Individual Autonomy and Responsibility in Late Imperial China By ...

but inclusive, and participative rather than antagonistic. Probably it is not by chance that Chinese ancient sages and mythical emperors were said to have taught people technique and sciences, like the control of fire, house building, agriculture, silk production, medicine, music, the calendar and writing systems; above all, they impersonated a model of virtue which is deemed fundamental to rule over the country. On the contrary, in Greek mythology, Prometheus helped humans against gods to subtract themselves from their state of dependence, hence becoming a heroic emblem of the autonomy of men. But these hypotheses may be just a posteriori reconstructions that will not be reasonable in the future.

Regardless of whether these elements are similar to those found in European early modernity, Ming-Qing writings offer a spectrum of creative and variegated solutions to the problems of human relations.³⁸ The gradual decline of the School of Mind and, by the end of the nineteenth century, the reappraisal of legalistic ideas in nationalistic fashion, aiming at “strengthening the nation” instead of looking for more space to individual freedom and self-fulfilment,³⁹ did not extinguish the humanistic interest in an autonomous self and the self-centered reconstruction of the individual. The consolidation of what can be called a process of individualization in the fields of social life, market competition, and career pursuance can also be seen in the narrative of late Qing and Republican China. The two concrete cases from which we started are examples of the many scholars who professed their dignity and autonomy at the cost of their life or freedom. Many, like Fang Xiaoru, were devoted to martyrdom;⁴⁰ others cultivated the ideal of the heroes, like Li Zhi; and others dared to heroically keep their position, like Zhu Jiyou. But autonomy could be kept also by adaptation to political circumstances, following an aesthetic style of life, like Yuan Mei, or the character Jia Baoyu, or again withdrawing to a hermit life and becoming a monk.

Conversely, the rhetoric of the “general interest” and common advantage remained quite dominant, and in some aspects it was quite reasonable. After all, ideological control was exercised more or less effectively