Chinese Intellectuals' Notion of "Epoch" (Shidai) in the Post-May Fourth Era

Abstract

China's entry into the world has been protracted and tortuous. The process is not completed even in our time. The century-long revolutionary transformation in China's recent history readily testifies to the dead weight of a tradition to be overcome. However, equally forceful has been the Chinese intelligentsia's obsession with the notion of modernity in the last century and a half. Step by step, the Confucian ideological commitment to a paradigmatic antiquity was liquidated in the post-Opium War era. For the first time in the Chinese consciousness, the modern came into its own in a most compelling manner, eventually replacing the mystical antiquity as the ultimate authority to be evoked as guidance for action.