Summary of Previously Discussed Characteristics

From where we began in Chapter One, which enumerated fourteen key features of Chinese culture, taking in everything we have discussed since, this book now comes to its conclusion. All in all, Chinese culture is concerned with only one issue – the early enlightenment into rationality through cultural precocity. Here, let me bring together what has been discussed in the previous chapters so as to make my point clearer.

• (1) Very clearly, the twelfth feature of Chinese culture, the so-called “culture without soldiers”, is a consequence of its eleventh feature, “being unlike the usual type of state”. This is explained in Chapter Nine, and I will not discuss it further here.

• (2) China's dissimilarity from the common type of state can be attributed to its integration of the state into society, which is also discussed in Chapter Nine. How, then, does it achieve this fusion? This is firstly due to the fact that in the earliest stages of history, both family life and group-centered life were essential. The Chinese people display a preference for family life while Westerners show a preference for group-centered life. They have each chosen their own route. By living a group-centered life, the West has come to embrace statehood; by living a family life, China has cultivated its own kind of society. This has been discussed above in Chapter Three and Chapter Four. However, if a certain group's social life is confined only to family life, or its society is purely family-centered, it is impossible for that group to become powerful, and especially to achieve sufficient growth. Its many weaknesses mean it cannot survive long in this competitive world. In other words, in the evolutionary process, the survival of the fittest should benefit the powerful, huge group. It is not difficult to understand why the Chinese people lack group-centered life, but it is more difficult to understand how Chinese culture can have survived so long despite its lack of group organization. What is more, the Chinese people can attain alarming development. What is the reason for this? Here we come to the second reason – the early rational enlightenment achieved in China. Since China received its moral codes through the Duke of Zhou's Rituals and through Confucianism, the broadly patriarchal system of ancient times has evolved into a special type of ethical system, and China's ethics-orientedness has replaced its family-centeredness.