Postsocialism and Its Narratives:
An Interview with Cai Xiang | 蔡翔访谈

Interviewed and Translated by Yu Zhang and Calvin Hui


MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright June 2018)


Cai Xiang

Time: July 3, 2016
Location: Bodao Café, 1420 Meichuan Road, Putuo District, Shanghai, P. R. China

Notes from the Interviewers and Translators: Cai Xiang is Professor of Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature in the Department of Chinese at Shanghai University and the director of its Research Center for Contemporary Literature. His book Revolution and Its Narratives: China’s Socialist Literary and Cultural Imaginaries, 1949-1966 was translated into English by Rebecca E. Karl and Xueping Zhong and published by Duke University Press in 2016. In this interview, Cai Xiang shares his thoughts about the contemporary Chinese writer Lu Yao (1949-1992) and China in the 1980s, the revival of realism, pure literature, the relationship between the subaltern and the middle class, literary and cultural studies in China, and finally his research on socialist literature and culture. Cai Xiang stresses the importance of rebuilding an ideal mainstream society and looking for a new kind of certainty in this fragmented world. He also introduces illuminating new concepts such as “intellectual laborer,” “cultural proletariat,” and “petty bourgeois-socialism” to understand the cultural politics of postsocialist China. For the Chinese version, see below. The interviewers would like to express our gratitude to Kirk Denton and Xueping Zhong for their support and to Gao Ming for his assistance.

Ordinary World, by Lu Yao

Interviewer: In the past few years, the Chinese writer Lu Yao (1949-1992), the author of the novel Ordinary World, has regained broad attention and huge popularity in China.[1] The airing of the TV serial Ordinary World (2015) made his work even more appealing to contemporary Chinese readers. I heard it has become one of the most widely read novels among college students in China. Your career as a literary critic started with the publication of an essay about Lu Yao’s well-known novella “Life” (1982). Could you tell us about the writing of this essay?

Cai: That was about thirty years ago. Now, looking back, I think what motivated me to write about Lu Yao’s “Life” was several factors: first, “Life” suggests the possibility of changing one’s destiny, even though the male protagonist’s effort fails in this tragic story. This was probably one of the key issues in the 1980s. It was precisely in the 1980s when everyone felt there was a possibility to change their fate. China’s “planned economic system” had lasted for thirty years, but then the system started to be shaken up. The reason I used quotation marks for “planned economic system” is that the concept permeated the entire society, including every aspect of individual life. Therefore, it is not merely an economic concept; an individual’s destiny was determined by the society within the planned economic system. Of course, the planned economy also brought with it a sense of security and even warmth from inside the community. Published precisely at this historical juncture, “Life” implied that the nature of human fate is changing, which actually refers to what is commonly called social mobility (such as the migration from the countryside to the city that takes place in the novella). Moreover, this change can be determined by the individual, yet it comes with high risk and a strong sense of insecurity, and even causes an inner fear. In Lu Yao’s novella, the fear is manifested in the realm of morality.

Interviewer: The realm of morality?

Cai: Yes, the realm of morality. On the one hand, personal choices lead to changes in the individual’s fate; on the other hand, because such changes largely depend on one’s own decisions, they can lead to a sense of insecurity. This is different than the 1990s. After 1990, such a risk was basically a market behavior, but in the 1980s, particularly in the early 1980s, marketization had not started yet. Therefore, I think Lu Yao is an extraordinary writer, who had already keenly noticed that an expansion of the self would simultaneously bring about risk. But the story transforms the possibility-as-risk into a question of morality, which is one of the reasons it touched readers so deeply. From a literary perspective, I started to focus on the possibility of showing human destiny within the matrix of the changing social-historical context. This had an impact on my later approach in literary criticism. Therefore, I have been much concerned with the changes in the social-historical context. Even in my later study of socialist literature in the PRC’s first thirty years, I always stressed this social-historical relationship as an underlying structure.

Interviewer: Yes, I can see it.

Cai: In a changing social-historical relationship, how do we control human destiny and grasp the direction of society? Now, looking back, I realize that I probably already had these ideas when writing about the novella “Life.” But later I focused more on how to look for a new form of certainty in the changing society and history. This is one of the reasons I turned to the study of Zhang Chengzhi (1948- ).

Interviewer: By certainty, do you mean the individual’s or the society’s, or both?

Cai: I mean both. This brings us back to the 1980s. If we only talk about social-historical change, then what should an individual do? How does society operate? Is there any kind of certainty? Now, looking back, particularly after the mid-1980s, I was hoping to remove myself from the atmosphere of relativism and look for a new certainty. Therefore, I used the concept of idealism to name the possibility of looking for a new kind of certainty. I still hold on to it today and always search for a new kind of certainty, a new utopia. This leads to a two-sided problem, which is that when I discuss the socialism of the PRC’s “first thirty years,” I would not lightly deny the importance of the individual, and when I discuss “the subsequent thirty years,” I would not deny the importance of the collective. The contradiction between these two has been one of the questions embroiling my generation, a generation that has experienced the entire sixty years of the PRC.

Interviewer: Our generation born after the Cultural Revolution is also facing questions about the individual and the collective, and the individual and the community.

Cai: What has probably preoccupied my generation most is first the notion that the individual itself was produced by modernity. Whether in “the first thirty years” or “the subsequent thirty years,” the PRC itself was the product of modernity; and therefore it also produced individuals in the modern sense. This is unavoidable. The issue is what kind of community the produced individual should be situated in. As you said, this question remains to be solved not only by my generation but also by your generation. This produced individual cannot stay in atomistic state forever. Neither can it stay in a jungle society or free-floating forever. It needs a place to stay. I think Lu Yao already touched on this question, although he might not be very conscious of it. But discussion of this topic was brought to an end in the 1990s.

Interviewer: What kind of individual and what kind of community? These two questions must be discussed simultaneously, though this has been overlooked…….

Cai: Right up to the present. I mean that starting from “Life” up to now, I have been thinking in such a scholarly framework. This is the reason I take a retrospective view to discuss the Chinese Revolution and the 1980s and the present. This is one of the most urgent tasks we need to take up.

Interviewer: A writer like Lu Yao obviously has had far more impact on the mainland Chinese readers, but his major work has not been translated into English. What thoughts do you have on this?

Cai: I think Lu Yao basically is still a realist writer. The issues he was concerned with are the most sensitive of contemporary Chinese society since the 1980s, such as personal struggle, social mobility, and individual destiny. The significance of Lu Yao does not merely lie in the literary sphere; in fact, he has more to do with contemporary social history. If China resumes its path of development along such a social logic, the significance of Lu Yao will be constantly produced and reproduced. Of course, Lu Yao’s work has various facets, and critics thus have various reactions to it. In his later years, Lu Yao also avoided many questions. For example, the protagonist Sun Shaoping (in The Ordinary World) is in fact a rewriting of Gao Jialin (the protagonist in “Life”). Such rewriting is driven more by a romantic impulse and lacks realism. Realism gradually declined in China after the mid-1980s.

Interviewer: Why?

Cai: Mainly because of the rise of modernism, which posed a huge challenge to realism. Modernism emphasizes individual subjectivity, the depth of the self, and interior monologue. Generally speaking, this trend was a refusal of a social totality. In a certain sense, it bore more middle-class or bourgeois features. This is a literary question that interests me a lot now.

Interviewer: Do you still have a nostalgic feeling toward realism?

Cai: This is not entirely about nostalgia. I even think that this is the case not only with modern Chinese literature but also actually with world literature. Today we are facing the challenge of postmodernism. I don’t deny that modernism and postmodernism have brought many significant insights. But we cannot continue to think and exist in the midst of a fragmented world. I even think that what we need to do today is to depart from the postmodern narrative and investigate the possibility of reviving realism. To be concise, is it possible for literature to assume the responsibility of pointing to a better life? Or offering suggestions about what a good life is? This is probably an idea from Walter Benjamin, and he used it to distinguish classical writers from modern writers. Of course, realism also needs to be re-created, which would require us to think about whether there is a possibility of building a new utopia. Of course, this involves some really difficult reflection. To be more candid, I think what is beneath the so-called revival of realism is our lack of ability to rebuild an ideal mainstream society.

Interviewer: Could you please elaborate on what you mean by an ideal mainstream society?

What Is Literature Itself?

Cai: I have no objections to a pluralist society and culture. But we need to rebuild an ideal mainstream society. In this sense, I think that the culture of “the first thirty years” of the PRC struggled all along to tell a story about an ideal mainstream society; therefore, the socialist culture had a strong mobilizing force. Lu Yao inherited the form from the first thirty years of the PRC, though the content of the story was changed. That is why his work has had such an impact on generations of young people. I hope that we can rebuild an ideal mainstream society, and try to contest, struggle, and gain cultural hegemony over mainstream society. Therefore, it’s likely that I’ll reconsider realism. But this realism must be different from our former realism.

Interviewer: Your essay “What Is Literature Itself?” has an in-depth discussion of the concept of “pure literature” that arose in the 1990s. Could you please introduce the historical context in which pure literature emerged and its impact on contemporary Chinese writers?

Cai: There was a discussion when I was the editor of the magazine Shanghai Literature. It started with Li Tuo’s essay “On ‘Pure Literature,’” which was published in the third issue of 2001. I remember it was probably the end of 1998 when I had a discussion with Li Tuo in Beijing. In the middle of the discussion, he mentioned that he was reconsidering the concept of “pure literature.” At the time, I quite agreed, because to some extent what he said was very close to my thought. Later, I persuaded Li Tuo to put his thoughts into writing.

In the year 2000, Li Tuo and Li Jing had a conversation, which later was turned into the essay “On ‘Pure Literature.’” After its publication, I organized another discussion with some writers and scholars, who started to participate in the conversation. I myself published an essay, “What Is Literature Itself,” in 2003 as a response. I think this discussion is still significant insofar as it worked as a summary of or a conclusion to the twenty years of literature from the 1980s to the 1990s.

The concept of “pure literature” is very ambiguous. There was no such phrase in the 1980s, and it did not gain popularity until the 1990s. Liu Xiaoxin did some research on this issue, and he thinks that the concept was first raised by Wang Guowei. In Wang’s time, it mainly referred to fine arts, or pure fine arts. I remember that Qian Mu also discussed the topic, and his idea was that the concept of “pure literature” in fact also originated from the philosophies of Laozi and Zhuangzi and was related to the individual. Now we can understand that what underlies the concept of “pure literature” is the discussion of the individual, the idea that the self can be dissociated from society or independent from  social reality.

During the past thirty years of literary development in China, this concept has played an enormous role in reformulating the mainstream narrative in contemporary Chinese literature. It also borrowed a variety of techniques from modernism. In fact, this concept constantly excludes various factors external to the individual. As a result, the self has become more and more self-centered. The writer Han Shaogong (1953-) frankly pointed it out in the discussion at the time.

This literary trend had its own significance at the time. The significance is that the 1980s was subject to a new emancipatory politics, which required the individual to stand out from the collective in terms of aesthetic principles. This is what the poet Xu Jingya explicitly stressed in his essay “The Rising Poetic Group”: escaping from the collective aesthetic principles and establishing a new kind of individual literature. However, the individual gradually became more and more self-centered, which developed into a form of private writing. In this sense, our discussion actually demanded that literature should intervene in Chinese social reality again and intervene in the new changing historical relationship again.

Beneath the concept of “pure literature” is not only a new aesthetic principle but also a new political principle that stresses self-centeredness and develops increasingly toward middle class values. This notion has also penetrated into the present mainstream society. Therefore, a new discussion of the concept of “pure literature” in fact also aims to rebuild a new interpersonal relationship.

Interviewer: Do you mean the concept of “pure literature”?

Cai: No, I mean a reflection on the concept of “pure literature.” In fact, it demands rebuilding a new social relationship, a new interpersonal relationship. These were probably the thoughts behind our discussion at that time.

Interviewer: Could you talk about your career transition from an editor of the magazine Shanghai Literature to a professor who has been teaching at Shanghai University since 2002? On the one hand, you rejected the professionalization of literary studies, but on the other hand, you are also exploring the possibilities of the scholarly study of contemporary Chinese literature. Can you tell me more about your experience in this career transition?

Cai: Since this is a personal question, I can only talk about my own thoughts, my own experience. To me, the concept of literary criticism in the Chinese-language context mainly refers to literary review, not exactly the same thing as literary criticism in the Western sense, especially not in the theoretical vein of New Criticism. I think literary criticism should still contain discussion of artistic sensibility, because what needs to be determined first is the question of whether a literary work is well written. This is an aesthetic judgement. I think literary criticism is very important, for it has its own unique characteristics, and it differs from the study of literary history.

Why do I not particularly agree with the professionalization of literary criticism? The preface I wrote for my student Xiang Jing’s book touches on this topic.[2] I think it would be really tiring to be a professional critic, because you need to constantly keep up with new literary works and you are also expected to do a great amount of reading. Besides, I feel if literary criticism is professionalized, we will gradually exhaust our aesthetic sensibility, and our thinking and reading will be restricted too. Of course, this is simply my personal opinion.

Contemporary literature is relatively special. On the one hand, it is developing, with new literary works constantly coming out, a process that is both disrupting the existing literary order and posing a constant aesthetic challenge to it. On the other hand, a relatively stable field of literary history studies has gradually coalesced around contemporary literature. In fact, today’s scholars who are doing contemporary literary studies often engage in two aspects of the work: they are both studying literary history and writing literary criticism. In other words, they can bring the fresh artistic sensibility of contemporary literary works to their studies of literary history; and they can discuss what are good literary works in the lineage of literary history. There is no contradiction between these two aspects.

Since teaching at Shanghai University, I have also felt that contemporary literature as a discipline should have a relatively stable aspect to it. This relative stability refers not only to the objects of its research but also its methodology. From this perspective, the study of contemporary literature should take a temporary break from a pure or excessive criticism-oriented trend and seek to establish some regular research practices, including a relatively regular practice of collecting and organizing historical data. In this sense, scholars in the field of contemporary literature need to learn from scholars in classical and modern literature. Of course, in the study of literary history, I think we need to use multiple methods. I favor a discussion of literature in connection with intellectual and social history, which is different from solely focusing on intellectual and social history.

I think the uniqueness of literature probably lies in the fact that it builds a structure of feelings. This structure of feelings must be closely associated with social ideas, politics, economics, and culture, but it also stands as an independent system. It eventually points to rebuilding a new civilization. Therefore, how to discuss contemporary literature in the context of a theory of civilization is my recent scholarly concern. I think the present study of literary history provides a large space for scholarly discussion. Of course, studies of literary history and literary criticism are precisely what characterizes contemporary literature as a discipline. These two aspects should be organically related to each other.

Interviewer: What I am really curious about is that you had close contact with a great number of writers when you were editor of Shanghai Literature; afterward, you came to teach undergraduate and Masters and PhD students at Shanghai University. So how do you think about the impact of contemporary literature on education in the Department of Chinese, or university education in general? Could you please talk about what kind of changes you felt deeply as you experienced you own career transition?

Cai: I think this transition had a great impact on me. The first big impact is reconceptualization. As I mentioned earlier, literary review requires a degree of sensibility, but literary study at the university level cannot rely mainly on sensibility.

Interviewer: Your own career transition to some extent represents a very good combination, that is, moving from the frontier of literary criticism to studies of literary history.

Cai: I am not certain. I think one first needs to reconceptualize. In order to do more in-depth research on contemporary literature, we need to defamiliarize contemporary literature. It is only through defamiliarization that we can liberate ourselves from [the convention of] literary review, and distinguish the study of literary history from literary review. This way, literary review can be an object of study. Thirdly, we also need to raise new questions, because what we in effect explore are not only issues about literature but also issues about China. Compared with other disciplines, what are the characteristics of modern/contemporary Chinese literature? The latter closely intersects with the transformations of modern China in the twentieth century. While this literature touches on almost all the significant problems caused by such transformations, it also has its own unique way of thinking and responding. The motivation for our discipline is to attempt to respond to these questions. Otherwise, why should we study it?

Interviewer: Your essay entitled “The Subaltern” (1996) has been widely circulated and positively received. While the subaltern is one of the core concepts in postcolonial theory and subaltern studies, your work provides a uniquely Chinese perspective. Can you tell us more about the writing of this essay?

Cai: I wrote this essay more than twenty years ago. In addition to literary criticism and scholarly research, I wrote essays and casual reflections. I valued this genre highly because I could bring my feelings to it. It also felt freer. After joining the university, I was busy writing academic papers and had less time to write essays. But I feel I will return to essay writing later. Concerning “The Subaltern,” it has to do with the disappearance of the illusion formed during the 1980s. Now, looking back, why did we have such illusions in the 1980s? In the 1980s, “modernization” was a core concept. To borrow Louis Althusser’s term, this “modernization” has become a kind of “interpellation.” “Modernization” was endowed with multiple meanings. Which is to say: realizing modernization would change everyone’s fate. For me, that was the 1980s.

Interviewer: You said this was an illusion?

Cai: Of course, it was an illusion. This “everyone” can be characterized by the concept of humanism and the discourse of human nature. Modernization was thought to be the only way to change everyone’s fate. This was the psychological illusion of the 1980s.

The concept of modernization has replaced the concept of class struggle. In the (socialist) past, we thought it was through class struggle that we could enter a new world. But in the 1980s, we believed that modernization was a better path that could be achieved through a critical reflection on and abandoning of class struggle. Then in the 1990s, this belief began to fall apart. This was why I mentioned in my essay that “the concept of the poor has revived.” In the 1980s, there was no such concept as “the rich versus the poor.” This dichotomy did not exist in the mainstream. But in the 1990s, society became re-stratified. This is related to the changes in my later thinking.

So, behind the concept of the subaltern is social re-stratification. Honestly, during the “first thirty years,” for people in my generation, the concept of class was in fact relatively abstract. But in the 1990s, we suddenly discovered it referred to a very concrete reality. We were just discussing: what is mainstream society? Who constitutes this mainstream society? In China, the mainstream society should be constituted by the majority of the people. It should not only be a middle-class society, because in China the subaltern class constitutes the majority of the population; more precisely, it includes the workers and the peasant class(es). In modern China, one problem that the Chinese Revolution were striving to solve is how to make the subaltern class, comprising workers and peasants, to become the mainstream, a process that involves bestowing the dignity on the majority of the people that its deserves. It also involves the position of intellectuals: should they be part of the elite or part of the ordinary people?

Interviewer: How is it possible to imagine and construct the Chinese mainstream society? There is a close relationship between the mainstream society and the subaltern class that you mentioned.

Cai: Yes, in the Chinese context, it is unlikely that this mainstream society only includes the middle class. As we know, nowadays all the narratives about this mainstream society are not only related to the elite class; they are also closely connected to the middle class, but have nothing to do with the subaltern class. But the question is: how is the middle class related to the subaltern class?

Interviewer: Yes. This is exactly what I’d like to ask.

Cai: This is quite a key question that deserves further discussion. We cannot neglect the importance of the middle class. In fact, the Chinese middle class and the subaltern class are closely intertwined. This is especially true since the expansion of student enrollment in universities in China. The middle class is a Cold War concept; against the backdrop of the Cold War, the West told its middle-class story.

Interviewer: A middle-class story?

Cai: The West told a coherent middle-class story. In fact, many of our current understandings of the middle class come from this narrative. But can we tell this middle-class story differently? I think this is a fundamental issue. To retell this middle-class story, the relationship between the middle class and the subaltern class has to be an important element. I think we need to liberate ourselves from the story of the middle class told by the West in the Cold War period and to reconstruct it by emphasizing the relationship between the middle class and the subaltern class.

Although the middle class is a story, it is also an objective existence. With the transformations of the economy (including the current development of artificial intelligence), the number of people in the middle class will increase. So, it is a stratum that should not be overlooked, but how, then, should we look at it? We must seek truth from facts. To be honest, I think this stratum (the middle class) and how to view this stratum and its development are becoming more and more important. I am inclined to use a different concept to name it, such as intellectual laborer. I have even proposed another concept, namely, the “cultural proletariat.” The rise of the knowledge economy results in the formation of the so-called cultural bourgeoisie. Culture can be converted to capital, hence the rise of this new cultural bourgeoisie. This is an idea from Alvin W. Gouldner’s book The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class.[3] Conversely, if culture cannot be converted to capital, it will be converted to labor, hence the formation of the cultural proletariat.

When you look at China and the world, the middle-class dream formed during the Cold War era is dissolving. Everywhere it is the same. The dissolution of the middle-class dream and the expansion of this stratum of cultural proletariat are related to each other. Culture (knowledge) is also a form of labor that can be sold. It is more suitable to name this stratum the “cultural proletariat” and “intellectual laborer.” What do you think?

Interviewer: Could you talk more about naming the middle class the cultural proletariat?

Cai: It means that the middle class is also part of subaltern society and increasingly so. We can continue to discuss the position of intellectuals in this society. This also means the so-called elitist position of cultural activities (including literature) will retreat somewhat.

Interviewer: In your interviews and essays, you mention that we do not need to establish a subaltern literature and that it is more meaningful to consider the subaltern as a perspective in literary writing in general.

Cai: That was a long time ago. What I meant is that the subaltern is an affective condition of writing or the position of the writer, not simply a theme or an object of writing.

Interviewer: What is inspiring about your idea is that you think the middle class can identify with the subaltern class. But the reality is that the middle class today identifies with the upper class.

Cai: The middle class should be the majority of society. From a different perspective, it is important to think about how to build a new united front. This way we can avoid both a kind of ultra-right narrative and a kind of ultra-left narrative.

Interviewer: Your essay titled “Hotels, High Aesthetics, and Modernity” represents your cultural-studies-oriented writing. The Cultural Studies Department at Shanghai University is also very well-known. Can you talk about the development of cultural studies in China and its research methodology?

Hot Wind Studies

Cai: Cultural studies has been introduced to China over the past twenty years. Professor Wang Xiaoming has done much work in this area. He has also built a Cultural Studies Department at Shanghai University. We have worked together and edited a cultural studies journal called Hot Wind Studies. Wang Xiaoming is currently teaching and focusing on cultural studies.

In my work, I try to combine cultural studies and literary studies. More precisely, I consider cultural studies as a research method. One of the inspirations of cultural studies for me is its interdisciplinary perspective. In the past, we just narrowly emphasized the disciplinarity and professionalism of literary studies, which restricted literary studies. However, now, interdisciplinarity has become much more recognized and accepted, and I am thinking of some other questions: what is the uniqueness of literary studies within the context of interdisciplinarity? What concerns me is how we can rebuild the professionalism of literary studies when cultural studies has been widely recognized. How can we return to the discussion of form?

Cultural studies pushes us to go outward and to reconstruct the relationships between literature and other domains—society, politics, ideas, etc. This is what my former work was about. However, after these relationships have been constructed, how can one return to questions of literary form, including aesthetics? This is what I’d like to do. This is also inspired by the work of Professor Ban Wang. I think it is particularly important, because literature not only conveys intellectual, cultural, or political ideas, it also conveys aesthetic ideas, which can entail a sort of ambition to reconstruct civilization. However, it would be unclear for us to discuss questions concerning form, aesthetics, and feelings only within the confines of literary studies. This is why we need to borrow the perspective of cultural studies and construct relationships with other domains, and later return to the questions of form. This should be a dynamic process.

Interviewer: Do you have any suggestions to share with us concerning the writing of cultural studies essays?

Cai: I don’t have suggestions. I have only written two essays that seem to be cultural studies essays. Later I returned to my research on literary history. But I had wanted to write a book discussing urban problems. This plan had to be called off because I was working on the book Revolution and Its Narratives. I am not certain whether I can continue with the original idea or not. I don’t have good suggestions. I just think that the city is an especially important topic.

Another inspiration from cultural studies is that it can convert the object of study into a text. We can discuss the city as a cultural text. This is what I was trying to learn from cultural studies while writing those two essays. That effort was later interrupted, but I think these problems will continue to be discussed. In some ways, modern nations can also be considered city-nations. In other words, a city is a space of governance in politics, the economy, and culture. These two essays discuss urban space, but underneath it is the question of temporality.

Industrialization, organization, desire, the individual, consumption, and so on are all related to the city. The city has pushed the development of the Chinese Revolution. Conversely, socialism has encountered huge challenges from the city. If I continue this work later, I may not write in this way and instead discuss it within the larger context of the history of ideas. Cultural studies has its limitations. The political vision is not wide enough. Perhaps these scholars have been too much influenced by Michel Foucault’s micropolitics.

Interviewer: Now you have been focusing on reflections on and discussion of the 1980s. In China, research on the 1980s has become a “fever.” Can you tell us how it became your research interest from the perspective of the discipline?

Cai: Yes, to be more precise, my work concerns the early years of the 1980s (up to 1985). There are several levels here. The first one involves the transition between the two thirty-year periods. Why did this transition happen? This is the first question I am concerned with. The second question involves the historical origin of the 1980s. I have already finished the introduction of this book. I discuss “The New Policies in the Cultural Revolution” and the 1970s. The chapter concerns the relationship between the 1980s and the Cultural Revolution. It is around 40,000 words long. I have not finished revising it yet; it includes many topics. One is why the mobilization power of the Chinese revolution became weaker and weaker in the 1970s. That led to the problems of the 1980s. In analyzing the origins of the 1980s problems, I hope to discuss the problems with socialism itself. This is the second level.

For the third level, I inquire into what exactly was proposed in the 1980s? In this book, I use the concept of “petty bourgeois-socialism.” The reason I use a hyphen is to distinguish it from Marx’s critique of Proudhon’s petty bourgeois socialism. Why do I use this concept? In the 1980s, the structure of socialism (including the cultural structure) was relatively stable. However, the elements that constituted this structure began to change. Its expression can be located in how the petty bourgeoisie was imagined to be a major stratum that could represent the future. It included intellectuals and the traditional small-scale producers. This was a fantasy at the time. It was also expressed through the concept of modernization. These contributed to the formation of unique structures in literary and cultural expression.

Cai: Why do I discuss this problem? The development of marketization of the 1990s attested to the impossibility of petty bourgeois-socialism. This also resulted in the subsequent phenomenon of the Chinese intelligentsia moving either to the right or the left.

Interviewer: Your book Revolution and Its Narratives was recently translated into English. It has become an important academic work as part of the trend of reevaluating socialist cultures in English-language scholarship. Could you share your thoughts about this?

Cai: First of all, I would like to thank Professor Xueping Zhong and Professor Rebecca Karl. It is through their hard work that my book has been introduced to readers in the English-speaking world. My book stresses two points concerning today’s reconsideration of Chinese socialism. First, in recent years, Chinese socialism has been demonized. My first task is to liberate Chinese socialism from such demonization. This is why I emphasize the legitimacy of the Chinese revolutions, including the richness of the political and cultural legacies of Chinese socialism. I think we need to be fair in how we evaluate this past, because it concerns how we imagine our future.

Second, while emphasizing the legitimacy of Chinese socialism, I consider how to squarely face the problems created by it? We need to have a clear understanding of the problems created by socialism, including its failures. We cannot replicate another “first thirty years” of Chinese socialism.

It cannot reappear in its original guise. Given the premise that it was legitimate, we need to seriously analyze the various problems that it created. We need to seriously discuss the causes of these problems. Some are connected to the history of the time, such as the Cold War; some are caused by socialism itself. How to discuss these problems is a more difficult task. Therefore, we need to avoid romanticizing socialism. This is another reason I study the 1980s, because it was precisely in the 1980s that these socialist problems could be discerned more clearly.

If socialism itself had no problems, the 1980s would not have unfolded in the way they did. First, we need to focus on the legitimacy of socialism. It has rich political and cultural legacies. This is an important part of the discussion. Second, what are its problems? How do we locate them? We cannot afford to be too romantic about socialism. In Revolution and Its Narratives, I borrow Weber’s idea that legitimacy produces its own irrationality. This is worthy of discussion. These two problems are also closely connected. If we don’t emphasize socialism’s legitimacy, then we risk demonizing it. If we don’t focus on its problems, then we risk romanticizing it. Here, we must be clear about the premise: that traditional socialism failed. Why? It involves many issues. Next time, if you are interested, we can have an in-depth discussion of this question.

Yu Zhang is Assistant Professor in the Department of Chinese Culture at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and a Fellow in the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at The University of Hong Kong

Calvin Hui is Assistant Professor of Chinese Studies in the Department of Modern Languages & Literatures at The College of William & Mary

Notes:

[1] The first volume was published in 1986. Lu Yao did not finish the all three volumes until 1988.

[2] Cai Xiang, “The Expression of This Era” (这个时代的表情), Reading (读书) (November 2014).

[3] The full book title is The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class: A Frame of Reference, Theses, Conjectures, Arguments, and an Historical Perspective on the Role of Intellectuals and Intelligentsia in the International Class Contest of the Modern Era (London and Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press), 1979.

蔡翔访谈
访谈时间:2016年7月3日
地点:上海普陀区梅川路博岛咖啡馆

小注:蔡翔是上海大学中文系中国现当代文学专业的教授、当代文学研究中心主任。他的著作《革命/叙述:中国社会主义文学与文化想象(1949-1966)》由瑞贝卡∙卡尔(Rebecca Karl )和钟雪萍翻译成英文,并于2016年由杜克大学出版社出版。在此次访谈中,蔡翔讲述了他对一系列当代中国文化、社会问题看法,例如作家路遥与八零年代的中国、现实主义的复兴、纯文学、底层与中产阶级的关系、文化研究与文学研究在中国,以及他自己的社会主义文学文化研究。蔡翔强调了重建一个理想的主流社会以及在一个破碎的世界里寻找确定性的重要,并且提出了一系列新的概念来分析当代中国的文化政治,如“知识劳动者”、“文化无产阶级”和“小资产阶级-社会主义。

采访者: 在过去的几年里,作家路遥的作品再次得到广泛关注,2015年电视剧《平凡的世界》的热播也使得他的作品再次升温。路遥的长篇小说《平凡的世界》也成为高校大学生广泛阅读的作品。我知道您的文学评论生涯始于对路遥小说《人生》的评论。可否请您谈一谈关于《人生》的评论文章的写作?

:这已经是三十多年前的事了,现在回想,当年之所以会有写作冲动,大概有这样几个因素:一、路遥的《人生》提供了一种个人命运改变的可能性,尽管在小说里,改变是不成功的,是一个悲剧。这可能是1980年代最核心的问题之一。因为恰恰是在1980年代,每个人都感觉到自己的命运有可能被改变。中国前三十年的“计划经济”(加双引号的计划经济)开始动摇。我之所以说这个计划经济要打上双引号,是因为“计划经济”这个概念已经渗透到整个社会,包括个人生活的各个方面,因此,它已经不仅仅是一个经济概念。也就是说在那样一种“计划经济”的体制下面,个人的命运是被社会所决定的。当然,另一方面,它也会带来安全感,甚至共同体内部的温暖。《人生》恰恰在这个时候出现,暗示了个人命运的改变,也就是俗称的阶层流动(在小说中,则以“城乡流动”的形式出现)。而且,这种改变可以是由自我决定的,但同时也带来了高风险性和不安全感,甚至形成一种心理恐惧。在路遥的作品中,这一恐惧心理更多的转化在道德层面。

采访者:道德层面?

蔡:道德的层面。一方面是个人的选择,从而改变命运,但另外一方面,这种改变需要自己决定,因此它又会带来不安全感。这个跟1990年代不一样,因为1990年以后,这种风险性基本是一种市场行为。但在1980年代,尤其是早期,市场化还没有开始。所以,我觉得路遥是一个特别了不起的作家,他已经很敏锐地感觉到,随着自我的扩张,风险也会随之产生,但是小说把它转化成为一个道德问题来讨论,这个是1980年代能够打动批评者的因素之一。二,从文学角度来讲,我开始关注在变动的社会-历史关系中间,人物命运展现的可能性。这对我后来的文学批评还是有一定影响,所以,我一直比较关心社会-历史关系的变化。即使在我后来重新研究中国前三十年的社会主义文学,也是比较强调它的社会-历史关系,这是一个比较潜在的东西。

采访者:这个我能感觉出来。

蔡:在变动的社会-历史关系中,如何掌握人物的命运,社会的走向?现在回想起来,这个可能是当年在讨论《人生》这个作品已经出现的某些想法。但是,我后来更关注的是,在变动的社会-历史中,怎么去寻找一种新的确定性。这可能是我后来转向张承志研究的一个因素。

采访者:您所说的确定性,说的是个人的,还是社会的?还是两者都有?

:都有。这就回到1980年代了。如果我们仅仅讲社会-历史关系的变动,那么个人应该怎么样?社会应该怎么样?是不是还有一个确定的东西?现在回想,尤其是1980年代中期以后,我一直希望自己能从相对主义的氛围中摆脱出来,寻找一种新的确定性。所以,当时我会用理想主义这个概念来命名,命名这样一种对新的确定性的寻找可能。一直到今天,我仍然这样,总是试图寻找一种新的确定性、新的乌托邦。这就带来两方面的问题,也就是说,即便讨论中国“前三十年”的社会主义,我也不会轻易否定个人的重要性。在我讨论中国“后三十年”的时候,我也不可能完全否定集体的重要性。这两者之间的冲突可能是我这一代人——完整经历过共和国60年的一代人——内心最为纠结的问题之一。

采访者:我们这一代生于文革之后的人其实也在面对个人与集体,个人与族群的问题。

蔡:对我这代人来说,可能更关心的是,个人已经被现代生产出来,不管是中国的“前三十年”还是“后三十年”,中华人民共和国本身就是现代性的产物,所以它一定在生产现代意义上的个人,这是没有办法回避的。问题只在于,这个被生产出来的个人,应该安放在什么样的共同体中?就像你刚才说的,不仅对我这一代人,可能对你们来说,也是要解决的一个问题。被生产出的个人不能永远处于原子状态,也不能永远停留在丛林社会,或者永远漂泊,必须要有一个安放。我觉得路遥已经涉及到这个问题——当然,不是特别自觉。但是,这个问题,在1990年代被中断了。

采访者:就是说怎样的个人?怎样的共同体?这是必须同时被讨论的问题,但是被忽视了……

蔡:一直到今天。就是说,从《人生》开始,我一直是在这样一个脉络里面思考问题。所以我现在也会回过头去讨论中国革命,讨论1980年代,讨论今天,这也可能是我们最需要做的工作之一。

采访者:对于路遥这样本土影响很深远,但是主要作品并没有被介绍到英语世界的作家,您有什么样的看法?

:我自己觉得路遥基本上还是一个现实主义作家。他所涉及到的一些问题,应该说是中国当代社会,也就是1980年代以来中国社会最为敏感的现实问题之一,自我奋斗、阶层流动,个人命运。路遥的意义实际上不仅仅在文学,更多地在于当代社会史。中国只要继续沿着这样的社会逻辑发展,路遥的意义一定会被持续地生产出来。当然,对路遥的作品见仁见智,可以有不同的评价。路遥后来也回避了许多问题。比如孙少平(《平凡的世界》)是对高加林(《人生》)的改写,这一改写多了浪漫主义,却少了现实主义。1980年代中期以后,现实主义在中国逐渐式微。

采访者:为什么呢?

蔡:主要还是现代主义的崛起。现代主义的崛起对现实主义带来很大的挑战,强调个人的主体性,有深度的自我,内心叙事,等等。简单来说,就是对社会整全性的拒绝。某种意义上,带有更多的中产阶级特征。这也是我现在比较关心的一个文学问题。

采访者:那您对现实主义还充满怀旧的感受吗?

蔡:我觉得不完全是怀旧。我甚至觉得,不仅仅是中国文学,即使对整个世界文学来说,也是如此。我们今天实际上面对的是后现代主义的挑战。我不否认现代主义或后现代主义给我们带来许多有意义的启示。但是,我们不可能永远在一个碎片化的世界中间去思考和存在。我甚至会觉得,我们今天需要做的,很可能是如何走出后现代的理论叙事,以及,现实主义有没有复兴的可能?简单一点来说,文学还能不能承担一种更好的生活的建议,什么是一种好的生活的建议,这好像是本雅明的一个说法,并以此区别古典作家和现代作家。当然,现实主义也需要重新创造。这就势必要求我们思考,有没有一种新的乌托邦的可能性?当然,这也是非常艰巨的思考。如果我说的更坦率一点,我觉得所谓现实主义的复兴,背后是我们有没有能力重建一个理想的主流社会。

采访者:建立一个理想的主流社会?

蔡:多元社会,多元文化,这个没有问题,我不反对,但是需要重建一个理想的主流社会。在这个意义上,我倒是觉得中国“前三十年”的社会主义文化一直在争夺的,就是怎样讲述一个理想的主流社会的故事,所以它有很强的动员力量。路遥在这一方面来说,恰恰继承了“前三十年”的这样一个形式传统,尽管故事的内容改变了。所以,他才会对一代又一代的年轻人产生很大的影响。我希望我们重建理想的主流社会,要在主流社会这个领域去争夺,争夺主流社会的文化领导权。所以我个人可能会对现实主义进行重新思考,但是,这个现实主义一定不同于我们原来的现实主义。

采访者:您在《何谓文学本身》中深入讨论了兴起于1990年代 纯文学这一概念。请您介绍一下纯文学生成的历史语境以及对作家的影响?

蔡:这是我原来主持《上海文学》工作的时候展开的一场讨论。应该是从《上海文学》2001年第3期发表的李陀的文章《漫说“纯文学”》开始。我记得大概是1998年底,我在北京和李陀有一个讨论。讨论中间,李陀提出了他对“纯文学”这个概念的重新反省。我当时很认同李陀的说法,因为这跟我的思考有一定程度的接近,后来,一直劝说李陀把这些想法写出来。

到2000年的时候,李陀和李静就有了一个对话,这个对话形成了后来的《漫说“纯文学”》这篇文章。文章发表以后,我又组织了相关讨论,一些作家、学者开始介入。我自己于2003年发表了《何谓文学本身》,也算是对这场讨论的一个回应。我觉得这场讨论还是有一定意义的,也可以说是对1980年代到1990年代年这二十年文学的一个回顾、一个小结。

“纯文学”这个概念很模糊,1980年代好像还没有这个说法,1990年代比较流行。刘小新有过考证,他认为这个概念最早是由王国维提出来的,那时候主要讲的是美术,纯粹美术。我记得钱穆也讨论过,意思是所谓“纯文学”这个概念实际来自老庄哲学,讲的就是个人。我们大致可以理解的是,“纯文学”这个概念的背后,实际上就是关于个人的讨论,而且认为“自我”可以游离于社会之外,或者说独立于社会现实。

在中国近三十年文学的发展过程中,这个概念起到的作用是很大的,重新组织了当代文学主流的叙事模式,而且借助于现代主义的各种技巧。这个概念实际上不断地在排除外在于个人的各种因素,所以它造成的一个结果是,自我越来越中心化。在当时的讨论中,韩少功很直率地指出了这一点。

这样一个文学潮流有它当时的现实意义。这个现实意义就是,1980年代服从于一种新的解放政治,要求个人从集体的美学原则中间突围出来,这是徐敬亚当年在《崛起的诗群》一文中明确强调的。从集体性的美学原则中间突围出来,从而形成一种新的个人文学。但是它的发展逐渐导致自我中心化,也就是后来所谓的私人写作。在这个意义上,我们当年的讨论恰恰是要求文学重新介入中国的社会现实,重新介入新的变动的历史关系。

这样一个“纯文学”概念的背后,不仅是一种新的美学原则,也是新的政治原则,就是强调自我中心,越来越中产阶级化。反过来,又渗透到目前的主流社会中间。所以,对“纯文学”这个概念的重新讨论实际上也是要求重新建构一种新的人和人的关系。

采访者:您是说纯文学这个概念吗?

蔡:不是,我说对“纯文学”这个概念的重新反省。实际上要求一种建构一种新的社会关系,新的人和人的关系。这可能就是当年讨论这些问题背后的一些想法。

采访者:2002年您离开《上海文学》去上海大学执教,一方面,您拒绝文学研究的职业化,另一方面,您又重新探讨建设当代文学学术化的可能。可以谈一下您的经历吗?

蔡:这个问题涉及到的是我个人,我只能谈谈我个人的看法,或者说个人的体验。我们现在涉及到的文学批评这个概念,对我个人来说,在汉语的语境中,主要是对当下作品的评论,不完全是西方意义上的文学批评,尤其是新批评的理论脉络。我觉得文学评论还是应该讲一点艺术感觉,因为它首先要解决的,是作品写的好不好的问题,有一个美学的价值判断。所以我觉得文学评论很重要,也有它的独特性,它跟文学史研究还是不太一样。

我为什么不是特别认同文学评论的职业化?我在给项静新书写的序中涉及了这个话题。我觉得成为一个职业批评家比较累,因为你要不断地去追踪新的作品,需要大量的阅读,另外,我觉得如果把文学评论职业化,审美感觉最后也会疲惫,思考、阅读都会受到限制。当然,这仅仅只是我个人的看法。

当代文学比较特殊,一方面,它在发展,新的作品不断出现,并在破坏既有的文学秩序,从而构成持续性的审美挑战;另一方面,又逐渐沉淀并形成相对稳定的文学史研究领域。实际上,今天研究当代文学的学者,常常同时从事这两方面的工作,一方面在做文学史研究,一方面也在做文学评论。我觉得这是一个比较好的状态。就是说,他既可以把对当下作品最新的艺术感觉带到文学史研究里面来;同时,又可以在文学史的脉络中讨论什么是比较好的文学作品。这两者之间不太矛盾。

另外一方面,我进了大学之后,也是感觉到当代文学作为一个学科,应该有它相对稳定性的一面。这个相对稳定性的一面,既是研究对象,也是方法论。从这个意义上来说,当代文学的研究又应该从纯粹的或者说过度的评论化倾向中暂时地摆脱出来,形成相对稳定的一面,包括相对稳定的史料整理。在这个意义上,当代文学应该向现代文学、向古代文学的研究学习。我们现在也在做这方面的工作。这样,这个学科才会相对稳定。当然,在文学史研究上,我觉得方法应该多元。就我个人而言,我比较偏重于思想史和社会史的讨论,但是又应该区别于纯粹的思想史和社会史。

我觉得文学的独特性可能在于,它建构了一种情感结构,而且,这个情感结构一定又是和社会思想、政治、经济、文化等有很密切的关系,但是它又形成了一个相对独立的系统,它最后指向的,应该是一种新文明的再造,所以,如何在文明论的视野下讨论当代文学,也是我最近比较关心的问题。我觉得现在的文学史研究提供了一个很大的学术讨论的空间。当然,文学史研究和文学评论恰恰是当代文学这个学科的特点,这两者应该有机地统一在一起。

采访者:我还比较好奇的是,您在《上海文学》跟许多作家接触,后来您到上海大学执教,主要面向本科生、研究生、博士生,您觉得当代文学怎样渗透到了中文系教育,或者说大学教育。可以谈一下您在职业转型的过程中感受到的变化吗?

蔡:我觉得还是有很大的影响。我想对我影响比较大的,一个是重新知识化。刚才我们讨论,我说文学评论一定是要讲感觉,但是在大学里面,就不能完全讲感觉。

采访者:您的职业转型某种程度上代表了很好的结合,从文学批评的前沿到文学史研究。

蔡:我不太清楚。我觉得首先要重新知识化。如果要对当代文学做进一步的深入研究,还需要重新陌生化。因为只有陌生化,才有可能使我们从文学评论中解放出来。这样我们的文学史研究才会区别于当时的文学评论。文学评论也可以成为我们的研究对象。第三,我觉得还应该重新问题化。我们实际上要讨论的,既是文学问题,也是中国问题。中国现当代文学和其它学科相比,特点到底是什么?我觉得中国现当代文学,实际上是和二十世纪中国的现代转型有关,转型过程中出现的所有重大问题,现当代文学几乎都涉及到了,同时,它又有自己独特的思考和回应方式。因此,如何致力于回应这些问题,才是我们这个学科的研究动力,否则,我们研究它干嘛呢?

采访者:您写于1996年的文章《底层》广受好评,底层这个概念也是当代后殖民主义理论的一个核心概念,而您的文章提供了独特的中国视角。可以谈一谈《底层》的写作吗?

:这是20多年前写的一篇散文。因为我在文学批评和学术研究之外,还写了一些散文和随笔,而且我个人对这一类文章更加重视,因为它能把自己的感觉带进去,更加自由。进了大学,忙着做论文,这一类文章反而写得少了,但我想以后还会重新写。说到《底层》,我觉得对我个人来说,就是1980年代形成的幻觉破灭了,现在回过头去想,1980年代为什么会有这个幻觉呢?核心概念还是“现代化”,对于1980年代来说,这个现代化已经成为——用阿尔都塞的话来说——一个“召唤装置”,这个“现代化”被赋予了各种各样的意义,也就是说,实现现代化,所有人的命运都会改变。我觉得这就是1980年代。

采访者:您说这是一个幻觉?

:当然是幻觉,这个“所有人”可以用人道主义、人性论等等不同的概念来表征,而且这个“现代化”成为“所有人”命运改变的唯一路径,这个构成了1980年代很大的一个心理幻觉。

这个“现代化”某种意义上替代了“阶级斗争”这个概念。过去我们认为通过阶级斗争才会进入到一个新世界,但是到了1980年代,我们会认为--通过对阶级斗争的反省、扬弃--“现代化”是一个更好的路径。到了1990年代,这个幻觉开始破灭,所以我在文章中会说“穷人的概念再次复活。”1980年代是没有“穷人/富人”这组概念的,起码,它没有成为一个主流概念在提醒我们。到了1990年代,社会重新分层,我想,这和我后来的思想倾向的变化有关。

所以,“底层”概念的背后,是社会重新分层。坦率说,在“前三十年”,对我这个年龄的人来说,“阶级”这个概念实际上是相对抽象的,但是到了1990年代,我们突然发现这是一个非常具体的社会现实,非常具体。我们刚才还在讨论,什么是主流社会?谁构成了这个社会的主流?我觉得对中国来说,这个主流社会,一定是一个大多数人的社会。大多数人的概念如何来讨论?它不仅仅是一个中产阶级的社会。因为在中国,底层一定是一个大多数人的概念,我们说的更具体一点,就是工农阶层。我觉得这是中国现代社会,尤其是中国革命所致力于解决的一个问题,就是如何让包括工农阶层在内的底层成为社会的主流模型,包括大多数人应该有的尊严。这同时还会涉及到知识者的位置。到底站在什么样的立场。精英的,还是民众的。

采访者:可以谈谈如何想象和建设中国主流社会的可能性?主流社会和您提出的底层是密切相关的。

蔡:是的,在中国的语境下,中国的主流社会不可能仅仅是中产阶级,而我们知道,现在所有关于主流社会的叙述,不仅和精英阶层,也和中产阶级密切相关,但和底层无关。但是,有一个问题,中产阶级和底层社会的关系到底是什么?

采访者:对。这个是我想问的。

蔡:这是一个蛮关键的问题,我觉得这个问题是要讨论的。我们也不能忽略中产阶级的重要性。实际上中国的中产阶级和底层社会的纠葛是非常多的,尤其是大学扩招以后,中产阶级和底层之间更有着千丝万缕的关系。所谓中产阶级,是一个冷战的概念,正是在冷战的背景下,西方讲述了一个所谓中产阶级的故事。

采访者中产阶级的故事?

:讲述了一个完整的中产阶级的故事。实际上,我们今天对中产阶级的很多理解都是来源于这样一种叙述,在这个意义上,我们今天能不能重新讲述一个中产阶级的故事?我觉得这是很关键的一个问题。如果我们要重新讲一个中产阶级的故事的话,那么中产阶级和底层的关系应该是这个故事的要素之一。所以我倒是觉得,今天,我们要做的工作之一,就是如何从西方冷战时期讲述的中产阶级故事中解放出来,重新来讲一个中产阶级的故事,讲述中产阶级和底层的关系。

中产阶级尽管是一个故事,但也是一个客观存在。随着经济转型,包括现在的智能化趋势,这个阶层的人数会越来越多,,所以它是不应该被忽视的一个阶层。因此,怎么去看待这个阶层?必须实事求是。说实话,我觉得这个阶层(中产阶级)越来越重要,如何看待这个阶层,看待这个阶层的发展趋势,就显得更为重要。我其实更愿意用另外一些概念来命名这个阶层。比如知识劳动者。我甚至提出过另外一个概念,就是文化无产阶级。因为知识经济的崛起,出现了一种所谓的文化资产阶级,也就是说文化转化为资本,从而形成了一个新的资产阶级形态。这是古德纳在《知识分子的未来和新阶级的兴起》中的说法。那么反过来也可以说,文化不能转化成为资本而只能转化为劳动力,那么相对也会形成文化无产阶级。

所以你看今天中国,我觉得也不仅是中国,整个世界都是这样,冷战时期的中产梦开始解体。这个中产梦的解体和这个阶层人数的扩大有关系。文化(知识)也是一种可以出卖的劳动力,所以在这个意义上,用文化无产阶级或者知识劳动者来命名这个阶层可能更合适。你觉得呢?

采访者:请您再多谈谈用文化无产阶级命名中产阶级好吗?

蔡:这说明中产阶级本身也是底层社会的一个部分,越来越是这样。进一步也可以讨论,知识者在整个社会中到底处于什么样的位置。这也可以让包括文学在内的文化活动从所谓的精英立场上稍微后撤。

采访者:您在访谈、文章中谈到,我们不需要建立一个底层文学,而是把底层作为一个视角纳入普遍的文学写作更有意义。

蔡:那是很久以前了。我的意思是,“底层”更多是写作背后的情感状态,写作者的位置,不仅仅是一个题材,也不仅仅是书写对象。

采访者:您的概念特别有启发的是,想让中产阶级更认同底层,而今天的现实是中产阶级认同的是上流社会。

蔡:一个大多数人的社会,中产阶级本身就应该在这个大多数人里面。在另外一个角度,如何建立一个新的统一战线可能是非常重要的。这样既可以避免一种极右的叙事,也可以避免一种极左的叙事。

采访者:您的文章《酒店、高度美学及现代性》代表着文化研究的写作方式。上海大学的文化研究系也非常有名,可以谈一谈文化研究这一学科在中国的发展以及研究范式吗?

蔡:近二十年来,文化研究被介绍到中国,王晓明教授在这方面做了很多工作,并在上海大学建立了文化研究系,我和王晓明也有过很好的合作,共同主编过文化研究的杂志,叫《热风学术》。王晓明教授现在专门从事文化研究的教学和研究。

对于我来说,主要是尝试把文化研究和文学研究结合起来。也就是说,在我的工作范围里面,文化研究更多的是作为一种研究范式。我觉得文化研究给我带来的启发,主要是跨学科的研究视野。过去我们片面的强调了文学研究的学科性或者专业性,结果造成了对文学研究的一种束缚。但是,现在跨学科的视野,已经被很多人所认同、所接受,反过来,我在想另外一些问题,就是说,在这样一个跨学科的研究视野中间,文学研究的独特性到底在哪里?所以,在文化研究被广泛认可的前提下面,如何重构文学研究的专业性,是我目前比较关心的。如何重新回到形式层面讨论。

文化研究推动我们走出去,重新建立文学和其它领域-社会、政治、思想等等-的关系,这是我前一阶段的主要工作,但是这些关系被建构起来以后,怎么样回到文学的形式来讨论问题,包括美学层面,这是我接下来想做的事情。这也是受了王斑教授的启发。我觉得这个特别重要,因为文学最后提供的不仅仅是单纯的思想观念,也不是单纯的文化观念,更不是单纯的政治观念。实际上,它最后提供的是美学观念,在这个观念里,包含了一种文明再造的企图。但是,形式的层面、美学的层面、情感的层面,仅仅在文学内部讨论,是讲不清楚的,因此它又需要我们借助于文化研究的范式走出去,建构与其他领域的关系,最后,再回到形式的层面,这应该是一个动态的过程。

采访者: 您对文化研究类型的文章的写作有什么建议?

蔡:没有建议。因为我好像就写过这两篇相对来说比较像文化研究的文章,后来回到文学史研究,这方面的尝试就停止了。原来有过一个设想,想写一本书,讨论城市问题,但后来因为《革命/叙述》的写作,这个计划就停止了。以后还能不能重新继续我也不知道。我没有特别好的建议,只是觉得城市问题特别重要。

我觉得文化研究还有一个启发,就是把对象转化为文本,所以我们在某种意义上,也可以把城市作为文本来讨论。这是我在写这两篇文章时向文化研究学习的一个尝试,这个尝试后来中断了。但我觉得这些问题还可以再讨论,现代国家,某种意义上,也可以称之为城市国家,就是说,城市成为政治、经济、文化的一个统治性的空间。那两篇文章讨论的都是城市空间,但背后,却是时间问题。

工业化、组织,欲望、个人、消费等等,都和城市有关。它推动了中国革命的发展,但反过来讲,恰恰也是在城市问题上,社会主义遭遇到了很大的挑战。如果我将来重新继续这个工作的话,可能不会是这样的写法,而是放在更大的思想史背景下来讨论问题。文化研究有它的不足,就是政治视野还不够开阔,可能受福柯“微观政治”的影响过深。

采访者:您现在的主要工作集中于对1980年代的回顾和讨论,国内现在也兴起了80年代研究热。可否从学科角度谈一下为何重新成为您的研究重点? 

蔡:是的,讲的更具体一点,主要是1980年代前期的问题, 主要是在1985年以前。有这样几个层面:一、涉及到两个“三十年”的转折,1980年代恰恰处于两个三十年的转折点。它为什么会出现这个转折?这是我关心的第一个问题。第二个关心的问题,1980年代的历史起源到底在哪里?我这本书的导论基本上写好了,主要讨论“文革新政”和1970年代,涉及1980年代和文革的关系。大概有四万多字,但还没有把它修改出来。里面涉及的话题比较多,其中有一点,就是中国革命的动员力量为什么在1970年代越来越弱,也只有中国革命的动员力量趋于弱化,才会导致1980年代的出现。通过1980年代起源性的问题,来讨论社会主义自身的问题,这是第二个层面。

第三个层面是1980年代到底提出了什么?我在这本书里将使用一个概念,小资产阶级-社会主义,之所以中间用连接符号,是为了区别于马克思所批评过的蒲鲁东式的小资产阶级社会主义。为什么要用这个概念?因为1980年代,社会主义的结构相对来说还比较稳定(包括文化结构。)但是构成这个结构的要素开始出现了变化,这一变化的表现形态,就是小资产阶级开始被想象成为主要的、而且是能够代表未来的领导阶层。这个小资产阶级既包括知识分子,也包括传统的小生产者。然后形成了当时的一个幻想,而且又是通过现代化这个概念被表征出来的。形成了1980年代一个非常奇特的结构性的文学或者文化上的表现形态。我为什么要讨论这个问题?就是1990年代市场化的发展,又是如何证明了小资产阶级-社会主义的不可能性。这也导致了中国知识界后来要么向右,要么向左的状况。

采访者:您的专著《革命/叙述》一书最近被翻译成了英文,也成为目前的英文学术世界里重新评价社会主义文化的学术趋势的一部分,请问您有什么特别的感想吗?

蔡:我首先要感谢钟雪萍教授和瑞贝卡∙卡尔教授,因为通过她们的辛勤工作,把我这本书介绍给了英语世界的读者。我们今天重新讨论中国的社会主义,我觉得有两点,这也是我书里着重讨论的两点。第一,你可能也知道,近年来,中国社会主义处于一种被妖魔化的状态,所以我的第一个工作就是,怎样把中国的社会主义从妖魔化的状态中解放出来。所以我特别强调中国革命的正当性问题,包括中国社会主义丰富的政治、文化遗产。我觉得,这一点无论怎样评价都不过分,因为它还涉及到我们对未来世界的想象。

第二,在强调中国社会主义的正当性的前提下,怎么样来正视中国革命过程中所产生的问题。对社会主义所产生的问题,包括它的失败,都必须要有一个清醒的认识。因为我们不可能再复制一个中国“前三十年”的社会主义。

它不可能再以它原来的面貌出现。因此我觉得在正当性的前提下面,怎么样来认真地分析它产生的各种问题,然后认认真真讨论形成这些问题的原因到底是什么。这些问题有当时的历史因素,比如冷战,也有社会主义自身的问题,这些问题到底怎么来讨论,这可能是更加艰巨的工作。所以,我们要尽量避免浪漫主义的倾向。这也是我讨论1980年代背后的另外一个原因,因为社会主义的很多问题恰恰在1980年代可以看得更加清楚。

如果社会主义自身没有问题的话,就不可能有1980年代的出现。就是这两点:第一,它的正当性,丰富的政治、文化遗产,这是非常重要的讨论。第二,它的问题到底是什么?在哪里?不能浪漫主义。所以我在《革命/叙述》中借用了韦伯那个说法,正当性如何生产出了它的无理性,这是更值得讨论的问题。但这两个问题又是连在一起的。如果你不强调它的正当性,那就把社会主义妖魔化了,如果不讨论它的问题,又会把社会主义浪漫化。这里,要明确一个前提,就是传统的社会主义失败了。为什么会失败?里面涉及的问题太多。如果下次你有兴趣,我们可以就这个问题专门讨论。

采访及翻译:张宇、许嘉文

张宇现为香港理工大学中国文化学系助理教授。
许嘉文现为美国威廉玛丽学院现代语言与文学系的中国研究助理教授。