All entries for Monday 17 July 2006

Memoirs

The Ethical Significance of Autobiography and Memoir
A nation without memory is a nation without history, without identity and eventually without life. Distortion or elimination of memory is to destroy history and to strangle the vitality of a nation. The root that led to the past err will stay and manipulate its future. The Communist Cultural Revolution in the 60s was a nightmare for many Chinese. Although it seems that there is always intentional oblivion or deliberate distortion in the account for this part of history, many decent Chinese intellectuals won't let go of the duty towards their memory. They keep returning to the past and expressing a common desire to recover memory outside, or even against the official story. There are several Autobiographies and Memoirs published by those intellectuals both in and outside China.
Most writings on Cultural Revolution, such as BaJin's Random Thoughts, Wu Qikun's A Single Tear, and Yang, Xianyi's White Tiger, are Self–reflective. Self–reflecting is good, but it is always connected with a specific act or a historical event. Therefore when circumstance change with the passage of time, it is easy to be forgetting again. The true sense of confession that demonstrated in Saint Augustine and Jean Jacques Rousseau is very rare in Chinese culture. Without confession, there is no way we can go deep into our examination of the issues like obligation, morality, freedom, individuality and human dignity.

Xiu Wang : 17 Jul 2006 00:19 |  Tags: Politics |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem