What is Confucianism or Confucianism? What is its core and connotation?

Confucianism is a doctrine of moral and ethical norms of human society. The core of Confucianism: benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, faith, forgiveness, loyalty, filial piety, and fraternal duty.

The specific connotations are as follows:

Ren

Ren: love of people. The theoretical core of Confucius' thought system. It is the highest ideal and standard of Confucius' socio-political, ethical and moral values, and also reflects his philosophical views, which have far-reaching influence on later generations. Benevolence is reflected in educational thought and practice as "teaching without discrimination".

In the Spring and Autumn Period, Confucius was the first to open a private school, where disciples could be taught regardless of their background. Ren is embodied in politics, emphasizing "virtue", the basic spirit of virtue is the spirit of love and charity, Confucius introduced benevolence into the rites, changing the traditional "

Rite of Passage" into "Virtue", he did not negate the "Rite of Passage", his "Virtue" is undoubtedly the "Rite of Passage" of the inheritance and transformation. Love of people is the essence and basic content of benevolence, and such love of people is to extend oneself to others, from relatives to the general public.

Righteousness

Righteousness: Originally, it refers to "propriety", i.e., behavior that is appropriate to the "rule of etiquette". Confucius used "righteousness" as a moral principle for judging people's thoughts and behaviors.

Ritual

Ritual: The political and ethical category of Confucius and Confucianism. During the long period of historical development, "rites", as the moral code and code of life in feudal China, played an important role in the cultivation of the spiritual qualities of the Chinese nation, but with the changes and development of the society, especially in the late feudal period, it became more and more a rope binding people's thoughts and behaviors, which affected the progress and development of the society.

Wisdom

Wisdom: same as "knowledge", the basic category of Confucius' epistemology and ethics. It refers to knowing, understanding, insight, knowledge, cleverness, wisdom and so on. The connotation mainly involves the nature of knowing, the source of knowing, the content of knowing, and the effect of knowing. Regarding the nature of knowing, Confucius believes that knowing is a moral category, a kind of knowledge of human behavioral norms.

Honesty

Honesty: refers to honesty in dealing with others and the consistency of words and deeds. Confucianism's "Five Constants". Confucius regarded "faith" as an important embodiment of "benevolence" and a necessary virtue for the wise. Whenever one is truthful in speech and behavior, one will be able to gain the trust of others, and when those who are in power are trustworthy, the people will treat each other with truthfulness without deceiving one's superiors.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness: Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you, which includes forgiveness and tolerance.

Faithfulness

Faithfulness: to establish oneself as one would like to be established, and to reach others as one would like to be reached. Confucius believed that loyalty is expressed in faithfulness and honesty in dealing with others.

Filial piety

Filial piety: Confucius believed that filial piety and fraternal duty were the foundation of benevolence, and that filial piety was not limited to the support of parents, but should be emphasized on the respect for parents and elders, and believed that if one lacked filial piety and respect, the support of one's parents would be treated as if one were keeping a dog, which was a great treason and unfiliality. Confucius also believes that parents may have faults, children should be polite advice, and strive to correct their parents, not absolute obedience to parents. These ideas are the very embodiment of ancient Chinese moral civilization. However, Confucius on filial piety, but also said "parents in, not far away", "three years without changing the father's way, can be called filial piety," showing the limitations of his time. Filial piety was defined by later Confucianism as a cumbersome ritual, and the Book of Rites stipulated that after the death of parents, "water and milk should not be imported, and fire should not be lifted for three days", and "countless weeping" and "physical illness" turned into mental and physical self-mutilation. In the Song and Ming dynasties, filial piety was regarded as one of the most important categories in moral theory, and the rationalist Zhu Xi advocated the absolutization of patriarchal authority. The concept of filial piety, in the evolution of different historical periods, excluding the dregs of feudalism, there are some reasonable factors, advocating the children of their parents, "respect", "respect", "old age", filial piety and loyalty to the national righteousness of the combination, advocating the death of the funeral of a thin, frugal, and so on.

Ti (悌)

Ti (悌)

Ti: refers to the feeling of respect and love for one's elder brother. Confucius attached great importance to the virtue of brotherly love, and his disciple, Yuruo, based on his ideas, put brotherly love on a par with filial piety and regarded it as "the foundation of benevolence".

Two important reasons for the modern significance of Confucianism:

There are two important reasons: First, we, the Chinese nation, are on the eve of a great national renaissance, and it is important to look back at our historical and cultural traditions at this moment.

Secondly, in the new century, our country has put forward the requirement of building a "harmonious society". Mr. Fei Xiaotong once raised the issue of "cultural self-awareness". If we want to build a "harmonious society", we must also have a "cultural" self-awareness. What is "cultural self-awareness"? Mr. Fei Xiaotong said: "Cultural self-awareness only means that people living in a certain culture have 'self-knowledge' of their culture, understand its origin, formation process, characteristics and tendency of its development, without any 'cultural return' meaning. It does not mean any 'cultural return', not 'retro', nor does it advocate 'wholesale westernization' or 'wholesale otherization'. Self-knowledge is to strengthen the ability to take ownership of cultural transformations and to gain an autonomous position in deciding cultural choices to adapt to new environments and new times."

The Role of Confucianism:

Existing Confucianism (unlike that of Confucius), as the orthodoxy of the feudal dynasty, regarded class as the basis of human society, advocated feudal morality, and emphasized self-restraint through the individual while ignoring the role of law in social life. Western scholars consider Confucianism to be one of the major factors that make it difficult for Asian countries to accept Western democratic ideas.

The problem of attitude towards ancient Chinese traditional culture has been the existence of two opposing ideological tendencies in recent times: one is the nationalist school, which believes that everything is good in Chinese traditional culture, and even affirms the Twenty-four Filial Prayers uncritically and completely; the other is the Westernization school, which attributes all the roots of China's backwardness to its cultural traditions, and advocates abandoning the traditional culture of China for wholesale Westernization.