Modernity And The Cultural Spirit Of Private Law

The rule of law assumes, in its essential form, an orderliness, integrated state of life and mode of existence that upholds and promotes freedom, equality, justice and spirit of rights while the profound conceptions of rule of law and value concerns that it carries with it lies in the richness of the cultural spirit of private law, in the social course of dual evolution of civil society and state, an then in the historical pulsation of modernity and change and transcendence.Modernity means an integrated view of life, the cultural environment and state of subsistence that is distinct from traditions. Basically it refers to the mode, faith and attitude of life since the Enlightenment with modernity as its drive and indicator, reason and subjectivity as its core concept, freedom and progress as its fundamental value, and rationalized order of law and hierarchy as its institutional principles, thus constituting a mainstream culture that transcends given existence and realizes free and self-conscious practical activities.The movement of modernity has its profound social roots and foundations, the main theme of which represents the rise of civil society and its dual course with the state. Therefore, the rise of civil society also signifies the start of modernity which exhibits the domains and space of private life characteristic of its variability, diversity, freedom, and autonomy, pushing forward the formation of modern faith in the rule of law and the cultural spirit of private law. However, the contemporary dilemma, crisis and transcendencetendency of modernity also have major re-molding roles and influence on theformation of the cultural spirit of modernity, thus determining the contemporary transition of the cultural spirit of private law, i.e. from formal reason to substantive reason, from "identity/contract" to "contract/identity", from "rational economic person", to "practical social person", from freedom of rights to limitations of rights. This change reflects the rational construction of modernity, free spirit and the contemporary dilemma of the dual rival relationship between civil society and state embodying rebellions of subjectivity, appeals of freedom and equality, and the contemporary surge of pluralistic autonomous propositions of civil society. Finally it tries to overcome the rational "hegemony" and social alienation, realizing the promotion of subjective value and a return to the world of man.The worries and dilemmas that modernity encounters are not the fault of individualism, liberalism and rational spirit themselves, but rather the fault of alienated development. The revolt and deconstruction of modernity by post-modernism is basically a modification and rectification of modernity. It is thus clear that modernity faces a dual mission of termination and re-construction. And it is on the basis of this dual mission that the relationship of the modern civil society and the state undertakes change and transcendence tendency. Likewise, the cultural spirit of private law actualizes the reconstruction of legal reason and the remolding of the free spirit.Civil society in China is confronted with Confucian tendency and a complicated situation of coexistence of limitation and transcendence typically representative of a strong tradition of "oriental despotism", serious barrenness of rule of law ideas and the cultural spirit of private law, thus intensifying the complication and hardship of this course of rule of law inAbstractChina. Therefore, China should establish a "benign interaction" between civil society and the state, actively cultivate the cultural spirit of private law, develop the pluralistic basis of rights, the authority of public powers and the private law order, thus speeding up the establishment of a country of rule of law.