A Study Of Wang Yangming’s Thoughts Of Grassroots Social Governance

Wang Yangming is famous for his cultural and military achievements throughout his life,and is regarded as a model of Confucian scholars.The philosophical thought system he founded was unique in the later period of China’s feudal society.His grass-roots social governance ideology also played a huge role in a certain period of time,and it has had extensive and far-reaching influence on later generations.He not only made great achievements in theory,but also emphasizes the practice and exploration of the unity of knowledge and Practice,Governed the grass-roots society,and made great achievements repeatedly,and he achieved the true immortality of “setting virtue,setting meritorious and expounding ideas in writing".Wang’s thoughts of governance of grassroots society means,in the case of the mid-Ming serious social anomie,in order to enable people to live and work in peace and build an ideal human order,Wang Yangming integrated various social forces to provide a set of order norms for the grass-roots society,and enabled the society to realize the self-management governance process under this order.Its main features are concentrated in two aspects,the first is the establishment of a social order,that is,In remote and backward areas or areas where social unrest has occurred,restore social security,rebuild social ethical norms,and establish the authority of Confucian ethics.The second is through multi-agent participation,establish a code of conduct for grass-roots societies,incorporate the ethical principles advocated by the state,and guide the grass-roots society to follow and maintain this order voluntarily.Wang Yangming came from a scholarly family,and he was influenced by Confucian culture since childhood,with the ideals of life as a saint.In order to achieve this goal,he began to explore ceaselessly,after several ideological turns,he eventually attributed to Confucianism,realized his “mind is principle” when he was living in poverty,thus creating the ideological system of mind.In his era,the Ming dynasty changed from prosperity to decline,social contradictions were acute,and the grass-roots unrest continued for years.The development of the commodity economy has led to the rise of individual consciousness and utilitarianism in the society.As the official ideology of Cheng Zhu Neo-Confucianism,it is difficult to maintain its rule during this period.In the face of such social situation,Wang Yangming tried to save the world from “losing human nature " and establish an ideal human order.However,limited by the political environment at that time,the traditional Confucian path of " Letting the monarch promote orders " could not be realized,so he turned to the road of grass-roots governance of “Awakening people to follow real order".Starting from the social ideal of "all things are one," he hopes to restore the three generations of orderly,great morals and manners society,and expects everyone to "sanctify" on the individual moral level.In his view,the root cause of the chaos of the world and the social order is the shelter of the people.Therefore,he advocates "to conscience," removes the masking of lust,and restores the pure state of human hearts.It was under such an ideological guidance that he began to explore grassroots practices in the combination of "regional governance" and "remedying the people’s mind".He first used annihilation-appeasement methods to calm the grassroots unrest,and on this basis adopted a series of grassroots governance initiatives to rebuild the basic social order.On the one hand,Wang Yangming tried to strengthen the control over the grass-roots society through the implementation of ten licensing methods and the reconstruction of administrative divisions.On the other hand,after the restoration of public security at the grass-roots level,in order to consolidate the ruling order,he carried out the governance work focusing on educating the people in the grass-roots society.Through measures such as admonishing the people,promulgating the covenant,establishing social studies,and appeasing the people,the Confucian norms advocated by the government are integrated into the lives of grass-roots people,which not only restored the social order at the grassroots level,and made the people live and work in peace and contentment,but also consolidated the rule of the Ming Dynasty to some extent.Understanding Wang Yangming’s thought of basic level society governance should be be combined with the background of the time,at the same time,we should also uphold the historical dialectics of materialism.discarding the dross and selecting the essential,and discarding the false and retaining the true,to make the past serve our needs.We should combine the contemporary conditions and social realities to creatively transform and innovate he’s thought.Through studying the grass-roots governance education activities,it can provide thoughts and references for today’s grass-roots spiritual civilization construction.Wang Yangming led the people at the grassroots level to develop education,raise covenants,and conduct social studies,which not only established the authority of the Confucian ethical norms for the grass-roots society,but also provided a venue for spiritual and cultural exchanges among the villagers,and enhanced the grass-roots people’s sense of ownership and political identity.Nowadays,we should pay attention to these problems in the construction of spiritual civilization in China,and we should strengthen the ideological and moral construction and cultural construction at the grass-roots level to improve the degree of social civilization.In addition,Wang Yangming’s mode of self-administered rural self-government,in the remote rural areas where state powers and laws do not reach,has assumed the function of maintaining rural social order through the self-government forces of grass-roots societies,and it has provided governance ideas that can be used for reference.In today’s grass-roots social governance,we should give full use to the social forces at the grass-roots level and realize the cooperative governance of multiple subjects.We should standardize and guide the construction of grass-roots autonomous organizations,at the same time,mobilize non-governmental elite groups and participate in the process of grass-roots self-government so as to better handle public affairs at the grassroots level and handle the relationship between the country and society.