Dr. Hu Shih on Hesitancy of Civilization to Adopt the New: How to Vanquish Four Great Enemies The following a summary of on. address delivered on January at Judge Purdy's Tefore the simerican of iversity Women, by the well known scholar, Dr. In Shihe The problem of China to-day is at bottom a problem of cultural conflict. The old order is shown to be inadequate in meeting the needs of 'a new situation brought about by the contact with the peoples and civilization of the West. The traditional values no longer satisfy the longing of the nation. And yet there is always a hesitancy in fredly acknowledging the defeat of tthe old civilization and wholeheartedly accepting the new. This hesitancy leads to perplexity and confusion and inaction. The practical loss' and waste of time and energy caused by this situation of hesitancy and perplexity. have been inestimable. It is no exaggeration to say that practically all China's ills and troubles can be attributed to her failure to get herself out of this unfortunate and awkward attitude of hesitancy and bewilderment in facing the problem of cultural conflict, From this psychological hesitancy and perplexity, there have arisen numerous forms of reactionary and apologetic theories of civilization. The most. frequently propounded theory that, while. the Western civilization is materialistic, that of the East is spiritual, is only a myth invented by those who seek. Justify their conservatism by some subtle process of rationalization. In 1 chapter contributed to a symposium under the title "Whither Mankind," Thave tried to show that the moder Western civilization which has fast become the world civilization, is highly idealistic and spiritual' not only in its scientific spirit, not only in its democratic institutions, but also in its mechanical progress which relieves human suffering "and enhances. human happiness. On the other hand, the older ation of material environment and to It is not difficult to explain this hesitation. It is the natural product of the pride and prejudice of a great nation with a glorious past. But it goes deeper than that, My friend Mr. Ch'ang Nai-teh has recently suggested a very interesting, explanation. He pointed out that in the past contact with foreign nations, China never met any race that combined superior strength with advanced civilization So she was sometimes conquered by the war-like barbarians who had no civilization; and sometimes she voluntarily sought to be conquered by the religion of India which never sent. a single soldier across the border. When she succumbed to the superior military strength of the barbarian races, she was always confident of finally absorbing and assimilating the conquerors by the power of her ancient tion. And when she chose to be converted to Buddhism, she had no apprehension of a military political conquest. But, Mr. Ch'ang points out, a new situation has arisen in China's present contact ith the Western world, Here for the first time China is facing a great tion backed by immense political and military strength unprecedented in human history. In the popular mind, it is very difficult te the western eivilizait, To acknowledge the superiority of this civilization fs often regarded as tantamount a submission to its imperialistic aggression. It is this psychological background, concludes Mr. Eh accounts for the hesitant forces of nature without taking effective measures to subjugate for the benefit of man, must be ly described as materialistic in the worst sense of the term. Whatever the apologists may say in its defence, I certainly cannot see any spiritual ity in a civilization that uses human beings as beasts of burden and jearriagé and tolerates the institution of foot-binding for a thousand years without a voice of protest.
Another important theory re. sulting from—the fundamental psychology of hesitation and porplexity is the view that China must not commit the great mistake of wholesale acceptance of the western civilization, and that she must preserve all that in best in the old eivilization, and that she must accept only so much from the West as not to mar and interrupt the continuity of her own fine civilization, This attitude of selective assimilation sounds exceedingly reasonable and has numerous supporters. But a little reflection will show that such a view only serves to disguise the attitude of resistance under a more. fine-sounding phraseology. means muddling through whenever you can muddle through without any change, and making Changes only when such changes are nocessary for you to muddle through. The whole theory is again one of hessite ancy and inaction.
Every civilization by its very nature and extent is conservative It requires determined effort on the part of thinking leaders to bring about any change at all, If the effort is in the direction of a wholoattitude on the part of many Chinese
conflict, towards the problem of cultural hearted modernization, the inherent conservative force of 'a civilization will inevitably offer its resistance and the result will be a kind of nagging marred the smoothness of their work together, and instead of keeping him more at home. drove him to seek his pleasures still more in the vicinity of Foochow Road.
The climax came when he decided to take a concubine—the woman the police arrested. The wife was bitterly jealous and not only were the lives of the man and the concubine made miserable, but an element of danger was introduced. For the woman would shout at them and there was the selective assimilation. But if the advanced leaders should begin with selective assimilation, the natural result would be conversative resist ance and no modernization would be possible.
Japan has taught us an instruetive lesson. She started out with a determined effort to modernize here-self at any cost, and this process was carried into every phase of her national life. In the course of half a century, this determination has made Japan a modern nation. And yet, if we examine into the modern. front, And when the coating of!
International Settlement and on and enjoy himself while she had to chance that neighbours might overcivilization of Japan, we shall find Straw had been removed, ghastly wounds were revealed, which left! tne doubt but, that she had been' murdered.
On ber clothes and body there were no marks by which she could identified, but a sharp-eyed detective noticed the way in which her feet had been bound. Tt appears that in different parts of China they have—or rather, had—different ways of binding the feet. Anyone] forailiar with these ways. can tell) on examination where the foot. tthe detective happened to be one of the men who. knew these From inspecting the that. the woman eae from Shantung.
It-was natural to make inquiries at-all the houses whose backs were: on to the vacant lot, All save one were occupied by Chinese of the poorer class. The house which was not occupied was one of three mgarest the pond, and detectives asked questions. about it. How Tong had it been empty? About a request led the detectives to a'stay at home and drudge? Her ae 2 jo Binding.was done. And in this case The dead body as it was found by the police in the pond. hear. More than once she threatened to tell all she knew to the police. The situation became unbearable, Without consulting the wife, the man and the concubine made arrangements to move their house, mat at the last minute she became suspicious. There was a violent quarrel, after which the man decided to murder her. He arranged with two confederates to assist him and together they slew the woman, bound large stones to her body, which they covered with straw and lowered out of the back window into the pond. Next day they left for their new home.
The extreme penalty was decreed gainst the murderer, and various sentences of imprisonment were iciven to his confederates. Justice took its course, But what wonderfal work by the police to trace and arrest the murderer within 48 hours of discovering the body and with no other clue to go on than the dead warman's bound fect! every line of the indigenous culture has gained strength and made tremendous progress under the stimulus of the new culture and the new prosperity which the new civilization of science and industry has made possible. The older arts are revived with a new rigour, and the old civilization of Japan lives again in the new with rejuvenated and enhanced vitality.
And look at what China has achieved in her half a century of vacillation and hesitancy. The old arts are dead and we have not learned to master the new ones, The old social order has become decadent and we are unwilling to. build up a new one. During all these years of inaction, the remnants of the old culture, the old paintings, bronze and porcelain, are leaving the country to swell' the collections of Europe, America and Japan; and the temples and other. architectural monuments of the. past are allowed to go to ruin through meglost and lack of necess (Confined on Page 162) 4
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.