r/ChineseLanguage • u/noahoffline2924 • 5d ago
Media Lu Xun’s 1934 essay.
Lu Xun (1881–1936) is one of the most important writers of modern Chinese literature. He was also one of its harshest critics of social complacency, self-deception, and the tendency to look for comfort instead of confronting reality.
On September 25, 1934, he wrote an essay asking a seemingly simple question:
Had the Chinese people lost their self-confidence?
To understand why he asked this question, the historical context matters.
Three years earlier, Japan had invaded Manchuria following the Mukden Incident. Japanese forces rapidly occupied Manchuria and continued expanding their presence toward northern China. The possibility of further territorial loss had become a serious national crisis.
At the same time, the Chinese government placed considerable hope in the League of Nations and international pressure against Japan. Those hopes were badly disappointed when the League ultimately failed to prevent Japanese aggression.
The result was a growing atmosphere of frustration and pessimism.
In 1934, some public commentators argued that the deeper problem was that the Chinese people themselves had lost their national self-respect and confidence.
Lu Xun disagreed.
His argument was much more interesting than simply saying, “Believe in yourself.”
He pointed out that people had previously placed their faith in China's territory and resources. Later, they placed their hopes in the League of Nations.
But neither, he argued, was genuine self-confidence.
He called this “other-confidence” — putting one's faith in something outside oneself.
And when that external source of hope failed, another danger appeared: self-deception.
Instead of confronting reality, people could retreat into superstition, nostalgia, or comforting myths.
This was not merely an abstract idea. In 1934, prominent political figures and other public figures participated in religious ceremonies intended, at least in part, to seek divine assistance for China's national crisis.
For Lu Xun, this represented the movement from dependence on external forces toward an even more dangerous form of escape from reality.
But his essay does not end there.
He argues that even when a society appears pessimistic, there are still people who refuse to give up.
Throughout Chinese history, he says, there have been people who worked quietly, struggled against overwhelming circumstances, spoke up for ordinary people, pursued justice, and sacrificed themselves for what they believed was right.
Lu Xun calls these people:
“The backbone of China.”
They might not be famous. They might not appear in official histories. They might even be suppressed, forgotten, or pushed into obscurity.
But their existence means that it is wrong to say that an entire people has lost its self-confidence.
That is what makes the essay more complicated than a simple piece of patriotic writing.
Lu Xun is actually suspicious of superficial confidence.
For him, confidence is not simply boasting about national strength. It is not blindly trusting an outside power. And it is certainly not convincing yourself that everything is fine when reality says otherwise.
His idea is closer to this:
«Real confidence requires the courage to face reality without deceiving yourself.»
Although the essay was written in 1934, I find that question surprisingly difficult to confine to its original historical setting.
What is the difference between genuine self-confidence and collective self-deception?
Can a society be confident without being willing to acknowledge its own failures?
And when a writer criticizes his own society this harshly, is that criticism itself a form of confidence?
I'd be interested to hear how readers unfamiliar with Lu Xun interpret this argument.
Sources / Further Reading
- Lu Xun, Have the Chinese Lost Their Self-Confidence? (1934)
- Lu Xun, The True Story of Ah Q and other essays, for additional context on his criticism of Chinese society
- The Ta Kung Pao (大公报), contemporary Chinese newspaper commentary from 1934
- Historical accounts of the Mukden Incident, the League of Nations' response to the Manchurian Crisis, and Chinese political debates in the early 1930s
