Moral Criticism About Scholars In "The Scholars"

In the feudal society of the ancient China, the scholar class, as a privileged social class, engaged in no agricultural activities and were attached to the ruling class for they held a sway in terms of feudal ethics. At that era, the agricultural civilization was still typical of inheritance according to lineage and was much accented on ethic s and feudal morality. These characteristics pervaded in every aspect of social life and became the moral kingpin of the scholars'existence. The Scholars can be regarded as a sharp criticizer of their moral plane.The main performance of moral deterioration of the scholar class is that the scholar class under the impact of Bagu System give up "the source text line" of ethical conduct,and turn to pursue "the Fame fortune". The main performance of moral deterioration of the scholar class ethical twist of the scholar class. The means of ethical twist are betrayaling the basic ethical of Confuaiaism, such as"humanity, association, ritual, wisdom, faith loyal, tolerance, moderate, kind, Respectful, Frugal, Humility, Filial, Fraternity". This betrayal signify that they Abandoned the social responsibility of themselves. Moral deterioration of the scholar class after they access to official circles, is one important performance of moral degeneration. As Officials,they like lacquey, they are very extravagant, they abuse people,they Dereliction of duty, they are very hypocritical. Those are performances of moral deterioration of the scholar class. Neo-Confucianism corrode the moral of the scholar class. Neo-Confucianism suppress Normal desire of people.Having four reasons of moral deterioration of the scholar class : First, Temptation of Civil service exam system make Scholars not to think highly of"The source text line"and their own moral self-cultivation.They keen career civil service exam. They make Confucian classics as their tools. Second, the form of civil service exam system have stringent requirements. Tests must be from"the Four Books and Five Classics",and reference only is scholium of Neo-Confucianism. Neo-Confucianism stifle the progress of thought, protecting the feudal rule. The content and form of civil service exam system is Rigid and dogmatic.Third, since the date of birth of Chinese imperial examination system often appears the case of fraud. And more later ,technology of cheat is more and more advanced. That defects in the civil service exam system and the autocratic rule of the feudal system are lack of effective monitoring, become one of the reasons why Scholars keen to fame wealth.Fourth , the decaily feudal system itself , are the root causes of Scholars moral corruption. Chinese feudal system of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, is the extreme centralization of power,lost its own internal tension and the power of self-regulation. Wu Jingzi, the author, in face of such harsh social reality, looked forward to the restoration of the traditional ethics, wished to stem the moral deterioration of the scholar class. He held the belief that to re-establish the dominance of Confucian doctrines, mechanism should be changed foremost. However, with feudalism remaining unchanged, other adjustments were of meager significance because they were inextricably depended on the alteration of the feudal system itself. As regards the scholar class, the author was inclined to set up a group of moral models for the scholars to learn from. The Scholars has vividly depicted several moral models as YU Yude, Zhuang Shaoguang,Zhu Shaoqing,the Yu brothers and the like. Apart from that, the book also covered some upright officials like Ju You the integrate, Xiang Ding the devoted and Ji Benying who attend to his citizens heart and soul.