Discussion On The Ideological History Of The Western Zhou Dynasty

The Western Zhou Dynasty is an important period in the history of Chinese civilization.With the change of social conformation during Shang and Zhou Dynasties,the Western Zhou Dynasty civilization reached its peak that later generations can not attain in the emergence period of Chinese civilization.In this period,the new social concept and basic proposition appeared constantly,while the gene and characteristic of Chinese civilization was formed.The mindset and the basic philosophy statement under debate from the Spring-autumn period to the Warring States period then to the Qin-Han period,can’t get rid of the hedge of various concepts and propositions in the Western Zhou Dynasty.The humanism trait of Chinese civilization was formed、enriched and developed in the Western Zhou society,and then based on it continues for thousands of years.To be specific,the core proposition of Western Zhou ideology is“human”.And centering on this a ideological system which the main characteristic is human belief was formed.This did not mean the core proposition of before or later period was not“human”,but relative to before period,“human” became a subjectivity philosophical category obviously in the Western Zhou ideology; then relative to later period,the humane characteristic of Western Zhou ideology determined the basic principle of Chinese ideological history how to develop.But the basic display form of Western Zhou ideological concept system was Liyue civilization,which collected the most advanced social experience and rational cognition of Zhou Dynasty civil,and that was not only a social system form,but also including positively value concept.The mature of Liyue civilization marked an important trend of Chinese ideological concept,which transferred from religion to moral,and from religion Wubu culture to human belief and ethic culture.However,using cultural formation trend to describe the develop of early Chinese civilization can not involve the inherent problem.The study of ideological and philosophical history could not balk at making the ideology and concept during a certain period clear,but it should further explain why this or that concept come,which was the cognitive and social source of the ideology concept.In cognitive parent terms,on the one hand,we should pay attention to the effect of“ reason ” in the development of Western Zhou ideology.In Western Zhou Dynastyand before it,and in the ideology and culture field,there was no lack of the focus on“human”.But in a long time,this vague and uncertain cognition was confused in the cognitive of Mysticism.In Western Zhou Dynasty,people had accumulated abundant social experience and rational cognition,and they had the ability to discern the effect of Mysticism.Based on it,“human”could appear in the ideology and culture field.How to recognize ourself-human beings,how to recognize the vital value,how to recognize the relationship between human beings and it ’ s existence world,that could be the basic and crucial problem to be solved in Western Zhou ideology.So, in this process of human cognition development, “ reason ” played an important role in cultural formation trend,thus urged new ideological concept born.On the other hand,a series of Western Zhou ideology all concluded the definitive pursuit of “ virtue ”.In this period,the effect of primitive religion had been discerned gradually,and the concept of“ morality ” had been put forward,then it came to the spirit subject.Although we proposed the claim of “ morality ” in order to meet the clan consanguinity society needs,objectively,it was based on the perfection of individual personality.That is to say,the ideological culture of Western Zhou Dynasty not only implicated the requirement of concern and perfect individual,but also placed the foothold on maintaining the order of clan society,this was a typical and comprehensive pursuit of“ virtue ”.Therefore the "Human Belief" characteristics of the ideological culture in Western Zhou Dynasty both had obviously distinguish from religious belief,and had the internal logic of profound“virtue belief”.In terms of social root,in nearly three hundred years history of Western Zhou Dynasty, “ the relationship of balancing negotiation and authority ”(Mr. Li Feng said)changed gradually among many ethnic groups in Yin-Shang Dynasty.Based on consanguinity network and feudal system,the Western Zhou authority constructed the hierarchical social which was consist of Zhou Royal Court and Kingdoms.In this period,the basic pattern of Cathaysian Country was formed.“Consanguinity”played a decisive role in this process.On the one hand,the ubiquitous social unit in Western Zhou Dynasty was clan consanguinity group.The Western Zhou Royal Court held this social attribute accurately,and changed clan social norm to national management system skillfully.They took“consanguinity”as the general principle of the political power distribution,and set the political order on the basis of difference in statuses and ranks.Therefore,“consanguinity”、“Respect”became the basic ideological concept of Western Zhou patriarchal society.On the other hand,the strongly consanguinity network in Western Zhou society determined the“humanistic”“ethics”characteristic of ideological culture in this period from the root.The key-node of constructing patriarchal society was the individual consanguinity identity,so the Western Zhou ideology laid stress on individual existence and personality perfection.The Western Zhou ideology merged individual and social existence into ideal of Liyue society,and a series of values was produced as the social internal requirement.To consider Liyue civilization as the representative for Western Zhou ideology culture,it reversed the disordered state of uncivilized times,eased the nervous psychology under mysticism,and embodied out a positive 、good and harmonious humanistic value pursuit.The establishment of Chinese civilization traditional values,the organic architecture of Li Order,and the integral forming of culture gene all completed their foundation rites in the Western Zhou Dynasty.Certainly, it is because of the closely relationship with consanguinity,the state system design of Western Zhou Dynasty had innate drawbacks.Especially it took consanguinity identity as the general principle of power allocation,that led the Western Zhou society lack of a fundamental incentive mechanism which maintained the socially vibrant objectively.The values that Liyue civilization of Western Zhou Dynasty advocated,in hundreds of years evolution,were on longer completely individual moral consciousness,and the pure social endogenous requirement,but To some extent it became a kind of extrinsic political declaration and institutional restriction.Thus,the decline of Western Zhou ideology and culture on political level was inevitable.But,in a very long period after Western Zhou Dynasty,the basic form of Chinese society was still the clan consanguinity society.Because of the consanguinity factor existed tenacious and continuous,and the society of free atmosphere,the values of Western Zhou ideology had the vector to continue its vitality.So the chinese civilization became the representative of the Oriental Society“continuity”civilization.On a more serious note,from the methodology side,the Western Zhou ideology had the particularity in the development of ideological and philosophical history.From one side,there was no traditional thinkers and classics in this period,thus needs us pay more attention to the development of society itself,rather than excessive explain the ideology of some so-called thinkers and limited materials.To the other side,the form of various values in Western Zhou Dynasty was uncertain from the perspective of development,it could incomplete suit for its born age.Therefore we could not idealized interpret the Western Zhou ideology,due to the closely origin betweenConfucianism and Western Zhou ideology and the Confucianism played an important role in the Chinese ideological history.