There is a saying in the new three-character sutra: Be warm, be fragrant, love your parents, and be meaningful. Huang Xiang Jr. mentioned in the book is a dutiful son of Hubei Province in Han Dynasty, who respects the old and loves the young and is famous throughout the ages. At the age of nine, he unfortunately lost his mother and knew how to honor his father since he was a child. Whenever it was hot in summer, he fanned his father's sleeping pillow to drive away mosquitoes and put away curtains to make his father sleep more comfortably. In the cold winter, the mattress was as cold as iron, so he slept on his father's mattress first, warmed the quilt with his own body temperature, and then let his father sleep in a warm bed. Huang Xiang Jr. is not only famous for his filial piety, but also diligent and knowledgeable, and is worthy of the reputation of "A Chinese Odyssey, a Yellow Man in Jiangxia".
In a person's life, parents' care and love are the most sincere and selfless, and the kindness raised by parents is endless: sucking the mother's milk and leaving the baby; Take the heart of parents and take the first step in life; Sleep in sweet children's songs and grow up in meticulous care; How many sleepless nights have parents endured because of disasters and diseases; How much effort do parents have to make in order to study and raise tuition fees? How hard it is for parents to get married. It can be said that parents have been raising children all their lives. This kindness is higher than the sky and thicker than the earth, and it is the greatest force in the world. If human beings should have love, then they should love their parents first, and then they can talk about loving others, the collective, the society and the motherland ... To honor their parents, they should not only bear the obligation of supporting their parents, but also try their best to meet their spiritual and emotional needs. Especially for elderly parents, we should take care of them carefully and comfort them patiently. That is to say, most of the old people in the city now, although their children and grandchildren are well-fed and not short of money, they think that they rarely meet each other because they are almost absent from work. Therefore, what they want most emotionally is to reunite with all their relatives. There is not a song that says, "Go home often, even if you help your mother beat her back and rub her shoulders, the elderly don't want their children to make much contribution to the family. They just want their children to be safe and round." Therefore, no matter where you go in the future, you should remember your parents; We should pay more attention to them when we are around them now.
2. Modern transformation of traditional filial piety
In China's traditional ethics, filial piety, which emphasizes the ethical relationship between parents and children and the relationship of mutual rights and obligations, is regarded as the first of Confucian ethics, and has been widely publicized and worshipped by the society for thousands of years.
The moral concept and code of conduct of the line. From the effect point of view, filial piety is a management means, which unifies the external constraints of etiquette and the internal constraints of morality and serves the purpose of "nourishing qi and governing harmony" At present, in the process of building a harmonious society by building family virtues adapted to the development of socialist market economy, various facts show that traditional filial piety still has the value of preservation and development, and it is inevitable to realize its modern transformation. A traditional filial piety is full of duality. It is this color that makes the traditional filial piety last for a long time through various dynasties and ideologies, making it possible to criticize, inherit and explore it. It not only shows the people's fine moral tradition of respecting the elderly, but also is regarded by the ruling class as a spiritual opium to deceive and fool the people. First of all, from the moral point of view, filial piety has dual nature. In class society, any kind of moral category or moral code of conduct has its class interest basis. As Engels said: "All previous morals are, in the final analysis, the products of social and economic conditions at that time. Society has been advancing in class opposition until now, so morality is always class morality. " Of course, when we emphasize the class nature of morality, we do not deny that morality has the elements and factors of the whole people. Morality can't be only class and not universal; Or on the contrary, it is universal without class. This is determined by the deepest essence of morality. Morality in all class societies is the unity of specific class meaning and general meaning, and filial piety is no exception. Filial piety in the sense of class. If Meng asked about filial piety, Confucius said, "There is no violation." The so-called filial piety means not violating the "ceremony of etiquette and law." This has obvious class nature, which completely suppresses children's enterprising spirit and creative ability, and is a fundamental denial of children's self-awareness and personal value. It is obviously inappropriate to advocate "no violation" today. Another example is Confucius: "If your parents are here, you will swim well if you don't travel far." In today's economically developed society, it is impossible for parents not to travel far. People nowadays are social people, not just family members. They are not only responsible to their parents, but also to the country. Another example is the typical establishment of some filial sons in feudal society, which contains many ignorant and cruel things, deviates from people's normal psychology, and cultivates an ignorant and filial atmosphere in society, with strong patriarchal and class nature. These are special concepts with obvious limitations and levels, which have become tools to suppress the independence and creativity of young people and are the alienated state of the development of traditional filial piety. First of all, look at filial piety in a general sense. Traditional filial piety contains some universal contents, that is, it is not only applicable to a society, a class or an era. For example, the traditional filial piety thought of supporting, respecting the elderly and respecting relatives is needed by any class and any era. Dr. Sun Yat-sen said in the speech of "Three People's Principles Nationalism": "The most civilized country in the world has not talked about filial piety as thoroughly as China. Therefore, filial piety is even more essential. " Comrade Mao Zedong once said with deep feelings when he returned to his hometown Shaoshan in 1959: "Producers of * * * are materialists.
Socialists do not believe in ghosts and gods. But the parents who gave birth to me still have to talk about it. Another example is "filial piety to mother" and "wise mother Li", which reflect their respect for their parents and their deep love for their families. Another example is Mulan guarding the border on behalf of her father, which embodies the filial piety of saving her father from danger and has been praised by people for thousands of years. This is still beneficial to the construction of socialist spiritual civilization, and we should creatively inherit and carry forward it.
Secondly, from the function and function of filial piety, it also has duality. On the one hand, feudal filial piety embodies the moral principle of the landlord class that maintains the feudal patriarchal hierarchy and serves the feudal autocratic system. Since the Western Han Dynasty, the ruling class has extended filial piety to all aspects of social life and ruled the world with filial piety, forming a systematic filial piety. Not only that "filial piety is the first thing for a gentleman, so loyalty can be transferred to a gentleman." That is, the so-called filial piety is loyalty, loyalty and filial piety are one, and the "three cardinal principles" are put forward, that is, "the monarch is the minister's cardinal principle, the father is the child's cardinal principle, and the husband is the returning cardinal principle." During the Song and Ming Dynasties, there was a saying that "everything in the world is the father" and "everything in the world is the king". The relationship between monarch, minister, father and son, husband and wife is completely ruled and obeyed, without primitive equality and democracy. This is a reflection of the strengthening of feudal hierarchy in ethical and moral relations, which leads loyalty to the monarch and filial piety to the wrong path of not knowing loyalty and filial piety. Traditional filial piety has become a moral weapon for the ruling class to defend its own interests and a spiritual opium that paralyzes the working people. However, we should also see that filial piety, as a family or social ethical norm, has its functions and functions worthy of recognition. Family is the most basic cell of society. Only family stability can lead to social stability, and filial piety plays any other irreplaceable role in maintaining and stabilizing the family. It is rooted in the blood relationship between parents and children, which not only regulates the relationship between father and son, but also regulates the relationship between brothers, and becomes the cohesive force to maintain the family. Traditional filial piety also advocates "a sense of security and dependence for the elderly" and advocates that the whole society cares for and cares for the elderly. This will promote people's sense of group and responsibility, stabilize social order and govern the country to a certain extent. We should use the viewpoint of historical materialism, adopt a realistic attitude, make a correct evaluation of traditional filial piety, and make it serve the contemporary.
Filial piety is a natural emotion of human beings. From the above analysis of the duality of traditional filial piety, we can see that traditional filial piety has both dross and value of being preserved and carried forward. We can neither follow the traditional filial piety to construct modern family virtues, nor cut off the history of family ethics development to create new norms out of thin air. Instead, we should profoundly criticize and resolutely break the feudal patriarchal hierarchy, inherit, carry forward and make full use of the fine traditions of the Chinese nation, so that traditional filial piety can be creatively transformed into new socialist filial piety. Specifically: First, criticize and inherit the reasonable core of traditional filial piety, and regard supporting parents as the minimum requirement of socialist family virtue. Supporting parents is one of the basic contents of traditional filial piety, and it is the material support for parents by children. Supporting parents was the main reason for filial piety as early as the Western Zhou Dynasty.
Sue. In Shangshu Wine Patent, Duke Zhou said: "She is a native of the countryside, artistically pure and good at running around." Zhao Qian Niu Feng is filial to his adoptive parents. "It is pointed out that as adoptive parents, we should do our best in farming and business activities. Confucius regarded raising parents as an important filial duty of Shu Ren, and pointed out: "It is also Shu Ren's filial duty to use people's skills, divide the benefits of land, use them carefully and adopt parents. "And parents are required to do their duty", "raising is happy, and illness is worrying". Mencius also regarded serving parents materially as an important content of filial piety. In his view, "it is unfilial to be lazy in limbs and ignore parental support;" "Boyi likes drinking, regardless of his parents' support, and he is also unfilial; Good wealth, private wife regardless of parental support, three unfilial. " Abandoning the purpose of maintaining patriarchal clan system, parenting should be a traditional virtue of the Chinese nation, and it should be given new connotation according to the needs of the times, making it an integral part of the socialist family virtue. However, in some families, some adult children abuse and abandon their parents on the pretext of opposing feudalism, which is extremely wrong. In feudal society, supporting parents was painted with some mysterious colors. What we have to do now is to peel off the hypocritical coat on the word "filial piety" and carry forward the sincere love between parents and children. Comrade Xie Juezai hit the nail on the head in the article Love Parents: "Anyone who uses anti-feudal and anti-bourgeois ideas as an excuse not to adopt his parents must be severely reprimanded as heartless and shameless. It is necessary to tell young people that filial piety is not feudalism, not bourgeois ideology, but human virtue. " China's Constitution clearly stipulates: "Parents have the obligation to raise and educate their minor children, and adult children have the obligation to support and assist their parents." Today, raising relatives has not only become a family virtue in socialist society, but also an obligation of every citizen. Second, respect relatives and let parents get spiritual comfort and satisfaction. Traditional virtues emphasize that children should not only give their parents material love, but also respect and care, so that parents can feel happy. "Today's filial piety, that can be raised. As for all dogs and horses, you can keep them. Disrespect, why not? " [2] Supporting parents and respecting parents are two aspects that complement each other and are indispensable. Respect for parents is not respect, but disrespect. Confucius believes that we should respect our parents, care about their health, respect and treat them well. Its students have participated in the further development of the teacher's concept of respecting relatives, pointing out that "there are three filial piety, the greatest filial piety is to respect relatives, the second is to endure humiliation, and the second is to be able to support." Respect for relatives is the natural expression of children's inner feelings for their parents, which reflects people's civilization and education level. It is a kind of filial piety that is more demanding than raising. With the development trend of core and miniaturization of modern family structure in China and the increasing number of empty nest families, the problem of providing for the aged is more prominent. Respect for relatives is not obedience. Respect and harmony seem to be a word difference, but they reflect different moral concepts in the two eras. Although traditional filial piety does not blindly follow and distinguish right from wrong, it advocates that father and son have a dispute between monarch and minister, and "do things for parents and remonstrate several times", but "do not obey the will" can only be "respect without violating" and "work without complaining" It is still an unshakable law between parents and children that the father conceals his son and the son reveals his father, and the children unconditionally obey their parents' will, which means disrespect and unfilial. This should be
Is the dross of China's moral tradition. The relationship between people in modern society is equal. The relationship between father (mother) and son (daughter) is no exception. Today we are talking about respecting relatives on the premise of equality, mutual respect and trust. As the younger generation, we should not absolutely obey the will of the elders, but should respect their personality and feelings. An 83-year-old man wrote in his notebook: "Between the younger generation and the older generation, there seem to be few real gift-giving opportunities, but there are them every day. This gift may be just a kind word or a greeting letter. But the most important thing is to integrate your sincerity. " What socialist society advocates is this new filial piety that pays attention to emotion, which is essentially different from the traditional filial piety that emphasizes role and authority. Children should not only voluntarily support their parents materially, but also pay attention to their spiritual support, give their parents more care and respect, and let their parents get spiritual comfort and satisfaction. Thirdly, to establish the filial piety moral values of serving the motherland, serving the people and winning glory for parents requires children to fulfill their obligations to their parents, and to have morality and establish a career, so as to achieve the goal of "making a name for themselves, showing their parents' prestige and getting ahead". Respecting relatives and honoring ancestors is one of the important contents of traditional filial piety. Children enter the official career, strive for fame, inherit their father's business, realize their parents' ardent hopes for their children, win glory for their parents and ancestors, and then publicize their lives. Traditional filial piety believes that although filial piety began in small families (families), it should not stop in small families (families), but should be further extended to the whole country. Filial piety and loyalty to the monarch are regarded as the highest virtue of men in feudal society. Filial piety in China feudal society has a wide range of social and political significance, beyond the scope of family ethics. Today, we re-examine the concept of "making a name for one's parents" and change it to loyalty. There is no denying that it has the utilitarian concept of respecting the old and respecting the Sect, and the purpose of "ruling the world with filial piety" and even shaping filial piety and loyalty to ensure the security of the feudal dynasty. However, it unifies the love for parents and loyalty to the country, and advocates that one should make contributions to society, which is worth inheriting. Under the socialist conditions, children will certainly win honor for their parents, but whether they can serve the motherland and the people is the key to win honor for their parents and the standard of filial piety and unfilial. We oppose acts that harm the interests of the state and the collective in the name of filial piety, and we also oppose acts that do not support or even abuse parents in the name of the state and the collective. Caring for relatives and respecting the elderly is not only a personal matter, but also a reward for parents' upbringing. It is a public morality in the field of socialist family and an obligation of all citizens. Serving the people is the core of socialist morality, and adult children should consciously establish the moral values of serving the motherland, serving the people and winning glory for their parents. This is also a new type of filial piety that socialist society should vigorously advocate. Fourth, realize the harmony of social morality, professional ethics and family virtues.
Harmony and unity in feudal society, the so-called dutiful son must abide by all feudal morals; Similarly, today's dutiful sons should abide by all the morals of socialist society without exception, and organically unify social morality, professional ethics and family virtues. Generally speaking, a person who has received a good moral education at home since childhood will consciously abide by social morality, and it is easier to cultivate good professional ethics after taking up the job. A person's gradually improved social morality level in social life and good professional ethics quality in his long-term career will lay a solid foundation for him to fully implement family virtues. It is hard to imagine that a person who ignores social morality, a dereliction of duty without professional ethics, will be a dutiful son at home wholeheartedly. On the other hand, it is hard to imagine that a person who doesn't even care about his parents will respect others, abide by social morality and have good professional ethics. Although there are differences and contradictions among social morality, professional ethics and family virtues, we should strive to achieve a high degree of harmony and unity among them.
Filial piety is a global eternal theme. Comrade Deng said in the article "Respecting the elderly is the fashion of the times": "Throughout the ages, those sages and gentlemen who respect and love the elderly have been praised by the world and become moral models. Today, we must not only inherit these fine traditions, but also carry them forward, thus embodying the superiority of the socialist system and enabling the elderly in the whole society to have a sense of security, medical care, happiness, learning and worthiness. " At present, under the condition of market economy, it is of great practical significance to criticize and inherit traditional filial piety and advocate parents' filial piety for adjusting intergenerational relations, realizing family harmony and building a harmonious society. First, advocating filial piety is not a retrogression in nostalgia, but a sublation of feudal traditional filial piety. Because many contents of traditional filial piety violate human nature, the laws of historical progress and stifle people's independent personality and free will, it has been strongly criticized by many young intellectuals since the May 4th Movement, which is a manifestation of progress. But in the process of criticism, the reasonable part of filial piety was denied. For example, Mr. Yang Bojun, the late academic doyen, held a completely negative attitude towards the Book of Filial Piety, thinking that the book was stale in content and simple in writing, and it was really not worth reading. This is related to the ideological influence of "Left". Some people used to associate filial piety with feudal society, confuse filial piety with feudalism, and regard filial piety as the root of all ignorance and backwardness. This has caused people's ideological confusion, thinking that advocating filial piety is to restore feudal autocracy, which is actually a misunderstanding. Although the academic circles once regarded filial piety as a forbidden place, many people were afraid to set foot in it because they were afraid of catching braids, beating sticks and wearing hats, but the filial piety thought of shaping national character did not suffocate. As human ethics, it will exist with the existence of human beings, but it will increase or decrease in content due to historical development and changes, but the idea of respecting relatives will never change. The "filial piety" advocated today is the sublation and transcendence of tradition. It is the moral responsibility of children to their parents on the premise of equality between father (mother) and son (daughter), an indispensable moral norm to adjust the relationship between father (mother) and son (daughter) in modern families, and an ethical guarantee for the elderly to enjoy family happiness. Second, advocating filial piety is a necessary condition for China to enter an aging society. At present, the number of elderly people over 60 in China has reached10.45 billion, which is more than 1 1% of the total population, and it is growing at a rate of 3.3% every year. According to the authoritative prediction of relevant United Nations organizations, by 2025, the elderly population in China will account for 1/5 of the world's total elderly population, ranking first in the world. At present, China is in a period of social transformation, and the old and new systems alternate. Although social pension develops with the economic growth, the volatility of market economy and the instability of the new system make it difficult for social pension to replace family pension. It is predicted that family pension will continue to play a role in the next half century. Especially in rural areas, relying on family support for the aged is an important form of old-age security. Supporting and respecting one's parents, putting oneself in the other's shoes, caring and caring for the elderly by the whole society, and vigorously developing social security for the elderly are the test papers that every young person must answer, which will also effectively solve the defects existing in the current family virtue construction and the social problems that China faces when it enters an aging society. Third, advocating filial piety is the need of the current socialist spiritual civilization construction. Since the reform and opening up, China has made great progress in economic construction and great achievements in spiritual civilization construction. Of course, there are still some unsatisfactory places. In the parent-child relationship, with the development of society and the change of family, many positive factors in traditional filial piety have been impacted and destroyed to a certain extent, and there have been worrying distortions, such as the inversion of the status of the old and the young, the younger generation relying on their parents, and "raising children to prevent old age". These phenomena are contrary to the traditional virtues of the Chinese nation to honor their parents and to the construction of socialist spiritual civilization. Although it is a minority, it not only makes the elders feel mental pain, but also makes many families lack a friendly and harmonious atmosphere and destroys the social atmosphere. In view of this, while taking legal measures, we should also proceed from moral concepts and vigorously carry forward the virtues of filial piety. Filial piety has the ability to raise the construction of family virtues to a new level, and the improvement of family spiritual civilization will inevitably further promote the improvement of the whole social atmosphere, thus further improving the level of socialist spiritual civilization construction. In this sense, it is undoubtedly of positive significance to vigorously promote filial piety, affirm the traditional virtue of filial piety by law, cultivate a good fashion of respecting and loving the elderly, and establish an equal, civilized and harmonious modern family relationship.
Fourth, providing stable social order and morality for the development of socialist market economy is ultimately determined by social and economic relations. In turn, it will respond to social and economic development. On the one hand, the sustained, stable and coordinated development of the socialist market economy provides good conditions for raising relatives and respecting the elderly; On the other hand, the atmosphere of respecting and loving the elderly provides a stable order for the development of the socialist market economy. A dutiful son should not only abide by family virtues, but also abide by social morality and professional ethics, and unify serving the motherland, serving the people and adding luster to his parents. Imagine that if a society has more such dutiful sons, the moral quality of the whole nation will be improved and the social environment and social order will be stable. This will certainly promote the further prosperity and development of the socialist market economy.