Party-building, primary-level governance, and social stability—Renmin University professor unpacks the connotations of "social work" in the Chinese context.
A most perceptive and fascinating article. The heart of the problem is the definition of “society”. Even in English it has a variety of nuances, but essentially it refers to the individual (or family) and how they are placed within and interact within the larger human world they belong to, “society”. When the Japanese tried to render the Western concept of “society” in the 19th century, they rejected the native word 世間, which had connotations of the wider world beyond the family, including reputation and judgements by “society”, or making your way through the “world”, and made up the totally new term 社会, which is a fairly interesting coinage. The Chinese in due course adopted the Japanese term. Your article looks further at how the concept has been given radically different nuances by the Communist party — “society” defined by more narrowly as one sphere of Communist party control, alongside (I am assuming) political, economic, and cultural. I would be interested to know whether this usage originated with the Russians. Did the Soviet Union similarly speak of “social work”, or is it a more specifically Chinese thing? What of Communist regimes in Eastern Europe? What of surviving Communist regimes in North Korea and (perhaps) Vietnam? Finally, the very translation of 社会 as “social” seems to me to be problematic. To avoid confusion, 社会 might be better rendered as “societal”. A great article!
Quite a useful input to my endeavour to understand Chinese socialism and how the relationship between the individual and society is seen quite differntly in China and in the West. Thank you.
A most perceptive and fascinating article. The heart of the problem is the definition of “society”. Even in English it has a variety of nuances, but essentially it refers to the individual (or family) and how they are placed within and interact within the larger human world they belong to, “society”. When the Japanese tried to render the Western concept of “society” in the 19th century, they rejected the native word 世間, which had connotations of the wider world beyond the family, including reputation and judgements by “society”, or making your way through the “world”, and made up the totally new term 社会, which is a fairly interesting coinage. The Chinese in due course adopted the Japanese term. Your article looks further at how the concept has been given radically different nuances by the Communist party — “society” defined by more narrowly as one sphere of Communist party control, alongside (I am assuming) political, economic, and cultural. I would be interested to know whether this usage originated with the Russians. Did the Soviet Union similarly speak of “social work”, or is it a more specifically Chinese thing? What of Communist regimes in Eastern Europe? What of surviving Communist regimes in North Korea and (perhaps) Vietnam? Finally, the very translation of 社会 as “social” seems to me to be problematic. To avoid confusion, 社会 might be better rendered as “societal”. A great article!
Interesting, thanks.
Thanks very interesting
Quite a useful input to my endeavour to understand Chinese socialism and how the relationship between the individual and society is seen quite differntly in China and in the West. Thank you.