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Probe into Ling-shuming’s Thought of Confucian Democracy

Author: GaoMing
Tutor: ZhouGuangHui
School: Jilin University
Course: Political Theory
Keywords: Liang Shuming Confucian democracy Liberal democracy
CLC: B26
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2011
Downloads: 86
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Abstract

Liang Shuming(1893——1988)was famous scholar, thinker, educator and social activist in modern history of China ,meanwhile he was also one of the founder of Neo-Confucianism.His idea Involved in politics, culture, philosophy, religion and many other areas. Conservatism cultural view of Liang Shuming had a tremendous impact in modern history of China and even the world. However, few people pay attention to his democratic view which is based on his conservative cultural view and which is seemed to be Anti-democratic. This paper attempts to comb the democratic view of Liang comprehensively and give it an objective evaluation.This paper is divided into four parts:Part 1:Simply comb the basic cultural theories of liang democratic view which is a reflection of comprehensive critique by the New Culture Movement againest traditional culture. In order to deal with challenge of the thesis which consider western culture superior to Chinese culture. Liang Shuming Proposes a theory of“three cultural directions”. Western culture is the first direction while Chinese culture and Indian culutre is the second and the third. The first direction illustrates the relationship between people and things,while the second direction illustrates the relationship between people and people and the third direction illustrates the relationship between people and the inner world. The three are in turn by the stage of development. The revival of the future culture would be the revival of Chinese culture. As for the revival of the Indian culture is too far away. As Chinese ancient sage were too smart the, China had began the second the directon untimely before the was developed comprehensively. As a result Chinese society did not advance and lack of democracy and science.Part 2: comb chinese democratization predicament of Liang.1. Historical causes. Because of a lack of community life,there was no liberalism individualism against group spirit. Due to a lack of experience of community life , there was no morality needed in advanced democratic life.2. Material causes. Chinese life’was simple and low, Literacy rate was low and Political participation was not enough; China has large territory and population, and the traffic was not convenit enough. So vote or not would not make a strong effect on polictics, and people had on political enthusiasm. In china,the Industrial and Commercial were underdeveloped so there was no middle class who had the requirements of protecting their property.3.Culture causes. For the chinese the attitude towards life is introspective, which can not make people actively towards their right. Chinese people seek gentleman’s personality,they Advocate comity and humility and consider striving whit none is noble so it is difficult to vote. Chinese people regard goodness as human nature and think highly of each other. The counterbalance principles of the western world is based on distrust so it is different from chinese spirit; chinese pay attention to the struggle of etiquette and desire and also the distinguish between moral and material. They pay attention to moral accomplishment and seek for meaning of life, which are different from Individualism of the western world. Thus liang thought imitate European democracy in China would not work.Part 3. Comb that how to embedded the Confucian tradition theory such as introspection spirit and obligations concepts in the modern democratic, trying to get beyond liberal democracy.1. Introduce community life so that reconstruction countryside society. Because public ideas of democracy in the consciousness of running is very important, so liang paid much attention to it. He thought it avalable to introduce community life into country to foster public ideas and participation.2. reconcile the rule of majority and the rule of worship to the sage to ensure the correctness of the policy. Change the citizen participation rights into obligations . In order to ensure participation it is right to force to vote. Modify the personal standard intended and change natural rights into "countries assigning human rights". In order to make the community with requirements of individual life, it is permissible to interfere the freedom of person. Liang completed the combination of modern democracy and the tradition confucian theory. Part 4. Simply assessment liang’s democratic thought. Due to his unique democratic ideas,Liang had repeatedly been regarded as the typical representative of against democracy. However he was also blamed because he thought the European democracy would not work in China . However we found that Liang was not against democracy by comprehensively combing the democratic idea. He just opposed completely copy western liberal democracy and tried to find a new way of Confucian type democracy, which was also Liang Shuming’s contribution to democratic theory.

Probe into Ling-shuming’s Thought of Confucian Democracy

Abstract

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