Chapter 38 The Evolution of Chinese Cultural Tradition-6

six If there is no foreign invasion, our enjoyment and appreciation of the above-mentioned philosophical daily life will certainly be very comfortable.The ideal life of the Chinese is actually not bad, the only thing wrong is his cosmopolitanism.In order to truly express the ideal life of the Chinese people, it is necessary to truly achieve cosmopolitanism.But the Chinese have always believed that China is already a big world.Chinese culture has gone too far on this point, making it out of touch with the real world and not connected.The faults of the Song and Ming Dynasties are rooted in this.If there were no Mongols or Manchurians outside, then the life of the Chinese below the Song Dynasty could naturally be said to have been arranged very meaningfully.It's a pity that the sweet dream of An Tian was broken by the violent storm in Manchuria, Mongolia, and woke me up.But why during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, when outsiders invaded, we could resist it, but during the Song and Ming dynasties, we could not do anything about it?This is because during the Wei and Jin dynasties, there were still disguised aristocrats in Chinese society. They owned large local industries and had large groups of people under them. become a force.We now call them feudal forces, and it seems that feudal forces are always bad.However, there are feudal forces one by one in the society, and foreigners naturally cannot bear it.In the societies of the Song and Ming dynasties, there was no such special force. Then when foreigners came, they only defeated your upper-level central government, and the lower places had no way to resist it.Because of this time, the feudal forces in Chinese society had long since disappeared, and the emerging forces of capitalism like modern Western society did not rise in Chinese society.Then the Chinese people at that time had no way to organize into strength.Since the people have no power, they can only rely on the government.When the government collapses, the people will naturally have nothing to do.

After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, Mr. Gu Tinglin wanted to engage in revolution and traveled all over the country.Once, when he went to Wenxi County in the southwestern part of Shanxi, he saw a large village named Pei Village, with thousands of families named Pei.They have been inherited from the Tang Dynasty, and they still live together.Therefore, Mr. Tinglin recalled that the patriarchal clan society still had power in the Tang Dynasty, but now this power has gradually disappeared.At that time, Chinese literature and art were only for ordinary people, for everyday life, for the enjoyment and experience of life.In another sense, they have all embarked on a negative path and can only be used for comfort and entertainment in life.And Chinese society, generally speaking, is a truly equal society, so it is not easy to exert its strength.After the Song Dynasty, China's national situation fell into a slump, and this is the problem.

Up to now, the fourth period of Chinese cultural history is beginning, and we should work harder to push forward.How to encourage it?First, we must restore China's inherent morality.This is the above-mentioned great principles of self-cultivation, family harmony, state governance, and world peace, loyalty, filial piety, benevolence and righteousness, integrity and integrity.Second, Chinese society should be made to display its modern strength.Now that we can neither turn back and restore the feudal system, nor step into the capitalist commercial society, how should we unite to exert our strength?If we do not have strength, we cannot deal with the other nations of the present world.Thirdly, since ancient times, China has paid equal attention to agriculture and industry, and commerce has flourished accordingly, but it is not allowed to be like the emergence of Western commercial capitalism.In places like Mongolia, Tibet, and Southeast Asia, as long as they are not agricultural-industrial societies, our cultural power will be difficult to use, and our ideal of cosmopolitanism will never be achieved.China should go one step further and strengthen its industry.In this way, Chinese culture can further reach the ideal state he originally dreamed of.

"The Doctrine of the Mean" once said: "If you can fully realize your nature, you can fully realize your human nature. If you can fully realize your human nature, you can fully realize the nature of things. If you can fully realize the nature of things, you can praise the transformation of heaven and earth."The modern civilization of the West can be said to have gone one step further than China in terms of industry, mainly in its science, but their science only seeks to maximize the nature of things.From the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period to the Han, Tang, Song, and Ming dynasties, it can be said that China has paid attention to the pursuit of human nature.If you want to further maximize your materialism, you have to learn from the West and work hard on their science.But instead of pursuing the nature of things and ignoring the nature of humanity, it has gone down another path just like the modern West.Then how can we adopt Western science under the inherent ideals of China, as I said above, and add something new to the previous ones?This question is difficult to answer in a few words.And that's where the real problem lies.

In Chinese society, as long as Western science is added, everything will change.But the problem is how not to overthrow China's inherent traditions.Some people say that if the Chinese do not overthrow the old traditions of the old society, they will not be able to incorporate new Western science. Is this true?It has been more than a hundred years since the Chinese wanted to learn the new science of the Westerners. Why are they still unable to learn it? What is the reason for this?Or is Chinese culture already old, and there is no longer hope for improvement?Or is Chinese culture not suitable for adding new western science?Does it force it to completely overthrow the old tradition?In fact, the problem does not lie in this, but because everything in China's current political and social conditions is too corrupt.People who generally talk about Chinese history often say that since the Opium War and the five-port trade agreement, the power of the West has spread eastward, and China's national situation has gone from bad to worse.In fact, this view is also wrong.If the British hadn't come to China to sell opium, hadn't caused the Opium War, and hadn't had five-port trade, would the Qing regime have been able to last forever, and would China still be peaceful forever?In fact, the situation in Chinese society has been extremely bad since the end of Qianlong. Even if foreigners do not come, the corruption within China will gradually be exposed.From the last years of Qianlong to the first dynasty of Jiaqing, there have been continuous civil strife, and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom broke out from then on.The main reason is that the inside is not the outside.Not in the five-port trade, but in the government is sick.This has already told us that China's politics and society at that time were completely corrupted, and a major reform was necessary.Since Chinese society is already in extreme turmoil, and foreign forces invade, we naturally cannot deal with it.If after our recent victory in the Anti-Japanese War, China can get a chance to rest peacefully, then ten or twenty years later, China may be able to find a way.We cannot express general pessimism about Chinese traditional culture just because China has accepted Western scientific civilization for more than a hundred years and has not made any achievements so far.

I try to say that Chinese culture is artistic, while Western culture is scientific.But China is not without science.Just like mathematics and medicine, China has traditions since ancient times.However, Chinese medicine also tends to be artistic, which is based on the invention and evolution of human physiology.Western medicine, on the other hand, invents and evolves from the perspective of human body physics.They are very different from each other, but they are all the same science.Another example is gunpowder, which was first invented in China.But the Chinese are unwilling to continue to develop on this, so they changed to firecrackers and fireworks, while the guns were passed on by the Westerners, and they continued to invent, so as to have today's nuclear weapons.Therefore, if China wants to learn Western modern science today, it must also be deeply artistic in China's own tradition.Incorporate traditional Chinese culture into learning and add a new modern Chinese culture to the art of life.In other words, it cannot be said that China has added Western scientization, it can only be said that China has revived the original scientization.In this way, it is less likely to get sick.

China's way out in the future, as long as there is a way in politics and social order.It is not impossible for Western scientific civilization to accept political clarity, social justice, and a stable life.When it comes to political clarity and social fairness, they are our own internal affairs, and we cannot learn these from foreigners.Like a flower in a flowerpot, it grows from the root.It's not like flowers in a vase, you can put them in whatever you want.The future of our culture must be remedied with our own internal strength.Of course we must learn new western sciences, but we should not hinder our original vitality.Don't compromise our own original vitality.If this is the case, the great goal and great ideal of China's thousands of years of cultural evolution can still continue to strive for realization.

(Speech given by the Chongqing Central Training Corps in the winter of 1941)