| Summary/Abstract |
A moral crisis can be personal, collective, or national. It is the perception of a critical accumulation of attitudinal changes that disrupt preexisting ethical norms and behavior. Most public perceptions of a moral crisis are not shared by all the people in a society, and the contents of moral crises also shift over time due to ongoing changes in social conditions and subjective perspectives. The differences, tensions, and conflicts underpinning recurrent public discourses over morality constitute the politics of moral crisis. This article first sketches the social conditions and moral premises in the 1970s that set the stage for radical changes in attitudinal perspectives in the post-Mao era, examines in particular the value shift toward a more individualistic morality in the 1980s, and contends that the Chinese understanding of Western individualism as a doctrine of egotism helped plant the seeds of public perceptions of moral crisis. The final section unpacks five perceived types of moral crises and points out the politics in each, highlighting the centrally important role of the Party-state in shaping China’s moral landscape. An examination of these moral crises provides a unique angle to understand the complexity of social transformation and political constraints in post-Mao China.
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