Moral Education Sociology

Author: Lu Jie
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1998-08-01
Features: As China's economic system transitions from a planned economy to a market economy, how to determine the value orientation of moral education in schools during this period is an issue being explored. One viewpoint suggests that current moral education should adapt to the market economy, focusing on cultivating the awareness, qualities, and behaviors required by the economic market, thereby producing individuals who meet market demands. Another viewpoint argues that while cultivating market-relevant moral qualities is necessary in current moral education reforms, the primary focus should still be on fostering comprehensive and well-rounded moral qualities and personalities needed in contemporary society. At the same time, education, particularly moral education, is forward-looking. Therefore, moral education should also include the guidance and cultivation of ideal personalities that transcend reality. This book leans toward the latter viewpoint. It should be noted that many values and ideologies embedded in market culture carry moral significance. For example, concepts such as efficiency awareness, time consciousness, and the spirit of equal competition not only reflect the needs of the market economy but also align with the historical trends of human progress, social, and individual development. Thus, school moral education should absorb the spiritual achievements of this cultural ethos, making the individuals nurtured by schools more aligned with the times and imbuing moral education itself with a sense of contemporary spirit. However, should market culture be the sole foundation for school moral culture? Should all aspects of school moral culture be encompassed within market culture? The answer should be negative. The market economy, as a mechanism for allocating resources and income, is achieved through exchange and is driven by economic forces. In market transactions, both parties inevitably act based on their own interests. While normal market behavior is mutually beneficial, this mutual benefit is fundamentally rooted in self-interest. An individual or organization cannot engage in market behavior without starting from a self-interested perspective. There are many "non-commercial behaviors" in society, such as fulfilling obligations and acts of generosity, which are not motivated by the desire to gain economic benefits. Therefore, they do not fall under market behavior. As a cultural phenomenon, morality, however, has a different nature. In The Descent of Man, Darwin pointed out: "Those best adapted to survive are not the physically strongest, nor the most cunning, but those who learn to unite for the welfare of the group, regardless of strength or weakness, and to help one another." It can be said that altruism is one of the fundamental mechanisms of animal evolution and the emergence of humanity, as well as the root of human existence. Without altruistic characteristics, morality would not exist. Morality does not exclude mutual benefit or the unity of altruism and self-interest, but mutual benefit in moral behavior is predicated on and logically originates from altruism. Moreover, moral behavior is not driven by the pursuit of economic benefits for the actor but is instead motivated and constrained by the actor's moral conscience and societal moral public opinion. The actor derives spiritual satisfaction from moral behavior. Although China's market economy is still in its early stages, market culture has already shown a tendency toward generalization. We cannot overlook the fact that in a considerable period, people have spoken less about social obligations, social responsibility, selflessness, selfless dedication, moral ideals, and the ideal life. Some even believe that these concepts are contrary to the development of the market economy and market awareness. In some schools, regardless of the moral spirit and behavioral norms promoted by teachers in the classroom, the school culture and teacher-student relationships, which are important battlegrounds for school moral education, have actually been infiltrated by market culture. From the perspective of overall social development, school moral education serves multiple social functions and values and cannot be based solely on the market economy, its sole orientation, or its sole "service object." The complex social system consists of different subsystems, each with its own unique operational mechanisms. Each mechanism is applicable only to specific domains. For the normal functioning of the entire society, they are indispensable and cannot replace one another, nor can one mechanism be used as the sole operational mechanism for the whole society. Since the founding of the country, there have been lessons learned in this regard, such as the expansion of political-oriented operational models to all social domains, leading to political generalization. Today, we cannot inappropriately extend the operational mechanisms applicable to the economic field to all other areas, resulting in market generalization. If education merely transforms individuals into "economic animals" or "commodity personalities," that would be a failure of education. We cannot limit the reform of current moral education to adapting to the market economy while viewing this adaptation merely as the cultivation and reinforcement of certain market-relevant awareness and behaviors. If school moral education falls into such a trap, we can only imagine the state of the spiritual world of our entire nation. School moral education is still forward-looking. Examining different societies from ancient to modern times, we can see that they all advocate a social moral ideal and ideal morality, personality—ideal states, a utopian world, freedom, equality, and brotherly love, communism, Confucius, Jesus Christ, Lei Feng, and so on. Although these ideal moral realms and ideal moral personalities cannot become universal moral phenomena in the real world, the superiority of morality lies in every historical period, as it always commands people to do what many consider "impossible." In the past, we often attributed the historical mismatch between ideals and reality to the lies and deception of the exploiting class, while dismissing the promotion of moral ideals in today's society as unrealistic "big talk." To label this historically universal and закономерный phenomenon of moral ideals as "alienation" may be one of the reasons for the current confusion over moral ideals. According to a survey of university students who are considered "pragmatic," 32.1% believe that the spirit of "worrying about the world before oneself and rejoicing in the world after oneself" should be promoted under current societal conditions; 60.1% believe that "people who dare to speak out for the nation and its people" can be elected as representatives; 92.7% believe that in handling interpersonal relationships, one should "show more understanding, sympathy, and friendship" and advocate "do not impose on others what you do not wish for yourself"; and 91% approve of the act of fighting against bandits to protect national funds, describing it as "very valuable," "very admirable," and "noble." Statistics show that approximately 30% of the donors to the "Hope Project" are students, accounting for positions. This indicates that the pursuit of a morally perfect ideal is deeply rooted in human nature. Guiding and promoting such ideal morality and ideal personalities should be a key orientation of contemporary school moral education. The essence of human beings lies in their ability to not merely adapt to reality but also to transform and create the conditions for reality's existence, thereby advancing progress. Perhaps there is a vast distance between the proposal of a moral ideal and the maturation of the real-world conditions for its universal realization, but the contrast and contradiction between the ideal and reality, between "what should be" and "what is," point the way forward for historical progress and the trajectory of human self-affirmation. Morality and moral ideals are one of the ways people engage with the world. They reflect history through ideals and the spiritual pursuits formed by historical psychological accumulations, playing a role that other ideologies and spiritual phenomena cannot. As a university survey shows: although most people generally acknowledge the greatness of selflessness and selflessness, they also commonly admit that they themselves find it difficult to achieve. Yet, we must not, because of this contradiction, deny the promotion of moral ideals and the cultivation of human values through the noble ideal of personality. Dr. Chen Xiaoming once wrote in an article titled Rebuilding the Moral Homeland: "Cultural construction requires the confirmation of the meaning and value at the apex of the pyramid to proceed. High-end and sophisticated elements in cultural construction can serve as guiding and inspirational forces, providing models for the public to emulate, making us feel that striving in that direction is something to be proud of, and thus enabling a culture to take shape. Only when a culture confirms an authority or a model can the establishment of moral order have a basis, and moral cultivation have a foundation." "Humans need some spirit," a nation, a society, and a nation all need some spirit. How school moral education can construct such spirit is perhaps the fundamental question we must seriously address when considering the orientation of moral education today.