The Spread of Cosmopolitanism in China and Lu Xun’s Understanding of the “World Citizen”

Abstract

The concept of World Citizen was not introduced to China by Lu Xun, but it is an important term in his thought. The most obvious difference between Lu Xun and other cultural pioneers during the May Fourth period is that rather than understanding and promoting cosmopolitanism as a social or systematic phenomenon, he was mainly interested in human nature and therefore attempted to formulate the concept of World Citizen in terms of a humanistic or spiritual dimension. In so doing, he profoundly expressed an ideological appeal for the significance of the human consciousness, understood within its historical context. This particular conception of cosmopolitanism is symbolically valuable and relevant to the present ideological reality.

Keywords

Lu Xun / cosmopolitanism / World Citizen / Chinese / modern transformation

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2014 Higher Education Press and Brill