The Dream of Moral Historical View: Utopian Thought and Its Characteristics

In a word, Song Confucianism's ideal social view belongs to pure theoretical works on the whole, trying to describe the most ideal way of human society. The bright future it outlines is actually an impossible ideal. Essentially, it is a utopian design scheme of an ideal country. Utopia refers to an idea, which is inconsistent with the realistic environment in which this idea comes into being. The purpose of this idea is to completely change the realistic environment that is inconsistent with this idea. However, this ideal is impossible in principle. Because Utopia is an absolute and uncompromising concept of perfectionism, its realization is related to the perfection of the goal it pursues. It can be said that it is precisely because of the perfection of this goal that the proponent of this idea is hindered from understanding and dealing with practical problems. China is a country full of utopian thoughts, from Laozi's small country and few people, Mencius' sweet system, Datong's gift to Wang Mang's Wang Tian system; From the land equalization system in the Northern Wei, Sui and Tang Dynasties to the land equalization system in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Sun Yat-sen's equal land rights in the United States and various utopian ideas supported and dragged down China people's understanding of historical changes. The utopian nature of mainstream Confucian political philosophy has had a far-reaching impact on the history of China, which is worthy of reflection and discussion by future generations. After the rise of Neo-Confucianism in Song Dynasty, almost every master of Neo-Confucianism put forward a unique view on the ideal model of social history. The ideals contained in their thoughts and the idea of how to realize these ideals have penetrated into the consciousness of traditional China people, becoming the starting point for China people to criticize the real world and the end point for transcending the real world. The utopian thought contained in the social and historical thoughts of Confucianism represented by Song Confucianism has the following characteristics: First, the social realistic basis of this utopian thought lies in the strong egalitarianism consciousness of small producers prevailing in agricultural countries, and its ultimate requirement is the average distribution and possession of material wealth and spiritual wealth of the whole society. It is not difficult to understand why Song Rujian insisted on the dream idea of the well-field system and did not change it. Second, the ideological orientation of this utopian thought is the past rather than the future. This can be confirmed from the following two points: first, most of his ideological prototypes are recorded in the Book of Rites and Zhou Li; Secondly, taking Confucianism in the Song Dynasty as an example, the ideal society they set existed in the golden age of Tang and Yu in ancient times, and they were all retro thinkers. As a reflection of simple production and life style and social relations in agricultural society, this ideal actually has a strong conservative tendency. Third, the utopian thought based on Confucianism is not a pure description of the beautiful world in the future, but a strong demand for the transformation of the riddled real world. It is a combination of future design and realistic criticism, a historical philosophy and political theory that combines transcendental ideal with realistic political operation mode. Fourthly, it is also the most distinctive point, that is, the utopian thought of Confucianism has a moral orientation, and its idealized design of social economy, politics and culture is mixed with a strong ethical color. It can also be said that the moral norms dominated by the outline ethics are the main driving force for China society to move towards an ideal position on the traditional track. In the face of the tragic conflict between history and ethics that runs through all historical processes since the emergence of human civilization, the masters of Neo-Confucianism in Song Dynasty insisted on holding high the banner of moral supremacy, firmly believed that the value of morality was higher than that of economy, politics, law, science and art, and believed that morality was eternal, and the orderly existence of real society and the realization of ideal society must be restricted by morality. On the contrary, the failure of this control means that history has entered an indescribable dark age. This is the essence of moral historical view to explain history. The basic feature of moral historical view is to regard human ethical activities as the basic value choice and ultimate goal of history. From the perspective of human nature and human relations, various social systems are derived, which can be used to explain the rationality and development motivation of social structure. Starting from Confucius, the ultimate goal of Confucian political thought is creation.

The key to the establishment of this social order lies not in the actual political operation, but in the decisive role that political function can play in creating an ideal society, that is, political function itself should be absolutely moral. It includes that political leaders should be moral models and saints-political leaders should have morality, which can stimulate the moral sense of all people in society to the greatest extent and make social interpersonal relationships have profound ethical connotations. In this way, a harmonious social order can naturally arise. When expounding their political philosophy and historical philosophy, the Neo-Confucianism masters in the Song Dynasty showed that they were firm ethicists and their political and historical views were very utopian. They believe that ideal politics should be pure moral politics, and pure moral politics is possible, which once existed in the three generations of Tang Yu's rule. On the other hand, judging the later generations by the standard of moral politics, it is found that the political function of the later generations completely deviates from the way of three generations when the real environment is exposed by the mirror of finance. This situation must change. The ideal social model that Song Confucianism hoped to create lies in Zhang Zai's theory. There, with the mining field, feudal system and patriarchal clan system as the three pillars of economy, politics and society, a utopia like an idyllic landscape painting was constructed, especially the strict patriarchal clan relationship was established, which better reflected the characteristics of Confucian ethical and political historical view in Song Dynasty. Under the feudal patriarchal clan system, social organizations that combine blood feelings with practical rationality benefit widows, help the disabled and help the weak, and loyalty and forgiveness prevail in interpersonal relationships. The whole society is shrouded in that warm fog, which is simply a paradise on earth. However, all this is just a dream consciousness scattered by utopian thoughts after all. This dreamlike consciousness plays an important role in alleviating the social tension caused by the collision between reality and ideal and soothing the unreasonable reality and reasonable demand conflict. However, it failed to deeply understand the separation and tension between history and morality. It does not deny the historical fact that the realization of an ideal society ultimately depends on historical progress. It believes that establishing moral consciousness in the whole society is the premise of establishing an ideal society. This kind of moral consciousness is not based on social justice, but based on rationality, with blood relationship and patriarchal clan relationship as the link, and with birthright and rank as the restrictive content. This moral norm has the nature of religious belief and the function of controlling political ideology. In fact, it is only a summary of the patriarchal social and political system and social life. An ideal society with ethical spirit as its pillar can actually. I don't support the paradise on earth described by Song Confucianism. How to treat the antinomy between historicism and ethicism? Marx once made a wonderful analysis with feudal society as an example. He said that there are two opposing factors in the feudal mode of production, which people call the good and bad aspects of feudalism, but in the end the bad aspects always prevail. It was the bad aspects that caused the struggle and produced the movement that formed history. If, in the era of feudal rule, economists saw the virtues of knights, the wonderful coordination of rights and obligations, the patriarchal life in cities, the prosperity of cottage industries in rural areas, and the development of industries organized by trade unions, chambers of commerce and guilds, in short, they were deeply moved by all the good aspects of feudalism and decided to eliminate all the dark sides of this picture: serfdom, privilege and anarchy, what would happen? The result can only be that all the factors leading to the struggle will die out, and the development of capitalism will be cut off when it is still in its primary stage. Economists have given themselves an absurd task of erasing history. Marx always put good and evil in the dialectical progress of history and affirmed the role of evil under certain historical conditions. Of course, this evil is only a form of historical development and the result of evil. Its function is to achieve the purpose of good. The perfection of a society cannot be measured by simple and abstract moral standards, but only by historical standards.

In fact, using moral norms to explain history and using human relations to restrict the emergence and development of other social relations will inevitably deprive any historical initiative. Utopia's beautiful dream is enough to be the best reason to kill the vitality of social organisms. Karl Raymond Popper, a famous British philosopher, believes that utopia is closely linked with historical determinism, forming a holistic ideological tendency. Historical determinism pays attention to development, but not to all aspects of social life, but to the whole social utopia project. Both ignore an important fact, that is, in this sense, they can never be the object of scientific research. Neither of them is satisfied with gradual recovery and groping for progress. They want to take a more drastic approach. They all believe that they can discover society, such as judging the historical trend of society, or determining their needs at that time, so as to discover the real purpose of society. In this way, they tend to adopt some moral theories of historical determinism. Most authors who advocate utopian planning want to tell us that planning is inevitable. Because history is developing in a certain direction, whether we like it or not, we must plan. In this case, the autocratic consciousness among the designers and builders of utopia projects has expanded. However, they don't realize that it is easy to concentrate, but it is impossible to concentrate the knowledge scattered among many people. However, this concentration is necessary for the wise use of concentration. This fact has far-reaching significance. Since he can, I'm not sure what so many people think. In the eyes of Americans, he must eliminate the differences between individuals and simplify his own problems. He must control and unite the people, American interests and beliefs, education and publicity. However, this spirit of controlling people's attempts will inevitably destroy the real thought of discovering people's last possibility, because it is obviously incompatible with freedom of thought, especially the freedom of critical thinking. In other words, the Utopia Plan, America's dependence on authoritarianism, led to the control of political omnipotence, requiring individuals to unconditionally obey the collective. Individuals have no realistic personality except their absolute recognition of group concepts and behavior patterns. In this way, people's vigorous creativity, speculative ability to judge right and wrong, and curiosity about truth are all stifled in the trap of outline ethics. In such an ideal society, the covet and pursuit of power has been strengthened unprecedentedly. When individuals have power, they have the right to dominate other individuals in the name of groups, and this dependence on individuals deprives them of their initiative, leading to an unprecedented strengthening of the conservative mentality of the whole society. Worst of all, due to the powerful control of authoritative political ideas on society, moral norms have become external heteronomy constraints, rather than internal self-discipline ideas. In fact, morality is not only normative, but also subjective. The essence of morality is not normative but subjective. Because any moral standard must be understood by the subject of behavior, become the inherent belief of the subject of behavior, and be integrated with the will of the subject of behavior, thus producing a sense of obligation, responsibility and moral emotion, and finally leading to moral activities. Therefore, the norm of morality is the norm of subjectivity, and the essence of morality lies in the subjectivity of morality. Although Confucianism, especially neo-Confucianism, constantly requires individuals to consciously recognize transcendental ethical principles and take root among the people, they still fail to solve the most critical problem of how to make ordinary people deeply understand the ethical ontology of transcendental metaphysics. Because moral responsibilities and obligations do not come from personal firm beliefs and conscious choices, people are unwilling to undertake such moral responsibilities and obligations. In this way, the moral sense of social members in an ideal society based on ethical spirit is very poor. This is the disadvantage of governing the country by virtue and pursuing a perfect society.

The most fundamental mistake is that an eternal and perfect society designed and established on the basis of pan-moralism will never succeed, because to make this society eternal means stopping the process of change, completing limited corrections under the strictest social control, and strictly preventing people from doing anything that may lead to social progress according to their own creative spirit. In this way, a utopian ideal, even if the dream comes true, is just a dull and lifeless society.