| Respecting the elder, with long-lasting history and rich ethnical resources, is the essence of Chinese culture which has permeated into the blood of the off-springs of yun and huang emperors and can be found in every aspect in people's life. After the beneficial and feasible advocates by the ruling classes as well as the all-around and profound elucidation by the ancient intellectuals, we might as well say the history of Chinese civilization is the also the history of respecting and supporting the elder. The tradition of respecting the elder, however, has its own shortcomings which in the process of evolution rose up to the political level and became a part of the political contents which had been distorted as well as abused by the ruling class in order to exaggerate the elder generation's authority over the latter's, the upper's over the lower's and the king's over the subject's. As a result the foolish loyalty and the foolish devotion emerged which doomed to suffer a evitable impact in the current age.Supporting the old in the country-side is also the difficult point and the weak link. In ancient time the old depended on their family for supporting which is in harmony with China's culture, the physical and psychological specialty of the old, the family's features in China and the social bases. Our society, however, is at the transitional stage (that means transition from the planed economy to the market economy in addition to from the backward close agricultural economy to the modern open industrial economy) and the family supporting burden being too heavy, providing resource being inadequate, the increasing risk in the family supporting pattern resulting from the family mode changing as well as its trend being towards miniature. As a result, many worrying problems have come into being.It is a pretty difficult project to solve the rural supporting problems. First of all, the traditional culture of respecting the elder should be inherited while the modern culture of respecting the elder be promoted. The modern culture of respecting the elder should be with new meanings, new features and new functions, while the traditional one should be reshaped, absorbed and innovated in the process of inheriting it then furthering it, so it can meet the requirements of the era's development. In addition, the security system of the rural supporting should be established, the economy in the country-side developed, the construction and propagandas of the construction and propagandas of the law be strengthened. A new supporting system should be set up that consists of three parts, that is to say, self-supporting, family-supporting and social supporting with an eye to realize the long-lasting aspiration to be supported sufficiently that the peasants cherished for thousands of years. |
