What is national culture?

Just like the various definitions of culture, the definition of national culture has many different forms of expression. However, generally speaking, there are two categories: broad and narrow.

The broad definition of (1) national culture

The broad definition of national culture, that is, the universal definition of national culture, refers to the sum of all the achievements of civilization created by a nation in the long-term historical development and on which it depends. This achievement includes material, spiritual and institutional achievements. Among them, material achievements are essentially all the material products created by our nation in material production activities, as well as the means, technologies and methods to create these items, including all kinds of items that people belong to, such as clothing, food, shelter, transportation and use, and the items that make these items. Such as food, clothing, daily appliances, vehicles, buildings, roads, bridges, communication equipment, labor tools and so on. Spiritual achievements are conceptual things, which usually exist in the form of psychology, ideas and theories, including two parts. One is the state of mind, psychology, ideas and thoughts that exist in people's minds. Such as ethics, values and religious beliefs. The second is the theoretical system that has been theorized and objectified, that is, objectified thought. Such as science and technology, literature, art, etc. The achievement of system is the expression of spiritual achievement, and it is a set of normative system established by people reflecting and determining certain social relations and integrating and standardizing these relations, including political power system, laws and regulations, etc. For example, the toast system, the village elderly system, the joint pay system and various regulations of ethnic minorities in history. Another example is the system of regional ethnic autonomy established by the party and the state according to the basic principles of Marxism and the reality of ethnic minorities.

(2) Narrow definition of national culture

In a narrow sense, national culture refers to the spiritual creation of the nation, focusing on people's mentality. In fact, it is difficult for human culture to completely separate material creation from spiritual creation. The creation of all material forms embodies the creator's thoughts, wisdom and will, which are all spiritual factors. The narrow concept of national culture is put forward to exclude the purely materialized natural world and focus on people's psychological state. Therefore, the narrow sense of national culture can also be said to be national humanistic culture, which is the sum total of humanistic spirit and its material embodiment naturally condensed by the nation through inheritance and accumulation in the long-term historical development, including science and technology, literature and art, ideology and morality, values, religious beliefs, language, customs and folk crafts, etc.

(3) ethnic affairs in the sense of national culture

In our country, in order to help ethnic minorities accelerate their development, the party and the state have not only formulated a series of supporting policies, laws and regulations, but also set up special departments to manage ethnic affairs. In order to manage ethnic affairs, especially ethnic cultural affairs, the author thinks it is necessary to further clarify and refine the connotation and scope of ethnic culture in the sense of ethnic affairs.

The State Ethnic Affairs Commission is the functional department in charge of ethnic affairs in the State Council, and there are also corresponding provincial ethnic affairs commissions in all provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, among which a cultural propaganda department (room) has been set up to specifically manage ethnic cultural affairs, and its main task and responsibility is to promote the development of socialist culture, art, health, sports and news propaganda in ethnic minority areas. Therefore, the national culture in the sense of national affairs refers to the ideological reflection of the historical, social, political, economic life and geographical environment characteristics of ethnic minorities, which is mainly manifested in the popular musical dramas, literature and art, ethnic medicine and traditional sports in ethnic minority areas.

4. The relationship between national culture and other related cultures

In daily life and academic research, the word "culture" is frequently used, and many of them are related to national culture, or have similar connotations, overlapping contents or close relationships. This paper discusses several main concepts related to national culture and their relationship with national culture.

(1) National culture: National culture is a culture with distinctive national and regional characteristics based on the country's unique history and national conditions. China's national culture is China culture, also called Chinese culture. Because China is a unified multi-ethnic country, China's culture is multidimensional, and it is a * * * isomorphic culture composed of 56 distinctive national cultures in China, that is, a pluralistic and integrated culture. This pluralistic and integrated culture has two important connotations, which also reflects the relationship between China culture and national culture. First, in the process of historical development, diverse national cultures have exchanged, absorbed, infiltrated and promoted each other, blended from multiple angles and integrated in all directions, forming a pluralistic and integrated pattern; Secondly, as the mainstream culture, Chinese culture has played a leading role in guiding, uniting and condensing the cultures of all ethnic groups in the historical development of Chinese culture.

(2) Traditional culture: China traditional culture refers to the culture that originated from Chinese culture, was jointly created by all ethnic groups in China and accumulated through long-term historical development. It emphasizes the origin of culture and all the cultural heritage passed down along this origin, and it is the sum total of the humanistic spirit that has been continuously enriched and developed by the Chinese nation after screening and elimination. National culture is a dynamic, developing and historical category regardless of the times. The relationship between national culture and traditional culture is reflected in the following three aspects: first, each nation has formed its own traditional culture due to the differences in region and development degree; Second, any national traditional culture, in all historical periods, is bound to be influenced by other national cultures, introducing and absorbing elements of other national cultures. Once these imported and absorbed foreign cultures are combined with their own culture, they will become a part of the traditional culture of this nation; Third, the enrichment and development of national culture is realized on the basis of traditional culture. Without traditional culture, the development of national culture will become passive water and rootless wood. A national culture is not a national culture, so it loses its national characteristics, value and significance.

(3) Mainstream culture (strong culture): In the same cultural system, the culture that is in a dominant position, determines the development direction of the same culture and plays the role of uniting and condensing other cultures is what we usually call mainstream culture or strong culture. According to the principle of Marxist philosophy, in the contradictory system composed of various contradictions, the development of various contradictory forces is unbalanced. The dominant contradiction that plays a decisive role in the development of things is the main contradiction, and its existence and development stipulate or influence the existence and development of other contradictions in the complex contradiction system. Other subordinate non-principal contradictions and principal contradictions interact, restrict each other and transform each other under certain conditions. In the pluralistic Chinese culture, the Han culture is undoubtedly in the dominant position, which is the mainstream culture, while the other 55 minority cultures are in the subordinate position, which is the non-mainstream culture. The relationship between Chinese culture and national culture is mainstream and non-mainstream, that is, the relationship between principal contradiction and non-principal contradiction, which is dialectical. First, due to the historical development conditions and the structural and functional characteristics of culture itself, the cultures of different nationalities are developing, and in this or that historical period, they are relatively prosperous, developed and popularized; Some are prosperous and not very popular. However, the culture of each nation will not lose its distinctive national characteristics. Because every national culture is unique, as a kind of values, they are all in an equal position, which is equally important to this or that nation itself and indispensable to the formation and development of Chinese culture. Second, in the history of China, the development level of the material productivity of the Han society and the mode of production adapted to this level of productivity have always been in a leading position, which determines that its cultural development is also in a leading position, playing a leading role in the formation and development of the isomorphism of Chinese culture, influencing, uniting and condensing the cultures of all ethnic groups. Third, in the historical development process, the multi-cultures of all ethnic groups communicate, influence, penetrate and promote each other with Chinese culture.