Chinese the boundary between "public" and "private"

China's interpersonal relations are a self-centered pattern of difference order (the so-called "difference order", that is, ethical relationships with hierarchical differences). ), from near to far, there is a difference between relatives and alienations. In the differential order pattern, "public" and "private" are relative, and the boundaries are very vague and difficult to distinguish from each other. In a certain position, it is "private" externally and "public" internally. It depends on which position you stand in, in the differential order pattern of concentric circles, looking inward, all belong to the "public", and looking outward, it belongs to the "private". For example, in traditional China, every family has a clan field and ancestral hall, for each small family within the family, their surname is "Gong", but for villages and townships, the clan field and ancestral hall must be "private". Because Chinese the ambiguity of the concepts of "public" and "private", there is only private morality under the differential order pattern, and there is no public morality. "Private morality" is the ethical responsibility that you have to fulfill to each different person, while "public morality" is the common and equal moral obligation of all members of a group or country. In traditional China, there was no concept of public morality, so in the late Qing Dynasty, Liang Qichao, a pioneer of enlightenment, wrote "The New People's Theory", shouting that new countries should have new citizens, and new citizens must first have public morality!

Excerpt from Xu Jilin's "Pulse China"