Preface

What are values? What is the use of values? What is the relationship between values and me? What are the values of the Chinese like? And what are the contents of values? All these questions may flash into the readers' minds at their first sight of this book. But,with a little understanding of the purport and scope of this book,the reason why the Chinese have that kind of values perhaps will be the question that readers are most interested in before and in their reading of this book. As a matter of fact,the discussion of the issue about values is often regarded as a very serious academic topic or theoretical matter. And,when people discuss values,they usually interpret them through some abstract theories that make people feel very abstruse but still can not get rid of the fuzzy sense. Thus,the first impression of the word “values” left in people's mind is “vague and elusive”. As a result,as regards such a topic about values,people tend to be reticent on it and avoid mentioning it. Even if talking about it,they often can not grasp its true meaning,or only touch on its superficial meaning like a dragonfly skimming the surface of the water. Nevertheless,in the scope of the knowledge of most people,or the scope seen or heard by them,there are still some works that talk about the values of the Chinese.Although these works do not mention them directly,values have permeated in their contents. Most of them are literary and historical works with light and easy style,which may inspire the readers and make them learn something,and this,is a common way to write about values. Such works are mostly derived from the authors' experiences,which are able to stand up to the test of their readers,and deserve the careful reflection in thought,the slow approaching in feeling,or the gradual closing in mind. There is quite a lot of such kind of works,even only counting those works that are still popular in recent years,and it is easy to give some examples: The Spirit of the Chinese People by Gu Hongming,My Country and My People by Lin Yutang,The Character of the Chinese People by Luo Jialun,A Survey of the Chinese People by Bo Yang,etc. However,this book you are reading is different from the above works,and in fact,the difference is precisely where the main idea of this book is,which,in a nutshell,is manifested in the following three aspects:

First, the difference in the direct title. Obviously,the theme of The Values of the Chinese is to deal with the values. As we know,values are different from the culture or the cultural personality,or even the personality spirit. They are standards,the core of culture,as well as the kernel of human spirit,and they are not neutral,but capable of making choices and judgments. Any kind of values embodies its value as well as the judgment of its value. However,value judgment is a very complex activity,which is related with people themselves,conditions people live in and the emotion,knowledge,quality and character of them. Since values permeate and manifest themselves in all aspects of people's life,production,study,work and contacts,it is hard to write about them,for which the very reason is that values exist everywhere at any time,in every person and every thing. For this reason,the works with the title of values that we usually see are either attributed to being too academic or too common.As for the former,the public may be unwilling to read or unable to understand it; while as for the latter,the public may find it hard to draw impressive and intuitive conclusions owing to its vacuous contents and spirit. Thus,obviously it is quite difficult to take a middle road between the two styles so as to organically combine academic study and common life. Despite this,I am willing to make some attempts to directly use values to title this book and transform some abstract and theoretical academic points of view into common and acceptable popular knowledge. Of course,this is the wish of the author,as for what the effect will be,it still remains to be judged by the readers.

Second,the difference in its subject. The subject of this book is the Chinese people,who are not the historical or traditional Chinese people,but the contemporary Chinese people. If we consider that the previous works show us an image of the Chinese people who live in the history or the tradition,then in this book,the image has been transferred to the contemporary era. The contemporary era here refers to the present time,that is,the current Chinese people. Of course,from a cultural perspective,the contemporary Chinese people can not be completely divorced from the shackles of traditional culture,for the culture is a special kind of life connector with the continuous and radiating nature,which can not be thoroughly separated and disconnected by the times. The great thinker Marx once compared the past ideological tradition to a “nightmare” on the brains of the living,believing that the ideology and spirit of the new age is developed in the inheritance and transformation of the old tradition. The values of the contemporary Chinese people are closely related with the values that were born in and continued from the Chinese history and tradition. So,this book intends to,on the one hand,find out the relationship between them,and on the other hand discover the creation and change in the values of the contemporary Chinese people. In short,this book aims to find the values of the Chinese that embody the modernity.

Third, the difference in its proposal of dimensions. The above-mentioned works are a kind of works that research into values by means of concealing them in the people's way of life and survival in an indirect and implicit manner. This is where the merit of such kind of works lies.However,it is exactly because of this that the readers may easily get ambiguous conceptions from such kind of works,for when reading them,usually people can only vaguely grasp the visualized information about values,but will not explore the sources of the values or their precise manifestations. In academic circles,a lot of works that research into values tend to divide values into different levels and categories in accordance with the domestic or international academic consensus.Although there is not a unified classification at present,such a method of classification is undoubtedly the best way to refine,deepen and expand the research on values. The classification of values in this book is made on the basis of the combination of traditional and modern values and from the dimensions of life,politics,economy, culture and society,which mirror the overall view of the survival,living and life of the contemporary Chinese people from different sides.Although it may not be sufficient and perfect,it is able to take account of the reality of the existence and development of contemporary Chinese society. There's no doubt that the values reflected through such a classification of dimensions are exactly the survival values,political values,economic values,cultural values and social values of the Chinese.

Holding the spirit of exploration and conducting frank researches,seeking not to cover everything but to consider every detail,with such an attitude and spirit,we dedicate The Values of the Chinese to the contemporary Chinese and our friends who care about and wish to know about China,and we hope this book that depicts the spirit and values of the Chinese can vividly convey the true image of the Chinese people in respect of spiritual wishes and value pursuit in a fair and objective manner.

Yuwen

June,2012