The Thinking And Action - The Southern Song Dynasty Neo Practice Of Family Ethics

The Neo-Confucianist scholar group of Southern Song Dynasty promoted the popularization of Neo-Confucianism as well as Confucian ethic values among the grassroots communities through their various ethical practices and activities. While building the supreme authorities of the ethical spirits from the ideological level, these Neo-Confucianist scholars also kept on practicing their ethic conceptions by gradually conducting various exercises in real social life from a realistic perspective. It was through these scholars’collective ethical practices that the essence of Confucian quality was well demonstrated, namely, attaching great importance to the ethical order building in real social life and the dissemination and popularization of Confucian doctrines.In this Thesis the author makes "the ethical practices and activities of the Southern Song Dynasty Neo-Confucianist scholars" the major objectives of study and explores the following two fundamental questions:firstly, how were the Neo-confucianist ethical spirits of Southern Song Dynasty applied in the Neo-confucianist scholars’practices and activities so as to realize the connection between thoughts and actions? Secondly, what are the characteristics of those ethical practices and activities conducted by these scholars, and what practice model(s) did they establish? The author mainly studies the ethical practices that were conducted by the group of Neo-Confucianist scholars represented by ZHU Xi, LU Jiushao, LU Jiuyuan, LV Zuqian and based on the Neo-Confucianist ethical spirits and in turn widely influenced the then social life.The Neo-Confucianist ethical spirit of Southern Song Dynasty is a set of values depicting the "ought-to-be" status of the social and human-relations order as out of a longing of the Neo-Confucianist scholars to rationalize the realistic ethical order. Such a spirit is part of the Neo-Confucianist doctrines and consists of the following theories: the "Heavenly Principle" is the supreme ethical standard to actualize an ideal while also realistic human-relations order; the "Universality (of the Principle) and Particularity (of various forms and modes)" is the very ethical principle to realize the "three cardinal guides and the five constant virtues" as the ethical standards in real life. In the Neo-Confucianist doctrines, the Heavenly Principle and human desires are dichotomized in a contrastive framework of "Justice Vs Profit" and "Ethics Vs Desires", and also given a contrastive value judgment of good Vs evil. The ideal of ruling the society through Neo-confucianist ethical theories should be achieved by practicing the spirits of "rites". The "schism between political governance and ethical principle" in the political system setting of the time was frequently criticized in Neo-Confucianist works.Southern Song Neo-confucianist Scholar Group did not rely on the official ruling and educational system of the government of the time to materialize their ethical spirit. Instead, their ethical practices were conducted by continuously expanding the actionist group consisted of Neo-Confucianist intellectuals with strong self-identity and thus establishing in the grass-roots society another ethical education model embracing Neo-Confucianism. They advocated, relying on their own capabilities and social connections, that any common people-either intellectuals, officials, or any other plebeians-should have the right to establish a new religious community, and make it a platform to conduct the Neo-Confucianist ethical education to the mass groups connected by ties of blood. As for the education in countryside, these intellectuals also actively advocated building charitable granary communities and village agreement communities by their own (without depending on any government support) and thus actualized the ethical education to the mass groups connected by either geographic bound or ties of blood. They also freed themselves from the restrictions of government-run schools, enthusiastically committed to setting up public academics in the whole grass-roots society, and conducted the teaching and disseminating practices of Neo-Confucianist ethical spirit throughout the grass-roots level literati tied up by Neo-Confucianism.The Southern Song Neo-Confucianist Scholars’ approach to the issue of grass-roots social order integration was trying to establish various "communities" free from the government controlling system to conduct their ethical education covering a wide range of people from various levels. They actually initiated and constructed a "society" with Neo-Confucianism as its ideal blueprint in their capacities of common people. The construction of such communities created a special pattern for social ethical education as follows:It is through nurturing that the fundamental ethics of a society is actualized. The effectiveness is subject to the fact whether the communities are able to provide enduring-rather than occasional or accidental-belief or views in common, as well as a system of ethical standards that can act as daily practices and the cognitive basis of nurturing, educating and teaching. The Southern Song Neo-Confucianist Scholars attached great importance to the conversion of the Confucianism essence into the teaching materials and text books that could be reproduced and popularized for the mass audience. They actualized the Neo-Confucianist ethical spirit through their practices of "rites" around the Confucian ethical doctrines of "three cardinal guides and the five constant virtues" while building the above stated communities. The new linage communities and their linage nurturing, village agreement communities and their village education, public academy communities and the Neo-Confucianist Literati’s teaching activities all went to their heyday during Song Dynasty. It was also through these channels that the Neo-Confucianist ethical spirit was successfully popularized in the grass-roots society and became the ideology source that the people of the time acted upon while barely conscious of.