Translingual Travel: The Discourse Practice of Cultural Hegemony.
Dai Xun
Since the early nineties of the last century, post-colonialism theories have been exerting their
influences in China. In the eyes of some of our Chinese people, these theories are further evidence
of cultural hegemony, which is the western colonization of the developing countries, including
China, in the form of western cultures. They prevailed in the whole decade of the nineties and
dominated the field of literature study in mainland China. It has, thus, become a significant clue in
interpreting the culture, popular thoughts and literary study in that period, which challenges
serious meditation and scrutiny.
What is cultural hegemony in our opinion anyway? It is defined in one of the most popular
dailies in China, Guangming Daily, as “the promotion of material lifestyles, world outlooks and
values of the western countries as a universal practice to earn domination in cultural affairs. The
primary premise in the rise of cultural hegemony is the advantages and control western countries
enjoy over science, technology and information.”
This is a rather representative concept which differs from the broader definition of Foucault’s
and Gramsci’s. By cultural hegemony we mean exactly the hegemony of the West. To fight against
cultural hegemony is not just against the oppression of non-western cultures, but an ideological
struggle against the colonialism of the West. To call the cultural input in the past a missionary
cultural hegemony is a marked non-academic value judgment with distinct characteristics of the
Mao zedong discourse in the sixties and seventies. By doing so, we enter the field of international
political struggle from the perspective of cultural studies, incorporating literary studies with
politics and ideology, and falling again, deliberately or otherwise, into the outmoded convention
that literary and artistic creation should serve the political.
Hence, what can we resort to to challenge attacks of the western culture? Certainly not by
modern Chinese culture influenced by the West, but by the ancient traditional Chinese culture.
From Gramsci's point of view, cultural hegemony is based on two equally important
premises: economic domination and intellectual and moral leadership. Judging from the relation
between the West and the East, both conditions can be met satisfactorily in the West and thus a
cultural hegemony over oriental cultures has eventually been established. Yet, is it sufficient to
challenge the universality of the western culture? Is it sufficient to prove that the spread of western
culture is the cultural invasion and colonization of imperialism? Admittedly, there is no inevitable
causal relation between the possible hegemony tendency and the universal and truthful content of
the culture. It is not desirable in this matter to confuse these two issues at different levels.
Logically, it still remains to be further speculated in theory whether it is the truthful content that
leads to hegemony, which is interpreted in a neutral term as leadership, or the other way around.
Gramsci also claims that the establishment of hegemony is not always achieved through
peaceful approaches. Rather, it is always connected with violent and compulsory actions.
Assuming that was the case in the half-colonialist and half-feudalist China, it is no longer a
convincing explanation when western culture swept into China in storms after the conduct of the
opening up and reform policy. But our critics in post-colonialism refuse to launch a debate on this
issue as if it was a self-evident truth. They immediately appealed to localization through reflection
on modernity so as to construct a Chinese discourse rooted in the local ancient culture.
Reflection on modernity constitutes a vital part of our fight against western cultural hegemony.
It is essential and beyond reproach to conduct a comprehensive academic summation of the course
of modernization and hence the historic progress made in China in the past one hundred years,
including that of her literary modernization. Our so-called reflection on modernity, however, tends
to deny the practice of westernization in the name of opposing modernity without distinction and
in too general terms.
Some scholars argue that China should give up the dream of a western style development, and
turn to devote her attention to the spread and transformation of the national characteristics and
unique civilization. We would like to generalize this tendency as a transformation from modernity
to Chinese nationality and take it as the most outstanding change in the cultural affairs in China
since the 90’s. It is a concept that has much influence in Chinese literary studies and ideological
trends.
One radical scholar in mainland China has noticed the consequence. He believes that the
conflict in cultural affairs between different countries tend to get more intense rather than
subsiding, with their confrontation more noticeable rather than fading. They have, therefore, come
to the conclusion that the role played by foreign literary studies in China is one of colonial
literature or colonial culture.
The author also suggests at the end of the article that we ought to take the initiative and play
an active role in the expected worldwide cultural war or cultural confrontation. It is not difficult to
get the point that not only the West, but also the Chinese elite dedicated to the study of western
culture are caught in the thinking mode of “suppression and resistance”.
Generally speaking, some scholars in our country have followed the inflexible pattern of east
versus west duality opposition. They start with the power relations in the intellectual world and go
on to attack western cultural hegemony fiercely, without any specific analysis. They condemn the
westernization in culture and ideology in the developing countries, question the values and mode
of modernization of the West and then proceed to reject the process toward modernization as the
result of cultural colonization of the West. Its demonstration in theoretical discourse, the central
area of literature study, is the endeavor , through rejection and elimination of western discourse, to
reconstruct a local discourse system from the inherited Chinese tradition, so as to fight against the
western discourse hegemony and win over the control in discourse in the literary cultural
exchange. Seen from a broader perspective, it is a remarkable characteristic in ideology and
culture in mainland China in the 90s. It undoubtedly reflected the mainstream in studies with an
essence to reject western culture straightforwardly. A great anti-west stream of culture separation
has thus been formed, leading to substantial anxiety and general concern of news media home and
abroad.
We can’t help wondering why we are so fond of such stuff. Post-colonialism is an ideological
theory in a broad sense, the crux of which is a political discourse. Chinese literary criticism has
the long tradition of emphasis on virtues and didacticism, which joins a highly ideological motto
that literature and art should serve the propaganda. These two patterns of criticism share some
resemblance in its very essence as a political discourse, which makes it easier for us to get into the
post-cold-war thoughts of regarding literature and culture as the embodiment of international
ideological struggle, and for the post-colonialists in China to find a link between the official
mainstream and non-governmental nationalism. It is this very familiarity to, and intimate feeling
toward, the anti-imperialism theory that caters to the popular rebellious consciousness of most
Chinese, and quickly spread all over the country, because nationalism is the major thought going
through the whole of modern China.
The reality goes even further. As China has long been in the position of a poor, vulnerable, and
accordingly, a border nation in international relations, the inclination to nationalism has always
been strong. No matter how many thoughts and –isms we have adopted, nationalism is always the
underlying factor of the mainstream in Chinese academia, and the pushing factor to parochial
nationalism and unchecked opposition to everything foreign.
Nationalism in China in the last 100 years usually appears in two completely different forms of
either westernization or tradition. What is hard to understand is the mind of the modern Chinese
intellectuals in their intense anti-tradition or westernization struggles to build a powerful and
prosperous China. Subsequently, those advocating westernization had always found themselves in
unfavorable positions in ideological discourse while those promoting a return to ancient traditions
enjoy a predominant place, as they more often than not prefer to cherish the memory of the glories
of our ancestors.
With the rapid economic development, this trend is increasingly strengthened. Together with the
continuing post-cold-war thoughts, the westernization in mainland China in the early 90’s was
totally defeated, and the once suppressed tendency towards nationalism quickly moved into the
vacuum. So it prospers when the post-colonialist theories entered China and were received eagerly
as theoretical support for the deep-rooted nationalism.
The fatal defect of our post colonialism lies in the fact that it is emotional and sentimental rather
than rational and reasonable, and that it enables Chinese intellectuals to pour out their
long-deposited passion for nationalism. The stereotypes inherited from the highly ideologized
opposition between China and the West, imperialism and anti-imperialism, invasion and
anti-invasion, hegemony and anti-hegemony defined international cultural exchange as an
incompatible class struggle , which is very much similar to the criticism of the imperialist culture
invasion in the field of ideology when the Mao Zedong era prevailed.
It puts Chinese nationality in the opposition of modernization, rejects anything from the west, and
replaces the objective truth with the concept of power in the intellectual field. In their view,
everything embodies the struggle between China and the West, etc. Between truth and power,
which is a theoretical drawback the post-colonialism cannot overcome, as there is no theory that
can thoroughly eliminate the objectivity and justness of knowledge. This is the fact that makes it
hard to justify itself logically.
My address:
Dai Xun
Chinese Department
Southwest Normal University
Chongqing, 400715
China
E-mail: daixun@swnu.edu.cn