China has always stood in the world with the image of "a country of etiquette", and has always shown itself as a gentle and responsible big country, which is closely related to the ritual and music system implemented since the Western Zhou Dynasty. It is precisely because of the ancient system of rites and music that China, like a child who grew up in a good atmosphere, was exposed to etiquette norms from an early age, and its rich background has long been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
1. What is the connotation of China's ritual and music system? As the name implies, the system of rites and music can be divided into two parts: rites and music. The ancient "ceremony" and the "ceremony" taught to us by modern society since childhood are not a concept, but they are similar to "obeying discipline and law", emphasizing human restraint and self-restraint.
The system of rites and music emphasizes "the division of grades", that is, to put it bluntly, people are divided into three classes according to their status. Later, the classification of "ceremony" became more and more detailed, including initiation ceremony, coronation ceremony, big search ceremony, country drinking ceremony, country shooting ceremony, courtship ceremony, engagement ceremony, sacrifice ceremony, wedding ceremony, funeral ceremony and so on. Among them, the initiation ceremony is to restrain people's labor in their "homeland"; Coronation ceremony is a ceremony held by ancient men in the year of coronation (adulthood). In the early days, the coronation ceremony of men was mostly used for nobles. Rites are used to show the majesty of a country's host. When we watch costume dramas, we often hear that foreign envoys want to see the son of heaven, which is out of courtesy. In a word, people of different classes observe different rituals.
The proposal of "Li" is the emphasis that the rulers of Zhou Dynasty should abide by their own hierarchical norms in order to cooperate with the policy of "sealing Wang Jian with the same surname".
And "music" is a system subordinate to "ceremony", and the main form of expression is music. The key is that people of different grades can enjoy different numbers of dance teams. To put it bluntly, it is the performance of so-called differential treatment. The Tiandi Dance Team consists of eight people (one is eight people, and eight people are sixty-four), and the governors are six people, and the governors and scholars are decreasing in turn. This system is also the origin of Confucius' famous saying that "eight people dance in court, who can bear it and who can't bear it".
These differential treatments are designed to let the rulers let the following people know that the son of heaven enjoys the highest treatment and supreme rights, and instill the idea that the son of heaven has an unshakable position. This reflects the auxiliary position of "music", so all systems are for social stability and better development, and the ultimate interest is the guarantee for the king to consolidate his power.
The core idea of the system of rites and music is that rulers ease social contradictions through music, which is an effective means to maintain slavery. In order to give full play to the functions of the system of rites and music, the rulers formulated a set of extremely complicated "red tape". In the Western Zhou Dynasty, five tones and eight tones were used as musical scales, namely, Gong, Shang, Jiao, Zheng and Yu. Eight tones are the classification of instrumental music, that is, music, sheng, drum, pipe, string, chime, bell, chime and so on. And it is stipulated that people with different identities play different music on different occasions and follow different etiquette. Even in the Zhou dynasty, there was a special institution to teach music, which was aimed at the nobles and powerful folk elites. It can be seen that the ruling class really took pains to consolidate its position.
Second, under what background did the ritual and music system come into being? As long as we pay close attention, we will find that all the systems were established according to the needs of the national conditions at that time. Then, under what kind of national conditions was the system of rites and music established? After the Western Zhou Dynasty replaced the Shang Dynasty, it continued the enfeoffment system of the Shang Dynasty. Established the patriarchal clan system with blood relationship as the link, and the system of distributing rights and land according to the size of credit. Moreover, under the system of enfeoffment, besides the emperor with the highest status, princes, Qing Dafu, scholars and civilians are also divided in turn, paying more attention to the constraints on princes, stipulating that princes should absolutely obey the emperor, pay taxes for the emperor, guard border crossings and appear before the court regularly.
In addition to the division of territory and status class, the Zhou Dynasty continued the slavery of Shang Dynasty and developed patriarchal clan system, which made the already complicated social relations more diversified. Therefore, in addition to maintaining the monarchy, the system of the Zhou Dynasty is nothing more than clan power, patriarchy and husband power. In the future, it will be proposed that "the monarch is the minister, the father is the son, and the husband is the wife". In addition to the rank of monarch and minister, there are also the ranks of father and son, husband and wife, and all aspects of society will arrange class division.
The ruler sets everyone in a fixed position of a fixed class. How to make them feel at ease and be honest in their own position is another problem that the ruler has to think about.
The system of rites and music came into being in this complicated environment. Just as a horse can become a mount after being tamed, people educated by etiquette will become kind and easy to accept the mobilization of the ruling class. Princes and nobles need a mold to set an exemplary standard and moral model with the help of etiquette system.
As a ruling tool, the system of rites and music can coordinate the feudal system and patriarchal clan system and consolidate the rule of the Zhou Dynasty, because the expressions of "rites" and "music" have played a positive role in stabilizing social order and people's self-restraint. Under the system of rites and music, the people lived and worked in peace and contentment, and the princes and nobles also performed their duties. The Zhou Dynasty also became a model of "etiquette" in previous dynasties. It is said that the system of rites and music is undoubtedly focused on controlling people's hearts, and more is to let them realize self-restraint in bondage.
Therefore, the system of rites and music came into being because there were many hierarchies in society at that time, in order to alleviate the social contradictions between the minority ruling class and the majority ruled class. The author believes that the system of rites and music is ostensibly designed to distinguish right from wrong between relatives, but its purpose and social background at that time determined that its main nature was to maintain the rule, because the norms of scholar-officials it determined were absolute obedience to the Zhou Dynasty, that is, "the monarch wants his ministers to die, and the ministers have to die", which has been discussed all the time. Yue Fei is undoubtedly a typical image.
Third, the development trend of the future ritual and music system. At the beginning, the system of rites and music developed along the road envisaged by the rulers, and it really played a great role in solving various social contradictions. The degree of social etiquette norms has also improved. In a short time, the system of rites and music really played a positive role. However, new problems will always arise, and the old system cannot be adjusted with the accumulation of quantitative changes. Moreover, with the passage of time, the social situation is constantly changing, and the ritual and music system is no longer applicable.
By the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, due to the strength of the governors and the bottom doctors, they were no longer satisfied with bowing to the emperor, and the social order began to be chaotic, resulting in a situation of "ritual collapse and bad music". On the surface, this is only a case of mutual crusade between feudal countries, but from the perspective of the ritual and music system, this is a disregard for the original social order.
According to Zuo Zhuan, the Emperor of Zhou sent messengers to Lu to beg for funeral expenses and horses and chariots. Lu's tribute was originally a duty, but it developed to the point where the emperor had to send envoys to beg. Therefore, the Zhou Emperor had no real power at that time. At first, the collapse of the ceremony was only manifested in a little song that the princes could only listen to. Later, the vassal power continued to grow, and the society was divided into groups. The whole society was in chaos, which didn't subside until the unification of Qin in 22 1 BC.
In this chaos, due to the collapse of the ritual and music system, the social order was chaotic. In this case, many people with lofty ideals chose to retire from the people, wait and see, let the country fend for itself, and even expect a country of rites and music to reappear after its demise. In this way, the governors abandoned the ritual and music system, the emperor abandoned the ritual and music system because he was unable to resist, and even the literati who had placed their hopes on it gave up the ritual and music system.
In this case, Confucius became a clean stream among them. Not only did he stubbornly refuse to give up, but he even spent his whole life restoring Rites of Rites. Although he hit a wall all his life, he left a lifetime reputation. He is so big that when he hears that a country is going to wage war, he will go over to dissuade him, so small that he insists on being polite to an ordinary person who has no position around him and is obsessed with music and etiquette. Confucius started from Shandong and went to Wei, Cao, Song, Zheng, Chen, Cai and Chu to publicize his thoughts of benevolent governance, but the social form doomed him to hit a wall everywhere in his life. In that era of smoke, paying attention to etiquette is tantamount to being slaughtered. Confucius' strategy of strengthening the country is not impossible, but in wartime, the return given by Confucius' strategy of governing the country is really too slow. No monarch is willing to accept his ideas, and even many scholars don't understand him. His life running around seems to have gained nothing in this war-torn era.
However, it was not until the smoke cleared that we were glad that there was such a person who insisted on carrying forward the ritual and music system in the war without the support of the monarch. Since then, the system of rites and music seems to be linked with Confucius again. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty listened to Dong Zhongshu's suggestion, followed the practice of ruling the people by courtesy in the Western Zhou Dynasty, and implemented "ousting a hundred schools of thought and respecting Confucianism alone". Since then, Confucianism has become China's unified thought for thousands of years, and the system of rites and music has been able to continue to multiply relying on Confucian culture.
Four. On the contemporary significance of the ritual and music system: the ritual and music system not only played a role in regulating social order and people's behavior in the Western Zhou Dynasty, but also in the later dynasties, laying a whole musical pattern in ancient music (Yi, poetry, calligraphy, ritual and music are all cultural classics of ritual and music based on this system).
The place where the three kings teach the prince must be polite and enjoyable. Music, so repair also; Ceremony, so repair outside also. Rites and music interweave in the middle and form in the outside, so achievements are also embarrassing, respectful and gentle. -The Book of Rites. Wang Wen Cross "
In modern times, the system of rites and music still occupies a very important position in people's minds, but for these cultures, we mostly take the essence and discard the dross. We advocate making friends with "courtesy" and treating others with trust; Abide by the law in life, perform their duties and devote themselves to the construction of a harmonious society. So for today's society, the system of rites and music is helpful to educate and guide people's behavior norms. Only by practicing both inside and outside can we cultivate a gentle and indifferent temper and cultivate sentiment. Therefore, rites and music focus on cultivating the heart, and rites and music focus on social order.