Sociological narration amid civilizational conversation Photo: TUCHONG

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Since the rise of postmodernism and its skepticism toward the meta-narrative, Western sociology has increasingly resembled a well-equipped but rudderless vessel adrift in a sea of data, preoccupied with mapping the textures of social life. The perplexity of Western sociology is essentially the meaning crisis.

It is well known that post-WWII American sociology, after extensively drawing on European thought regarding the transformation from traditional to modern societies, combined these insights with the United States’ own developmental experience to construct a series of theories and grand narratives of modernization. Armed with this theoretical system, the United States claimed to represent the apex of social evolution. Yet, in exporting this model abroad, the nations and regions that adopted it wholesale—though they may have seen short-term gains—have in most cases fallen into long-term economic stagnation and political instability.

Chinese modernization presents not only a new path distinct from the Western model but also a new form of human advancement. In light of this, how might sociology reconstruct its meta-narrative from the perspective of civilizational development?

Dialectical synthesis of sturcture & morality

Chinese modernization is deeply rooted in the rich heritage of fine traditional Chinese culture. Drawing upon the enduring intellectual traditions of Chinese civilization such as “the world belongs to all,” “fraternity among all peoples,” and “cultivating virtue and spreading the truth,” we can reimagine a sociological narrative that is simultaneously grounded in local realities and engaged with the shared destiny of humanity. This requires a dialectical synthesis of structure and morality. 

Since its inception, modern sociology has borne the imprint of structuralism. From Émile Durkheim’s “social facts” and Max Weber’s bureaucratic “iron cage,” to Pierre Bourdieu’s “field,” the discipline has continually pursued increasingly precise tools for dissecting the complex organism of society. Yet in doing so, it has gradually forgotten the warning that “the scalpel cannot reach the soul.” This structuralist paradigm flourished during the industrial era, aligning well with a society increasingly organized and rationalized. But in the era of big data, it has morphed into a form of numerical fetishism: Social media “likes” become indicators of network connectivity; consumer behavior generates maps of value distribution; and even cultural identity is reduced to combinations of survey options. When marriage is reduced to a “matching algorithm,” poverty to a “human capital deficit,” and cultural conflict to a “variance in values,” the joys, sorrows, desires, and dignity of human life are compressed into a string of impersonal metrics. These ostensibly precise measurements fail to offer a holistic understanding that transcends fragmented experience. Meanwhile, when society is modeled as a topology of nodes and links, the loneliness, anxiety, and existential crises underlying real lives are dismissed as statistical “noise.”

To overcome these limitations, sociology must reclaim the moral dimension. As Fei Xiaotong once observed, while humanity is now connected in terms of shared interests, it still lacks a foundation of moral consensus: “There is no world that needs a new moral order more than the current one.” Of course, such morality cannot be fabricated from nothing; rather, it must arise from a creative rearticulation of humanity’s long-cherished values in response to contemporary conditions. In this regard, the Chinese concept of “fraternity among all peoples” offers fertile ground for renewal. At its ethical core lies a vision that situates the individual within a vast cosmological web linking Heaven, Earth, and humanity. This ethical worldview disrupts the Western epistemological divide between subject and object: Human relationships are not atomized contracts but “blood-related”emotionally bonded communities grounded in universal empathy; the relationship between humans and nature is not one of conquest and subjugation, but of “cooperative and nurturing” symbiosis. This way of thinking stands in stark contrast to Western sociology’s tendency to objectify social facts or romanticize individual autonomy: The world is not a cold structure or mechanism, but a moral network imbued with meaning.

The crisis of contemporary social consciousness is, at its root, a “failure of the mechanisms that once supplied meaning.” Moral narratives, however, can provide the cultural resources necessary for reproducing meaning. They allow sociology to move beyond structural determinism and toward an ethics of responsibility, bridging the chasm between instrumental rationality and lived experience through moral sentiment. In this framework, “Tianxia” (the world) is no longer a distant, archaic concept, but an ecological and ethical community—a moral compass for addressing global challenges.

The concept of a community with a shared future for mankind is a modern articulation of the ancient ideal of “fraternity among all peoples.” It inherits the moral vision that “the world belongs to all,” while addressing the pressing realities of our globalized era: When climate change disregards borders, when viruses breach national lines, and when algorithmic power reshapes the fabric of society, no nation can stand alone. This concept moves beyond the Western-centric “clash of civilizations” narrative and resists the neoliberal myth of “universal values.” It acknowledges difference, yet affirms the principles of “harmony without uniformity” and “the coexistence of different paths without contradiction.” It respects national interests but aspires to a balance of justice and benefit. At the same time, it offers a critical foothold for sociological engagement. Amid the restructuring of global industrial chains, how can we safeguard the dignity of labor? Amid the rapid ascent of artificial intelligence, how do we redefine the boundaries and relationships between human and object? The answers to such questions lie at the intersection of structure and moral responsibility.

New narrative for inter-civilizational exchanges

The revival of sociology demands a narrative revolution—not a patchwork repair of classical theories, but the forging of new paradigms through dialogue among civilizations. This new narrative must embody three essential qualities. First, it must be a dual narrative of “structure and morality.” In studying “algorithmic labor” on digital platforms, we must interrogate not only the technical logic of data surveillance (structure) but also the conditions of “human alienation and emancipation” (morality). In analyzing rural revitalization, we must assess not only the economic benefits of land transfers (structure) but also consider the ethics of “mutual assistance” rooted in rural communities (morality). This dual perspective resists both the rigid determinism of structuralism and the abstraction of moral idealism.

Second, the new narrative must be a crossover account of “plural modernities.” Western sociology emerged amid the din of the Industrial Revolution, shaped by a progressive historical view, a paradigm of individualism, and the implicit framework of the nation-state. Chinese sociology must move beyond the habitual “impact–response” model and reconstruct its narrative from the vantage of “axial civilizations.” For instance, the Chinese concept of “Tianxia” can deconstruct the exclusivism of the Western nation-state narrative; the dialectical wisdom of “holding the middle ground” can help reconcile the eternal tensions between freedom and equality; and the cosmology of “endless creation” can offer a philosophical foundation for sustainable development. Such crossover narratives are not mere borrowings of foreign concepts, but creative recombinations of cultural genes.

Third, this paradigm must be one of “unity of knowledge and action.” Wang Yangming’s doctrine of “attaining true knowledge” offers methodological inspiration for sociological research: True knowledge must point to action, and action itself generates meaning. This narrative requires scholars to be both dispassionate analysts and passionate participants. Sociology should not be confined to the dissection of structures; it must also serve as a moral watchtower.

At this crossroads in civilizational history, the mission of sociology must go beyond interpreting the world—it must engage in its reconstruction. When “the world belongs to all” meets “the metaverse,” when “fraternity among all peoples” dialogues with “carbon neutrality,” and when the community with a shared future for mankind confronts the ethics of artificial intelligence, a new sociological narrative becomes imperative. This narrative should be capable of exposing the power structures behind algorithms while safeguarding human dignity; it must map the intricate networks of globalization while composing a civilizational poem of “harmony in diversity.” We should weave with structure as the warp and morality as the weft, seeking an ethical compass amid the labyrinth of data, and stitching a new web of meaning in the fog of data. This web must be capacious enough to contain the computational force of quantum machines while echoing the ancient insight: “The human heart is perilous, the moral heart is subtle; only by being single-minded and adhering to the middle way can one be true to oneself.” It must parse the torrents of social media data while still singing the age-old verse that “all men are brothers within the four seas.” Only by grappling with structural constraints without losing sight of moral aspiration can sociology preserve its scientific integrity while renewing its humanistic vitality—and in doing so, recover its voice and strength in the dialogue among civilizations.

Cheng Boqing is a professor from the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Nanjing University. 

Edited by ZHAO YUAN