Social Transformation And The Order Change: The Unspoken Rules Prevailing Sociological Interpretation

"Covert Rules" is a newly coined word which has gained its popularity among Chinese society since the late 20th century. Yet the behaviors and phenomena it represents could find their deep roots in Chinese history. Defining covert rules as the unaware rules or illegitimated rules, this paper focuses on an age-old problem in China: the discrepancy between the name and the reality.This problem derives partly from our cultural propositions. Pre-assuming the priority of aesthetic order thinking to the logical order of thinking, the ancient Chinese society emphasized substantive legitimacy while neglecting procedural legitimacy, and underlined motivation while neglecting results. On the specific way of constructing social order, the ancient Chinese chose the individual's heart as the origin: only those who had been adequately educated could qualify themselves as an eligible member of society. Besides, if a government lost its control over its citizen's minds and thoughts, a total chaos would be predicted and the society would be out of order.Following such a conception of social order, the discrepancy between the name and the reality became a normal status of social order in traditional Chinese society. It was covertly encouraged, at least tolerated by the society's moral value and thus contributed to the harmony of society without having to be integrated into a logically self-contained entity. Thus, covert rules gained their popularity in traditional Chinese society. However, the rules and regulations seldom interfered with the ordinary life in ancient China due to technological and economical inadequacies at that time. Consequently, a harmonious but non-integrated society and empire sustained itself over two thousands years.However, with the forceful intrusion of modernity in middle of 19^th century, Chinese society began its modernization process, which constituted an underlying thread in the following century, under fierce national and international wars and conflicts. Finally, with the establishment of People's Republic of China, a highly organized, rigidly controlled yet minimally integrated society was build. Quantities of covert rules found nowhere to hide while many of others were deliberately developed as the normal regulation method which we could see in the highlighted episodes in the first three decades of this newly establish country. It was a highly ordered society, yet there was little room for personal freedom and privacy.Since the reform and open-up policy, the traditional social integration method has been suffering substantial challenges. Value consensus, interest consensus and right consensus, gradually became the three pillar of a legitimatized social order system. Hence, covert rules find themselves everywhere due to the multi-criteria of legitimatized rules. Besides, the structural contraction between the pursuing of social and individual development and the restriction of legal order compels individuals and organizations to strive to success, ignoring the procedural justice. Thus, covert rules serve as the weapon of the weak which one would like to take to win the social resources one need.It is no doubt that many covert rules are undermining the legitimacy of laws and governmental regulations. Yet there are no easy solutions to the problem. A feasible recommendation would be that we should try to build a institutional justified society which embraces individual rights and interests and co-ordinates relations with different interest groups so that the spacious room for covert rules could be minimized. Besides, a dynamic harmonious conception of social order should be introduced to replace the rigid, instrumental one, which had helped China maintained decades of stability, but would contributes little to social development under new circumstances.