The Loss Of Essence Of Chinese Traditional Filial Piety In The Contemporary Era And The Establishment Of The Socialist Filial Piety

As the code of conduct in coordinating relations between family members in the feudalsociety of China, the traditional “feudal filiality” was thought crucial important in Chinesetraditional culture, which was regarded as latitude-longitude grid of the world and standardsof people’s behavior, beginning of the human relation, and foundation of morality.“Filialpiety” as social ideology came into being with the development of human society in certainstage.Having been playing an irreplaceable role in various realms over the past flourishingthousand years, the traditional filial piety has been transformed from religious ethics tofamily ethics, from family ethics to political ethics. In addition, it plays an active part both incoordinating relations between individual and family, family and society, and in cultivatingpersonal sense of responsibility and obligation.However, with the development of socialist market economy, people’s life style, systemof values, hence family values have undergone significant changes, thus resulted in greatchanges in family values. The traditional family structure of multi-generation housing hasbeen gradually disintegrated, turned into a smaller new type of four-two-one structure (that is,one child family with two parents and four grandparents). And a series of social problemsincurred consequently.“Loving father, filial son” is one of the traditional virtue of Chinesepeople, many a family nowadays, however, tend to put too much importance on the“kindness” of a parent rather than on the “piety” of a child. The beliefs of filial piety inmodern people are fading out, consequently, the loss of filial piety phenomena aredeteriorating.Various factors contribute to the phenomena, while they can be summarized in twoaspects. For one thing, it’s a matter of realistic justifications, for another, it’s a matter ofhistorical causes.The solution to the problems is to learn the essence of filial piety culture according tothe requirements of building a harmonious society on the basis of criticizing and inheriting traditional filial piety, and melting modern spirits into the filial piety culture, hence toconstruct a modern filial piety system fitting in the socialist spiritual civilization and the lawof social development. The establishment of the socialist filial piety of new era is bound topromote the harmonious development of the society, and the cohesion and centripetal force ofthe Chinese nation, which can ensure our country a richer, stronger and more prosperoussociety, and people a happy life.This thesis carries on the theme from four aspects.The first part is to analyze the occurance and development of filial piety. This part firstlyexplores the basis of the traditional filial piety. Then, it probes into the development of filialpiety through the historical analysis method, that is, the budding period of the filial peityduring the Shang Dynasty or the Western Zhou Dynasty, the establishment of it in the Springand Autumn and the Warring States Period, the the flourishing period from Han Dynasty toTang Dynasty, its extramalization period from Song Dynasty to Qing Dynasty, and its beingabandoned period in the modern period of the May4th Movement. The second part analysesthe connotation and characteristics of traditional filial piety. It elaborates the connotation offilial piety in four aspects: supporting and respecting elders, filiality and advice, bearingoneself and bringing glory to ancestors, funeral and worship. The third part is on analysis ofthe filial piety ethics crisis and its causes. Filial piety ethics crisis presents in three aspects:The severe phenomena of inter-generation imbalance like “pampering the children” and “theboomerang children”; the weakening sense of gratitude and regurgitation-feeding; theweakening of the concept of family education of filial piety. There are six causes responsiblefor filial piety ethics crisis: the change of economic structure, the change of family structure,the modernization of the way of life, the lack of relevant education, transformation ofpersonality and values, and the hypercorrection of new cultural movement. The fourth partdiscusses the necessity to reestablish the filial piety an the establishment of the socialist filialpiety: to establish a new concept of filial piety, to combine school education with familypractice, to strengthen the supervision of public opinion and develop community nursing, toguide the construction of filial piety with the construction of legal system.