Section Two: Understanding of "harmonious society"
1. Understanding of "harmonious society" in ancient China
（1）Different meanings of "concord" and "uniformity（'Tong'in Chinese）" in politics.
In ancient China, "concord" also referred to a coordinated and harmonious state of all parties in politics. For instance, during last years of the Western Zhou Dynasty, political governance suffered from a crisis. Hence, some far-sighted persons began thinking about causes of the crisis and its implications. In generally, they believed the crisis was caused by lack of "concord" in social politics. Court Historian Bo believed that rulers in later period of Western Zhou Dynasty focused on "uniformity" rather than "concord", causing nationwide chaos.
"Concord" refers to concordance and unification of different things and different elements. "Uniformity" generally means simple addition or unification of the same things. Hence, "concord" and "uniformity" greatly differ in the meaning.
As the first emperor of State of Zheng, Duke Huan of Zheng served as a Zhou minister under Emperor You in Western Zhou Dynasty. Feeling scared and worried about royal family of Zhou under huge crisis and increasing dangers, he asked Court Historian Bo of Zhou Dynasty about future destiny of the dynasty and countermeasures to get rid of such dilemma. Court Historian Bo believed that downfall of Zhou Dynasty and flourishing of Rong and Di Dynasties were inevitable because those rulers discarded wise and virtuous men, and only generated intimate terms with treacherous and fatuous people. Theoretically speaking, such behavior "discarded 'He' while adopted 'Tong'". Based on this, Court Historian Bo came up with the viewpoint of "harmony and blending can generate and develop everything, but the world will not develop when everything is the same". He believed that society and everything could develop well under a "harmonious" political environment; if rulers blindly conducted "uniformity" of society and everything to their own wills, the society and everything would never develop at all.
"Concord" called by Court Historian Bo refers to "blending various things together", meaning that things of different natures harmoniously constituted a uniform body. In this way, things could be enriched and develop well; "uniformity" called by Court Historian Bo refers to "adding same things together", meaning that things could only be repeated simply without any change when the same things were added together. In this way, new things could never come out, known as "abandoning of everything". Opposing to "discarding of 'He' and adopting of 'Tong'", Court Historian Bo demonstrated such viewpoint by a series of arguments: everything in the nature was generated by "blending" 5 elements including gold, wood, water, fire and soil; delicious foods could be made by mixing 5 flavors including sourness, sweetness, bitterness, spiciness and saltiness; sweetsounding music could be created by reconciling 6 majors including C,D, E, #F, #G and #A, etc..
The same was true with social politics. As ruler, an emperor should aim at realizing social "harmony" during governance; solve contradictions among 10 social levels and classes, including king, duke, senior official, state governor, horseman, driver, home slave, laborer, servant, lowest servant; require and teach officials with this rule; get married with a woman with different surname and assign her as the empress; select government officials from courtiers with advices and different political opinions, etc. In this way, the ruler could create a "harmonious and uniform" political environment, while the whole society could be "happy and peaceful as a whole". Court Historian Bo emphasized that a rational society should be diversified, harmonious and uniform. In case of unification and lack in variation, the society would be chaotic.
However, rulers in later Zhou Dynasty abandoned "concord" and advocated "uniformity", pursuing consistency of society and things to their wills. As a result, emperors only saw and heard the completely same people or things. Hence, they could not develop wise understanding of society and things, inevitably becoming fatuous and self-indulgent rulers than wise ones. In this way, society and country could never get rid of defects.
It is fair to say that Court Historian Bo's philosophic topic about "harmony and blending can generate and develop everything, but the world will not develop when everything is the same" demonstrated importance of "harmony" to country, society and everything in the nature based on contradiction and uniformity in things. Realizing indispensability of "harmony" and "uniformity" during development of things, he proposed that "harmony and blending can generate and develop everything". Such principle is very important during peaceful and stable development of a society.Without "harmony", it is impossible to create and develop a stable social environment; with diversified uniformity, a society can be diversified and further develop.
（2）Commonality of "harmony" and "differentiation".
Of course, "harmony" will not blindly reject "differentiation". During the Spring and Autumn Period, Court Historian Mo came up with a philosophic topic of "everything is a double-edged sword", which mainly demonstrated inevitable contradictions in things and promotion of fighting between contradictions to development of things based on fighting between contradictions of things. Such viewpoint did not contradict the "harmony" emphasized by Court Historian Bo, as "harmony" did not get rid of differentiation, fights, changes or development.
Court Historian Mo served as an official historian in State of Jin during the Spring and Autumn Period. The Ruler of State of Jin—Zhao Jianzi asked Court Historian Mo why people did not oppose to Official Ji of State of Lu who ejected Lu Zhaogong from the state while other vassal states also approved it; why nobody deemed Official Ji to be criminal when Lu Zhaogong died in Qian Hou after getting away from State of Lu. Court Historian Mo believed that "everything is a double-edged sword". In other words, one object appeared in a 2-member,3-member or 5-member group. Everything had a matched party, also called as the "double" edges—a "pair" or "couple". In the nature,3 celestial bodies including sun, moon and star existed in the sky,5 elements including gold, wood, water, fire and soil existed on the earth while an object had both left and right sides, all of which had their corresponding contradictive and opposite sides.As for social phenomena, emperors were corresponding to dukes who were corresponding to ministers, all of whom could not get rid of opposition and fight for contradictions. Due to existence of such "double edges", everything is inevitably involved in fighting and development. Fight between Official Ji and Lu Zhaogong typically reflected the fighting between opposite sides of contradictions. Emperor of State of Lu never cultivated virtues over years. On the contrary, Official Ji, as a senior official in State of Lu, behaved diligently at government matters and cared about people for many years. As a result, people almost forgot the emperor. Of course, it was inevitable that nobody took pity on the emperor who died outside. Since ancient times, different rulers and ministers enshrined and worshiped gods of soil and grain, just like what was said in Book of Songs "high shores may become low-lying lands, while deep valleys can become hills".
Court Historian Mo kept on saying that "as far as you（Zhao Jianzi）know, descendants of emperors of Yu, Xia and Shang dynasties are not nobilities any more at present. On the contrary, they become common people". In The Book of Changes, Qian symbolized sky and emperors while Zhen symbolized thunder and ministers. Thunder stayed over sky, indicating that ministers prevailed over emperors. Due to such translocation between emperors and ministers, the divinatory symbol was called as Da Zhuang, indicating "rules of heaven" and showing that translocation between a powerful minister and an incapable emperor conformed to historical development laws.
Realizing the real social "revolution" during later years of the Western Zhou Dynasty and the Spring and Autumn Period, Court Historian Mo believed that such revolution conformed to development laws of nature and society as well as the trend of historic development. Phenomena that "high shores become low-lying lands, while deep valleys become hills" in the nature and "different rulers and ministers enshrine and worship gods of soil and grain" in the society surely exists, appearing to be rational. Court Historian Mo explained internal contradictions of/between things using "double edges". He believed that contradictive opposite sides existed inside/between things. Fighting between opposite sides of contradictions would promote changes and development of things, reflecting "rules of heaven". With opposition and fighting of these contradictions, things would change to an opposite direction, promoting better, more rational and higher-level development of "harmonious" society.
2. General understanding of "harmonious society" in ancient China
In ancient China, people generally deemed "harmonious society" as an ideal social state with overall harmony and coordinated development. In general, such ideal social state referred to harmony in respective physicality and mentality of an individual life; interpersonal relations; relations among social systems and classes; relations between all humans and natural environment, etc.
（1）Harmony in individuals.
A society consists of different individuals. Social "harmony" cannot be realized without harmony in individuals. Chinese traditional academic ideas discussed a lot about ways to maintain harmony between physicality and mentality by individuals; a lot of scholars paid attention to life harmony, health and happiness, mental shackles, transcendence and so forth of individuals.
Historical Taoist ideas of Laozi and Zhuang zi as well as Taoism evolved therefrom paid much attention to overall harmony in physicality and mentality of individual lives. Confucianism discussed life ideal state and style of saints and sages and emphasized research on the idea of "harmony". Confucianism combined "harmony" in individual life with pursuit for "benevolence" and "morality", indicating that life became meaningful with pursuit for benevolence and morality. During this course, people became saints and sages. Their ideal personalities thus became the life pursuits of Confucians. These personalities emphasized "governance of national affairs" and "assistance to people" during governance of a country;and also highlighted inner mental "transcendence" of mental peace and happiness of individuals, also known as "inner cultivation and exterior action" pursued by people. "Exterior action" was realized based on "inner cultivation", while inner mental "transcendence" of "inner cultivation" contained the bottommost requirements for "harmony" in individual physicality and mentality.
（2）Harmony in interpersonal relations.
Scholars in ancient China also discussed "harmonious" society, emphasizing individual harmony and paying much attention to harmonious relations among people.
It was believed in ancient times that value of individual harmony in physicality and mentality would be realized on the premise of the social condition created by general harmony among people. Hence, when understanding individual harmony in physicality and mentality, ancient people generally did not approve the individualistic-atomic harmony as such "harmony" generally only emphasized coordination and satisfaction of individuals. Such personal coordination and satisfaction indeed reflected abstract privacy of individuals, removing the real meaning of harmony on the contrary during pursuit for harmony.
For instance, generally speaking, the Confucian idea of "harmony" tended to emphasize harmony in interpersonal relations when emphasizing individual harmony in physicality and mentality. Confucianism emphasized "the benevolent loves others", so such value played an important role in forming the "harmonious" co-blending interpersonal relations among people. You may wonder why Confucianism emphasized "the benevolent loves others"; how to realize harmony in both individuals and interpersonal relations; which theories they were based on. We will answer questions above based on an important philosophic topic in idealist philosophy of the Song and Ming Dynasties— "oneness and variety of the world".The so called "variety" refers to that an individual possesses instinctive real natures. During such course, these instinctive natures are shown by a specific form of existence, appearing to be particular and internal. However, such particularity and internality do not contradict the "same principle". For instance, the image of moon reflected in Kun Ming Lake of the Summer Palace in Beijing may differ from that in Weiming Lake of Peking University. Such difference is firstly reflected in different geographic locations and space; however, both images reflect the moon in the sky, reflecting the same thing but differing in respective natures. Hence, individual differentiation does not mean that different individuals are isolated and unrelated; just the opposite, different individuals are intercommunicated due to the "same principle". They are different due to "Variety". Despite of the different "Variety", overall harmony may still be realized among different individuals because of the "intercommunication". Such opinion happened to coincide "uphold harmony instead of uniformity" emphasized by Confucianism.
This proposition about interpersonal "harmony" is still valuable and meaningful in contemporary society.
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Professor Han Zhen from Research Center for Value and Culture at Beijing Normal University thinks that: "harmony" is always highly praised by Chinese nation and has become an essential requirement for socialism with Chinese characteristics. In the theoretical context of socialism with Chinese characteristics, harmony refers to a relation or state in a socialist society, where people can realize good interactions and mutual promotion with other people, the society and natural environment. Containing the value of human rights, such value also surpasses the visual threshold of value of human rights as human rights are mainly understood by individuals in the capitalist context. If each person spares no effort to appeal to personal rights or does that immoderately, their appealing to rights will surely get involved in mutual completion or conflict very soon. Harmony aims at normalizing manners and boundaries for people's appealing to rights via legal, moral and cultural specifications on the premise of respecting each person's basic rights. In this way, people's conflict for rights can be avoided. Furthermore, the state mentioned by Marx that "the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all" can be realized. It is fair to say that harmony refers to a social state of all people's free development under democratic and just specifications.（Ten Lectures on Political Literacy for Teachers, East China Normal University Publishing House, 2013.）
（3）Harmony in social systems and classes.
"Harmony" also refers to coordination in relations of all classes and systems in the whole society, as proved by many discussions in ancient China.
During the Spring and Autumn Period, Confucius, originator of Confucianism, explained the principles for "harmonious" commonality in all social systems and classes when discussing "rule by rites" and "benevolent rule".
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Confucius, styled Zhongni（BC 551 to BC 479）, was born in Zouyi of State of Lu. His ancestors were nobilities in State of Song. After acting as minister of criminals in State of Lu for a short term, he visited various vassal states and hoped to implement his political view. During the Spring and Autumn Period Confucius lived in, the royal family of Zhou had declined, while some vassal kings strived for hegemony one after another. As a result, systems about politics, economy and social culture established by the royal family of Zhou were seriously destroyed. Confucius deemed the era to undergo "moral chaos" and "ritual collapse".
Confucius was not satisfied with social situations in the Spring and Autumn Period. To relieve the dilemma, he thought it was of utmost urgency to mitigate class contradictions among vassal states so as to recover harmony and stability in society. It was difficult to govern a society with very sharp class contradictions and social conflicts. In order to obtain efficient governance, contradictions should be mitigated while interests of all social classes should be guaranteed. Confucius thought that these objectives could be reached by "rites", which could mitigate contradictions among classes or in the society. He spoke most approvingly of excellent "rites" of the deceased emperor.
Youzi, styled Ruo, was a student of Confucius. He thought rites were meaningful to promote social harmony, basically expressing Confucius' view. Such view was most precious among all the methods for proper governance by the deceased emperor. Both big and small events should be controlled by rites so as to realize social harmony. Harmony did not mean "blind blending". It was irrational to force the society to be harmonious. Were it not for normalization or measurement by rites, harmony could not be realized in reality. Once public people were governed by governmental decrees and normalized or restrained by punishments while no rites were used during real social governance, they might commit no criminal for this reason, but would never develop an idea about good, evil and shame; when people got benefits from emperors' kindness and became normalized by rites, they would develop an idea about shame and abide by rules while commit no criminal. In this way, the society could be kept harmonious while the governor could carry out efficient governance.
Confucius thought that rule by rites could be realized by "definition of status". In real life, guilty of rebellion, arrogation and destruction of rites, acquisition and plunder as well as other evil events happened everywhere. As a result, the political system of enfeoffment and the Jingtian economic system were damaged greatly. Confucius thought it was necessary to recover "rule by rites" by "definition of status".In this way, both state and society could become harmonious again. Without the proper status, a ruler could hardly convince people by his propositions; when the ruler guided people with these untrustworthy propositions, he could hardly reach his objectives;without realizing these objectives, rites and music could not be implemented; without implementation of rites and music, punishments might not be appropriate; without proper punishments, the public people would become confused. As a result, efficient governance of the state could be impossible. Hence, a ruler could release governmental decrees more efficiently by the definition of status. In this way, these decrees could be implemented well. Confucius believed that a whole state should abide by rules. In particular, an emperor should decide great events of a state. In this way, the society would be harmonious in apple-pie order. Once numerous people like dukes, senior officials and retainers intervened in politics and contended for power and profits, the state would become chaotic easily.
However, "ritual system" was only an external system, appearing to be necessary for keeping the society harmonious. "Ritual system" was based on "benevolence" which mainly referred to an inner moral and spiritual ideal state. "Benevolence" was reflected by various external moral behaviors such as "loyalty and forgiveness", "filial piety and fraternal duty", "rite", "justice", "morality" and "faith". Confucius thought that it was necessary to focus on "benevolence" in order to solve problems fundamentally. Deeming "benevolence" as the basis of various social and political systems, he thought a state could be governed by ritual system, filial piety and fraternal duty, loyalty and faith while various social relations could be coordinated via benevolence-oriented systems and forms. Both forms and contents, external and internal issues should be organically unified. A person without "benevolence" could never formulate or abide by "ritual systems" very well, let alone make good use of "music". Deeming "benevolence" as the basis of a social system of rites and music, Confucius discussed it frequently in the Confucius: The Analects.
Confucius's concept about "benevolence" basically focused on "love for people", indicating the kindhearted mind. With such kindhearted mind, people could perform "filial piety and fraternal duty", treat the elder with filial respect; care about people and rule the state by virtues in politics; restrain themselves with rites and do nothing improper or uneasy so as to develop personal moral cultivation; behave considerate and sympathetic and understand others during interpersonal communication;make efforts to succeed and also help others reach their goals; make personal improvements and also help others obtain progress; never impose unbearable things on others. "Benevolence" could be realized when everyone could behave well in daily life. In this way, interpersonal relationship would become harmonious, wherein a ruler behaved wise and noble and ministers behaved loyal; a father was affectionate and his son was dutiful; state and families raised no conflict. Confucius's idea about "benevolence" could hardly be practiced in the society of the Spring and Autumn Period with sharp class contradictions as efficient social governance depended on many factors. Confucius thought these contradictions were caused by lack of "benevolence" and hoped to solve various social problems by a "kindhearted mind", irrelevantly deeming such spirit as the overriding factor in social development and neglecting impacts of material economic conditions such as social production manners on social development. He believed that the society could step into an ideal state through adjustment of "benevolence", and deemed "benevolence" as the basis for political society systems such as "ritual system" and ethical standards, and the core concept of the deceased emperor's ideas.
（4）Harmony among individuals, society and nature.
Value of "harmony" in Chinese culture is inevitably not separated from discussion about relations between people and world even the universe, becoming a distinguished feature in Chinese culture.
Values in ancient China generally emphasized "unity of heaven and man", wherein the value about "harmony" between heaven and man highlighted that people should devote themselves to building harmonious close relations between man and nature; Chinese culture also emphasizes "endless changes and growth" which inevitably contains the important pursuit of sustainable development in nature and human society.
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In the On Value Ideas and World Consciousness of Chinese Culture（Chuanshan Journal, 2013（3））, Professor Chen Lai from Academy of Chinese Learning, Tsinghua University states that: people's understanding of world and attitude towards it are mutually related and communicated; understanding of the world always reflects or influences the attitude to world. On the other hand, people's attitude towards the world is generated from their understanding of world or influences such understanding. Philosophic cosmology in classical Chinese civilization emphasizes views about continuity, dynamics, connection, relation and whole rather than the self-centered philosophy which pays attention to static states, isolated states, entity and subject-object dichotomy. Based on the organic holism, everything in the universe mutually depends on and relates to each other while everything reflects its existence and value through correlation to other things. Such cosmology reflects the value that coexisting and harmonious relations should be built between people and nature, between different people, and between different cultures.
It is fair to say that the topic of "unity of heaven and man" emphasizes "harmony" between people and nature, which shows important reference value to solve current global crisis in ecology. The Confucian value of "uphold harmony instead of uniformity" also brings important enlightenments to current construction of a peaceful world with universal "harmony".
On this basis, we can conclude that "benevolence" especially focused by Confucianism mainly reflected harmony in individuals, forming the foundation for harmony in interpersonal relations, social classes and human—nature relations; "rite" and "definition of status" attached importance to "harmony" among people and social groups;Confucian emphasis on responsibility consciousness such as "justice performance" reflected the pursuit of overall harmony in the universe. These ideals still play a positive role in current society.
Of course, "harmony" in above aspects can be deemed as a whole. As far as we can see, harmony in individuals can be really realized based on overall harmony of society; based on this, harmony among various systems and classes in the society can be realized and reflected; harmony between people and society or between people and nature is a special expression of interpersonal harmony; harmony between a country and international society cannot exist without interpersonal harmony.