thoughts in this area are "complex and intricate," encompassing at least "the Christian consciousness of original sin, Nietzsche's philosophy of Übermensch, the existentialist 'being towards death' and the entanglement of his narcissism and self-transcendence." Yu, Wo wuzui, 126. ↩

  55. Liu, Mori xingcunzhe de dubai, 66-68. people even think that it is "so cruel that it loses the minimum justice," even wondering if Liu was "suffering from mental self-mutilation."58 In Liu's move toward a humbler self-suspicion, his exposure to Christian resources came primarily from liberal theological works translated by Chinese cultural Christians at the time, with Hans Küng among his most influential inspirations. He was deeply moved by Küng's On Being a Christian, which he credited with making him realise that "even though I was born into an atheistic culture with no religious background, I am not hopeless, and that there is still a religious piety in the depths of my soul."59 God is the object to which human's religious consciousness, or ultimate concern, is directed, and who "provides the primary origin, the primary meaning, and the primary value of being."60 Based on this, human beings do not live in despair in a tragic reality, for faith in God enables them to "transcend the fear of death in living towards it."61 God and humans are conceived as interdependent. The existence of God needs and requires the determination of the human will and the practice of humanistic love.62 But if God does not exist, human confession and martyrological resolution are also meaningless.63 Liu's shift from heroic self-abuse to religious self-confession accompanied a change in his view of God. In the former case, the limited existence of human beings must be contrasted with a perfect existence to reveal its tragedy. In the latter, for human beings' self-doubt to be meaningful, there must be a redeeming God as the object of repentance. However, in any model, God appears as a metaphysical presupposition corresponding to an inner capacity for self- redemption, self-improvement, or the psychological structure of humans. The development ↩

  56. Ibid., 9. ↩

  57. Liu Xiaobo, "Tiechuang zhong de gandong: Yuzhong du Hans Küng Lun jidutu" 铁窗后的感动：狱中读汉 斯‧昆《论基督徒》 [Touching behind Bars: Reading Hans Küng's On Being a Christian], in Tiechuang hou de ziyou, 64. ↩

  58. Ibid. ↩

  59. Ibid. ↩

  60. Ibid., 70-72. ↩

  61. Liu, Mori xingcunzhe de dubai, 11. follows the history of Christian acceptance among cultural Christians in the Chinese cultural boom since the 1980s. To sum up the historical trajectory just presented, in response to the destruction of traditional scholar-official ideology, intellectual dissidents from the 80s to the 90s shifted their thinking from a nationalist zeal for modernisation to a postmodern, nihilistic sense of resistance and struggle in individual existence. Liu's, tragic aesthetic concern, which was pioneering in the 1980s, enabled him to take on the role of connecting two generations in the ideological rubble after the massacre. His great influence on Wang and other liberal latecomers was not only aesthetic and political but also contained an interest in religious themes. Members of this movement embarked on a search for a new language that directly points to the transcendental basis that makes the emancipation of human nature and freedom possible. Writing itself, regardless of its forms and subjects, is and must be part of such a resistance mission. This has contributed to the diversity of subjects and genres, creating literature and art alongside political and social commentary. All of them are inextricably linked to the traumatic memory of the June Fourth Incident, the search for a genuine civil society and so an ideal "republic on the square,"64 which Chinese intellectuals had failed to realise. The next chapter will begin to explore Wang's theories of law and politics against this horizon that guides liberal intellectuals' political thinking and action. The influence of Liu will often be evident, and some of the finer nuances of both men's views will also be uncovered. These differences may not seem crucial at first glance, but they will come subtly to contributed to Wang's later conversion and view of God, which in the end, gradually led him onto a distinctive way in the quest for a genuine civil society. ↩

  62. Feng Congde, Liusi riji: Guangchang shang de gonghe guo 六四日记：广场上的共和国 [A Tiananmen Journal: Republic on the Square] (Hong Kong: Morning Bell Press, 2009). ↩

导论第二章 耶路撒冷与天安门何干？王怡对超越价值的追寻