Literary Standards

Author: Liu Jiming

I have always been willing to listen attentively to criticism that starts from works themselves and is rich in insight, even harsh fault-finding. For topics within such criticism that have analytical value, I am also willing to conduct further exploration. For instance, regarding my novel "Human境" [note:境 means realm/境界], some have questioned whether it is overly rational, believing that character development doesn't come from the logic of growth itself but from submission to concepts. Others believe that "Human境" didn't sufficiently portray people's hidden experiences in historical crevices, and so forth. These viewpoints should be said to be not unfamiliar—they have been quite popular in literary circles and have long been frequently mentioned by many critics, seemingly becoming standards for measuring all works. Lu Yao and Cao Zhenglu once received similar accusations. This makes me think: what standards should we actually uphold when evaluating a literary work?

The topic of standards is too vast, exceeding evaluation of any specific work, to the extent that I feel it necessary to write a dedicated article for discussion.

So-called literary standards don't refer to literature's basic principles—principles might remain unchanged, but standards for evaluating and measuring literature differ according to different eras and different peoples. Within the same social community, different literary creations exist, and different evaluative standards also exist. Before the 1980s, our literature adhered to "political standards first, artistic standards second." With the arrival of the "New Period" of ideological liberation [note: referring to post-Cultural Revolution era], this binary standard was quickly abolished as rigid dogma that violated literary and artistic laws and suppressed creative freedom. This was certainly historical progress. The diversification of social life inevitably brings diversification of literature and art, including evaluative standards for literary works, which should also be diversified. For a period, Chinese literature indeed presented a situation of thousands of sails competing, countless flowers blooming, and multiple coexistence. But this situation didn't last long. As the once-marginalized avant-garde gradually gained discourse power in the name of "pure literature," their aesthetic tastes and rules gradually became standards for all literature. They authoritatively announced what kind of literature was old and outdated, what kind was new and possessed worldliness.

Under the call of new tastes and standards, many people's writing became a kind of language exercise and imagination competition game unrelated to social reality and historical rationality. Writers showed extraordinary interest in ugliness, selfishness, darkness, vulgarity, and even pathology in human nature, wishing they could examine it with microscopes. It seemed that as long as one wrote that so-called "hidden experience," it was good and high-level work; conversely, it was bad, crude, second-rate, and not mainstream work lacking literariness. As for those so-called grand narratives that attempted to place history and real life within some holistic vision for observation and tried to reveal the essence of history and times, they were even more sneered at and disdained.

Of course, "pure literature" writers also wrote "grand narratives," but under their pens, social development was irrational, accidental, and mysterious, and individuals in history and reality were all groups of sensory organs without any rationality. "Pure literature" critics often had special affection for such works, believing they truly wrote real history and human nature. If certain works' historical views and value systems contradicted theirs, they would take out rulers to measure works left and right until relegating them to waste piles. If a work's historical and value views were consistent with theirs, then stench became fragrance, weeds became flowers, and shortcomings became advantages. That is to say, behind their proclaimed so-called "artistic standards first," they still practiced "political standards first, artistic standards second"—just under the banner of "pure literature."

In current literary circles, this has become a kind of aesthetic and political collective unconscious, forming an inviolably sacred alliance through the coordination of institutions, markets, and media. People don't say it aloud or write it down—it's just tacit understanding and implicit comprehension. This is also the fundamental reason some have pointed out that China's literary world no longer has disputes over viewpoints and thoughts, only struggles over fame and profit. This is a more terrifying "formation of nothingness" than Lu Xun's era. When this abnormality becomes the new normal, what's damaged is not just literature but entire society and people's spiritual and even moral conditions.

This year's Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to American folk poet Bob Dylan. For American politics and mainstream culture, Bob Dylan is an untimely heretic who was once long under surveillance as a "communist fellow traveler." But certain Chinese avant-garde and "pure literature" critics only see Dylan's 1960s "Beat Generation" and bohemian avant-garde artistic posture while being evasive about and blind to his dissenting and marginal political stance. This is obviously selective blindness and silence.

At the beginning of the "New Period," the avant-garde as heretical force was once squeezed and excluded. Relative to the mainstream ideology and literary world then, they were pioneers who dared break artistic conventions and ideological prejudices—a growing, liberating force. Today, however, when they've transformed into orthodox identities and face literature with unquestionable tones, constantly presenting various authoritative standards, they constitute another kind of conservative and repressive force toward new era's margins and heresies. Margins and mainstream have thus undergone wonderful displacement. For those former heretics, is this ultimately reward or irony?

There's no need to hide that as a writer, I also have my own value stance, quite possibly contrary to certain "pure literature" writers and critics' positions. These have consistently run through all my creations to date and become important reasons I continue writing—I don't want to avoid this at all. Actually, whether "avant-garde" or "pure literature," these are just borrowed labels for conversational convenience, unable to encompass the complexity within contemporary Chinese writers and critics' communities.

Literature certainly needs evaluative standards, but these standards aren't unique and unchanging, nor should they be first formulated by a small number of people then forced on others like composition grading standards as uniform formulas. Rather, they should continuously generate, continuously improve, and continuously be broadened by new literary practice in living literary practice. Even less should they involve certain heresies being incorporated into new orthodoxy and order then turning around to suppress and exclude new heresies.

Literary standards' formulation and updating is a dynamic process that should constitute benign interactive relationships with the era and society they inhabit. But if social values become hollow, losing clear direction, and cynicism prevails among intellectuals, we can hardly expect literary ecology to be much better. Standards bred by severely deteriorated literary systems even bound by interests are inevitably bad and suspicious.

In the 1980s and 1990s, when the socialist camp encountered crisis globally, Fukuyama impatiently announced that history had ended. But several years ago, facing new global political-economic changes, he stood up again to correct his earlier judgment, claiming history hadn't ended. Relative to many Chinese intellectual elites immersed in historical end theory illusions unable to extricate themselves, Fukuyama's courage to correct himself is undoubtedly respectable.

History's dialectics tell us that any era's popular politics and aesthetics cannot be "final judgment." When eras are driven by some mysterious will, wave after wave, intentionally or unintentionally obscuring, rewriting, or deleting history's logic, untimely writing will still penetrate through gaps in various strong and popular discourse networks, carrying a generation's painful experiences and contemplation, making powerful corrections to the era's cultural appearance. Regardless of how good people are at forgetting or rejecting, historical and personal true knowledge will revive in some surprising ways and stubbornly participate in constructing contemporary history and contemporary literature. This doesn't depend on human will. Therefore, literary standards must undergo testing and screening by continuously changing and developing creative practice.

I said in "Human境's" postscript: "Over thirty years have passed. Chinese society has undergone earth-shaking changes, and so has literature. After experiencing the washing of numerous dazzling new terms and new trends, it seems to have returned to the original starting point. No flashy, confusing outer garments can hide literature's internal pallor and crisis. At the beginning of the New Period, we once were fascinated by Nietzsche's famous saying 'revalue all values.' Current Chinese society and its literature seem to face new rounds of departure and new rounds of release again."

That great discussion "practice is the sole criterion for testing truth" once opened a "New Period" full of creative vitality. Now, can we also say that social and creative practice is the sole standard for testing literary standards?