The Traditional Cultural Barrier To Fulfilling Rule Of Law In China

The idea of rule of law is a great mansion. In the society of rule of law, laws result from the consensus of all the individuals, completely substituting the power, so the nation is only a type of collection of all the managers, who and whose powers are given by laws. There exists in no means any power not based on laws. When it comes to the executive affairs that are likely to be fulfilled by national power, there are always related laws to distinctly define them. The idea of rule of law has become the core and the soul of the national culture, and the liberty has become the core and the sole of the rule of law. Based on such logos, the nation should be governed by the idea of the vast majority, within a kind of civilized order, to guarantee that all the people can live their so-called free, agreeable, and harmonious life. In such country, there exist no dissimilation or betrayal of the power, because the power knows that its mother is the laws, and the laws come from the consensus of all the individuals, without any possibility of breaking off in it. In such situation, no real power exists; the laws is exactly the power. Rule of law is neither the gift of God, nor the fruit of the naive law; it is and should always be the result of logos.However, in Chinese traditional culture, the dominant idea—Confucianism—always put emphasis on "loyalty" and "filial piety", arguing that power belongs to lords, officials, and parents; meanwhile, the public approved the Confucian idea, and voluntarily accepted the dominance of their lords, officials, and parents, unaware that they were the real origin of the power. And in the traditional culture, the Confucianism supported the sages to govern the nation, which was also accepted by the public. In such way, the idea of supervising the power was unlikely to be brought forth. Even if there was any supervision, it was only the one of the lords over the officials, which made it easier for the power to bedissimilated and betrayed, and became the private property of its performers. This is the most difficult cultural barrier to fulfilling rule of law in China.But on the other hand, our traditional culture has its specific idea system about the relationship between the human beings and the nature, between the human beings and the universe. Such system, like the logos of the west culture, tends to be fused into the idea of rule of law, unifying our humans with the nature and the universe, unifying logos and geist, to reach a harmonious state that we have always been pursuing, and to make the rule of law the perfect order of our human beings.