Abstract The gentlemen and literati possessing a sense of superiority and calling themselves ″the special intellectual class″ were excluded from intellectuals by Lu Xun. Lu Xuns criticism of the School of Modern Review was targeted at the soul of traditional scholarofficials in suit. That is, they were still acting the roles of traditional literary hangerson. In Lu Xuns eyes, real intellectuals defied authority and voiced the ideas of the common people. They were outspoken and ready to sacrifice themselves, disregarding personal gains and losses. The real intellectuals heart and body would suffer. Being the conscience of society and the carrier of social responsibility, they could never have a peace of mind. However, they would not have suffered if they had settled with the status quo, or if they had turned a deaf ear to new theories or on the contrary developed a blind faith in them.The affliction they suffered stemmed from their independent thinking and dissatisfaction with the reality. Real intellectuals dared to think and dared to act;otherwise,they were fake intellectuals. Nevertheless, Lu Xun found two drawbacks with intellectuals: one is their disconnection from the general public, and the other is their delay of action due to too much freedom in thinking. Lu Xun really doubted that ″literate classes could survive″ though he kept calling on the real and robust literate classes. Lu Xun thought that only weak intellectuals would be afraid of new ideas and he excluded all the fake intellectuals from his talk. This shows Lu Xuns conflicted attitude toward intellectuals. Basically, he acknowledged the real intellectuals and never went to the extreme of overthrowing all of them. Being an intellectual himself, Lu Xun supported the real intellectuals with sympathy and understanding, and argued against the presumptuous views of overthrowing all intellectuals. This paper takes a fresh historical perspective in order to sort out the valuable propositions and key words in the disputes. It also attempts to interpret the debate between Lu Xun and other schools advocating liberalism, like Modern Review and the New Moon School by closely at the following key words: special intellectual class, fake intellectuals, intellectual bandits (xuefei), and real intellectuals. Some of the most important issues which Lu Xun meditated on after The New Youth Movement included the way out for Chinese intellectuals, the cultural personality of modern Chinese intellectuals and their way of life.
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