Discussant Remarks

Extract

The leitmotiv of the panel as a whole may be found in Mrs. Wright's phrase: “All history is implicitly comparative.” This particular apothegm should be pasted into the hats of all students of China. Mrs. Wright's hat clearly needs no such adornment, but it may well be the best way of distinguishing between a Sinology that is indeed not enough (in Mr. Levenson's sense) and a body of learning which should rightly stand at the very head of scholarship. Mr. Skinner tells us that “there is nothing particularly exceptional about Chinese villages when compared to those in other peasant societies. …” But surely the exceptional quality of the Chinese village is the fact of its incorporation within a greater whole, in cultural terms, which is, at least in degree, without parallel anywhere. Is this not part of the point, and a most convincing and important one, of Mr. Skinner's argument? I can only echo and applaud Mr. Freedman's final sentences, and commend their eloquence: “Cooperation which amounts to ingestion is cannibalism. The usefulness of social science to Chinese studies depends on its being allowed to be itself.” Amen. The point of no return in the care and feeding of scholars who concern themselves with China can be determined only by a very nice measure, to which I can provide no key—but I would emphasize that it is indeed a critical measure, and that it is just as critical for other disciplines as for anthropology.