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The Scandal of Inequality: Koutou as Signifier

The Scandal of Inequality: Koutou as Signifier positions 3:l Spring 1995 9% of the Western human sciences. We seek a Chinese subject who is in some sense identical to ourselves. What we find instead are koutouing Chinese, subjects who only occasionally “stand up” to a political and social order which by Western liberal standards is always assumed to be oppressive. From this perspective, Chinese differences are invariably coded as Chinese fai 1u r es. While accepting that it is extremely difficult to separate koutou from this dominant characterization, particularly when fragments of it continue to colonize representations on both sides of the Pacific,z I will attempt in the second section to disengage koutou from this history and consider it as multiple rather than singular, indeterminate rather than transparent. At stake here, therefore, is more than simple redefinition. To destabilize koutou is to call into question pervasive assumptions about historic China on the part of contemporary American, European, and Chinese intellectuals. Regardless of whether China’s past is interpreted as premodern or feudal, koutou stands as an emblematic and essential signifier of nonmodernity, of servitude, and, perhaps most scandalously, of inequality. To be modern, it would seem, is to be free; and to be free one presumably http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png positions asia critique Duke University Press

The Scandal of Inequality: Koutou as Signifier

positions asia critique , Volume 3 (1) – Mar 1, 1995

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Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright 1995 by Duke University Press
ISSN
1067-9847
eISSN
1527-8271
DOI
10.1215/10679847-3-1-97
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

positions 3:l Spring 1995 9% of the Western human sciences. We seek a Chinese subject who is in some sense identical to ourselves. What we find instead are koutouing Chinese, subjects who only occasionally “stand up” to a political and social order which by Western liberal standards is always assumed to be oppressive. From this perspective, Chinese differences are invariably coded as Chinese fai 1u r es. While accepting that it is extremely difficult to separate koutou from this dominant characterization, particularly when fragments of it continue to colonize representations on both sides of the Pacific,z I will attempt in the second section to disengage koutou from this history and consider it as multiple rather than singular, indeterminate rather than transparent. At stake here, therefore, is more than simple redefinition. To destabilize koutou is to call into question pervasive assumptions about historic China on the part of contemporary American, European, and Chinese intellectuals. Regardless of whether China’s past is interpreted as premodern or feudal, koutou stands as an emblematic and essential signifier of nonmodernity, of servitude, and, perhaps most scandalously, of inequality. To be modern, it would seem, is to be free; and to be free one presumably

Journal

positions asia critiqueDuke University Press

Published: Mar 1, 1995

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