China News Agency, Beijing, July 25th: Why has benevolence become the most prioritized and coherent value of Chinese civilization?
Author Xie Maosong, director of the Chinese Civilization and Chinese Road Research Center, and senior researcher of the National Institute of Strategic Studies, Tsinghua University
In the thousands of years of civilization development history, the Chinese have created a long and profound Chinese civilization.
The thought of benevolence has always been the most prioritized and coherent core value of Chinese civilization, and it still affects Chinese people's spiritual temperament and behavior choices.
The principle of civilization of benevolence makes China always respect the independent development based on their different characteristics, and has the huge inclusiveness of civilization like heaven and earth, and attaches great importance to the integration and development of each other.
This explains why great ethnic fusions have occurred many times in Chinese history, but there has never been a clash of civilizations, let alone religious wars.
Through the "moral law" of benevolence, the outside world may understand the inevitability of China's refusal to pursue national power and hegemony, as well as its determination to adhere to the path of peaceful development.
"The benevolent loves others" is the civilization wisdom of "extremely enlightened and moderate"
The Chinese civilization tradition refers to Zhou Gong and Confucius together, because their historical contributions are related to the civilization of ritual and music.
The Zhou Gong system of ritual and music is the culmination of the ritual and music civilization of the Xia, Shang, and Wednesday dynasties; Confucius revealed the spirit behind the ritual and music system, that is, the cultural value, which is "benevolence".
Judging from the archaeological discoveries in China, the accumulation of ritual and music civilization is not only in the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, but also as early as 5,000 years ago as recorded in "Historical Records: The Chronicles of Five Emperors". forward.
Therefore, the cultural value of "benevolence" did not come suddenly and fell from the sky, but was revealed on the basis of the profound accumulation of ritual and music civilization that began 5,000 or even 8,000 years ago.
The inner "benevolence" and the outer "li" form a relationship of mutual support from inside and outside.
From the point of view of Chinese civilization, human beings are human, and the difference between humans and birds is also in "benevolence" and "propriety".
Confucius explained "benevolence" as loving others. The Chinese civilization's understanding of "benevolence loves others" is firstly reflected in love and filial piety for parents, love for children, and love for fellow brothers and sisters.
Love for one's family is the starting point, but it cannot be stopped or closed here. The so-called "pan-loving people", which is extended from this, is the love for the country.
From loving family to loving others, and then to loving the country, the process of expanding from near to far reflects the wisdom of the ancient civilization of "extremely enlightened and moderate". It is necessary to cultivate virtue above nature. The fundamental, that is, filial piety is "the foundation of benevolence", and then the universal benevolence is achieved by the "equal difference love" of filial piety mentioned by Mencius.
Through "benevolence loves others", it is not difficult to find that Chinese civilization's understanding of "benevolence" must be placed in the specific and organic relationship between people.
"Shuowen Jiezi" explains: "Benevolence is also relative. From people, from two." One person can't be benevolent, and the underlying logic here is "one yin and one yang is called Tao".
This view of benevolence is fundamentally different from Western social contract ethics. The underlying structure of the latter is an atomic abstract individual that has been separated from all concrete relationships, which determines that the Western social contract is completely based on abstraction. efficiency, but its longevity is affected by the lack of organicity and internal community.
In the West, the word right is used to indicate that individual rights are entirely a product of modernity, and right in the classical era before modernity means "right", that is, virtue.
In recent decades, Western political philosophy has been reflecting on and criticizing the consequences of reducing right from a classical virtue to a modern right.
The presupposition behind individual rights is individual desire, and the mystery of modernity lies in the continuous creation of various desires and needs to form a new consumer market, so rights are not at the highest level, and virtue is more important than rights with desire as the underlying structure. Advanced.
Therefore, when discussing how to better combine the concept of benevolence with the consciousness of modern and contemporary individual rights, the benevolence thought of Chinese civilization can add the organic nature of specific relationships to the abstractness of Western social contract ethics, especially the deeper nature. human responsiveness.
The virtue of benevolence can add to the modern Western individual's awareness of rights and the desires at the bottom, and add new rules of virtue that restrict people's excessive desires by the principles of heaven.
This is what Confucius said, "The way is to govern, the order is to punish, and the people are free and shameless. The way is to virtue, and the order is to propriety. Shame and dignity."
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Photo by China News Agency reporter Sudan
China, which upholds the concept of benevolence, will not pursue national power and hegemony
The principle of civilization of benevolence makes China always respect the independent development based on the different characteristics of each country, that is, "the main road changes, each person's life is right", and it has the huge inclusiveness of civilization like heaven and earth.
The Kun hexagram in the Book of Changes says that "a gentleman carries his things with his virtues", and the Hung hexagram says that "a gentleman is different from the same things", and emphasizes the mutual complementation and mutual integration and development. fusion, without causing a clash of civilizations, let alone a religious war.
Chinese civilization emphasizes the morality of the kingly way to subdue people with virtue, and emphasizes that the benevolent can do big things and small things, and can rise and fall.
This kind of ideological understanding has made the Chinese nation never engage in foreign hegemony or colonial plunder, and benevolence, peace, and tolerance are concepts that have been pursued and inherited for more than 5,000 years.
General Secretary Xi Jinping once pointed out, "There is no gene in the blood of the Chinese nation to invade others and become kings. The Chinese people not only hope that they can develop well, but also hope that the people of all countries can have a happy and peaceful life." The Chinese leader's statement, It clearly explains China's development path and principles of foreign exchanges, which is highly consistent with the thought of benevolence.
The thought of benevolence has a profound impact on China's understanding of the relationship between countries in the world today.
Chinese civilization believes that self-restraint and rituals are benevolence, and benevolence is fully reflected in the whole process of self-cultivation, aligning the family, governing the country, and pacifying the world. "Governing the country" means dealing with national interests, and "pacifying the world" is dealing with human interests. Han is manifested in the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind.
In the face of some contradictions between the sovereign state and the interests of all mankind, we must first focus on the interests of the sovereign state, otherwise we will fall into utopian political romanticism and cannot last.
Second, we should not only care about our own interests and pursue the maximization of zero-sum game interests, but should reasonably take into account the interests of all countries and parties, so that the interests of all parties can be appropriate and become a community of interests.
The interests of all mankind are not abstract. The organic combination of the overall interests and long-term interests of the interests of all countries and parties is the real interests of all mankind. concept and the way of righteousness.
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Through the world, the word "benevolence" interprets the true community of destiny
Benevolence, as the "one" of "reasons and differences", is consistent with handling various relationships between people, people and society, and people and nature.
Benevolence is "one", and it is also the "one" of "Dao produces one", that is, benevolent people are people.
Benevolence, as "humanity", is fundamentally derived from the transcendence of "the way of heaven", that is, the way of "correspondence between man and nature" in which the way of human beings follows the way of law and the way of heaven.
Taking the relationship between man and nature as an example, from emphasizing "close relatives and benevolent to the people, benevolent to the people and love things", to finally achieve "the benevolent person integrates heaven, earth and all things", the benevolence concept of Chinese civilization is consistent and has an organic whole. Sex is the construction of community at all levels.
In the "Book of Rites Yueling" written more than 2,000 years ago, it is recorded in detail that in response to the changes of the four seasons, the use of all things in nature is moderate, and the users who use them are rewarded through sacrifices.
Traditional Chinese sacrificial rituals, first of all, to sacrifice to one's ancestors, and secondly to sacrifice to those who have done meritorious deeds to the country and the people in the past dynasties.
All of this is condensed in the sacrificial tradition of "Heaven and Earth, monarchs, parents and teachers", which was first considered to be the three fundamentals of ritual in Xunzi: "Heaven and earth are the origin of life; ancestors are the origin of kindness; The ruler and teacher are the foundation of governance."
The ceremony of worshiping God and praying for blessings.
Photo by Zhang Ziqiu issued by China News Agency
The "ben" of the three books of ceremonies is also linked with the cultural value of "return" of "reporting the book".
Western Christianity worships God, while in traditional China, the Son of Heaven represents the world and solemnly offers sacrifices to heaven and earth, including today's Temple of Heaven and Temple of Earth.
The ceremony of offering sacrifices to heaven and earth is the most solemn, and its cultural significance lies in "the sacrifice of the suburbs is also the beginning of a big newspaper." "Father", offering sacrifices to the ancestors is in Confucian temples (also known as Confucian temples) from the capital to all over the country.
Wuhou Temple, Guangong Temple, etc. are dedicated to civil servants and military generals.
The sacrifice of the Chinese ritual and music civilization, "Heaven and Earth, the master and the teacher", is the cohesion of a real community of destiny, which puts heaven and earth in the first place.
Regarding the cultural value of repaying the kindness of heaven and earth, it truly makes man and nature an organic and amiable life community, which surpasses the external and cold mechanism of Western modern environmentalism, and is more profound and effective than it.
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About the Author:
Xie Maosong, Ph.D., Department of History, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, senior researcher of the National Institute of Innovation and Development Strategy, director of the Center for Chinese Civilization and Chinese Road Research, senior researcher of the National Institute of Strategic Studies, Tsinghua University; research expert on key core technologies of the Ministry of Science and Technology of the new national system strategy , Chief Expert of the National Social Science Fund and Ma Project Double Special Entrustment Project; Adjunct Professor of the Department of Literature and History of the Central Party School, Executive Chairman of Qufu Confucius Institute; Member of the Expert Committee of the Business Development Center of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, Expert of the Expert Committee of the Shanxi Private Economy Promotion Association; South China Academic consultant of the Indian Ocean Island Research Center of the Polytechnic University, expert of the Chinese expert group of the Hong Kong "South China Morning Post".
Research expertise: economics, Chinese civilization and philosophy, history of Chinese political thought, Chinese political thinking and practice; Chinese civilization and the Communist Party of China, Chinese political system research, Chinese civilization and national strategy research, digital civilization and Chinese science and technology new national system research.
He is the author of several monographs such as "The Way of the Minister: The Study of Mind and the Integration of Reason and Situation" (Zhonghua Book Company, 2013).