The British View of Chinese Civilization and the Emergence of Class Consciousness

This essay seeks to explain why the British view of Chinese civilization changed from one of admiration to contempt in the last decade of eighteenth century. I propose to show that the British view of Asian societies articulated in the nineteenth century relied extensively on the language and epistemes of class consciousness. Significantly, the language of class, more than any other factor, sparked a reevaluation of Chinese civilization among British intellectuals. Furthermore, this essay argues that the new perception and reevaluation of Chinese society were well received by critics in Britain who wished to reinforce class politics, particularly those of reform in early-nineteenth-century Britain. For the purposes of this present paper, the term class consciousness will embrace not only the most rigidly defined social categories, but also the more loosely conceived social divisions sometimes referred to as rank, order, and so forth. Not until the French Revolution did class struggle become a part of the political lexicon. Before that overwrought drama, terms such as class and rank commonly suggested a social hierarchy providentially erected.1It has long been a commonplace that British attitudes toward Asian societies underwent a great change in the second half of the eighteenth century. While a great deal of evidence for this change has been presented, no one has yet offered a satisfactory explanation for it.2 Probably the most systematic account of this change is found in Jurgen Osterhammel's recent publication, in which he argues that the development of political economy contributed to the shift in European opinions toward China. This essay follows Osterhammel in arguing that knowledge systems played an important role in British worldviews. But it will argue that epistemes of social stratification, together with the ramification of a new identification of lower classes with civilization, are more essential than political economy in this change.3 For instance, early writers-among them Adam Smith-saw in Asia a set of backward societies whose failure to rival European greatness had to be due to stagnation. Before the eighteenth century, it was held, such states as India and had made brilliant advances, feeding their large populations and enjoying remarkable prosperity and political power. Then, quite suddenly, the advances ground to a halt, and the achievements of northwestern Europe permitted that region to shoot past a faltering East.4 The idea of progress suffused the comparative histories of this period, which served to reinforce the heady Western sense of superiority. Recent studies of eighteenth-century Asia, however, challenge-if not contradict-these early assessments, showing that even by Western standards of material progress, the region was not stagnant before 1750. Relying on Paul Bairoch's studies, Kenneth Pomeranz argues that even in 1800 per capita income in China remains ahead of even western Europe.5 To revisionists such as Baioch, Pomeranz, and AndreGunder Frank, it is fair to describe the perspective of the eighteenth-century Europeans as determined by their perception of their relative position: those who spoke of Asian stagnation were like passengers seated in a high-speed train staring out their windows at a rickshaw going full tilt.Here I want to argue that the British discussions of Asian societies that commenced in the second half of the eighteenth century broke with the earlier fascination with stagnation to focus on social stratification in and the Far East, and the dark side of the societies in question. Moving beyond a focus on the elite classes, British observers turned their gaze to the lower classes and their way of life. By the turn of the nineteenth century, a full-blown discourse of class consciousness had crept into the British discourse on Asian societies. This change necessarily reflected the observers' social status, educational backgrounds, and worldviews; in addition, as I will demonstrate, this discussion shifts from identifying standards of civilization with elite culture to concentrating on the common practices in ordinary life as a measure of social, cultural, and economic standing. …