《论语》《孟子》等所见早期儒家的“和谐”观

通过<论语><孟子>等早期儒家文献论述了儒家思想的和谐特色和儒家的和谐主张.儒家对人与天地万物的关系的思考,尤其是对人际关系常与变的思考有伴随人类社会的永久价值;儒家为人类规划的理想社会,在经过20世纪各种实验的兴奋和沮丧,对结果公平、实质公平失去信心后,更显出了它的光彩.如果人类有更高的自觉,迟早会体会到儒家的思考和主张比所有未行的设想和已行的制度--包括现在世界上声势最大的一人一票的票选体制--对未来和谐社会的贡献更大.

The Early Confucian View of Harmony as Seen in Confucius' Analects and the Mencius

As is well known,Confucianism is characterized by its emphasis on "harmony." How this idea is presented in early Confucian texts, and what it really means? These are questions which are expounded in this article.The Confucian thinking on the relationship between mankind and all other things in the universe,especially the relationship among human beings,are of(eternal) importance as long as there are human communities.It may be said that mankind in the twentieth century lost its belief in equality,whether substantial or formal,as a result of a series of experiments,which were aimed at a utopian society and accompanied with much excitement at first but finally left with nothing but despair.Against this backdrop the idea of moral community espoused by Confucian thinkers becomes more and more enlightening.The author is convinced that if mankind has more self-consciousness earlier or later it will understand that the Confucian thinking is able to make more contributions to the future harmonious society than any other ideal or idea,including the most popular one in today's world,namely,the one-person-one-vote system.