Nowadays, when Chinese people with a bit of culture mention “feudal superstition,” they mostly grind their teeth and radiate murderous intent, striking an attitude of not stopping until every last trace has been eradicated. Yet on closer reflection, this hides certain shortcomings.
In modern civilization, science and technology have attained supreme and unquestioned dominance, but this has also given rise to the predicament of “value” finding no place to stand. Why should people speak of morality? Why does society need ethical norms? — these were originally such self-evident questions, yet they have become a conspicuous source of perplexity in modern civilization. Science can only tell us what “is,” but it can hardly offer guidance on what “ought” to be. In the West, morality has traditionally been sustained by religion, and even today religion still plays a pivotal role in Western society. Of course, the moral force of religion is now being severely challenged by scientism; yet even with religion’s restraints removed, the West still has the forces of economy and law to sustain ethics. People use a whole set of economic and legal means—contracts, exchanges, rights, obligations, rewards, punishments, and so on—to regulate human conduct; even the relation between parents and children must be explained as though it were a business transaction, with concepts like “equivalent exchange” and “contractual agreement”… This is unquestionably a degeneration of virtue! And yet, at least Western ethics still has something to sustain it; China’s situation is even worse!
China does not have religion in the Western sense, but looking at the development of China’s ancient history, whether compared with the West in the Roman period, the Middle Ages, or the Age of Discovery, Chinese society’s performance in sustaining morality was at least in no way inferior. So what is it that sustains Chinese people’s ethics and morality? — precisely the so-called “feudal superstition” we are talking about now!
The worldview, values, and ritual-and-legal system of the “latex” people are the core of Chinese culture. For thousands of years, Chinese society has been built on what we now call “feudal thought” and “feudal rites and norms.” Within this set of “feudal” things, we found the support for “morality.” And now, that whole “feudal” structure has been overthrown by us—but have we established anything new to let morality take up residence? — Science cannot provide morality; China does not have the Western religious tradition; China has not yet established an economic environment or legal system like the West’s, one sufficient to sustain ethics…
If an old house has problems, tearing it down is perfectly understandable. Yet the reality is that on the one hand we uproot the old house to the very foundations, while on the other hand we cannot find a suitable place to settle down. People stand amid the vast ruins after the overthrow and cheer victory, only to forget that from then on they have become homeless! The Chinese have lost the place where the soul can dwell, the homeward land where life finds its destination!
“Feudalism” has already been overthrown, and eradicating “superstition” is even less of a problem. Superstition is indeed a bad thing, but after we have broken it apart, what is it that we have established in its place? Open any “so-and-so science and technology newspaper,” any “so-and-so popular science magazine,” any “so-and-so science education channel,” and what fills it are things like “UFO incidents,” “Jesus was an alien,” “the mystery of Easter Island,” “mysterious phenomena of the human body,” and so on—these pseudo-sciences, disguised as science and merely pandering to public appetite, are far stupider, more shameless, more sensational, more deceptive, and more harmful than those folk superstitions that consciously keep their distance from science… By comparison, traditional superstition still has something that neither modern science nor mysticism can provide: a certain capacity to sustain morality!
When adults frighten children, they say, “If you don’t behave, the big bad wolf will come and eat you!” — for children, this is a fairly effective form of restraint, and “superstition” can to some extent play a similar role. Although there are all sorts of superstitious forms under different customs, there is surely one point on which there is broad consensus: “If you do no evil, you will have no fear when the ghosts come knocking.” If, in dealing with people and affairs, one is always able to have a clear conscience and be worthy of one’s conscience, then one need not fear the big bad wolf or demons and goblins coming after you. This restraining force is useful not only for children, but for ordinary people, and even for the supreme emperors of antiquity! In China, whenever the emperor’s authority had no one to restrain it, it was precisely by relying on so-called “superstition” that it was restrained—natural disasters or ominous portents were seen as warnings to the emperor, and when disasters occurred, the emperor had to examine his own conduct and offer memorials and repentance to Heaven. Thus it can be seen that for the whole of ancient Chinese society, “superstition” was in fact an indispensable link in sustaining moral ethics among everyone except the Confucian scholar-officials, from emperors to common people. And now, we are exterminating superstition to the point of wiping it out completely. We tell children: even if you misbehave, there will be no big bad wolf to eat you; we tell ordinary people: there is no need to dwell on your sins—so long as no one discovers them, that is enough; and even the great scoundrels will not be struck by thunder… This world has no big bad wolf, no yakshas, no Thunder God; whether one does good or evil, there will be no karmic retribution—the world is described as being so utterly dull!
Of course I am not defending feudal superstition. I merely want to say: after we have resolutely and grandly eradicated these things, have we considered what to use to replace the social functions they once performed?
2005年12月4日
最新评论
- Qifeng 2005-12-04 00:18:37
Do you remember that little booklet I gave you? It was one volume in the Jiangsu-published Overseas China series, about the problem of scientism in China in the last century; this book also touches on this issue. For reference only—I hope that in the future you will be able to build a new house. I believe in you! - Chong 2005-12-07 11:25:34
Nihilism, especially moral nihilism, is a common problem faced by all humanity in the condition of modernity.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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