Not copying on the computer or hanging on the wall, Xuelin's essays | Truly effective community norms and emotions | Governance | Computer
Community governance and services typically involve on-site, face-to-face work, which involves a significant amount of emotional labor and requires social workers to be adept at using emotional tools. Emotional tools can reflect on individuals and their personalized spiritual needs, with elasticity, adaptability, and pertinence. In community governance, grassroots workers have invested a lot in emotional governance actions. But from the actual effect, this approach seems to be increasingly inadequate.
The reason why emotional governance is the main focus in traditional society is due to complex economic, social, historical, and cultural factors. A fundamental factor is that traditional China is a "family centered" and "emotional ontology" society, where clans, local customs, and emotions are the deep bonds that unite society. But in the process of transitioning towards modernity, all feudal, patriarchal, and pastoral relationships were disrupted. The total amount of human emotions seems to be shrinking, and interpersonal relationships and social organization inevitably become geographically oriented and even profit oriented.
According to Max Weber's definition, the fundamental characteristic of modernity is the rise and spread of rationalization, with humans increasingly becoming animals of rational calculation, rationality becoming the fundamental motivation for human behavior, and social relationships becoming increasingly abstract and depersonalized. All of this has laid the foundation for the adjustment of human relations from "emotional cohesion" to "legal regulation".
In response to this change, people have made the choice of "rule by rule" in their governance model.
Firstly, "rule of law" is the bottom line.
In grassroots governance, when encountering marital conflicts and neighborhood disputes, emotional governance is always the starting point, appealing to emotions and reasoning. If emotional governance cannot be achieved, we must resort to legal action and bring it to justice.
Therefore, emotional governance is the surface, and legal governance is the bottom line. Or to put it more vividly, emotions are the vanguard, bringing closer together; The law is a marshal, giving first respect to the soldiers, and setting the tone with one stroke.
Secondly, "rule of law" is online.
The rule of law has a fundamental, stable, and long-term guarantee role, and is an indispensable supporting element for modern state and governance. The legalization of grassroots governance is a policy oriented and trend, and it will also have great potential.
Thirdly, "rule of law" is the cost line.
In modern society, emotional governance is a costly governance approach that requires a significant investment of time and cost from the governance system and practitioners, but the effectiveness may not be guaranteed. Relatively speaking, "rule based governance" is a relatively low-cost governance approach. Especially, if everyone has a high degree of compliance with the rules, in principle, it can lead to zero governance costs.
From the research perspective, there is still room for improvement in our compliance with rules. The phenomenon of not obeying the law and constantly causing trouble not only consumes a large amount of governance resources, but also easily locks in the transformation of governance paths for a long time. The rule is to have teeth. Rules without enforcement safeguards are inevitably empty words.
Fourthly, the governance of rules is public.
Mr. Fei Xiaotong said that there is a "hierarchical pattern" in Chinese society, where everyone establishes social relationships centered on themselves. As a result, the social relationships of the Chinese people are like ripples, spreading out in circles, inevitably leading to a lack of publicity.
Looking towards the future, the public foundation of urban community governance will inevitably be based on public rules. The truly effective community regulations are not copied on the computer or hung on the wall, but rather formed through party building guidance, homeowner autonomy, and joint consultation and discussion to form common rules.
Of course, rule of law does not exclude emotional governance, and the relationship between emotional governance and "rule of law" is like that of a married couple. Modern marital relationships no longer have quality without emotions, but may no longer have a basis for existence without the law.
