Keywords: religious, political and socialist beliefs
First of all, it makes a preliminary study on the belief status of socialist China today.
(1) What is faith?
This is one of the key issues to be discussed in this paper. To discuss the faith of socialist China, that is, China today, or the relationship between socialism, China and faith, we must first interpret socialism. However, due to China's years of various education, there is almost no need to delve into and repeat the concept of socialism here. Faith is the first question I want to discuss.
According to Marx's theory, belief can easily be classified as ideology, and then it can be tied with religion, which is incompatible with materialism. The faith I want to describe is also closely related to religion. To put it bluntly, the belief mentioned in this article mainly refers to religious belief, because only religion can truly represent a belief, and religious belief is the real belief. Of course, in order to fully express the views of this paper, the author will also use the word belief in a broad sense to a certain extent, that is, appropriately expand the concept of belief, such as: belief in socialism and * * * productism. Therefore, the beliefs to be discussed in this paper are limited to two aspects: first, religious beliefs, which are the main ones. The second is the socialist belief, which is an institutional belief, an official (compulsory) belief, or, to be precise, a political belief.
Marxists believe that religion is an illusion caused by people's fear of unexplained phenomena, including nature, and a historical product caused by extremely low human productivity. In fact, this is a kind of "presumption of guilt": first, religion is an illusion and a bad product, and then, using the limited thinking of human beings and some conclusive evidence (low productivity), it is inferred that religion is "guilty". Religion is a kind of belief, so according to Marx's point of view, belief is also an illusion, or a stable collection of hallucinations, which is the inferiority caused by human's own smallness, incompetence and ignorance, thus "evolving" into an internal behavior that cannot be explained. When human beings become "powerful" and no longer "small", they can get rid of religion, abandon faith and be completely rational. That is to say, a perfect social form has no faith and does not need faith, such as an advanced socialist society. These are all Marxist viewpoints and inferences.
Comparison is necessary. Let's see how religious people talk about faith: Augustine, a master of Christian thought, believed that human beings (Adam and Eve) believed in God completely, and the Garden of Eden at that time was undoubtedly a capitalist society. Their belief at that time was a belief in God, a "religious belief" and a healthy belief. When the ancestor fell because of the crime of free will, the whole mankind fell into a state of ignorance, and faith was lost. If there is, just believe in yourself or believe that everything in the world (created things) is God. This is a subversion of order and a wrong "illusion". Later, God became the body of Jesus Christ, signed a new covenant with the world, and rebuilt the new true faith of mankind. Needless to say here, the author only compares two views on faith.
The expression of another belief is neutral and does not contain class consciousness. Faith is the highest form of faith, which is more abstract and secretive. For a sane adult, it is usually the source of many beliefs. The essential attribute of belief is transcendence, which is an abstract existence relative to the virtuality of "existence". The purpose of transcendence is to achieve another zone of self-spiritual satisfaction, which does not exist in real life. It is an idea, a self-explanation and explanation of the world, and a light in the hazy consciousness. Anything that is too clear is difficult to become a belief, because it lacks the ultimate temptation and is easy to satisfy or get bored. In other words, transcendence and mystery are often the premise of faith. In terms of mystery, all philosophy is religious, and all religions are philosophical.
(2) Overview of social beliefs in China today.
The status quo of faith in China society mainly discusses whether contemporary China people have faith. If so, what do you believe in? The reason why such a seemingly simple question is raised is not because it is simple, but precisely because it is extremely complicated. If we put this issue in the United States or India, there is no need to discuss it. But when it is set in China, especially in China, the primary stage of socialism, it will be another scene.
Literally, the sentence "China people have no faith" is obviously wrong, because as long as a China person has faith, this sentence will be wrong immediately, and the problem will become absurd immediately. Therefore, as far as the issues under discussion are concerned, the academic circles should put forward the concept of "China people" as a general and collective concept, which is a statement of "generalizing by many" rather than referring to all.
First of all, it must be pointed out that "belief crisis" refers to the collective belief crisis, not the unique personal belief with personal color. Individual collective beliefs and personal beliefs are different. Strictly speaking, there is no "crisis" in personal belief. (On this point, this article will explain in detail in the part of "Evolution Track of Human Belief". )
At present, people in China generally have no faith, which is basically recognized by most people. However, whether China people have faith in history is the focus of debate. This focus is embodied in the following aspects: whether Confucian culture (some people think it is China traditional culture, but it is not very different) is the belief of China people. In the affirmative view, some people think that Confucianism can be regarded as a religion and naturally a belief; Some people think that although Confucianism is not a religion, as a religious and cultural system, it is also the belief of China people. Those who hold negative views deny that Confucianism is included in the religious system, and think that even if Confucianism is religious, it is not the belief of China people. It should be said that it is difficult to hold the view that Confucianism is a religion.
In addition, we can feel that in today's China society, not only religious beliefs, but also factional beliefs in a broader sense are not available, or have not yet been established! If you can tell the truth, at least around me, no matter which social class, few people believe in socialist capitalism. If this is not true, who can refute this reality?
Since the reform and opening up, the country has gradually stepped into the track of democracy and the rule of law, such as Christianity and Islam, which have made great progress. However, in a general sense, China has not formed a dominant belief, whether it is a narrow religious belief or a broad one. Atheism is not faith, and the evidence of this argument can be found in the conceptual part about faith. So from this perspective, China people (generally) have no faith.
Second, the analysis of the reasons for the lack of faith in socialist China.
The people of China are a pragmatic people. They have never been crazy about certain beliefs, such as religious issues. This part should be attributed to the secularization tendency of Confucianism. "Believe in ghosts and gods, stay away from ghosts and gods" fully embodies the wisdom and profundity of the oriental philosopher Confucius. However, the Cultural Revolution brought the people of China to the point of fanaticism. When all this becomes "the moon in the water, the flower in the mirror", a crisis of faith is inevitable. It is believed that China will soon enter a "semi-socialist and semi-capitalist" society, which will make it necessary for the * * * production party and Marxism to exist for a long time. Publicity and education will inevitably deepen the crisis of social beliefs. In order to rebuild the new belief system, it is necessary to analyze the causes of the belief crisis first. We believe that there are two main reasons for the crisis of faith.
(A) the traditional ideological system collapsed and a new belief system was not established.
For the time being, we think that the social belief system in contemporary China mainly originates from two traditions: one is traditional cultural belief, and the other is Marxist belief with Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought as the core (hereinafter referred to as "Marxist belief"). The former belief was severely impacted during the old democratic revolution. By the May 4th Movement, it was almost completely defeated, but it was the fundamentalist belief that finally won. Unfortunately, this fundamentalist belief seems to have disappeared in contemporary China.
We know that traditional things, especially those expressed in social culture, will never die easily, but contain a historical inertia. Therefore, although they may weaken their influence because of temporary depression in some specific periods, their historical inertia will inevitably lead to their lasting role in the subsequent society, which can be called "the role of historical inertia." At this point, we have done some analysis when we analyze the moral quality and psychological quality of China people. Today's social reality is enough to prove this point: the reflection on traditional ideas is not only manifested in many ordinary people, but even some scholars and "scholars" have the mentality and behavior of promoting "Chinese studies" in order to be reborn.
However, we believe that this tradition, no matter how it is reflected, cannot have a decisive impact on contemporary social beliefs, because it has been impacted three times so far, and its vitality has been greatly damaged: first, the old democratic revolution, second, the May Fourth Movement, and third, the changes in economic, political and cultural social conditions caused by the operation of New China in recent years. Therefore, we pay more attention to the reaction of the second belief tradition (Marxist belief) in the contemporary era-"the reaction of historical inertia": emphasizing the practical effect brought by this belief will hurt the belief itself.
Therefore, in the face of today's social reality, any attempt to "rule" human thoughts and hearts by relying on a single belief, any attempt to improve the degraded moral quality with selfless lofty beliefs simply through ideological education (even an idea), may be simply "seeking fish from the edge of the wood", or just muddling along and indulging in it.
(B) the reform policy does not match, resulting in the loss of "socialist belief."
Any kind of all-round social reform must be different in the order and rhythm of different policies and fields, and there must be a mixed operation of old and new systems. Because the two systems have different operating rules and internal logic, it is inevitable that there will be some "vacuum" areas that the two systems do not follow, which will lead to psychological imbalance of social members and no standards and behavioral norms to judge right and wrong. This can basically be regarded as the inevitable logic of social reform, and there is nothing wrong with it.
However, there are three problems in our reality: first, political reform and economic reform do not match; Second, there is a lack of overall planning for reform (whether it is reform theory or reform measures); Third, the beliefs respected by society are inconsistent with social reality. As a result, the economic system reform is going deep, but the political system reform is struggling; Economically, privatization and liberalization, but politically, we still need four persistences; Subjectively crack down on corruption and objectively provide nutrients for the breeding of corruption; On the one hand, it calls for "five stresses and four beauties", on the other hand, it provides convenience for mercenary. Throughout the present era, we can always find the shadow of the object we advocate in the object we oppose, and vice versa.
It must also be noted that in the process of our reform, the mass media once appeared vague orientation, even out of control to a certain extent, so that there was once an inversion of value evaluation and confusion of right and wrong concepts, and there were phenomena of diluting the main theme, over-propagating "aristocratic life", belittling culture, abandoning culture and abandoning culture. This will inevitably have a negative impact on national spirit, social psychology and social sentiment. It is worth pointing out that various contemporary ideological trends have also contributed to the crisis of faith, but Ren Yuan is not as responsible as the above two aspects: the proliferation of various ideological trends is not so much the cause of the crisis of faith as its result.
Third, the influence of the lack of social beliefs in China today.
(A) the impact on socialism
Here, we need to expand the meaning of faith, that is, not limited to religion. So in this respect, the pursuit of socialism or productism is a kind of "belief" in a broad sense. But the question is, does contemporary China still have this belief in a broad sense? We can repeat what we said above: if we can tell the truth, at least there are few people around me who believe in socialism and productism, no matter what social class. If this is not true, who can refute this reality? Since the reform and opening up, the belief of productism has died in a sense (of course, the possibility of reconstruction after death is not ruled out), but it cannot be realized in the short-term foreseeable period. Explaining party constitution, the * * * production party in China, with vivid words means that * * * production is one of our dreams, and it is the "utopia" and utopia that we will eventually establish. I just don't know the exact time yet.
True socialism is undoubtedly beautiful and everyone yearns for it. It is necessary to clarify that China is not a true socialism, and no country in the world is a true socialism at present. It is precisely because of false socialism or socialism with congenital deficiency that socialism stinks, because ordinary people intuitively look at it: "Oh, this is socialism? This country is poor, so capitalism is better. You see how rich and democratic people are. " If we insist that only some powerful countries in Europe and America basically have some necessary conditions for socialism. However, if we are eager to achieve socialism in three steps, we should adhere to the attitude of seeking truth from facts that we have always advocated. For example, our biggest failure now is to promote socialism in the primary stage of socialism. Why do we often talk about the superiority of socialism? The more empty slogans we talk about, the more disappointed people are with socialism. Is that socialism? This level? You know, the fact is that China's socialist superiority is far less than that of contemporary developed capitalist countries in terms of social welfare, living standards and national strength. It is these China = socialist propaganda, empty and grandiose slogans that cover up many advanced points of real socialism, and make the people of China, whose thoughts are already very backward, even more ignorant of what real socialism is, thus drawing a conclusion that the disappointment with socialism is in sharp contrast with the concern for capital, thus causing a crisis of socialist belief, and China's next step is unpredictable!
(B) the impact on contemporary China
First of all, belief is a kind of thought "behavior" of human beings, which has a profound influence on thought. Because of its transcendence, faith is abstracted from the ever-changing world and human consciousness into a stable and lasting will, pointing to the future, and constantly adjusting itself to adapt to the changes of years in the course of history, becoming a compass for people's thoughts and behaviors. Beliefs are usually based on many practical needs, and beliefs do not directly focus on reality, but guide practical actions by transforming them into beliefs; Faith is usually the basic point of understanding things, the standard of judging things, and the firm attitude of doing things, while faith is the fundamental norm of what a person should and should not do and the ultimate commander-in-chief of behavior.
In today's China, the old "belief" (that is, Confucianism in a broad sense) has collapsed, while the new belief (mainly referring to the official capitalist belief and religious belief) has not been established, which has led to the belief crisis of China people at this special time and under this special social system. Mixed with all kinds of bad ideas in the west, it will inevitably lead to our own ideological confusion and signs of moral decay to a certain extent. This is extremely disproportionate to the title of an ancient civilization with 5000 years.
Secondly, politics and religion have always been inseparable. From the national form of the integration of politics and religion in the Middle Ages, we can completely spy out too many connections between religion and politics. Since the Reformation, church and state have gradually separated, but this does not mean that politics is completely unaffected by religious beliefs. At present, western developed countries are inextricably linked with Christianity. No one can deny the great and far-reaching influence of Christian civilization on western society, just as no one can deny the influence of Confucianism on ancient civilization in China!
Contemporary China is an atheist country. It seems that religion (belief) has no influence on this country, especially on the political level of this country. What we feel and see is only the provisions on religious belief in the Constitution, and almost all textbooks at all levels have dogmatic explanations on religious belief. So in contemporary China, it seems that only politics is influencing (ruling) faith, and faith seems to have no reaction to politics. This is against the Marxist judgment of conscious response! Any extreme behavior is stupid and dangerous.
If we can take a long-term view, the problem is not such a simple one-way function. Marx's basic philosophy is worth studying-reaction always exists. A contradiction can be seen from the constitution of China and the reality of China: freedom of belief declared in the constitutional text and imprisonment of belief in reality. The reason for this contradiction is that China is a socialist country, guided by Marxism–Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and Theory of Three Represents, and led by the Communist Party of China (CPC). Because the constitution clearly stipulates this national attribute, it is bound to promote Marxist proletarian "belief", atheistic "belief" and materialistic "belief" in the whole society and then in the whole country. This almost restricted and ruined the development of other beliefs, that is, religious beliefs. In fact, it deprives people of the right to freedom of belief. Theoretically speaking, this is an invisible constitutional amendment, which can even be said to be unconstitutional in practice. On the other hand, a socialist country must be democratic, civilized and pluralistic, which requires its constitution to explicitly stipulate freedom of belief! From then on, we can clearly see that there is a huge contradiction between freedom of belief in legal texts and freedom of belief in reality. If the contradiction can't be solved, then only the conflict will come, and the conflict can only bring profits and losses to both sides! Just like a Christian song: "Go forward with a mission and wake up the sleeping China!" How many subtext does this simple sentence contain? This is a reflection of (religious) belief, which is the potential influence on China's politics now or in the future.
The lack of faith has a great influence on society, involving all levels and corners of society. For example, national stability, social unity, cultural development (spiritual civilization, historical heritage, social art), rule of law construction, moral education, economic development, international exchanges, national integrity construction and many other micro and macro aspects.
Fourth, solve the problem of faith in socialist China.
As we all know, the implementation of this solution is a sensitive topic and a utopian dream in China at present. It can't be designed by one person or completed by a government, especially in China, which is in the primary stage of socialism. It seems to be close to an unknown, and the only way to solve the unknown is time and let it become history. Maybe we can solve this problem with a sentence from Comrade Mao Zedong: People, only the people are the masters of making history!
Maybe it's the only way.
Hammond? j？ Paalmann said: The law must be believed, otherwise it is useless. I take the liberty of imitating a sentence:
Socialism must be believed, otherwise it is nothing.
This is for the postscript