The Irrationalistic View of Aesthetic Freedom and the Philosophical Sources of Social Discontent of Liu Xiaobo

Issues and Studies

Volumn 32, Issue 1, 1996, Pages 89-119

  Gu, Edward X ^a  

^a LEIDEN UNIVERSITY   (Netherlands)

Author keywords

Antitraditionalism; Existentialism; Humanity; Irrationalism; Sensuousness and reason; Westernization

Indexed keywords

EID: 1842508051     PISSN: 10132511     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (116)

1. The adjective "Chinese" used in the article only refers to the "mainland Chinese."
2. Liu Xiaobo, Mori shengcunzhe de dubai: Guanyu wo he Liusi (The monologue of a survivor in the doomsday: The June 4th incident and me) (Taipei: Shibao wenhua chuban gongsi, 1992), 26.
3. See Bernard Yack, The Longing for Total Revolution: Philosophic Sources of Social Discontent from Rousseau to Marx and Nietzsche (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992).
4. This point is clearly reflected in a memoir of the movement by Shen Tong, Almost a Revolution (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990). Shen Tong was a student leader from Beijing University. For a critical reflection on the term "revolution," which acquired sacred properties during the movement, see Liu Xiaobo, "That Holy Word, 'Revolution'," in Popular Protest and Political Culture in Modern China, ed. Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom and Elizabeth J. Perry, 2nd edition (Boulder, Colo.: West-view Press, 1994), 309-24.
5. See Geremie Barmé, "Confession, Redemption, and Death: Liu Xiaobo and the Protest Movement of 1989," in The Broken Mirror: China after Tiananmen, ed. George Hicks (Essex and Chicago: Longman Group,. 1990), 52-99. Barme's article presents a comprehensive discussion of Liu's role in the movement, as well as his activities in the field of literary criticism and political comments before 1989. However, it has not dealt with Liu's philosophical and aesthetical arguments in detail. The detailed discussion on Liu's acceptance of Western philosophy can be found in Woei Lien Chong's article, "The Tragic Duality of Man: Liu Xiaobo on Western Philosophy," in China's Modernization: Westernisation and Acculturation, ed. Kurt W. Radtke and Tony Saich (Stuttgart, Germany: Franz Steiner Verlag Stuttgart, 1993), 111-62. This article is interesting, although some of the author's interpretations of Liu's views have to be regarded as highly questionable.
6. See Geremie Barmé, "Confession, Redemption, and Death: Liu Xiaobo and the Protest Movement of 1989," in The Broken Mirror: China after Tiananmen, ed. George Hicks (Essex and Chicago: Longman Group,. 1990), 52-99. Barme's article presents a comprehensive discussion of Liu's role in the movement, as well as his activities in the field of literary criticism and political comments before 1989. However, it has not dealt with Liu's philosophical and aesthetical arguments in detail. The detailed discussion on Liu's acceptance of Western philosophy can be found in Woei Lien Chong's article, "The Tragic Duality of Man: Liu Xiaobo on Western Philosophy," in China's Modernization: Westernisation and Acculturation, ed. Kurt W. Radtke and Tony Saich (Stuttgart, Germany: Franz Steiner Verlag Stuttgart, 1993), 111-62. This article is interesting, although some of the author's interpretations of Liu's views have to be regarded as highly questionable.
7. See Liu Xiaobo, Beiju, shenmei, ziyou (Tragedy, aesthetics, and freedom) (Taipei: Fengyun shidai chuban gongsi, 1989), 5-8.
8. For an update and comprehensive biography of Liu, see Chi Mo, "A Representative of Antitraditionalism: Liu Xiaobo," in Dalu dangdai wenhua mingren pingjuan (Biographies of eminent intellectuals in contemporary mainland China), ed. Helmut Martin and Chi Mo (Taipei: Cheng Chung shuju, 1995), 115-207.
9. The Chinese title is Xuanzede pipan: Yu sixiang lingxiu Li Zehou duihua, originally published by Shanghai renmin chubanshe in 1987. I use the Taipei edition by Fengyun shidai chuban gongsi of 1989, hereafter cited as Selective Critiques.
10. The Chinese title is Shenmei yu ren de ziyou, originally published by Beijing Normal University Press in 1988. It was reprinted in 1989 by a Hong Kong press (Shuguang Publishing Company) in the same title and a Taipei publisher (Fengyun shidai) with a number of articles by others in another title Beiju, shenmei, ziyou. I use the Hong Kong edition, hereafter cited as Aesthetics.
11. The Chinese title is Xingershangxue de miwu, published by Shanghai renmin chubanshe in 1989. This book has a Taipei edition entitled Sixiang zhi mi yu renlei zhi meng (The mystery of thought and the dream of humankind), reprinted by Fengyun shidai in 1992. I use the Taipei edition, but hereafter abbreviate it as The Fog.
12. See Barmé, "Confession, Redemption, and Death," 62-63.
13. Quoted in ibid., 64.
14. Liu and Fang Lizhi, a famous Chinese dissident astrophysicist, were denounced by official propaganda as "proponents of national nihilism, national betrayal, and wholesale Westernization," which was taken as the intellectual elements for being conducive to the formation of the so-called micro-environment or climate of the April-June protest movement. See "How to Perceive the 'Micro-Environment'?" Liaowang zhoukan (Outlook Weekly), September 10, 1989. Liu was also identified as a "cultural nihilist" by his theoretical rival, He Xin, a pro-government intellectual and a "cultural conservative," before and after the June 4th incident. See He Xin, "A Word of Advice to the Politburo," The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, no. 23 (January 1990): 49-64, translated and introduced by Geremie Barmé. Putting the political and ideological attacks aside, the label of "cultural nihilism," in a sense, is suitable to Liu. For Fang Lizhi's political ideas, the best discussion I know of is Christopher Buckley, "Science as Politics and Politics as Science: Fang Lizhi and Chinese Intellectuals' Uncertain Road to Dissent," ibid., no. 25 (January 1991): 1-36. For a discussion of He Xin's political positions, see Shiping Hua, "One Servant, Two Masters: The Dilemma of Chinese Establishment Intellectuals," Modern China 20, no. 1 (January 1994): 92-121.
15. Liu and Fang Lizhi, a famous Chinese dissident astrophysicist, were denounced by official propaganda as "proponents of national nihilism, national betrayal, and wholesale Westernization," which was taken as the intellectual elements for being conducive to the formation of the so-called micro-environment or climate of the April-June protest movement. See "How to Perceive the 'Micro-Environment'?" Liaowang zhoukan (Outlook Weekly), September 10, 1989. Liu was also identified as a "cultural nihilist" by his theoretical rival, He Xin, a pro-government intellectual and a "cultural conservative," before and after the June 4th incident. See He Xin, "A Word of Advice to the Politburo," The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, no. 23 (January 1990): 49-64, translated and introduced by Geremie Barmé. Putting the political and ideological attacks aside, the label of "cultural nihilism," in a sense, is suitable to Liu. For Fang Lizhi's political ideas, the best discussion I know of is Christopher Buckley, "Science as Politics and Politics as Science: Fang Lizhi and Chinese Intellectuals' Uncertain Road to Dissent," ibid., no. 25 (January 1991): 1-36. For a discussion of He Xin's political positions, see Shiping Hua, "One Servant, Two Masters: The Dilemma of Chinese Establishment Intellectuals," Modern China 20, no. 1 (January 1994): 92-121.
16. Liu and Fang Lizhi, a famous Chinese dissident astrophysicist, were denounced by official propaganda as "proponents of national nihilism, national betrayal, and wholesale Westernization," which was taken as the intellectual elements for being conducive to the formation of the so-called micro-environment or climate of the April-June protest movement. See "How to Perceive the 'Micro-Environment'?" Liaowang zhoukan (Outlook Weekly), September 10, 1989. Liu was also identified as a "cultural nihilist" by his theoretical rival, He Xin, a pro-government intellectual and a "cultural conservative," before and after the June 4th incident. See He Xin, "A Word of Advice to the Politburo," The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, no. 23 (January 1990): 49-64, translated and introduced by Geremie Barmé. Putting the political and ideological attacks aside, the label of "cultural nihilism," in a sense, is suitable to Liu. For Fang Lizhi's political ideas, the best discussion I know of is Christopher Buckley, "Science as Politics and Politics as Science: Fang Lizhi and Chinese Intellectuals' Uncertain Road to Dissent," ibid., no. 25 (January 1991): 1-36. For a discussion of He Xin's political positions, see Shiping Hua, "One Servant, Two Masters: The Dilemma of Chinese Establishment Intellectuals," Modern China 20, no. 1 (January 1994): 92-121.
17. Liu and Fang Lizhi, a famous Chinese dissident astrophysicist, were denounced by official propaganda as "proponents of national nihilism, national betrayal, and wholesale Westernization," which was taken as the intellectual elements for being conducive to the formation of the so-called micro-environment or climate of the April-June protest movement. See "How to Perceive the 'Micro-Environment'?" Liaowang zhoukan (Outlook Weekly), September 10, 1989. Liu was also identified as a "cultural nihilist" by his theoretical rival, He Xin, a pro-government intellectual and a "cultural conservative," before and after the June 4th incident. See He Xin, "A Word of Advice to the Politburo," The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, no. 23 (January 1990): 49-64, translated and introduced by Geremie Barmé. Putting the political and ideological attacks aside, the label of "cultural nihilism," in a sense, is suitable to Liu. For Fang Lizhi's political ideas, the best discussion I know of is Christopher Buckley, "Science as Politics and Politics as Science: Fang Lizhi and Chinese Intellectuals' Uncertain Road to Dissent," ibid., no. 25 (January 1991): 1-36. For a discussion of He Xin's political positions, see Shiping Hua, "One Servant, Two Masters: The Dilemma of Chinese Establishment Intellectuals," Modern China 20, no. 1 (January 1994): 92-121.
18. Barmé, "Confession, Redemption, and Death," 53.
19. See Chong, "The Tragic Duality of Man," 120.
20. See Gu Xin, "The Marxist Concept of Totality and Two Chinese Paths to Aesthetic Freedom," The Journal of Oriental Society of Australia 25 & 26 (1993-94): 70-108.
21. The dichotomy of reason versus sensuousness as a fundamentally philosophical category can even be traced back to pre-Kant German philosophers. In Baumgartens' writings, aesthetics is characteristic of the opposition to the predominance of reason: "... not reason but sensuousness [Sinnlichkeit] is constitutive of aesthetic truth, aesthetics can represent as true, even if reason rejects it as true." And Kant stated in his lectures on anthropology: "... one can establish universal laws of understanding; i.e., there is a science of sensuousness, namely, aesthetics, and a science of understanding, namely, logic." See Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization (Boston: The Beacon Press, 1955), 133. In Kant's thinking, the realm of reason can be divided into two parts: the realm of understanding in epistemology and that of practical reason in ethics.
22. Liu, Selective Critiques, 22.
23. The Chinese translations of the philosophical terms "sensuousness" and "Sense" are both "ganxing." In the Western literature of contemporary Chinese history of ideas, however, there is a great confusion over how to translate "ganxing." For example, when they deal with the philosophical ideas of Li Zehou and Liu Xiaobo, Lin Min and Woei Lien Chong respectively translate "ganxing" into "sensibility" and "feeling." See Lin Min, "The Search for Modernity: Chinese Intellectual Discourse and Society, 1978-88: The Case of Li Zehou," The China Quarterly, no. 132 (December 1992): 991; and Chong, "The Tragic Duality of Man," 119-24. In my opinion, when "ganxing" is used as the opposite of "lixing," the most accurate English translation should be "sensuousness." As for the implications of the term "sensuousness," Herbert Marcuse gives an account: "In German, sensuousness and sensuality are still rendered by one and the same term: Sinnlichkeit. It connotes instinctual (especially sexual) gratification as well as cognitive sense-perceptiveness and representation (sensation). This double connotation is preserved in every-day [sic] as well as philosophical language, and is retained in the use of the term Sinnlichkeit for the foundation of aesthetics." See Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, 133.
24. The Chinese translations of the philosophical terms "sensuousness" and "Sense" are both "ganxing." In the Western literature of contemporary Chinese history of ideas, however, there is a great confusion over how to translate "ganxing." For example, when they deal with the philosophical ideas of Li Zehou and Liu Xiaobo, Lin Min and Woei Lien Chong respectively translate "ganxing" into "sensibility" and "feeling." See Lin Min, "The Search for Modernity: Chinese Intellectual Discourse and Society, 1978-88: The Case of Li Zehou," The China Quarterly, no. 132 (December 1992): 991; and Chong, "The Tragic Duality of Man," 119-24. In my opinion, when "ganxing" is used as the opposite of "lixing," the most accurate English translation should be "sensuousness." As for the implications of the term "sensuousness," Herbert Marcuse gives an account: "In German, sensuousness and sensuality are still rendered by one and the same term: Sinnlichkeit. It connotes instinctual (especially sexual) gratification as well as cognitive sense-perceptiveness and representation (sensation). This double connotation is preserved in every-day [sic] as well as philosophical language, and is retained in the use of the term Sinnlichkeit for the foundation of aesthetics." See Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, 133.
25. The Chinese translations of the philosophical terms "sensuousness" and "Sense" are both "ganxing." In the Western literature of contemporary Chinese history of ideas, however, there is a great confusion over how to translate "ganxing." For example, when they deal with the philosophical ideas of Li Zehou and Liu Xiaobo, Lin Min and Woei Lien Chong respectively translate "ganxing" into "sensibility" and "feeling." See Lin Min, "The Search for Modernity: Chinese Intellectual Discourse and Society, 1978-88: The Case of Li Zehou," The China Quarterly, no. 132 (December 1992): 991; and Chong, "The Tragic Duality of Man," 119-24. In my opinion, when "ganxing" is used as the opposite of "lixing," the most accurate English translation should be "sensuousness." As for the implications of the term "sensuousness," Herbert Marcuse gives an account: "In German, sensuousness and sensuality are still rendered by one and the same term: Sinnlichkeit. It connotes instinctual (especially sexual) gratification as well as cognitive sense-perceptiveness and representation (sensation). This double connotation is preserved in every-day [sic] as well as philosophical language, and is retained in the use of the term Sinnlichkeit for the foundation of aesthetics." See Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, 133.
26. Liu, The Fog, 3 n. 1.
27. Liu, Selective Critiques, 105.
28. Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy (London: George Alien & Unwin, 1961), 660.
29. See Liu, The Fog, 234-36.
30. Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 669.
31. Liu, The Fog, 231-33. Emphasis in original.
32. Rousseau's last work is entitled Reveries of a Solitary Walker.
33. Liu, The Fog, 233.
34. Ibid., 234.
35. Liu Xiaobo, "On Solitude," in New Ghosts, Old Dreams: Chinese Rebel Voices, ed. Geremie Barmé and Linda Jaivin (New York: Random House, 1992), 207.
36. See Karl Löwith, From Hegel to Nietzsche, trans. David E. Green (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964), 318-21.
37. See Robert C. Solomon, From Rationalism to Existentialism: The Existentialists and Their Nineteenth-Century Backgrounds (New York and London: University Press of America, 1972), 73-77.
38. Robert C. Solomon, Continental Philosophy since 1750: The Rise and Fall of the Self (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 90-91.
39. See Liu, The Fog, 124-25, 160, 176.
40. See William Barren, Irrational Man: A Study of Existential Philosophy (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1958), 167.
41. See Solomon, From Rationalism to Existentialism, 103; also his Continental Philosophy, 94.
42. See Solomon, From Rationalism to Existentialism, 103; also his Continental Philosophy, 94.
43. Liu, The Fog, 172-73. Emphasis in original.
44. See Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy and the Genealogy of Morals, trans. Francis Golffing (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1956), 76-82.
45. See ibid., 19-28.
46. The Nietzschean Apollonian-Dionysian duality is mainly used in Liu's Selective Critiques and Aesthetics. He refers to the Chinese translation of The Birth of Tragedy, which was published in 1986. In fact, the translator, Zhou Guoping, in his "Translator's Preface," has clarified that regarding Apollo as the symbol of reason is a misunderstanding. See Beiju de dansheng (The birth of tragedy) (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 1986), 2, It is regrettable that Liu's mistake is inherited by his researcher, Woei Lien Chong. See Chong, "The Tragic Duality of Man," 152.
47. The Nietzschean Apollonian-Dionysian duality is mainly used in Liu's Selective Critiques and Aesthetics. He refers to the Chinese translation of The Birth of Tragedy, which was published in 1986. In fact, the translator, Zhou Guoping, in his "Translator's Preface," has clarified that regarding Apollo as the symbol of reason is a misunderstanding. See Beiju de dansheng (The birth of tragedy) (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 1986), 2, It is regrettable that Liu's mistake is inherited by his researcher, Woei Lien Chong. See Chong, "The Tragic Duality of Man," 152.
48. Liu, The Fog, 126, 145.
49. Liu Xiaobo, "Metaphysics and Chinese Culture," in Xin qimeng (1): Shidai yu xuanze (New Enlightenment [1]: Era and choice), ed. Wang Yuanhua (Changsha: Hunan jiaoyu chubanshe, 1988), 73-74.
50. Liu, The Fog, 136-37.
51. See Leslie Paul Thiele, Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of the Soul: A Study of Heroic Individualism (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990), 43-45.
52. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Vintage, 1968), 411.
53. See Thiele, Friedrich Nietzsche, 11-47.
54. It is worth noting that the Chinese translations of Being and Nothingness and Critique of Dialectical Reason were both available when Liu wrote about Sartre. The Chinese version of the latter book was published in 1963. It is strange that Liu has never quoted this book in his writings.
55. Solomon, From Rationalism to Existentialism, 248.
56. See Christina Howells, Sartre: The Necessity of Freedom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 1.
57. Solomon, From Rationalism to Existentialism, 280.
58. Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism, trans. Walter Kaufmann, in Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre, ed. Walter Kaufmann (Cleveland: The World Publishing Co., 1956), 291.
59. Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, trans. Hazel E. Barnes (New York: Washington Square Press, 1956), 573.
60. Ibid., 623.
61. Liu, The Fog, 133. Emphasis in original.
62. See Solomon, From Rationalism to Existentialism, 265.
63. Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 567.
64. By the way, Sartre's first novel is entitled Nausea.
65. See Liu, The Fog, 146-54.
66. Ibid., 166.
67. Solomon, From Rationalism to Existentialism. 281.
68. Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 671.
69. See Liu, "Metaphysics and Chinese Culture," 73; and his Mori shengcunzhe de dubai, 77.
70. See Liu, "Metaphysics and Chinese Culture," 73; and his Mori shengcunzhe de dubai, 77.
71. Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 673-74.
72. Liu, The Fog, 146. Emphasis in original.
73. Liu, Aesthetics, 4-5.
74. For an elaboration on Schiller's idea of aesthetic freedom, see Deric Regin, Freedom and Dignity: The Historical and Philosophical Thought of Schiller (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1965).
75. See Robert Wicks, "Hegel's Aesthetics: An Overview," in The Cambridge Companion to Hegel, ed. Frederick C. Beiser (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 348-77.
76. See Andrew Bowie, Aesthetics and Subjectivity: From Kant to Nietzsche (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990), 206-36.
77. Liu, Selective Critiques, 31.
78. See ibid., 44.
79. Yack, The Longing for Total Revolution, 347.
80. Liu, Aesthetics, 9.
81. Chong, "The Tragic Duality of Man," 113.
82. See Yack, The Longing for Total Revolution, 356-59.
83. Liu, "Metaphysics and Chinese Culture," 73.
84. Liu, Aesthetics, 25.
85. See Yack, The Longing for Total Revolution, 368. Here Yack concludes that "the goal of a total revolution against the dehumanizing spirit of modern society is self-contradictory."
86. See Frederick W. Mote, Intellectual Foundations of China, 2nd edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971), 51-52.
87. Liu, Selective Critiques, 80-81.
88. Ibid., 88.
89. Li Zehou, Zhongguo gudai sixiang shilun (Essays on the history of traditional Chinese thoughts) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1985), 25.
90. Liu, Selective Critiques, 106.
91. In many writings, Li Zehou asserts that traditional Chinese philosophy pursues the unity of truth, goodness, and beauty, and its highest state lies in the notion of heaven-man unity. The state of heaven-man unity is a high-level state of freedom that is compatible with but beyond nature; that is also the state of the aesthetic. Chinese culture characteristically takes the aesthetic state of the heaven-man unity as the highest state of human life. At the same time, however, Li points out that to inherit the idea of heaven-man unity in contemporary China, we must reconstruct it with reference to the Marxist theory of humanized nature. See Li Zehou, "On Chinese Aesthetics and Others," in his Li Zehou zhexue meixue wenxuan (Selection of Li Zehou's essays on philosophy and aesthetics) (Changsha: Hunan renmin chubanshe, 1985), 453-55; also see his Zhongguo gudai sixiang shilun, 320-22.
92. In many writings, Li Zehou asserts that traditional Chinese philosophy pursues the unity of truth, goodness, and beauty, and its highest state lies in the notion of heaven-man unity. The state of heaven-man unity is a high-level state of freedom that is compatible with but beyond nature; that is also the state of the aesthetic. Chinese culture characteristically takes the aesthetic state of the heaven-man unity as the highest state of human life. At the same time, however, Li points out that to inherit the idea of heaven-man unity in contemporary China, we must reconstruct it with reference to the Marxist theory of humanized nature. See Li Zehou, "On Chinese Aesthetics and Others," in his Li Zehou zhexue meixue wenxuan (Selection of Li Zehou's essays on philosophy and aesthetics) (Changsha: Hunan renmin chubanshe, 1985), 453-55; also see his Zhongguo gudai sixiang shilun, 320-22.
93. See Liu, Selective Critiques, 199-215.
94. Ibid.
95. See Liu Xiaobo, "The Tragedy of the Chinese Enlightenment: A Criticism of the May Fourth Movement," Ming Pao yuekan (Mine Pao Monthly) 24, no. 5 (May 1989): 37.
96. Jin Zhong, "An Interview with Liu Xiaobo: A 'Black Horse' of the Literary World," in Liu, Selective Critiques, 247. This interview was originally published in a Hong Kong-based magazine Jiefang yuekan (Emancipation Monthly) (December 1988), and in 1989 was reprinted as one of the appendixes of the Taiwan edition of Liu's Selective Critiques from which I quote in the article.
97. See Jin, "An Interview with Liu Xiaobo," 249-51.
98. Liu, Selective Critiques, 76.
99. See Yack, The Longing for Total Revolution, 356-64; also see Keith Ansell-Pearson, An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 147-62.
100. See Yack, The Longing for Total Revolution, 356-64; also see Keith Ansell-Pearson, An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 147-62.
101. See Liu, "The Tragedy of the Chinese Enlightenment," 38-40.
102. See Liu, The Fog, 262-63; also Jin, "An Interview with Liu Xiaobo," 255.
103. See Liu, The Fog, 262-63; also Jin, "An Interview with Liu Xiaobo," 255.
104. For biographical sketches of Li Ao and Wen Yuankai, see Barmé and Jaivin, New Ghosts, Old Dreams, 202, 181.
105. See Liu, Selective Critiques, 2.
106. Liu Xiaobo, Zhongguo dangdai zhengzhi yu zhishifenzi (Contemporary Chinese politics and intellectuals) (Taipei: Tangshan chubanshe, 1989). Originally, the chapters of this book were serialized in a Hong Kong-based critical journal Cheng Ming from April to October 1989.
107. Ibid., 35-41.
108. Ibid., 56.
109. Jin, "An Interview with Liu Xiaobo," 31-34.
110. See Liu, "Arrogance Will Be Punished by Heaven: On the Fatal Falsehood of Moral Absolutism in Chinese Culture," Ming Pao yuekan 24, no. 8 (August 1989): 35-37.
111. See Liu, Zhongguo dangdai zhengzhi yu zhishifenzi, 71-106.
112. Ibid., 122; also see his Selective Critiques, 226.
113. Ibid., 122; also see his Selective Critiques, 226.
114. See Liu, Zhongguo dangdai zhengzhi yu zhishifenzi, 133-50.
115. Yack, The Longing for Total Revolution, xi.
116. Liu, Mori shengcunzhe de dubai, 191, 192.