近来，我们提倡“和谐社会”、“和谐世界”以及“和谐文化”等等，起码具有三个方面意义：首先，和谐哲学抛弃了斗争哲学，并且发扬了发展哲学，逐步成为主流政治哲学。这是马克思主义在中国特色社会主义建设中的一个重大发展。其次，在和谐概念中，中国传统思想资源重新得到发现。“和”，这是中国传统的一个核心思想概念。中国传统文化的理想是“和而不同”。最后，和谐理念反映了全球化时代的现时代精神。在“和谐社会”、“和谐世界”的理论基础上提出“和平崛起”的战略，是“和平”“发展”战略思想的弘扬。如果和谐社会、和谐世界是人们在全球化现实中构造的可能世界，那么和谐文化正是构造这一可能世界的全部意义、价值、理想等等的总和，是全球化时代弘扬中国传统文化的集中表现。
“斗争”所呈现的是二元社会、二元世界，而“和谐”所呈现的则是多元社会、多元世界。当然，“和谐社会”、“和谐世界”这些提法并不表明和谐已经成为现实，而是作为理想，表明人们试图避免我们的社会、我们的世界在种种冲突中陷于毁灭。因而，“和谐”的意义只有从提出它的意图，亦即它的负面状态——“冲突”中才能得到理解、解释。
由此，我们将和谐描述为某种趋于冲突最小化社会状态；同时把这种冲突最小化描述为一个区间：它的上限是零冲突社会状态，而下限则是可控制社会状态。
当然，在这一描述中，社会控制方式同样应当得到我们关注。社会控制方式通常包括硬控制和软控制。在政治运作中，两者是经常交叉、重叠在一起的。在不同社会—文化约束条件下，它们之间结合比例不同。一般地说，冲突越小，软控制越起主导作用；冲突越大，硬控制越占支配地位。显然，和谐不是指硬控制主导型，而是指软控制主导型。软控制比硬控制更具有某种弹性或者兼容性能。以第二种解释来修正第一种解释，我们得出这样一个定义：和谐是指某种趋于冲突最小化社会状态，这种冲突最小化处于一个区间：从零冲突社会状态到冲突较小的软控制社会状态。这是它的正值区间。而从冲突较大的硬控制社会状态到零控制社会状态则是它的负值区间。
当然，和谐社会、和谐世界不是静态的，而是动态的。因而，最大限度减少社会冲突，在社会控制中，最大限度减少硬控制，实现软控制，始终必须以社会发展为前提，努力实现社会持续发展。由此我们得出这样一个补充定义：和谐是指某种趋于冲突最小化社会状态，这种冲突最小化并不阻碍社会发展，甚至推动社会持续发展。前者是底线要求，后者是高线要求。零发展不是和谐，可发展且可持续才是和谐。统筹兼顾，在平衡中发展，在经济、环境、人口、资源和社会各个方面的平衡中发展，这样才是全面、协调、持续发展。
硬控制是指政治强力以至政治暴力控制形式，而软控制则是指文化意识以至文化心理控制形式。因此，在我们关于“和谐”这一定义中，内在地包含了和谐文化元素。换句话说，一方面，建设和谐文化是建设和谐社会、和谐世界的必然结果；另一方面，和谐文化建设又是和谐社会、和谐世界建设的必要条件。
总之，我们所提出的问题不是和谐的必要性问题，而是和谐的可能性问题。和谐社会何以可能？和谐世界何以可能？我们的回答是：所谓和谐社会、和谐世界，即是冲突最小化，亦是共存以及共识可能亦即和谐社会、和谐世界、普世价值诉求最大化世界，内在地包含了和谐文化元素。通过这样一种概念界定，我们将和谐社会、和谐世界的问题与和谐文化、普世价值的问题融为一体。
（2008年11月30日-12月4日，作者在法国里昂二大参加由国际跨文化研究所和法国里昂二大主办的“全球治理”[Global Governance]跨文化国际研讨会。这是作者12月1日下午英文演讲的中文稿件）
Three definitions of Harmony——Cheng Guang-yun
Recently, such ideas as "harmonious society", "harmonious world", and "harmonious culture" etc. are being thoroughly advocated, which contain at least three-ply implications: firstly, the philosophy of harmony discards the philosophy of struggle, carries the philosophy of development forward, and is gradually becoming the mainstream of political philosophy. This is a great advance of Marxism in building socialism with Chinese characteristics. Secondly, some Chinese traditional thought resources are renewedly discovered in the conception “harmony”, which is a core concept of Chinese tradition. The ideal of Chinese traditional culture is “Harmony without Sameness”. Finally, the idea of harmony embodies the spirit of the times in the era of globalization. Based on the theory of “harmonious society”and “harmonious world”, the advance of “Rise for Peace” further promotes the strategic thinking of “peace” and “development”. If the harmonious society and harmonious world are the possible prospect that people construct in the actuality of globalization, the harmonious culture is the very sum of all the significance, value, ideal and so forth in construction of the possible world, and the concentrated embodiment of advancing Chinese traditional culture in the era of globalization.
What “struggle” represents is a dualistic society and a dualistic world, but what “harmony” represents is a pluralistic society and a pluralistic world. Certainly, as far as the proposal of “dualistic society” and “dualistic world” is concerned, it doesn't mean that harmony has come true, but evinces that as an ideal, people are trying to avoid the situation that our society and our world would be destroyed in various conflicts and battles. Therefore, the significance of “harmony” could be well understood only from the intention of proposing it, or fully elucidated from its negative opposite---conflicts.
Thereby, we are inclined to describe harmony as such a state of society, in which clashes of opposing forces or conflicts will tend to minimize; and we are also inclined to describe this conflict-minimizing as an interval; its upper limit is zero-conflict state of society, and its lower limit is controllable state of society.
Of course, in this description, we should also pay sufficient attention to the modes of social control. The modes of social control generally consist of hard control and soft control. Both are usually intersectional and overlapped in the implementation of politics. Under different social-cultural constraint conditions, the proportions for their combination are different. Generally speaking, the smaller the conflict, the greater the leading role that the soft control will play; the bigger the conflict, the greater the leading role that the hard control will play. Obviously, harmony does not mean the dominating type of hard control, but the dominating soft control. Compared with the hard control, the soft one has a certain kind of flexibility or compatibility. If we amend the first kind of explanation with the second one, we could draw such a definition that harmony means a certain state of society, in which clashes of opposing forces or conflicts will tend to minimize. The conflict-minimizing is located in an interval: from the zero-conflict state of society to the soft-control state of society with fewer conflicts. This is within its interval range of positive value. And from the hard-control state of society with greater conflicts to zero-control state of society is its interval of negative value.
However, harmonious society and harmonious world is not static but dynamic. Hence, to minimize social conflicts and hard-control and to achieve soft-control must be based on the premise of social development and devoted to the sustainable development of society. Therefrom, we would draw such a supplementary definition: harmony means a certain state of society, in which clashes of opposing forces or conflicts will tend to minimize, the conflict-minimizing is not a barrier of social progress, but even a mighty driving force. The former is the bottom line, while the later is the top line. Zero-development is not harmony, instead, the sustainable development is genuine harmony. The overall planning and all-round consideration and balanced development in all kind of fields, namely, economy, environment, population, resources and society etc., are the very essence of comprehensive, harmonious and sustainable development.
Hard-control is the control in the form of political power and even political violence, but soft-control is the control in the form of cultural awareness and even cultural mentality. Thereby, some elements of harmonious culture are inherently included in the definitions of “harmony”. In other words, constructing harmonious culture is necessarily the outcome of constructing harmonious society and harmonious world on the one hand; meanwhile constructing harmonious culture is the necessary condition of constructing harmonious society and harmonious world on the other.
To sum up, our proposed question is not the necessity of harmony, but the possibility of harmony. How could a harmonious society be possible? And how could a harmonious world be possible? Our answer is: the so-called harmonious society, or the harmonious world, will be the one that not only makes the conflicts minimized, but also makes coexistence, common understanding and recognition possible; that is to say, that harmonious society, harmonious world and universal values appeal to the maximization of the World, and inherently include some elements of harmonious culture. By the way of defining the concept, both problems of harmonious society, harmonious world and of harmonious culture, universal values seem to melt into one another.
Translated by Zhang Qi（张起）
Revised by Yu Jiang-xia（于江霞）