“Universal values” originated from Western religious and ethical views, and the notion in Western political discourse is no longer a purely academic topic. Fundamentally,“universal values” are a pseudo-proposition.Values,namely understanding and ideas growing from the subject’s cognition and judgment of the object, are always concrete and historical, and the social values reflecting the relationship between people are class-based.These characteristics determine that no “universal values” could be accepted by all people and survive through all times. They are essentially idealistic values and historical views which exist only in the fantasies of some people. Only the understanding conforming to objective reality, reflecting the law of development, and being unified with the scale of truth, is the correct and scientific understanding of values. Only when we stand in the position of the working class at large can we obtain correct and scientific conclusions. This is the concrete embodiment of Marxism’s insistence on the unity of class and science in the understanding of values.

Editor: Zhong Yao

Studies On Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping Theories.2021.No.5.