What is "filial piety"

Traditional filial piety is a general term for the ethical and moral concepts, norms, and behaviors of filial piety, which involves the relationship between children and their parents, and the younger generation and their elders. The formation and development of traditional filial piety has gone through a process from spontaneous and conscious to strengthened and stereotyped. The basic content of traditional Chinese filial piety includes material support, spiritual support and ancestor worship and contemplation of relatives, light

Dazhongmen three aspects. The essence of traditional filial piety is love, the return of parental goodness, and the maintenance of blood family relations. With the development of history, filial piety transcends the value of individual family life transmission and becomes the realization of children's personal and social values in the family lineage transmission. With the development of feudal society, filial piety, which was originally a family moral code, not only transcended the scope of blood family, extended to the family relatives and society, but also expanded into a social moral code. The expansion of the essence of filial piety can be divided into three aspects: value expansion, social expansion and political expansion.

In ancient Chinese society, filial piety, as a traditional Chinese morality, has continued and developed for thousands of years, and has been supplemented, processed and deepened by successive rulers, as well as promoted and advocated to varying degrees and with different emphases, and its content is complex, with advantages and disadvantages coexisting. The historical value of traditional filial piety lies in:1. In the long history of ancient society, it has played an important role in maintaining family harmony and unity, social stability and national unity. 2. ①, traditional filial piety is conducive to the adjustment of interpersonal relations in feudal society, maintaining social stability; ②, filial piety as the human emotions of love and sincerity, for the development of interpersonal relations in ancient Chinese society set the ethical and spiritual foundation and the starting point of practice; ③, the filial piety of the body triggered the feelings of concern for the world, and the examination of the family and fame has become the driving force of filial piety loyalty to the ruler and love of the country. 2, traditional filial piety has a significant impact on the national character and national spirit of Chinese society. Traditional filial piety has had a positive and far-reaching influence on the national character and spirit of Chinese society, and has cultivated the excellent personality traits of Chinese people. For example, they are kind and loving, polite and gentle, peace-loving, etc. However, traditional filial piety is an excellent way of life. However, the traditional filial piety is a "hybrid" of advantages and disadvantages **** exist. It also has its shortcomings. ①, traditional filial piety in the parents gifted authority, resulting in inequality of personality between parents and children, and later used by the rulers and polarization, resulting in the Chinese people's conservative and servile character. (2) The traditional filial piety's sense of the priority of blood makes the father-child relationship transcend the law from time to time. (iii) The traditional filial piety of "filial piety" superstition and "foolish filial piety" concept is contrary to the spirit of science. For traditional filial piety, we should take a critical attitude of inheritance.

In the ancient thought of filial piety, from the core of filial piety and respect for parents, within the family to filial piety and respect for all elders, respect for the elderly and love for the young, husband and wife, harmony, brotherhood and harmony; outside the family, to respect for all elders, love and care for all the young, love for the countryside, love of countryside, patriotism and other concepts, are the essence of traditional filial piety. Under the new historical conditions, we should absorb the essence of traditional filial piety, remove the dross, and combine it with the characteristics of modern society to form a new socialist moral code. The essence of traditional filial piety still has its important value in contemporary society. Its ethical value lies in: ①, the essence of traditional filial piety is the source of value for the formation of modern and harmonious interpersonal relations, which is conducive to the amicable social customs; ②, the cultivation and practice of filial piety is one of the starting points for the improvement of the moral quality of the contemporary people; ③, 'lun is conducive to the cultivation of the spirit of cooperation, and to the overcoming of the prevalence of egotism and individualism. Its political value lies in the fact that it is conducive to the maintenance of social stability; it is conducive to the strengthening of national unity, the promotion of national prosperity, and the enhancement of the cohesion of the Chinese nation; and it helps to carry forward patriotism. Its philosophical value lies in the fact that the essence of traditional filial piety has the philosophical significance of cherishing the value of life. It embodies the philosophical consciousness of Chinese people who cherish the limited life in this world. Not only do they do good to their parents, but they also value the reality of their parents' lives and their own lives and try to protect them. In short, traditional filial piety is not only an ethical concept, but also profoundly influenced

China's political, cultural and ideological direction. In the process of Chinese national culture in the 21st century, traditional filial piety will still play its positive role after critical inheritance. On Traditional Filial Piety and Its Modern ValueTraditional filial piety is a general term for the ethical and moral concepts and norms about filial piety as well as the way of filial behavior. It deals with the handling of the relationship between children to their parents and juniors to their elders. The study of ancient traditional filial piety has been carried out by ancient thinkers and scholars for a long time, and modern people have also paid considerable attention to it. After the 1950s, many scholars in overseas countries and Hong Kong and Taiwan have conducted research on the important position of filial piety in Chinese culture and its modern transformation, and have made important academic progress. 80s to the present, in the study of traditional filial piety, a number of important research results have been achieved, with more than one hundred theses and dissertations published, and nearly 20 monographs published (see the attached Catalog of Theses and Dissertations). These theses and dissertations have carried out multidisciplinary, multi-angle and multi-level research on the emergence, development and evolution of filial piety, its meaning, nature, role, status, influence, and critical inheritance, etc. However, the essence of traditional filial piety has been studied in many ways. However, the modern value of the essence of traditional filial piety still needs to be y explored. The essence of traditional filial piety has certain positive significance for the modernization of China. In this paper, I will put forward a little bit of my own views in this regard. Traditional Chinese society is a society founded on traditional filial piety, which has a fundamental and important role in traditional Chinese society and culture. This paper takes traditional filial piety and the modern value of its essence as the object of study, and on the basis of previous studies, through the discursive analysis of the content, essence and characteristics of China's traditional filial piety, it points out that the essence of traditional filial piety has an important ethical, political and philosophical value for China's contemporary society.

I. The basic content and essence of traditional filial piety

(1) The basic content of traditional filial piety

The content of traditional filial piety is very rich, which has been summarized into 15 aspects: 1) honoring and loving one's parents; 2) obeying one's parents; 3) admonishing one's parents with reason; 4) serving one's parents with courtesy; 5) inheriting one's ambition; 6) showing one's parents' reputation; 7) thinking of one's relatives; 8) entertaining one's relatives with the way; 9) making one's relatives worry-free; 10) making one's parents happy; 11) making one's relatives happy. The above can be summarized in three ways. Some people think that the above can be summarized into three points: one is economic support; two is the spiritual support: three is the ancestor thinking of relatives, the light of the clan.2 Some people think that filial piety has five aspects: 1, support relatives two that is, the child's support of parents, which includes four points: ① children

Daughter of the parents should be responsible for the maintenance. ② Do your best to do for your parents, to meet their needs. The first is that the child's parents should be responsible for the maintenance of their parents. The first is to be able to do something to meet the needs of the parents. ③To stay by the side of the parents. ④To care for the health of the parents.2. Respect for the parents:To respect the parents in terms of personality and to satisfy them in terms of thought, so as to make the parents live a long and healthy life. 3. It is advocated that one should build up one's career in society in order to

glory to one's ancestors.3 Some people believe that the norms of serving one's parents can be broadly categorized into two aspects: service to the living and service to the dead. Among them, the service of life includes two aspects: 1) to support and honor one's parents; 2) to live with propriety and to attend to one's illness; 3) to act with obedience and to advise one's parents in a reasonable manner. The death includes burial with rituals, sacrifices with rituals, as well as following the will to describe the matter, filial piety for life and parents.4 Some people believe that the content of filial piety includes the two aspects of the matter of life and the matter of death. Among them, filial piety includes four aspects: nourishing, honoring, worrying, and admonishing, while filial piety includes three aspects: frugality, mourning, and not violating.'' Some researchers summarize the content of filial piety in terms of its duality and modern standards of value judgment, arguing that from the perspective of the negative social value of filial piety, filial piety has the following meanings: 1. "No violation" is filial piety; 2. Father and son are hidden from each other; 3. "Parents are there, not far away"; 4, "unfiliality has three, no later for the big 'xi; 5, "body hair and skin, received by the parents, do not dare to destroy, the beginning of filial piety"; 6, thick burial long mourning; 7, "filial piety" superstition with the "Foolish filial piety" concept. Its positive values include: 1, support for parents; 2, respect for relatives; 3, admonition is filial piety; 4, respect for the elderly; 5, filial piety and save the country and the people.''

Consolidating the research of the above scholars, this paper summarizes the basic content of traditional Chinese filial piety as three aspects: material support, spiritual support, and ancestor worship and contemplation of relatives, and the light of the clan. 1, material support material support refers to the children to meet the material needs of their parents in the areas of food, clothing, housing, transportation, and other aspects of life. As children, they should make their parents have enough to eat, wear warm clothes and have no worries about food and clothing. Confucius said: "Use the heavenly

Dao, share the benefits of the earth, and be careful with your body and use it to support your parents. This is the filial piety of the common people."

2That is, as an ordinary citizen, one should be diligent in one's limbs, work on time, cultivate one's fields, grow mulberry trees and raise animals, and produce enough material wealth to ensure that one's parents can have enough to eat and drink, while as an official, one should be an official, not an official, and use one's dai lu to provide for one's parents and provide them with a secure material life.

2, spiritual support traditional filial piety that as children, not only to give their parents from the material side of the food and clothing, but also to pay more attention to the spiritual support. Children's spiritual support for parents is manifested in the following aspects: ①, to care for the physical health of parents, care for the spiritual life of parents, often with the elderly spiritual exchanges, more from the spiritual aspect of the parents to comfort and care. The Book of Rites? Qu Li" requires children to do "warm in winter and clear in summer, dim and morning." When parents are in poor health, children should be especially devoted to serving and caring for their parents. "Nurturing leads to happiness, while sickness leads to worry." 3 Later, Er Cheng also put forward the idea that "knowing the doctor is filial piety," saying, "When one is sick and lying in bed and entrusts it to a quack doctor, it is like being unkind and unfilial. Those who serve their parents should not be ignorant of medical treatment." 'In addition, parents will have a sense of loneliness when they get older, children should always be with their parents if possible, to give their parents spiritual comfort, the comfort of this spiritual soil is also the deepest expectations of the elderly parents in the heart of the) ②, a child to respect their parents, including respect for the personality of parents, respect for the parents of the views of the parents, to do things to make their parents happy, so that they are in a happy mood. If a child does not respect his or her parents' character and has no respect for them in his or her support, then even if he or she can provide them with delicacies from the sea and the mountains, it will not be regarded as true filial piety. In other words, true filial piety should be based on material support, and should reach a higher level of respect. Confucius emphasized the importance of supporting parents in a respectful manner, caring for their health, and treating them with respect and love and in a pleasant manner. He said, "Nowadays, filial piety is to be able to support, as far as dogs and horses can be supported. If we don't honor them, how can we be different?"' Honoring is not an easy task, the Book of Rites? Sacrifice

Yi" argues that: "Nurturing may also be possible, and honoring is difficult." Confucius also thinks: "Color is difficult. "2 Children should also respect their parents' opinions, and even if their parents' opinions are wrong, they should not accuse them to their faces, so as not to break their parents' hearts. In addition, children should do things that make their parents happy and make them feel good. (iii) Children should treasure their own lives and not do things that make their parents worry about them. In the Book of Filial Piety, it is said, "The body, the hair and the skin of the body, are received by the parents, and do not dare to destroy or hurt them, and the beginning of filial piety is also." 3 As a child, to cherish one's life and maintain a healthy body is to honor one's parents. On the one hand, they can rely on their own health to support their parents; on the other hand, they can let their parents worry less about themselves and reduce their parents' mental pressure, which is filial piety in itself. Children who don't let their parents worry about them are also characterized by the saying, "When parents are present, they don't travel far, and there is a way for them to travel." 4 and "parents only worry about their illness" 5 children if there is a disease, parents will be very worried, so children should maintain a healthy body, so as not to worry about their parents. 3, ancestor thinking of relatives, the light of the clan Chinese ancient people pay special attention to the funeral rites and rituals, pay attention to "prudent end to catch up with the distant". The ancients believed that funeral rites and rituals can not only express the memory of the deceased ancestors of the living, such as "Shangshu? Wenhou's order" in the "pursuit of filial piety in the former", "Analects" said: "Yu, I have nothing to do with it, Fei food and drink and filial piety to the ghosts and gods ...... ", but also, they can reflect the filial piety of the son of man! The first thing I want to do is to show that I don't forget my parents' nurturing. Confucius said: "life, things to ritual. When you die, you will be buried and sacrificed with rituals." 6 Xunzi said: "Sacrifice, Zhi meaning the feelings of Mu also, ...... its in the gentleman, thought the humane also; its in the people, thought the ghosts also. Chuan today's scholar Mr. Li Zehou summed up: "the funeral rites of the dead, all have such an important function of emotion and rational knowledge." 2 In addition, funeral rites also have the function of moral education. Zeng Zi said: "prudent end of life, the pursuit of the distant, the people's moral return to the thick."'' Zeng Zi also once said "filial piety in the relatives, also, life is righteousness to assist, death is mourning to be in, the sacrifice is to go to, in order to honor so, and become a filial son also." In traditional filial piety, it is also emphasized that it is the filial son's responsibility to marry and have children in order to continue the flame. Viewing the "no rear" as the greatest unfiliality. Mencius said, "There are three unfilialities, and the absence of a descendant is the greatest".5 This kind of thinking is wrong today and should be criticized. Traditional filial piety not only requires children to fulfill their duty of support to their parents, but also requires them to establish virtue, honor, and merit in order to achieve the purpose of "raising the name and reputation of their parents, honoring their parents, shining before them, and enriching them after them "6 . The honoring of one's ancestors and the honoring of one's clan is a very important part of traditional filial piety. The ancients believed that "to make one's name known and to show one's parents is the most important part of filial piety.'' 7 In ancient society, the authority of parents, the family's rank, can become a shelter for children, and individuals are then endowed with the mission to continue and expand the family. If a child has no authority and no family to rely on, then the child shoulders the heavy responsibility of realizing his parents' ideals, revitalizing the family, and promoting the family has become a noble and difficult responsibility for the child.

(2) The essence of traditional filial piety and its expansion

1. The essence of traditional filial piety

The essence of traditional filial piety is love. Filial piety is first and foremost the love of children for their parents. Each person is born from the parents, parents

grow up because of the careful nurturing and care, the objective facts of life creation and nurturing, so that human beings have produced from the nature of the love of parents. Blood ties and parental upbringing as well as close interactions make this love more sincere, natural and strong. Therefore, love for one's parents is the intrinsic spiritual motivation of filial piety, which arises from the natural affection of love, and the essence of traditional filial piety is love. This kind of love is the selfless love for parents, is the return of the goodness of parents, is the maintenance of blood family relations, is the natural and social security of the continuous development of the human caste, and is therefore a natural motivation for human development. The development of filial piety is the evolution from the heavenly joy of parental care and concern to the harmonious beauty of attachment to and compassion for one's parents. This is the beauty of the flow of human life, filial piety is the embodiment of the beauty of the flow, and it happens to be unique to human beings.''

2. The Connotation and Expansion of the Essence of Traditional Filial Piety

Filial piety, as soon as it arose, contained two kinds of responsibility, namely, the responsibility of the descendants to honor and love their living predecessors, and the responsibility to offer sacrifices to their deceased predecessors. This is the basic connotation of the essence of traditional filial piety. The expansion of the essence of traditional filial piety can be divided into the following three aspects. (1) Expansion of value - personal value and social value. Love, as the essence of filial piety, begins with the love of relatives. Although love of family originates in the transmission of the individual family lineage, in later history, filial piety may transcend the value of the transmission of the individual family life and become the realization of the children's personal value and social value in the transmission of the family lineage. As a woman, to support her parents,

To fulfill her duty of support is a manifestation of personal value; and to support her parents, to abide by the laws of the country, and to be motivated by the goal of honoring her ancestors, showing her family and making a name for herself, and to be enterprising, and to act. This is not only the realization of personal values, but also the realization of social values,

②, social expansion - family and society. In history and reality, filial piety is not limited to the treatment of parents, but can be extended to expand to the family relatives and society, Confucius put forward "harmony and in the party of parents, can be called filial piety."'' According to Mencius. According to the idea of "honoring one's own parents and the elders of others" contained in "King Hui of Liang," respect for one's own parents should be extended to respect for all elders in society, thus requiring people not only to honor their own parents, but also to honor and love the parents of other people with the same feelings. It has been mentioned in the Book of Filial Piety: "Those who love their parents do not dare to be evil to others; those who honor their parents do not dare to be slow to others." This is the same as what the Analects of Confucius said in Xue Er (学而). Learning and" said "disciples into the service, out of the ladder, careful and trustworthy, universal love for all, but pro-kindness," is the same.'' With the development of feudal society, filial piety, which was originally a family moral code, not only transcended the boundaries of the blood family and extended to the family and relatives as well as the society, but also expanded into a social moral code. "It is not filial piety if you do not live in a dignified place; it is not filial piety if you are not loyal to your king; it is not filial piety if you do not honor your official; it is not filial piety if you do not believe in your friends; it is not filial piety if you do not have courage in the battlefield". In the chapter of "The Book of Filial Piety" (孝經?), it is said that The chapter of "Opening of the Emperor's House of Justice" says: "The first king had the highest virtue and the most important way to obey the world, the people were in harmony, and there was no complaint between the top and the bottom of the house." A word out of the "Xiaojing" to promote filial piety is to govern the world and the "filial piety" as a good social order as the guiding ideology of the establishment. (3) Political Expansion - Shifting Filial Piety into Zhong (移孝作忠). In Shangshu? Cai Shu's order" said: "Er Shang cover the previous generation, but loyal but filial piety. You are the traces of their own, diligence, in order to pend the Constitution after." The Duke of Zhou imprisoned Cai Shu, and King Cheng appointed Cai Zhong, the son of Cai Shu, and admonished him to make up for the faults of his predecessors, and to think of loyalty and filial piety, so as to set an example for future generations. Here the words "loyalty" and "filial piety" are linked. "Later, the ethical program based on filial piety not only communicated the relationship between family and state, forming a pattern that in the political structure, the family was a microcosm of the state, and the state was an expansion of the family, but also formed the concept of the king as the representative of the state in the concept of society, so that all kinds of patriotic actions of the people in ancient times were often manifested through loyalty to the king, which united filial piety and loyalty in terms of the tone of emotions, with filial piety becoming the basis of loyalty, and loyalty being the foundation of loyalty, and loyalty being the foundation of loyalty. It becomes the foundation of loyalty, and loyalty is the extension of filial piety. "The gentleman's family filial piety, so loyalty can be moved to the king; service brothers, so obedience can be moved to the long", thus effectively transforming filial piety to the clan elders of the family ethical sentiments into loyalty to the national court of the political concept.