Reform and Opening Up and Traditional Chinese Culture

Since the reform, the most fundamental change in China's social structure has been the transformation from a total society to a differentiated society, and the fundamental impetus for this change has been institutional reform. The impact of the reform on China's social differentiation has been roughly like this: 1. The reform of the rural economic system and the "decentralization" of state-run enterprises have given rise to free-flowing resources in society, namely, labor, capital, products, raw materials, and technology that are not subject to the unified control and distribution of the state. These resources continue to increase with the depth of the reform. 2. The emergence and increase of free-flowing resources has led to a change in the organization and distribution of resources in society as a whole, i.e., a change from purely relying on the planning system and administrative means to a combination of planning and the market, and of administrative and economic means. 3. The development of a wide range of subjects of interest and subjects of power, such as a variety of local and community governments, various branches of the government, civil society organizations, rural enterprises, and rural and urban enterprises. civil society organizations, rural enterprises of all kinds, urban and rural individual businessmen, etc. 4. The emergence and increase of functionally specialized organizations and role groups gradually led to an initial separation between state and society, politics and economy, economy and administration, administration and law, and ideology. Since the Reform, this process of structural change from an overarching to a differentiated society has, as a historical necessity, indicated that China's modernization process has entered a new historical period.

The most noteworthy aspects of the process of differentiation of China's social structure at this stage are as follows:

1. Institutional reform began in the countryside, and its greatest contribution to the structural change of the rural society has been the rapid rise and vigorous development of rural industrialization, which has led to the drastic differentiation of the original homogeneous and homogeneous social structure of the countryside, and the emergence of a large number of new groups and organizations, such as the township and village entrepreneurs, the nearly 100 million people who are now living in the countryside, and the rural and township enterprises. Township entrepreneurs, nearly 100 million township workers, and new cooperative enterprises, private enterprises and so on.

The dualistic character of the original social structure of urban and rural areas determines that the process of differentiation of the urban social structure is different from that of the rural areas, and the urban social differentiation is mainly within and outside the system. After the reform, the social differentiation of urban society firstly took place in the most marginal part of the original system, and one of the results was that a part of the social forces at the edge of the system were the first to be differentiated from the system, such as individual industrialists and businessmen, private enterprises, and three-funded enterprises. As differentiation continues from the periphery of the system to the central part of the system, the forces outside the system are also growing, and they are organized and operate under rules and in ways different from those of the system, a process that is constantly being influenced by social differentiation within the system on the one hand, and by social differentiation in rural areas on the other. Some cross-cutting and marginalized groups that straddle the two systems and the two social systems of urban and rural areas have begun to appear, such as the self-employed and the rural migrant workers who have moved to the cities to work, and so on. The emergence and growth of these new structural elements have given a strong impetus to the development of civil society.

2. After the reform, with the expansion of the autonomy of all kinds of social subjects (individuals, organizations, and governments) and the clarification of their interests, the original hierarchical social differentiation determined by administrative rank and status hierarchy was gradually transformed into a kind of four-block differentiation determined by categories and unit boundaries, and the original hierarchical elements determining the differences in the status and interests of the members of the society, such as the type of ownership, the family class origins, and the political identities, were greatly weakened, administrative rank, etc., have greatly diminished in importance, while the role of group elements such as the state of development of the individual's unit and community, and the occupational category and sector to which the individual belongs (e.g., automobile driver, tax department) has increased. The shift in social structure from hierarchical differentiation to clustered differentiation means that the process of stratification in Chinese society will be slow.

3. Compared with the pre-reform period, the speed of differentiation of Chinese society at the present stage has greatly accelerated and the degree of differentiation has greatly deepened, but there are great differences in the speed and degree of differentiation between different regions, different social systems and different social groups, for example, the coastal areas are faster than the central and western regions, and the degree of differentiation of the Wenzhou region, which is located in the east of the country, is greater than that of the southern part of Jiangsu Province. Another example is that the differentiation of the economic system is faster than the differentiation of the power structure, the differentiation of the peasant group is bigger than that of the urban resident group, and the differentiation of the social structure in the narrow sense of the word is deeper than that of the broader sense of the word, and so on. This unbalanced differentiation has led to the diversification of the formerly similar and homogeneous social structure of the whole society, as well as to the dislocation of the formerly highly integrated three major structures, namely, the income, power and occupational prestige structures, and consequently to a much lower degree of integration among the various social positions of the members of the society. The diversification of social structures and the dislocation of the various social structures have increased the tension in the social structure and thus the difficulty of structural integration.

4. In most market countries, members of society are divided and combined under the action of the market according to the needs of the division of labor, and the division of social structure is mainly reflected in a functional division. With the deepening of the division of labor, this functional-structural differentiation is the condition and inevitable process of social modernization. The differentiation of China's social structure after the reform has, on the one hand, embodied this process of functional differentiation, such as the differentiation of the functions of the State and society, the differentiation of the functions of the party and the government, of the government and of enterprises, and the development of functionally homogeneous and specialized organizations. But on the other hand, since the social differentiation in China at the present stage is mainly the result of institutional change, and one of the core contents of institutional reform is the redistribution and adjustment of interests, and thus structural differentiation is to a large extent reflected as a kind of differentiation of interests, in which the factor of policy plays an important role. Therefore, at the present stage of China's social structure change, there is a paradoxical phenomenon, that is, the social structure has been drastically and profoundly differentiated after the reform, but all kinds of social organizations not only have not become more specialized and homogeneous with the deepening of the degree of differentiation and accelerating of the speed of differentiation, but instead, there is a comprehensive "economization" or "entrepreneurialization". On the contrary, there is a trend towards full-scale "economization" or "corporatization". The impact of functional differentiation on social structure is mainly to increase heterogeneity, while the differentiation of interests is mainly to widen inequality, and the role of interests in the differentiation of China's social structure after the reform has led to a faster vertical than horizontal differentiation of the structure.

I. Traditional Chinese culture is an important source of socialist core value system

As a social ideology, socialist core value system comes from many aspects, among which, traditional Chinese culture is an indispensable ideological source in the construction of socialist core value system.

First, traditional Chinese culture provides a rich cultural foundation for the formation of socialist core value system. The socialist core value system belongs to the category of social consciousness, which is a socialist conceptual system. This conceptual system was developed in a specific national cultural environment. In the Marxist view, the social consciousness of any era is linked to the social consciousness of previous eras, and its emergence and development are premised on the ideological materials accumulated by previous generations. The socialist core value system is precisely rooted in the fertile soil of traditional Chinese culture and absorbs the reasonable components of traditional Chinese culture before it is formed and developed.

Secondly, Chinese traditional culture provides the ideological and cultural tradition for the construction of socialist core value system. Traditional culture is closely related and different from cultural tradition. Traditional culture is different from foreign culture, contemporary culture, refers to a nation, country or region in the history of the existence of a variety of material, institutional and spiritual cultural entities and cultural awareness; cultural tradition is the culture in the development of the history of the precipitation from generation to generation, is the culture of the "living soul". Chinese traditional culture has been developed over thousands of years, and has gradually formed Chinese cultural traditions, which run through all aspects of Chinese people's values, ways of thinking, customs, morals and etiquette. The socialist core value system is a theoretical system of leading socialist values, in which all aspects are permeated by Chinese cultural traditions. For example, in the Chinese cultural tradition, "being strong and capable, self-improvement", "being virtuous and tolerant", "thinking of profit and honesty", "diligence, thrift and honesty, loyalty and love of country", and "being honest and honest". Thrift and honesty, loyalty and patriotism", "love, filial piety and fraternal duty, modesty and good manners", "self-restraint and dedication, cultivation and prudence" and other spirits, through the transformation of the Chinese national spirit and the spirit of the times.

Second, the socialist core value system is the sublimation and innovation of traditional Chinese culture

The socialist core value system is not a wholesale inheritance of traditional Chinese culture, but is the sublimation and innovation of traditional Chinese culture by absorbing the essence of it and eliminating the dregs.

First of all, in the process of the Chineseization of Marxism, the socialist core value system absorbs, transforms and integrates the traditional Chinese culture, and forms Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the Important Thought of the Three Represents, as well as the scientific outlook on development and the theory of constructing a harmonious socialist society put forward by the new group of leaders of the Party Central Committee. Theory. In the process of its formation, Mao Zedong Thought has fully absorbed and transformed traditional Chinese culture. Take the "mass line" as an example. The Western Zhou statesman, the Duke of Zhou, put forward the idea of "respecting virtue and protecting the people", which opened the way for the nationalistic ideology of the Chinese people; Mencius put forward the idea of "the people are more important than the ruler", and summarized the law of the rise and fall of history, based on which the principle of "the government gets its people" was adopted. Mencius put forward the idea of "the people are more important than the ruler" and summarized on this basis the law of the rise and fall of history, and Xunzi further put forward the idea of "the ruler's boat and the people's water", the idea of the people's principle that the water can carry a boat or capsize it, which was transformed by Mao Zedong Thought into a Marxist viewpoint of the masses. The ideas of "building a harmonious socialist society" and "constructing a harmonious socialist culture" put forward by the new leadership of the Central Committee of the Party have also absorbed and transformed the ideas of "noble and neutral" in traditional Chinese culture. The idea of "valuing the monk and the center" in traditional Chinese culture has also been absorbed and adapted. When Confucius founded Confucianism, he attached great importance to the value and role of "harmony". He emphasized that "harmony is precious" and regarded "harmony" as the standard of value judgment in dealing with people and governing the country. He put forward: "A gentleman is harmonious but different, while a villain is the same but not the same". Confucius's idea of "harmony" also recognizes differences and requires harmony to achieve the unity of contradictions and form a harmonious state through complementarity and mutual assistance. Lao Zi said in Tao Te Ching, "All things are negative to the yin and embrace the yang, and they are in harmony with each other. He believed that everything contains two contradictory aspects of yin and yang, and that the interaction of yin and yang constitutes "harmony". "Harmony is the essence of everything in the universe and the basis for the survival of all things in heaven and earth. It is a creation to fully recognize the modern value of the traditional Chinese culture of "noble and neutral" thought, to refine the "harmonious culture" suitable for the development of contemporary society, and to enhance the socialist core value system.

Secondly, in the process of forming the national spirit and the spirit of the times, we absorbed and drew on the excellent content of traditional Chinese culture, and made a comprehensive innovation of traditional Chinese culture. The national spirit centered on patriotism is the soul of traditional Chinese culture. It centers around the core of patriotism and contains such elements as unity and solidarity, love of peace, diligence and courage, and self-improvement. These aspects of the national spirit have been condensed in the development of traditional Chinese culture and are the crystallization of China's outstanding traditional culture. For example, patriotism is an eternal theme in traditional Chinese culture. Patriotism, as a lofty spirit embodying the people's deep affection for their own motherland, is linked to the development history of the nation and embodied in a culture. Countless patriotic aspirants in Chinese history have written a glorious poem of patriotism with their heroic deeds. The spirit of revolution and desperation, the spirit of strict discipline and self-sacrifice, the spirit of selflessness and putting others before oneself, the spirit of overpowering all enemies and difficulties, the spirit of adhering to revolutionary optimism and striving for victory against all odds, as manifested in the course of the revolution under the leadership of the Chinese People's Party, are also all based on drawing on the nourishment of traditional culture, and have been developed by the Chinese People's Party in the course of the revolutionary practice. The spirit of the times, with reform and innovation at its core, is the spirit of the times. The spirit of the times, centered on reform and innovation, is very rich in content. It is centered on the core of reform and innovation, and contains the spirits of emancipating the mind, seeking truth from facts, advancing with knowledge of difficulties, striving hard for practical results, and being indifferent to fame and fortune, and selfless dedication. These spirits are also the transformation and innovation of traditional Chinese culture.

Again, the transformation and innovation of traditional culture in the process of socialist moral construction. The construction of socialist morality is an arduous systematic project, which also needs to inherit the positive factors that have value in the ideology and morality of the previous generation and adapt to the development of contemporary society. An important element of the current ideological and moral construction is to vigorously advocate the socialist concept of honor and disgrace. The socialist concept of honor and disgrace of "eight honors and eight disgraces" put forward by Comrade Hu Jintao has absorbed the positive factors of traditional Chinese culture, combined with the specific actual situation of moral construction in China, and provided important moral principles and value scales for the construction of morality in China. The socialist concept of honor and shame inherits the ancient Chinese cultural tradition of "knowing shame" and absorbs the concepts put forward by ancient Chinese thinkers, such as "To act with shame and to make it known in all directions", "Benevolence is honorable, but unkindness is disgraceful", "No shame, no shame", "No shame, no shame", "No shame, no shame", and "No shame, no shame". "If you are benevolent, you will be honored; if you are not benevolent, you will be disgraced", "If you have no shame, you are not a human being", "Manners, righteousness, honesty, and shame are the four dimensions of a nation", and "If you are righteous before profit, you will be honored; if you are profitable before righteousness, you will be disgraced", "If a person has shame, he can do nothing" and other ideas of honor and shame of the essence of these ideas to transform these ideas into easy to understand, easy to remember, catchy "eight honors and eight disgraces" of the socialist concept of honor and shame. The socialist concept of honor and shame corrects the position of the individual in others, society, and the state, reflects the deep sense of life and spiritual pursuit of Chinese cultural wisdom, and expresses the personality of the "creative transformation of the self".

Third, carry forward the excellent Chinese cultural traditions, the construction of socialist core value system

Five thousand years of long and splendid Chinese culture, has made great contributions to the progress of human civilization, is the Chinese nation's unceasing survival, the spirit of the national lineage of the spiritual ties, is the Chinese nation faced with serious challenges and a variety of complex environments to stand up, through the tribulations and the indomitable source of strength. Chinese traditional culture provides abundant spiritual resources for the construction of the socialist core value system, and is the solid foundation of China's excellent cultural tradition and the spirit of the Chinese nation. In the process of building the socialist core value system, we should study and research traditional Chinese culture, absorb its essence and eliminate its dregs, carry forward the excellent Chinese cultural traditions, cultivate and carry forward the spirit of the Chinese nation, and build a value system that suits the actual situation in China, that can form the *** knowledge of the people of the country, that reflects the reality of China's development, and that guides the Chinese nation to be positive and upwardly oriented. To achieve this goal, attention should be paid to solving the following problems:

First, pay full attention to China's traditional cultural resources, and deal with the relationship between criticism and inheritance. In the history of the development of world civilization, Mayan civilization, ancient Egyptian civilization, ancient Babylonian civilization, ancient Indian civilization have all been interrupted and lost, but only the Chinese civilization has continued unceasingly, unceasingly, carrying on the past and the future, and passing on the flame to the next generation. The fundamental reason for this is that Chinese civilization is based on rich traditional Chinese cultural resources. The socialist core value system is rooted in the fertile soil of traditional Chinese culture. Without the roots of traditional Chinese culture, there is no source of the spirit of the Chinese nation, and the socialist core value system cannot be established. The relationship between human beings, human beings and nature, and human beings and society is the core issue of traditional Chinese culture, and it is also the issue that needs to be solved to build a harmonious socialist society. This shows that our construction of a harmonious society has common ground with traditional Chinese culture, and that the value system we are building in contemporary times is closely related to traditional Chinese culture. The first thing to do with traditional Chinese culture is to pay full attention to it. For more than a hundred years since the Opium War, we have basically taken a negative attitude towards traditional culture, and in the Cultural Revolution, this tendency was pushed to the extreme, turning into a campaign of "Great Cultural Destiny", in which traditional Chinese culture was destroyed in an unprecedented way, and in a generation or even several generations of Chinese people, traditional Chinese culture was destroyed. This has left a shadow in the hearts of one or even several generations of Chinese people. The denial of Chinese cultural traditions eventually led to a series of bad consequences, resulting in a "fractured generation" and a "westernized generation", and a lost and confused generation with no warmth and respect for traditional culture. After the reform and opening up, the Party Central Committee gradually recognized the seriousness and harm of this problem, and vigorously advocated the study and research of traditional Chinese culture, to promote and cultivate the spirit of the Chinese nation, and received remarkable results. However, it is undeniable that some people, especially some leading cadres, have not paid sufficient attention to this issue, not to mention the implementation of action. The new leadership of the CPC Central Committee puts forward the construction of a socialist core value system, which provides an extremely favorable opportunity for us to attach importance to traditional Chinese culture and promote the spirit of the Chinese nation. We should take seriously the valuable wealth left to us by our ancestors, and put the study of traditional Chinese culture into a certain height to recognize. Secondly, we should seriously explore. Chinese traditional culture is the treasure of the Chinese nation and even of mankind. It has a long and profound history. Chinese traditional culture has many valuable ideological resources, such as "harmony", "people-oriented", "the unity of man and heaven", "the system of heavenly life and the use of "and the people," "the people and the things," "to realize the things," "that is, the things of the poor reason," "knowledge of the unity of action "and other propositions and understandings, all have an inestimable value, are worth exploring. Thirdly, it should be inherited critically. In the construction of the socialist core value system, it is admittedly wrong to deny Chinese culture, but it is also wrong to accept it uncritically in its entirety. In traditional Chinese culture, there is no lack of dross, which must be eliminated. For example, the Confucian doctrine of feudal rites and rituals, the concept of hierarchy, the "Three Principles and Five Constants", the "Three Obediences and Four Virtues", and the "official position" are the dregs that need to be eliminated. The "respect for the king" and the idea of power in the doctrine of Legalism are also negative factors in the management of modern society. The Taoist ideas of "guarding one's own integrity", "valuing softness", and "doing nothing" all have a certain negative significance in modern society. We cannot go from one extreme to another. As soon as it is said that traditional culture should be emphasized, the ancient classics are regarded as the most precious treasure, and it is believed that as long as one familiarizes oneself with the scriptures, one will be able to understand everything, that is, if one has mastered the traditional culture, one will be able to bring it in wholesale without any discrimination or criticism. Our study of traditional culture, the promotion of Chinese cultural traditions, we must adopt a dialectical attitude of "abandonment", in order to learn from the positive factors, to build a scientific core value system that can reflect the national **** knowledge.

Secondly, we should integrate and innovate Chinese traditional culture, and deal with the relationship between inheritance and development. Modern China in how to deal with the issue of traditional Chinese culture, there have been several major debates, there have been "Chinese body in the West", "Western body in the use of", "will pass in order to seek to win! "Westernization", "total westernization", "Confucianism revival", "national popular culture", "creative conversion", "comprehensive conversion", "comprehensive conversion", "creative conversion", "creative conversion", "creative conversion", "creative conversion" and "creative conversion". ", "comprehensive innovation" and other views. In the author's opinion, the theory of "comprehensive innovation" put forward by Mr. Zhang Dainian is a very valuable doctrine in the Chinese cultural controversy. This kind of cultural advocacy, is in the study and analysis of modern Chinese cultural debate on the basis of a variety of doctrines put forward, it abandoned the East-West confrontation, the body with the dualistic rigid mode of thinking, to exclude the blind Huaxia-centered and Euro-centered theory of the interference, in particular, put forward to the guidance of Marxism, pay attention to the absorption of the "will pass to seek supremacy" theory, "the" theory, "the" theory, "the" theory, "the" theory, "the" theory, "the" theory, "the" theory, "the" theory, "the" theory. In particular, it was proposed that we should be guided by Marxism and pay attention to absorbing the reasonable factors in the theories of "integration for supremacy" and "national popular culture", believing that only dialectical synthesis and creation can be the straight path to the cultural revival of the Chinese nation. The synthesis of ancient and modern Chinese and foreign beneficial cultures to build a relatively perfect socialist core value system is not an unprincipled reconciliation and compromise, but a creative synthesis that carries forward a spirit of innovation. To this end, we need to give new contemporary connotations and cultural styles to the reasonable elements of traditional culture that are useful in promoting the construction of a socialist core value system. For example, we should creatively transform the traditional value of righteousness over profit into a new type of value that takes into account both righteousness and profit; we should transform the spirit of "Noble and Monk" strongly advocated by Confucianism into the socialist concept of harmony; at the same time, we should closely integrate the social and cultural conditions of contemporary China, and organically combine the dominant values of traditional culture with the realities and ideals of contemporary China. At the same time, we have to combine the dominant values of traditional culture with the realities of contemporary China in close connection with the social and cultural conditions of contemporary China, and organically combine the value orientation and ideals of traditional culture, so as to create contemporary values that are originated from and higher than traditional Chinese culture. For example, the concept of patriotism contained in traditional culture should be developed into the contemporary patriotism spirit with internationalism in the context of globalization, so as to enrich and improve the socialist core value system.