The moral crisis does not only exist in China, and a moral crisis will occur in any society in different historical periods.(AFP)
Zheng Yongnian column
Historically, in the world, the overall morality of human society will increase with economic development, personal income and living standards.The ancients of the ancients and Mengzi had perseverance and pipes, and they knew the etiquette.
Since the beginning of modern industrial civilization, human morality has undergone tremendous changes.The root cause of the previous morality lies in religion. In modern times, the country has also had the ability to intervene in the emergence and development of human ethics through economic and social development and institutional construction.A significant feature of industrial and commercial civilization is the rationality above the calculation (reasoning), because it can gain wealth to the greatest extent through rationality.At the same time, the accumulation of economic development and wealth provides material conditions for the popularization and improvement of the overall education level of society, the improvement of medical and health conditions, and the increase of per capita life.
Another characteristic of industrial and commercial civilization is that people are separated from the interdependence of individual labor under the agricultural civilization and moved to the mutually related collective labor of public spaces (markets, factories, communities, etc.).The expansion of public space has also produced requirements for public products, and at the same time, it has also developed public moral norms.In modern times, the government's role in all aspects of socioeconomic and economic aspects is becoming more and more important, mainly to provide enough public products.With the increase of public (collective) space and the supply of public products, the overall moral level of society has also increased; or, in general, the society has become more moral as a whole.
Generally speaking, the relationship between these economic growth and moral development also occurred in China, which has been in reform and opening up.With economic growth and social development, the overall immoral situation caused by continuous social and political movements (class struggle) and the shortage economy in the past has completely changed.Most people have lived a decent life or a well -off life. The large -scale starvation, illness, death, and exhaustion have been greatly reduced, and even disappeared.
Although some people miss the moral standards of Chinese society before reform and opening up, it should be said that the morality still belongs to the primitive and simple morality, it is a reflection of agricultural civilization, and even the morality under the collective political pressure formed by special political conditions.With the arrival of industrial and commercial civilization and the openness and diversification of the political environment, the morality and political morality of agricultural society have become unsustainable, and the great changes in the moral field are inevitable.
However, with the improvement of the overall moral environment of society, individual ethics not only did not improve, but instead had huge problems, and it was in the process of sinking or even disintegration.In other words, the environment of the overall society has not been able to be transformed into an individual -level moral improvement.The way of rationality, openness, progress, tolerance, civilization, peace, simplicity, etc. in many developed society have not appeared.Many people become unscrupulous for their own benefit.
Some scholars believe that today's people are exquisite self -benefitists, but in fact, in many occasions, people are not exquisite, but naked.It can be damaged. In order to achieve the goal, you can do whatever means, and the goal proof means correctly.In the political field, people have always called Makiavilism.However, Makiavilism refers to the monarchy to achieve a large goal (such as the unity of the country), and can hesitate to hesitate.Makiavilism is obviously applicable to today's individual.After using this means, the result is that the harm is not good: they can't do it, and they don't let people do it; they are hopeless, and they must prevent others from success.The concept of morality has become so cheap, so that some people think that morality is not related to the development of human society.
Why does this morality occur?It can be discussed at least from the following aspects.
Traditional social moral disintegration process
The (non -) moral behavior of an individual behavior is the product of the past environment (including culture, systems, religion, education, etc.).Therefore, in the period of change, the dislike of French sociologist Emile Durkheim will be produced, that is, the old moral norms have lost its effect, and when the new moral norms have not been established, individuals are individuals.The behavior is at a loss.The disintegration of traditional social groups, changes in educational content and methods, the flow of people in different regions, and commercialization will have a huge impact on individual behavior.For some people, I don't know how to do; for some other people, I want to do whatever.
Industrial civilization means urbanization.In the early days of urbanization, although many people had moved from the countryside to the city, from the perspective of their behavioral methods and moral behaviors, they were far from being residents of urban residents; in all, they were not civilized.Civilization has always been associated with urbanization.For a long time, people will appear as the city's crickets, referring to the vulgarity, hypocrisy and interest -oriented behavior of citizens.
But the city should not be considered derogatory because it means that rational calculation is a form of civilization.The behavior of the city's group can be expected.However, the behavior of some people in the new society group (including new immigrants from the countryside) is unpredictable.The moral norms of rural residents are based on the family and rural communities (acquaintance society). After the city, facing a new environment, it has produced the dishonesty of Tuergan.In terms of behavior, morality means predictability.To a large extent, the loss of individual behavior and morality are contrary.That is to say, the ethics of individuals takes time.
Competitive pressure is the characteristics of all industrial and commercial society, and also the motivation for the progress of industrial and commercial society.Once an individual is out of the traditional community and puts it into industrial and commercial society, money often becomes the most important (if not the only) standard for measuring success.For individuals, competition comes from comparison, that is, compared with their own past, compared with people of the same generation.In the new environment, compare with the new group.Comparison is absolutely backward or relatively backward.For some people, this is easy to have unwilling emotions.This unwilling emotions can easily lead to non -moral behaviors, that is, changing their current situation through non -moral behavior.
These (non -) moral phenomena above will occur more or less in various transformation society.For contemporary China, individual moral phenomena are also affected by two very special factors, that is, the disillusionment and only children's policy of secular morality based on politics.
In the West, the main root of individual ethics lies in religion.It can be said to be a mixture of religious and secular culture.Chinese culture does not have national religion like Western and belongs to secular culture.However, this is not to say that there is no religion at the individual level.At the individual level, China is a multi -deity, including the worship of the ancestors and various gods.Even secular culture has a quasi -religious nature.As the main way of morality, its origin is actually the comprehensive norm of daily ethics.
Although the (Han Dynasty) Confucius and Mencius was rising into an official ideology, once it was identified as an official ideology, the Confucian Mencius Tao has more religious nature, that is, national education.This is because although the Confucian and Mencius is not similar to Western beyond God, because the Confucianism and Mencius is highly ritual, it has a strong role in regulating the rulers and ordinary people.
However, in the past 100 years, political ideology has become more and more sources of individual morality.From the May 4th Movement to the Cultural Revolution Movement, Confucius and Mencius are no longer listed in the official ideology.Although the Confucian Mencius has returned since the reform and opening up, it is far from the mainstream and it is just some supplements.Despite official consciousnessState still has its political effectiveness, but lacks a substantial impact on individual morality.
Under such circumstances, the official system is mainly punishment and punish the behavior that is regarded as immoral.Any kind of political ideology can indeed be applied to society from top to bottom, but such an ideology is difficult to consciously socialized, and it has become a criterion for people's conscious behavior (that is, moral behavior).
China's new generation of moral crisis
The generation of generations of the Cultural Revolution has been full of passion and expectations for political ideology.However, after experiencing and witnessing the devastating impact of this political movement on Chinese society, this generation began to be disillusioned by the past ideals.The old generation of the old generation also caused the moral nihilism of their children.No matter which society, parents are the most original and important sources of the next generation of morality.
The policy of only children has worsened the moral environment.Individuals do not matter morality. Morality is a group behavior and a product of the group.The only child means individual.Although the only children include parents and grandparents, this is an asymmetric group.In this group, the spirit of formation is self -centered, even extreme selfishness, and the spirit of the brothers and sisters possessed in the family without a big family makes the spirit.When the self -centered people gather together, because of the lack of this spirit, they still cannot constitute a community; without strong constraints of public morality, it is difficult for individual morality to improve.
The moral crisis does not only exist in China, and a moral crisis will occur in any society in different historical periods.Therefore, the moral crisis will appear regardless of whether it likes or not. The question is how to cope with the crisis and improve the moral environment and increase the level of social individuals and overall morality.
In the West, individual morality basically belongs to the field of religion, or religion is the subject of morality.After the European Renaissance, the authority that dominated society and individual behavior shifted from religious power to secular power.But this transformation does not mean that religion disappears or does not important, and the guidelines for dominating most individual behaviors are still mainly religious.
The development of industry and commerce since modern times has contributed to the rapid and secularization of Western society, and secularization has a profound (negative) impact on religious morality.However, industrial and commercial civilization also provides another source of social individuals and overall morals.At the secular level, moral issues basically refer to the content of law, politics and social systems in the West.Western philosophers such as Adam Smith have fully discussed this, and they have transformed moral concerns from religious transformation to worldly.With them, the legal, political, and social system has become the foundation foundation of secular morality.Therefore, when primitive capitalism has a huge impact on Western traditional morality, these systems in these areas have saved the morality of Western society.
In Marx's view, capitalism is the source of moral sin. This is a class society and a class's struggle against another. This struggle makes it impossible for a society to generate the morality that all social classes are acceptable.Therefore, there is only class morality in Marx, without universal morality.Marx is even more predicted that only by eliminating capitalism can social ethics occur, whether it is an individual or overall level.
However, Western society has not developed in accordance with Marx's forecasting direction.The construction of the political and social system not only saves the capitalism itself, but also improves the moral level of the West.In 1848, Marx issued a Declaration of the Communist Party to predict the demise of capitalism.For the next decades, the situation in Britain did have continued to deteriorate.But when the first volume of Marx Capital theory in 1867 was published, Britain expanded the foundation of democracy through reform.In 1885 (two years after Marx's death), when the second volume of capital theory was published, Germany introduced the world's first social security system.These development does not show that the theory is correct or wrong, but that humans can always find the way to save and improve morality.After Marx, the phenomenon he predicted was repeated, but society was always looking for self -help.
For China, on the one hand, people cannot ignore the status quo of individual moral decline, because it is precisely that morality constitutes the foundation for the survival of society.Without moral norms in a society, this society will face the fate of disintegration.On the other hand, people cannot be trapped in a state of pessimism, but should actively transform to find resources and mechanisms for moral reconstruction.If human nature is unchanged, it is just like the past, you must find the foundation of moral religion and secular.
If the ruling party has no religious space, it should be allowed and encouraged the state's ideology to give full religious space.At the same time, it is also necessary to accelerate the construction of the rule of law, political and social systems, and provide secular resources for individual and overall morality for social individuals and overall morals, so as to improve a chance to make morality, so that they or she can come out of extreme selfish behavior.
In a word, although the subject of individual ethics is individual and individual is subjective, the generation, operation and development of individual morality requires an overall society and institutional environment.With the changes in the overall society and the institutional environment, individual morality changes. To reshape morality, it is necessary to reshape the overall social and institutional environment.
(The author is a professor at the East Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore)
The article only represents personal point of view
