科举考试的人本视角

The Imperial Examinations (Keju) from a Humanistic Perspective

科举的社会化,实质上是考试和人的价值的中心化。它标志着人把自身作为实现非人目的之手段观念的消退,反映了“人是目的”认识的升华。科举考试立兴于对人的价值的关注和人的价值实现途径的创新,而衰废于对人的价值认识的偏误和对人的价值实现模式的固化。科举考试的不朽之功在于:将以人为本的考试宗旨定格于促进人自身的发展;将人的价值实现系于人自身的自主与自由进取,以及规范公平的良性竞争;将社会差异性利益的取得和稀缺性职位资源分配的机会均等、能级利相称,寄责于对人的学识才能评价标准的客观公正掌控。它为人的改造、人的治理、人的发展和人的价值实现,提供了规律性的动力机制。而重共性轻个性,重人文轻科技,重继承轻创新,重治权轻人权,则是科举考试有碍于人的自主与自由发展、影响人的价值实现的严重缺失。

The socialization of the Imperial Examinations was actually the centralization of both examination and people's value. It symbolized that people would not consider themselves as the tool to realize the non-humanistic goals any longer, and people would recognize that 'human himself is the goal'. The prosperity of the Imperial Examinations resulted from the attention to people's value and the innovation in the ways to realize the value; while the declining and abolition of the Imperial Examinations was due to the misunderstanding of people's value and the fossilization of the ways to realize the value. The merits of the Imperial Examinations lie in the following: putting the ultimate humanistic goal of examination as enhancing the development of people; thinking of independence, endeavor and fair competition as the way to realize the value; attributing the fair opportunities and the matching of capability and rewards in obtaining the differentiated social benefits and allocating the sparse resources to the objective control of the assessment criteria over people's talents and abilities. It provided a kind of dynamic mechanism to realize the reconstruction, governance and development of people. Of course, Keju also had its serious drawbacks: emphasizing the common characteristics and underestimating the individual characteristics; attaching more importance to humanism rather than science and technology; putting more emphasis on inheritance rather than innovation; emphasizing the rights of governance rather than human rights of ordinary people. As a result, these also counteracted the free and independent development of people and the realization of people's value.