The text I have chosen to base my upcoming project proposal on is perhaps the most bizarre, ambitious work I have ever come across in my two and a half years of studying history at the university level. Its title: Datong Shu, or, The Book of Great Unity. It was published posthumously in 1935, seven years following the death of its author, the Chinese intellectual and statesman Kang Youwei (1858-1927). Historically, he is most well-known for his intellectual works and his leadership of the Qing Dynasty’s Hundred Days’ Reform (1898), which sought to modernize China along national, cultural, political, and educational lines. The movement ultimately failed, as it was quashed by reactionary elements in the Qing court.
Reportedly, Kang refused to publish Datong Shu despite urgings to do so on the basis that its ideas were too ahead of its times. Upon reading parts of Laurence G. Thompson’s translation of the work, it’s easy to see why. The book imagines and predicts a future in which the world is unified into a “One World,” a utopian “Great Unity” in which all of the sources of humankind’s sufferings are rendered obsolete. As put by Kang, “The Way of One World is [the attainment of] utmost peace-and-equality, utmost justice, utmost jen [a term that loosely translates to “goodness”], and the most perfect government. Even though there be [other] Ways, none can add to this.”[1]
What, according to Kang, must be abolished in order to achieve the One World? The “nine boundaries” that represent “the sources of all suffering.”[2] According to Kang, these boundaries cause humans to suffer due to the obligations that they place on them. They are nation (national borders), class, race, sex, family (and its relationships), occupation (private ownership), disorder (unjust law), kind (the separation of humans from animals), and suffering itself (as it provokes further suffering). Essentially, Kang’s Datong Shu imagines a global utopia that links all of humanity.
The entirety of Datong Shu is based upon the idea that what constitutes “right” and “wrong” is dependent on if and how they contribute to human happiness. Kang maintains this idea throughout Datong Shu, and this results in truly radical, utopian ideas that would be considered as such even in our day and age. For instance, he proposes the destruction of the family unit, given how it obligates its members to defer to and support one another. He reimagines marriage as a series of one-year contracts of alliance that may be signed between two people. Men and women are not to be differentiated from each other, and all of humanity is to eventually coalesce into one great global race.
The fact that such sentiments were espoused by a 19th and 20th century Chinese scholar are even more confounding. While the Datong Shu is based upon radical interpretations of classical Chinese thought (and perhaps slight Western intellectual influences), Kang espouses a global, universal vision of the world throughout. Miraculously, he speaks of a Great Unity and a One World in a time when European powers dominate the Earth and subjugate its vast subaltern populations. While it is arguable that Kang imagines a Chinese-inspired global vision in Datong Shu, he ultimately thinks in terms of the global. He thinks transnationally as well; key aspects of his description of a One World government involve dividing up the Earth into equal geographic sections for administrative purposes and the global abolishment of political borders, complete with all of their restrictions.
I’ve yet to properly imagine the historical questions I need to ask of this work, let alone an answer to the ever-pervasive “so what” question Konrad Lawson drove into my head last semester: “why does this matter?” However, in Datong Shu I see that there is quite a lot to be analyzed, especially through the practice of global intellectual history. In their important 2013 work on Global Intellectual History, Moyn and Sartori propose a number of paths that may be adopted by the global intellectual historian. One takes its starting point by defining the “global” as a “subjective category used by historical agents.”[3] In other words, the approach considers how historical actors themselves perceived the idea of the global.
Perhaps
my research will go down this path. Wish me luck.
[1] K’ang Yu-Wei and Laurence G. Thompson, trans., Ta T’ung Shu (New York, 1958), p. 72.
[2] Ibid., p. 74.
[3] Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sartori, “Approaches to Global Intellectual History” in Moyn and Sartori, eds., Global Intellectual History, pp. 4, 16-17.
Hi Grant! Thanks a lot for this; Kang Youwei is a really interesting character. After having studied him in Konrad’s other module, ‘Rethinking the World in East Asia’, it’s really interesting to see someone pick apart the transnational elements of his thought. A lot of it incorporates a lot of Kantian Cosmopolitanism, Buddhist ideals, Confucian morality, and also Anarchist thought. There’s also a few links between his thought and the Esperanto movement in the early 20th century. A lot of individuals (in particular, the Chinese Anarchists and Feminists) piggybacked on Kang’s ideals of ‘One World’ and ‘One Way’ to promote a language that could be spoken universally, was ungendered, and ultimately came to symbolise that Fresh New Start in society they wanted. To sum – Kang, and the intellectual context he was writing in, are really quite transnational. I imagine you’ll be wanting to analyse him by taking a global intellectual history approach, and I can’t wait to see what you do with it. Let me know if you need help with anything as I have access to a few readings and sources about Kang!
Thanks for the support! I’d definitely be interested in checking out your sources.
Yes, I’ll be writing from a global intellectual history angle; I think an interesting take that would have a bit of originality to it (so that I don’t simply repeat past arguments) would be to consider how Kang imagined the “global,” and why this matters historically.