The Essence of Chinese Civilization

Faith has shaped civilization. Just as we cannot deny the shaping of European civilization by Catholicism and the shaping of American civilization by Protestantism, we cannot deny the shaping of Chinese civilization by Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. This is the key to understanding Chinese civilization. Therefore, this book devotes a lot of space to exploring the essence of the belief systems of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, and clarifying some common misconceptions.

Today, the faith of the past is declining in all countries, and people tend to use science to deal with the relationship between man and nature, and use law to deal with the relationship between people. In essence, this is the residual effect of the Enlightenment movement; that is, man’s belief in his own rationality—man believes that with his own rationality, he can solve all problems, and even discover the truth of the universe, the mystery of life, conquer nature and even live forever. At this point, the development of civilization has gone astray. Of course, man should possess and promote reason, but it must be reason within the framework of faith. Man needs to maintain his humility toward gods and the morality that gods have prescribed for man. When faith in gods is lacking, civilization will not go far, and social chaos will ensue. In fact, we are already seeing its consequences unfold and spread.

Therefore, in addition to exploring the essence of Chinese civilization and the real reason why it lasted five thousand years, this book also aims to find out, through these explorations, where to focus our efforts to revive Chinese civilization after the destruction of Chinese culture by the Chinese Communist Party.