The modern continuation of the Spirit of the Dharma
People's Court Daily 2021-03-03
In the eyes of historical philosophers, similar governance problems, similar governance models will alternate, Marx once said, "Hegel said somewhere that all great world historical events and figures can be said to appear twice, he forgot to add: the first time is as a tragedy, the second time as a comedy." Mao Zedong also famously proposed a way out of the historical cycle, "Only by letting the people supervise the government, the government will not slacken off." Only when everyone rises up and takes responsibility will no one die."
In Jaspers's eyes there was an axial age, and Marx saw the Eastern system as a mystery of the "Asiatic way". When did China's written law originate, this has become a question of origin, China's law originates from etiquette, etiquette originates from customs, can be described as fixed, the so-called "out of courtesy and into punishment", Lu Simian in the "History of The Chinese System" discussed: "The evolution of Chinese law, cover can be divided into several ends. The gradual separation of ritual and law, one also. In the Zhou Dynasty of "Under the Pu Heaven, Mo Fei Wang Tu", "feudal relatives, to the Ping Zhou", by the Zhou metric system, the clan customs suitable for the needs of the rule were systematically sorted out.
The legalists analyze the social system and human behavior from the economic basis, and for the governance of society, they attach importance to the construction of systems, "reward good and punish evil" and "promote merit and prohibit violence" to regulate social relations, which seems to have some "foresight" and has achieved results with powerful means.
The Evolution of The Dharma's Thought: From pre-Qin to contemporary
(1) The historical logic of the emergence of the Dharma
"Zhou has chaotic government, and nine punishments are committed," Xu Fuguan pointed out, "the formation of any thought must always be affected by the historical conditions on which a certain ideology was formed." The particularity of history is the particularity of becoming a certain idea. Without this particularity, there may be no motive for a certain idea, and a certain thought will lose its meaning in assuming the task of a certain epoch." The countries in which the Fa family appeared were all with a relatively heavy sense of crisis, "the people and the wealth are scarce, and the resources are scarce and the support is thin", for example, the Wei state and the Qin state are all in the time and place when they cannot stand on their own in the era of hegemony, and can only hope for people and people, through changing the social system, in order to try to be strong and survive.
The Zhou Dynasty took "relatives and respect" as the core, established a ruling order with blood as the link, and a loose federal rule pattern of feudal states and state-building, and the Left Transmission records that "the first king deliberated to govern, not to punish", such a country adopted the internal deliberation and coordination of the nobility.
"Xunzi Wang system" mentioned: "no morality and nobility, no ability and no official, no merit and no reward, no guilt and no punishment", showing an attitude of legal realism, the state's judgment of people depends on people's external behavior, not blood, which is a view of enhancing the vitality of the country and social momentum, everyone is enterprising, the whole society can flourish upwards, so his successor school of legal scholars only proposed "rejuvenation and prohibition of violence", the king uses rewards and punishments and the law to govern the country, and the people can get behavioral guidance from it. Only when the thoughts and actions of the whole society are "one" can they be "one."
It should be said that after two thousand years of development, the basic proposition of national governance has remained unchanged for eternity, many of the legalists' expositions have crossed the long river of history and there are many "synchronic" propositions at present, and the ideological flow of the legalists has recorded the intertwining of the ideological context of governing the country.
(2) The process of spiritual and historical evolution of the Fa
The "Three Phases of the Dharma Doctrine" is a research method initiated by Professor Yu Zhong on the evolution of The Fa's thought. It explains and sorts out the propositions and thinking methods of ancient and modern legalist governance in China from a point of view of internal and external connections, in order to provide a "ladder" for modern governance. Of course, we do not want to be like Qin Xiaogong or Emperor Wu of han, who have changed the law, and that "Cloth Qingxiang" such as Li Wu, Wu Qi, Shen Bu harm, Prudent Zhi, Shang Martin, and Han Fei will be summoned to govern the world, and their spirit of change of "not following the ancient law, not following the present" and "not repairing the ancient" will be the mature political technology of "the people" and "herdsmen", the mastery of ancient and modern changes, and the political practice of rich countries and strong soldiers, so that the wisdom of the legalists will shine on future generations. Looking at the ideas of the sages, we cannot deny them all because of old-fashioned, but only critical inheritance and abandonment are the attitudes that should be taken.
Neither can we regard the doctrine of jurisprudence as the "history of three generations"; nor can we regard it as a kind of thick black tantric science, such as Qin Xiaogong and other generations of Ming emperors, the adoption of the Qin system is all subject to historical crises and challenges, only to change the law to survive. In modern times, Chen Qitian proposed that modern China has entered the era of the "new warring states", and that the pressure to save the dead is a world order in which the weak prey on the strong, and force replaces axiom. In the 1930s, Chang Yansheng first proposed the "New Legalist", and he said in "The Way of China's Resurrection from the Dead", "The Way of Bringing Back from the Dead in China is the revival of the Dharma's thought, that is, the emergence of a new Fa-rectification thought." In New China, in the 50s, our sense of crisis about "football" was the same as the unprecedented demand for improving governance capabilities now, and Toynbee's "challenge - response" answered this question very well. Qin Xiaogong asked Han Fei about "more laws", Emperor Wu of Han asked Dong Zhongshu about the "three strategies of heaven and man", and China most emphasized changing from time to time, changing laws to seek self-improvement, and even seeking good law and good governance.
The first phase of the Fajia was in the Spring and Autumn Warring States Period, when the Fajia was in the Spring and Autumn Warring States Period, when the Fajia was constantly crusading, the Legalists were inheriting the Taoists, and the theoretical opponent was the Confucians who only talked about "three generations of things", the proposition of the times was innovation and restoration, and finally ended with the establishment of the rule of the emerging landlord class.
The second period of the Legalists is faced with a gradual degeneration into a semi-colonial, semi-feudal country, surrounded by great powers, the fall of the Qing Dynasty to the establishment of the Republic of China, never getting rid of the backward and beaten state, the crisis of governance and the crisis of national survival are always accompanied, not only the endogenous crisis but also the external impact, facing the enemies of liberalism and Neo-Confucianism, such as Hu Shi and Xiong Shili, Liang Shuming, Mou Zongsan, and so on.
The background of the times faced by the third phase of the Legalists is that the Communist Party of China has gained political power, exerted great efforts to build China into a modern industrial power, and is in the difficult stage of exploration of socialist construction; in the face of the challenges of the two superpowers at that time, China was not afraid of challenges, always adhered to the socialist road and safeguarded international morality, although it encountered some setbacks, but under the pressure of the huge existential crisis, some choices were really helpless, Marxism in this period was the guiding ideology, and the Legalists, as a branch of the auxiliary national ideology, were approved by the leaders at that time In the 1970s, there were also ideological discussions on the "struggle between Confucianism and Law", and the main tone was to praise the law and suppress Confucianism, believing that Confucianism was "restoration" and that legalists were "innovation", which was the product of Marx's theory of five social forms, and only by promoting the progress of history was a progressive thought.
Scholar Wang Xuedian attributed the idea of governing the country from 1949 to 1979 to the mainstream ideology of the time, adding to the ideology of the lawmakers at that time, and scholars Yuzhong agreed with this view, and believed that since the reform and opening up, the legalists did not fall off the altar, but became more and more prosperous, embarking on the road of "legal system plus economy" centered on economic construction, "rich and strong, rule of law as the use", in the pre-Qin legalist thought fell to the beginning of this century for a long two thousand years, the legalists did not disappear, but "Yang Confucian Yin Law" and "Superficial Confucianism" The form of an undercurrent of thought exists. Although the three phases of the legalists are facing different times, the main content of the three phases of the legalists is "to become rich and strong, and to seek the rule of law."
Tan Sitong once put forward in "Renxue" that "China's government has been Qin politics for two thousand years", Mao Zedong once put forward that "hundreds of generations have practiced Qin political law", and put forward different views on guo Moruo's "Ten Criticisms" on the views of the fa criticism, the effectiveness of Qin rule, centralized and unified centralization, the weights and measures that save transaction costs and the same track, the same book on cultural unity, and the formation of the Chinese national community.
Marx said that in Hegel "willfulness is kingship", and that Hegel tried here to describe the monarch as a true "man of God", "the true embodiment of ideas". Some modern scholars evaluate the ideas of the legalists as often regarding the legalists as "immoral", advocating that the legalists are propagating the "customs of greedy wolves" rather than teaching people to be good, and others believe that the legalists are safeguarding the absolute monarchical rule, "bullying each other, and the real despotism is particularly important", the unprecedented stability of the monarchical rule hinders China's realization of modernization, and China's history completes the cycle of historical cycle in the "revolving door" of chaos and succession.
However, from the perspective of national survival, without the policy of rich countries and strong armies and unprecedentedly powerful centralized rule, ancient China would have been torn apart long ago, and presumably it would have disappeared into the dust of history like the other three ancient civilizations.
Chang Yansheng made no secret of saying that "if there were no practical politicians such as Shang Martin and Li Si, and if there were no thinkers of the Prudential and Han Fei systems, the great unified empire of Qin Shi Huang would never have appeared, and the contours and foundations of the big countries in China in the next two thousand years would not have been completely depicted and laid down." The premature and mature political system, the sense of crisis and the bottom-line thinking of the early Han Dynasty, until the early Han Dynasty restrained this trend of thought and entered the era of "Confucianism with Sole Dignity", but the theoretical gene has been injected into the bloodline to become the unshakable ideological content of the Chinese nation.
The thinking of Han Feizi and others also has the content of restricting the power of the monarchy, Professor Liang Zhiping said that the law of the family is only "the ruling technique of governing the country and the people" and "the instrument of governing the country", and it is impossible to "judge things with one" and make a fair ruling, "the law is the governing tool of the respected king, but it does not recognize that it itself has the authority to sanction the head of state and a hundred officials", Xiong Shili believes that Han Feiyan is autocratic to save the country, ruled by chaos, and the illegal family is no one, at the same time, the balance and complementarity of magic forces are also reducing the bias of this theory, and the ancient monarch is far less "lawless" as modern people think. Without any legitimacy and legitimacy, historical vision and modern vision are two concepts, and it is not appropriate to harshly criticize the ancients and judge the ancients with modern vision.
Possible contributions of the Spirit of The Dharma to Contemporary China
The study of the wisdom of pre-Qin governance has the following values: First, as a local resource, the Fajia is a kind of wisdom of the ancient Chinese, not an imported product, providing a powerful intellectual resource under the background of comprehensively ruling the country according to law. Second, the need for ideological security in the search for a Chinese path was once, under the onslaught of Western values, the Western model was mistakenly considered the common path of mankind, and the Western political system became the template for mankind. When we tap our theoretical resources, we want to put ourselves in the position of dialogue with world civilization. Third, to expand the influence and appeal of Chinese civilization, only under the guidance of Marxism can we be called a veritable great power if we critically inherit the theoretical resources of the sages, go out of the Chinese road, speak Out Chinese Theory, build the Chinese system, and study Chinese culture.
The academic circles have reached a fairly mature level in the academic research on ancient Chinese governance thought, Chinese institutional history, and even traditional Chinese political philosophy, and what is missing is the grasp of the law of chaos and the rise and fall of the law.
"Modernization of governance systems and governance capacities" is a concept of comprehensive governance, and in 1989 the World Bank put forward a more common saying: "1. Governance means a series of social public institutions and actors from the government, but not limited to the government." 2. Governance implies that there are ambiguities of boundaries and responsibilities in the search for solutions to social and economic problems. 3. Governance clearly affirms the dependence of power among the various social public institutions involved in collective action. 4. Governance means that participants will eventually form an autonomous network. (5) Governance means that the ability to do things well is not limited to the power of the government, not to the authority of the government to give orders." From these items, it is not difficult to find that the ideological factors of organization and popularization, in addition to the content of civil society, governance thinking and legalist thinking do have some kind of secret coincidence, summed up, in contemporary China, legalists or "new legalists" have the following experiences that we can learn from:
(1) Grasp the essentials of governing the country - the leadership of the Party and the rule of the country according to the Constitution
In ancient times, just as the so-called "things are in the four directions, in the center, the saints insist on the work, the four parties to serve", only by grasping this key point, "the Ming Emperor sets the law to autonomy" and "the holy king is not noble and righteous, but the law is noble, the law must be clear, and the order must be carried out", can the governance receive the miraculous effect of "the monarchs and subordinates are all subordinate to the law", the legalists pay special attention to grasping the key points of governing the country, outline the leadership, which has deeply affected the successive politicians in China, without the art of "clinging" will only fall into the point of inaccuracies, weak and scattered, and be able to "cling to the essentials" We will be able to implement well the principles and policies of governing the country. In contemporary China, this "want" is the leadership of the Party and the authority of the Constitution and laws.
(2) Not being selfish - emphasizing the fairness and justice of the law
The spirit of the legalists emphasizes the rule of law concept of "establishing the public and abandoning the private" and "making the king respected", emphasizing the appreciation of good and punishing evil, and using the law to guide the good fashion of society, "Han Feizi As Evil" said that "it must be clear in the distinction between public and private, the legal system, to private grace" "The law-abiding officials who abide by the law and abide by the law have those who do not practice the king's law, and the crime is not forgiven", because the people are natural to seek advantage and avoid harm, and the use of the theory of human nature for effective social control is a nationalist value, and the reason why "heavy code and rule of officials" is because the realization of the rule of law country requires everyone to "not exceed the rules". Officials, in particular, should set an example.
"Those who follow the law are strong and the country is strong, and those who follow the law are weak and the country is weak" emphasizes more emphasis on authority, and those who implement the law are just and selfless, and if they can implement the law to the end, they will become rich and strong, and if they are weak and selfish, the country will be poor and weak. Poor government decrees and decrees are enough to lead to the transformation of the prosperous world, to achieve effective governance, efficient law, and to take the law as a charter and outline of governance, if the law is not advocated, it will "not listen to the king, and the people will not obey the officials." At the same time, we must pay attention to the quality and stability and unity of the law, "the law is not the same as one, so that the people know it", and can not "the law prohibits changing, and orders to be counted", of which the most precious ideas of the legalists are "the law is not noble, the rope is not bent", "the invitation of plugging the private door, the customs of the Chu country", "the punishment does not open the minister, the reward does not leave the husband behind", "the legal family does not neglect the relatives, does not neglect the nobles, and breaks the law." Legend has it that when Shang Martin changed the law in the Qin Kingdom, the crown prince made a mistake, and the crown prince Fu Dai was tortured, and since then the people of the Qin State have understood the principle that "the prince breaks the law and the common people are guilty of the same crime", which is to "put power into the cage of the system". The legitimacy and rationality of power have been enhanced, the arbitrariness of the privileged classes has been weakened, and in the eyes of Han Fei and Shang Martin, only the "small people" who have become "big countries" from the monarch down to the monarch, and the "weak people" of "strong countries" are the way to make the country rich and strong. Although it does not conform to the views of modern people, the new Eastern Empire has risen from it, and since then "hundreds of generations have practiced Qin politics and law". The Chinese state system has the shadow of the Fa from the mother's womb, and it has to be said that from the perspective of Qin Jian of the Sleeping Tiger, later Generations of Confucians exaggerated the tyranny of Qin, and thus the Fa also lost the position of orthodox thought.
Since Dong Zhongshu and Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty replied to the "three strategies of heaven and man" and established the guiding ideology of governing the country by "deposing a hundred families and respecting Confucianism alone," and since then embarked on the road of governing the country with "explicit Confucianism and hidden law" and "external Confucianism and internal law." The ideological concept of governing the country by gentlemen advocating virtue and indoctrination, "entering the law with courtesy," and using the soft norms of human ethics and morality to govern the country has occupied the mainstream; in several major legal changes in history, out of the consideration of adjusting the relationship between the monarch and the subject, society, and class, we have re-attached importance to the doctrine of the legalists.
(III) Spirit of Change - Reform is always on the road
The Legalists emphasized that "the law is not in the past, not in the present", Shang Martin said that "Tang and Wu do not follow the ancient and the king; Xia and Yin are not easy to die", summing up the law of rise and fall as whether to accept the reform idea of "easy to rule at times, not easy and chaotic", which is obviously different from Confucius's nostalgia for the rule of the three generations of "Yao, Shun, and Yu".
(4) Leading cadres take the lead in abiding by the law -- taking the law as a teaching
It is necessary to establish a contingent of honest and honest cadres, which is a requirement for the "law-abiding people" themselves. He who is righteous does not follow orders; and his body is not righteous, though he does not obey orders." The effect of the implementation of the law depends on the specific executor, Guan Zi emphasizes the four dimensions of the country", "courtesy, righteousness, and shame" is like the four pillars supporting the country, in the "Guan Zi Version of the Law Solution", Guan Zhong said with a heavy heart, "All those who do legal things, they cannot be wrong. If the practice is not correct, it will be unfair to listen to the treatment. If it is unfair to listen to the treatment, it will not be completely treated. "Guan Zi Forbidden Tibet": "The officials are more selfish and wise, and their laws are chaotic; the people are more selfish, and the country is poor."
At the same time, to realize the possible contribution of the legalist to contemporary politics, attention should also be paid to the negative aspects of the legalist. First of all, the law that the legalists say is the law of "the law comes from the king", which is completely different from the law in the modern sense; secondly, the legalists have anti-people views, such as the weak people's theory and anti-intellectualism, according to the historical materialist point of view, "the people are the driving force for creating history", so the people and human rights must be respected at all times.
At present, the excavation and research of the wisdom of the legal family in governing the country is in the ascendant, and it is believed that in the near future, the wisdom of the legal family will certainly make due contributions to the comprehensive rule of law, governance capacity and modernization of the governance system. (Author Affilications:Wu Xiaolong, Law School, Guangxi Normal University)
(Editor-in-Charge: Liu Haibin)