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| 2005/09/05 02:37:41瀏覽513｜回應2｜推薦1 | |
| The Familystatism base on the Familism
Mei Feng Paper of the course 'The Swedish Model' From Taiwan, Republic of China Rydsvagen 202 A S 584 32 Linkoping Tel & Fax: 013-260886 (H) Mobil: 070-3315109 E-mail:meifeng77@hotmail.com fenme976@student.lin.se The Familystatism The concept of 'welfare state' is difficult to be accepted in asia Sweden is known with her model of 'welfare state', but I think this concept is difficult to be accepted in asia where people there are far more influenced by the Confucianism than Christianity. If a state is completely described by the word 'welfare' which means probably that we could naturally accept the welfare from the state anytime and it is difficult for them to accept for it's a shame to be always supported by others. I think the real situation is certainly not as the word describe in Sweden for there are always 'give' and 'get' between different people at different periods and different situations, for example, children and elders 'get more' but they also play the role of 'give more' when they are at the ages of works and sometimes they can help the family even at this period, so I think a state should like a three generations' family with children, parents and grandparents, and every member help each other at their feasible ability and at their different life periods, but it is impossible for a state to take over the role of big family completely. In Chinese 'country' means both 'state' and 'family' In Chinese the word 'country' is written as two words 'Guo Jia', the first word 'Guo' means 'state' and the second word 'Jia' means 'family', and you can only use 'Guo' to means 'Guo Jia' too. The Chinese 'big family' at agriculture era probably already existed for several thousand years and some change have happened only in recent several decades which is influenced by the western industrial era. The Confucius' utopia idea of 'Da Tong' world The great utopia idea of 'Da Tong' (you can probably say that it means 'everybody has the same good life') for Confucius around 2500 years ago which have been always deemed as the utmost goal for every Chinese dynasty. What is a world of°uDa Tong°vwould be? It was described at the book 'Li Ji, (The Book of Rites)' which said that: The best life a society could be that the whole world is belong to the public, the persons with virtue and ability would be selected for the people, credit and friendliness would behave to others, love not only our own relatives and care not only our own children, all elders could live well for the rest of their life, all youngsters are useful to the society, all children could grow up well-nourished. The widower, the widow, the orphan, the childless, the disabled and the sicked could all be cared tenderly. All men and women are responsible. Resources couldn't be wasted and used only for oneself, service to and for oneself couldn't be done only by others. Then there is no longer tricks and hatred, no longer thief and bandits, and the door don't need to closed even when you go out. This is 'Da Tong' . The reason why 'Da Tong' world become a fantasy This political utopia is not so difficult to achieved in the agricultural era at the big family of the ancient Chinese society if the emperor is not so bad. But it is difficult to be achieved at the nowadays industrial era when the big family is difficult to exist because of the great mobility of society, and the two generations' small family is difficult to take care of the elders and the children, and when the gaps between the weaks and the strongs, the poors and the riches, the knowledgeable and the illiterate are too big to catch up with. Sweden and the other Nordic countries are great to achieve the goal of the ancient Chinese 'Da Tong' world which is now deemed as an impossible fantasy in China (PRC & ROC) even in the post-industrial era. Familystatism have the same idea with 'welfare state'. The word 'Sweden' probably can be the abstraction of 'sweet family garden', and 'the people's home' is also the political ideas of Social Democratic Party, in other words, when the three generations' big family are difficult to exist, the state instead then have to take the responsibility of big family to take care of the weaks' family member. So I think it is better to describe this as 'family state' than the 'welfare state', and I use the 'Jia Guo Zhu Yi' which means 'Familystatism' to describe the idea of 'family state'. I put the word 'family'(Jia) before the word 'state' (Guo) to emphasize that it is now a democracy era and no longer a monarchic era, the family is the most important unit of the state, the state is exist to serve the need of the family, unlike most of the ancient society the family is exist to serve the need of the state. The Confucianism must have its value But still Sweden now have faced so many difficulties to let the state take over the entire role of big family, I personally think that it is impossible for a state to do every job where the big family could do. In Chinese we have an old saying of 'we should try to help others depend on the intimacy, the people closer to us should be the first priority to help', it doesn't means that we don't love others, it just means that we should help others by the affordability of ourself. Although this great Confucius concept have been misused to some illegal corruption act, but we also said that you should make strong differentiate between public and private, if it's the business for the public then you should without selfish and fair to everybody. So it is not the Chinese culture which have problem but it is the education, democracy, the way to conquer the crash of the big family at post-industrial era, etc need to solve. The Confucianism which has well survived for over 2500 years must have its value and consequence and should not be abandon just because we face the impact of western industrial revolution, and this big transformation is started under the western culture, so how can we blame the Confucianism to take responsibility for that, instead we should learn the reason of progressiveness of western culture under the basis of our own traditional culture, for we Chinese have more experiences to survive compared with the rest of other countries. We also say that 'Fortune will change in turns', it means nobody will always has fortunes all the time, so the recover of eastern Chinese culture is always have no doubt! The Familism Is it possible to let the state to take over all the role of big family? I think that we shouldn't always try to let the state to replace the role of big family just because it is not easy to let the big family exist in this industrial era, instead, why couldn't we make effort to let the big family could still easy to exist, for this is the most natural human behavior which has existed for several thousands years. The Individualism has so many drawbacks as we can get some success of Japan to remind us, the Familism as I believed should now be realized under the basis of some good points of Individualism. What is Familism? The human kind is impossible to get real equality among individuals between sexes, generations and even individuals, and we should try our best to looking for ways to get the better equality, and how is it fair to let everybody have the same vote to show equality, why shouldn't children vote for the right of their own. Although the equality between families is also not easy to accomplished, but it has much more real equality than the equality between individuals, for the members of family have different sexes, different generations and probably the weaks and the strongs, so the equality between families are more fair and important than individuals. The peace of a family is definitely the most important responsibility of a state, for the three generations' family include the basic element of the society, the elders, the youngsters, and the children, and the peace of a family is sure to be the underground of the peace and prosperous of the state. The function of big family The big family have so many advantages compared with the small family, such as replacability, mutual-supportability, efficiency, sociability, multi-functionality, resource-saving, environment-protectability, educationalbility, privacy-protection, multiculturality, successbility, traditionalability, the succession of wisdom, etc. The state should try to let the big family existed Human being can never live alone, and family is the basic peaceful unit of a state, and the three generations' family is better than the two generations' family for they can easily take care each other than a two generations' family. So what a state should do is then easily seen, to make every effort to let the big three generations' family without being separated by the industrial era, do you think it is difficult to make it, I personally don't think so, and I can give you a lots of examples to show the possibility to maintain the existence of the big family. That is the way of Familism should do and should need the legislative of Family law to let this idea achieved. Is it wise to let the state to behave as the role of the numerous big families and get too much burden or try to let every big family can still easily maintain to take care of themselves to diminish the vast burden of the state? Especially the big family is truly the inhabited nature of human being, if the problems of the existence of big family can be solved by the wisdom of the state, what a real lovely society it would be, for the affectionate between parents and children is the greatest human nature which can never be surpass! The big burden of welfare state is partly because of the selfish of human kind and partly because of the management difficulty, although education can amend part of this drawback, but it is still can't be solve completely, so Familism would be a medicine for it, for most family member don't have too much selfish between themselves, and the selfish of family has less influential to the society than the selfish of individual too. The grown up youngster to live away from the family to show their independence instead to let them learn to take the responsibility of the family is a great east-western difference. The necessity for this independence education make me doubted always. Personally I think it must have some reasons to do that, but I don't think it must be better absolutely, if the youngster leave the family forever then it's not good for the Familism's point of view, but if just for temporarily leaving then it's not bad I think. The institution, the company, the community, like the state should act as possible as they could to like a family and make every possible effort to support the peace of the family including the support to families' inaffordability. The western democracy culture is the underground for Familism I also want to emphasize that the western culture of democracy, education, equality, individual private property, science, etc are the underground for the realization of Familism, and that is also the reason why the east is weaker than the west in these latest few centuries. And of course, the weakness of eastern world doesn't mean that they don't have anything that should be learned by the west especially when the natural intimacy with relatives is the common need of the human being, and some achievements of Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc are the evidence of Familism too. The form of family could be changed If the future society progresses enough in visual communication, housing etc, can tight a family without living together, of course we can change the contents of the Familism to make a peaceful and mutual-supportable big family. For the most important thing we cared is the welfare of human being which is the truth that can never be changed, but not for the article, the ideology, the law, the state, etc itself, so they can changed anytime, and the equality, education, democracy, individual property is the basis for Familism, and nothing is always truth to make a peaceful family. How to overcome the drawbacks of big family The drawbacks of the traditional Chinese big family such as, unequivalance between sexes and generations, the quarrel between new and old members, the envy for property to form a new family, the family enterprise, the complete reliance to family, the violence and undue sexual between members, etc, as I could see are not that difficult to solve, some success of welfare state and Japan can give us so many concept and model to reform it. The family-party trapezoid and individual-president pyramid The Swedish election of party-orientated, I think it is a great improvement at democracy compared with the individual-orientated election of most of the other countries in the world. Even there is some change at the latest election in Sweden, but the individual election is still under party election. The politics mainly between the mutual interaction of family and party is better than that of individual and president, for the former get the moderated geometric trapezoid than the sharp pyramid of the latter, and The Family Republican must be better than The People Republican as it can easily be seen. The actual realization of Familism The family vote in stead of the solely citizen vote Chinese has an old saying: 'three workers are always better than a talent', it means the individual's decision is always not so considerate than the group's. In other words, families' decision under meeting and other democratic procedure must get more multi-aspect considerations than individual, many matureless thinking would be diminish under family discussion, that's the reason we have many family meetings at big and prosperous families in ROC. It is a good democratic education for ordinary people, it is also a good training for a leader at any sector. Every human being have their right at the state, if they couldn't easy to express their oponion, then the family who take care of them should decide for them, for family pay more responsibility to the state compared with the individual when they have more member to take cared of. The more the family member, the married couple and the generations should have more voting figure than individuals, that's the real equality for they have members like the children and the disabled, their consideration include the smallest fundamental interest of different-sex and different-generation group, and that is the basic structure of a stable society, so how can their opinion be neglected compare with single individual who cared only oneself. And the consequence of this action would surely make the politician take every efforts to support the welfare of the big family. The unseperation right of family The state should do her best to protect this important right of family, we should have the law to protect this unseperation right like work transfer must be considered for a whole family, the balance progress at every city, etc. The following are only some fundamental ideas of the act of Familism, these ideas from me are really so primitive enough, and they need to have so many researches and discussions on it subsequently of course! The restriction of the same family members to have too much post at the same public sector, the individualism basis of economic property and political equality, the three generations' building, family caring salary, children, disabled, sicked allowance, the natural working hour to ensure normal family life, complete free education of every level, the education right of every family member, children have the right to live with their own or one of their parents, sambo are encouraged but are discouraged to have children, individualism should not over the value of familism, individual property and family property, the family meeting, the family peace education, the family democracy, the families equality, the encouragement of big family with more married couples, family study, family court, family courteous, family member equivalence, family equality, elders' pension, etc. The details of Familism need more research on As for the situation of three generations' family which contains over two married couples is then the details of Familism and should be studied by every possible ways. The idea of the Familism is to encourage 'feasible married couples' included in a big family, but what is the best figure of this 'feasible married couple' then is the trade off between peace and mutual-supportability between family members. The more the state support at the education and democracy culture the more the feasible married couples will probably true as I could imagine now . |
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