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Li Zhi, a writer of the time, definitely did not agree with the Archaists’ style and did not follow their guidelines. He broke ground with his discourse, “On the Child-Mind”. Li Zhi should be considered a great writer in Chinese history, similar in greatness and originality of thinking, to Li Po or TuFu of Chinese’s Tang Dynasty, William Shakespeare of England, or Nathaniel Hawthorne of 19th century America. Li Zhi introduced some new concepts that people simply hadn’t thought about yet, he touched a younger generation, and introduced a new sense of the value of drama and prose fiction. ...
“On the Child-Mind” is not itself a “literary” essay; however it did influence a lot of later literary works. The “beginning of mind” is both the presumed innocence of the child’s response and immediate or impulsive thoughts and responses in anyone- something like implicit “first thoughts” that must have been there in order to say we had “second thoughts” about something (Stephen Owen, 808). Li Zhi seems to be acknowledging the fact that when children are first born they are unable to regulate their emotions and will not be able to mask their true feelings. Also, young children will respond without thinking based on reflexes and biologically inherited factors that will influence the impulsive thoughts and responses of the child. The first thoughts that one has would represent their true feelings, whereas second thoughts would probably reflect some rethinking after an uninformed child’s mind has become an information processing machine.
Li Zhi talks of the “Way” and the “Inherent Pattern”, which were central concepts in Neo-Confucianism. Li Zhi’s view of revered Neo-Confucian principles differed from that of the Neo-Confucian philosophers who argued that the way and the Inherent Pattern were inherent both in the self and the external world. Li Zhi felt that these principles were learned things that came from the outside and governed response. ... Li Zhi called things “false” and “borrowed”, implying that what comes from the outside is borrowed and not a person’s own. ... It seems that the Neo-Confucian thinkers were similar to Sigmund Freud and that Li Zhi was more or a learning theorist like, Watson, Skinner, or Bandura. ... Learning theorists are more like Li Zhi. Li Zhi seems to think that the principles were learned from experience and from obtaining information. ... Further, Li Zhi, also seemed to be looking down on people who adopted “borrowed” thought from the outside, thus proving to be “false”. ...
From “On the Child-Mind”
Li Zhi perceived the child-mind as the genuine mind, one free of all falseness and being the original mind of one’s very first thought. ... This is similar to John Locke’s or Jean Jacques Rousseau’s beliefs about the infant mind. Locke viewed the mind of an infant as a tabula rosa, or “blank slate”, that is written on by experience. ... Locke seemed to view development of the mind in general as a positive thing, whereas Rousseau, like Li Zhi, felt that children are corrupted by society as they learn more information.
Approximate Word count = 2588
Approximate Pages = 10.4
(250 words per page double spaced)
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