Keywords

The value judgment of literary criticism lies in the evaluation of literary works. It is both an innate mission of Marxist literary criticism and a necessity for the social and cultural construction of contemporary China. To exert its influence on reality, literary criticism needs to express views to the society through the evaluation of literary works, helping the public reflect on itself in the process of refiguring social ideals.

The “value” in value judgment is related to Marxist philosophy and political economy (classical Marxism, in its study of value, involves the relationship between subject and object, which expresses the preference in value selection), but its meaning is closer to Marx’s etymology of value, which is “respectable, precious, dear, estimable.”Footnote 1 The reconstruction of value judgment in the Chinese form is centered around the complete emancipation of human beings and explores the multiple value dimensions of literary works. Through the study of value judgment, we hope to develop value judgment dimensions for the Chinese form based on Marx’s social ideals, so as to better safeguard and promote the smooth development of Chinese and global society and culture.

1 Literary Criticism Calls for Value Judgment

In the contemporary Chinese literary world, the value judgment function of literary criticism has been seriously challenged, and Chinese literary criticism once faced the confusion of value anomie and anxiety over discourse power. The reconstruction of the value judgment of literary criticism has become another unavoidable concern in Chinese literary criticism.

1.1 Weakening and Loss of Value Judgment Nowadays

Although the value judgment of literary criticism is crucial and ubiquitous, it is an indisputable fact that the value judgment function of literary criticism in the contemporary literary world has weakened or even is lost, which is delineated in the following three situations.

1.1.1 The Current Weakening and Loss of Value Judgment

The absence of value judgment is reflected in merely focusing on the entertainment aspect of literature while value judgment continues to be voiceless, or literary criticism has voluntarily given up the revelation and pursuit of spiritual level of literary works. As Neil Postman proposed in Amusing Ourselves to Death,

For Las Vegas is a city entirely devoted to the idea of entertainment, and as such proclaims the spirit of a culture in which all public discour increasingly takes the form of entertainment. Our politics, religion, news, athletics, education and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business, largely without protest or even much popular notice. The result is that we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death. (Postman 1986, pp. 3–4)

Even in the face of works that completely ignore human dignity, such as some films and so-called performance art that display a mockery of the underdog or violently grotesque and graphic scenes, literary criticism seems to be complicit in the market by avoiding the sublime and eliminating rational values. If the public does not distinguish between good and bad and if they lose their ability to think and judge values critically, the society as a whole is bound to degenerate.

1.1.2 Anomie of Value Judgment

While the absence of literary criticism is mainly at the mercy of money and thus yields to entertainment, the second case—the failure and anomie of the value scale—is not absent but in flood. This is seen in the evaluations of works that are distorting facts and expressing ridiculous arguments, which have lost the basic ethics of criticism. Due to the convenience of today’s self-media or we media, every netizen can be a critic, which has both the advantage of making literary criticism more popularized and the disadvantage of causing more difficulties in differentiating the good and the bad. Some people make sensational statements on the Internet just to garner attention, and their comments on works can actually be absurd and ridiculous. Some comments are irresponsible and far-fetched, with basic values being deconstructed or turned upside down; while some comments are even political and moral coercion.

1.1.3 Weakening of Value Judgment

In contrast to the second, in the third case, literary criticism appears as a positive preacher, but its commentary is often not sufficiently convincing and its ability to clarify practical issues is weakened, or it gives the impression of being weak, pale, or even false. Some commentary seems to be strong and powerful, but is hollow in essence, while other sermons are not only uninspiring but often objectionable.

All these cases suggest that our literary criticism is losing its ability to cast value judgment toward literary works. If the judgment of literature is abolished, not only is the whole literary world failing in discriminating between good and bad, but the legitimacy of literary criticism per se is also jeopardized.

1.2 The Realistic Context of the Lack of Value Judgment

The problem of the lack of value judgment must be considered in a contemporary context. Since the 1980s, Chinese literary criticism has been confronted with radically different social realities and literary and cultural patterns than in the past. With the influx of various Western critical approaches and the material temptations of the market economy, value judgment in literary criticism was once banished, and many problems occurred in the evaluation of writers’ works, which need to be re-examined and analyzed.

1.2.1 Primacy of Interpretation and Avoidance of Value Judgment

From the perspective of critical theory, the functions of interpretation and value judgment are the two most basic and important functions of literary criticism. In the late twentieth century, out of aversion to previous critical paradigm of vulgar sociology and the influx of numerous Western methods of literary criticism, textual interpretation was once highlighted as the most prominent function of literary criticism, and a “carnival of interpretation” emerged in Chinese literary criticism. However, the primacy of interpretation has led to the ignorance and avoidance of value judgment.

A prominent feature of various Western schools of literary criticism in the twentieth century was the primacy of interpretation. Although these schools of criticism do not agree over their critical claims and methods, they all show a strong interest in language and a preference for interpretation from different perspectives. New Criticism, for example, promotes semantic analysis and highlights the interpretive function of criticism. This is epitomized in the analysis of the polysemy of poetic language in William Empson’s Seven Types of Ambiguity. Freudian psychoanalysis is another mode of criticism that fully interprets the latent unconscious and sexual desire of a writer’s work, but there is little place left for moral, historical, or social evaluation in the interpretation of the writer’s unconscious, especially the sexual instinct. Deconstructive criticism, moreover, uses interpretation as its banner, and all it does is take the text as its axis of never-ending, insatiable interpretation. Miller once said: “‘Deconstruction’ is neither nihilism nor metaphysics, but simply interpretation as interpretation” (Miller 1991, p. 153). Literary criticism has thus become a Derridean “dissemination” and “trace” with no end in sight. Even New Historicism, which advocates a return to the historical dimension, argues that, given the fictional nature of any language, history is the result of interpretation and narration rather than objective discovery.

In addition to highlighting the interpretive function of literary criticism, these critical approaches also constitute different dimensions in which literary works can be observed and analyzed, thus creating, to a certain extent, a multiplicity of literary value judgment. For instance, New Criticism, with its emphasis on semantic analysis, is dedicated to the semantic exploration of poetic language; Structuralism aims to examine the deep structure beneath the text; Feminist criticism highlights the advantages of female gender and women’s resistance against patriarchy; The Reception Aesthetics and Reader-response criticism give the authority and the right of creating meaning to the reader; and New Historicism advocates plural and minor historical narratives, etc. These schools and their approaches to literary criticism reflect different aspects, shades of a literary work like a prism, contributing to the diversity and even uncertainty or ambiguity of the meaning of a text. This displays of the multiple meanings, in fact, causes the confusion or chaos in the value judgment of literary criticism.

Are these methods and schools of criticism really far removed or even detached from value judgment? The answer is negative. If we look at them carefully enough and analyze them in-depth, we can find that each method of criticism inherently contains and suggests certain value judgment. Let alone Feminist Criticism, New Historicism, and Postcolonial Criticism, which are schools of criticism with clear ideological stances and appeals, let’s focus on the Psychoanalytic criticism. It explicitly claims that it only interprets texts and does not make any value judgment, and yet implies a position and attitude immanent in itself. Psychoanalysis even realizes its critical ideas through the overturn of reason and morality. In Freud’s words, the propositions of the unconscious and the sexual instincts are in conflict with “an intellectual prejudice” and “an aesthetic-moral one,” and therefore, “With two of its assertions, psychoanalysis offends the whole world” (Freud 1920, p. 7). Even Structuralist and Deconstructionist criticism, which boast of the self-sufficiency and self-autonomy of texts, are not entirely free of value judgment. The former is an escape from reality, being criticized with “Structures don't take to the streets!” It is a demonstration of detachment from reality by returning to the “ivory tower” of language, while the latter expresses resistance to reality by deconstructing everything. In this sense, interpretation itself contains value judgment; as Hirsch put it: “the only unavoidable judgments of value in literary commentary are those which are necessarily implied in interpretation” (Hirsch 1986, p. 329). The different meanings and variations in the texts that emerge from various critical approaches suggest that all of these interpretations contain judgments in one way or another, and the only difference lies in that some are more reasonable and acceptable than others. It is precisely on the basis of the current actuality of literary criticism that the construction of a dominant as well as compatible system of value judgment becomes an urgent, vital task for the Chinese form.

1.2.2 The Impact of Multiple Values on Value Judgment

In addition to the multiplicity and ambiguity of value judgment caused by literary criticism itself as discussed above, the market economy and Postmodern thoughts have also had a major impact on the value judgment of literary criticism. In today’s society where money fetishism is prevalent, people’s value pursuit and psychological conditions are undergoing changes. The pursuit of economic and material life has, to some extent, exceeded the intellectual and spiritual pursuit, and earning money by any means is taken for granted. Furthermore, the development of the market economy is changing society’s cultural needs and patterns. With the rise of popular culture and the commercialization of the cultural industry, the contemporary literary world has tended toward entertainment-based cultural consumption, with the emergence of values originated from variety shows that highlight sensory and public opinion effects. Under the influence of Western postmodern thoughts, in particular, traditional moral ideals and aesthetic standards have been dismantled gradually. For example, there are often different value orientations in the treatment of love, marriage, and family relations. While “growing old together” is a love legend passed on with approval, is it really moral to be “unhappy but not separating?” or “neither close nor separated?” These “cultural symptoms” in contemporary society inevitably spread to literary criticism, leading to a dilemma in the value judgment of contemporary Chinese literary criticism.

Nevertheless, is it true that literary criticism cannot make value judgment about literary works under the condition of a market economy? It is a question that also requires specific and dialectical analysis. Although the worship of money in a market economy is averse to spiritual production, the market economy also creates the conditions for artistic production, in addition, a developed market economy can even regulate people’s value judgment. Therefore, the weakening of values in literary creation and criticism cannot be attributed entirely to the market economy. In the same vein, it would be unfair to attribute the imbalance in value judgment entirely to the impact of postmodern thoughts. The pluralism and equality advocated by the postmodern era have offered people freedom of choice and, to a certain extent, respect and liberation. Therefore, in the face of multiple values, the key lies in the concrete judgment and choice of the subject, and not in the multiple values themselves.

In the final analysis, the demands for the subject become the prerequisite for value judgment. The lack of value judgment is related to the weaknesses of human nature, especially the loss of conscience during the period of primitive capital accumulation, which, in Lu Xun’s words, calls for a reflection on the problem of “national character.” The focus of constructing value judgment in literary criticism is to establish a type of supreme “goodness” that conforms more to the human nature, to help the nation reflect on its own way of being, and to form an orderly mechanism of self- and mutual restraint.

1.3 The Necessity of Rebuilding Value Judgment

In view of the lack of value judgment and the anomie in contemporary literary creation and criticism in China and the rest in the world, we have to face the necessity of value judgment in literary criticism once again. While there are many reasons for the decline and anomie of value judgment of literary criticism, Chinese literary critics also need to reflect on themselves, for the lack of value judgment is also related to the fact that literary critics have not paid much attention to the value of literary criticism. With the rise of popular culture, the difficulties of integration brought about by the diversification of critical approaches, and the impact of cultural studies on traditional literary criticism paradigms, the Chinese form needs to establish new critical concepts and research standards in order to improve its ability to meet challenges of reality.

The value judgment of literary criticism is a way for the practice to realize its own existence and value. Value judgment is the due and proper function of literary criticism, without which the literary criticism would not be effective. Determined by the nature of Marxist literary criticism that the Chinese form holds, Chinese Marxist literary criticism, in particular, needs value judgment. As a type of criticism closely related to society, the value judgment of literary criticism suggests that we should not focus too much on the methodological innovations of literary criticism, but rather on its innate sense of mission and responsibility.

Rebuilding the value judgment of literary criticism is also a necessity for cultural construction today. Value judgment guides literary creation and is directly related to the development of current society and culture. It is thus no longer confined to the scope of literary criticism, but enters the realm of cultural construction. Literary works not only offer people spiritual pleasure, but also subtly and quietly change their spiritual world. The most important function of the value judgment of literary criticism is to promote and disseminate spiritual and cultural production and consumption, to enable people to better understand the world and themselves, and to inspire their pursuit of goodness. Value judgment in the Chinese form is also necessary for national rejuvenation. Literature has an inescapable responsibility to improve the cultivation of the nation. I strongly agree with the view that China’s modernization seeks to not only enrich the country and strengthen the nation, but also rebuild its core values and enhance its cultural spirit. In this regard, making appropriate value judgment of literary works will greatly influence and guide people’s thought and behaviors.

In short, insisting on the value judgment of literary criticism is of great significance to promote the cultural traditions of the nation, boost cultural identity, enhance national pride and cohesion, and improve the cultural quality of people of all ethnic groups. Avoiding pale or odious value judgment requires theoretical thinking, which is precisely the meaning of value reconstruction.

2 Marx and Engels’ Social Ideals and Value Judgment

Due to the lack and anomie of value judgment in contemporary literary creation and criticism, it becomes necessary to rebuild the value judgment of literary criticism. The construction of value judgment is directly related to social ideals. If social ideals were absent, it would directly lead to confusion of values in literary creation and criticism, and even the degradation of society as a whole. Therefore, what kind of social ideal should be constructed is not only a pertinent question for literary creation and criticism, but also a soul-searching inquiry for the whole society.

Social ideals generally refer to plans and aspirations for a better future. Over the course of history, Chinese and foreign wise philosophers have designed various ideal states of human society in search of human happiness. Plato established “The Republic,” More shaped a “utopia,” Tao Yuanming in ancient China envisaged a “The Peach Blossom Garden,” and in modern times, people with lofty ideals aspired to a “world of universal harmony.” These thinkers and writers ignited hopes and visions for the future, but some of their designs were too idealistic and illusive, mostly confined to abstract blueprints, and there are few practices of transforming reality based on these social ideals.

To discuss social ideals, we need to go back to classical Marxism. Marx and Engels transformed socialism from a fantasy into a science, and their social ideals embodied a value-based stance. Marx and Engels’ views on the social ideal are to be found in The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, The German Ideology, The Holy Family, and, above all, in The Communist Manifesto, where their social ideals were developed and articulated in the context of debates with those from other schools of thought such as “true socialism” (Engels 1990, p. 365). In contrast to the theoretical claims that are condescending and out of touch with reality, Marx’s social ideals are closely linked to the ultimate goals of the proletariat and the practice of revolutionary struggle—“in Marxism there is a visionary element, connoting value-assumptions and ultimate aims; in concrete terms this is to be defined as freedom, happiness, the good society, communism” (Berki 1988, p.10). The forthcoming discussion of the reconstruction of values is based precisely on the social ideals of classical Marxism, that is, the critique of the capitalist system and the quest for the future and, especially, the perfection of humanity.

2.1 The Criticism and Transcendence of Capitalism

The social ideals of classical Marxism have a clear historical dimension, and also were historically situated as well as formed and developed on the basis of a critique and transcendence of capitalism. During his temporary stay in Paris, Marx read the political and economic writings of the leading thinkers from Britain and France, and in particular, he accepted the thoughts of Saint-Simon and Fourier, based on which he posed the basic question of “Where are human beings going?” In his later work, Marx further studied the establishment of the ancient Greek city-states to restore a future society already suggested in ancient Greek thoughts.

2.1.1 Critique of the Capitalist System

Marx and Engels’ social ideals were expounded from the opposite side of capitalism, namely from the standpoint of criticizing capitalism. And “the critical spirit of the real movement which abolishes the present state of things” (Marx and Engels, 1975a, p. 49) is a major component. In The German Ideology, Marx and Engels pointed out that:

Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the now existing premise. (Marx and Engels 1975a, p. 49)

In other words, the social ideals of classical Marxism are based on the reality of society and presuppose a critique of the “…presupposed the existence of modern bourgeois society, with its corresponding economic conditions of existence, and the political constitution adapted thereto…” (Marx and Engels 1976, p. 512) of the time. That is to say, a new world should be introduced through the critique of capitalism.

In The Holy Family, Marx indicated that capitalism had deprived the proletariat of everything and that the proletariat had to revolt:

Since in the fully-formed proletariat the abstraction of all humanity, even of the semblance of humanity, is practically complete; since the conditions of life of the proletariat sum up all the conditions of life of society today in their most inhuman form; since man has lost himself in the proletariat, yet at the same time has not only gained theoretical consciousness of that loss, but through urgent, no longer removable, no longer disguisable, absolutely imperative need—the practical expression of necessity—is driven directly to revolt against this inhumanity, it follows that the proletariat can and must emancipate itself. But it cannot emancipate itself without abolishing the conditions of its own life. It cannot abolish the conditions of its own life without abolishing all the inhuman conditions of life of society today which are summed up in its own situation. (Marx and Engels 1975b, pp. 36–37)

Since capitalism deprives “even of the semblance of humanity,” the proletarian revolution becomes inevitable. Furthermore, Marx’s critique of the “inhumanity” of capitalist society remains inspiring for us to reflect on our own conditions of existence nowadays.

The question of alienated labor is related to this above notion. Although Marx had different interpretations of the nature of labor at different stages, he believed that capitalism turned labor into wage labor, which is one-sided or inhuman labor, that is, alienated labor. Marx sharply exposed and criticized this dehumanizing and alienated labor, hoping to replace wage labor with free, creative human activity and eliminate alienation to achieve labor liberation. The critique of alienated labor became an integral part of classical Marxist social ideals.

2.1.2 Dialectical Transcendence of Capitalism

Based on the critique of the existing capitalist system, the social ideals of classical Marxism manifested in a dialectical transcendence of capitalism. Marx and Engels inferred and foretold the advent of a communist society from the reality of capitalism and the trend toward its globalization. As a matter of fact, a communist society can only be based on all the material conditions created by capitalism. Although, in its initial stages, it often bears traces of the older society from which it was born—“Such a society presupposes throughout the achievements of the existing societies, especially their scientific and technical achievements. Released from their service in the cause of exploitation, they could be mobilized for the global elimination of poverty and arid toil” (Marcuse 1971, p. 23).

With the greatest advance of productive forces and the emergence of great wealth in future, the old pattern of labor division, which led to the one-dimensional development of human beings, is expected to be eliminated, and people are expected to be free from the shackles of lifelong fixation on a certain occupation, thus achieving all-around development. Engels, in his Principles of Communism, described communism as:

The general association of all members of society for the common and planned exploitation of the productive forces, the expansion of production to a degree where it will satisfy the needs of all, the termination of the condition where the needs of some are satisfied at the expense of others, the complete annihilation of classes and their antagonisms, the all-round development of the abilities of all the members of society through doing away with the hitherto existing division of labour, through industrial education, through change of activity, through the participation of all in the enjoyments provided by all, through the merging of town and country—such are the main results of the abolition of private property. (Engels 1976, p. 354)

The future society Engels propounded was quite thrilling. However, the social ideals of classical Marxism cannot be realized by empty slogans. Marx and Engels saw communism as a “real movement” that would require the constant efforts of generations. Happiness is earned through struggle, and it is social practice that makes social ideals truly relevant to people. It is only when social ideals are embraced and practiced by the majority of people that society becomes cohesive. In this process, “the proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win” (Marx and Engels 1976, p. 519).

2.2 Marx on the All-Round Development of Human Beings

The kernel of Marx and Engels’ social ideal is the emancipation and all-around development of human beings. When discussing private property and communism in The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx stated that communism seeks to enable “Man [to] appropriate his comprehensive essence in a comprehensive manner, that is to say, as a whole man” (Marx 1996a, p. 299). Later, in Capital, he explicitly indicated that communist society is “a higher form of society, a society in which the full and free development of every individual forms the ruling principle” (Marx 1996b, p. 588).

2.2.1 Human Beings as the Ensemble of Social Relations

According to the basic principles of historical materialism, Marx and Engels’ study of human beings lies not in their natural attributes but in their social attributes. In Theses on Feuerbach, Marx pointed out that “the essence of man is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In its reality it is the ensemble of the social relation” (Marx 1975b, p. 4). Individuals cannot exist in isolation; they are always integral to complex webs of real relations—“the development of an individual is determined by the development of all the others with whom he is directly or indirectly associated, …the history of a single individual cannot possibly be separated from the history of preceding or contemporary individuals, but is determined by this history” (Marx and Engels 1975a, p. 438). To understand the nature of individuals and the value of literature, it is necessary to start from reality and presuppose a good understanding of social relations. As Marx proposed, “Human being is not an abstract dormant being outside the world. Man is the world of man, the state, society” (Marx 1975a, p. 176). Thus, “Marx’s studies on humans, but not from the perspective of the individual, it is instead from the perspective of social relations” (Yuan 1996, p. 17).

In addition, an individual is a social being; even when the individual is connected to the nature, there is still a social relationship, because the struggle against nature is also based on the strength of society, that is, the relationship between one individual and another is formed for the purpose of realizing the relationship between human beings and nature. As Marx said:

The human aspect of nature exists only for social man; for only then does nature exist for him as a bond with man—as his existence for the other and the other's existence for him—and as the life-element of human reality. Only then does nature exist as the foundation of his own human existence. (Marx 1996a, p. 298)

Some people discussed the issue of females from a biological perspective, considering them as “sex issues” instead of social issues. However, Engels noted that such a woman is a “‘woman’ from whom all that is ‘historically evolved’ has been removed” and said in a mocking tone: “…may Mr Bahr take her to bed with him,’ purely tangible and perceptible’, together with her ‘natural instincts’” (Engels 2001, p. 505). Thus it can be seen that Engels argued that the issue of women is influenced by economics and history as well.

In light of the various relationships between human beings and society, freedom, within classical Marxist social ideals, is a freedom within social relations, that is, one needs to have a corresponding contract in their relations with others. In Marx’s words, “it makes every man see in other men not the realization of his own freedom, but the barrier to it” (Marx 1975c, p. 163). That is, human freedom is not a freedom to do whatever one wants, but is based on the premise of rules and contracts. Marx’s discussion explained the dialectical relationship between human freedom and social contract, in which individual freedom presupposes that one does not hinder the freedom of others.

2.2.2 “Each” Instead of a Person

An individual as a social person means such an individual is always specific and concrete—a person who engages in practical activities in certain social relations. This is an important difference between classical Marxism and Hegel. When Hegel spoke of human beings, he “does not mean the concrete, but the abstract, the idea, the spirit, etc.” (Marx and Engels 1975b, p. 40). In contrast, Marx and Engels clearly stated: they are “setting out from real, active men, and on the basis of their real life-process demonstrating the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life-process” (Marx and Engels 1975a, p. 36). Individuals are with social attributes:

Above all we must avoid postulating "society" again as an abstraction vis-à-vis the individual. The individual is the social being. His manifestations of life—even if they may not appear in the direct form of communal manifestations of life carried out in association with others—are therefore an expression and confirmation of social life. (Marx 1996a, p. 299)

In The Communist Manifesto, Marx made the well-known statement:

In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. (Marx and Engels 1976, p. 506)

There are two meanings here. First, it is emphasized that “each” forms the basis of “all,” and there would be no “all” without “each;” second, “each” needs to form a “a community of free individuals (Marx 1996a, p. 89),” and as a product of society, an individual cannot exist in isolation, just as one single number has no meaning by itself. The social ideals of classical Marxism presuppose the free development of each individual, which is integrated to the free development of all individuals. It is vitally important to emphasize that “each” person here is not “a person,” and Marx’s passage in Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law can serve as a footnote to this point: “The fact that Greece had a ScythianFootnote 2 among its philosophers did not help the Scythians to make a single step towards Greek culture” (Marx 1975a, p. 180). A Scythian cannot take the place of all her or his people to Greek culture. Marx’s theory that “each” person is not a person needs further exploration.

2.2.3 The All-Around Emancipation of Human Beings Cannot Be Separated from Sensuality

Marx’s all-around emancipation of human beings is not just the replacement of wage labor with free and creative human activity, but the realization of all-around emancipation of all human beings. In The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx implied that human emancipation

should not be conceived merely in the sense of immediate, one-sided enjoyment, merely in the sense of possessing, of having. Man appropriates his comprehensive essence in a comprehensive manner, that is to say, as a whole man. Each of his human relations to the world—seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, thinking, observing, experiencing, wanting, acting, loving—in short, all the organs of his individual being. (Marx 1996a, pp. 299–300)

This means that human emancipation is not limited to the transformation of unjustified social relations, the possession of material goods, and the acquisition of freedom of existence. Nor is it limited to liberation from mental bondage and repression and the possession of free will. Human emancipation must include the liberation of the senses, that is, “the complete emancipation of all human senses and qualities” (Marx 1996a, p. 246). Human beings need to experience not only the richness of the world of objects, but also the richness of the senses that correspond to it, to recognize and affirm themselves within the reality of sensual life.

In today’s world, which is “dominated by considerations of calculation, measurement, profit, and the like” (Jameson 2006, p. 217), the emphasis on the liberation of the senses is of realistic pertinence. Living in a roaring and impetuous society influenced by wealth and power, people tend to neglect their inner cultivation, which is more critical. Emphasizing the richness of human senses does not mean letting emotions spread unchecked and desires run amok, but rather renewing one’s sensual activities and truly achieving the harmony between mind and body.

In order to create “the rich man profoundly endowed with all the senses” (Marx 1996a, p. 302), Marx also put forth the idea that “Man therefore also forms objects in accordance with the laws of beauty” (Marx 1996a, p. 277), which are thus linked profoundly to aesthetics. As an aesthetic activity, literary activity is of vital importance in terms of the liberation of humans’ senses. Literary activity “plays a role that nothing else can replace in developing the spiritual life of human beings, in perfecting the construction of human nature, and in promoting the ‘restoration of human beings’” (Tong 2000, p. 246). It enables people to acquire “a musical ear, an eye for beauty of form” (Marx 1996a, p. 301) through creative and pleasant work. The freedom and pleasure that the aesthetic process embodies are the primary prerequisite for the realization of whole mankind as Marx anticipated.

Although Marx’s articulation of the social ideal is from different perspectives, it shares a very distinctive feature, that is, the vision of the all-around emancipation of mankind. Some people think that Marx’s social ideals are an unrealizable “utopia,” but this opinion needs further discussion. Marx’s social ideals are based on a critique of the capitalist system that looks ahead to potential social trends and are embedded in a strong sense of reality. This is what distinguishes Marxism from the previous “Utopian” tradition which only focuses on the future illusoriness. Moreover, the ideal itself is an absent presence, wherein exactly lie its appeal and glamor. When Marx talked about the “the realm of freedom” in Volume 3 of Capital, he also located it on the “next world” of the sphere of material production, so that it can serve as a guide to encourage people to strive upward. It is precisely because the classical Marxist social ideal is distant from reality that there is an urgency for reflection and endeavor. The social ideal of classical Marxism is both a theoretical presupposition and a vision for the transformation of society, and it can also guide and be translated into human historical creation. This is what distinguishes the true Marxist from those Marxists who seek change primarily in the cultural or linguistic spheres. As such, Eagleton clearly stated that Marxism is not outdated (Eagleton 2011, p. 9).

The full realization of the ideal is a long process, and since the restoration of human nature is a realistic process of continuous pursuit of its perfection, its imperfection is, in a sense, absolute and unconditional. Human nature has many weaknesses that need to be exposed and tackled, and this is precisely where the value judgment in the Chinese form requires particular attention and scrutiny. Since the perfection of human nature is a never-ending process, the emancipation of human beings always exists in the questioning of the meaning of life and living.

3 The Reconstruction of the Dimension of Value Judgment

The social ideals of classical Marxism not only reveal the trend of historical necessity of development of human society, but also provide theoretical support for value judgment in the Chinese form. Although the social ideal of classical Marxism points to the future, it is still constrained and influenced by the historical context at that time or before. Today, China is developing rapidly, and its social structure has transformed fundamentally. As Xi Jinping stated, “The main contradiction in our society has been transformed into the contradiction between the people’s growing need for a better life and unbalanced and insufficient development” (Xi 2017, p. 11). This transformation of the principal contradiction has become an opportunity for the development of Marxist social ideals in the Chinese form. Nowadays, the call for the construction of value judgment of literary criticism has become stronger and more urgent. The Chinese form has great potential, which is reflected in the construction of critical theory that is, making new conceptions and interpretations of value judgment dimensions.

3.1 Three Dimensions of Value Judgment

Many scholars have conducted specific research and exploration, and listed multiple levels and dimensions of values in literary works. However, it is an extremely broad and complex field of study if all aspects are to be covered. To be more concrete, the reconstruction of value judgment in the Chinese form will take Marx and Engels’ social ideals as the kernel and criteria, and examine the validity and legitimacy as well as qualities of the value of literary works in terms of whether they meet the spiritual and cultural needs of the people and masses, whether they are conducive to promoting the all-round development of human beings, and whether they conform to the trend of social development. Specifically, the value domain of value judgment is divided into three basic dimensions, namely the human, social, and aesthetic dimensions, with a hope to extract universal value factors from its core elements and form a dominant and compatible system of value judgment.

3.1.1 Human Dimension

The values of literary works, the main object of literary criticism, is a compound with multi factors, but its core factors are human beings and their lives. The reconstruction of human dimension of value judgment centers on human activities from the starting point to the destination, because it aims to highlight “human” in literary criticism. However,

literature may change with the political, economic, cultural, linguistic, artistic, and technological changes of society, and may constantly emerge in all kinds of unprecedented forms and styles, but one thing remains unchanged: literature is created for the sake of human beings, and exists and develops for the purpose of improving human beings’ self-knowledge, their state of existence, and spiritual status. (Di 2009, p. 51)

It is essential to reiterate that “human” in the human dimension is neither a capitalized, abstract person nor simply an “individual,” but “a community of free individuals.” Further, the “human” here is a real, concrete person with flesh and blood and with emotions and feelings. Kundera claimed that “philosophy and science have forgotten about man's being” (Kundera 1988, p. 1) while literature is the remedy for highlighting the existence of human beings. Therefore, we can conclude that in the human dimension of value judgment, literary works are evaluated by whether they contribute to the self-awakening and self-reflection of human beings.

The human dimension examines, first and foremost, the respect for human life, the maintenance of human dignity, and the pursuit of justice. These are all related to the value of life and meaning of human existence, where the critics should draw the bottom line. As Eagleton claimed, “there seems to be something in humanity which will not bow meekly to the insolence of power” (Eagleton 2011, p. 100) which is none other than the human dignity. Some great literary works have enduring value and transcendence precisely because they highlight the preservation and exaltation of human dignity. If a literary work completely ignores human life and dignity and has no reverence for them, it should rightly be criticized or even resisted.

For example, in terms of respect for life, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s “Manifesto for the Colonial War in Ethiopia,” a Futurist right-wing representative, should be denounced for its glorification of war. This is how he described war:

War is beautiful because—thanks to its gas masks, its terrifying megaphones, its flame throwers, and light tanks—it establishes man's dominion over the subjugated machine. War is beautiful because it inaugurates the dreamed of metallization of the human body. War is beautiful because it enriches a flowering meadow with the fiery orchids of machine-guns. War is beautiful because it combines gunfire, barrages, cease-fires, scents, and the fragrance of putrefaction into a symphony. (Benjamin 2008, p. 41)

Whatever the position of Futurism in the history of literature and art, and however powerful the role of war in promoting scientific and technological progress, glorious tributes like this are difficult to accept as appropriate given that they have no regard for the living lives of millions of people. Additionally, Marinetti blurred the distinction between justice and injustice in his salute to war, confusing the lofty with the despicable. Some films which promote or glorify murder are on the rise, turning a headshot into a “fireworks bloom,” and some even use Thanos-like characters to maintain the balance of the universe by randomly eliminating half of all the creatures. These films lack the minimum respect, compassion, and reverence that should be accorded to life, and should be boycotted if measured against the human dimension of the Chinese form.

Consideration and reflection on the human condition are another important aspect of the human dimension, which centers on the human survival status and examines whether the depiction of human beings in literary works is reasonable and whether it expresses the promotion and upholding of human nature, or merely the suppression or even distortion of human nature. Some works reveal the resilience and benevolence of human nature under adverse circumstances and inspire people’s dream of a better future; some works, despite the display of absurd life, prompt people to become self-aware and reflect. Some works, instead, make fun of the disadvantaged groups merely to get a laugh, and such works thus will not be recognized with such dominant values.

The higher pursuit of the human dimension is the all-around emancipation of the human being. According to Marx’s social ideals, the all-around emancipation of the human being includes social, spiritual, and sensory emancipation, which demonstrates the transcendence of the critic’s approach to society and literature. It is the sacred, unshakable duty of literature and literary criticism to cultivate people’s noble sentiments and enhance their aesthetic interests. In the case of literary criticism, the critics can influence people’s sentiments and improve their aesthetic qualities and abilities by judging the value of the work. In Marx’s view, only the spiritual and sensory liberation can be true liberation. Especially in today’s world, material abundance alone is not enough to live a life of dignity, of dream.

These constitute the main aspects of the human dimension of value judgment. Whether a work has value involves many factors. The value of a literary work varies from style to style and from idea to idea, but fundamentally lies in examining how it treats human beings and life. Any literary work that contributes to the all-around development of human beings deserves recognition and praise, while any work that does not contribute to the all-around development of human beings needs to be examined and even criticized.

3.1.2 Social Dimension

The social dimension of value judgment is to link literary works with social history. “Social” in the social dimension is not an abstract concept. It refers to the social life of a specific, concrete historical period. The main aspects that need to be examined include how a literary work depicts social life, whether it is profound, whether it reveals the necessity of historical development, and whether it contributes to the progress of society.

Investigating works through the lens of social dimension requires that the literary work be placed in the context of a particular era and socio-historical connection to examine whether it depicts realistic relationships and whether it has “profound grasp of reality” (Marx 1998, p. 44). In his 1945 essay “Good Bad Books,” George Orwell criticized those escapist literature and argued that some writers, though first-rate in their artistic skills, do not remain prominent in literary history, while works that depict the life of a particular era may last longer. He claimed, “I would back Uncle Tom's cabin to outlive the complete works of Virginia Woolf or George Moore, though I know of no strictly literary test which would show where the superiority lies” (Orwell 1968, p. 22). This is clearly an evaluation from the social dimension of value judgment, which shows that Orwell as a writer valued the cognitive function of literary works that facilitated us to have better understanding of social life.

The social dimension of value judgment emphasizes that literary works cannot escape or be detached from social life, but more importantly, it examines how literary works depict social phenomena, and express valuable ideological content and the philosophy of life. As Dobrolyubov said:

But while truth is a necessary condition for a literary production it does not yet constitute its merit. We judge its merit by the breadth of the author’s views, the correctness of his understanding, and the vividness with which he depicts the phenomena with which he deals. (Dobrolyubov 1956a, p. 572)

Both the “breadth of the author’s view” and “his understanding” in society are exactly within the scope of value judgment. If a literary work does not present any valuable ideas other than violence and entertainment, it will be greatly diminished in terms of value judgment. It was from this angle that Dobrolyubov sharply criticized some undesirable tendencies in the Russian literary world at that time:

there are authors who devote their talent to describing voluptuous scenes and dissolute adventures; they depict voluptuousness in such a way as to make it appear that it alone constitutes true human happiness. It goes without saying that such a deduction would be absurd, although, of course, there are people who, due to the degree of their development, are incapable of conceiving of any other kind of happiness… There have been other writers, still more absurd, who have extolled the virtues of the warlike feudal barons who shed rivers of blood, burned down cities and plundered their vassals. There was no downright falsehood in the descriptions of the facts that were performed by these robbers, but they were presented in such a light, and were so highly praised, that it is clearly evident that the soul of the author who extolled them lacked the sense of human truth. Thus, all one-sidedness and exclusiveness prevents the artist from fully conforming to truth. (Dobrolyubov 1956b, p. 237)

The problems identified by Dobrolyubov also exist to varying degrees in the Chinese literary world, and thus Chinese literary criticism should resist works that promote violence and display pornography. In contemporary society, readers not only want to see a concern for reality reflected in literature, but also wish literature to be a remedy of their own spiritual predicament and sufferings.

The social dimension of value judgment necessarily involves the tendencies in writers’ creation, who, whether cheering or longing, angry or critical, and nostalgic or even elegiac, should take the interests and benefits of the people as their basic value orientation. Although many factors are involved in making a work classic, the pivotal and most fundamental are the ideas contained in it and its thoughts and answers to the crucial questions raised by each era, including the deep understanding of human suffering, fervent love of life, profound contemplation of history, and passionate pursuit of ideals. Works that come out of nowhere, negating or subverting all the past and tradition, or even deliberately avoiding the sublime and ones that show their paranoia like elegies by clinging to the spiritual values of certain traditions that have been or will be lost all need to be examined with the criteria of the social dimension. It is through these aspects that the necessity of value judgment is revealed.

Additionally, the defects as well as merits of the writers’ ideas embodied in their works also require specific analysis. In his analysis of Pushkin’s work, Belinsky affirmed that Eugene Onegin “could be called an encyclopedia of Russian life, and a supremely national work” (Belinsky 1956, p. 294), but at the same time, he pinpointed the limitations of the poet’s ideology, which strangely combines the tendencies of the common people and aristocracy. Naturally, the understanding and evaluation of life in literary works are usually embedded in concrete images, some of which even the writer is not aware of. Zhou Yang, commenting on Gogol’s Dead Souls, said that progressive intellectuals in Russia at the time saw the horrific reality of the relationship between landlords and serfs (as depicted in Dead Souls) and felt that it was urgent to abolish the whole serfdom system that hindered Russia’s development. Herein lies the value of Gogol’s text, and perhaps Gogol himself did not fully realize the social power and influence of his work.

3.1.3 Aesthetic Dimension

The aesthetic dimension is also a significant part of the reconstruction of value judgment, and helps literary criticism differ from other humanities and social science activities. The aesthetic dimension is not referring to a purely personal aesthetic interest, nor is it a so-called interest and taste are indisputable principle that avoids distinguishing superiority from inferiority, but a comprehensive judgment of the aesthetic value of literary works made by the subject of criticism, namely the critics, based on comprehensive elements such as cultural traditions, ideologies, and characteristics of the times. The aesthetic dimension examines whether the literary work has artistic attraction and aesthetic value, including whether the work has an appealing structure and form, as well as the aesthetic psychology and creative spirit of the writer and artist. In addition, the expressiveness of the language, novelty of the thought, diversity of the techniques, and distinctness of the style are all integral with the aesthetic observation.

Different from the political and social evaluation of literary works, the aesthetic dimension focuses on conveying the beauty of literary works. This invites the critic to experience, perceive, and imagine when evaluating a work in order to convey her or his own feelings about the work to the reader. This contributes to and increases the intensity and depth of the recipient’s aesthetic pleasure. Moreover, critics also need to maintain a certain psychological distance and control their emotions in terms of literary works. Yu Pingbo (俞平伯) said in the preface to Poetic Remarks on the Human World:

To make literary criticism, first, one must be able to appreciate, and second, to transcend. One must be immersing oneself within the situation, since only insiders in the situation could know the sweetness and bitterness; and one must also be outside of the situation, since only outsider of the situation have a fair opinion.

This is known as emotional and psychological distance as discussed above. The task of literary criticism is to help the reader fully appreciate and feel the artistic value of the work through the analysis of its philosophical implications, structural techniques, writing style, sentiment, and other defining elements. In ancient China, critics often used metaphors and imagery as well as depicting aesthetic conceptions to translate the aesthetic implications of a work and the critic’s perception of beauty into a palpable, visual image. For instance, Xie Lingyun’s poems are described “as natural and loveable as the lotus just out of water,” while Yan Yanzhi’s poems are regarded “as delicate and gorgeous as carving,” which are precise and proper.

For another instance, after the publication of Lu Xun’s Diary of a Madman, which did not attract much attention in the literary world at first, Mao Dun published an article entitled “Reading ‘The Scream’,” in which he talked about the beauty of the novel with concrete imagery and subjective perceptions when he read this novel, and this made readers have new feelings toward this novel. He said,

I only felt a painful sting, as if one who had been in darkness for a long time suddenly saw the glorious sunlight. The hard-boiled sentences and the stern tone in this astonishing text, along with the subtle and half-spoken meaning and the light symbolism, is a bizarre style, which makes readers feel the pleasure of unspeakable sorrow at first sight. This pleasure is just like the feeling of ‘the spicier the better’ felt by those who love spicy food. (Shen 1923)

Besides guiding people to appreciate beauty, literary criticism also needs to identify the aesthetic features of literary works, make judgments about the beauty or ugliness of works, and help people develop a sound aesthetic taste. A French literary critic said of rational criticism: “What is the role of criticism? Criticism should be the interpreter of beauty, and at the same time lead the reader to distinguish it better and to love it deeper” (Fayol 2002, p. 250). The novel critic Jin Shengtan (金圣叹) once said, “I hate it when people whenever they read, ignore the text and only remember certain stories, and then they are considered to have done reading a book” (Jin 1985, p. 22). This phenomenon still persists. The aesthetic dimension should improve readers’ aesthetic appreciation by analyzing and evaluating literary works, so that readers can enjoy what is truly beautiful and inspired to have an enthusiasm for creating a better life. Meanwhile, aesthetic value judgments can counteract an undesirable or unrefined aesthetic taste, such as the pursuit of sensual stimulation through romance or violence in texts. Literary criticism should provide necessary hints to such works from the perspective of aesthetic ideals, so that readers can break through the entertainment based on sensuality and purify and sublimate their aesthetic interests.

Contemporary aesthetic value judgments have been severely challenged from many aspects, and the aesthetic dimension has to be adjusted accordingly. For example, some Western Modernist works, such as some French novels and stream-of-consciousness works, tend to break temporal and spatial conventions and appear to be multidimensional and geometric in their narrative techniques, like Picasso’s portraits of women, in which several facets of the women are presented in a close-up of this same figure. These practices often cause discomfort and even aesthetic repulsion among ordinary audiences. Actually, there are profound social reasons and specific artistic pursuits behind these works. The aesthetic dimension of value judgment needs to be explored to alleviate the tension and repair the relationship between audiences and the works. The evaluation of these works also poses a challenge to the aesthetic dimension of value judgment, which is investigated in the analysis of specific works.

The human, social, and aesthetic dimensions each have their respective distinct responsibilities, but they are inseparable and profoundly intertwined. There are both social and aesthetic dimensions in the human dimension, and similarly, the social and aesthetic dimensions also comprise the other two dimensions within themselves. The purpose of the distinction among these three integral dimensions is only to reconstruct the evaluation system of value judgment from different dimensions. Admittedly, these dimensions are not perfectly set up, and there are some inconsistencies and gaps. These include, for example, how to solve the problem of universality and specificity in human nature, how to evaluate works that transcend the content and form of art in a particular society and are still deemed as “classics” today, and whether there is a superiority or inferiority in the different aesthetic interests of different national cultures. These issues afford opportunities for further reflection on the reconstruction of value judgment in the Chinese form.

3.2 Value Judgment and the Related Issues

Value judgment exists not only in synchronic forms, but also in the diachronic process of history. If the human, social, and aesthetic dimensions constitute the consensus part of the reconstruction of value judgment system, then, when entering the practice of literary criticism, we will find the particularity and complexity of value judgment, along with the problems of relativity and paradoxes of value. Therefore, when making value judgments on literary works, it is necessary to concretely analyze specific problems in concrete historical contexts. On this issue, Marx pointed out in Volume 1 of Capital: we “must first deal with human nature in general, and then with human nature as modified in each historical epoch” (Marx 1996b, p. 605). The distinction made by the classical Marxist writers between “human nature in general,” and “human nature as modified in each historical epoch” forms the methodological basis for solving the problems related to value judgment.

3.2.1 Relativity of Value Judgment and Value

The relativity of literary values is a problem that must be dealt with, and this relativity is determined by multiple factors, including the subject of evaluation, the historical period, the cultural environment, and especially by the ambiguity of the literary works per se. In value judgment, the subjects, who generally get the dominant position may make different evaluations of a literary work based on different stances and literary mentalities, and thus multiple evaluations coexist. In particular, critics from different cultural backgrounds tend to make varied value judgments due to differences in their historical traditions and ideologies. People’s perceptions of literary works from different eras may also vary, leading to differing value judgments. It is not unusual in literary history that the same literary work rise to fame and disappear from the scene due to vicissitudes in circumstances or stances of critics or readers. In addition, literary works always embody a variety of values and features. Particularly, classical works are often interpreted inconsistently by critics from one era to the next, and while new implications inherent in the work are being discovered, there may also be a certain degree of subversion of the previous, fixed understanding of the work. The greater the work is, the more frequent such subversion appears. Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea is characterized by depicting the tough guy spirit of “A man can be destroyed but not defeated” and the sense of futility of illusory and futile self-justification, that is, the frustration and absurdity of the pile of fishbone trash obtained by gambling with one’s life. Different societies and cultures may make ambiguous and diverse value judgments about certain literary works like The Old Man and Sea due to their varying histories and traditions, which pose considerable difficulty for value judgment.

In making value judgments on literary phenomena, we must consider the diversity of critical subjects, the specificity of historical contexts, and the richness of literary works. The value judgment of any work needs to be combined with a specific historical period and critical practice. Some works may be judged alternatively when viewed merely in isolation or abstractly, but after entering a specific, concrete context, it is completely possible and feasible to distinguish the good from the bad. As such, the value judgment of literary criticism needs to always start from a specific, concrete context.

3.2.2 Value Judgment and the Value Paradox

Another problem of value judgment in the Chinese form is the paradox of the values embodied in literary works; in other words, there are antinomic factors inherent in the values embodied in literary works, that is, the coexistence of affirmation and negation. Marx uncovered this problem early on, “In our days, everything seems pregnant with its contrary.…All our invention and progress seem to result in endowing material forces with intellectual life, and in stultifying human life into a material force” (Marx 1980, pp. 655–656). It is true that while people today rejoice in the new life brought by high technology and enjoy its convenience and comfort, they also show a strong dependence on technology and thus a serious degradation of various abilities.

A prominent example of the value paradox in literary criticism is ecocriticism. As a criticism that explores the relationship between literature and the natural environment, ecocriticism reflects anxiety and criticism against modern ways of development and existence, but if taken to extremes, it may also contradict its original intent. Behind Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, which initiated the modern environmental movement, we see the death of tens of millions of children in Africa from malaria due to the ban on DDT. Opposing elements always germinate within the same seed, and thus the phenomena of everyday life, including literature, are paradoxical ever since their existence; also, the oft-repeated ethics and morality are not eternal and unchanging, so the value paradox will always exist.

3.2.3 Universality of Value Judgment

Although some intricate and tangled problems have arisen in value judgment of the Chinese form, the inherent universal values still need to be upheld. A civilized society should have certain social conventions that need to be observed and also a basic value scale of right and wrong, good and evil, and beauty and ugliness. The same should be true of literary criticism. Although literary works can evoke diverse opinions of all sorts, there are still some basic consensuses. The reason why the classics can be recognized by and appealed to different eras is precisely that the transcendence of such literary works lies in the universality of value judgment of human beings and that these classics contain and highlight those wonderful things of humanity. Value judgment in the Chinese form thus needs to seek, among the differences, those values that are recognized by the vast majority of society.

This universality of value judgments is not only synchronic, but is also in the diachronic historical process. The essence of the construction of the socialist core value system is the construction of value consensus, and the concepts of fairness and justice have never been the preserve of the bourgeoisie, but the achievements of civilization made by all human beings.

In conclusion, value judgment of the Chinese form is the unity of universality and particularity as well as the unity of consensus and difference. Though with different aesthetic styles and target audiences, classic works and popular culture have a lot in common in their basic value orientation, which is the respect for human beings. The most fundamental criterion for judging the value of a work is to examine whether the work is conducive to the all-round development of human beings. In this regard, different cultures are not completely incompatible at all.