|
Abstract As the father of post-modernity, Nietzsche's philosophy contains double ambiguousness of Enlightenment and anti-Enlightenment, which constructs the dialectics of anti-Enlightenment. The Enlightenment thought of Lu Xun was deeply influenced by Nietzsche's philosophy and also attached with anti-Enlightenment element. Lu Xun advocated the noble radical individualism, anti-slavery ethics, and anti-model as well as anti-tradition spirits. Lu Xun also admired the ″rise above the common herd″ fortitude of Nietzsche's philosophy. However, there is a significant difference between Lu Xun and Nietzsche. Nietzsche's philosophy upholds the life philosophy consisting of absolute individualism and will of power, which, in essence, opposes politics and nation. Instead, Lu Xun adopted Nietzsche's life philosophy as Enlightenment theory, using ″building human dignity″ to establish the ″country of people″. In this way, Lu Xun's thought inevitably causes tensions between individualism and nationalism, and between life philosophy and enlightenment. Lu Xun's thought which mixs enlightenment with anti-enlightenment, modernity and post-modernity is meshed into profound paradox: On the one hand, people need ″Superman″ to enlighten; on the other hand, the emergence of ″superman″ exclude the mass people. The paradox of Nietzschean ″anti-Enlightenment Enlightenment″ individualism of Lu Xun stems from the tension between his conflicting roles as critics of civilization and enlightener. Nietzsche's superman philosophy was a powerful weapon to China where Enlightenment Movement was seeking individual liberation. But after all, it is a post-modern critical theory. ″Superman″ is a detoxicant of slavery tradition, and contains profound critical value to improve nationality. However, ″Superman″ is aesthetic utopia rather than the model of modern citizens, which lacks practical and constructive value to foster human dignity. It is the profound paradox of Nietzschean individualism Enlightenment of Lu Xun, and also leads to Lu Xun's confusion and alienation from Nietzsche after May Fourth Movement. Because of the disillusion onNietzschean noble individualism, Lu Xun's though shift from the radicalism on Nietzschean power thought to radical Marx's wealth thought (anti-capitalist private ownership), from admiring ″superman″ to upholding ″proletarians″. From Nietzsche to Marx, the transition of Lu Xun's thought is attributed to the common ground shared by Nietzsche and Marx which is they were both critics of modernity. The communism of Marx and the individualism of Nietzsche provide two remedial proposals to correct modernity. Nietzschean's ″Superman″ is vague aesthetic utopia, whereas Marx's ″proletarians″ has the real power to reshape world. Lu Xun is a critics of modernity, he criticized the Capitalism ″19th century civilization″ full of problems and looked forward to the 20th century new civilization. When Nietzsche's Individualism of Lu Xun disillusioned, the Communism of Marxism provided an alternative new vision of human liberation.
|
|
|
|
|
|
