May Fourth Movement - Neotraditionalism Vs. Western Thought

Neotraditionalism Vs. Western Thought

Although the May Fourth Movement did find partial success at removing Chinese traditional culture, there were still proponents who steadfastly argued that China's traditions and values should be the fundamental foundation of the nation. From these opponents of Western civilization derived three neotraditional schools of thought: national essence, national character, and modern relevance of Confucianism. Each school of thought denounced the western values of individualism, materialism and utilitarianism as adequate avenues for the development of China. Each school possessed specific objectives. The "national essence" school sought to discover aspects of traditional culture that could potentially serve the national development of China. Such traditional aspects consisted of various philosophical and religious practices that emerged parallel with Confucianism. Most particularly, China imported Buddhism, a religion from their neighboring country of India. Under the “national character” school, advocates promoted the traditional family system, the primary target of the May Fourth Movement. In this school, reformers viewed their Western counterparts as shells without morals. Finally, the modern relevance of Confucianism revolved around this notion that Confucian values were better than Western ones. Due to the fact that western culture primarily concentrated their efforts on rational analysis, China’s neotraditionalist disputed that the concept was misguided especially in the realistic, altering milieu of the world. Most importantly, these three neo-traditionalist thoughts gave no consideration to the individual, which was the main theme of the May Fourth Movement.