In honor of Bob Dylan’s entrance into septuagenarianism, Rolling Stone recently published their list of Dylan’s best 70 songs. I found their list decent but unnecessarily weighted toward his early career, so I decided to make my own list in response. Of course, almost half of the songs on my list come from his 1962-1967 stretch (including some that Rolling Stone stupidly overlooked and ignoring some that Rolling Stone stupidly included and plenty of overlap), but at least a third come from 1979 forward.
I went through his massive discography and put in every song I thought was indispensable, and this was as far as I was willing to cut it down. So my list has 75 songs on it, which presented me with the following three options:
1. Wait five years for Dylan to turn 75.
2. Whittle it down further to 70.
3. Convince myself that I don’t care that Dylan is 70 and my list has 75 songs.
I opted for number three. And “Lay Lady Lay” is nowhere to be found on my list. You’re welcome. It is arranged in chronological order because arranging them in the order of preference would be a silly, silly thing to do.
My 75 Favorite Dylan Songs
Talkin’ New York (1962)
Song to Woody (1962)
Tomorrow is a Long Time (1963)
Let Me Die in My Footsteps (1963)
Girl from the North Country (1963)
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall (1963)
Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright (1963)
One Too Many Mornings (1964)
Only a Pawn in Their Game (1964)
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll (1964)
Percy’s Song (1964)
Lay Down Your Weary Tune (1964)
Chimes of Freedom (1964)
My Back Pages (1964)
Subterranean Homesick Blues (1965)
She Belongs to Me (1965)
Love Minus Zero/No Limit (1965)
Mr. Tambourine Man (1965)
It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) (1965)
It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (1965)
Positively Fourth Street (1965)
I’ll Keep It with Mine (1965)
Like a Rolling Stone (1965)
It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry (1965)
Ballad of a Thin Man (1965)
Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues (1965)
Desolation Row (1965)
Visions of Johanna (1966)
One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later) (1966)
Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again (1966)
Just Like a Woman (1966)
4th Time Around (1966)
Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands (1966)
Tell Me, Mama (1966)
I Shall Be Released (1967)
You Ain’t Going Nowhere (1967)
Nothing Was Delivered (1967)
Crash on the Levy (Down in the Flood) (1967)
Clothes Line Saga (1967)
I Dreamed I Saw Saint Augustine (1967)
All Along the Watchtower (1967)
Drifter’s Escape (1967)
I Pity the Poor Immigrant (1967)
Day of the Locusts (1970)
Up To Me (1974)
Tangled Up in Blue (1975)
Simple Twist of Fate (1975)
Idiot Wind (1975)
Shelter from the Storm (1975)
Isis (1976)
Sara (1976)
Gotta Serve Somebody (1979)
I Believe in You (1979)
What Can I Do for You? (1980)
The Groom’s Still Waiting at the Altar (1981)
Every Grain of Sand (1981)
Jokerman (1983)
Blind Willie McTell (1983)
Caribbean Wind (1985)
Brownsville Girl (1987)
Series of Dreams (1991)
Dirt Road Blues (1997)
Standing in the Doorway (1997)
Not Dark Yet (1997)
Red River Shore (1997)
Things Have Changed (2000)
Mississippi (2001)
Summer Days (2001)
High Water (for Charley Patton) (2001)
Po’ Boy (2001)
Sugar Baby (2001)
Thunder on the Mountain (2006)
Spirit on the Water (2006)
When the Deal Goes Down (2006)
Ain’t Talkin’ (2006)
May 29, 2011
May 22, 2011
Problems in Categorizing the Panthay and Tungan Rebellions
[Another essay from the course on modern China.]
When discussing the Panthay Rebellion (1856-1873) and the Tungan Rebellion (1862-1873), commonly referred to together as “the Muslim rebellions,” a cluster of critical questions immediately present themselves for thorough deliberation: Were the Muslim rebellions principally the result of a fundamental ideological conflict between the Han majority and Muslim minority groups, or did the social, political, and economic conditions of the time simply exacerbate the latent differences in ethnicity and religious worldview? Is it possible to identify distinctly Islamic traits in the so-called Muslim rebellions? To what degree can these rebellions be categorized as “religious”? In what follows, I do not expect to arrive at definite answers to these questions, for that task seems patently absurd, even quixotic; however, that these questions so readily present themselves yet so easily resist simple, reductive answers, implies that perhaps it is the questions themselves that deserve closer inspection. This essay will argue that the Panthay and Tungan rebellions are misrepresented in Western scholarship because of the continued use of misleading categories and unreflective application of Western terminology.
The first major categorical problem facing scholars is the extent to which the rebellions can be characterized as religious, or as so many scholars awkwardly insist, “Muslim.” The characterization of these rebellions as Islamic is particularly problematic, since it appears to serve foremost as a way of emphasizing difference rather than a way to denote the essential character of the rebellions. When examining the way the events unfolded, this hasty categorization is challenged by two key facts. First, Liu and Smith note that the Muslims living in Kansu specifically had “comparatively easy” access to the Islamic world, a point that seems well evidenced given widespread international trade and the dynamic spread of new religious doctrines and practices into China (214). If these rebellions were indeed an Islamic project, why then did the greater Islamic world utterly ignore the Chinese Muslims during the course of the rebellions? Neither Smith and Liu nor any other source I have consulted makes any mention of monetary or moral support provided by an Islamic state, nor is there mention of the Chinese Muslims in rebellion utilizing their contacts in attempt to secure such assistance. Mario Poceski, scholar of Eastern religious history, provides another fact that complicates the generalizing of some scholars. Poceski notes that some non-Muslim ranks fought alongside Muslim rebels in the Panthay and Tungan rebellions, while some Muslims covertly “collaborated with the Qing armies, joining them in the military campaigns against ‘disloyal’ and seditious Muslims” (233-234). In what sense, then, can these rebellions be considered “Muslim”?
I suspect that part of the reason for this misrepresentation has to do with the way many Western scholars misunderstand Islam and tend to make mistaken assumptions about Muslims. To what degree are the differences between Chinese Muslims and the larger realm of Chinese culture intrinsic, and to what degree are they unduly emphasized and essentialized by Western scholars? Poceski, for instance, argues that Chinese Muslims experience a kind of discomforting liminality as they attempt to negotiate their identities as Muslims living in China: “Muslims had their own ceremonies, narratives, religious observances, dietary proscriptions, and dwelling arrangements,” which “led to the creation of exclusive boundaries” and “fostered a sense of…distinctiveness”; therefore, many Chinese Muslims would have “felt greater affinities with others of the same faith…than with the Han Chinese” (232). However, since Poceski does not provide any primary sources to verify this argument with an actual human voice articulating his or her own concerns, there is no reason not to assume that this is entirely speculative. As a historian, Poceski is incapable of knowing how human beings from another time felt about their religious, ethnic, cultural, or national identity. Instead, Poceski is much more accurate when he affirms, “We can hardly speak of a common identity that is universally shared by all Chinese Muslims, even though they are often stereotyped as a unified group with shared characteristics” (234). Nevertheless, the Western construction of a monolithic, rigidly exclusivist Islam has had profound effects on scholarship.
The misuse of the word jihad in Liu and Smith’s article demonstrates the lack of nuance symptomatic of this misunderstanding of Islam. Liu and Smith write, “Ch’ing administration there [in Sinkiang] had many weaknesses, and until 1860 the dynasty was barely able to maintain order in Altishahr against the periodic jihad (holy war) of the Afaqi khojas and their Turkic-speaking followers” (221). Here, Liu and Smith use the term jihad with what strikes me as an undue air of familiarity and simplicity, translating it haphazardly (and parenthetically) as “holy war” without any further comment, adding before it the adjective “periodic” to further provide the reader with a fabricated sense of familiarity, while also cleverly defining “holy war” as a kind of routine, unspectacular aspect of everyday Muslim life. It should also be noted that Liu and Smith do not (or cannot) present a single primary source to verify that these rebellions were considered jihad by any of the Muslims in revolt or their religious leaders. Instead, their cavalier use of the term jihad represents the misconceptions many scholars harbor about Islam. Alternatively, the anthropologist Talal Asad provides a brief but vastly more nuanced discussion of the term and the way it has been used historically in his book On Suicide Bombing. Asad argues that jihad, far from being a central aspect of Islamic thought or practice, is in actuality an extremely controversial issue among Islamic jurists, and there is not, nor has there ever been, a consensus on either the actions that qualify as jihad or the social and political conditions that necessitate Muslims taking up jihad. Furthermore, the translation of jihad as “holy war” is also an invention of the West: “Because there has never been a centralized theological authority in the Islamic world, there was never a consensus about the virtue of religious warfare” (11-12). Asad, a vastly more attentive scholar, demonstrates the need for nuance when approaching subjects like this, while also uncovering a latent Western bias against Islam.
Now I want to turn from the problems Islam in particular poses to Western scholarship and focus on more general problems in the unreflective projection of Western categories onto non-Western history. The particularly problematic category I want to deal with in this section is religion, along with all the terminology (often theological rather than historical in nature) that comes with it. To define these rebellions as religious in nature implies that there is a behavior or motivation that is intrinsically and objectively “religious.” But what does it mean for behavior to be religious? How is religious behavior different from other modes of human expression? I should note here that there is, obviously, no scholarly consensus on the definition of the words religion or religious or even their very usefulness and applicability in non-Western contexts; still, the most erroneous possible viewpoint is that religion, which is clearly a Western category constructed by Western scholars, has an essential, irreducible core that allows its universal applicability, regardless of social and historical context. I do not mean to discount completely the role worldview played in the specific language of these rebellions, for that would be as erroneous as presupposing the preponderance of religious ideology in this history. What I do suggest, though, is that not only did religion influence the way the rebellions unfolded, but issues specific to the time and place likewise influenced the way religion was practiced in the area. In short, historians need to develop a way of talking about the religious identity of those in revolt without dwelling on it. If religion is to be a useful category in non-Western history, it must be unburdened of the cultural assumptions and semi-theological appeals that seek to grant some of its historically specific functions a transhistorical status.
This essay has demonstrated that the categorization of the Panthay and Tungan Rebellions as “Muslim rebellions” is inaccurate and bears the marks of biased scholarship. Even if Muslims were the principal actors in this episode of history, the rebellions cannot be lumped together by this single commonality since the Muslim communities in rebellion were both distinct from one another and internally diverse. In addition, I questioned the assumption of a universalistic definition of the word “religion” and its application to this history. The task now facing scholars is the development of more accurate categories and a careful revision of the categories already in common use.
References
Asad, Talal. On Suicide Bombing. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.
Liu, Kwang-Ching and Richard Smith. “The Military Challenge.” In The Cambridge History of China, 211-225. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
Poceski, Mario. Introducing Chinese Religions. London and New York: Routledge, 2009.
Schoppa, R. Keith. Revolution and Its Past: Identities and Change in Modern Chinese History. Boston: Prentice Hall, 2011.
When discussing the Panthay Rebellion (1856-1873) and the Tungan Rebellion (1862-1873), commonly referred to together as “the Muslim rebellions,” a cluster of critical questions immediately present themselves for thorough deliberation: Were the Muslim rebellions principally the result of a fundamental ideological conflict between the Han majority and Muslim minority groups, or did the social, political, and economic conditions of the time simply exacerbate the latent differences in ethnicity and religious worldview? Is it possible to identify distinctly Islamic traits in the so-called Muslim rebellions? To what degree can these rebellions be categorized as “religious”? In what follows, I do not expect to arrive at definite answers to these questions, for that task seems patently absurd, even quixotic; however, that these questions so readily present themselves yet so easily resist simple, reductive answers, implies that perhaps it is the questions themselves that deserve closer inspection. This essay will argue that the Panthay and Tungan rebellions are misrepresented in Western scholarship because of the continued use of misleading categories and unreflective application of Western terminology.
The first major categorical problem facing scholars is the extent to which the rebellions can be characterized as religious, or as so many scholars awkwardly insist, “Muslim.” The characterization of these rebellions as Islamic is particularly problematic, since it appears to serve foremost as a way of emphasizing difference rather than a way to denote the essential character of the rebellions. When examining the way the events unfolded, this hasty categorization is challenged by two key facts. First, Liu and Smith note that the Muslims living in Kansu specifically had “comparatively easy” access to the Islamic world, a point that seems well evidenced given widespread international trade and the dynamic spread of new religious doctrines and practices into China (214). If these rebellions were indeed an Islamic project, why then did the greater Islamic world utterly ignore the Chinese Muslims during the course of the rebellions? Neither Smith and Liu nor any other source I have consulted makes any mention of monetary or moral support provided by an Islamic state, nor is there mention of the Chinese Muslims in rebellion utilizing their contacts in attempt to secure such assistance. Mario Poceski, scholar of Eastern religious history, provides another fact that complicates the generalizing of some scholars. Poceski notes that some non-Muslim ranks fought alongside Muslim rebels in the Panthay and Tungan rebellions, while some Muslims covertly “collaborated with the Qing armies, joining them in the military campaigns against ‘disloyal’ and seditious Muslims” (233-234). In what sense, then, can these rebellions be considered “Muslim”?
I suspect that part of the reason for this misrepresentation has to do with the way many Western scholars misunderstand Islam and tend to make mistaken assumptions about Muslims. To what degree are the differences between Chinese Muslims and the larger realm of Chinese culture intrinsic, and to what degree are they unduly emphasized and essentialized by Western scholars? Poceski, for instance, argues that Chinese Muslims experience a kind of discomforting liminality as they attempt to negotiate their identities as Muslims living in China: “Muslims had their own ceremonies, narratives, religious observances, dietary proscriptions, and dwelling arrangements,” which “led to the creation of exclusive boundaries” and “fostered a sense of…distinctiveness”; therefore, many Chinese Muslims would have “felt greater affinities with others of the same faith…than with the Han Chinese” (232). However, since Poceski does not provide any primary sources to verify this argument with an actual human voice articulating his or her own concerns, there is no reason not to assume that this is entirely speculative. As a historian, Poceski is incapable of knowing how human beings from another time felt about their religious, ethnic, cultural, or national identity. Instead, Poceski is much more accurate when he affirms, “We can hardly speak of a common identity that is universally shared by all Chinese Muslims, even though they are often stereotyped as a unified group with shared characteristics” (234). Nevertheless, the Western construction of a monolithic, rigidly exclusivist Islam has had profound effects on scholarship.
The misuse of the word jihad in Liu and Smith’s article demonstrates the lack of nuance symptomatic of this misunderstanding of Islam. Liu and Smith write, “Ch’ing administration there [in Sinkiang] had many weaknesses, and until 1860 the dynasty was barely able to maintain order in Altishahr against the periodic jihad (holy war) of the Afaqi khojas and their Turkic-speaking followers” (221). Here, Liu and Smith use the term jihad with what strikes me as an undue air of familiarity and simplicity, translating it haphazardly (and parenthetically) as “holy war” without any further comment, adding before it the adjective “periodic” to further provide the reader with a fabricated sense of familiarity, while also cleverly defining “holy war” as a kind of routine, unspectacular aspect of everyday Muslim life. It should also be noted that Liu and Smith do not (or cannot) present a single primary source to verify that these rebellions were considered jihad by any of the Muslims in revolt or their religious leaders. Instead, their cavalier use of the term jihad represents the misconceptions many scholars harbor about Islam. Alternatively, the anthropologist Talal Asad provides a brief but vastly more nuanced discussion of the term and the way it has been used historically in his book On Suicide Bombing. Asad argues that jihad, far from being a central aspect of Islamic thought or practice, is in actuality an extremely controversial issue among Islamic jurists, and there is not, nor has there ever been, a consensus on either the actions that qualify as jihad or the social and political conditions that necessitate Muslims taking up jihad. Furthermore, the translation of jihad as “holy war” is also an invention of the West: “Because there has never been a centralized theological authority in the Islamic world, there was never a consensus about the virtue of religious warfare” (11-12). Asad, a vastly more attentive scholar, demonstrates the need for nuance when approaching subjects like this, while also uncovering a latent Western bias against Islam.
Now I want to turn from the problems Islam in particular poses to Western scholarship and focus on more general problems in the unreflective projection of Western categories onto non-Western history. The particularly problematic category I want to deal with in this section is religion, along with all the terminology (often theological rather than historical in nature) that comes with it. To define these rebellions as religious in nature implies that there is a behavior or motivation that is intrinsically and objectively “religious.” But what does it mean for behavior to be religious? How is religious behavior different from other modes of human expression? I should note here that there is, obviously, no scholarly consensus on the definition of the words religion or religious or even their very usefulness and applicability in non-Western contexts; still, the most erroneous possible viewpoint is that religion, which is clearly a Western category constructed by Western scholars, has an essential, irreducible core that allows its universal applicability, regardless of social and historical context. I do not mean to discount completely the role worldview played in the specific language of these rebellions, for that would be as erroneous as presupposing the preponderance of religious ideology in this history. What I do suggest, though, is that not only did religion influence the way the rebellions unfolded, but issues specific to the time and place likewise influenced the way religion was practiced in the area. In short, historians need to develop a way of talking about the religious identity of those in revolt without dwelling on it. If religion is to be a useful category in non-Western history, it must be unburdened of the cultural assumptions and semi-theological appeals that seek to grant some of its historically specific functions a transhistorical status.
This essay has demonstrated that the categorization of the Panthay and Tungan Rebellions as “Muslim rebellions” is inaccurate and bears the marks of biased scholarship. Even if Muslims were the principal actors in this episode of history, the rebellions cannot be lumped together by this single commonality since the Muslim communities in rebellion were both distinct from one another and internally diverse. In addition, I questioned the assumption of a universalistic definition of the word “religion” and its application to this history. The task now facing scholars is the development of more accurate categories and a careful revision of the categories already in common use.
References
Asad, Talal. On Suicide Bombing. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.
Liu, Kwang-Ching and Richard Smith. “The Military Challenge.” In The Cambridge History of China, 211-225. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
Poceski, Mario. Introducing Chinese Religions. London and New York: Routledge, 2009.
Schoppa, R. Keith. Revolution and Its Past: Identities and Change in Modern Chinese History. Boston: Prentice Hall, 2011.
May 21, 2011
The Ideology of Identity: Toward a New Understanding of Qing Dynasty Power Relations
[A short essay for a class on modern China.]
The discourse on Manchu and Han relations during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) tends to focus erroneously on the issue of identity. Historians like Ho Ping-ti accept the conventional thesis that the Qing Dynasty’s success was borne of the Manchu government’s capacity to adopt Han cultural norms, while historians like Evelyn Rawski argue for a reappraisal of history that instead focuses on the ability of the Manchu rulers to establish bonds and build bridges with non-Han ethnic minorities (Rawski 831). However, both Ho and Rawski assume, albeit in contrasting fashion, the preeminence of cultural identity in their history, an assumption that calls their conclusions into question. This essay, on the other hand, will argue that an entirely different understanding of Manchu rule will be necessary to appreciate this history, an understanding that deemphasizes the role of identity and ethnicity to instead stress the effects of ideology in constructing identity and creating history.
First, I want to reexamine the debate of sinicization with this guiding hermeneutic, using texts by Rawski and R. Keith Schoppa to show the limitations in the current orientation of scholarly discourse. In rehearsing the traditional analysis of the Qing Dynasty, Rawski quotes Ho: “The key to its [Qing] success was the adoption by early Manchu rulers of a policy of systematic sinicization” (831). In other words, it is necessary that Manchu identity be replaced, at least at the political level, by Han identity, for otherwise the political achievements of the Qing rulers would be impossible for contemporary scholars to explain. However, this argument, seemingly borne not out of necessity but in fact only out of a poor imagination, leads to absurd questions: how “Han” do Manchus have to act before they could be considered thoroughly sinicized? What made the Manchu’s sinicization “systematic”? Was the sinicization process a gradual shift in identity or a sudden, epiphanic moment of Han-realization? Rawski and Schoppa naturally try to distance themselves from the intellectual poverty of Ho’s sinicization thesis, and they develop a new way to think about identity: Schoppa argues that identity is constructed through historical processes, and as such identity is constantly shifting (4-6), while Rawski concludes with an exhortation for scholars to delve into the very heart of Chinese identity to discover the influences of non-Han culture (842). Therefore, Han identity and Manchu identity, far from being sui generis, can be (and, according to Rawski, must be) deconstructed by historians. But in the process of deconstruction, a crucial distinction needs to be made: what social or political behavior could be intrinsically attached to Han identity as opposed to Han ideology?
It is tempting to consider identity and ideology as synonymous, but a clear distinction must be drawn between the two. Indeed, Rawski and Schoppa both seem to have a modicum of confusion about the two terms. Rawski writes about ideology, but only briefly, for she argues, “The ideologies created by the Manchu leaders drew on Han and non-Han sources” (834). However, Rawski then quickly returns to her discourse on ethnic identity, almost as if to suggest that the terms “identity” and “ideology” could be used interchangeably, even though they are two markedly different categories that deserve a more careful differentiation than Rawski is willing to provide. While describing the lengths to which the Manchu rulers went to preserve their identity, Schoppa commits an equally disconcerting juxtaposition, in one paragraph writing, “A key to upholding Manchu martial identity was to maintain the banner forces, the vehicles of their military success,” while in the very next paragraph writing, “Yet another strategy for maintaining martial values was to set aside Manchuria as a permanent Manchu homeland” (28; emphasis mine). To vary his word choice, Schoppa sacrifices both clarity and precision. What, then, is the distinction between identity on the one hand and ideology and values on the other? Identity is a person or group’s self-image; values or ideologies constitute a person or group’s vision of (and for) reality. Why does identity, which is internalized and difficult to articulate, find its way to the center of this discussion, when ideology is the force that enacts dominance and shapes history and even creates a shared sense of identity? Ideology is the more compelling explanation for the Manchu’s successful rule during the Qing Dynasty.
What practical applications does this alternative view offer to the current debate? To answer this question, I want to review two of the concluding points Rawski leaves her readers with at the end of her essay to show how a focus on ideology could allow scholars fresh ways to answer her questions while pursuing a deeper inquiry into history. First, Rawski points out, “Only a definition of the nation that transcends Han identity can thus legitimately lay claim to the peripheral regions inhabited by non-Han peoples…” (841). More than that, since a person or group’s identity is authored by the same ideologies that construct the nation, a good definition of the nation must transcend the concept of identity at all. If we define “nation” as an ideological construct, this would also allow scholars to “reevaluate the historical contributions of the many peoples who have resided in and sometimes ruled over what is today Chinese territory” (842), for scholars could then deconstruct the biases in the way “China” is customarily defined. Second and connected to this, Rawski suggests in her conclusion that Han nationalism, a construct of the twentieth century, has played a large role in the interpretation of Chinese history (842). Focusing on ideology would allow scholars to deconstruct such erroneous interpretations of history and more accurately trace the developments of this particular kind of modern myth making.
Recognizing the artificial nature of identity must be coupled with a shift away from the focus on ethnic and cultural difference. Identity, since it is largely conditioned by the historical processes that are themselves intricately connected to ideology, should not be seen as the driving force of history; rather, a careful cartography of Manchu political and social ideology has the capacity to explain the efficacy of Manchu rule during the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, the task now facing researchers is a thorough inquiry into the structures of power that authorize identity as well as the particular notions of history that have come into debate; concomitantly, identity must be thought of as the product of those relations of power.
References
Rawski, Evelyn. “Presidential Address: Reenvisioning the Qing: The Significance of the Qing Period in Chinese History.” The Journal of Asian Studies 55, no.4 (November 1996): 829-850.
Schoppa, R. Keith. Revolution and Its Past: Identities and Change in Modern Chinese History. Boston: Prentice Hall, 2011.
The discourse on Manchu and Han relations during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) tends to focus erroneously on the issue of identity. Historians like Ho Ping-ti accept the conventional thesis that the Qing Dynasty’s success was borne of the Manchu government’s capacity to adopt Han cultural norms, while historians like Evelyn Rawski argue for a reappraisal of history that instead focuses on the ability of the Manchu rulers to establish bonds and build bridges with non-Han ethnic minorities (Rawski 831). However, both Ho and Rawski assume, albeit in contrasting fashion, the preeminence of cultural identity in their history, an assumption that calls their conclusions into question. This essay, on the other hand, will argue that an entirely different understanding of Manchu rule will be necessary to appreciate this history, an understanding that deemphasizes the role of identity and ethnicity to instead stress the effects of ideology in constructing identity and creating history.
First, I want to reexamine the debate of sinicization with this guiding hermeneutic, using texts by Rawski and R. Keith Schoppa to show the limitations in the current orientation of scholarly discourse. In rehearsing the traditional analysis of the Qing Dynasty, Rawski quotes Ho: “The key to its [Qing] success was the adoption by early Manchu rulers of a policy of systematic sinicization” (831). In other words, it is necessary that Manchu identity be replaced, at least at the political level, by Han identity, for otherwise the political achievements of the Qing rulers would be impossible for contemporary scholars to explain. However, this argument, seemingly borne not out of necessity but in fact only out of a poor imagination, leads to absurd questions: how “Han” do Manchus have to act before they could be considered thoroughly sinicized? What made the Manchu’s sinicization “systematic”? Was the sinicization process a gradual shift in identity or a sudden, epiphanic moment of Han-realization? Rawski and Schoppa naturally try to distance themselves from the intellectual poverty of Ho’s sinicization thesis, and they develop a new way to think about identity: Schoppa argues that identity is constructed through historical processes, and as such identity is constantly shifting (4-6), while Rawski concludes with an exhortation for scholars to delve into the very heart of Chinese identity to discover the influences of non-Han culture (842). Therefore, Han identity and Manchu identity, far from being sui generis, can be (and, according to Rawski, must be) deconstructed by historians. But in the process of deconstruction, a crucial distinction needs to be made: what social or political behavior could be intrinsically attached to Han identity as opposed to Han ideology?
It is tempting to consider identity and ideology as synonymous, but a clear distinction must be drawn between the two. Indeed, Rawski and Schoppa both seem to have a modicum of confusion about the two terms. Rawski writes about ideology, but only briefly, for she argues, “The ideologies created by the Manchu leaders drew on Han and non-Han sources” (834). However, Rawski then quickly returns to her discourse on ethnic identity, almost as if to suggest that the terms “identity” and “ideology” could be used interchangeably, even though they are two markedly different categories that deserve a more careful differentiation than Rawski is willing to provide. While describing the lengths to which the Manchu rulers went to preserve their identity, Schoppa commits an equally disconcerting juxtaposition, in one paragraph writing, “A key to upholding Manchu martial identity was to maintain the banner forces, the vehicles of their military success,” while in the very next paragraph writing, “Yet another strategy for maintaining martial values was to set aside Manchuria as a permanent Manchu homeland” (28; emphasis mine). To vary his word choice, Schoppa sacrifices both clarity and precision. What, then, is the distinction between identity on the one hand and ideology and values on the other? Identity is a person or group’s self-image; values or ideologies constitute a person or group’s vision of (and for) reality. Why does identity, which is internalized and difficult to articulate, find its way to the center of this discussion, when ideology is the force that enacts dominance and shapes history and even creates a shared sense of identity? Ideology is the more compelling explanation for the Manchu’s successful rule during the Qing Dynasty.
What practical applications does this alternative view offer to the current debate? To answer this question, I want to review two of the concluding points Rawski leaves her readers with at the end of her essay to show how a focus on ideology could allow scholars fresh ways to answer her questions while pursuing a deeper inquiry into history. First, Rawski points out, “Only a definition of the nation that transcends Han identity can thus legitimately lay claim to the peripheral regions inhabited by non-Han peoples…” (841). More than that, since a person or group’s identity is authored by the same ideologies that construct the nation, a good definition of the nation must transcend the concept of identity at all. If we define “nation” as an ideological construct, this would also allow scholars to “reevaluate the historical contributions of the many peoples who have resided in and sometimes ruled over what is today Chinese territory” (842), for scholars could then deconstruct the biases in the way “China” is customarily defined. Second and connected to this, Rawski suggests in her conclusion that Han nationalism, a construct of the twentieth century, has played a large role in the interpretation of Chinese history (842). Focusing on ideology would allow scholars to deconstruct such erroneous interpretations of history and more accurately trace the developments of this particular kind of modern myth making.
Recognizing the artificial nature of identity must be coupled with a shift away from the focus on ethnic and cultural difference. Identity, since it is largely conditioned by the historical processes that are themselves intricately connected to ideology, should not be seen as the driving force of history; rather, a careful cartography of Manchu political and social ideology has the capacity to explain the efficacy of Manchu rule during the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, the task now facing researchers is a thorough inquiry into the structures of power that authorize identity as well as the particular notions of history that have come into debate; concomitantly, identity must be thought of as the product of those relations of power.
References
Rawski, Evelyn. “Presidential Address: Reenvisioning the Qing: The Significance of the Qing Period in Chinese History.” The Journal of Asian Studies 55, no.4 (November 1996): 829-850.
Schoppa, R. Keith. Revolution and Its Past: Identities and Change in Modern Chinese History. Boston: Prentice Hall, 2011.
May 4, 2011
Film review: The Illusionist
The Illusionist (dir. Sylvain Chomet, 2010). Chomet's second feature film, animated in a dazzling ligne claire style, uses an unproduced script from the great filmmaker Jacques Tati as its starting point to meditate on the intersection of art and life. The heartbreaking slowness of the narrative and the likewise ponderous movement of the accompanying musical score plunge the viewer into nostalgia for an innocence and simplicity that never existed. Though undoubtedly much more sentimental than Tati would have made it, ending up more like Chaplin than Keaton, The Illusionist nevertheless evokes the painful ache of loss and regret that only art can articulate and make sense of, even if art, like magic, is incapable of curing it. A
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