New Culture Movement

The New Culture Movement was a progressive sociopolitical movement in China during the 1910s and 1920s. Participants criticized many aspects of traditional Chinese society, favoring their substitution with new formulations of Chinese culture informed by modern and contemporary ideals of mass political participation. Arising out of disillusionment with traditional Chinese culture following the failure of the Republic of China to address China's problems, it featured scholars such as Chen Duxiu, Cai Yuanpei, Chen Hengzhe, Li Dazhao, Lu Xun, Zhou Zuoren, He Dong, Qian Xuantong, Liu Bannong, Bing Xin and Hu Shih, many of whom were classically educated, who led a revolt against Confucianism. The movement was launched by the writers of New Youth magazine, where these intellectuals promoted a new society based on unconstrained individuals rather than the traditional Confucian system. In 1917, Hu Shih put forward his famous "eight principles", which advocated for abandoning ancient traditional writing methods for ones that more accurately represented vernacular speech.