China traditional culture is a knowledge of cohesion, compatibility and application. Confucian culture is the mainstream and important part of China traditional culture.
In the Confucian tradition, the theory of "self-cultivation-oriented", which is regarded as a classic norm by traditional society, is also applicable to modern society.
Therefore, the formation of a harmonious society is bound to achieve beneficial results.
China traditional culture is a relatively stable cultural form formed and developed by the Chinese nation in the ancient society of China, the crystallization of Chinese wisdom and the display of Chinese historical heritage in real life. This ideological system contains rich cultural and scientific spirit, which is the essence of Confucianism.
In the Confucian tradition, the theory of "self-cultivation-oriented", which is regarded as a classic norm by traditional society, is also applicable to modern society. Building a harmonious and civilized society depends on the quality of every member of society. Only when every member of society has a high cultural level and moral level can the whole society achieve civilization and harmony. Therefore, the harmonious life of every member of society is the foundation of a harmonious society, and to achieve a harmonious life, it is natural to start with "self-cultivation".
First, the spirit of China's traditional culture is reflected in Confucianism
1. China traditional culture is a study of cohesion.
China traditional culture is a kind of culture with internal cohesion. The spirit of this culture is to pay attention to harmony, and organically link individuals with others, individuals with groups, and people with nature to form a cultural relationship. Confucian culture is an important part of China traditional culture. The harmonious consciousness in Confucian culture includes harmony between man and nature and harmony between people. Regarding the harmony of interpersonal relationships, Confucianism advocates the "golden mean", that is, "harmony without difference" and "going too far". Its essence is to emphasize the unity and balance of contradictions, to achieve the harmony of interpersonal relationships by grasping the changes of things, and to avoid and overcome the opposition and conflict between people, people and society, and even countries and nations. This fully embodies the scientific spirit of China's theory of traditional cultural cohesion.
2. China traditional culture is an all-inclusive knowledge.
China traditional culture is not a closed system. Although China's foreign contacts were restricted in ancient times, it still achieved foreign compatibility with an open attitude, which was achieved by the Confucian spirit of "harmony without difference". While maintaining its academic tradition, Confucianism always integrates, absorbs and integrates the outstanding achievements of foreign cultures with me as the main body in the spirit of "harmony but difference". The strong absorption ability of Confucian culture and its strong assimilation ability complement each other, which better embodies the spirit of China's traditional culture.
3. China tradition is a practical knowledge.
The essential feature of culture is to promote the humanization of nature and humanity. China emphasized the style of study of practical learning, taking the study of the relationship between man and nature as the starting point, aiming at self-cultivation, governing the country and leveling the world, and striving to realize its value in the real society. Practical learning is the basic spirit of cultural science, and Confucianism is the embodiment of this spirit.
Second, Confucian culture is the mainstream and an important part of China's traditional culture.
China traditional culture is the theme of China culture, which has a long history and is profound. Confucian culture is the mainstream and an important part of China traditional culture, which is the relationship between blood and water, source and flow. Generally speaking, "respecting things, knowing, being honest, being upright, cultivating one's morality, keeping one's family in order, governing the country and calming the world" is to study the relationship between man and nature, clarify the way of cultivating one's morality, state the strategy of governing the country, seek common interests in the world, and finally realize the realm of harmony between man and nature. Confucianism occupies an extremely important position in the traditional culture of China. Confucianism embodies the spirit of China traditional culture. In the long historical development process, excellent Confucian cultural values have been formed. "Ruling the world with Confucianism" has been highly praised by the rulers of past dynasties. The need of reality urges people to choose the value of China's traditional culture, to better preserve, carry forward and inherit China's outstanding heritage with a historical perspective and the spirit of the times, to take its essence and discard its dross, and to strive for the future of China.
Third, the relationship between Confucian tradition and building a harmonious socialist society
After reading Ye Jinbao's book Contemporary Value of Confucian Harmonious Thought, I clearly realize that by investigating the subject spirit, thinking mode, cognitive method and tool consciousness of Confucian harmonious thought in the pre-Qin period, we can answer basic theoretical questions such as what harmony is, how harmony is possible and how harmony is realized, and make a preliminary exploration on the construction of harmonious theory.
In the in-depth analysis of "harmony" in the book, Confucianism believes that to create a harmonious society, we must first create a harmonious life, and to create a harmonious life, we must pay attention to and properly handle some objective contradictions, such as the relationship between (1) "righteousness" and "benefit". Confucianism emphasizes both justice and benefit and advocates the organic unity of justice and benefit. Theoretically, this is manifested in advocating "acting according to justice" and "benefiting from justice", and opposing "forgetting justice at the sight of benefit" and "being unjust and getting rich". Because "righteousness" is the rule that makes utilitarianism tend to be reasonable, starting from "righteousness", that is, starting from reasonable utilitarianism; All the arguments about the relationship between "righteousness" and "benefit" ultimately come down to the question of whether the pursuit of utility is reasonable. This view and way of thinking have a profound influence on China people, so China people advocate and agree with "taking what is righteous", and always refer to stealing, robbing, cheating, corruption and bribery as "ill-gotten wealth". (2) The relationship between reason and desire. Regardless of ancient and modern times, there are two extreme tendencies to deviate from the mean in theory, namely, indulgence and abstinence. In view of this, Confucianism advocates controlling people's desires within reasonable limits, neither indulgence nor abstinence, but "no desire" and "rational abstinence" This is the essence of Confucianism, which is different from what Ming Dow scholars in Song Dynasty later said: "Preserving righteousness and destroying human desires". This kind of thinking, which not only recognizes the legitimacy of people's natural desires, but also emphasizes restraining excessive indulgence with a rational attitude, is undoubtedly very wise and correct. (3) The relationship between "virtue" and "talent". Confucianism pays equal attention to benevolence and wisdom, that is, both ability and political integrity. In view of this, Confucianism emphasizes moral cultivation, demands "respecting morality", "being virtuous", "cultivating morality by writing" and "governing the country by virtue", and opposes attaching importance to talents and neglecting morality. It is reasonable to look back at history and carefully examine reality. (4) The relationship between "words" and "deeds". In real life, words are often redundant and actions are often insufficient, which leads to the tendency of "exaggerating". Confucianism especially emphasizes "taking care of words and deeds" to achieve consistency between words and deeds, and at the same time opposes "being ashamed of words and deeds". Confucianism puts forward that "being sensitive to things and being cautious about words" is the first task of Xiu De, a gentleman, and thinks that only by being diligent in inaction and being cautious about words can we win people's trust. Human behavior is mainly reflected in words and deeds, so it is an important content of moral cultivation to strive for consistency between words and deeds.
However, in the modern industrialized, commercialized and market-oriented society, the endless pursuit of material enjoyment and sensory stimulation leads people to be overly obsessed with the possession and worship of things, which will make people greedy and selfish. This materialistic tendency will alienate many people's morality and degrade their personality. Some people abandon all social morality, professional ethics, even all courtesy and shame in order to realize their excessive and unrealistic material desires. As a result, moral decay and humanistic spirit crisis have become serious practical problems, and vulgarization and vulgarization tendencies such as dispelling ideals, despising morality, staying away from sublimity, refusing justice, abandoning spiritual realm and evading social responsibility have become fashionable, and indulgence, money worship, hedonism, extreme utilitarianism and extreme individualism have become popular. In this crisis of personality split caused by physical and mental disorders, if we can adopt the cultivation method based on the moral cultivation of Legalists and Confucianists, it will certainly have beneficial effects on realizing a harmonious life and further promoting the formation of a harmonious society.
In the modern market economy society, due to the serious imbalance between material civilization and spiritual civilization, morality is declining and humanistic spirit is in serious crisis. In this case, in order to maintain and develop the achievements of human civilization and build a harmonious society, we should focus on restraining the inherent material desires and utilitarian impulses of the market economy and show the humanistic spirit. The Confucian theory of "self-cultivation" on moral cultivation is undoubtedly a valuable spiritual wealth in this respect. Through in-depth understanding, we can find that it will play a great role in coordinating body and mind to achieve a harmonious life.
Fourthly, the peace thought in Confucian culture.
In the book Contemporary Value of Confucian Harmonious Thought, we can realize the important idea of maintaining world peace and stability by deeply explaining the value orientation and ideological norms of harmony.
1, the harmonious concept of getting along with each other: "Harmony without difference".
In short, "harmony without difference" is to admit "difference" and form "harmony" on the basis of "difference" so as to achieve essential similarity or similarity. The two concepts of "harmony" and "sameness" are all about the same, but their connotations are quite different. "Homology" is to deny the identity of contradiction and difference, and "harmony" is to admit the identity of contradiction and difference, so "homology" is metaphysical thinking and "harmony" is dialectical thinking.
The essence of the idea of "harmony but difference" advocated by Confucian culture is: first, things are human beings; Second, different things complement each other; Third, the whole situation is harmonious because of it. When Confucianism gets along with different nationalities, it puts this concept of "harmony" into specific ethnic relations, and the concept of "harmony but difference" appears, which is very different from the western national concept. Today, the ancient concept of "harmony but difference" still has strong vitality and can still become the criterion and goal of the development of modern international society. China's foreign policy of seeking common ground while reserving differences is a clear manifestation of this idea. Therefore, "harmony without difference" is the basic condition for human beings to live together and an important concept for maintaining world peace and stability.
2. The peaceful ideal of the country's internal affairs and diplomacy: "benevolent government" and "moral cultivation".
"Benevolent politics" and "moral education" are the ideal expectations of Confucianism in internal affairs and diplomacy. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the Chinese nation in the Central Plains and the surrounding ethnic minorities such as Yi, Di, Rong and Man entered the geopolitical era. In dealing with the relationship between the Chinese nation and neighboring nations, Confucianism advocates the foreign policy of "Xiu De". Starting from the' loyalty and forgiveness' of others. Obviously, China, deeply influenced by this peaceful thought of "benevolent politics" and "moral education", will never interfere in other countries' internal affairs, and will never take the initiative to launch a war of aggression against other nations and countries, let alone occupy other countries' territory. Therefore, the rise of China will only strengthen the peace force of the international community.
3. The gentle creed of national individual self-cultivation: "sincerity", "respect" and "faith".
Confucian traditional thought attaches great importance to people's own moral cultivation.
It is believed that in the near future, as long as the traditional resources of Confucianism are reasonably explored, the essence of China traditional culture will coexist with the world culture and modern civilization in a new way, constantly glow with new vitality and vitality, and will surely build a better socialist harmonious society and realize the ideal pursued by mankind.
References:
[1] Ye Jinbao. Contemporary value of Confucian harmonious thought. Guangdong People's Publishing House.
[2] Liu Weihua. Confucianism and the future [M]. Qilu Bookstore. 2002。