In this sense, Mr. Pan Yue's "Book of Encounters" is also a great achievement, and both Chinese and Westerners should read it, and on the basis of mutual understanding and understanding, they may wish to talk as much as possible about the heart, explain it thoroughly, and strive to discuss it
Text | Meng Lei
Recently, I read Mr. Pan Yue's new book "Comparison of the Root Nature of Chinese and Western Civilizations", which is a collection of works published by New World Publishing House based on his three articles.
The book mainly includes three parts, namely "Warring States and Greece", "Qin and Han and Rome", and "China's Five Hu Invasions and European Barbarian Invasions". The book is light in layout, bright in exposition, and extremely heavy in weight and significance, facing and responding to the core issues of today's Sino-Western communication.
"The Book of Encounters"
Former Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou commented that this work has made an important contribution to the dialogue between Eastern and Western civilizations, and can lead us to a world of exchange of ideas, just like being in the city square where ancient Greeks gathered, helping us to reach consensus through communication, enrich each other through debate, and work together to create a future. The famous British scholar Martin Jacques said that "Pan Yue's works were written for our time".
The author describes the very different historical trajectories of Central Europe over the past two thousand years, as well as the historical roots that gave rise to the very different social patterns that characterize today. The fundamental problem in the West is its lack of understanding of China, or even how to understand it, and the ideas in this book are extremely instructive.
Most people who care about the comparative study of Chinese and Western history will have an interesting hypothesis: if the Chinese civilization in East Asia and the ancient Greek civilization in the Mediterranean, or the ancient Roman civilization that inherited ancient Greece, really met from the Axial Era more than 2,000 years ago, what would happen to the world after that? Hypotheses cannot come true, but historical comparisons and mutual learning are real learning. Mr. Pan Yue's book is a "book of encounters".
He identified and selected three key points in history and civilization in the span of the past thousand years— the Warring States and Greece, the Qin and Han Dynasties and Rome, the Chinese Wuhu invasion and the European barbarian invasion, which occurred at almost the same or similar historical moments, but determined the different civilization roots of the West and the next two thousand years.
This research perspective is unique, in the corresponding three key historical periods, civilization changes, political systems are divided, And China and the West have each embarked on the two banks of the long river of civilization, and they are still on their own way today. Whether the chickens and dogs smell each other or the drums and horns fight, there must always be a mutual understanding - who he is, why he is here; who I am, why am I so far!
Civilization is no superior
To sum up, Pan's striking point about the civilizational roots of "great unification and pluralism" in China, a super-large civilization community, lies in several of his "overturned articles." From overturning the case for Xun Zi, who believes that the concept of a unified political system in which Confucianism and law are balanced was started by Xun Zi; to defending Qin, pointing out that the Confucian elements in the Qin laws and decrees that have not attracted enough attention in archaeological literature, Qin Zheng is not purely a legal and family system. However, qin and the six kingdoms should be regarded as Qin's integration into the six kingdoms, and the pluralistic unity of culture and the endless centripetal force for great unification have thus been based; restoring the name of Han Wu and pointing out that "deposing a hundred schools of confucianism" is really a misunderstanding, and the county system, the inspection system, the equalization method, the equalization method, the equalization method, and the salt and iron official camp are not only necessary, but their results have also opened up a grand plan for the stable political and economic order of great unification in the next two thousand years, and the macro-control practice presided over by sang Hongyang and other big businessmen has also created the Confucian tradition of the great merchants serving the country and the people In an environment where the population and military strength are much higher than those of the Han chinese in the north, they are not "assimilated" by the old saying, but gradually take the initiative to choose to integrate into the orthodoxy of Chinese civilization in terms of political system, culture, and emotion. At this point, the root nature of the unified, pluralistic and integrated Chinese civilization has been basically completed, and it has flourished over the ages, becoming the only super-large civilization among the four ancient civilizations that does not have to add the word "ancient" to this day.
At the same historical moment, under similar social, economic and demographic conditions, ancient Greece, its successor, ancient Rome, and the barbarian invasions ended ancient Rome, embarked on a completely different path and shaped a completely different root nature of Western civilization.
If we say that The Chinese civilization is still united, the Eurasian civilization since ancient Greece is still divided; the Chinese civilization is still harmonious, and the Eurasian civilization is still fighting; the Chinese civilization is still orderly, and the Eurasian civilization is still free; under the Chinese civilization, only the dynasties are easier and rootlessly severed, and the Osci civilization is annihilated by the overthrow of the previous generation; the pursuit of history and the great unity of civilization is the common religion of the Chinese; religion is often the promoter of the Civilization of the Ouxi people. Eastern and Western civilizations have been "others" to each other for thousands of years, so different.
Or is it better or worse? Civilization is no superior. For example, since ancient Greece, as for modern times, expansion, killing, and colonization are the hematopoietic mechanisms that each generation of Oosi civilization relies on the most, and it is the support frame that maintains the relative stability within each generation of civilization, and the scourge caused by it is also the cause of the overthrow of each generation of civilization. However, what it has created, left behind, and continued over thousands of years is also brilliant.
In ancient Rome alone, the monarchy lasted for 200 years, the republican era for 500 years, the imperial era to the fall of Western Rome for 500 years (until the fall of Eastern Rome for 1500 years), and the state was long. As for the civilization and political system that was discovered after its demise for nearly a thousand years, the european winds and rains so far cannot help but be formed by its enlightenment again, the American dream has a Roman dream, and the European states that destroyed the ancient Roman civilization are also trying to unify again.
As Mr. Pan Yue pointed out, it is also another brilliant super-large civilization in human history, just like the Chinese civilization, which is "great unity and pluralistic integration". Even if the Chinese civilization, in the century of angry revival after being bullied and oppressed by the West, hasn't it also learned some of their good things? This fully reflects the inclusiveness of Chinese civilization.
In the history that has taken place, without real encounters, mutual learning among civilizations is almost impossible. But in today's reality, the encounter, integration, cooperation, competition, and even wrestling between east and west are already real history. Not understanding each other, not comparing, not learning from each other, not knowing where the other party has come from and where they will go, will only misunderstand culturally, misjudge in behavior, and do not do good things for others and themselves in the world. For example, when passers-by meet, their origins, family, temperament, and abilities are still unclear to each other, that is, they are vainly saying that they are relatives and enemies, which are mangy han villagers, what the wise do not do, and what civilized people do not take.
In this sense, Mr. Pan Yue's "Book of Encounters" is also a great achievement, and Chinese and Westerners should read it, and on the basis of mutual understanding and understanding, they may wish to talk about the heart as much as possible, explain it thoroughly, and strive to discuss it.
(The author is a senior media person; editor: Zang Bo)
"Comparison of the Root Nature of Chinese and Western Civilizations", by Pan Yue, New World Press, January 2022.