Time: "Three Thousand Years of Chinese Confucianism" Sharing Meeting
Venue: Dongjiang College
Guest: Ma Yong, famous historian and researcher of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Organizer: Dongjiang College
The famous scholar Ma Yongji has made a bird's-eye description of the development of Chinese Confucianism in the past 3,000 years from the perspective of great history, and constructed a macro framework for readers. Analyze how Confucianism affects political patterns and systems, and how it affects social culture and national character. Every Chinese naturally has the gene of Confucianism in its bloodline, and to understand China, you must first understand Chinese Confucianism; a Chinese history is in the 3,000-year history of Confucianism.
Generations of scholars think and study
Makes it possible to restate
A complete and orderly history of Confucianism
The book "Three Thousand Years of Chinese Confucianism" is my major.
When I was a student, I majored in Chinese cultural history at Fudan University, and my graduation thesis was on Han Dynasty classics, mainly discussing the Spring and Autumn Studies of the Han Dynasty and the Ram, Zuo Chuan, and Gu Liang schools. He graduated from the Academy of Social Sciences in 1986 and participated in a Confucian program by Mr. Pang Pu in the early 1990s. Mr. Pang Pu, who died a few years ago, is the editor-in-chief of Historical Studies and a member of the Chinese Editorial Board of UNESCO. More importantly, Mr. Pang was the first person at home and abroad to propose a re-study of Confucius and Confucianism after the end of the "Cultural Revolution", and was the most important and the earliest rethinking of the "Batch Forest And Approving Kong" movement in the late "Cultural Revolution". For this reason, the Oriental Publishing Center asked Mr. Pang to organize a four-volume set of Chinese Confucianism based on their published Chinese Buddhism. At the invitation of Mr. Pang, I shared the work of this set with several others. That was more than thirty years ago, and I was still a very young scholar. I am in charge of the first of the four volumes, which is a brief history of Confucianism, which describes the entire history of the development of Confucianism in a clearer and more fluent text.
From the perspective of academic history, up to that time, there was no history of Confucianism in the academic community that really opened up ancient and modern times. Related research is basically a division of labor and cooperation, and researchers are almost all writing in a generation and a topic. Of course, I am also personally the same, when studying Confucianism, I also first study a passage of the Han Dynasty, study a character of Dong Zhongshu, study a character of Confucius, and write about Gongsun Hong and Dong Zhongshu of the Han Dynasty. Only in-depth point research can support the overall research, otherwise it is general and cannot be deepened. But only a little bit of research, only the trees, not the forest, can not see the whole picture of Confucianism. Mr. Pang asked me to go further on the basis of the study of points, describe the whole picture of the history of the development of Confucianism, and write a history of Confucianism that can be read by non-professionals.
My wife's teacher, Mr. Zhou Yutong of the History Department of Fudan University, added detailed notes to the modern Hunan scholar Pi Xirui's "History of Classics". This book can be regarded as a masterpiece that has truly opened up ancient and modern times in modern times. Pi Xirui was a famous scholar of modern literature and scriptures, who advocated reform politically and was a relatively important figure during the Hunan Restoration Movement. This "History of Classics", together with Mr. Zhou Yutong's annotations, allows us to see the whole picture of the history of Chinese classics and the history of Confucianism, which still has very important reference value.
If it were not for the objective influence, I believe that Mr. Zhou Yutong and my teacher Mr. Zhu Weizheng would have been able to write their own consistent and logical history of classics and Confucianism. When we read the "Selected Works on the History of Classics of Mr. Zhou Yutong" today, we can realize that he has fully inherited the classics tradition of his teachers Sun Yaorang and Qian Xuan, respecting the present and emphasizing the past, combining the ancient texts into one furnace, transcending the present and the ancient, and studying scripture and Confucianism from the perspective of respecting the scriptures and valuing Confucianism. This is an important change, and since then, the Confucian classics have only entered the true sense of academic research.
The Selected Works of Mr. Zhou Yutong on the History of Classics was edited and completed by Mr. Zhu Weizheng. Published for decades, this book has had a huge impact on Chinese academia. It is also for this reason that Teacher Zhu's study of the history of classics and the history of Confucianism, on the one hand, inherits the tradition of family law and the history of teacher law since Zhang Taiyan, and on the other hand, Teacher Zhu's theoretical attainment has enabled him to have a new and more logical interpretation of major issues in the history of Chinese scripture and the history of Confucianism. I remember when I first entered the division, I had to read a long paper by Teacher Zhu just in a very professional and niche collection of papers, re-emphasizing the historical process of Confucianism, rigorous arguments, sufficient historical materials, and extremely inspiring novelty, which made people have to admire the five bodies. Teacher Zhu has many papers on Confucianism and classics, from Confucius to Zhang Taiyan, Kang Youwei, and Liang Qichao.
The thinking and research of generations of scholars has made it possible for us to recount a complete and orderly history of Confucianism. Therefore, when Mr. Pang asked me to do this project, I did not hesitate to agree, and in a few years, I systematically sorted out the history of Confucianism and conducted special research on some major issues. The book "Three Thousand Years of Chinese Confucianism" now before you is a continuation of this series of work.
The history of the Zhou Dynasty is 800 years
Roughly in the free speech
A state of free walking
You know that Confucius is 2,500 years old, so what is the basis for my "three thousand years of Confucianism" here?
Confucius was the founder of the Confucian school, but as a professional "Confucian" existed before Confucius. Before the concept of "Confucianism of Confucius and Mencius" was established, the most commonly used term in the history of Confucianism was "Zhou Kong Confucianism", and "Zhou" refers to one of the founders of the Zhou Dynasty, Zhou Gong. It was precisely because of Zhou Gong's "making ceremonies and making music" that Confucianism underwent a metamorphosis, and Confucius gradually became a highly prestigious school of thought.
According to Wang Guowei's study of the Yin Zhou System, the civilization constructed by the Yin Shang Dynasty was a civilization with a strong commercial atmosphere. However, Yin Shang is in the southeast corner of the broad Central Plains civilization, that is, today Anyang, Henan Province, to the east and south, all the way to the sea, are Yin Shang. What about the Zhou people, it was in the northwest region, in today's Shanxi and Gansu. The Zhou and Yin people had a long period of coexistence. Unlike the Yin culture, the Zhou people are an agricultural civilization. In the history of mankind, agricultural civilization belongs to a civilization that evolved relatively early, that is, it began to domesticate some wild animals and plants, and agricultural civilization should observe the changes of the four times, so agricultural civilization is higher than other civilizations. Commercial civilization is of course also very high, this is the Shang Dynasty.
When Yin Zhou was together, they developed commerce and agriculture. However, after the Wu King cut down the Shang Dynasty and completely subverted it, what the Zhou Dynasty constructed was a new set of agricultural civilizations based on the "pre-Zhou civilization" of the Zhou Gong. Of course, this civilization also absorbed the civilization factors of Yin Shang, so Confucius later said, "Zhou is due to Yin, and its profit and loss can be known." At the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty, the Duke of Zhou reconstructed an institutional framework that was mainly based on criticizing the Shang Dynasty, and it was necessary to abandon the mercantilism of the Shang Dynasty, emphasizing agriculture as the foundation and emphasizing the relationship between blood and geography. Therefore, the new civilization form opened by the Zhou Dynasty is to continue the "agricultural civilization of the pre-Zhou Dynasty", emphasizing blood, geography and family affection. This is a big change on the occasion of Yin Zhou.
This change was not just an ethical, conceptual change, but coincided with the political structure of the new dynasty. The Zhou Dynasty constructed a system of sub-feudalism, dividing the world into more than 70 parts, according to the distance of blood relations, according to the size of military merit, the establishment of the state. The establishment of the state led to a major change, the original Shang Dynasty, the first Zhou, at the central level of etiquette, cultural development, criminal law, medical and other facilities are meaningless, because the various princely states enjoy full governance in their own territories. The so-called "downward shift of official learning" and "learning in the people" refers to this situation. The educational and cultural facilities that the Zhou royal family continues to maintain are only exemplary and do not have leadership functions. This arrangement, of course, gives scholarship more room for freedom.
When we look at the 800-year history of the Zhou Dynasty, it is roughly in a state where you can speak freely and walk freely, so Confucius and later thinkers often miss three generations and "dream of the Zhou Gong", the meaning of which is the institutional design of the beginning of the Zhou. This is what Western historians call the "Axial Age." In the Axial Age, the West laid the foundation for the ideological culture of later generations. The same was true of China's Axial Age, where not only Confucianism developed, but other factions also had the space and opportunity for free development. The Mo family, the Fa family, the Taoist family, the criminal masters, the peasant family, etc., almost all happened in this process.
To Confucius, as an academic school, Confucianism was roughly formed. Confucius lived only seventy-three years, but there were as many as three thousand disciples who followed him before and after, including seventy-two sages and "Ten Philosophers of Confucius.". In this regard, we can feel that the Zhou Dynasty has a space for the development of academic freedom and a space for free lectures. By confucius, Confucianism had moved towards a very typical school. After Confucius, Confucianism was divided into eight, becoming a large academic community. Almost at the same time, after Mozi, "ink is three", which is also a quite large group. As for the Fa, it is even more important to talk about them, the combination of the Fa and politics is even tighter, and the Qin, Qi, Jin, and Wei states all have the activities of the Fa.
It can be seen that the Zhou Dynasty feudal system gave each genre room for free development. Confucius, Mencius, Xunzi, Han Feizi, etc. did not stick to one country in their lives, but wandered around the nations in search of opportunities. What the sons generally pursue is to "think of the world with its own way" and use its own thoughts, ideas, and plans to transform the world. This is probably the oldest historical tradition of Chinese scholars.
With your own thoughts
to influence the rulers of various countries
This is the true spirit of Confucianism
Only through the competition of ideas can the value and characteristics of ideas be highlighted. The Mo family's love, non-attack, Shang Tong, Shang Xian, Tianzhi, Ming Ghost, Funeral, and Thrift; The Taoist stream, chronicles the way of success or failure in ancient and modern times, and then knows to adhere to the basics, to be vain to defend oneself, to be humble and self-sustaining, to be disrespectful, to abandon benevolence and righteousness, and to rule alone. The Yin and Yang family respects Hao Tian, and grants the people time. As for the Dharma, rewards and punishments must be given to supplement the system of etiquette. Similar to these schools of thought, the Confucian school began with Zhou Kong and gradually developed its own characteristics. According to the Book of Han and Yiwenzhi, the Confucian school "travels in the Six Classics, paying attention to the occasion of benevolence and righteousness, Zushu Yao shun, Charter Wenwu, and Grandmaster Zhongni, with their words, the highest in the Tao."
Comparing the ideas of each school and its own characteristics, Confucianism pays more attention to the things of benevolence, royalty, justice, and fairness. Reading Confucius, Mencius, especially Mencius's things, the love he emphasizes is different from Mozi's absolute love doctrine. This is a resource provided by Confucianism, the most notable ideological background of the Axis age of freedom.
Confucianism in the Axial era, like other schools, learned in the folk and did not enjoy special treatment. Confucius ran around like a dog that lost his family all his life, which shows that Confucianism relies on its own ideas to influence society, mainly to influence the rulers of various countries, and the rulers of various countries often think that the Confucian principles are broad and not too concerned because of utilitarian reasons. Confucius and Mencius had not very good encounters. But this is the true spirit of Confucianism.
Until the unification of the Qin and Han Dynasties, until the late imperial period, confucianism still played a great role in this long 2,000 years. In the book, I analyze the establishment of this Qin Dynasty to destroy Confucianism and burn books to pit Confucianism. The Qin Dynasty after "post-Confucianism" was an unstable political structure. Jia Yi analyzed the main reason for the death of Qin II, that is, he was too cruel and exhausted the harsh criminal law of the Legalists, but lacked the Confucian morality of benevolence and righteousness, and lacked the idea of benevolence. Therefore, since Jia Yi, the two thousand years of analyzing the lessons of the Qin Dynasty have been analyzed from this perspective, and it is rare to affirm the cruelty and widowhood of the Fa from the perspective of rich countries and strong soldiers.
In the Han Dynasty after the fall of qin, Liu Bang and his ruling team of Xiao He, Cao Shan, and Chen Ping were the first generation of military merit groups in the Han Dynasty, who themselves did not understand learning and culture, but they knew that the governance of the world could not be grasped by military merit and aristocrats, and they must use intellectuals. Therefore, there is a very important person at this time, that is, I wrote about Lu Jia in the book. Lu Jia followed Liu Bang to fight the world, but he talked about Confucian ethics and morality in front of Liu Bang all day long, benevolence, righteousness, and wisdom, telling Liu Bang that he could get the world immediately, but he could not rule the world immediately, and ruling the world still needed a professional team and knowledge. Liu Bang was also very annoyed when he heard it, and he told Lu Jia not to say anything, you write it out. This is Lu Jia's "New Language" that has been praised for two thousand years.
Since then, the status of Confucianism has slowly risen. Seventy years later, the economy of the Han Dynasty developed greatly, and it met the heroic Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty, and because of the encounter with Dong Zhongshu, Confucianism rose from one of the sons to the official ideology of the imperial era, and thus built a super-stable social structure.
Position dong Zhongshuwei
Builder of the imperial system
The terminator of previous ideas, the master of the assembly
Dong Zhongshu's proposal was to "depose the Hundred Families and respect Confucianism alone", that is, to suggest that Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty ban all the sons and hundreds of families that had been revived for seventy years. At first glance, this statement sounds like cultural authoritarianism, monopoly. In fact, if we carefully analyze the "Confucianism" reconstructed by Dong Zhongshu, it can be clearly seen that this Confucianism is not Zhou Kong Confucianism, nor is it the resurrection of Kong Meng Confucianism, but a reconstruction, which is Dong Zhongshu's Han Dynasty Neo-Confucianism.
I have a detailed analysis of this in this book, because I have a special study of Dong Zhongshu, and my "Biography of Dong Zhongshu" positions Dong as the builder of the imperial system, the terminator of pre-Qin thought, and the integrator. What does that mean? Dong Zhongshu deposed the Hundred Families, so that the Hundred Families did not have the possibility of existing alone. But how can we make the hundred houses without the possibility of a separate existence? Then it is necessary to reform and reconstruct the Confucian system.
We know that both Zhou Kong and Kong Meng probably belong to the humanism of "unknown life and death" and "no strange power and chaos", but when we read the dialogue between Dong Zhongshu and Emperor Wu of Han, his concern is "the time when heaven and man are in harmony", that is, the theory of disaster and theory of accusations. These ideas have profoundly influenced Chinese society for two thousand years, but from the source of thought, it is Dong Zhongshu's "Neo-Confucianism" absorption and transformation of the Five Elements of Yin and Yang. Dong Zhongshu used this kind of thinking to influence Chinese politics, for example, he used the fire of the Gaomiao Temple to advise Emperor Wu to reflect on the administrative measures, in a sense, it did play a role in persuading the rulers. Xun Zi firmly believed that heavenly behavior was constant and did not change according to human behavior, and now Dong Zhongshu emphasized that if heaven was abnormal, it must be because there was a problem in the human world, and the emperor should reflect on it and issue a decree to himself.
As for the mo family's love, the rule of law of the Legalists, the Daoists' self-preservation, and the criminal masters' responsibilities and responsibilities, almost all of them have been recast and absorbed into the Neo-Confucian ideological system by Dong Zhongshu. As a result, each family loses the value of its independent existence. Later generations of researchers in the discussion of Chinese civilization when the so-called "external Confucianism and internal law", etc., in fact, see the complexity of the neo-Confucian ideological system after Dong Zhongshu.
The ideological system constructed by Dong Zhongshu is extremely large, and he grafts the human world and the superhuman world to form a closed-loop system of heaven and man. In this system, the Son of Heaven in the world is the greatest. But at a time when heaven and man are at odds with each other, the Son of Heaven is only the Son of Heaven, not the greatest, the greatest is Heaven. But what is heaven, Dong Zhongshu said in "Spring and Autumn Dew", heaven is those obscure sentient beings, and their will is the basis for the administration of the Son of Heaven. But these sentient beings cannot express, do not have the ability to express, then there is a special class of scholars to exercise this right. These designs, pierced through, are not complicated, but they profoundly affected later Chinese society.
Therefore, in the imperial era, the theory of the unity of heaven and man made us restrain and discipline the rulers very well until the end of the imperial system in the late Qing Dynasty. It turns out that many of us think that the rulers of the imperial era who ruled China seemed to have boundless power and no boundaries. In fact, it has a boundary, which is what Dong Zhongshu envisioned, using heaven to constrain it. The theory constructed by Dong Zhongshu solved various complex relationships in the imperial era.
Confucian ethics, from Zhou Gong to Confucius to Dong Zhongshu, have formed a web of the entire Chinese society, with a home-state isomorphism. The state is the enlargement of the home, the home is the shrinking of the country, and the layers of officials are the parent officials. This theoretical construction proposed by Confucianism really satisfies the needs of China's agricultural civilization in the imperial era. If it weren't for the fact that so much change took place later in human history—industrialization took place, industrial society—Confucianism could indeed meet the needs of agricultural civilization.
So until the 17th century, when Westerners came to China and saw that China's social order was in order, they felt novel and amazed. I say in the book that Marco Polo, Matteo Ricci, John Tong, Nan Huairen, until the Enlightenment in the 18th century, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Westerners still looked at China with high eyes, because the Chinese phenomenon made them think that Plato's desire for philosophers to govern the land of China became a reality. The so-called philosopher's governance is that a literati regime dominates the whole country, the emperor can proposition to enter the army, the jinshi are all propositioned by him, and he judges the volume, and the emperor is such a great philosopher. Each county is the winner of the imperial examination, which is obviously a very high degree of governance model.
Chinese civilization dominated by Confucianism
It is a malleable form of civilization
As of this point, Confucianism in Chinese history is still very important. But then the Confucians went wrong.
What's wrong with it? After the great voyage, human civilization underwent a fundamental change, that is, no one had ever thought of it, and Confucius did not think of it, Confucius said that the future was "the journey of the avenue, the world is just", but Confucius did not expect that an industrial civilization would be produced outside the agricultural civilization. After the Great Voyage, global integration slowly produced industrial civilization in the British Isles, and by the 18th century, an industrial revolution had emerged. The Industrial Revolution gave rise to an industrialized society, which made the production of materials highly convenient, and the social groups were greatly divided, that is, the idle class appeared. City dwellers are no longer tied to the land and have more time to think about other issues.
Then in this process, in the 16th, 17th, 18th centuries and the 19th century, china slowly transformed from a smoother system to a more troublesome system. What kind of ethics should we establish in the context of industrialization? You see in the book that China was very entangled before and after the Xinhai Revolution, and before that, that is, when facing the West in the late 19th century, China's Confucians provided a dignified "middle school as the body, Western learning as the use", thinking that China is lacking a little bit of this kind of strong ship and cannon, but China's ethics and morality, cultural cards are right, all good. The use of Chinese body in the West is the scheme given by Confucianism in the 19th century.
But in the late 19th century, after the Sino-Japanese War, China's intellectual elite began to think about the limitations of Confucianism, believing that Confucian things might not work, and there was no way to face the impact of industrialization. Gradually, Chinese thought began to deviate from the Confucian track and embrace the West. Restoration, the New Deal, constitutionalism, and republicanism are a process of gradually "de-Confucianism." It was not until a few years after the republican construction that the imperial restoration occurred, and people suddenly realized that if Confucianism could not be uprooted, China could not transform into a modern society. Chen Duxiu and Wu Yu punched the Confucius family shop, that is, they believe that the way of Confucius and Mencius is not in line with modern life, and the Confucian blood and geo-ethical society is the product of the acquaintance society of agricultural civilization, and it is certainly not possible to use it in the industrialization and urbanization of the stranger society. Confucius and Confucianism became obstacles to the progress of Chinese society.
The new cultural movement launched by Chen Duxiu and others is to attack the confucian shackles on Chinese since Confucius, that is, the shackles of ethics and the shackles of the three principles and five constants. Chen Duxiu believes that these concepts are not in line with modern life and cannot meet the social needs of industrialized strangers. China should rebuild a new ethical concept and adapt it to the industrialized stranger society in the spirit of contract.
There is certainly a correct side to this statement. Confucian ethics does reflect interpersonal relations in the state of agricultural civilization, home-country isomorphism, and precocious ethics. In a society of acquaintances, common values are tacitly shared, which have limited utility in industrialized societies. However, when industrialization developed in China and in East Asia for more than a hundred years, we look at the meaning of Confucian ethics and seem to think that Chen Duxiu's view is too absolute. Confucian ethics not only does not exclude industrialization, but also sometimes has a fairly positive promotion significance in the process of industrialization. This has been confirmed in the practice of some places in East Asia.
In fact, from an ideological point of view, at the beginning of the new cultural movement, the opposite discussion has begun. In 1914, when the First World War broke out, Yan Fu was keenly aware that the development of capitalism in the past 300 years had created a deformed state, and a high degree of material civilization did not provide people with convenience and wealth, but sharper murderous weapons. Yan Fu said that in the three hundred years of capitalist development, all that has been obtained is the eight words "incorruptibility and shame, killing people and benefiting oneself", and the future of mankind needs to be re-understood the true meaning of Confucianism and Confucius.
Yan Fu is the forerunner of the West for twenty years, and the situation with him is most similar to that of Liang Qichao. Liang Qichao is also the most famous Enlightenment thinker in modern China, a relatively Westernized faction. At the end of the European War, he traveled to Europe with a group of students, and the disaster caused by the war caused a deep shock in his heart. Liang Qichao felt that the development of science and capitalism has brought mankind not a kind of wealth, but a kind of evil and a problem. He and Yan Fu invariably thought that only western material development could not save mankind, or should look back at China's Confucian and Mencius way, in order to provide mankind with a better wisdom resource.
Chinese civilization, dominated by Confucianism, is a malleable form of civilization, and its history fully proves that the Confucian Society faces the future and will try to solve new problems. Looking back at the past three thousand years of Chinese history, we should build enough confidence in the future of Confucianism, and an open modern Confucian spirit will surely find its own direction.
Finishing/Rain Station