*The Deep Structure of Chinese Culture* Author: Sun Longji Publisher: CITIC Press

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【Content Introduction】

◎Mr. Sun Longji's most renowned work, a newly revised edition

◎A penetrating cultural critique, a famous manifesto of the intellectual circles in the 1980s

◎Reinterpreting "state and society" and "individual and world" in the context of Chinese culture

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Conscience, human heart, concern, psychological warfare, pouring out one's heart, exchanging hearts, exchanging one's heart for another's — how does "heart" play an organizing and dominant role in Chinese culture?

Lifetime, person, emancipation, background, self-cultivation, self-sacrifice, involuntarily — why do Chinese people like to refer to themselves with the non-spiritual "body"?

For thousands of years, how have the desires for "peace of mind" and "settled life" constructed the deep structure of Chinese culture? How will individual habits reflect the shortcomings of the nation and the political landscape of the country?

Mr. Sun Longji treats three thousand years of Chinese history as a "long duration," using a structural concept—a synchronic setting for a specific range—to study Chinese history and the cultural characteristics generated by this historical continuity. His ingenious approach is not to broadly list the shortcomings of the nation's people and then propose commonplace remedies, but to provide a critique that feels like a thousand cuts, giving one a strong urge to break free from its depths, thereby achieving the profound appeal of cultural critique.

【Editor's Recommendation】

1. This book explores the factors that influenced the "individual" and "society" in 20th-century China. "Benevolence is humanity." How much did traditional Chinese thought influence people's psychological structures? Why do Chinese people lack self-autonomy? These questions can all be glimpsed in this book.

2. The "deep structure" discussed in this book is neither historical sequence nor within the scope of causal relationships in a logical sense; rather, it discusses the synchronic setting of China. Many historical examples in the book do not simply list so-called national "shortcomings," but instead offer a comprehensive and profound critique of Chinese culture from the perspective that China has maintained its self-identity even after experiencing changes.