Life-Death,Morality and Revolution——On the Individual,Society and Morality in the Ideals of Late-Qing"Zhishi"

Among the Neo-scholars of the Late Qing Dynasty,Zhishi,persons with ideals and integrities,was a kind of citizen matched with the needs of the modern country.The concept of citizen indicated that it had some kind of new morality which surpassed the old morality and ethical order.The new morality embraced the ideal of control of the masses,a public morality matched with a new human order.The formation of such a public morality required a dichotomy:one was the religious moral sentiment of risking one's life in the first hand,a devoted spirit on the premise of a new view on life and death;the other was that the issue of life and death could seem to be solved only through transcending 'life and death',devoting oneself to the masses and finally getting one's self out of an state in creating a new value order.Therefore,the ideals of Zhishi have double meanings:first becoming an isolated self,and then transcending the self with the new religious morality.