Questions of national identity are of course prominent and important in Taiwan today.
Though the existence of a unique Taiwanese identity is a given for some people, for others it is more problematic, not least because of the presence of strong Chinese cultural conditioning and historical connections.
The impact of Japanese and Western culture alongside Taiwanese traditions and ethnicity, a number of other Asian influences and a sprinkling of intercalations from Europe and other nations around the world make the admixture of Taiwanese culture and identity yet more complex.
This topic centers on complex political and cultural issues with national and international repercussions, which are full of interesting interpretational possibilities. I find that much of the dialog I have seen surrounding it in media outlets like the Taipei Times tends toward ambiguous answers and the use of facile formulas that dodge hard realities.
At worst, the argument descends into puerile paeans celebrating all that is oh-so-cool about Taiwanese culture (Taiwan’s night markets are always introduced into the discussion at this point), as if data like these were particularly effective or even applicable evidence in terms of the serious quandaries that questions of identity give rise to.
In the many years I have lived in Taiwan I have seen most of these arguments going nowhere fast, and believe that new approaches are needed to help lead the way toward more fruitful outcomes in today’s world for the Taiwanese people and nation.
I don’t have comprehensive solutions for the dizzying political difficulties that Taiwan faces. The very complexity of the situation will require variegated, flexible, creative and probably very conciliatory solutions.
Thus, what I have to say is only one suggestion that might be incorporated into a larger schema. My angle is historical, for a coherent and constructive historical narrative is a most important brick in the edifice of a nation’s existence and flourishing.
“All history is contemporary history” because the human historical consciousness is a piquant alembic of interacting past, present and future experience.
As the great philosopher St. Augustine wrote in his Confessions, human experience is ever the “present considering the past ... memory,” the “present considering the present ... immediate awareness,” and “the present considering the future ... expectation.”
The present thus functions as the fulcrum of historical apprehension, with assessment and complete understanding of the past providing the fodder for a nation’s present strength and stability, and given expectations of the future guiding its development. These conditions, I feel, are most urgent and pertinent in Taiwan’s case. The question then becomes, “What history?”
The first threat is the temptation to write Taiwan’s history based on the standard model of “Great Man, Great Event, Great Anything.” Such narratives as these will no doubt be told, but too often they lapse into either hagiographies or celebrations of the “-ness” of peoples and nations, resulting in an endless list of Chinese-ness, Taiwanese-ness, German-ness, Zimbabwean-ness, Costa Rican-ness and so on.
Such histories are a least-common-denominator approach to history and culture, couching all peoples and nations in an archaic, often jingoistic and suspiciously exclusionary framework.
Such a history would be less than worthwhile for Taiwan, and could even play into the hands of those seeking to delimit the nation. Besides, this approach to historiography is no longer considered credible by most professional historians, who nowadays analyze and narrate a much broader and deeper range of historical dynamics and factors.
My recommendation is that Taiwan embark on a “history of sensibilities,” an idea expounded by Daniel Wickberg in his article “What is the history of sensibilities? On cultural histories, old and new” in the June 2007 issue of the American Historical Review.
Wickberg discusses and defines “sensibilities” as “modes of perception and feeling, the terms and forms in which objects were conceived, experienced, and represented in the past.”
He says a history of sensibilities is “a concept that lets us dig beneath the social actions and apparent content of sources to the ground upon which those sources stand: the emotional, intellectual, aesthetic, and moral dispositions of the persons who created them.”
It is through these varied and intricate channels that we might excavate the lived experiences of Taiwanese peoples, and these people would in turn be better able to construct a well-rounded social and political consciousness, become more acutely aware of their historical roles, and ultimately “enter fully into history,” to paraphrase E.H. Carr.
From a foundation such as this we could work our way up into the Big Anything historical topics, which could then be evaluated within a much more complete and constructive context.
I have seen occasional discussion of elements like these in Taiwan. But as often as not they are embedded in the above-noted cheerleading when what is needed is a more serious, inclusive, coherent and far-reaching effort to analyze and convey to the world contours of Taiwanese history, current life and potential. Considering Taiwan’s multi-faceted history, with its fascinating fusion of cultures and elements, this may be a tall order. But then, good historiography always is.
A historical narrative like this may be exactly what Taiwan needs, as opposed to the Great histories, the socio-economic focus of the French Annales school, much discursive/representational (and heatedly political) history writing since the 1960s, or rah-rah merriment.
Again as Wickberg puts it, “the idea of a history of sensibilities ... finds culture to be the condition of being and action rather than primarily an instrument or object of action.”
The way forward for Taiwan, in turn, is a history of the peoples’ ideas, emotions, beliefs and values. These I feel are the avenues by way of which Taiwanese people can more successfully and impartially narrate their historical experience and differentiate their aims and achievements from other nations, opening up clearer pathways toward a national consciousness and even nationhood, which I feel are not being well-forged at present.
And you know what? Those night markets will probably make their way into this Taiwanese history after all.
David Pendery is a teacher and doctoral student in English literature at National Chengchi University.
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