‘제3의 시대’ 혹은 ‘사람의 나라(人國)’, 루쉰(魯迅)이 꿈꾼 이념형 역사

Abstract

By examining Lu Xun’s perception of Chinese history and civilization through the lens of “regulative ideologies” such as the “Third Period” or “People’s Republic,” this paper explores the practical necessity of ideological histories, or, in Kantian terms, the practical function of the “Enlightened Age. Lu Xun divides China’s history into” periods when it was impossible to want to be enslaved and periods when it was briefly and reliably enslaved. To break out of this structural repetition, Lu Xun’s literature constantly exposes the contradictions of reality and highlights the crises facing Chinese society. In fact, the development of history and civilization through repetition and intermingling is a phenomenon that can be found everywhere in the East and the West, and the fundamental issue here is to think about the form of repetition or the possibility of change in the repetitive structure. Regarding the possibility of change in the repetitive structure, this paper will discuss the “regulative ideology” mentioned by Kant as the “third age” or “people’s country” in Lu Xun’s case. A “regulative ideology” such as the “third age” refers to an ideology that can never be realized, but exists as an indicator and cannot but move towards it. The “regulative ideology” that Lu Xun’s literature embodies resembles the childhood vividly imprinted in the memories of the narrator and Luntu in the novel Hometown, a childhood that is repeated by the narrator’s eight-year-old nephew, Hong Er, and Luntu’s son, Shui Sheng. It is a world in which their childhood experiences unfold in front of them as adults, without discrimination or rejection based on social structural factors such as status. However, the world that the “regulatory ideology” aims for is impossible to realize. However, it is a world that everyone aspires to and continues to search for. Lu Xun’s literary practice is the embodiment of his will to perfect through the brush the beautiful aspects of life that are blurred by the passage of time. In other words, his literature is an act of moving towards the regulatory ideology of the Third Age, and he devoted his life to it.