Special Plan for the Root Nature of Civilization No. 2: Wang Zhongjiang: In Chinese civilization, why is the "people's will" the basis for political legitimacy?
China News Service, Beijing, 5 January Title: In Chinese civilization, why is the "people's will" the basis of political legitimacy?
——Interview with Wang Zhongjiang, President of the Chinese Confucius Society
China News Service reporter Xie Ping ma xiuxiu
Chinese civilization is the only ancient civilization that has not been interrupted to this day, which is inextricably linked to its fundamental characteristics. The Book of Shang says: "The people are only in the state, the people are in the state", and Mencius says: "Good governance wins the people's wealth, and good education wins the people's hearts". Today's China emphasizes that the will of the people is the greatest politics.
Attaching great importance to the will of the people is a political and cultural characteristic that has always been emphasized in Chinese civilization. From the ancient theory to the present, from the middle to the west, what is the "people's heart"? How can you win the hearts and minds of the people? What is the difference in perception between East and West? How does this difference project on the political origins and functions of government? Wang Zhongjiang, professor of the Department of Philosophy of Peking University and president of the Confucius Society of China, recently gave an exclusive interview to the China News Agency's "East and West Question" to give a detailed interpretation.
The interview transcript is summarized below:
China News Service: The development of Chinese philosophical thought has gone through thousands of years, reflecting the root core of Chinese civilization. China has a long tradition of "putting the people first" and "conforming to the people's hearts", how to understand this concept? What footnote is there in the history of political philosophy?
Wang Zhongjiang: I am very pleased to share some views on the relevant areas of the root causes of Chinese civilization. "Public opinion" and "people's will" are highly comparable, and I use them interchangeably in similar senses.
"Public opinion", "people's will" and "people-oriented" all belong to the concept of political philosophy, but the foothold and focus are different. Politics is the use of power to achieve political aspirations and political goals, the acquisition and possession of political power is not an end in itself, the realization of political aspirations and goals is an end. According to this distinction, governance in accordance with the "will of the people" and "people's will" is a political expectation and goal; "people-oriented" refers to the importance of the common people in political governance, not the expression of political purposes.
The concepts of "people-oriented" and "people's hearts" originated very early. In the "Song of the Five Sons of Shangshu", there is a sense of people-orientedness, saying that "the emperor has a precept: the people can be close and cannot be lowered." Min Wei Bang Ben, Ben Gu Bang Ning". Mencius said that "the people are noble, the society is secondary, and the king is light" (Mencius). The use of "people's ben" in classical classics to express the importance of the public in political life has since become a Chinese tradition of people's benthology.
On December 22, 2017, the Meng Da ceremony of the Winter Solstice Festival of Ding Younian was held at the Meng temple in Zoucheng, Shandong, the hometown of Mencius. China News Service reporter Sha Jianlong photographed
As an expression of political purposes, the concept of "people's will" was first expressed in the Book of Poetry. The "Poetry of Jie Nanshan" says: "A gentleman is like a gentleman who is in the heart of the people; a gentleman is as evil as a wrath is against it." Only when a gentleman governs like walking on ice can the people feel at ease; a gentleman governs the country like a bowl of water, fairness and justice, and the people's hatred and dissatisfaction will be eliminated. Beginning with the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the idea of conforming to the will of the people became the basis of political legitimacy and the basis and yardstick of political justice. The "Chinese Zhou Yuxia" expresses: "With words and virtue to the people, the people are virtuous and virtuous, then return to the heart." To win the hearts and minds of the people, to cultivate righteousness, is to do nothing, to seek nothing, but to be happy. "Hundred schools of learning have developed the political concept of "people's hearts". Lao Tzu said: "The saints have no heart, and take the hearts of the people as their hearts" (Chapter 49 of the Second Book of the Book of Shu and the Han Jian Ben of Lao Tzu), Mencius said: "Good governance wins the people's wealth, and good teaching wins the hearts of the people" (Mencius, Dedication to the Heart). Through continuous evolution, the political expectations expressed by the "theory of the will of the people" have become symbolic symbols of Chinese political culture.
China News Service: How does Chinese political philosophy explain the relationship between the origin of political power and the will of the people? How to win the "people's hearts"?
Wang Zhongjiang: The East and the West have different interpretations of the origin of the universe and all things. The further back you go, the more prominent the mythological and religious explanations become; the further back you look, the more pronounced the philosophical and scientific explanations become.
Nor was the interpretation of political origins by early Chinese civilizations a single one. The religious explanation is that the monarch was created by God to guarantee and guarantee the interests and well-being of the people. The Mencius LiangHui Wangxia quotes the Shangshu Tai Oath as saying, "Heaven descends on the people, and is the king of the king, and the teacher." The Fourteenth Year of Zuo Chuan Xianggong records Shi Kuang's words: "A prince who is born of the people, makes the priest and shepherd, and does not lose his nature." Heaven first created human beings and at the same time created the monarchy. This interpretation can be called the monarch's "heavenly doctrine". Philosophically, politics is seen as the result of natural evolution, and the Zhou Yi Preface says, "There is heaven and earth and then there are all things, there are all things and then there are men and women, there are men and women and then there are couples, there are husbands and wives and then there are fathers and sons, there are fathers and sons and then there are kings and subjects, there are kings and subjects and then there are up and down, there are up and down and then there are wrong etiquette." ”
On May 20, 2016, Zhang Gong, a post-90s boy in Nanjing, also rode a public bicycle to greet the bride Xu Siyuan with green environmental protection and low-carbon travel. China News Service reporter Yang Bo photographed
The Doctrine of Heavenly Establishment holds that the Heavenly Monarch is not to meet the needs of the monarch, but to meet the needs of the people. Guodian Chujian has a "Lu Mu Gong Asks Zi Si": "The people born of heaven are not for the king; the kings of the heavens are also for the people." "Shenzi Weide" also expressed: "The son of heaven thinks that the heavenly son is the world, and the non-established world thinks that the son of heaven is also; the founding monarch thinks that the country is the country, and the non-founder thinks that the monarch is also the king; the chief of the state is the official, and the non-official thinks that the official is also the chief." This is consistent with the "public view of the world" of the sub-scholars. "Lü's Spring and Autumn Noble Prince" said: "The world is not one person's world, and the world under the world is also." ”
Of course, in fact, the monarchical system is not established by heaven, nor is it a purely natural evolution, which is related to the creation of human beings. The Xunzi Sexual Evil chapter says: "The ancient saints thought that the nature of man was evil, thinking that it was dangerous and not righteous, and that it was rebellious and not governed, so that the power of the king was established, and the righteousness of the ming was transformed, and the law was correctly ruled, and the severe punishment was forbidden, so that the whole world would be governed by governance and in harmony with goodness." "Lü Shi Chunqiu Gongjun" also has a similar idea.
In China's political thinking, the Son of Heaven governs the world on behalf of Providence. There are two arguments that are not contradictory. First, Providence is the will of Heaven, which is the highest justice of self-evidentness; the righteousness of the Words and Deeds of the Son of Heaven lies in conformity with Providence, and conformity to Providence is naturally in line with the will of the people. Second, Heaven does not have its own will, and Providence originally came from public opinion. There is a saying in the Book of Shang: "Heaven sees itself and the people see it, and heaven listens to its own people." This sentence is from the Tai Oath and is quoted in mencius. Heaven has no audio-visual independence from the people, and what it sees and hears is what the people see and hear. The Book of Shang also says, "What the people desire, the heavens will follow."
How can we win the hearts and minds of the people? Mencius's answer was: "Have a way in his heart: gather with him what he desires, and do not give it to him" (Mencius Li Lou Shang). To meet the people's hearts, the first thing is to develop the economy, promote commercial circulation, and meet the material life of the people. In ancient society, it was to fully ensure the agricultural production of peasants and achieve low taxes. Confucius advocated a prosperous life for the people, Mencius advocated the politics of love ("benevolent government") and advocated ensuring that the people could live a secure life through the land system ("the property of the people"), and Lao Tzu proposed four criteria for a good life: eat well, dress beautifully, live in moderation, and make peace ("Eat freely, dress well, live in peace, and enjoy customs"). On the basis of material life, the ruler must also strive to meet the spiritual needs of the public. Confucianism pays attention to the indoctrination of people, the spiritual development of people and the development of personality.
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Conforming to the will of the people as a whole is to satisfy the aspirations of the masses of the people in both aspects. The Book of Rites and Universities says: "What the people do well, what the people do evil" and "what they order is contrary to what they do, but the people do not obey." If the governance is not in accordance with the will of the people, the heavens will deprive him of the right to rule, because "the destiny of heaven is normal." If governance is not in line with the will of the people, the public will resort to the right to resist.
China News Service: How does Western civilization explain its political origins? What are the similarities and differences between eastern and western interpretations?
Wang Zhongjiang: Western civilization also has different interpretations of the origin of politics. Aristotle believed that politics was the result of natural evolution. "The growth of the city-state is due to the development of human 'life', but its actual existence is for the 'good life'. The early social groups at all levels grew up naturally, and all city-states, since this process of growth was completed, should also be the product of nature" (Political Science). The impetus generated by politics stems from human needs. In the process, the intellectual become rulers, and others become governed. Vico argues that politics and its rulers are established from the clans of the family and their paternal authority.
The ruins of the Acropolis in the heart of Athens, the capital of Greece. Photo by China News Service reporter Sheng Jiapeng
An important theory of Western civilization explaining the origin of society is called contract theory, and there are different versions, such as the Hobbes version, the Locke version, and the contemporary Rawls version. Contract theory generally assumes the natural state of man, and the state was established precisely to get rid of this state. In order to obtain some rights, each person must cede some of his rights in order to form a state and govern it by human representatives. Hume believed that the further development of man must establish politics and society, and initially by means of open or tacit agreements, the super-powerful man became a ruler. This is a "weak contract theory" version.
The Western theory of political contract has something in common with the Chinese theory of political sacred works, such as the establishment of the state to satisfy the will of the public and its own rights and interests. In the theory of contract, people are willing to give up some of their rights and let the state monopolize power such as violence out of their own security, peace, interests, etc.; in China, the saints created monarchs as a means to meet the basic wishes and needs of the masses.
A big difference between the theory of sacred works and the theory of contract is that the theory of sacred works emphasizes the politics of the personality of the sages and the politics of example, emphasizing the rule of man; the theory of contract emphasizes institutional governance and emphasizes the rule of law.
China News Service: What role do you think the people's will has played in promoting the improvement of the government governance system at present?
Wang Zhongjiang: In principle, political philosophers today believe that the state and the government are tools rather than ends, that they are all built for the wishes and interests of the public, and that they develop and change in order to better meet the wishes and interests of the public.
As an important political concept, the "people's heart" in classical China is still valid for establishing a good contemporary political life. What the people want is what the government wants. The government should constantly improve according to the will of the people, the governance should listen to the will of the people and constantly improve, and the system should continue to suit the will of the people and constantly improve. Following the will of the people and the will of the people is the starting point of all the government's governance, and conforming to the will of the people and the people is the criterion of all governance. (End)
On the evening of October 1, 2019, the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China was held in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Photo by China News Service reporter Sheng Jiapeng
Respondent Profiles:
Wang Zhongjiang is a Distinguished Professor of the Yellow River Civilization Collaborative Innovation Center of Henan University, a professor of the Department of Philosophy of Peking University, a doctoral supervisor, a Jiang Scholar Distinguished Professor of the Ministry of Education, the president of the Chinese Confucius Society, and the president of the Lao Tzu Studies Research Association. His recent publications include "Jian Shu Civilization and the World of Ancient Thought", "The Spiritual Tao and Social Role of Confucianism", "Research on the Conceptual History of Taoist Doctrine", "Roots, System and Order: From Lao Tzu to Huang Lao", "Nature and Man: A Genealogical Exploration of the Two Concepts in Modern China", etc.; the editor-in-chief of "Frontiers of Chinese Philosophy Series", "Excavated Documents and New Knowledge of Early Chinese Thought", "New Philosophy", "Chinese Confucianism (Cooperation) and "Laozi Studies Collection", etc.
Source: China News Network