Wei
Jingsheng Foundation News and Article Release Issue: A543-W317
魏京生基金会新闻与文章发布号： A543-W317
Release
Date: May 8, 2010
发布日：2010年5月8日
Topic:
The Way Out for China (Part IX) -- Wei Jingsheng
标题： 《中国的出路》之九 -- 魏京生
Original
Language Version: Chinese (Chinese version at the end)
此号以中文为准（英文在前，中文在后）
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The
Way Out for China, Part IX
--
Wei Jingsheng
Earlier,
I have explored with you the crooked road for China in the past century. There were a lot of reasons why the
Chinese pursued democracy yet were unable to get it. Besides the blind reverence of the West, another important
reason was the theory of the original goodness of human nature in the
traditional Confucian culture.
From this point of view, people were hoping that there would be good
people and sages to manage the society.
To their leaders, they would use the standard of a good person and a
sage to make the measurements. The
result was that hypocrites overflowed and the schemers had their ways. In the end, the people still lived in a
society of suffering and unfairness.
As
a matter of fact, the hypocrites manufactured by the Confucian culture had
already overflowed into disaster during the Western Han Dynasty of more than
2000 years ago. The Chinese
struggle with hypocrites has never ended.
Yet, in the frame of the Confucian culture, there was no root change
possible. The reason was that,
just as in the Middle Ages religious culture in the West, the Confucian culture
was a unification of the state and religion. Thus, it created chaos in the politics and laws, and
provided fertile conditions for hypocrites and schemers.
Some
people have suggested that the philosophical base of the Western democratic
system is a theory of the original evil of human nature. That is not right either. The philosophy of the democratic system
is to fully estimate the true features of human nature, good and evil, and
accurately design a system that is feasible and reliable. The basic design of a democratic system
is not necessarily that the "people" make the decisions, but more
that the people and structure provide guaranteed restraint. The main goal and principle of
democracy is that the people influence the decisions, not necessarily make
them. Yet, for the various
policies to reach this goal, the design principle is mutual restraint. The origin of this principle is due to
the fact that human behavior is good under some conditions, yet might be the
devil under some other conditions.
Take
corruption and graft as an example.
There are no natural born rogues.
We often run into some situation like this. When the people gnash their teeth against some corrupted
official, the official's relatives and friends would sincerely cry out of
grievance. They would say that
that official was a good person, with a kind heart, was helpful, etc. Even Adolf Hitler had been full of tender
feelings. Mao Zedong dropped his
tears for ancient people when he was watching dramas.
Why
did these people who were so praised conduct those kinds of corrupt and
cold-blooded things? If we study
it carefully, we would discover that the system and the environment would
permit and even guide them to commit such crimes. Human nature at birth is without evil or good to start
with. However, when a person with free
will encounters problems in reality, he or she will try to find ways to resolve
them. There are many ways
available. Sometimes, an approach
of "good" might be troublesome and even may not be successful. So if a system and an environment
permit people to take "evil" approaches, some people might rather to
choose failure due to their own moral restrictions, while some others might
choose those evil approaches. This
is the guiding function of a system and environment.
The
restrictions of religion and morals need to have initiative, and also have
their limitations. They can even be easily disguised and duped. This is why a society needs various
politics and laws to manufacture passive restraints. By manufacturing the forced restraints from the outside, the
system guides people to conduct "good" instead of
"evil". Politics and
laws are different. The political
system is to restrain those people who manage the society. The people who operate the system must
be separated from the people who manage the society, in an effort to avoid
having them act in collusion with bureaucrats shielding each other, thus losing
the restraint function.
The
ancient Chinese had noticed these problems long ago. So they designed the bureaucratic system in an effort to
disperse official power, with layers and layers of supervisors and mutual
restraints. The final jurisdiction
was carried out by the emperor, exercised as the proxy of the people. When the emperor was wise, social
management would be relatively lucid.
However, it was difficult to guarantee that all the emperors of all the
periods were very wise. There was
no system to change the emperor.
The stability of the imperial power system was all tied to the single
emperor. This is the reason why
this extreme stable system often became extremely unstable.
The
other big difficult problem in ancient Chinese politics is that the officials
shielded each other, while cheating their superiors and defrauding the
subordinates. The restraining
function of dispersing bureaucrats' power was hard to carry out. Occasionally, there was a Bao Gong and
Hai Rui, both good officials whose reputation was to sincerely and bravely
carry out their duty. Yet, in
reality, these kinds of good officials found it hard to survive. This problem could not simply be solved
by moral restriction or dissemination of public opinion. Even the established system of
officials in charge of the discipline of public functionaries could not resolve
the political deals under the table and mutual cover-ups. The drum at the courts beaten by
someone who was lodging a complaint and the wood of slander from the ancient
democratic period all become ornaments in the government offices, only serving
for visual enjoyment like antiques.
The
democratic system designed by the Westerners has exactly resolved this root
problem of restraint. Instead of
punishment, the system uses people's natural scrambling for power and interest
to its advantage. By creating
multiple political parties, the democratic system is able to realize the mutual
supervising and mutual restraint by using the different parties' and factions'
fight for power and interest.
Thus, the fight for power and interest is able to be guided along the
road of "goodness", more-or-less, instead of producing the fruit of
"evilness". On the
surface, the hostile parties think their rivals are "evil". Yet, to the people, it is the good
result of "the fish man's gain (as the third party) from the fight between
the sandpiper and clam". By
these means, the democratic system is able to let the people monitor these
"experts" who are very capable of cheating the others.
On
the surface, both the Confucian culture and the unification of the state and
religion all ended with evil results despite the purpose for goodness. In comparison, a democratic system
produces non-unity, yet gets good results.
To
hear Mr. Wei Jingsheng's commentary, please visit:
http://www.weijingsheng.org/RFA/RFA2010/WeiJS100430ChinaWayOut9.mp3
(Written
and recorded on April 30, 2010.
Broadcasted by Radio Free Asia.)
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中文版
Wei
Jingsheng Foundation News and Article Release Issue: A543-W317
魏京生基金会新闻与文章发布号： A543-W317
Release
Date: May 8, 2010
发布日：2010年5月8日
Topic:
The Way Out for China (Part IX) -- Wei Jingsheng
标题： 《中国的出路》之九 -- 魏京生
Original
Language Version: Chinese (Chinese version at the end)
此号以中文为准（英文在前，中文在后）
如有中文乱码问题，请与我们联系或访问:
http://www.weijingsheng.org/report/report2010/report2010-05/WeiJS100508ChinaWayOut9A543-W317.htm
-----------------------------------------------------------------
《中国的出路》之九
-- 魏京生
在前面几节中，我和大家一直在探讨中国一百年来所走的弯路。之所以追求民主而不得，有很多原因。除了盲目崇洋以外，另一个重要的原因就是传统儒家文化里的性善论。从性善论出发，总希望有好人、圣人来管理社会。对领袖人物总以好人、圣人的标准来衡量。结果反而使伪君子泛滥，阴谋家得逞。人民转来转去，还是生活在苦难和不公平的社会中。
其实儒家文化制造伪君子，早在两千多年前的西汉时期就已经泛滥成灾了。从公元前开始，改革儒家文化主导的政治体制，和伪君子作斗争就一直没有停止过。但在儒家文化的框架内，改来改去还是不能从根本上改变。原因就在于儒家文化和西方中世纪宗教文化一样：政教合一。它用道德标准代替政治和法律；以性善论为基础，无视人性的其他方面。这给政治和法律制造了混乱；给伪君子和阴谋家制造了条件。政治和法律混乱的副产品就是伪君子泛滥。
有人议论说：西方民主制的哲学基础是性恶论。这也不对。民主制的哲学基础，是充分估计到人性的真实面貌。它准确地按照人性的特点设计制度，达到可行和可靠的目的。民主制度的基本设计，并不是人民做主。而是事事人人都有制约。人民做主是民主的主要目标，是原则。而达到这个目标的各项制度，其设计原理就是互相制约。这个原理的出发点，就是人性在一些条件下表现出来的是善；在另一些条件下表现出来的可能就是恶。
以贪污腐败为例。天生的恶棍是没有的。可是我们常常会遇到这样一些情况：当人们对某些贪官咬牙切齿的时候，他的亲戚朋友们却在真心实意地喊冤。他们会说他是个好人，一肚子善心，乐善好施，等等。就连希特勒都有温情脉脉的一面，毛泽东看戏都为古人流泪呢。
但是为什么被说得这么好的人，会干出贪污腐败、冷酷无情的事呢？仔细研究会发现：是制度、环境允许甚至引导他们犯下了罪行。人的本性是与生俱来的，无所谓善恶。当人们遭遇到现实中的问题时，总要找到解决的办法。办法可能有很多种。有时候采用善的办法可能很麻烦还不一定成功。如果制度和环境允许，有些人就会采取恶的办法。一些人可能因为道德戒律宁可选择失败，另一些人却可能选择采用罪恶的手段。这就是制度和环境的引导作用。
宗教和道德的约束力是主动的，也是有限的，甚至是很容易伪装和欺骗的。这就是社会需要政治和法律的原因。各种政治和法律制度都是为了制造被动的约束，也就是制造外加的强制力，引导人们向善而不是作恶。政治和法律又有所不同。政治制度是用来约束那些管理社会的人。操作这些制度的人必须和管理社会的人分开，以免他们狼狈为奸、官官相护，失去了制约的作用。
中国的古人早就注意到了这些问题。他们设计了官僚制度来分散职权，层层监督，互相制约。而最终的裁判权，则由皇帝代理人民行使。在皇帝明智的时期，社会管理的还算清明。但很难保证所有的皇帝和所有的时期都很明智。皇帝又不能换，皇权制的稳定系于皇帝一身。这就是极端稳定的制度反而经常不稳定的原因。
中国古代政治的另一大难题，就是官官相护，欺上瞒下。官僚分权的制约作用很难落实。偶尔出个包公、海瑞，其实在官场中也很难生存。这是仅仅靠道德约束、舆论宣传无法解决的问题。监察御史的制度也解决不了政治家们私下交易、互相包庇的难题。原始民主时期的登闻鼓、诽谤木都成了衙门里的摆设，像古董一样只有观赏价值了。
西方人设计出的民主制度，恰恰解决了制约这个根本的难题。民主制度对人们争权夺利的本性，不是抑制而是利用。它创造出多党制来相互制约。利用不同党派争权夺利，落实了互相监督、互相制约。使争权夺利被引导到善的路线上去，而不至于产生恶的结果。表面上看，敌对的双方都会觉得对方很恶。但对人民来说，是渔翁得利的好结果，把最容易骗人的专家们监督得严严实实的。
从表面上看。儒家文化和政教合一，都是求善反而得到的是恶。民主制是制造不团结，求恶反而得到的是善。所谓性恶论的说法，正是这种表面文章的结论。
聆听魏京生先生的相关录音，请访问：
http://www.weijingsheng.org/RFA/RFA2010/WeiJS100430ChinaWayOut9.mp3
（撰写并录音于2010年4月30日。自由亚洲电台播出。）
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