The Inversion of Public and Private: a Mechanism of Moral Practice in Contemporary Chinese Society

Abstract One lens that has long been used to examine the Chinese concepts of the public and the private is morality and its public and private boundaries. From ancient times to the modern era, public morality and the political morality of the state have been closely connected. Intellectuals of recent times have, with growing influence, linked the establishment of public morality with the identity and revitalization of the state. According to the philosophies of “establishing the public and abolishing the private” and “subsuming the private to the public,” which became dominant ideologies after the creation of the modern Chinese state in the last century, the private morality of ordinary citizens is viewed as subject to control by an authority. Due to the delegitimization of private property and the perceived threat of private interests at that time, private morality did not establish its own foundation or clear boundaries. Public morality has consistently and forcefully integrated with private morality, resulting in the frequent merging of the public and the private, making it difficult to distinguish between the two. Moreover, traditional concepts of the sacred have not kept pace with modern changes, and the relationship between public and private morality has thus become more complex, leading to numerous challenges in governing Chinese society today.