The winter solstice is the day of family reunion for Chinese people, and tomorrow’s Christmas Eve is the day of family reunion for Westerners. From ancient times to the present, in the East and the West, all attach importance to the family, although broken families and unfortunate families are often deplored, but the depression contains the value of the family. The family is the unit of society.
A family is not a house, but a union formed by parents and children. When I fled from the fallen areas to the rear of the country during the late war, the refugees were all displaced and “lost”, but their families were still together with their young and old. At that time, there were families along the way who were willing to take in refugees for a temporary stay. There was a couplet: “Every year is a sad year; everywhere there is no home, everywhere there is a home.” The country was broken, but there were still homes, and there were homes everywhere.
Mencius. Li Lou said, “The foundation of the world is in the state, the foundation of the state is in the home, and the foundation of the home is in the body.” The people are the foundation, the family is the foundation, and only when there is a family can there be a nation. Of course, only when there is a “body” can there be a family. Therefore, “The University of China” puts forward the growth order and logic of “cultivating one’s own body, preparing one’s family, ruling the country, and leveling the world.
Chinese absolutism lasted for more than 2,000 years. Although hereditary and enjoying absolute power, two traditions kept the emperor in check: respect for heaven and respect for ancestors.
Since the Zhou dynasty in the 1100s B.C., there have been ceremonies to honor heaven at the winter solstice and earth at the summer solstice. After the Qin Dynasty, the Western Han Dynasty was founded by Dong Zhongshu, who proposed “honoring the ruler” to consolidate the dynasty’s rule, although he advocated “suppressing the people and honoring the ruler”, he also proposed “suppressing the ruler and honoring the sky”. “In other words, above the absolute power of the monarch, there was also the “heaven” monitoring the “king”. Therefore, the emperor was called “Son of Heaven” and had to make regular sacrifices to Heaven. If a natural disaster occurred, it was regarded as “Heaven’s wrath” and the emperor often had to issue an “edict of sin” to improve governance.
The respect for heaven during the imperial era continued until the end of the Qing Dynasty, and the former site of the Temple of Heaven still exists in Beijing.
The respect for heaven was actually based on the need to treat the people well. Sun Simiao, the god of medicine in the Tang Dynasty, said, “Those who are good at speaking of heaven must be tested on people; those who are good at speaking of people must be based on heaven.” The meaning is: those who are good at speaking of heaven must be fulfilled in people, and those who are good at speaking of people must be in the spirit of heaven.
Another Chinese tradition is to honor the ancestors. The worship of heaven is the business of the emperor, but the worship of ancestors is the business of ordinary people. Since the patriarchal system of the Zhou Dynasty, “filial piety” has been an important part of the patriarchal system, and “ruling the world by filial piety” was the basic idea of the ancient emperors in ruling the country.
In the case of loyalty and filial piety is difficult to be two, is filial piety is greater than loyalty. The Six Virtues from the bamboo sketch from the tomb of Guo Dian Chu in the Warring States says: “For the father, one should reject the ruler, but not for the ruler, one should reject the father.” It is possible to reject the monarch for the sake of the father, but not to reject the father for the sake of the monarch. Confucius believed that when a father’s son breaks the law of the state, the son must be hidden for the father and the father for the son. It cannot be reported.
Wu Zixu of Chu was killed by King Ping of Chu because his father and brother were slandered. He fled to Wu, was reused, and later led the Wu army to invade the capital of Chu, and to avenge his father and brother, he dug up the grave of King Ping of Chu and whipped his body for 300. This story of revenge was praised by the historical books of the pre-Qin Dynasty, such as Zuo Zhuan and Guo Yu, and Sima Qian of the Historical Records called him a “martyr husband”. With this kind of public spirit of filial piety over loyalty, in a society of judicial injustice, it can also restrain the evil government to a certain extent.
After the atheistic dictatorship swept through the Chinese land, the tradition of respecting heaven and ancestors no longer existed. Under the rule of man’s determination and statism, China is constantly fighting against the sky and the earth, destroying water and soil to achieve the “high gorge and flat lake”, including the construction of the Three Gorges Project. In the last decade or so, earthquakes have been occurring, and I wonder if they are related to the “battle with heaven” to change the landscape.
The tradition of respecting relatives and ancestors, which is extended by the concept of family, has been eliminated by the ruling ideology of “no country, no family” and “no love for father, no love for mother, only love for country”. If we look at the 1 billion to 2 billion people who travel to the Spring Festival every year, we can see that “there is a country, but no family” is a common phenomenon.
What does the disappearance of the two traditions of respect for heaven and ancestors mean? It means that the absolute power has no minimum checks and balances. Without the fear of the sky, there is no lawlessness; without respect for parents and ancestors, there is only a naked cult of power in society, even if parents were killed in the past, even if you want to report your parents for power, under the guidance of the concept that the party is bigger than the state and the state is bigger than the family, you can do anything. To the sky, respect for the ancestors is the Chinese canon and ancestors, abandoned is the number of forgotten ancestors.
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