Since ancient times, the Chinese nation has been known for its emphasis on "ceremony". In ancient times, many foreign friends who came to China saw that people here generally accepted the enlightenment and edification of etiquette, and regarded etiquette as a virtue of their words and deeds, so that people were modest and gentle, and they had a harmonious relationship with each other, and they all expressed their heartfelt sighs and called China "the state of etiquette"!
/kloc-several great thinkers in Europe in the 0 th and 8 th centuries, such as Tambour in Britain, Voltaire in France, Leibniz in Germany, Wolff, etc., all highly praised Confucius' theory with etiquette as the main content. Temple thinks that Confucius' theory is a kind of ethics, involving political morality, economic morality, public morality and private morality. He said: "The government has no virtue, and ordinary people cannot live and work in peace and contentment; The people have no virtue, and the government cannot be stable and normal. " Voltaire thought that what Confucius preached in The Book of Rites was noble morality, which was very practical. He asked Europeans to praise, humiliate and imitate China culture. Because of his clear academic orientation, he was nicknamed "Confucius in Europe" by his compatriots.
Confucius devoted his life to the system of rites and music, and paid attention to social stability and people's living and working in peace and contentment. Because of this, he wants to push everyone onto the road of civilization through ceremonies and music. His efforts were highly praised by many foreign colleagues in Europe more than two thousand years later, which was the result of his ideological charm. From this, we can also believe that when they gave China the reputation of "State of Etiquette", it was by no means a compliment, but an affirmation of China's ancient high spiritual civilization.
In the history of our country, etiquette norms appeared very early, and etiquette existed in Shang Dynasty. Of course, the etiquette at that time was still relatively rough and simple. Nevertheless, as the germination of an important social and cultural phenomenon, there are several characteristics worthy of future generations' consideration:
First, the etiquette of Shang Yin did not appear out of thin air, but it appeared on the basis of rich material conditions. The preface to the Book of Changes says, "Animals are polite." "Livestock" here means "storage". Rich in materials, with a certain amount of storage, it is possible to pay attention to etiquette. Later, Guan Zi said: "The granary knows etiquette, and food and clothing know honor and disgrace." ("Guanzi") is in the same strain ideologically. This is also quite similar to the view that the economic base of Marxism precedes the ideological superstructure.
Second, the earliest etiquette was not formulated by an emperor or saint, but by the common people collectively. It is often associated with folk customs and is a code of conduct based on folk customs. Liu Zeng, a famous expert in literature and history who was active in the 1920s and 1930s, said: "The ancient ceremony is out of custom. Ritual changes can test the similarities and differences of folk customs. " Scholar Li Anzhai has a similar view. He said: "According to sociological research, all folk customs originated from people's efforts to cope with living conditions. A certain coping style is effective, that is, it is adopted naturally and unconsciously by everyone and becomes a popular phenomenon, that is, folklore. When folk customs are recognized by the masses and considered to be related to the well-being of all people, they become folk tools. It was not until the people's musical instruments were added with a specific structure and framework that they became a system. " (Sociological research on the Book of Rites) This clarifies the relationship between vulgarity and ceremony, and how vulgarity enters the ceremony.
Third, the earliest etiquette norms were not standardized on the level of interpersonal communication, but on the relationship between man and god. In other words, this is the "living conditions" in "people try to cope with living conditions", which originated from folk customs. At that time, it was not a specific condition in people's daily life, but a condition for people to believe in life in the spiritual field. Therefore, the Book of Rites says: "Yin people respect God, lead the civil god, ghost first before ceremony, punish first before reward, respect but not kiss." This is very helpful to confirm the existence of etiquette culture in Shang and Yin Dynasties.
The "ghost" and "ritual" in the above sentence refer to two different ways to attract people at that time: "ghost" is a way to intimidate people with the threat of God, and "ritual" is a more civilized way to communicate with God; The result of "courtesy before ghosts" is the same as "punishment before reward". You only fear God but don't feel close. In a word, this is the earliest ceremony in the history of our country, and it is the norm of offering sacrifices to the gods, which has not yet been linked with the ethics in the sociological category.
In the Zhou Dynasty, "Zhou people respected rites and stayed away from ghosts and gods." (Book of Rites) It turns out that Zhou people are more realistic than their ancestors, the Shang and Yin people, and they put the ceremony into the practical scope (Commercial Affairs). Of course, they are not advanced enough to deny the existence of ghosts and gods, but at the same time they keep their distance from them. So this "ritual" has become a gift of human society, and this "utensil" is also a practical instrument for interpersonal communication. During the Western Zhou Dynasty, etiquette defined the hierarchical order for the society, named birthright, made it a system, and stipulated the rules that people must abide by in different fields of life and different occasions. Etiquette, as a means of governing the country, established a patriarchal clan system based on blood for the Western Zhou Dynasty. Compared with the slave society in Shang and Yin Dynasties, history has made a big step forward. Therefore, Confucius, who was born in the troubled times of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, said longingly: "Zhou Jian was in the second generation, and he was depressed! I am from Zhou. " According to the specific situation and needs of the society at that time, he further improved the whole set of etiquette on the basis of Zhou Li, and creatively used "music" (music, also refers to art in a broad sense) to cooperate with it, so that rational norms and emotional internalization were combined to complement each other and promote each other.
It can be seen that "the state of etiquette" is not only a reputation given to me as an ancient civilization, but also an recognition of human spiritual construction and its universal values.