Confucianism has a broad and profound social foundation in Shandong, which has influenced the character of Shandong people from generation to generation. For example, Shandong people are simple and kind, treat people kindly, work hard, take the overall situation into account and pay attention to practical work. But on the other hand, the character of Shandong people also contains the characteristics of self-restraint, conformity and paranoia. The so-called "sage" refers to Confucius. In fact, Confucius is not the only ancient sage in Qilu area. The three emperors and five emperors in ancient times were all people in the name of "saints". They are closely related to Qilu and Mount Tai. As mentioned above, needless to say. Only Confucius, who was called a "saint" in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, was also the grandson of Lu Ban, a soldier saint, and Bian Que, a medical saint, as well as Yan Yuan, Confucius and second-class saints.
Under the "saints", there are a lot of Tessa. Confucius disciples have seventy-two sages. After Qi Yan, there were hundreds of scholars in Xia Ji during the Warring States Period. It is these sages who have recreated the glory of Qilu culture. In the Han Dynasty, Qilu was still full of talents. After Wei and Jin Dynasties, culture moved southward with people, and Qilu gradually lost its advanced position. As can be seen from the above, it goes without saying that it doesn't seem to be the most important. Confucius is the person who can best explain the prominent position of Qilu culture in the cultural history of China.
It is recognized by academic circles that the core and pillar of China traditional culture, no matter how complicated its content, are Confucian culture and Taoist culture, and Confucius is the founder of Confucian school. Although Confucian culture has been repeatedly transformed by Mencius, Xun, Han Confucianism, especially Dong Zhongshu, it has been regarded as exclusive Confucianism by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and it is no longer the original Confucius Confucianism. Confucianism was unified and became the fusion of Qilu culture and Qilu culture. However, the achievements created by Confucius will never be erased. Although the phrase "China is like a long night without Zhong Ni" is somewhat exaggerated, it is still appropriate to say that Confucius is a master of connecting the preceding with the future.
The so-called link between the past and the future is not a simple intermediary work, but an extremely grand pioneering project. Under what historical background and cultural environment did Confucius establish his Confucianism? This is a big topic, which is difficult to expand here and can only be roughly summarized. How to evaluate Confucius, a magnificent cultural construction project, we get some useful enlightenment from Lenin's evaluation of Marx's pioneering communist ethics system. Lenin believed that Marx's scientific communism theory was based on "absorbing and transforming all valuable things in the development of human ideology and culture for more than two thousand years". He said: "Marx studied the law of the development of human society." "Everything created by human society has been critically examined, and the past has not been ignored at all. He re-examined, criticized and tested everything that human thought has achieved. " Although Confucius and Marx have different times and different classes, they can't be mentioned in the same breath, but they have something in common in absorbing valuable things created by human beings before their time, standing at the height of the times, examining, criticizing and studying them one by one with the eyes of the times, and combining with the movement of social reality to innovate.
Confucius admired the three generations, followed the example of the former king, and climbed up to Tang Yu, especially the Western Zhou Dynasty. There was a saying, "Zhou Jian was in the second generation, and he was depressed!" I started from Zhou (The Analects of Confucius and Eight Shu). Because the Zhou Dynasty critically inherited and developed the cultures of the previous two generations through the rites and music of the Duke of Zhou, it was the most advanced culture at that time. However, Confucius' pioneering project is not only imitating the culture of Zhou rites, but also criticizing, summarizing and inheriting the culture of Yin Xia and even the world of Tang Yu. He was particularly interested in Dongyi culture, which was in a leading position in prehistoric times and could represent the authentic traditions of China in ancient and modern times. I once asked Xunzi about the ceremony. "My son wants to live in September 1st. Or,' What if it's ugly?' Confucius said,' Where does a gentleman live? Why is it ugly? "(The Analects of Zi Han) He also said," If you can't do it, you can float on the sea with a fork "(The Analects of Gongye Chang). The eastern coast or nearby islands were the areas where the Yi people still existed at that time. He is full of praise for Shao. "The Analects of Confucius Bashu" said: "Confucius said Shao:' The best is good, but it is also good." Wu; It's beautiful. It's not perfect. "The Analects of Confucius also said:' Qi Wen Shao, I don't know the taste of meat in March, saying:' I don't want to be happy. Confucius believes that both the artistic form (beauty) and the ideological content (goodness) have achieved the perfection of beauty and goodness. Wu is perfect in form and imperfect in ideological content. Why? According to legend, Shao was written by Dashun and Wu enjoyed it. Dashun is from Dongyi. That is to say, in music, Confucius worships Dongyi more than the Western Zhou Dynasty. Why does he think that compared with Wu, Shao has reached a perfect level in artistic form, while Wu is not as perfect as Shao in ideological content? This is probably because the spirit of benevolence embodied by Shao is higher than that of Wu, and the spirit of Zhou ritual culture is higher than that of Wu. Confucius' Confucian ideological system takes benevolence as its ideological content and propriety as its normative form, with "benevolence" as its core. "Benevolence" is the nature of Dongyi people and the spiritual essence of Dongyi culture. "Shuo Wen Jie Zi Yang Bu" says: "Easy customs and benevolence, ... the country where gentlemen are immortal." Hanshu. Geography "said; Aliens in the East are contrary in nature and different from the three parties, so Confucius is afraid of Taoism. Standing in the sea, I want to live in Jiuyi. "
Confucius' most profound and valuable creation is that he introduced benevolence into rituals and combined the most essential "benevolence" in the cultural spirit of Dongyi people with the most basic rituals in the three generations of culture, especially in the Zhou Dynasty. He established an ideological system of benevolence with benevolence as the core content and propriety as the normative form. What is "benevolence"? "Benevolent people also" is the most basic generalization. Confucius has many explanations for benevolence, but all of them are about the truth of being a man. The core one is called "the benevolent loves others". "Love" is the fundamental principle of being a man and the most effective and perfect way to deal with interpersonal relationships. Therefore, Kang Youwei said, "A benevolent person is extremely benevolent." Mr. Guo Moruo said: "The so-called benevolence" is "the discovery of man." It is true that in slave society, slave owners do not treat slaves as human beings. Only when the slaves are liberated will this idea of "benevolence" appear. Confucius' "benevolence" adapted to the trend of slave liberation.
However, there are still some commentators who describe Confucius's "people" or "people" as the aristocratic class of slave owners. We think this has misinterpreted Confucius' original intention. In fact, the "human" mentioned by Confucius refers to people in a general sense. "It appears as a concept of" class "that is different from other things." "Taking' man' as the basic unit of social composition and the starting point of dealing with interpersonal relationships" not only makes his theory necessarily contain the equality consciousness of individual life, but also gains eternal significance to mankind. Confucius said, "No one can match what heaven has produced and what the earth has nurtured." Under the social and cultural background at that time, it was indeed a loud voice, and its significance was not just occupied by an era. "What is particularly commendable is that in Confucius' affinity thought, there are no national boundaries or national boundaries, so there should be people everywhere, which has nothing in common with narrow nationalism and narrow nationalism of later generations. "
Another great revolutionary creation of Confucius is that he founded a private school and put forward the idea of "teaching without discrimination". "No education for all" has established the principle of equality for everyone to enjoy the right to education, and the establishment of private schools has pioneered the education for everyone. Isn't this a revolutionary creation for the past "learning politics"? Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that he is "the first person to popularize academic knowledge in China".
Confucius advocated the ceremony of Zhou, but he never copied it completely or mechanically. But based on its basic principles and ideas for reform and development, with many major breakthroughs. If he introduced benevolence into the ceremony, he demanded that the ceremony must conform to the spirit of benevolence, that is, keeping the ceremony does not violate benevolence, so he said, "If people are unkind, what is the ceremony?" ("The Analects of Confucius Eight Shu")
Confucianism, founded by Confucius, has not only become the cultural root of the Chinese nation, but also influenced the unique mode of the development of traditional culture in China. Moreover, it has surpassed its native region and nation, walked out of the national border, spread to East Asia, formed the Confucian cultural circle in the East, and spread to the West in modern times, arousing "the wise men living there, and will also appeal to the East to find the wisdom of Confucius in the trend of new humanism."
Confucius and Confucianism can be regarded as orthodox thoughts by the ruling class, mainly because Confucius' thoughts meet the needs of the ruling class to rule the people. First, relying on the wisdom of Confucius' superman, the spirit of "pursuing the past", "never tire of learning", "forget food when you are angry, forget your worries when you are happy, and don't know the coming of the old times"; Secondly, he criticized and inherited the ancient cultural tradition with wisdom and agility, and completed the development, reform and innovation of a major change in cultural concepts, which made the ancient geisha traditional culture gain new life and leap-forward development in the new historical period. So, Confucius and Confucianism. As the core of China's traditional culture, it is a Confucian school, which has been circulating for more than two thousand years. It has been criticized and rejected by class, nation, ideological and cultural struggle and great criticism, and will play its due role as a factor that cannot be ignored in the construction of modern new culture today and in the future. In the cultural history of China, Confucius is really a figure who combines the achievements of previous generations and represents future generations. His theory became one of the cores of China's traditional ideology and culture, mainly because he provided the rulers with the skills to restrain people and was praised by the rulers.