Professor Wang Lixin is familiar with many people. He is called " Ma Sanli on the forum". He has taught Chinese thoughts and culture for nearly a thousand sessions in media and venues such as Phoenix.com , CCTV Hundred Schools Forum, Hunan Education TV Station , Hunan People's Radio Station, Hengyang Shigu Academy Forum, Peking University Boya Forum, " Tianjin Daily " Chaoyue Forum, libraries in various provinces and cities, etc.
has been engaged in the teaching and research of Chinese thought and traditional culture for decades. He has always paid attention to how to use novelty on the basis of respecting traditions and classics, and inspire readers to think about issues about themselves and life in an easy-to-understand way.
Recently, he and the writer Nanxiang held a discussion in the central book city of Shenzhen. Using "Confucius' Wisdom" published by him in Peking University Press as the entrance to talk about some changes in his traditional views over the years, many of which were enlightening.
01 Why do I want to write "Confucius' Wisdom"? The first question discussed by
was raised by Nan Xiang. He asked me why I wrote "Confucius' Wisdom" after writing the Zhou Dunyi , Hu Hong and the Wang Fuzhi (Chuanshan) in the Ming and Qing Dynasties?
I roughly talked about my perspective of understanding the tradition. There has been a little change in recent years. The change is caused by the change in the situation. Living in the world, you cannot ignore the changes in the environment. Scholars should have a keen feeling about changes in the environment, atmosphere and situation.
In the past, I promoted tradition from the perspective of "benevolence" and emphasized the traditional "virtue" side, because at that time, the traditional "virtue" side was conducive to establishing humanistic ideals, which could boost people's enthusiasm, and at the same time help people to alleviate spiritual laziness caused by excessive pursuit of economic interests. The situation today is different. The temperature of the earth, energy, the situation of various countries, the actual atmosphere we are in, the current economic decline, the rising arrogance, etc. reminds me that I can no longer simply emphasize "benevolence" as before.
So my writing started from another perspective of the book "Wang Lixin's Analects of Confucius" which promotes the "Renity" of Confucius . I wrote this book "Confucius' Wisdom". Scholars must maintain a high degree of awareness of the changes in the living world. Research and writing must be conducive to the development of the times, the progress of society, and the improvement of people's livelihood and the improvement of the atmosphere. They cannot intentionally or unintentionally encourage ignorance and rebellion. This is what I ask for myself. But there is still a chance to write a book. I wrote "Confucius's Wisdom". The opportunity came from the invitation of Teacher Yang Shulan from Peking University Press . She hoped that I would write a book "Confucius' Wisdom". This proposition just fits the shift of my mind, so I got this "Confucius' Wisdom", which is a bit like writing a topic essay.
Nanxiang asked me what is the obvious difference between Chinese tradition and Western tradition. I said that there are many differences. One of the more obvious things in is that China values Germany and the West values wisdom . Although the West also values virtue and China also values wisdom, their respective understandings of "virtue" and "wisdom" are different, and their goals are not consistent. Taking the early days as an example, the obvious difference between Socrates and Confucius is that Socrates attaches importance to knowing himself. Including why you have the ability to understand yourself, how to understand, and what effect can you achieve? Socrates's purpose is to hope that humans should understand self-knowledge, and use reason to understand nature, society, and life. One of the obvious goals in this is that people should be sincere and objectively face the world, human society and people themselves, believe and use human rational abilities with an honest and objective attitude, cultivate sincere quality of life, and enhance cognitive abilities. This is the most distinctive feature of Socrates, ancient Greece and Western philosophy.
Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, the picture comes from the Photo Network.
Confucius, Mencius , Confucian , Chinese traditions and Chinese mentality are all based on the emphasis on virtue and emphasize the importance of personal cultivation.Because we set high ideal goals from the beginning and emphasized the self-effort of subject recognition, we left a lot of vacancy in understanding external objective objects, including people themselves, and the cultivation of cognitive ability did not receive the attention it deserved, which made the later moral promotion largely divorced from the reality of life and society. Ideals were somewhat suspended, and objective attitudes and rational spirits were relatively scarce, but the subjective moral spirit was too strong.
I wrote "Confucius' Wisdom" and wanted to do some new exploration in this regard. Even so, I know that the "wisdom" in Chinese wisdom is still biased towards "virtue". It is not to understand the objective world, nor to understand the characteristics and defects of people themselves, but mostly to understand the understanding of "virtue". The main purpose is to use "wisdom" to show "virtue" . The so-called "knowledge is beneficial to benevolence" means emphasizing that "wisdom" is beneficial to "virtue", which is not conducive to or cannot see whether it is beneficial to "wisdom" that is not conducive to "virtue", but it is still not taken seriously. Of course, looking at Confucius and Confucianism from the perspective of "wisdom" is obviously more positive today than from the perspective of "virtue". It can correct our paranoia about "virtue" and prevent us from be arrogant and underestimating the people and things in the world and the world.
Confucius School, the picture is from the Photo Network.
focuses on real real problems and find ways to solve these problems, which is more important than anything else today. Many problems cannot be solved, and are not all the reasons why Confucius and Confucianism value virtue. However, Confucianism's characteristic of valuing virtue but not wisdom has been constantly over-promoted in history, and has accumulated into our cultural mentality, which is obviously one of the important reasons. Of course, the tradition of advocating power rather than reality is more important. Although this tradition is a convergence of old ancient traditions and new modern traditions, the role of Confucianism is extremely important in the process of forging this tradition in ancient times. I wrote "Confucius' Wisdom", hoping to make some directional shift in this regard. Although I know that my efforts are very weak, it may not be possible to have some small effects, but efforts cannot be given up. If I don't work hard in this regard, it may be even less likely to solve the actual problem.
The tradition of valuing virtue actually makes people unable to receive favors. It is the real irony of despising objective cognition and not focusing on solving practical problems.
02 How do you view ancient sages today?
The second question I talked about is actually the first question I originally wanted to talk about, which is "look at ancient sages from a modern standpoint."
I said from the following two perspectives. is that it is not a problem at all, and the other is that it has become a problem.
says it is not a problem, because our views on people and things in the world, even our views on natural states and technical functions, are consciously or unconsciously standing in our current position, consciously or unconsciously evaluating everything we see with our current standpoint. The same is true for sages. We cannot stand on the standpoint of our grandfather, so we naturally have different views from our grandfather, and we cannot stand on the standpoint of our grandson, so we will not be consistent with our grandson’s views. We use our current mind to feel the current things, and use our current feelings to judge the people and things in the past and the present. The reason is very simple, because we live in the present and are the present people, so we cannot escape from the present and truly travel to the ancient times, and we cannot completely get rid of the present and fly to the future. So the first question I talked about today was not a problem.
Then why should I ask a question?
This is mainly based on the perspective of ideas and psychological habits. We do see that many Chinese people living today have their brains and minds in ancient times. Some are voluntarily stored, while others are taken to store. They often look at problems from an ancient standpoint, including those that have emerged in the world today, and even problems that have not been properly resolved since ancient times. For the ancient sages, they worshiped infinitely blindly, and their worship made their minds stay in the ancient times and could not return to their current body. In serious cases, I don’t believe in my own personal feelings, but only believe in the words of ancient people.If you do not adjust psychologically in time in this situation, you will fall into a state of physical and mental division, the body is in modern times and the mind is in ancient times.
Jiangsu Gongyuan commemorates Confucius, the picture comes from the Photo Network.
It is not difficult for people suffering from this kind of schizophrenia in the past and present. Since modern times, many people have suffered from this problem, and quite a few have been severe enough to be unable to rescue them. They regard the rules and even the words and standards set by ancient sages as iron laws that must be followed. The effect of doing this makes the thoughts of ancient sages only remain in ancient times and cannot be an effective help to help the modern world move towards a better future. The result of this is to completely "seal" ancient sages, especially their thoughts with considerable penetration, completely "sealed" in ancient times, blocking the collision and integration of these ideas with modern times, being tested and gaining opportunities and possibilities for further development. This is one aspect. On the other hand, they regard the discourses said by ancient sages that can only adapt to ancient social scenes as eternal truths, and move them into modern life as the norm of modern life, which hinders the happiness of modern life and blocks the path to seeking solutions to modern problems.
Live in modern times, but always wants to help sages solve problems in their hearts and shape modern people into what they require in ancient scriptures, but they don’t understand them at all. almost none of the ancient sages have solved the problems of their own era well. They are mostly the lessons of failure, not the experience of success. Even if their summary of the lessons of failure makes sense, people should not always summarize the lessons after failure. They should focus more on the actual understanding of the present so that the current society and life can achieve a considerable degree of success, rather than just leaving the lessons of failure to future generations like the ancients.
Today's things can only be found in today's life system. Modern diseases must mainly explore the source of the disease and seek the prescription for treatment from the modern life world.
Due to the rapid development of modern society and the increasing number of problems, it is necessary to constantly seek new ways to solve problems. It is generally impossible to regard the words and phrases of ancient sages as a magic medicine to cure modern problems. Modern doctors cannot only have ancient eyes. Their duties are to treat modern patients, rather than keeping mummies in ancient tombs.
How to view ancient sages from today's standpoint?
It is not easy to look at ancient sages from today's standpoint. Because our history is too long and our passion for history and traditional culture has created a deep historical complex for people. It can be said that it is difficult to break this traditional "knot". People can easily and conveniently misunderstand " national rejuvenation " as returning to ancient life. In recent years, some netizens have been discussing whether to return to , Ming Dynasty, , Qing Dynasty, , or to return to , Tang Dynasty, , and Song Dynasty, . Although this is ridiculous, it is actually worth thinking about. Therefore, to look at ancient sages from today's standpoint, we must first step out of the ancient standpoint and untie the value complex of celebrating the ancient times. If we cannot untie this "knot", the body and mind will be divided, and we will not be able to understand ancient sages, we will not be able to absorb elements that are beneficial to promoting the development of modern society from their thoughts, and we will not be able to obtain ancient resources that help modern people win happiness.
Because we are too optimistic about the past, many people living in modern times put their minds in ancient boxes. To get this heart back, we need the corresponding key, but from modern times to the present, we still have not provided the corresponding key. Everyone should understand what I said. Although the ancient sages were in ancient times, some of the penetration of their thoughts had reached the modern era and could still shine in modern times; while some people in modern times had their thoughts returned to the ancient times. While they were volunteer propagandists for ancient people, they had lost their supposed connection with modern life.
Ancient and modern times are not two simple historical development stages . In ancient times, they were closed and conservative. They were the monarchy of the whole country and the economy was self-sufficient small peasant economy. The interactions were basically limited to the village, and the space was very small and there was no need for more external contacts. They were closed and came from being excited. In many cases, it was roughly possible.
Modern society is an industrial society, an information society, and a society that continues to develop step by step towards a higher stage and faster development after the industrial revolution . It requires more and more and more connections. If you lose contact, you will be abandoned by the trend of modernization in the entire world and be isolated from the circle where the world lives together. If you actively block the connection with the world, the road to modernization and communication with the world will be blocked. Surviving in a world that moves towards modernization and is constantly accelerating modernization, there is no possibility of self-interest, and we must be happy with everyone.
Therefore, any self-esteem nationalism and nationalism are very harmful. Any attempt to escape and follow up with the world trend through retro is not only ignorant and cowardly, but also self-destructive. Under this pattern and situation, any idea and practice that that regards the glory of ancient ancestors as extremely tall is to return to the ancient manifestations of self-satisfaction. Any form of such self-satisfaction can only be self-deception, and will eventually die.
Therefore, we must look at the ancient sages from today's standpoint. Those things in their thoughts that are not suitable for modernity must be temporarily put aside, and finding elements that are beneficial to the development of modern society and the survival and happiness of modern people from their thoughts is both necessary and necessary.
03 What is the writing of "Confucius's Wisdom"?
This is the third question I mentioned last night. It is roughly based on the above ideas, I wrote this new book "The Wisdom of Confucius". But I didn't write well enough. Although some parts are roughly satisfied, they are still far from the expected goals in general. What have I written about
?
First of all, I wrote that Confucius was not a saint, but a saint was a high hat put on by his later followers. He never regarded himself as a saint.
I chose a dialogue from "Liezi", which was held between Dazai and Confucius in the Song Dynasty. Using this dialogue to expand the topic, and using Confucius' own statement in the Analects of Confucius, it proved that Confucius' "saint" was a high hat, which was customized by later people based on their own needs. He did not weave such a crown for himself.
Despite this, this book does not deny that Confucius is full of the glory of a saint, otherwise he would not have such a vast and far-reaching influence in the history of later generations. But today, we must re-examine Confucius' impact on history and see what it has affected? In what direction does it affect? How should this influence be treated rationally from today's standpoint?
placed his soul in some ancient people, and rigidly and mechanically planned to treat Confucius' spirit as the soul of the third prince of Tota Heavenly King, and push it to the lotus of modern life, making him the omnipotent Nezha . This is completely contrary to the historical process and cannot be realized at all. It is an unrealistic dream. It treats the modern life world as a playground for ancient sages to perform military and martial arts. Psychologically, they do not really take the people who are living now seriously. They think that the thoughts of ancient sages are much more important than the lives of modern sentient beings. In the face of ancient sages, modern people's right to survival, national freedom and power, individual values and dignity can be completely ignored and ignored.
In the minds of such people, China's history is the history of the continuation of the spirit of the sages. The survival, hard work and struggle of generations of people are meaningless, and there is no need. Taking the ideal concepts advocated by ancient sages as more important than the actual survival of the modern masses, this is a value bias that is extremely lacking in compassion. We must get out of this misunderstanding in order to truly focus on the actual difficulties in modern society and modern people's livelihood, and thus find ways to solve these problems.Modern survivors are not sacrifices to ancient sages, and modern people must have a clear understanding of this.
My statement above does not deny that there are indeed some of the ideas and statements of Confucius and other sages that can be integrated into modern society and can also play a positive and effective role in the modern life world. These are the precious spiritual assets we want to absorb.
My new book mainly develops the connotation of the ancient sages' thoughts that are still beneficial to modern life, such as the wisdom of learning, the wisdom of making friends, and the wisdom of self-harvest.
Develop good qualities of being tireless in learning, maintain the vitality of lifelong learning, and continuously improve the quality of life and life. This is very necessary. This is true for ancient sages, and modern people also need this. There are examples in ancient times and examples now. In my book, I have given examples from ancient times and modern times, Chinese and Western countries respectively. Such as Confucius, Socrates, Wei Zhengtong , etc.
Get to know good teachers and friends and help yourself grow, both ancient and modern. Making friends is important to life, although it is a kind of small diplomacy. We should make friends with outstanding people, and interact more with those with rich connotations and strong desire for progress and growth. "If you don't have friends, you are not as good as yourself." We should not always be with the backward and decadent people who do not seek progress, and waste precious time and rare development opportunities. This will destroy your desire to make progress and hinder your progress and growth. Confucius' teachings at this time were not to look down on others, but to respect oneself. Any respect for others comes from respect for oneself at its root. To sympathize with the weak does not mean to turn yourself into the same weak. During the process of making friends, while safeguarding personal basic rights and pursuing personal independent growth, we cannot deliberately hurt others. These are the ancient wisdom that modern people can learn from Confucius.
As for the relationship between parents and children, that is, the issue of "filial piety", it is very obvious. This book looks at Confucius and Confucian traditions with a scrutiny and picky perspective, and writes a lot of criticism because I am standing on today's standpoint.
Night view of Confucius Temple in Nanjing, the picture is from the Photo Network.
04 Personal cultivation is not to "purify one's body" behind closed doors
As for Confucius' emphasis on the issue of personal moral development and moral education of society, this book basically did not think that we live today and need to establish new ethics and new norms under the modern situation. Some of the classical "purifying one's body" ethical norms advocated by Confucius are no longer in line with the construction of new ethics needed by modern society. Of course, some still have high value significance, such as "Do not do to others what you do not want others to do to you", "If you want to stand up, you will stand up, and if you want to achieve success, you will succeed", etc., these are not restricted by the times. Because I had already expressed it fully in a book called "Wang Lixin's Analects of Confucius", there is no need to continue repeating it in this book. But modern people must be careful not to regard personal cultivation as a closed-door "purifying oneself".
Some people who promote and promote religious and Neo-Confucian "self-purification" are actually self-representing in a hypothetical logic, just like learning to play chess and scores. Most of them are "in Cao's camp, the heart is in Han Dynasty", people are in modern times, the heart is in ancient times, and the heart is in ancient classics. You need to return to the field of modern social life, and don’t always be in the ancient times outside the field. Any social event in modern society will involve everyone.
Facing the rampant power, facing some practices that are profit-oriented, ignore the dignity of the law, ignore public norms, ignore the interests and feelings of others, and harm the interests of the public, any "self-purification" will not only fail to effectively stop it, but instead become a kind of ignorance. ignores it, so that he can only have the effect of secretly indulging himself. Modern happiness is achieved through modern physical and mental efforts, not something that is thought out in the mind, nor is it taught by ancient sages.
Software books are placed in a conspicuous position in the book city, and the pictures are from the Photo Network.
Therefore, the ideas, statements and practices that simply want to improve social atmosphere through "purification of oneself", whether it is Confucianism, Taoist or Buddhist, are not modern.
Modern ethics and norms must limit the bullying of all kinds of powers, which requires direct and brave face with words and actions. Self-purification does not have this effect. From an individual perspective, it can only be a fear and escape from changing customs. For example, if someone smokes in an elevator, throws objects from high places, or queues up to stuff it, modern people should directly warn and stop it. If you are afraid of offending people or being retaliated against, these bad behaviors will be fearless, and more and more, and everyone will suffer more and more harm. When faced with such situations, modern people should neither escape nor escape, and they have nowhere to escape. They must face it directly, persuade, warn, and stop it, otherwise the losses will become greater and greater. Returning to the room to "purify oneself" will not have any effective effect on stopping the various disadvantages that actually exist in reality.
This classical "self-protection" and "purifying one's own self-cleaning" that avoids disasters is no longer wisdom in modern times, but has become a real cowardice. This cowardice will also create an illusion, as if everyone has "purified themselves" and social life will be better. This is playing chess in imagination, not facing the opponent in real life. This is a hypothetical logic, and it is impossible for everyone to think and do according to the setting of this logic. The objective fact is that the more powerful there is, the more chances and the greater the possibility of harming others and the public. Everyone needs to act together and work together to strengthen the actual restrictions on power and illegal and unethical behavior. Any power must be restricted first. The greater the power, the greater the constraints it should be. This is the real rationalization need for modern society to move towards fairness and justice. Do not make practical efforts on such issues, but only get drunk in the lessons of ancient sages. It is an escape from reality and a groan of cowards.
. Of course, everyone needs self-discipline, but it also requires everyone to strive and work hard to indent into the sacred shell of their imagination. It cannot solve practical problems, cannot stop the rampant power, cannot stop the hotel beating people, cannot stop women and children from turning into crooked women and children. Even throwing objects from high places, smoking at elevators, queuing up to add stuff, etc., cannot effectively curb production. Arbitrary exercise of power, barbarism and tyranny, and wanton behavior will not be restrained because some people close the door and "purify themselves", but will be more unscrupulous and more rampant because of the cowardly avoidance of some noble people.
Modern ethical construction, of course, not only limits the use of power for personal gain and the use of evil forces to deceive others, but also generally ignore the feelings of others and the rules of public life. In addition to these opposite struggles, the most important thing is to work hard on the front, so that modern people can slowly understand many important contents of modern society, understand the importance of freedom, understand the relationship between personal freedom and overall rules, understand the relationship between freedom and dignity, develop a democratic character, and learn a kind way of dealing with people.
Modern people need to constantly learn modern knowledge, constantly enrich their spiritual world, learn to respect others, especially strangers, sympathize with others, know how to use the law to protect their legitimate rights and interests, know how to abide by the law and not infringe on the interests of others and the public, know how to abide by general moral norms, learn and develop the mentality and living habits of mutual cooperation and common achievements, etc.
Modern society requires everyone to participate directly, and use their common efforts to create a living environment where the legal system and ethics belong to everyone are mutually useful, and create a new type of mutually helpful and warm common living space.
, some of these ingredients are found in Confucius and his sages, and some do not. Don’t expect to use Confucius’ wisdom alone to conquer the modern world. Mencius, Xunzi , Laozi , Zhuangzi , Socrates, Platozi, Aristotlezi, and Kantezi are all the same. No one's thoughts can be won by one, and no one should be allowed to conquer the world. Modernization is diverse. A diversified society must be cared for by diverse values and integrated with a unified concept. No matter which one is used, it will have a strong restraint on the development of modern society and the happiness of modern life.
Confucius is wise, but not only Confucius is wise in the world; Confucius' wisdom is only a valuable reference in modern society, and it is impossible and should not be all referenced to Confucius alone or Confucianism. This is the sober attitude we should maintain today when we learn ancient things and Chinese things.
Modern people should learn to get out of the self-closure of their souls and go to the real world life. We cannot express our concern and concern for others and the world only in concepts and words. We must take this purity and wonderful thought of "purifying one's body" into the world, let her shine in the world and give others light and heat, rather than just using it to "light" herself and express her innocence and awe.
The knot of respecting ancient times and respecting Confucianism are actually inevitable with a long history. But once it becomes a dead knot, it will hinder social progress and prevent life progress, leading to disdain for modern knowledge and overseas knowledge, which will then be upgraded to rejection and isolation from the outside, and continue to be arrogant and arrogant in the ignorance and ignorance inside. Once this mentality and habit is developed, it is quite difficult to overcome. If you persist in the ending of not adding salt sauce, you will not only not be able to achieve yourself, but will instead be abandoned by the world. Therefore, it is important to develop the habit of learning new knowledge. Here I have demonstrated three examples of lifelong learning from ancient and modern times, Confucius, Socrates and Wei Zhengtong.
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Author: Wang Lixin Author
Respect the classics, communicate modernly, and reinterpret Confucius!
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