Chapter 13 Section 13

The last episode talked about "traditional Chinese spirit", now let's talk about "traditional Chinese morality". I personally feel that the term "traditional Chinese moral character" is inappropriate, because "moral character" mostly refers to personal conduct and virtue. For example, we often hear that "this person has bad moral character" or "that person has good moral character", but rarely It is said that "China's moral character is very good" or "China's moral character is not good". Maybe the netizen "casual talk" refers to "traditional Chinese virtues". I personally think that this kind of statement is still inappropriate, because virtue is a good character, so it still refers to personal conduct and virtue, but good conduct and virtue. sex only.

We do hear people say "traditional Chinese virtues", but they actually mean "traditional virtues of the Chinese nation", that is, the traditional virtues of the Chinese people.Strictly speaking, a nation is not a specific person, nor can it possess a certain kind of character or virtue. The so-called "traditional virtues of the Chinese nation" refer to the majority of individuals in the Chinese nation, and they are Chinese people from generation to generation. Most of them have the character and virtue, otherwise they cannot represent the "Chinese nation" and cannot be called "tradition".

It's troublesome to say that, "most people"?How many people count as "majority"?If you really pay attention to it, it must be 80 to 90% to be considered a "majority", right?But who did the statistics?Have you counted generations?It is estimated that no one has done it, just said it casually. Things in the world are like this, when we want to describe a person's character, we will find a lot of things to say; when we want to summarize the common character of two people, there is a lot less to say.What A has, B may not have; what B has, A may not have.If it is extended to three or four people, the common morality will become less and less.

So some people say that "the difference between two individuals is greater than the difference between two nations". I agree with this statement very much, because if we want to find the common characteristics of a nation, we must constantly abstract and abstract those specific things layer by layer. Only by losing can we find something in common.For example, for an American, you can tell many characteristics of him, such as Asian, yellow, female, student, etc., but for the entire American nation, you cannot say that all Americans are Asian or yellow , all women, all students.These specific factors have to be abstracted, otherwise the entire American nation cannot be included. In the end, it can be said that "Americans are people from the earth", and the same is true for the Chinese, who are also people from the earth. The difference is much smaller than the difference between Zhang San and Li Si.

But we do often hear comparisons between the two nations, for example, Americans are adventurous, while Chinese are more law-abiding, or Americans are confident, Chinese are modest, and so on.In fact, this is a kind of "face makeup", which is called stereotype in English, and here refers to a formulaic description of a certain ethnic group or a certain type of people. The so-called "traditional virtues of the Chinese nation" are actually a formulaic and modeled face. No one knows how many Chinese people in the past have such virtues. In addition, after layers of abstraction, most of them have no specific meaning.The words "hardworking and brave" are what we hear the most. "The industrious and brave Chinese people" used to be (still is?) a well-known phrase. When it comes to the "virtues of the Chinese nation", everyone would think of "hardworking and brave".But when I think about it carefully, I really don't know what I'm talking about, and it belongs to the category of "saying is equal to not saying".Saying that the Chinese nation is "hardworking and brave" is like saying that the Chinese nation has "sound limbs", and it has no practical meaning of commendation or distinction.

What is "hard work"?Getting up early and being greedy for night, facing the loess and back to the sky, and people pulling shoulders is called "hard work"?Isn't mechanized production called "hard work"?Washing dishes by hand, washing clothes by hand, and using steps as a car are called "hard work"?Washing dishes in a dishwasher, washing clothes in a washing machine, riding a bicycle, or driving a car is not called "hard work"?It can be seen that different ages have different concepts of "hard work", and it is difficult to pass them down.

Contacting Jingqiu, she suffers from odd jobs, not because she loves to do odd jobs, but because she is forced by life. If her family can live without doing odd jobs, she will not do odd jobs. Is this hard work? ?If being forced by life to earn money to support a family is industrious, which nation is not industrious? What is "brave"?Is it called bravery to go up the mountain to fight tigers alone, or is it called bravery to get up in the middle of the night and walk around the cemetery?Jingqiu will be terrified when she walks near the hawthorn tree in the middle of the night, so is she brave?Perhaps when we talk about the bravery of the Chinese nation, we mostly refer to not being afraid of death on the battlefield, but Jingqiu has never had the opportunity to go to the battlefield, so there is no way to test whether she is brave or not.

Some people may say that "virtue" refers to the qualities of "propriety, righteousness, benevolence, wisdom and trustworthiness", but it is "traditional Chinese morality", that is, the code of conduct that Chinese tradition believes that everyone should abide by.If "traditional Chinese morality" refers to "traditional Chinese morality", it is more complicated than the previous two explanations. We always hear about "morality" and "morality", but what exactly is morality?Some people say that morality is an extension of the law, some people say that morality is the code of conduct formulated by the ruler to restrain the people, and some say that morality is the rule established by the people themselves to distinguish between good and bad.All of these statements make sense. Morality is a code of conduct that has the following four characteristics:

1. Normative: Tell people what is good behavior and what is bad behavior 2. Permeability: Penetrating into all areas of social life, not limited to a certain industry or a certain region 3. Stability: After a moral concept is formed, it may not change for hundreds or thousands of years 4. Self-discipline: that is, the "extension of the law" mentioned above.Obeying the law is mandatory, and law enforcement agencies will intervene in violation of the law. However, morality depends on everyone's own compliance. If there is a violation, they may be criticized and condemned. Was fined, but not to the point of sentencing.

Morality can be divided into three categories according to its normative areas: social morality, professional ethics, marriage and family morality, but traditional Chinese morality generally confuses these three categories. The so-called "traditional Chinese moral concept" generally refers to the moral concept based on Confucianism, because Confucianism has been respected by the rulers for thousands of years, so morality is often "learned and used" by the rulers according to their own needs. The result of Confucianism.Some people summarize the traditional Chinese morality based on Confucianism into five words: "propriety, righteousness, benevolence, wisdom and trustworthiness", and some summarize it into eight words: "loyalty, filial piety, benevolence, propriety, integrity and shame".The rulers of the past dynasties added, subtracted, deleted, and modified, but these are roughly the contents.

It is said that Sun Yat-sen advocated the "Eight Virtues", that is, "loyalty, filial piety, benevolence, faith, and peace", while Chiang Kai-shek advocated the "New Life Movement" in the 1930s, and defined "propriety, righteousness, integrity and shame" as the "four dimensions of the country", which is similar to Sun Yat-sen's "Eight Virtues". Virtue" and called "Four Dimensions and Eight Virtues", and gave a definition for propriety, righteousness, honesty and shame: "Li is a well-behaved attitude, righteousness is a righteous behavior, honesty is a clear distinction, shame is a real awareness" During the Anti-Japanese War, it was changed again to "Li is a strict discipline, righteousness is a generous sacrifice, honesty is a real economy, and shame is a vigorous struggle." It seems that in order to make up the four characters and make the sentence "even and stable", Lao Jiang had to make a mistake in Chinese characters, and made the words that are not usually repeated in four characters be repeated in four characters. What is "generous and generous" , It's all about making up the number of words.And the definition he made is equivalent to no definition, what kind of "rules"?For whom to "sacrifice"?None answered.As for the interpretation of "shame" as "vigorous struggle", it really makes people doubt Chiang's Chinese proficiency. During the period when the Kuomintang ruled the mainland, the four major families took the lead in corruption, and officials at all levels followed suit. This not only caused the Kuomintang to lose popular support and power, but also brought disaster to the Eight Virtues and Four Dimensions it advocated. It is often used as irony.It is said that someone sent an elegiac couplet to a prominent figure in the Kuomintang with these two lines: Shanglian: Loyalty, filial piety, benevolence, propriety, righteousness and honesty The second line: one two three four five six seven The meaning is: shameless, forget eight. Traditional Chinese morality has a common feature, that is, it does not ask indiscriminately, regardless of right or wrong, everything is determined by status and the relationship between superiority and inferiority. Basically, "blind" or "foolish" can be added in front of it.Loyalty is stupid loyalty, it does not ask whether the monarch is right or wrong, as long as you are a subject, you have to be loyal to the monarch, otherwise you are not a good subject.Filial piety is stupid filial piety, you have to obey regardless of whether your parents are right or wrong, and disobedience is unfilial. After liberation, few people talked about "traditional morality". This is easy to understand. According to the two theories, we should oppose whatever the enemy supports. Since the Kuomintang advocates traditional morality, the Communist Party has no reason to inherit it. , followed by the advocacy, and replaced by "communist morality".The most basic feature of communist morality is "the spirit of collectivism and the spirit of serving the people wholeheartedly."Since "collective" and "people" have always been two very vague concepts, this moral law basically belongs to the category of "the power of interpretation rests with the central government". According to Lenin's definition, communist morality is divided into three stages. In the stage of seizing power, it is only manifested in the advanced class, that is, the proletariat. After seizing power, it becomes the dominant morality. Morality. Jingqiu belongs to the so-called generation "born in New China and grew up under the red flag", that is, the stage "after the Communist Party seized power", which should be the period when "communist morality reigns supreme".Since she was born, no one has advocated "traditional Chinese morality", only "communist morality".In the early days of the Cultural Revolution, it was even more prevalent to "destroy the four old and establish the four new". What was not destroyed during the May 4th Movement, the Cultural Revolution continued to be destroyed, temples were smashed, historic sites were destroyed, and feudal capitalism was trampled underfoot. , as long as anyone sticks to the "traditional" side, they are all precarious and face the danger of being knocked down at all times.Traditional theater has been criticized, traditional crafts have been put on the shelf, and traditional festivals seem to have not stopped, but the way of celebrating has changed. Dragon dances, lion dances, lion dances, and dragon boats have all been "broken". Who dares to mention "traditional Chinese morality" How many words? Of course, some people would say that in Jingqiu's time, "traditional Chinese morality" was condemned, but what about her parents?Is it always influenced by "traditional Chinese morality"?Didn't they affect Jingqiu? Both Jingqiu's parents were born in the 1920s. Influenced by the May 4th Movement, that era tended to be "total Westernization". The country was wide open, foreign things were brought in, and Chinese students went out.The two popular words at that time were "Mr. De" and "Mr. Sai", that is, "democracy" and "science".As far as literature is concerned, they imported a large amount of foreign literature, vigorously promoted foreign literature, and vigorously imitated foreign literature. If you count them casually, you will find those famous literati, such as Lu Xun, Ba Jin, Lao She, Xu Zhimo, Yu Dafu, Qian Zhongshu and others have all stayed abroad and are deeply influenced by foreign literature and culture. Jingqiu’s parents both studied and went to school before liberation. Jingqiu’s father graduated from a quite famous art academy. He studied western musical instruments violin and piano, and also studied western painting. He knew several foreign languages ​​and was deeply influenced by European and American humanism. Because he hated the corruption and incompetence of the Kuomintang government and longed for democracy and freedom, he defected to the liberated areas at that time, hoping to use music to serve the revolution and save the country and the people like progressive musicians such as Nie Er and Xian Xinghai. Jingqiu's grandfather devoted himself to the revolution in his early years and had a rather enlightened view on marriage and children's education. Therefore, Jingqiu's mother got rid of the tragic fate of women in the old days and was able to go out to study, become a teacher, and become an independent new woman. The love and marriage of Jingqiu's parents are quite anti-traditional. They are teachers and students, and Jingqiu's father has two arranged daughter-in-laws in his hometown in the countryside.Jingqiu's father "divorced the two daughters-in-law in the countryside after going through a lot of hardships, and married her mother. My mother waited for him for a long time, and did not get married until he was almost thirty. At that time, it can be said that She is almost old enough to be a mother-in-law." Jingqiu's parents' love style after marriage is also anti-traditional: "Her father and mother have been working in different cities. Her father comes back every one or two weeks. Even if he comes back often, he and her mother still have to write letters. When her mother was criticized in the Eighth Middle School during the Cultural Revolution, she wrote The letter was brought out and criticized, saying that her parents had a bourgeois way of life." Jingqiu's grandma represents the so-called traditional concept of marriage and love: "Her grandma has that kind of old-fashioned thinking. She always thinks that her mother seduced her father's soul away, which made her father divorce the two country wives... In her grandma's mind, only the original spouse is reasonable and legal. It is illegal for a married couple to divorce and remarry. Therefore, her grandma hates her son and daughter-in-law the most..." It can be said that in terms of love, Jingqiu is deeply influenced and nurtured by her parents.What her parents taught by precept and deed was not the traditional Chinese concept of marriage and love, but the "bourgeois way of life" and "petty bourgeois sentiment", which is the set that is portrayed and praised in European and American literature. There have been many descriptions of the European and American literary works that Jingqiu has read. For example, the first book that the third child lent to Jingqiu was "John-Christophe". , the example that comes to mind is Romeo and Juliet they talked about on the hill... Some people, probably out of patriotic reasons, very much hope to find some traditional Chinese influence from the love of the youngest Jingqiu, but unfortunately, it is almost impossible. Maybe you want to learn from any Chinese people's moving love It is impossible to find the influence of Chinese tradition in Chinese literature. All the stories in Chinese literature that pursue equality and free love between men and women are anti-traditional, because Chinese tradition either does not talk about love or is anti-love, advocating that men are superior to women and arranged marriages , from one end to the end, the same set, unless you make a new definition of "tradition".