Tone Down a Little: Advice to Cultural Conservatism

Starting from the time the twentieth century embarked on the last ten years of its course, and following a great tumult as of "roaring mountains and raging seas" in the cultural domain, conservatism finally welcomed its age of felicity and bliss. The influence of conservatism, as superficially characterized by the Chinese Traditional Studies Heat (guoxue re), cannot compare with that of the radicalism that was characterized by the Culture Heat. But in scale—as opposed to the scale of other conservative movements in the current century—it is definitely the largest of all such movements. (Chen Lai has furnished some explanations for this situation in "Chinese Traditional Studies—Hard-Pressed in the 1990s"; see issue no. 5 [sic], 1995, of Dongfang.) There have been people rooting for it everywhere, from foreign countries to the Chinese mainland, and from official quarters to academic circles. Yet, in the final analysis, what future does it have? This is a question that people are not necessarily clear about,...