What is the Great Harmony Society?

There is an article that uses the words of Confucius, "A trip to the Avenue is also business. Choose the best, teach the best and cultivate the best. Old friends are not only relatives, but also only children, so that the old have a home, the young are useful, the young have a support point, and the lonely have a support. Men get points and women get rewards. If the goods are abandoned on the ground, there is no need to hide them on yourself; You don't have to do it for yourself. Therefore, seeking closure is not prosperous, and thieves do not do it for the sake of great harmony, but for the sake of great harmony. " Li Yun, The Book of Rites.

This passage of Confucius depicts a harmonious society that does not distinguish between each other, has its own place and has no struggle. This society of "the world is public" and "selecting talents and appointing talents" is what Confucian scholars call an ideal society. They call it "One World".

Then what is a well-off society?

Confucius said, "Today's avenue is hidden, and the world is home. Each of us is very close to his relatives, and each of us is his son. The goods are for yourself. Adults think it is a gift, but villages, ditches and pools think it is impregnable. Take propriety and righteousness as the discipline, righteousness as the heart, father and son as loyalty, brothers as friends, husband and wife as peace, and establish a system to establish a field. Be wise and brave, and take merit as your own. Therefore, the use is the work, and the soldiers set out from this. Yu, Tang, Wen, Wu,, etc. are all among them. None of the six gentlemen is unwilling to be polite. Take its righteousness, test its letter, write its story, punish its people and make its people clear. Some people don't come from here, and those who are in power go. Everyone thinks it is a well-off society. "

The theory of great harmony comes from the Book of Rites.

The article recorded Confucius' travel and lamented. At that time, disciple Zi swam around and asked Confucius why he sighed. Confucius later expressed his views on Datong society, which generally meant that he did not catch up with the sages of Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties when he put the avenue into practice, but he was very much looking forward to that era. He said that the trip to the Avenue means that the world is for the public. At that time, people not only kissed and raised children, but generally loved each other, so that the old people had a place to live, the strong people were useful, the young people could grow up smoothly, the lonely, lonely, disabled people had a living, men had a certain position, and women could find a suitable family. People don't have to seize the goods for themselves, but they are afraid that the goods will be discarded and not used; People can do their best in labor, but not for themselves and despise the behavior of working only for themselves. So there will be no bad plans and thieves, and it will be peaceful and prosperous if you don't close the door at night.

Because the whole world is like this, Confucius called that era "Datong".

Confucius went on to say that it was different later. The avenue disappeared and the world became the private property of a family. Everyone has his own relatives, raises his own children, and tries his best to grab goods and money for himself. Great men like emperors and generals have been handed down from generation to generation, building city-states, digging ditches and ponds, striving for self-improvement, and ruling the country and leveling the world with courtesy and righteousness, so as to standardize the relationship between monarch and minister, father and son, brothers and husband and wife, so that the monarch and minister can meet each other in an orderly manner, brothers and husband and wife can live in harmony. At the same time, a system was established to clarify the boundaries between fields and roads. Those who are brave and know are virtuous, and those who can do their own thing can do their work. Therefore, there have been treacherous plots and wars.

Kong Yu also pointed out: Yu Xia, Shang Tang, Zhou Wenwang, Zhou Wuwang, Zhou Chengwang, Duke of Zhou, etc. all attached great importance to the ceremony and used it to commend those who did the right thing. People who made mistakes were discouraged. They emphasized kindness and comity and taught people to pay attention to manners. People who can't do this, even powerful people, will be ousted. However, although these people attach importance to etiquette and can restrain people's behavior, their era is not as good as that of Datong, and it can only be regarded as a well-off era; The well-off era is far less than the Datong era.

The above shows that Confucius was born in troubled times and yearned for both a well-off society and a great political ideal.

Confucius, the idealist of "Datong" society, is more human than Jesus.

Writer Gao Guang wrote a novel Confucius. Before reading it, I read an article commenting on the novel first. Finally, the article quotes the author of the novel "Once Emphasize" as saying:

"When I was writing Confucius, I always saw a melancholy Confucius. He sat in the car and looked at human beings with resentment, worry and love. He is a real philosopher, with Jesus, but he is more realistic than Jesus.

More concrete and more humane. The fundamental difference between him and Jesus is that he is really a person. "The punctuation in the article is marked according to the original publication.

After reading the above passage, I tried to imagine what this Confucius would look like "more real, more concrete and more humane than Jesus". However, the more I think about it, the more vague the image of Confucius is in my mind, as if it were a dense fog.

Mr. Gao Guang told us that Confucius was a "real man". Of course it's true. He said, "He is more real and concrete than Jesus". That's understandable. As for Confucius being "more humane" than Jesus, I don't know how to be more humane than Confucius and Jesus in France. Who knows I only know that the word "benevolence" recorded by his disciples and re-disciples can't be found in Confucius' The Analects. It can be seen that Confucius didn't even have the concept of "benevolence" at that time. How to talk about "benevolence", let alone "more benevolence" than others.

As far as I know, Mencius was the first pre-Qin philosopher to talk about "human nature", and the name of his younger son was harmless. Mencius has a very famous view that "human nature is good". Gao Zi disapproved of Mencius' view of human nature. He came to argue with Mencius. He came straight to the point and said, "Benevolence is the foundation of righteousness: it refers to Mencius' theory of good nature, and Vitamin's cups and plates are the best. "He means to make the willow into cups and plates, but where is the nature of the willow? He also said: "Nature is still turbulent. The East will flow eastward and the West will flow westward. There is no difference between human nature and goodness, and there is no difference between water and things. " Mencius retorted: "Water and faith are inseparable from things. However, without the goodness of human nature, water will flow downwards. There is nothing wrong with people, and there is nothing wrong with water. " At the end of the argument, Gao Zi had nothing to say and said absently, "Eating color is also sex." For some reason, Mencius didn't refute him again. In fact, Gao Zi's theory of "eating" is very big. If "eating color" refers to human nature, isn't that to equate human nature with animal nature?

Fifty or sixty years after Mencius, Xunzi was born. Unlike Mencius, he believes that human nature is evil. Xunzi thought: "Human nature is evil." Human nature is "profit-seeking" and "good taste", such as "obeying human nature and feelings will inevitably lead to violence because of competition ...". "Therefore, there must be a way of teaching, courtesy and shame, and then be excluded from resigning and aligning with arts and sciences."

Mencius and Xunzi, one is good and the other is evil. It seems just the opposite. After arriving, I achieved the same goal through different routes and returned to enlightenment, which is the so-called education in later generations. Mencius believed that human nature is good. If you don't educate yourself, you may be influenced by bad ideas in society and get worse. Therefore, education must be carried out to keep "human nature" good. This is the beginning of the enlightenment reading book "Saint Amethyst" which appeared in the Ming Dynasty: "At the beginning of life, human nature is good ... if you don't teach, human nature will move." Xunzi believes that human nature is evil. But there must be a way to learn the law, be polite and righteous, and then conform to the arts and sciences out of resignation, so that the original "evil" human nature can become "good."

Although Mencius and Xunzi both used the word "human nature", they were limited to the distinction between good and evil of human nature and had no more substantive connotation. So I don't think they are "human" or "humanized" by these alone. As for Confucius, the word "benevolence" was never used. What basis do we have to say that he is a man "more humane than Jesus"

Incredibly, in the 5th century BC, Confucius was really an idealist of a "Great Harmony" society. This is by no means the author's nonsense, but is proved by books. This book is the Book of Rites, one of the Confucian classics. At the beginning of the Book of Rites, Yan Yan, a proud pupil, said nothing. But I think it is probably because of this conversation of Confucius that it was preserved. Dai and his son compiled the Book of Rites and put it at the beginning of the Book of Rites. Because when Confucius said these words, there was no third party present except Yan Yan, so I thought that this piece of Datong with the word 107 could be included in the Confucian classic Book of Rites. More than two thousand years later, it was appreciated and used by Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the pioneer of China's democratic revolution, and it was also considered as Yan Yan's work.

In a word, I think it is groundless to say that Confucius is more humane than Jesus. Confucius' ideal of "Great Harmony" is based on the time and place of offering sacrifices to Guan Shang on both sides of the gate outside the temple, the witness of Confucius disciple Yan Yan, and the written records and documentary evidence in The Book of Rites. Although, Chen, who noted the Book of Rites in the Yuan Dynasty, said, "This is not what Confucius said." But it's all empty talk, and there is no basis at all. Moreover, he can't tell who the "non-Confucius" is or who it might be. It can be seen that Chen's words are actually not worth refuting.

Because Confucius' social ideal of "great harmony" is too advanced and advanced. Therefore, Confucian scholars from generation to generation did not understand or believe it, let alone put it into practice. It was not until 2000 that the wave of democratic revolution surged. Sun Yat-sen, the pioneer of China's democratic revolution, appreciated Confucius' thought of great harmony. He wrote the four characters "The world is for the public" as the ultimate goal of the democratic revolution. And asked a musician to write a song of the Three People's Principles. The first four sentences are: "The Three People's Principles are adhered to by our party. We must build the Republic of China and enter Datong. " It can be seen that Dr. Sun Yat-sen's long-term goal of "joining the national revolution" is to establish Confucius' ideal "Datong" society. It is true that Sun Yat-sen, like Confucius, is just a beautiful ideal. How many generations of efforts and struggles are needed to build such a society!