Abstract:

Nowadays China is under a historical transition from an identity society under small-scale peasant economy to a civil society under market economy.Meanwhile, we also see a transition from scholar (shi) to intellectual.As a scholar, a traditional scholar enjoys his privileges because of his identity.But as a citizen, a modern intellectual enjoys his rights and carries out his duties equally to all the people with different identities.The core of this transition is professionalization.Such a person is an intellectual with a profession of creating and diffusing knowledge and culture.Though there are some other big differences between traditional scholars and modern intellectuals owing to essential differences between a traditional society and a modern society, we still can see that they are in the same historical tradition in accordance with the spiritual descent and cultural heritage.Just as traditional scholars did before, modern intellectuals also make their choices between pursuing their spiritual goals and earning their living, between being perfect and achieving a success, between creating new things and following new things, and between being a superior man (jun-zi) and being an inferior man (xiao-ren).

Key words: identity, profession, spiritual production, pursuit one's spiritual goal or make a living