China News Agency, Beijing, August 5th: What kind of human civilization do we want?
Author He Huaihong Distinguished Chief Professor, School of Philosophy, Zhengzhou University
If we compare the beginning end of human civilization with the modern end, human beings have indeed achieved tremendous achievements in modern times that were unimaginable, especially in terms of material and technology.
But there is also a challenging fundamental problem: material civilization is the foundation, and it is indeed a priority that must be satisfied and indispensable, but this foundation has become the superstructure and the highest value goal in modern times. It seems that all achievements need to pass Measured by material gain, all human ingenuity needs to be invested in a cause that promotes material achievement.
If improving people's ability to control things and improve their material living standards becomes the highest goal or even the whole thing, then what is a human being, how is it different from animals, and even how is it different from primitive humans before civilization?
That is: what is civilization for civilization?
What is "civilization"?
As far as the concept of "civilization" is concerned, there is not much difference in the initial understanding of the original meaning of "civilization" between China and the West, and both refer to a state of enlightenment, that is, material prosperity, knowledge popularization, political order and spirituality that are free from barbarism and ignorance. formed state.
Ancient Chinese sages contributed very early to the rich meaning of "civilization".
As far as the "Book of Changes" is concerned, the "Zhu" of the "Dayou" one hexagram says: "His morality is strong and civilized".
The "Zhu", which explains the "Ming Yi" hexagram, says: "The inner civilization is gentle and the outer is submissive, so as to meet the great difficulties, King Wen uses it." ." This is "civilization" in terms of personal virtue.
At the same time, it also has the meaning of extending, educating, and promoting the virtue of "civilization" to the world, such as the "Ge" hexagram "彖" said: "Civilization is to speak, tycoon is to be right." The "Qian" trigram and "Wenyan" say: "' See the dragon in the field', the world is civilized." The "Ben" hexagram "彖" said: "The intertwining of rigidity and softness is astronomy. Civilization stops, and humanities are also human. Observe astronomy to observe changes in time; observe humanities to transform the world into the world. ."
This has quite the meaning of "civilization" and "enlightenment" today, but in the long-standing Chinese traditional thought, the core of civilization is mainly the promotion and transformation of humanistic spirit and virtue, and does not directly involve material and political civilization.
In other words, civilization should be comprehensive, including material civilization, political civilization and spiritual civilization.
The historical evolution of human civilization in its inception period also roughly followed such a process and rhythm from material foundation to political order to spiritual creation.
Freshmen of Nanjing Confucius Temple Primary School perform ancient rituals.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Yang Bo
From the modern side of civilization, since the Great Discovery of Geography, especially since the Industrial Revolution and the convenience of communication, human beings as a whole have entered the era of global civilization, and some primitive tribes have been included, while other non-Western civilizations have generally agreed. The development direction of modern civilization with economy and technology first.
Entering the modern industrial civilization, especially the current stage of high-tech civilization, although the ability of human beings to control things and material living standards has been greatly improved, the spiritual and moral self-control ability has not been improved accordingly. .
But human beings can also think and reflect, and can adjust their own value pursuits and behaviors.
This is also the original intention of my book The Two Ends of Civilization.
Because in the face of the current crisis in the world, human beings have come to a moment when they need to introspect deeply, and an appropriate reflection angle is the two ends of civilization, that is, the beginning end of civilization and the modern end.
The beginning end refers to the time when human beings will enter civilization and after entering until the material foundation, political order and spiritual civilization are basically established, that is, a period of time when the fundamental values of several major civilizations begin to diverge; the modern end refers to human beings entering ideological enlightenment and industrial civilization. Since then, especially in the contemporary era with the rapid development of high technology.
both ends of civilization
The history of human beings is relatively long, millions of years; but the history of human civilization is not long, only more than 10,000 years.
It can be said that it was not until more than 10,000 years ago that some groups of human beings started planting and animal husbandry in the great river basins of the world, and entered the material civilization marked by agricultural civilization.
More than 5,000 years ago, human beings entered political civilization again.
About 2,500 to 3,000 years ago, they created their own spiritual civilization value systems.
In the history of more than 8,000 years at the front end of civilization, although human civilizations are basically separated, they have many common characteristics, such as the emphasis on material foundation, the belief in gods, and the worship of force.
But when the German thinker Karl Jaspers called the "Axial Age" (a phenomenon of human cultural breakthroughs that appeared in China, the West, and India at the same time around 500 B.C.), spiritual creation became an influence on major civilizations. There are obvious differences between different civilizations, such as the mixed politics and superior middle way in ancient Greece, the sage politics and moral humanities in China, the monotheism brought by Judaism and Christianity in the Middle East, and the Hinduism and Buddhism in India, etc. , and there is a clear distinction between Eastern and Western civilizations.
In modern times, various forms of civilization have met on a large scale, and there have been collisions and impacts.
It can be seen that the whole history of human civilization has undergone a process of separation and integration of "similarity-similarity-similarity".
The motivation behind this is a logic of "material is the foundation, value is the dominant, and politics is the key".
Tourists enjoy a holographic Confucius propaganda film at the Confucius Museum.
Photo by Guo Zhihua issued by China News Agency
The two ends of human civilization have their "connected" side. For example, in terms of dominant values, they all pay great attention to the development of people's ability to control things and the improvement of social material life.
Since modern times, there has been a change in the human world from "the east and the west are different" as Liang Shuming said, to the later "no question of the west and the east", that is, regardless of the East or the West, most nation-states are centered on economic development, with technology as the locomotive of the economy.
In particular, the miracle of China's economic rise over the past decades of reform and opening up has benefited from this change in dominant values and the virtues of hard work, thrift, education and learning that the Chinese have formed over thousands of years.
Respect for public opinion turns the "small tradition" of the people into the "big tradition" of the society.
But there are also many differences between the two ends of civilization. The biggest difference is that material pursuit is mainly used as a basic construction at the beginning of civilization, but in modern times it seems to be the main or highest pursuit.
In addition, we cannot ignore the middle stage of civilization. The major civilizations have two or three thousand years of history in practicing their own value pursuits and have formed their own special cultural traditions.
Even if the value goal of modernization is the same, the paths to achieve it are quite different.
There is not only one road to prosperity.
In the historical process of human civilization, Chinese civilization has taken its own path with its unique large scale and continuity from a very early time.
As the largest population group in the history of human civilization, it has not missed a step in the development process of material civilization-political civilization-spiritual civilization, and even once took the lead in the world.
China's spiritual and political evolution from "Zhou Wen" to "Han system" since 3,000 years ago has opened up a stable road from "hereditary society" to "ancient electoral society" (for details, please refer to my book "Hereditary Society", "Elections" society").
Comprehensive Contents of "Civilization"
Modern civilization has created technological and economic miracles, but it has also brought hidden worries, even making people worry: Will civilization begin with material things and end with material desires?
In addition to rejoicing in material achievement and improvement of material life, we have indeed seen the popularity of material desires and utilitarianism, the pursuit of value has become single, the spiritual life has become impoverished, and the material wealth and the free leisure time it brings are often not used. For spiritual and artistic development.
Originally, man escaped from the animal kingdom through his own spirit and wisdom, but he returned to the animalistic pursuit of only chasing things.
This pursuit of value not only prevents human beings from reflecting their unique spiritual values, but also brings many real dangers and challenges, such as external problems caused by environmental pollution and climate change, and internal problems caused by artificial intelligence and genetic engineering.
Will people be fundamentally changed or even replaced?
Has the shadow of war with high-tech capabilities and weapons of mass murder always loomed over mankind?
This is also the question I worry about in the book "Does Humanity Have a Future?"
The audience visited the intelligent robot performance at the 4th Global Artificial Intelligence Product Application Expo.
Photo by Zhai Huiyong issued by China News Agency
Humanity has probably reached a moment when it is urgent to reflect.
Introspection is first and foremost a question, so in The Two Ends of Civilization, I kept asking my friends who rejoiced at the rapid development of technology and the confidence that this development is always the promotion of civilization: "Do you want to find out? What is the overall meaning of the concept of 'civilization'? What kind of civilization do we want? Is it just material civilization and the continuous growth of technology and economy? Does human beings break away from the animal kingdom just to improve their ability to control animals and foreign objects to the extreme? Technology Will development definitely promote the prosperity of the entire civilization, or will it bring about a crisis? What is the future and the way out for mankind at the back end of civilization history? How can we get out of the 'iron cage' that Weber called the 'iron cage' created by the combination of material desires and ability to control things? If at the front end of civilization, the ancients almost had to make every effort to obtain material energy to meet the basic needs of survival and development, is it necessary for people today to make every effort to control material ability and improve material life? What kind of danger?"
I hope that these issues can arouse people's attention and alertness, so that they can think broadly and deeply about the direction of human civilization, the value pursuit system of mankind, and our self-control ability and normative system, so as to adjust our behavior and way of life.
(Finish)
About the Author:
He Huaihong, born in 1954, is a professor and doctoral supervisor of the Department of Philosophy of Peking University, and is currently the distinguished chief professor of the School of Philosophy of Zhengzhou University.
The research field mainly focuses on ethics in a broad sense (including political philosophy, philosophy of life), as well as Chinese social history and contemporary China, the introduction of Western classics and the founder of the reconstruction of Chinese ethics and morality. "Wenjin Book Award" of the National Library of China, the first academic award for regular thinking.
His representative works include Hereditary Society, Electoral Society, Theory of Conscience, This Life Only, Does Humanity Have a Future, etc. His main translations include The Theory of Justice (joint translation), Meditations and No Government, State and Utopia.