During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Confucianism founded by Confucius was called "outstanding learning". After the Han Dynasty, Confucianism gained the legal status of "national consciousness". In the long historical development, Confucianism has exerted a great and far-reaching influence on the formation of China's national character and national spirit. It can be said that Confucian culture is the most important part of China culture. To understand the history and reality of China and build a new socialist culture with China style and China style, we must learn from Confucianism.
The harmonious consciousness in Confucian culture contains two meanings: the harmony between man and nature and the harmony of interpersonal relationship. Regarding the harmony between man and nature, Confucianism advocates "the unity of man and nature". Confucius advocated that heaven should be contained in human nature, and the unity of heaven should be seen in the unity of human nature. Therefore, he not only talked about "heaven knows people", but also personified and moralized heaven. He also talked about "man knows his destiny" and stressed that man is not passive in the face of fate. Mencius linked the hearts of heaven and man, and advocated "dedication", "intellectuality" and "knowledge of heaven" to communicate and unify heaven and man through human nature. Regarding the harmony of interpersonal relationships, Confucianism advocates the "golden mean", which is also called "neutralization" and "Bank of China". It talks about whether a thing is possible, whether it should be affirmed, and whether it should be denied. This is in line with dialectics and the same view. The so-called "too much is not enough" means that everything has a boundary and scale, and it is not advisable to reach or exceed this boundary and scale. The essence of "harmony without difference" and "going too far" is to emphasize the unity and balance of contradictions and the harmony of interpersonal relationships through grasping things.
Today's era is an era of peace and development. Peace and development are inseparable from the harmony between man and nature, and also from the harmony of interpersonal relationships. The same is true of the development of a family, a country, a nation and even the whole mankind. It is conceivable that if we unilaterally copy the western idea of "destroying the sky" and exploit nature, the result will only destroy the balance of natural ecology and eventually lead to punishment and revenge from nature.
The so-called humanistic consciousness is to respect and admire people, to enhance the meaning of human life and the value of independence and consciousness of the subject. This is exactly what Confucianism relishes and pursues. There is no doubt that Confucianism does not emphasize the freedom and liberation of human personality and the independent development of individuals like thinkers in the Western Renaissance. But this is only relative. First, Confucianism has not completely ignored the role and value of human individual subject, as well as the independence and initiative of human individual subject. He also said that "first, we must make a career, and second, we must achieve great things", and both "making a career" and "achieving great things" should be based on "making a career" and "achieving great things". Mencius said that "Tao only adapts itself", and there is no other way to seek Tao, which depends on one's own practice and understanding. This is an affirmation of the independence and initiative of human individual subjects. Secondly, subject should include individual subject and quasi-subject. Confucianism not only never ignored it, but attached great importance to it. On the one hand, starting from the universality of human nature, Confucianism regards people as a kind of social class existence. As a class, human beings occupy a special position in nature and the universe. On the other hand, Confucianism is based on human family and blood relationship, and relies on ethical world and ethical society to realize human survival and development. So people's social value or quasi-subject value is more important than people's self-value or individual value. It is in this sense that Confucianism emphasizes that "people are expensive and things are cheap" and thinks that people are different from other things and have incomparable value; Emphasize that "the people are the foundation of the country" and think that the people constitute the foundation of national politics. With a solid foundation, national peace can be guaranteed and national development can be possible; It emphasizes that the people are more important than the monarch, and that the people are the first, and the gains and losses in the world depend on the opposition of the people.
Confucian humanistic consciousness emphasizes human subjectivity, and advocates treating people as human beings, attaching importance to public opinion and having fun with the people. This is the embodiment of respecting human nature and people, and it is also the bud of ancient democratic thought. Of course, Confucian people-oriented or people-oriented thought is different from modern western democratic thought. Humanism or people-oriented concept shows human dignity by affirming human nature, while democratic concept realizes equality of personality by affirming human rights. Humanity and human rights, people-oriented and democracy are interrelated. But people-oriented or people-oriented thought can still be the basis of democratic thought. It is necessary for us to learn useful nutrients from Confucian people-oriented or people-oriented thoughts and build socialist democratic politics with China characteristics.
Different from the Taoist tradition of advocating nature, the Confucian tradition advocates morality. Confucianism is fully aware of the importance of morality to society and life. First of all, the existence of virtue constitutes the direct basis for people's personality evaluation. If a person has no lofty morality, even if he is a prince, he will not be respected by everyone. On the other hand, with lofty morality, no matter how poor you are, you can get the praise of the whole people and be immortal. Secondly, morality is the code of conduct for people to put themselves in their shoes. Confucianism believes that the heart of benevolence and righteousness is the foundation of human life, and without it, the foundation of life will be lost. Therefore, they emphasize that we should proceed from benevolence and righteousness, do nothing wrong, and take ill-gotten gains. Even when we get along with others, we should have choices, benevolence and morality. Morality is the core content of cultural education. Confucianism attaches importance to education, but the education they talk about is mainly not knowledge education, but ethics education. The desire of Confucianism is to cultivate the ideal personality of people with ideals and benevolence through moral education. Finally, morality is also an important symbol of the rise and fall of a country. The rise and fall of a country is closely related to the moral status and level of the country from monarch to people. Benevolence survives and benevolence dies.
Confucianism has left us a tradition of advocating morality, but strictly speaking, moral consciousness and rule of law consciousness are not contradictory. A person with high moral cultivation and awareness, that is, a law-abiding person, can naturally be honest and trustworthy in economic activities. Therefore, we believe that China, as a civilized country, is developing a market economy and modernization, despite the ethics discussed by Confucianism.
In Confucianism's view, the realization of harmonious realm, the promotion of humanistic spirit, the liberation of suffering realm and the improvement of moral quality can not be separated from people's efforts and actions to devote themselves to reality and forge ahead. Therefore, most Confucian classics emphasize practice, and most Confucian figures are practitioners. Confucius said, "It is not enough to think that a scholar is also a scholar". As an idealistic and ambitious intellectual, he should have endless responsibilities. Otherwise, it is a shame to be a scholar and not worthy to be an intellectual to covet comfort and eat all day long without any intention. Moral cultivation or practice is to achieve its purpose of "inner holiness" through self-cultivation or self-transformation; Social and political practice is to achieve its goal of "being king outside" through meritorious service or social transformation, and "being holy inside" depends on "virtue", that is, paying attention to people's physical and mental cultivation in order to establish moral personality; A "foreign king" relies on "meritorious service", that is, he has made great achievements in society to support his political personality. Therefore, while emphasizing "self-cultivation", universities immediately talked about "governing the country and leveling the world", believing that these two aspects are very important and cannot be neglected. Therefore, Confucianism opposes empty talk, and puts emphasis on the importance of practice. Yi zhuan also said: people are required to persevere, make progress despite difficulties, work hard, rely on the strength of the subject and improve themselves and society through the practice of the subject.
Judging from the history of China, the pragmatic tendency and vigorous spirit of Confucian culture have played a positive role in promoting the formation of the patriotic tradition, the tradition of pursuing truth and the tradition of fighting evil forces of outstanding intellectuals and people with lofty ideals in China. Obviously, these fine traditions are not out of date today, and we still need to carry them forward. We have reason to get beneficial enlightenment and innovation from the practice of Confucianism.