五四新文化运动期间，围绕着新旧文化与中西文化，曾经有过三场论战：《新青年》与林琴南、陈独秀与杜亚泉、张东荪与傅斯年之间的辩论。前者被认为是"新派"，而后者，则是"旧派中的新派"。他们之间的区别，与其说是知识上的新旧，不如说是对传统的态度不同。杜亚泉、张东荪对西方新思潮的认知，不在其对手陈独秀、傅斯年之下，只是他们不赞成全盘推倒传统。经过这三场论战，《新青年》在口岸城市中大获全胜，因为城市青年需要一个激进的文化变革方案与可供行动的简便态度，但在边缘城市的"小镇青年"那里，他们不在乎新旧两派的态度差异，更注重从两派那里吸取"新知"，对传统也保留了一份中庸的温情。

During the May 4^th New Cultural Movement, three debates on new/Western and old/Chinese cultures were respectively carried out between the journal New Youth and LIN Qin-nan, CHEN Du-xiu and DU Ya-quan, as well as ZHANG Dong-sun and FU Si-nian. New Youth, CHEN Du-xiu and ZHANG Dong-sun were regarded as the "new school", whereas their opponents "the new school coming from the old school". The difference between them lies in their attitudes towards traditions instead of their new or old knowledge. After these three heated debates, New Youth gained a complete victory in port cities since young people there needed a radical project of cultural reform and simple attitude for action. However, the "young people from small towns" don't care about their attitude difference. They paid more attention to how to absorb "new knowledge" from them and kept more sympathetic to tradition.