One year prior to his enrollment at Renmin University, the Anti-Rightist campaign began and Fang was disciplined by the Communist Youth League for undisclosed reasons.
He cites this as an “important turning point in [his] life.”[2] In 1958, Fang was sent to work in rural Beijing where he would partake in hard labor for six months.
In 1969, Fang was made to enroll in the cadre's school at the People's University in Jiangxi province where he would become an active worker and gain first-hand experience with social reform.
[citation needed] Fang published his first major work, The Theory of the Unity of Knowing and Doing in Chinese Philosophical History, in 1982.
[4] This undertaking would span a decade's time, making it the most costly and extensive humanities project ever sponsored by China's Ministry of Education.
[6] The 1986 research team would lead Fang to conclude that, as of the May 4th Movement, New Ru Learning, Marxism and Western liberalism were most prominent schools of thought in the nation.
Contrary to the public clamor for New Ru Learning, Fang saw ruxue as a fundamentally feudal ideology—though he still believed there was historical and cultural value to be derived from it.
He suggested that “Confucianism should replace Marxism, be restored to its lofty historical status, and become the orthodox thought representing the life and spirit of the Chinese nation.”[8]