ABSTRACT
I’m happy to be able to speak at this “critics’ forum.” Let me start with my objective. You may have noted the “and” in the title of my talk, a conjunction that expresses a connection. With Shen Con-gwen as my example, I want to emphasize this connection and make it the kind of issue that can enter our consciousness, so that we can focus on, ponder, and debate this sort of issue. The connection between a person and his times and society ought to be something he can be aware of himself, but for China in modern times, perhaps because one’s era and society carry too much weight, an individual is simply too out of sync with them, because there is too wide a gulf; forming meaningful connections with them presents all sorts of difficulties. These prolonged difficulties have suppressed the formation of self-awareness relating to those connections, and have even concealed these problems – if they haven’t obliterated them. But there will always be those people whose lifetimes and living spirits persistently remind us that these problems exist.
