China's public opinion world is one of the most powerful areas of power erosion. The official has a large and complex institution to control people's speech and ideas, and sometimes even create "public opinion" on a large scale online.This can only be counterproductive.
Recently, the high -level corruption cases exposed by China have increased, especially the army, the Supreme Command, may be once again a pot; the foreign minister of the face of the country has not been spared.This makes people feel very disturbing, and it seems that the anger, helplessness, and helplessness of anti -corruption heroes in history returned.People have to worry about growing up in the tide of reform and opening up, and those who have not been influenced by Mao Zedong's spiritual spirit, China's future leadership, are they all virtue enough?
There are two explanations of the surge in the large case: the intensity of anti -corruption has been strengthened, or corruption has become more and more intense.Regardless of whether it is right or wrong, both indicate that corruption still exists in large quantities. Large -scale and height of anti -corruption and institutional construction of more than 10 years seem to have little effect. It is likely that the methods and directions are wrong.Each corruption case involves the loss of moral self -discipline of the parties, so that people have to turn the eyes of exploration to the moral situation of the entire society.
Moral Black Hole
Large -scale corruption reflects the fundamental lack of morality of the parties.Deng Xiaoping once hoped to build a good system, so that bad people could not do bad things.But if corruption becomes a popular culture, a good system will become a bad system. This is unexpected by Deng Xiaoping, because in his age, corruption has far from reaching the present level.The law and system rely on people to implement it. If people are rotten, the system will follow.For example, the purpose of beheading and showing the public in ancient times was to punish those who were unforgivable to abstain from society, positive atmosphere, and police.However, even if even the sister -in -law must bribe, otherwise he will cut two or three axes in the work of one ax.Therefore, the moral foundation of society is more important than the law and the system, because it is directly related to human behavior.
Chinese officials are the best among the contemporary people.Many of their reasons for their corrupt officials must be found in their environment, including small official environment and social environment.The pressure of the officials of officials and pollution is often difficult to resist, and officials are constantly corroded by the society.This corrosion force is everywhere, pervasive, and everything is used, causing moral black holes in officialdom and society.The black hole of the universe cannot escape the light; similarly, few officials can escape the moral black holes.
Capitalism Trap
Since the reform and opening up, China's wealth has been dramatic and moral landslides have been recognized.During the Mao Zedong era, there were noble values such as ideals, faith, public morality, helping others, and willingness to be willing to contribute. All the temptations of capital and market economy could not be defeated. Many officials gradually became no ideal, lack of faith, and moral loss.Following it is domineering and privileges, corruption, power, money, and color transactions, falsification, greedy fraud, harming others, and even injury to the heavens and harm.
Many scholars, such as American psychologist Steven Pinker, found that the violence in human society in the past century and the number of people who died of violence have fallen sharply, and people have become civilized and rational.The peaceful age lasted longer.They attribute it to the capitalist revolution that occurred on the basis of enlightenment.In other words, capitalism not only brings unprecedented wealth and technology, but also to sublimate morals.This is very different from the descriptions of Marx and Dickens, as well as our feelings.These are not because people's moral level has improved, but because the market has provided them with extensive opportunities for cooperation; from the benefits of market exchange, the benefits of using violence are higher than the use of violence.On the contrary, capitalism causes the disintegration of traditional organic society and the community foundation of morality; people have to establish a new ethical order on the basis of individuals as a unit.The turbulence of the eternal and accelerated capitalism makes this process full of difficulties and setbacks.
In a society that lacks at least integrity and moral bottom line, everyone has no sense of security.Everyone thinks that the only thing that is reliable is money, so the worship of gold is prevalent.As Marx said, capital makes all affection, friendship, sacred beliefs, and long traditions turn into naked money relationships; people can do everything for money, and even willing to risk the broken bearing.Deep insecure, hard work and internal rolls in fierce competition, so that the ancient training of "Cangxian is real and knows rituals, clothing, food and disgrace" is no longer the truth.Chinese traditional moral authority, those gentlemen who are deeply educated by the Confucian and Mencius, who are familiar with the four books and five classics, those readers who are determined to be responsible for the world and become social conscience, can not stand the impact of the market; ethics and morality have become luxury goods, and people no longer have the bottom line.Essence
The next step in the capital of capital is even more terrible.From the perspective of the trend of developed capitalist countries, China is likely to lose the stage of the middle -class revolution: the new technological revolution has caused a large number of middle -class occupations to disappear, wealth is highly concentrated, and olive social transformation into a pyramid type.Facing the prospects of flowing downward, the gold -plated era accumulated in capital seems to be reproduced again.The era of social turmoil is coming: In recent years, the incidents of seizing shops in several cities on both sides of the United States reflected that under extreme poverty, ethics allowed the demand for survival and retaliated with social unfairness.
Ethics governing the country in China can be described as long.The purpose of Confucianism is to establish an ethical society. From the emperor to Li Min, there is a set of moral norms of behavior, such as the three outlines and five constants, the readers are conscience of the world, the death, the war of martial arts, and so on.If you are self -denial, as long as everyone complies with the norm, the world will be peaceful and social harmony.Emperors, ministers, scholars, teachers, masters, etc. should all be human.The mainland government continued this tradition after taking power. Party members and cadres must take the lead in everything.
During the Mao Zedong era, the example of the role model was fully crushed to govern the country according to law.Lei Feng, Paul Kechajin, Jiao Yulu, Shi Chuanxiang, Xing Yanzi, Kong Fansen, Guo Mingyi, etc. There are different standards in different eras, but the logic of governing the country and role models remains unchanged.However, since ancient times, corruption has been the gangrene of China's officialdom.The market economy brings a combination of power and money, making corruption invincible and intensified.
Government without ethics
The reasons for the reason, the launch of these hero models are in power; they mistakenly regard the commanding heights of power as a moral height.Not to mention that in order to shape the typical example, sometimes it has to be faked, and the lack of power to supervise, making it difficult for their own behavior to meet the moral norms they advocated, and even being revealed to be corrupt officials, the source of corruption and the originator of the corruption.Corrupt officials stated that it was a fatal blow to social morality, and it was greatly ironic to "model models". It issued a pass to the unhealthy style and immoral behavior in the society, and also threatened the legitimacy of the regime.
Fundamentally, the government is not suitable for moral benchmarks.In a democratic country, politicians are considered to be a good career, and the government is the target of scolding.Power cannot produce moral authority because it is always stirred with corruption."Government has no morality" should be a law -not that government officials are not moral, but that power and morality are missed, and they cannot expect them to complement each other.Kennedy, Nixon, Clinton and Trump were elected presidents of the United States because of their operation.You cannot follow the old path of "using power to limit power" -for example, the anti -corruption route in the past 10 years, because this is a strange circle of strengthening power.Moral authority should be cultivated in the soil of the people, and the government can only do auxiliary work such as certification and commendation.
Cultivate moral soil
Regardless of whether the officialdom and society are broken, let's take a look at the soil conditions of China's moral growth today.Many people make todayCompared with the American society in the 1960s in the 1960s: With the rapid development of the economy, a large number of population poured into cities, and the social, economic and individual uncertainties in the transition period, combined with the social psychology of anxiety, will inevitably lead to many manySocial conflicts.The biggest difference between China and the United States is that the spires of the American church are densely scattered, and China has always lacked a metaphysical spiritual space and comfort, making the universal value ethics distorted by commercialization, and it cannot get the proper correction.
persuading good is the commonality of all religions, and for believers, morality itself is a reward of moral behavior, and does not require praise and publicity of others.People are doing it, and it is enough to watch.However, officials are always worried about organized activities of the people, fearing that they threaten the security of the regime, and do not know enough about religion's moral construction and social stability.As a result, we all tried to restrict, target, and infiltrate, so that China's religion had to deal with the regime and become politicized.This moral soil is degenerating.
During the imperial system, the government's power was only to the county level. The vast number of rural society below the county relied on autonomy, relying on ethics, township regulations, tutor training, and the continuous self -education of society to maintain order.Civil society and other forms of folk autonomy, including family organizations in Chinese history, religious clubs, the authority of elders, fellow citizens, and commercial agencies.These are also the actual foundation of Confucianism.Strict control, penetration, and targeting have made today's social organizations generally tend to be semi -administrative and become a vassal of regime.The erosion of power has led them to lack independent space and free will, so that they cannot become a fertile soil for moral growth.In a increasingly diverse society, the lack of full expression and democratic negotiation has made fairness and justice from being uncomfortable; the government that has everything is overwhelmed and blamed.This is precisely the source of unstable.
Public opinion is another soil that cultivates morality.The leaders of public opinion have been called the "Uncle" since ancient times.However, China's public opinion community is one of the most powerful areas of power erosion. The official has a large and complex institution to control people's speeches and ideas, and sometimes even large -scale "public opinion" on the Internet.This can only be counterproductive.In the West, the government is always suspected of lying; in some places in China, no matter what the government says, the people understand it from the opposite side. As a result, the officials and the people are opposed to the people and the society lacks at the minimum integrity.The cage of the system may not be able to close power. It must be locked in the cage of public opinion, because this cage is much finer than the system, and it is much more open and transparent.
In the case of corruption, it is difficult to return, and even popular as a culture, opening up a piece of pure land for moral growth is the root cause.If you grasp it well, the social credit system is also an innovation.Religious policies, attitudes towards civic society, public opinion management, and official models of the British model must be reviewed from the perspective of education.The system always has empty drilling, while morality has no gap.To make Dexing become your own reward, not a tool for speculating rigs.
The author is a senior researcher at the East Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore
