Brief introduction of traditional and modern content

It is precisely because the relationship between the value world of Confucianism and the modern world has not disappeared because of the great changes in the traditional society, therefore, in the social and cultural changes in China in the 20th century, Confucianism is still a problem that has been constantly concerned. And every time there is a moral crisis in society, the voice of traditional values is higher. Therefore, after the Xinhai, not only Kang Youwei and others insisted on Confucian values, but even in the New Culture Movement, there were people like Liang Shuming who wanted to work for Confucius. In the 1940s, He Lin's explanation and propaganda of Confucian ethics, the Three Cardinals and the Five Permanences was unimaginable in the May 4th Movement, while Feng Youlan not only made a new explanation of "Chinese style and western use" in the 1940s, but also insisted on the significance of "abstract inheritance" in the 1950s. In particular, it is pointed out that in recent years, after careful consideration, Wang Yuanhua, while deeply reflecting on cultural radicalism, affirmed that Confucian ethics, as a national spirit, can indeed be inherited, reflecting the true face of thinkers of our time.

The debate about Confucian value system has always been one of the centers of cultural debate. It was not only around the May 4th Movement, but also the central topic of "cultural fever" in the 1980s. To understand this phenomenon, the existing models of cultural studies in China in the 20th century, whether they are "innovation and retro", "enlightenment and saving the country" or "radical and conservative", have not been properly applied to the Confucian debates in the 20th century, and they are only of formal significance for understanding the profound roots of the Confucian debates in the 20th century. The formulation of "cultural identity" or "cultural psychological structure" pays attention to cultural psychology and ignores the social needs of objectivity. In fact, if we carefully observe the weak and unyielding voice of safeguarding Confucian values in the 20th century, we can understand that it is natural for Confucian ethics to remain in the focus after the transformation of modern society, and its inevitability stems from the split between "morality" and "modernity" in the process of modernization transformation and the requirement to overcome this split. Therefore, the constant affirmation of the value of Confucianism in the 20th century is not essentially a manifestation of China's so-called post-colonial discourse, nor is it an affirmation of global capitalist hegemony discourse or the ideological significance of capitalist modernization, but a recognition of multicultural values in theory and a treatment of modernization in practice, a deep concern for value rationality and spiritual civilization, and a manifestation of persistent pursuit of ideal life and ideal personality. In China, there is still a strong demand for national cultural identity, and it is also a humanistic reflection on the morality of enlightenment narrative.