Developing a Chinese Theory Worthy of the New Era

Abstract

The new era of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics continues to move forward, ushering in an irreversible historical process for rejuvenating the Chinese nation. The Chinese people have moved steadily to stand up, grow prosperous and become strong. Have Chinese theory, academics, and philosophy and social sciences also achieved a historical transformation and stood up, prospered, and become strong? In other words, what should they do to contribute to the national rejuvenation? There is no denying that with regard to this question posed by the age, practice, and the people, the theoretical and academic communities in China may not be that confident. And fundamentally speaking, the fact that the academic confidence is not firm, rich, and solid stems from a poor understanding or a lack of deep, systematic, and solid research and interpretation of the incomparably rich, fresh, lively, concrete and profound contemporary Chinese practice. It is an indisputable and embarrassing fact that the Chinese people’s practice of social change has moved forward significantly into a new era of history-making, while the actual state and level of Chinese theoretical scholarship is still very much out of step with and mismatched to the development of the new era and Chinese practice. To a large extent, this has not only restricted the degree to which theory, scholarship, and philosophy and social sciences with Chinese characteristics exercise leadership over practice, but has also restricted their international influence. “All social life is essentially practical. All mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice.” This famous statement of Marx provides an important methodological principle from which we can observe the development of theory and scholarship in China. It has been a popular view for many years that scholarship should be far away from real life, and that the farther away it is from reality, the higher its academic value; that “scholarship for the sake of scholarship” is the only way forward for academics and represents their correct value; and that “the less ideology there is in academia, the better it will be.” The question is, how can a scholarship void of ideology be called scholarship? What is the role of scholarship without theory? What is the source of academic prosperity and academic