Table of Content

20 September 2018, Volume 38 Issue 5

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Lost on the Bridge of Money: Simmel on Money and Experience of Modernity

LI Lingjing

2018, 38(5):  1-40. 

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The emphasis on the survival experience of modern individuals is an important feature of Simmel's thought on modernity. This, apart from continuing the tradition of aesthetic modernity and being influenced by “the mood of fin-de-siecle”, is very much related to Simmel's unique sociological interest. The maturity of monetary economy constitutes the historical root of our modernity experience. With the increasing dominance of monetary economy in modern society, money becomes part of human psyche, influences the behaviors of modern individuals and creates a unique experience of modernity. It can be said that the process of money becoming “Money” is the process that modern individuals acquire their modernity experience. Money plays the role of God in modern society, elevated from “absolute means” to “absolute purpose”. It erases the differences between objects, among people, and between people and objects. According to the Money logic, modern people can be readily labeled such as the greedy, the avaricious, the extravagant or the ascetic poverty, living in a state of cynicism or blasé.For urban life is the typical experience of modernity, urban people are “Unhappy Dwellers”. Their blasé attitude constitutes the core of the unhappiness of modern people. However, in the experience of adventurer and stranger, it is possible for modern individuals to maintain their unique personality and resist the logic of Money. Through money, Simmel reveals not only the plight of modern people but also the ultimate value of human being.

“Vergesellschaftung” of Modern Life

JI Yanru

2018, 38(5):  41-69. 

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For neo-Kantian sociologist Georg Simmel, the principal task of sociology is to answer the question of “how is society possible?”, a reference to Kant's question of “what is nature possible”. This paper explores Simmel's preoccupation with the problem of unity in modern fragmentary individuality. In examining how individuals interact with the surrounding modern world and form self-images, Simmel, in a Kantian tradition, views the world as representation of the subject and hence the subject matter of sociology shall be forms of socialization, or the so-called “formal sociology”. However, his sociological and philosophical inquiries not only go beyond the conventional Kantian understanding of forms but also repudiate Kant's intellectualistic outlook. The diverging point is that for Simmel, rather than rational cognition, “being” is of paramount importance. Influenced by Goethe's life and work, Simmel develops a life philosophy that converges the dichotomy between life and form, and between noumena and phenomena. His approach resides somewhere in between Kantian and Goethean worldview, providing a possibility for modern individuality to form profound bounds with the world yet to avoid being estranged by forms. This essay argues that Simmel's concept of life, i.e. the Individual Law demands the deepest unity of life and form to reconcile the dichotomy between the subjective and the external, and thus to overcome the strangeness and fragmentation of modern condition.

Party, Politics and Policy: The Multi-Logic of “Rich Peasants Problem” in the Early CCP Revolution

MENG Qingyan

2018, 38(5):  70-105. 

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“Rich Peasants” (Funong) is an important concept of class analysis of rural China during the early stage of the Chinese Communist Revolution. It is also a focal point of policy debates and shifts during the Land Reform. The Communist Party pivoted on the concept in its adaptation of Marxist and Leninist ideology for dealing with rural crisis in modern China. This article argues that, under specific local reality of complication and conflicts, the concept became “indigenized” and thus had the following implications:First, Funong transformed itself from an ideological concept in theory into a concrete target of revolution; second, it was also entangled with the struggles of the Communist Party and was later named as the “Route of Rich Peasants” for certain policy practice in the early revolution; third, the definition of “Rich Peasants” and the land policy based on it caused major policy problems during the land reform in the Soviet Areas. These three aspects together constituted a unique revolutionary power mechanism. By reviewing a large amount of historical materials from various sources, this study presents a detailed discussion of the complex historical process of “Rich Peasant” from concept to practice, identifying the internal connection between “Rich Peasants” and “local elites” from multiple perspectives of social history, political history and historical sociology and explaining the inner logic and social process of the concept as a revolutionary power mechanism.

Civil and Military Examination Participation of the Que Lineage in Shicang Village in Qing Dynasty

JIANG Qin

2018, 38(5):  106-125. 

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The literature on social stratification and mobility reveals that tracking is an important source of educational inequality. The imperial examination system in Ming and Qing China was structured with two tracks of civil (wen) and military (wu) exams. Most of the existing studies focused on the provincial and metropolitan levels of the system and little attention is paid to the lowest county level of shengyuan exam,-the starting point of the wen and wu tracking. This study looks into the accounts of the imperial participation in Shicang village in Songyang county, Zhejiang during Qing, specifically the examination records of the Que lineage. With a fortune made from iron business, the Ques purchased a studentship in imperial academy (jiansheng), and later married into local gentry families and began to participate in imperial exams. The Taiping rebellion brought high mortality to the region and thus increased the chance of success in the imperial wu tracking military exam. The Ques made the use of the opportunity and participated in both civil and military exams. This paper compares the two common motivations of examination takers:either for protecting family wealth and status or for pursuing the highest degree. It is shown that the two motivations resulted in quite different outcomes. Those who only interested in safeguarding and enhancing family wealth were able to keep a balance between degree pursue and family business, while those who aiming at the highest degree often fell into a trap of repeated attempts and an eventual bankruptcy. The dominance of the first motivation among ordinary Chinese demonstrates the self-adjustment of local society to the imperial examination tracking system.

How to Measure Chinese Religiosity in a Social Survey?

ZHANG Chunni, LU Yunfeng

2018, 38(5):  126-157. 

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The debate on Chinese religiosity is not just a theoretical but also an empirical issue. Social survey as a standard and widely-applied way of data collection depicts a picture of Chinese religious landscape rather very differently from the field observation by social anthropologists. This raises the question of the validity of survey measurement on Chinese religiosity. How accurate can conventional social survey method measure Chinese people's religious beliefs and practices? Unlike in Western societies,Chinese religion has traditionally been non-congregational,non-exclusive,and infused. As a result,survey instruments based on denominational affiliation for measuring western religiosity become less valid when applied in China. To tackle this issue,we utilize three waves of longitudinal data from China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) and rephrase religious affiliation questions in various ways,as well as compare and evaluate questionnaires on religious affiliation,practice,and membership from different waves of the survey and from other survey projects. By demonstrating that changes in questionnaire items can noticeably alter survey outcomes,we argue that the standard Western survey method on religiosity fails to capture the unique Chinese understanding of religion. An alternative way of social survey on Chinese religiosity is therefore proposed.

Natural Disaster and Political Trust: A Natural Experiment Study of the Impact of Wenchuan Earthquake

YOU Yu, HUANG Yifan, ZHUANG Yuyi

2018, 38(5):  158-181. 

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How do natural disasters impact political trust in contemporary China and what is the causal mechanism? Existing literature indicates that severity of disaster,government relief effort and information dissemination are the three key factors influencing people's political trust in the context of acute natural disasters. This study uses Wenchuan Earthquake as a natural experiment and focuses specifically the survey data collected right before and after the quake. It finds that largely due to the “rally round the flag” effect and massive media coverage,political trust of government officials at all levels rises significantly post-disaster. During the crisis,state-owned and -controlled media played a vital intermediate role. The more a citizen is exposed to the official media coverage,the more likely his/her political trust spikes. However,the division of work in disaster relief among different levels of government results in different degree of trust increase. As county-level governments are often directly responsible for rescue and post-earthquake relief,they gain the highest increase of political trust while central-level officials the smallest. The short-run jump of political trust recedes as time goes by. Government mobilization and media coverage are important contributing factors to the political trust spike in post-disaster time. Nevertheless,the key to consolidate political legitimacy lies in long term effort to build good and effective governance.

An Empirical Study on the Influencing Mechanism of Undergraduate Graduation Planning and Its Trends: Based on a Ten-year Survey Data

MIN Zuntao, CHEN Yunsong, WANG Xiuxiao

2018, 38(5):  182-213. 

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Most existing studies on educational stratification focus mainly on social stratification prior to the entry of higher education. Little attention is paid to the stratification process that continues during college education. This study investigates the factors impacting graduation plans of undergraduates at a Beijing key university during a ten-year period from 2007 to 2016. Findings show that post-graduation choices are positively influenced by academic performance, family background and macrosocial factors:(1) Academic performance is the weakest link in predicting a student's decision to pursue graduate study; (2) Family background has a decisive impact on pursuing graduate study abroad, much more significant than academic performance or macrosocial factors; (3) Macrosocial factors are an important predictor for graduates' career plans.A series of interaction analysis between core independent variables yields conclusion that the impact of family background in choosing graduate education, especially study abroad, increases when academic performance scores high. The findings on family background and academic performance constitute a consistent trend for the ten-year period. The 2013 Graduate Education Tuition Reform Policy increased tuition fees for graduate study and the enrolment suffered that year. By the same token, the fast-increasing number of college graduates encourages further graduate study as a way of postponing job seeking. In sum, this study strongly confirms that the distribution of post baccalaureate education opportunities reflects the reproduction of social stratification. At the same time, the transitional nature of Chinese higher education during the past decade also has an important impact on individual graduation planning.

How Do Earnings Influence Housework Division of Chinese Couples?

SUN Xiaodong

2018, 38(5):  214-240. 

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What are the factors contributing to the persistence of gender division in domestic housework while labor market has witnessed a rapid decline of gender segregation? Existing literature attributes the phenomenon to the gender gap in personal income. However, opinions vary on mechanism and direction of the influence. Moreover, comparative empirical studies from different countries find that the theoretical interpretation on personal income and housework has to be contextually adaptive, that is, under different social structures and cultural contexts, different rules may exist about the impact of personal income on gender division of housework. We use CGSS 2012 data to analyze the above issues. Findings suggest that decrease of wife's economic dependence reduces her share of housework and the correlation between the two variables is not affected by wife's nor her spouse's absolute income. However, husband's absolute earnings changes the relationship between wife's economic dependency and husband's share of housework from negative linear correlation to inverted U-curve correlation. These findings not only provide a more precise and concrete evidence for understanding the relationship between income and gender division of homework in contemporary Chinese society, but also suggest a connecting mechanism and behavioral strategy that has not been explored in the existing literature. It is suggested that there might be an "indirect compensation" strategy for gender identity within Chinese families. Under this strategy, with no increase of her housework share, the wife affirms the traditional gender identity of breadwinner/homemaker through indirect compensation, leading to the persistence of gender division of housework.