A Visual History of Contemporary Thought

Speech at "Black and White" Sharing Session" by Guo Songmin

I'm very grateful to Teacher Liu Jiming and the host for their invitation. I've had this novel for quite some time, and after reading it, I feel there's much to say.

For many years, I've been pondering a question. In 19th century Europe, when capitalism was rapidly developing, critical realist literature flourished. China's post-50s and 60s generations were greatly influenced by this period's literature. Many intellectuals from the "educated youth" background, when recalling their intellectual journey, would mention famous works from this period, such as "The Red and the Black."

"The Red and the Black" had a significant impact on the entire post-50s generation's spiritual world and became a tool for understanding society. Readers naturally ask, "What if Julien Sorel had joined the revolution?" In fact, among the intellectuals who flocked to Yan'an, there were many Julien-like figures who showed their true colors again in the 1980s, claiming to be "true at both ends," like the "old men's group" that once ruled behind the scenes at the old Yanhuang Chunqiu magazine.

19th century critical realist literature produced many influential works, such as "Madame Bovary," Balzac's "Human Comedy" series including familiar works like "Father Goriot" and "Eugenie Grandet," English writer Dickens' "Oliver Twist," as well as "Vanity Fair," "Jane Eyre," "Wuthering Heights," Russian Gogol's "Dead Souls" and "The Government Inspector," Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment," American "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and so on. These novels enormously influenced Chinese people born in the 50s and 60s.

We know that in the 18th and 19th centuries, capitalism in Europe and America began entering a phase of major development, bringing many cruel social phenomena: hunger, poverty, polarization, sacrificing morality for money, and so on. These novels represented the conscience of society by critiquing social reality while also serving as historical records. To understand how capitalism evolved, reading textbooks alone is insufficient as they only provide abstract, conceptualized content. Only by reading these novels can we gain a vivid, concrete understanding of that era and capitalist reality.

Those familiar with history know that Chairman Mao recommended "Dream of the Red Chamber" to many senior officials, saying that without reading it, one cannot understand feudal society. How did people actually live in feudal society? What were interpersonal relationships like? How were relationships between masters and servants handled? Only monumental works like "Dream of the Red Chamber" can provide vivid, concrete impressions.

After the founding of New China, following the principles of socialist realism, many famous works were created, like "The Builders," "Sunny Days," and "Golden Road."

Regrettably, after the 1980s, the tradition of realism was interrupted. We all know that after the 1980s, China entered a stage of rapid differentiation. On one hand, some people became wealthy overnight through state-owned enterprise reforms; on the other hand, more people began losing their original social security. China's state-owned enterprise working class rapidly declined. China's Gini coefficient was once very high, various corruption phenomena appeared, organized crime emerged from nothing, and ugly phenomena like prostitution and drug abuse reappeared... In short, Chinese society underwent dramatic changes, beginning a historical process similar to 19th century Europe and America. Unfortunately, I haven't seen works comparable to 19th century critical realist novels emerge. This is a huge void and a disgrace to China's literary circles.

During this period, China's mainstream literary elites were unconcerned with Chinese social reality. For example, Nobel Prize winner Mo Yan's works mainly point to Chinese culture and revolutionary traditions. His novels are constructed according to Western imagination of China. I believe the Chinese society depicted in Mo Yan's novels doesn't exist in either history or reality. These mainstream literary elites' purpose was to cater to colonialist discourse and gain Western recognition, which is why Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize.

Times of dramatic change call for works that deeply reflect reality. But such works haven't appeared, largely due to the overall colonization of China's literary circles. In short, China's literary circles treated the post-80s reality similar to 19th century Europe's "Oliver Twist" or "Les Misérables" as a kind of "progress." They believed what needed criticism was China's own traditions, especially China's revolutionary traditions. Zhang Yimou turned Yu Hua's novel into the film "To Live," and Chen Kaige's "Farewell My Concubine" was also adapted from a novel. Such works presented the entire process of Chinese revolution, socialist revolution and socialist construction as a continuous decline from a golden age to a silver age to a bronze age, and finally to an iron age, so their works objectively defended "19th century social reality."

Having said all this, I want to point out that "Black and White" actually fills a void in Chinese literature and redeems the face of China's literary circles! To understand how we've traveled these forty years, looking at history textbooks or so-called reformists' memoirs alone isn't enough—you might get some wrong concepts. But reading "Black and White" provides a vivid, concrete (historical) picture. Just as we read "Dream of the Red Chamber" to understand feudal society, 19th century critical realist novels to understand capitalist development, and socialist realist works to understand New China's construction, "Black and White" is essential reading for understanding the reform and opening up.

"Black and White" is remarkably grand, portraying many characters. Since I only have 10 minutes for today's sharing, which I've probably already exceeded, I can't mention all these characters individually. Here, I'll share my reading experience using Wang Sheng as an example. Wang Sheng was born in the 60s, as was I, and I see my reflection in him.

In the "Black and White" trilogy, Wang Sheng basically experiences a process of "left," "right," and "left"—broadly speaking, an early "red period," then entering a "blue period," and finally returning to a "red period." Wang Sheng's thinking underwent these three changes, as did mine. Generally speaking, we 60s-born people all have deep red memories from our early years. This imprint was created by the era, influenced by films like "Heroic Sons and Daughters," socialist realist works mentioned earlier, and heroes like Lei Feng, Wang Jie, Dong Cunrui, and Huang Jiguang. So our background color is red. However, the era actually created this redness, and ideas were instilled in us from outside, without having gone through a real ideological confrontation, so it wasn't stable. By the 1980s, when China finally broke through America and the West's encirclement, America had to abandon its containment of China and begin contact from the early 1970s—the colorful Western consumer society suddenly opened before us. This formed a stark contrast with China's early industrial society that had just experienced a "forced historical march" (completing industrialization through high accumulation and low consumption) with its frugal, simple, even shabby social appearance. We discovered that blue-collar workers in Britain and America all had cars and lived in house-like villas. Today's post-00s generation can hardly imagine the shock that Western consumer society gave to the post-50s and 60s generations, because today we've also built an even more extravagant consumer society. So the entire society, the entire intellectual community, and a whole generation of young people began entering a blue period, accepting a set of liberal discourse.

Wang Sheng's name was originally Wang Cheng, from "Heroic Sons and Daughters," but his college classmates ridiculed him and couldn't bear it, so he changed it to Wang Sheng. Throughout the 80s and 90s, many among the post-60s generation treated the revolutionary era and socialist era with mockery, parody, and deconstruction, while beginning to accept liberal historical narratives like market economy, privatization, democratic politics, and so on.

When did changes begin to appear? In the 90s. What happened in the 90s? We know major events occurred in the late 80s, followed by Deng Xiaoping's Southern Tour in the early 90s, after which the complete logic of the market economy rapidly unfolded before us. Before that, we had a very romantic imagination of the market economy, believing it would bring an equal, democratic, free society, leading us into an Eden or a utopian world. But when the logic of capitalist globalization actually unfolded before us, we discovered it contained so many things we couldn't accept. Furthermore, after the Soviet Union's collapse, the West again turned to containing China—these changes reawakened our early red memories, just like the transformation Wang Sheng experienced.

From the late 90s to the early new century, we again entered a "red period." This red period was different from our first one. We had experienced thinking, debates, and confrontations with neoliberalism, experienced the baptism of the market economy, and experienced the baptism of changing international situations... On this basis, we regained identification with Marxism, socialism, and Chairman Mao's series of explorations in his later years. This identification was built on a more profound and solid foundation, so it was more stable. In "Black and White," the mental journey of a generation is vividly and authentically represented through a character like Wang Sheng.

Therefore, if a reader wants to understand Chinese intellectual history since the 1980s and how the post-50s and 60s generations traveled this path and how they thought, they should read "Black and White." "Black and White" is a visual history of contemporary thought. Without understanding intellectual history, we don't know where we came from and cannot know where we're going. As time passes, the significance of this novel will become increasingly prominent, not only in literary value but also in intellectual value. I look forward to it being adapted into films and TV series soon, which will be refreshing and provoke profound thinking about this era.