On a more apt history of Taiwan

By David Pendery

Questions of national identity are of course prominent and important in Taiwan

today. Though the existence of a unique Taiwanese identity is a given for some

people, for others it is more problematic, not least because of the presence of strong

Chinese cultural conditioning and historical connections. Additionally, the impact of

Japanese and Western culture alongside Taiwanese traditions and ethnicity, a number

of other Asian influences, and a sprinkling of intercalations from Europe and other

nations around the world, make the admixture of Taiwanese culture and identity yet

more complex.

This topic centers on complex political and cultural issues with national and

international repercussions, which are full of interesting interpretational possibilities.

Unfortunately, I find that much of the dialogue I have seen surrounding it in media

outlets like the Taipei Times often tends toward ambiguous answers and the use of

facile formulae that dodge hard realities. At worst the argument descends into puerile

paeans celebrating all that is oh-so-cool about Taiwanese culture (Taiwan’s night

markets are always introduced into the discussion at this point), as if data like these

were particularly effective or even applicable evidence in terms of the serious

quandaries questions of identity give rise to. In the many years I have lived in Taiwan

I have seen most of these arguments going nowhere fast, and believe that new

approaches are needed to help lead the way toward more fruitful outcomes in today’s

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world for the Taiwanese people and nation.

I won’t claim to have comprehensive solutions for the dizzying political

difficulties that Taiwan faces. The very complexity of the situation(s) will in the end, I

feel, require variegated, flexible, creative, and probably very conciliatory solutions.

Thus, what I have to say is only one suggestion that might be incorporated into a

larger schema. My angle is historical, for a coherent and constructive historical

narrative is a most important brick in the edifice of a nation’s existence and

flourishing.

For me, “all history is contemporary history,” because the human historical

consciousness is always a piquant alembic of interacting past, present and future

experience. As the great philosopher St. Augustine wrote in his Confessions, human

experience is ever the “present considering the past […] memory,” the “present

considering the present […] immediate awareness,” and “the present considering the

future […] expectation.” The present thus functions as the fulcrum of historical

apprehension, with assessment and complete understanding of the past providing the

fodder for a nation’s present strength and stability, and given expectations of the

future guiding its development. These conditions, I feel, are most urgent and pertinent

in Taiwan’s case.

The question then becomes, “What history?” The first threat, to my mind, is the

temptation to write Taiwans history based on a standard model of “Great Man, Great

Event, Great Anything” history. Such narratives as these will no doubt be told, but too

often they lapse into either one-dimensional hagiographies, or celebrations of the

“-ness” of peoples and nations, resulting in an endless list of Chinese-ness,

Taiwaneseness, German-ness, Zimbabwean-ness, Costa Rican-ness, Nauruan-ness,

etc. Such histories are a least-common-denominator approach to history and culture,

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couching all peoples and nations in an inevitably archaic, often jingoistic and

suspiciously exclusionary framework. Such a history would be less than worthwhile

for Taiwan, and could even play into the hands of those seeking to delimit the nation.

As well, this approach to historiography is no longer considered credible by most

professional historians, who nowadays analyze and narrate a much broader and

deeper range of historical dynamics and factors.

With the above in mind, my recommendation is that Taiwan embark on a “history

of sensibilities,” an idea expounded by Daniel Wickberg in his “What Is the History

of Sensibilities? On Cultural Histories, Old and New,” published in June 2007 by the

American Historical Review. Wickberg discusses and defines sensibilities as “modes

of perception and feeling, the terms and forms in which objects were conceived,

experienced, and represented in the past.” A history of sensibilities, writes Wickberg,

is “a concept that lets us dig beneath the social actions and apparent content of

sources to the ground upon which those sources stand: the emotional, intellectual,

aesthetic, and moral dispositions of the persons who created them.” It is through these

varied and intricate channels that we might genuinely excavate the lived experiences

of Taiwanese peoples, and these people would in turn be better able to construct a

well-rounded social and political consciousness, become more acutely aware of their

historical roles, and ultimately “enter fully into history,” to paraphrase E.H. Carr.

Indeed, from a foundation such as this we could work our way up into the Big

Anything historical topics, which could then be evaluated within a much more

complete and constructive context.

Admittedly I have seen occasional discussion of elements like these in various

outlets in Taiwan. But as often as note they are embedded in the above-noted

cheerleading, when what is needed is a more serious, inclusive, coherent and far-

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reaching effort to analyze and convey to the world contours of Taiwanese history,

current life and future potential. Considering Taiwan’s multi-faceted history, with its

fascinating fusion of cultures and elements, this may be a tall order. But then, good

historiography always is.

A historical narrative like this may be exactly what Taiwan needs, as opposed to

the Great histories, the socio-economic focus of the French Annales school, much

discursive/representational (and heatedly political) history writing since the 1960s, or,

as noted above, rah-rah merriment. Again as Wickberg puts it, “the idea of a history of

sensibilities…finds culture to be the condition of being and action rather than

primarily an instrument or object of action.” The way forward for Taiwan, in turn, is a

history of the peoples’ ideas, emotions, beliefs and values. These I feel are the

avenues by way of which Taiwanese people can more successfully and impartially

narrate their historical experience, and differentiate their aims and achievements from

other nations, opening up clearer pathways toward a national consciousness and even

nationhood, which I feel are not being well-forged at present. And you know what? It

those night markets will probably make their way into this Taiwanese history after

all…

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