Jiang Chengyang
Si-Mian Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China.
Integr Psychol Behav Sci. 2022 Jun;56(2):355-367. doi: 10.1007/s12124-021-09656-2. Epub 2021 Oct 26.
In this paper, I examine a Chinese family's oral history, which revolves around their tumultuous life transformations under the impact of China's communist movement between 1940 and 1977. Using interviews with four siblings who have distinctive personalities and life narratives, I focus on how they apply fatalistic thinking-a phenomenon popular among ordinary Chinese but is rarely analyzed by scholars-to make sense of the vicissitudes of the fates of the family members. I position the Chinese family's oral history in macro and micro contexts. In the macro context, since the land reform in 1940s, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had attempted to replace peasants' fatalistic thinking with class analysis to explain the roots of hardships in their lives. As the communist movement and class struggle receded, fatalistic thinking-which has never been eradicated-revived. In the micro context, fatalistic thinking is expressed through distinctive memories and narratives, which are linked to personalities and identities. I argue that fatalistic thinking is a mean of self-construction that people consciously or unconsciously resort to when facing absurdity. By using fatalistic thinking, people develop narratives about the self and create a sense of mental balance.
在本文中，我考察了一个中国家庭的口述历史，这段历史围绕着他们在1940年至1977年中国共产主义运动影响下动荡的生活变迁展开。通过对四个性格各异、有着不同生活经历的兄弟姐妹的访谈，我着重探讨了他们如何运用宿命论思维——这一在中国普通人中很普遍但很少被学者分析的现象——来理解家庭成员命运的沧桑变化。我将这个中国家庭的口述历史置于宏观和微观背景之中。在宏观背景下，自20世纪40年代土地改革以来，中国共产党试图用阶级分析取代农民的宿命论思维，以解释他们生活困苦的根源。随着共产主义运动和阶级斗争的消退，从未被根除的宿命论思维再度兴起。在微观背景下，宿命论思维通过独特的记忆和叙述得以体现，这些记忆和叙述与个人性格和身份相关联。我认为，宿命论思维是一种自我建构的方式，人们在面对荒诞时会有意识或无意识地诉诸于此。通过运用宿命论思维，人们构建关于自我的叙述，并创造出一种心理平衡感。
