Research On Xu Fuguan’s Confucian Political Thought

Modern Chinese society has undergone dramatic changes.Under the internal and external troubles,people have explored the way to save the country from subjugation,and Xu Fuguan is one of the most representative person.On the one hand,although he is a conservative,he has a broad vision of western culture;On the other hand,within the Neo-Confucianism,he can also criticize and advance.As a scholar who once went deep into real politics,his political thought can reflect the concern of scholars at that time about the fate of the country,and it is also the combination of his theory and experience.This thesis attempts to answer his question of how to deal with the conflict between Chinese and Western cultures,and analyze how he can find a way to integrate the moral spirit of Confucianism and the achievements of Western institutions.This thesis discusses the above problems from two aspects: the purpose of Xu Fuguan’s thought and the approach to the history of thought.From the perspective of ideological purpose,Xu Fuguan’s ideal politics is the product of the integration of China and the West.He pursues the modernization of Chinese politics and expects the real landing of the free and democratic system in China to provide security for the people;But in essence,he insisted on the value position of Confucianism and emphasized that moral freedom is the premise of political freedom.It is not easy to communicate these two aspects harmoniously.Xu Fuguan’s approach is to deeply explore the spirit of freedom in Confucianism and use it as a bridge between China and the West.Confucianists require people to exert the upward goodness of their own nature,to be masters of themselves,to pursue the internal moral transcendence and the improvement of external reality,which embodies the content of positive freedom in the West;The Confucian concept of "rule by virtue" and "people-oriented" contains the governance requirement of "rule by doing nothing" for the monarch,which is similar to the negative freedom of restricting government power in the West.Xu Fuguan also reflected on modern individualism and opposed it to elevate individuals to a higher level than morality,which led to the imbalance between individuals and society;He advocated using the ideological resources of Confucian "group" to supplement modern individualism,so as to achieve harmony between individuals and groups.From the perspective of the research method of Xu Fuguan’s ideological history,he revealed that the reason for the great changes in ancient China compared with modern times lies in the end of imperial autocracy.He paid attention to the changes in the political fate of intellectuals in the trend of the times,and regarded them as an important role in the construction of democratic politics.The duality of political subjects existed in the ancient imperial autocracy,which led to the opposition between the monarch and the world.Under such a reality,the scholar-bureaucrats who represented the Confucian spirit lived in a repressive and tortuous way.They either admonished the monarch in a spirit of "martyrdom";Either let yourself fall from the Confucian spirit,which is an inevitable tragedy.The public can only be an ignorant silence among them.Xu Fuguan believed that only democratic politics could save them from their tragic fate.In modern society,intellectuals have a broader living space to avoid the alienation of power.Therefore,they should give play to the spirit of caring for the country and the people and daring to be the first in the world.Xu Fuguan excavated the sense of hardship from the Confucian culture as the spiritual power of intellectuals to take responsibility,and took the form of learning as the methodology of putting responsibility into practice,arguing that intellectuals should seek solutions to the problems of modern China with an attitude of keeping pace with the times.However,due to the influence of their own marginalization,modern intellectuals are in a dilemma of not being trusted by the authorities and the people.For this,Xu Fuguan also pointed out the direction,that is,to integrate themselves into the people.In short,Xu Fuguan made full use of the ideological resources of Confucianism to build the blueprint of China’s democratic politics.He explored a way to integrate the achievements of Western systems based on the Confucian moral spirit.It is inevitable that some of them are too ideal,but its value cannot be denied.