China's troubled culture

Abstract

China has spent the twentieth century at repeated efforts, in Ezra Pound's phrase, to “make it new.” But it has repeatedly fallen back on tightly controlled political power and organization as the only means it knows—in the process always discouraging individual initiative and forestalling free expression of ideas, qualities perceived by those in power as twin threats to the order of the state. The use of military force against Chinese citizens on 4 June 1989 is only the most recent example that China has seldom allowed itself to experience the creative chaos that might arise from a true “hundred flowers” era, a protected arena of competing voices. This, at least, is the theme that tugs at the cuff of each of the books grouped here—two cultural studies, three memoirs, and a manifesto.