Cultural differences between east and west

The differences between eastern and western values include different value orientations, different social standards and different communication concepts, which are manifested in society and family.

Chinese and western people's values, outlook on life and world outlook are shown in the following aspects:

1, Chinese and western values of life are different. With the support of feudal autocracy, the values provided by Confucianism to China people have gradually become a deep-rooted belief in life.

However, in western culture, the value of life is diversified. Politics is also the realization of the value of life, and business is also considered to be quite valuable. The best occupations in the eyes of westerners are lawyers and doctors.

2. The individual standard in the West and the family standard in China. Modern western humanism was born on the theological background, and the concept of original sin is deeply rooted in the west. Therefore, the moral orientation of westerners is that individuals are responsible for themselves and atone for God through personal struggle, which leads to a Christian meaning, that is, "everyone is equal before God."

When God was denied, the concept of social atom came into being in the west: the individual is an atom, and exists without relying on anyone. No one can infringe on individual rights and believe in individual standard and egocentrism.

China is family-oriented. In the eyes of China people, home is the universe of life, the harbor of life, with supreme cohesion. Being away from home is a "wanderer", emphasizing that "parents are there and don't travel far". There is a relationship between the elderly and husband and wife in the family. We should live in harmony and do our duty, that is, "do our best"! Mencius believes that saints are "human beings", and the core of human relations is "absolute obedience". The youngest son serves the dragon and the wife serves the husband.

One of the reasons why family has become so important is "filial piety", which is the root and quintessence of China. China has a culture of filial piety since ancient times. It is said that filial piety governs the world. Family and filial piety originally had great rational significance, but due to excessive emphasis, they eventually became an excessive family consciousness, ignoring the development of individual freedom, "preserving righteousness and destroying human desires" and taking individuals as their life purpose.

3. The West stresses utility and timeliness, while China stresses ethics. Due to the development of natural science, western culture pays more attention to utility and effect, and is good at calculating economic accounts.

Because China culture has been in a feudal agricultural society for a long time, its natural science is underdeveloped, and it pays attention to the adjustment of interpersonal relationship. Ritual norms are above everything else, and the dispute between "righteousness" and "benefit" leads to the deviation of values. It is advocated that people sacrifice their own interests in order to conform to certain etiquette norms, and "valuing righteousness over profit" is regarded as noble morality and noble character.

What's more, during the "Cultural Revolution", "only the grass of socialism and no seedlings of capitalism" was considered as a political account, not an economic account. Foreign China only considers political influence, not economic interests.

Cultural communities can only be preserved if their members follow predictable behavior patterns. In the same cultural community, people's basic necessities of life, work, entertainment and social interaction are predictable, and their existence is often ignored. These predictable behavior patterns are based on psychological activities called "values".

Values are the criteria for people to judge good and bad, beauty and ugliness, value and worthless, cleanliness and filth, right and wrong, kindness and cruelty, justice and injustice, propriety and inappropriateness. Although it plays a very important role in controlling cultural behavior, it can't be seen, heard or experienced. Although the result of it-human behavior is easy to be observed, it is impossible to directly examine itself.

Values exist in people's minds, which is a psychological activity to control behavior choices, and an activity for people to think about the world around them and adapt themselves to the world around them.

Values are the core of culture. Cultural differences are formed on the basis of values. In a sense, the values of a society provide a set of basic norms for people's thoughts and behaviors, and a set of widely recognized behavior standards about what is "correct" and "desirable".

The relationship between values and communicative behavior is the relationship between outline and purpose, deep and surface, and the cultural differences at all levels of communicative behavior can often be explained at the value level. Values and culture are inextricably linked, and each other can only be explained by the other.

If the eastern culture is spiritual, then the western culture is more material, which is also the main reason for the great differences between China and the West in "world outlook, outlook on life and values".

From a historical point of view, the history and culture of the East seem to be much longer than that of the West. It can also be said that the development of western culture is much simpler than that of the East, so the orientation of the world outlook, outlook on life and values of the East is more diverse than that of the West.

Geographically, the eastern continent is relatively closed. For people who have lived in this closed land for a long time, closure often narrows their worldview, while westerners are better at exploring outward, so their worldview is broader.

I think there are three main reasons for the differences between Chinese and western world outlook, outlook on life and values:

1. Western theology and eastern theology have different cultural orientations. The biggest difference between western theology and eastern theology is that western theology does not exclude matter, while eastern theology strongly excludes matter. This difference in cultural connotation has a great influence on the world outlook, outlook on life and values of the East and the West. Therefore, in many aspects, the eastern values tend to be spiritual, while the western values tend to be material.

From theology to philosophy, and finally to science, eastern theology is based on profound Confucian classics, while western theology has no profound thoughts, but purifies the soul by worshipping beautiful gods, without strong spiritual guidance in eastern theology.

Therefore, the western theological thought does not affect the government's management thought, which is completely different in the East. Especially in China, Confucian classics and Neo-Confucianism are the basis of the government's management thought, and mixed theological thought will also penetrate into the government's management thought. This also induces people's orientation of outlook on life and values to some extent.

Thousands of years ago, the monarch of China began to think about whether to govern the country with Confucianism, Legalism or Taoism. This is not only managers' exploration of people's world outlook, outlook on life and values, but also their induction in another way.

2. Western traditional culture has different orientations. China's traditional culture is not an intellectual philosophy whose purpose is to explore the mysteries of the material world, but a virtue philosophy whose main object is people, whose purpose is to integrate society and whose essence is to clarify the essence of life.

China's traditional culture includes ideas, theoretical philosophy, laws and regulations, language, literature and art, science and technology, customs and habits. This culture was developed under the influence and function of China's traditional economy, politics and society.

This is an old-fashioned agricultural civilization and a culture of natural economy. After thousands of years of accumulation, these cultures have made people form similar psychology, which is manifested in the world outlook and values.

The main characteristics of China's traditional cultural value orientation are: the economic value orientation of attaching importance to agriculture and restraining business, the political value orientation of worshipping imperial power and pursuing power, the moral value orientation centered on "four dimensions" (courtesy, courtesy, honesty and shame) and "eight virtues" (benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom, filial piety, loyalty and faith), and "self-cultivation, honesty and respect for the elderly"

Westerners pursue the equality of human rights and pay attention to the competition between people. After the industrial revolution, the competition between western societies became more intense.

3. China and the West have different degrees of progress. China has also explored science since ancient times, but he did not put the development of science in the mainstream position of knowledge and culture, while China's literature and art developed more fully. The exploration of science in the west has been continuous, especially in mathematics and physics.

Therefore, from one perspective, the culture and science in the East are more abstract, while those in the West are more concrete. It can also be said that this is also a concrete embodiment of Chinese and Western world outlook, outlook on life and values.

In painting, China's ink painting was brought to the peak by the master, while the western sketch pursued the complete restoration of the thing itself; In literature, China literati are more refined and like to describe things with imagination, while western literary stories are more real and romantic, perhaps because of the deep-rooted feudal thoughts in the East.

The differences between Chinese and western values and life pursuits are manifested in all levels of social life. In terms of outlook on life and values, China thinkers emphasized "self-cultivation-oriented" and put "goodness" in the first place of values; Western thinkers emphasize the importance of "truth", just as Kant first had his Critique of Pure Reason and then his Critique of Practical Reason.