1. For a clear picture of social changes, see Rankin, “State and Society.”

2. Chow Tse-tsung, The May Fourth Movement, 360.

3. Leo Ou-fan Lee, “Romantic Individualism in Modern Chinese Leterature,” 239. His article deals with the iconoclastic stance of the May Fourth movement and its limits.

4. Svarverud, “Individual Self-Discipline and Collective Freedom,” 215–219.

5. In the last century the “small self” became the label for the individual, contrasted with the “big self” for the nation or society. In addition, as acutely noted by Liu Qingfeng (“Moral Idealism and Asceticism,” 51), the Confucianized version of Marxism-Leninism worsened the autocratic tendencies of traditional Confucianism because “it does not possess that mechanism controlling the spread of asceticism through the whole of society which is inherited in Confucianism.” In the polyphonic and pluralistic development of Chinese traditional thought, an interesting precedent can be found in Dai Zhen. He has similarly argued that abstract and despotic principles (li 理)—something similar to dawo—always oppress man’s emotions and desires (qingyu 情欲). See Dai Zhen, Mengzi Ziyi Shuzheng, 1: 28, 35–36; see also Mizoguchi, “Mōshi Jigi Soshō,” 144–145, 155–156, 163–165.

6. See Chen Lang, “The Changing Notion of Happiness,” 19–41. The article deals with the original differences between fu and le, then the radical change in the early twentieth century and Liang Qichao. Chen Lang describes the shift from the quasi-religious belief that one is contributing to the progress of the motherland to the pursuit of pleasure and prosperity now; Chen deals with the political manipulation of the sense of xingfu, in that people need to be taught not only what it is but how to feel it properly (33–37).

7. Quoted by Zhang Huajun, “Individuality beyond the Dichotomy,” 543.

8. Svarverud, “Individual Self-Discipline and Collective Freedom,” 209. According to Edmund S. K. Fung (“Were Chinese Liberals Liberal?” 566), “there is no reason to believe that Liang did not recognize the core values and beliefs of liberalism, such as individualism, civil rights and liberties.”

9. Jerome Ch’en, China and the West, 181, quoted in Svarverud, “Individual Self-Discipline and Collective Freedom,” 209.