“意义” 的建构——儒家乌托邦的特点及其在传统中国的政治功能

The Construction of “Meaning ”—The Characteristics of Confucian Function in Traditional China

摘要:

儒家乌托邦经历了两个形态的演变。_“文本中的乌托邦_”类似西方的蓝图-偶像崇拜式乌托邦，_“语境中的乌托邦_”则逐渐淡化了社会蓝图规划以及弥赛亚式偶像崇拜的经验内容，消解了转向社会运动可行性，抽象化为近似布洛赫式的超验乌托邦，从而在现实政治之上构建了一个相对独立的意义世界，为质疑、反思现实政治提供了一定的空间，并在一定程度上重塑了王朝国家的属性，使之在_“私天下_”之外有了一定公共性、自主性以及自我调节机制。考察儒家乌托邦的这种历史演变轨迹及其政治功能，或许有助于拿捏政治理想主义与现实主义之间的最佳平衡点，提升人类的政治智慧。

Abstract:

Confucian utopia has experienced two forms of evolution from _“utopia in text_” to _“utopia in historical context_” . The former， conceived in the Confucian classics，is a utopia that offers a detailed blueprint design for an ideal society in which there is a holy king similar to the messianic type，who can lead mankind to achieve the most perfect rule. There is no Christian _“double country_”gap between the real society and this type of utopia，so it is a blueprint-idolatry-like utopia similar to the West. The latter is a transcendental utopia that has been gradually washed away from empirical content in various historical contexts after the Qin and Han dynasties. As the Confucian concept of the holy king was so perfect that no monarch in reality could match it，the history after the Qin and Han dynasties，in the eyes of the later Confucianists，was actually an era _“without the holy king at work_”. The Confucian conception of social system，such as the well-field system and the system of enfeoffment，was not practical，and coupled with the conflict between some ideas of Confucianism itself etc.，the Confucian utopia，of holy-king worship and the social blueprint planning， was gradually weakened and abstracted into a Bloch-like transcendent utopian spirit that expresses the _“not yet_”state，such as the Confucian concepts of justice and benevolence，the dissatisfaction with the status quo，and so on. The abstract and transcendental transformation and sublimation of Confucian utopia on the one hand dissipated the feasibility of its transformation into a realistic social movement and weakened the impulse to pursue radical social reform and on the other hand built a relatively independent world of meaning on the basis of realistic politics and set up a model of perfect politics and the political values of _“for the people_”and _“for the public_”. This provided a certain space for questioning and reflecting on realpolitik，and to a certain extent reshaped the attributes of dynastic state，giving it a certain publicity，autonomy and self-regulation mechanism outside the_“private world_” . It is this transcendent Confucian utopia that，to a certain extent，broke the monopoly of the monarch and his state on the discourse power of the meaning of life，and provided a relatively independent source of meaning for many scholars，so that when they faced the pressure of a powerful monarch and his state apparatus，they could overcome the ultimate fear of death and destruction brought about by _“deprivation of the meaning of life_”；they could radiate powerful life energy，and show a certain independent personality. In this way，when we return to the historical context rather than the text to examine the Confucian utopia，it is easier to see its positive influence in ancient China. At the same time，the study of the historical evolution of Confucian utopia and its political function may be enlightening for how to strike the best balance between political idealism and realism and how to improve human political wisdom.