First, the essence of core values and its role
Value is the theoretical abstraction of human life practice, and the value of philosophical category refers to the consistent reflection of the existence, function and change of an object on the needs and development of a subject. Values are the ideology (that is, thoughts and ideological systems) embodied in the process of integrating the relationship between subject and object based on needs. Aristotle, an ancient Greek philosopher, clearly put forward: "Values are human conduct and virtue reflected by people's daily habits, skills and behaviors." Thus, value is a series of basic beliefs and judgments about the right and wrong, good and evil and importance of things around us, or people's judgments and choices about social existence and social practice from both material and spiritual aspects, including value standards, value judgments, value orientations, value realization and so on. Because different people have different value judgments on the same thing, it also reflects the differences of everyone's value system and values. The core values emphasized here are the most basic and core part of the whole value system, and a set of fundamental principles that a person, a group and even a country and a nation have adhered to for a long time. This part supports and affects people's behavior orientation and code of conduct, which is stable and relatively eternal, and all judgment standards are standardized accordingly. It affects the way of thinking and behavior of a person, a group, even a country and a nation from a deeper level.
Personally, opinions can be constantly changed, but the principles of doing things cannot be changed. When a person has the principle of immobility, a clear image is produced. How to keep the principle unchanged? The most important thing is to have and adhere to the core values. For a country and a nation, it is fundamental for the masses to stick to their core values in order to ensure that they have unshakable and difficult principles and then show a clear image in the world. Imagine, as a big country, if there is no basic principle when dealing with international affairs, all the ways of doing things are based on temporary interests and demands, and it is difficult for other countries and nations to accept the principle of taking the right way. Even if it is a big country, its image will not be very high, and it is even more difficult to gain the respect of the world. From the perspective of political groups, the same is true. The content of the policy can change constantly with the social form and the rotation of political parties, but the core values remain unchanged. For example, the core values such as democracy, freedom and human rights inherited by western society have existed for one or two hundred years and have not changed so far, because whoever changes it will be abandoned by the mainstream society. Take our party as an example. The political belief we adhere to is the ideal of * * * productism and the socialist road, which cannot be changed. Otherwise, the party will have no political foundation for its existence. However, what is socialism and how to build it are in the process of development and change. This kind of development and change can not "cross the river by feeling the stones" for a long time, and must be followed and used for reference. Undoubtedly, core values should be the most fundamental system to follow and refer to.
Generally speaking, core values mainly affect the thinking and spirit of the nation to form the world, that is, the way of thinking and behavior of the nation. However, if it is a big country and a nation, especially a country with the impulse to occupy other countries and other nations, its core values will directly or indirectly affect the world and other countries. For example, the export revolution of the former Soviet Union exported American-style democracy, freedom and human rights to the United States today. China is a big country, especially after more than 20 years of great economic development, its ability to influence the world is getting stronger and stronger. In this case, what kind of core values it inherits is not only the internal affairs of the country and the nation, but also a common concern of the world in a sense, because such core values will certainly appear and play a role in the process of world globalization. In other words, when China is in a weak and backward state and has little influence on the world, what kind of core values it holds will not receive much attention. If China rises in the world and its actions directly affect the interests of other countries and ethnic groups, then the core values will have a radiation effect, because these values will inevitably be reflected through domestic and foreign policies, and then reflected in the lives of other countries and ethnic groups. Looking back at the history of human development, the collision between countries and nations is characterized by direct and intense interests, but by lasting and profound culture, religion and their core values.
The role of core values is enormous. Taking the influence of core values on ideological and political education as an example, why do we invest so much manpower and material resources, but the effect is not satisfactory? Among many reasons, the most fundamental one is that there is a problem with the foothold, and further, there is a problem with the core values. Because core values have no foundation, all efforts are short-term interests, which change with the change of tense, and variability cannot accumulate forever. Whenever the ruling party's ruling idea, ruling mode or social form changes, all previous efforts are futile, and even the existing construction achievements may be destroyed. Here, we can also use the spirit of Lei Feng, the carrier of moral values, to analyze problems. In the process of carrying forward the spirit of Lei Feng, the most distinctive and extensive formulation is to learn from Lei Feng to do good deeds. There is no problem in terms of purpose and original intention, but it needs to be revised in terms of actual performance. For example, we tend to include and cover all the good behaviors of people, and its role may not be positive or in line with the original intention, because it often alienates and dwarfs the brilliance of human nature. After all, people's social behaviors, especially the most conscious and subconscious social behaviors, are not all based on some political idea. Many of them are natural reflections of human nature, including pity and so on, and are not the result of political education, just as Mencius said, "I am afraid." Everyone has a heart of shame and evil; Everyone has a respectful heart; Everyone has a right and wrong heart. "In this case, if all behaviors within the scope of human nature are attributed to some kind of labeled value judgment, then those who don't want to rely on labels, or those who don't want to politicize their simple thoughts and behaviors, will lose their original humanized behavior impulse. In addition, because we put too much emphasis on directly expressing political opinions and serving short-term goals in the propaganda of Lei Feng spirit, we failed to reveal its spiritual essence in a three-dimensional way, especially failed to pay attention to discovering the most universal, touching, infectious and influential human brilliance. Therefore, whenever the ruling party's ruling philosophy changes and society changes, the elements of Lei Feng's spirit need to be partially stripped. For example, after the revolutionary party was changed into the ruling party, the theory of class struggle no longer became the main theme, and the views and characteristics of the class as an important part of Lei Feng spirit could no longer play a guiding role in society. Always changing, or "Lei Feng spirit is a basket, everything is put in it", the result will not produce a sense of eternity, loftiness and intimacy in people's hearts, and its role will be discounted. The fundamental reason why Lei Feng's spiritual connotation and manifestations are changeable is that we have not established the eternal core values of the whole nation.
The role of core values is not intuitive and immediate, but accumulated over time, which is the fundamental reason why Confucius and Mencius thought was not appreciated by the overlord in the Spring and Autumn Period. The role of core values is perceptible and lasting, which invisibly affects people's value judgment, value choice and value orientation. This is also why once Confucius and Mencius thought is established in national culture, it will undoubtedly rule a nation for more than two thousand years and profoundly influence and shape this nation. Some people may say, if our society has core values, will problems such as corruption and imperfect system be solved? The answer is no, because the role of core values is not expressed in the form of coercion, but in a way that affects people's value judgment, which is indirect and intangible. Although the influence of core values is indirect and intangible, as long as it is recognized by the public, its function will be brought into play. On the one hand, it makes people understand what is noble and should be advocated, what is permitted by law and what is ugly and must be prohibited. On the other hand, it will also inspire and guide people in the whole society to realize their dreams and provide people with spiritual shelter. In short, when the core values really enter the hearts of the public, there will be no jokes: the state has introduced an industrial policy, and experts will go to the relevant departments for advice after taking out the draft for comments, except for the phrase "This Regulation will be implemented as of the date of promulgation". Because everyone takes the core values in their hearts as their behavior orientation, although they can't completely surpass interests, they won't form interests beyond everything. We must make it clear that laws and regulations are implemented by people. The ultimate goal of people must not be to establish a system, but the greatest hope is self-discipline and moral improvement.
Some core values of the whole nation cannot be achieved overnight. It has a process of establishment and formation, and the length of this process depends on several aspects: first, whether the values themselves are scientific and advanced, whether they echo the times, whether they meet the internal requirements of the nation and their interaction with the world; Second, whether the ruling party persistently advocates and follows; The third is whether the international and domestic political background is stable.
Second, the historical investigation and realistic judgment of the core values of the Chinese nation
Before analyzing this problem, we can make the following judgments: First, the Chinese nation had core values during the feudal period, which made a nation last for thousands of years. With the development of history to modern times, the social form has undergone tremendous changes, the original value system has been broken, and the new value system that meets the requirements of the times has not yet been established, resulting in the lack of core values. The other is that it is more urgent to build core values than before, and at the same time we are facing the best period to create core values.
There are many references to the core values of the Chinese nation. Some people think that "people-oriented", "peace and friendship" and "national unity" are the core values of the Chinese nation. Others believe that "realizing * * productism" and "serving the people wholeheartedly" are the core values of the Chinese nation. In essence, these are either the core values of China's * * * production party, or the value judgment and value orientation in a certain historical period or aspect, which cannot be called the core values supporting the rise of the nation. Strictly speaking, the reality of China has not built a core value that all the people have, which has been proved by various social thoughts or voices, such as restoring Confucianism, using religion and transplanting western values.
The fact that there are no core values in reality does not mean that there are no core values in the history of China. Confucian culture emphasizes "benevolence, courtesy, wisdom, loyalty, forgiveness and honesty" as the moral basis for regulating people and society, and "loyalty, filial piety and righteousness" as the standard for distinguishing a person's life, which is the core value of maintaining feudal rule. This core value is based on benevolence. Only later, with historical changes and social transformation, the core values of the country entered a state of nothingness.
Facing the lack of core values, our nation has also made unremitting efforts. For example, the Revolution of 1911 put forward "by the people, by the people and for the people", the May 4th Movement put forward "democracy and science", and so on. This is not only a slogan, but also a core value to be established. It reflects that people have accepted what we have used from the western core values, and at the same time, they realize that China's prosperity must start with ideological and spiritual changes, including core values. Since then, there has been a long-term military scuffle in China. At this time, we have always adhered to the logic of "the winner is king and the loser is the enemy". In this social state, it is impossible to produce scientific and stable national core values. As for War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the War of Liberation, because the highest goal is to win the war, it is impossible to produce eternal core values that can play a role in different times, although many of them are indispensable elements of scientific core values.
Marxism has become our guiding ideology since China's * * * production party led China people to be masters of their own affairs, so the values should also be Marxist. The core value of Marxism is "human freedom, liberation and all-round development". This leads to many things, including loving the party, patriotism, sacrifice, dedication, helping others and other moral values. However, due to internal and external reasons, he has made "Left" mistakes for a long time, insisted on taking class struggle as the key link, and adhered to the rigid dual values of "we support the enemy if it opposes us, and we oppose it if the enemy supports us", and his short-term behavior is too heavy. After more than 20 years of reform and opening up, we have also made great efforts in exploring values, especially after experiencing moral disorder in the transition period. People generally feel the extreme importance of core values to a society and try to solve this fundamental problem.
At present, the construction of core values is more urgent than before, because the ruling idea of the party has changed and the people's thoughts and cultural psychology have changed. In particular, the great expansion of China's international status and national interests brought about by economic development can be explained by "providing strong strategic support for the expansion of national interests", one of the missions established by General Secretary Hu Jintao for the army. When we are still in a backward state, or when our interests have not collided with other countries, this problem is not prominent. However, when our relationship with the world is adjusted, core values become very important, which not only determines our behavior, but also determines how the world views us, and then determines whether we can rise peacefully or even rise. For example, China's economy has developed into an export-oriented economy, and the strong growth of exports is due to economic globalization and trade liberalization. There is no such thing as a free lunch. After we enjoy the feast of trade liberalization, there will inevitably be a problem of obligation and responsibility. How to avoid responsibility and form * * * knowledge? It depends on the core values of science.
Undeniably, because we have not formed scientific and stable core values for a long time, our utilitarian consciousness is serious, and most of our actions are short-term political needs, which will inevitably lead to disorderly values. For example, during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression period, the most worthy of our army's vigorous publicity was the "Hundred Regiments War" waged by the Eighth Route Army against the Japanese army at 1940. However, since the launch of the campaign, many people think that this campaign prematurely exposed the strength of the Eighth Route Army and triggered the Japanese army's brutal sweeping of the base areas behind enemy lines in North China. Think about it, our party has always stressed that without its own interests, the interests of the people, the interests of the country and the nation are above everything else. From the perspective of the national war of resistance, as long as the effective strength of the Japanese army is destroyed, this kind of sacrifice is valuable, and there is no problem of premature exposure of strength. If all parties maintain their strength and are unwilling to make sacrifices, won't the national war of resistance become empty talk? ! There is another typical example. During the counter-offensive campaign in Tengchong, Yunnan, a company of the Kuomintang Expeditionary Force was stationed on the main road, and the Japanese army found a villager to lead the way and killed nearly 200 people in the whole company by detour. After the revolution, the villagers who led the way were reported. During the trial, the villagers argued that he led the Japanese to kill all the Kuomintang troops, so there was nothing wrong with letting the bad guys kill the bad guys. The interrogator thought about it and let him go. Later, the villager became the production team leader. From the latter example, it can be said that there is no eternal value standard, only utilitarianism and distorted political diagrams are left. We believe that the so-called core values should be unchangeable, not changed by temporary utilitarianism, and not lost because of likes and dislikes. For example, we should be alert to the Japanese right-wing forces, but at the same time, we should also see that for decades, people in Japan are still suing the government for the Nanjing Massacre. After the northeast gas incident, the Japanese lawyers' aid group to China immediately offered to help the victims claim compensation from the Japanese government. If there are similar people in our country, will everyone tolerate them? ! The author may not agree with Ma Licheng, a former commentator of People's Daily, on his "new thinking about Japan", but he even disapproves of calling him a traitor. During the period of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, the five strong men of Langya Mountain jumped off the cliff from the chessboard mound. Li Haizhong, a Taoist priest, saw the Japanese troops attacking the top of the mountain lined up in several rows and bowed to the sacrificed Eighth Route Army soldiers with the commander's password. Similarly, after the death of Yang Jingyu, a headache for the Japanese Kwantung Army, the Japanese cut open his abdomen and found it was full of cotton wool and weeds. Everyone bowed to him. Probably at that time, no one thought that someone was pro-China and was a Japanese traitor. We are victims of war, so we have a sense of moral superiority. Because of this, we should have a broader mind, greater tolerance, more dialectical thinking and more stable core values than the Japanese.
It is precisely because the core values have not been established and there is no fundamental standard that some people are confused about what is true patriotism and what is national maturity. Therefore, when we engage in "patriotic" actions with great enthusiasm and sincere input, we are ultimately hurting the country and the nation. Or use specific examples to illustrate the problem. On April 13, 2004, seven Iraqi workers kidnapped in Iraq were rescued and released. On the same day, after Sina.com reported that "the head of China's foreign affairs in Japan explained the rescue process of kidnapped citizens in detail", netizens published 2 13 articles related to the Japanese kidnapping incident, of which the top three were: 23 praised the Japanese government, and 14 complained. Let's look at the "9. 1 1" incident in the United States. It is said that a group of journalists cheered the terrorist attacks in the United States and were expelled from the country by the United States. These can't help but arouse our thinking. The tendency shown in both cases is worth thinking about. On the one hand, the most reprehensible terrorists did not get the blow they deserved, and on the other hand, the unfortunate people did not get the sympathy they deserved. It is true that the hegemonism of Americans and the tendency of Japanese militarism are disgusting, but innocent lives have been destroyed. They do not feel sympathy for the loss of precious lives, but gloat. How can the brilliance of human nature be accepted by the world? ! From this perspective, quite a few of us lack the basic concept of right and wrong, which is an immature performance. Furthermore, we have not yet established mature core values.
Why is today the best time to establish core values? It is our party that is creating fertile ground for building core values. The history of human development tells us that without suitable soil, the fruits of civilization cannot bear fruit. This can be seen from the development of the two major civilizations in the world. We know that Confucius and Mencius thought dominated the development of the Chinese nation for more than two thousand years, which was not taken seriously at the beginning. Confucius and Mencius traveled around the world to publicize their ideas, but during the period of social unrest in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, emperors were busy fighting for hegemony and needed immediate utilitarian effects. Therefore, a military general like Sun Wu, who directly brought territory to the emperor, and a strategist Qin, who could change the layout of political and military forces, were more favored by the emperor, and the enlightenment thought of Confucius and Mencius, which required efforts from generation to generation to achieve results, naturally hit a wall repeatedly. It can be said that if the Han people did not unify the Chinese nation and establish a stable political power, I believe that Confucius and Mencius' thoughts would not be unified. Let's look at the Greek and Roman culture that created western civilization, from glory to fading out of history and then to revival, which also illustrates this point. Because the primitive Greek and Roman culture was born in "human childhood", although it was brilliant, it was always surrounded by ignorance. At this time, human beings as a whole were not enlightened, and their understanding of themselves and the world was superficial. People worship it more, so it is difficult to keep the rational light of Greece and Rome. This is also the fundamental reason why civilization was brutally conquered and Europe entered the dark Middle Ages. The Renaissance made Greek and Roman culture glow again, which undoubtedly depended on the improvement of European political and social environment.
Knowing the development of the two civilizations, let's take a look at the political and social foundation that we have today to build core values. Today, our party is strengthening the construction of its ruling ability and has begun the transformation from a revolutionary party to a ruling party. In this context, a series of new ruling ideas such as "Scientific Outlook on Development", "People-oriented" and "Harmonious Society" are put forward. The decision of the Fourth Plenary Session of the Sixteenth CPC Central Committee also explicitly requires the whole party to "observe the world from a broad perspective and improve its scientific judgment and strategic thinking level on the international situation." Actively conform to the trend of the times of maintaining peace and promoting development. Decide our position and policy according to the merits of the matter itself. "Accelerate the familiarity and application of international rules and practices, actively participate in the consultation and formulation of relevant international affairs and rules, fully reflect reasonable opinions, and resolutely safeguard the rights and interests of our people and people of all countries. Properly respond to the concerns of the international community about the situation in China. " This reflects the change of our strategic thinking and way of thinking, and then reflects the integration with the world. It is a question of seeking consistency in core values and avoiding direct collision. All these have laid a political and ideological foundation for building new scientific core values.
With the globalization of the world economy, the communication between ethnic groups is getting closer and closer. Whether a good image can be established in this communication and accepted by the world, core values will inevitably play an irreplaceable role. Why did China decide to donate money after the American hurricane disaster? Many people questioned on the Internet that China is poorer than the United States and should not provide assistance. This is also a wrong idea without the guidance of core values. In many of our ideas, mutual assistance still stays in the rich helping the poor, or even killing the rich to help the poor, without considering the brilliance of human nature in mutual assistance. It is an important way and way for mankind to move towards harmony. In fact, our help is very limited, even symbolic, and symbolic, expressing something humanitarian, not politicized, which is the reason behind the assistance that the United States has received from hundreds of countries (including its opponents). In addition, there is one more thing to realize. We have contradictions and struggles with the United States, but we should not only see the side of the struggle, but also see the same places, such as fighting terrorism, prospering the world economy, and safeguarding the natural environment of the earth. If we only look at contradictions without seeking agreement, we can only create a combative image. Without the support of core values, it is impossible to truly realize this from the depths of thought.
To sum up, the Chinese nation has entered the most important period of building core values and has a more solid theoretical and ideological foundation.