Interpreting “liberty”: an analysis of the history of ideas

Abstract

The goal of the current paper is to analyze “liberty” in the context of the history of ideas, in order to delineate the historical and cultural transformation it embodies. This paper attempts to demonstrate that modern Chinese perceptions of “ziyou” (freedom or liberty) cannot be separated from the “West” as the “other,” because the modern use of the term originated with the arrival of the West, and it was the evolution of Western history that bestowed values on “ziyou.” The word is also politicized and it tends to provide an interpretive framework for the State, society and the individual. In the meantime, liberalism, which is very relevant to “liberty,” has also become an indispensable component in the analysis of the history of ideas. As a matter of fact, because of the highlighting of its negative connotations by conservative Chinese and Japanese intellectuals, “liberty” could hardly be extolled as an “ism,” while a variety of “isms” prevailed, as, for example “statism” and “nationalism,” which were prioritized during the late Qing. During the May Fourth period, the divisions within the West, particularly the bankruptcy of bourgeois civilization, also resulted in the decline and fall of “liberty” and “liberalism.”