Chapter 21 Chapter 5 The Tradition of Openness

In 2006, Peking University professor Zhang Yiwu advocated that "we should treat Zhang Ziyi as kindly as Confucius" and "one Zhang Ziyi is worth ten thousand copies of Confucius".As soon as this remark came out, in addition to causing a crusade by some media, it also attracted countless abuses on the Internet.It should be said that Confucius and Zhang Ziyi, one old and one young, one man and one woman, one dead and one alive, and the circumstances of the two people are also different. It is really a problem for the public to insist on putting the two together to compare who is greater .

Under the same blue sky, in my opinion, denying the value of another person based on his life practice is as absurd as blaming the dolphins in the Caribbean for not dancing at the Moulin Rouge. As we all know, the once dominant Confucianism has largely constrained China's development and limited the creativity of the Chinese people.Because of this, at the beginning of the last century, when people realized that "Mr. Kong" had misunderstood their children, Chen Duxiu and others invited "Mr. De" and "Mr. Sai" into Chinese classrooms. Of course, at the same time, Confucius also became the scapegoat or scapegoat for China's decline.Mr. Qian Mu once pointed out in the "Outline of National History" that our people should maintain "warmth and respect" for the history of our country.However, the "Chinese people" who were already out of anger at that time took Confucius to "vent public anger", thinking that as long as they completely negated Confucius, they could straighten the backbone of the Chinese people. Heavy days.Of course, this kind of extremism, which divides good and evil, has begun to rise again in recent years.As China's economy grows, the Chinese gradually regain their confidence.While talented scholars and beauties who "dare to be the first in the world" actively promote the construction of Chinese civil society, scholars and scholars who "dare to be the post-Confucianism" also vigorously launched the "Revival of Confucianism Movement" and wanted to "canonize" Confucius.Therefore, whether to "respect Confucius" or "abandon Confucius" has once again become the focus of public opinion.It can be seen that there is more intellectual snobbery.

However, none of the above debates has addressed the crux of the matter.As we all know, Chinese studies are not only Confucianism, and Confucius is not the only producer and leader of Chinese values.Today, when China is moving from a closed society to an open society, the first thing we need to do is answer the "multiple-choice question" of "what kind of Confucius does China need" based on reality, rather than the "true or false question" of "whether Confucius is great or not".In other words, when facing historical figures, you should learn to do multiple-choice questions instead of judgment questions, in order to find out something useful for this era, instead of far-fetched affirmation or defeat.

It should be said that Confucius' life was a life of activeness and self-realization.In that era when "rituals collapsed and music was destroyed", Confucius went all out to try to rebuild human values ​​and social order through morality.However, it is undeniable that as far back as the Spring and Autumn Period, Confucius, like the murdered Shaozheng Mao, was just one of the "Ten Best" or "Hundred Best Youths" and one of the "Youth Leaders" of that era. The best way to carry forward the Chinese tradition is to restore people's memory of past knowledge and history.Only by sincerely looking for lost memories can we rebuild civilization based on the past.From this point of view, we should incorporate Confucius' thoughts into the Chinese cultural system, instead of doing the opposite and incorporating Chinese culture into Confucius' ideological system.If we compare national thought to a warehouse, Confucian thought is just a tool or product stored in it. We should make good use of it and transform it instead of worshiping it.Any doctrine and idea, like a hoe, is a tool we can use to help.It should be held in our hands to open the way, not piled up in front of us to block traffic.

Someone summed up a "Shenzhou Paradox": China calls itself "Shenzhou", but there is no "God".On this point, I do not agree.Traditionally, the West seems to have only heavenly gods (God), while China not only has heavenly gods (Jade Emperor), underground gods (Yan Wang), but also created countless earthly gods (Tianzi).So I say that China does not lack the "tradition of gods and ghosts". What China lacks the most is not the "tradition of gods" but the "tradition of people". . It should be said that two thousand years ago, Confucius had already started to establish a "human tradition".Confucius had lofty aspirations and hoped to establish a society of great harmony. The so-called "the way of the great way is also, the world is the public, select the virtuous and capable, and trustworthy and harmonious. Therefore, people should not only kiss their relatives, nor only their sons; so that old age will end, strong Useful, young and strong, widowed, lonely, disabled and sick all have something to support."Confucius advocated "benevolence" and said that "every man should not take away his will" and "do not do to others what you do not want yourself to do to yourself". All these are related to the establishment of a "human tradition".Similarly, the concept of openness is not lacking in Confucius' thought.Confucius believed that "sex is similar, learning is far away", and he advocated "cultural marriage" and "the son of heaven loses his official position and learns in Siyi".As a result, he gathered apprentices to give lectures and created a private school in China.Confucius' educational thought of "teaching without discrimination" is still praised by people today. The reason is that Confucius broke the previous privilege of "learning in the government".

However, what Confucius established is still only a "tradition of half-baked people". Confucius summarized the ruling ideology of the ruling class to maintain slavery as "rituals" and "music".Restoring and consolidating the ruling order of Western Zhou rites is called "benevolence", and the so-called "people prosper through benevolence".However, in the Spring and Autumn Period, the situation of "ritual collapse and music decay" still inevitably appeared.However, today, when we stand in the canyon of history and wander around, it is not difficult to find that the "propriety collapses and music is broken" in the Confucius era is actually under the sun, and everyone is rushing their own way.However, in the eyes of Confucius, the scene of losing rank is obviously too chaotic, "it is tolerable, which cannot be tolerated".Therefore, Confucius asked people to "restrain oneself and return to rituals" and abide by the social morality of "junjun, ministers, fathers, sons".

The author believes that Confucius only saw the chaos of this transitional era, but did not see the vigorous vitality under the chaos; or in other words, he only saw "the age is copulating", but did not see "the era is being conceived".In fact, the prosperity of culture and thought in the pre-Qin period was thanks to "the collapse of ritual and the destruction of music".It is also in this era of "letting grass grow in the public fields", in this era of ideological emancipation and spiritual freedom, "the emperor loses his official position, and learns from the barbarians", the political power and ideology monopolized by the Zhou emperor gradually lost the authority of the past , people began to focus on self-realization, looking for and creating their own value.And all of this is a major historical premise for the emergence of "a hundred schools of thought contending".The background of the times related to this is that at this time, there are many princes competing to recruit talents, creating an environment of academic freedom for the scholars.In this respect, the freedom of thought and social progress enjoyed by the Chinese people is not inferior to the blooming Athens at that time.

Regrettably, when the society returned to "Great Rule", when Confucius' morality was injected into the system for the use of the rulers, and when Confucius was posthumously awarded as an "excellent ideological element" by various emperors, it was actually the beginning of his infamy. .From this point of view, Confucius, to a large extent, was punished on behalf of others, and the pistol replaced the gunman to apologize.Of course, the direct reason why Confucius was used was that he established a strict hierarchy of "traditions of half-baked people". Some people say that the East is spiritual civilization, while the West is material civilization.Comparing Eastern and Western civilizations, in July 1926, when Hu Shi passed by a small city near the Harbin concession:

"When I was visiting here, one thing caught my attention: all transportation in Chinatown is by rickshaw or other rickshaws, but such vehicles are not allowed to pass in the foreign concession...Those who boast of oriental spiritual civilization, You can think about these facts. What is the "spirit" of a culture that allows cruel rickshaws to exist? I don't know what the minimum wage is, and I don't know what the working hours are limited. I only know how to work hard all day long. What other spiritual life is there?" Hu Shi therefore believed that one of the differences between Eastern and Western civilizations is that the East is a "rickshaw civilization", while the West is a "motorcycle civilization".We can easily find the difference between the two civilizations, the fuel of the former comes from man, while the fuel of the latter comes from nature.

As Marcuse talked about the paradox of human beings creating tools, those who invent tools are also enslaved by tools.Just like the inventor invented the bicycle, it also limited the rider to hold the handlebar with his hands.Similarly, when Confucius “invented” the moral rickshaw for the Chinese, he also began to enslave the Chinese because of its poor design—when there was no rickshaw, people would go about their own way and find their own home; After the rickshaw, there was a distinction between riding a cart and pulling a cart, and the inequality of people was ritualized or legalized.Undoubtedly, some of Confucius's propositions of "lords, ministers, fathers, and sons" are to support some people on the carts and put other people on the yoke, forcing them to run in front of the rickshaw.

History has proved that a large number of people does not directly enslave people, but indirectly enslaves people through tools (such as institutions, doctrines, and morality).Therefore, when the "Confucius brand" rickshaw was designated as the "imperial rickshaw" by the king, it also determined that Confucius, who advocated morality, provided the source of living water for the most immoral "rickshaw civilization" in the world. Although Confucius talked about "doing to others what you don't want yourself to do to yourself" and "benevolence and love", his thinking on the system is extremely limited.Confucius helped a small number of people onto rickshaws in the name of morality, but the vast majority of people received "inhuman" treatment, and could only "be like cows and horses" in front of the rickshaw.No matter how humane the noose is, it cannot escape our definition of "velvet prison".As long as this design provides legitimacy for people to enslave people from the very beginning, then Confucius' so-called "benevolent government" is nothing more than requiring the whips of the princes and nobles sitting on the rickshaw to fall gently on the back of the puller . Clearly, flogging is only one of the evils of governing, and light flogging is not really good governance.At the same time, the resistance of the rickshaw drivers stemmed from their injustice to the design of this system.When they were finally overwhelmed, there was a change of dynasty in the style of "people turned their backs on their backs".If those who have recently climbed on the rickshaw seat still agree with this order, they will also face a new "people turning their backs on their backs" in time.This is what we call the "vicious circle" of history. In other words, in the face of the reality of "ritual collapse and music decay", Confucius tried to correct the changing social reality in the form of Zhou rituals, but he did not examine the problem from a deeper institutional level, and did not truly put people first.In fact, the Zhou etiquette of "subduing people with virtue" is nothing more than a strictly hierarchical patriarchal system. The so-called stipulation that "the court should not be inferior to the common people, and the punishment should not be punished by the doctor", which further demonstrates the injustice of the society.However, Confucius admired "I am so literary, I follow Zhou".What Confucius committed may have been a simple logical error—since the rituals of Zhou were so perfect, how could there be such a chaotic situation of "the collapse of rituals and the destruction of music"? There is an inscription on the plate of Shang Tang that says, "Go out to renew every day, renew every day, and renew every day"; "The Book of Songs · Daya · King Wen" also talks about "Although Zhou is an old state, its life is renewed."How the old state gets new life has always been the focus of people's attention. Some years ago I mentioned Walter Benjamin, an émigré thinker, in my discussion of class mobility in French society.During a trip to Naples in 1925, Benjamin saw the penetration of social life into a person's behavior and attitude from the structure of the city's porosity (La porosite), and pointed out that "porosity is the inexhaustible law of life in this city, and it is an infinite ubiquitous".In other words, porosity is the source of new life for old states. As mentioned above, Confucius was forced to leave get out of class because of the arrival of "Mr.It is worth mentioning that since the reform and opening up, China has gained unprecedented vitality, and it is more dependent on another gentleman. He is not as popular and sung as "Mr. De" and "Mr. Sai", but he is dripping water and wearing stone Transform China bit by bit.This is what I call "Mr. Kong".Of course, this "Mr. Kong" is not the Confucius discussed in this article, but refers to the value of "porosity", the value of openness, which is regarded as common sense in an open society.Like democracy and scientific values, it jointly promotes the growth of Chinese society. Confucius has passed away, "Mr. Kong" should come.An open society is a porous society of fluidity.There can be no vibrant society without porous institutions.For example, some scholars talked about the mobility of French society in the nineteenth century: the mechanism of mobility has had a profound impact on the process of modern political democracy, because in a hierarchical society, the upper class not only requires the lower class to obey, but also gives the lower class a sense of " Protection", there is a certain bond of "rights" and "obligations" between the upper and lower classes... The existence of such patriarchal economic and social relations makes the lower classes have a psychological and conceptual dependence on the upper class, which is also Patronage politics is the social basis for the existence of authoritarian politics.After the emergence of social mobility, the new economic chain connects people, the original relationship of "rights and obligations" between the upper and lower classes is lifted, and everyone becomes a free person, with omnipotent administrative power and an authoritarian sheltered political system Since then, the foundation of existence has been lost, and this fluidity has collapsed the hierarchical pyramid, forming an intermediate class between the state power and the masses, and its characteristics are also porous and fluid. Today's China can be described as "three generations under one roof", which is partly reflected in the intermingling of pre-modern (politics), modern (economic) and post-modern (cultural).Although China is moving from a closed society to an open society, the completion of modernity still needs to go through a long process.To complete this modernity, we must fully realize the importance of an open society, and we must start building a porous society.This kind of openness not only means that China opens its doors, but also means that there are as many channels as possible within society, so that more people have the opportunity to realize themselves.I believe that it is the self-realization that many people flaunt their self-worth, which plays a destructive role in the transformation of old ideas and things.This is why I have defended "Super Girl" in a series of articles, and the reason why people can "get rich overnight" within a legal framework as social progress.Those who have made outstanding contributions to human beings, those who have broken through the isolation and are at the forefront of the times, those who have vision and can practice, and those who lead everyone to bid farewell to the mystery and go to the bright future, their contributions should be recognized by the society. Let Confucius's belong to Confucius, and let Zhang Ziyi's belong to Zhang Ziyi. "Confucius PK Zhang Ziyi" is essentially "Confucius PK Mr. Kong".It is in the context of seeking an open society that the author advocates that Chinese intellectuals should put aside Confucius’ “controversy between survival and abolition” and pay more attention to the construction of an open society, the self-realization of today’s people and its impact on the development of the entire society. long-term significance.What China should be discussing now is not the question of whether Confucius is needed, but how to do the homework of what I call "Mr. Kong", and how to solve the problem of "porosity" in society.If "Mr. De" and "Mr. Sai" focus on group rights and social progress respectively, then "Mr. Kong" focuses on individual freedom and self-realization.Whether China can achieve down-to-earth progress, the former and the latter are equally crucial.