“刚柔相济,以刚为主”才是中国文化的主线——与何中华先生商榷

The Main Line of Chinese Culture is "Combining Hardness with Softness, Focusing on Hardness"——Discuss with Mr. He Zhonghua

何中华教授《柔性智慧:中国文化的主线——以〈论语〉为中心考察》一文认为,以儒家为代表的中国传统文化是一种柔性的智慧,这一柔性特征典型地体现在《论语》中。这一判断难以成立。从《论语》来看,毋宁说,“刚柔相济,以刚为主”才是孔子思想的主线。何文认为,柔性智慧的一大特征是尚文不尚武,并举《颜渊》《卫灵公》两篇中的章节予以佐证,这种论证是不够充分的。实际上,孔子很重视军事,孔子之后中国历代也并没有抛弃军事而“尚文不尚武”。作为中华传统文化主干的儒家所提倡的“为仁”,向来包含着刚性与柔性两种因素,“杀身成仁”即主要是刚性因素在起作用。孔子及后世儒家大多既重德又重法,在政治理念与实践上堪称“刚柔并济”。总体来看,中国传统文化所推崇的“中庸”与“水”德都具有刚柔两个方面的属性,就此而言,“刚柔相济,以刚为主”才是中国文化的主线。

In the article On the Flexible Wisdom of Chinese Traditional Culture from The Analects, Professor He Zhonghua believed that the traditional Chinese culture represented by Confucianism is a kind of flexible wisdom, which is typically reflected in The Analects. This judgment is difficult to hold. From The Analects, it is better to say that "hardness and softness complement each other, and hardness is the main line of Confucius’ thought." He Wen believes that one of the characteristics of flexible wisdom is to respect literature rather than martial arts, and cited the chapters in Yan Yuan and Duke Wei Linggong as evidence. However, these two chapters are not enough to prove that Confucius did not attach importance to military affairs. In fact, Confucius attached great importance to military affairs, and Chinese dynasties after Confucius did not abandon military affairs and only "respect literature but not military". As the backbone of Chinese traditional culture, Confucianism advocates "benevolence", which always contains two factors: rigidity and flexibility. Among them, "killing one’s life to become benevolent" is mainly due to the role of rigid factors. Most Confucius and later generations of Confucians attach importance to both morality and law, which can be called "the combination of hardness and softness" in political ideas and practice. In general, the "golden mean" and "water" virtue advocated by Chinese traditional culture both have two aspects, namely, "hardness and softness".The main line of Chinese culture is to help each other and give priority to hardness.