Introduction: why the question of freedom is unavoidable -- 1. An anatomy of the moral crisis -- 2. Political order, moral disorder -- 3. Freedom as a Chinese question -- 4. Freedom and its epistemological conditions -- 5. Freedom and identification -- 6. Neither devotion nor introjection -- 7. The insult of poverty -- 8. Democracy as unmistakable reality and uncertain prospect -- 9. Freedom's unfinished task -- 10. China's space of moral possibilities.
Summary:
"Three decades of dizzying change in China's economy and society have left a tangible record of successes and failures. Less readily accessible but of no less consequence is the story, as illuminated in this book, of what China's reform has done to its people as moral and spiritual beings. Jiwei Ci examines the moral crisis in post-Mao China as a mirror of deep contradictions in the new self as well as in society. He seeks to show that lack of freedom, understood as the moral and political conditions for subjectivity under modern conditions of life, lies at the root of these contradictions, just as enhanced freedom offers the only appropriate escape from them. Rather than a ready-made answer, however, freedom is treated throughout as a pressing question in China's search for a better moral and political culture"-- Provided by publisher. "A little over three decades ago China embarked upon a course of fundamental change in its economy and society, and we now have a tangible record, positive and negative, of what has transpired on these fronts"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.