Knowledge of traditional Chinese culture (characteristics, history, current situation)

Traditional Chinese culture is a kind of national culture reflecting the characteristics and style of the nation that has evolved through the evolution of Chinese civilization, and it is a general characterization of various ideologies, cultures and concepts in the history of the nation, referring to the culture with distinctive national characteristics, long history, profound connotation and good tradition created by the Chinese nation and its ancestors living in China and inherited and developed by the Chinese nation from generation to generation. It is the foundation of thousands of years of civilization of the Chinese nation. It is the crystallization of thousands of years of civilization of the Chinese nation, in addition to the core content of Confucian culture, but also contains other cultural forms, such as Taoist culture, Buddhist culture and so on.

Traditional Chinese culture refers to the social and cultural system based on individual agricultural economy, patriarchal family as the background, and Confucian ethics and morality as the core in Chinese history. She is a rich heritage handed down by our ancestors, which was once the world's leading culture for a long time. The way of thinking, values, and codes of behavior she embodies. On the one hand, she has a strong history and heredity; on the other hand, she has a vivid reality and variability. She is influencing today's Chinese people all the time, providing us with a historical basis and a realistic foundation for the creation of a new culture.

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In the process of creating the splendid Chinese civilization, the Chinese people have formed a traditional culture with strong vitality after more than 5,000 years of refinement and baptism. According to scholar Gu Guanhua, "China's thousands of years of civilization development history in the specific natural environment, economic forms, political structure, ideology of the role of the formation, accumulation and transmission of the 'living' ancient Chinese culture, and is still affecting contemporary culture. It exists and continues not only in the form of objects such as relevant materialized classical literature and cultural objects, but also extensively in the form of subjects such as national ways of thinking, values, ethics, character traits, aesthetic tastes, knowledge structures, behavioral norms, customs and traditions." The excellent traditional culture, on the other hand, is the essence of the 5,000 years of cultural accumulation of the Chinese nation, containing the philosophical thinking, scientific spirit and humanism that propel the development of Chinese society, and also provides rich spiritual resources and cultural background for the growth of every child of China.

Comrade Li Ruihuan profoundly pointed out: "The traditional culture of the Chinese nation has a long history and is profound and profound, and has played an inestimable role in the formation, reproduction and unification of the Chinese nation and its self-reliance in the world, and has also had an extremely far-reaching impact on the progress and development of human civilization. As the children of China, we have the responsibility to protect, organize and inherit this extremely rich and valuable cultural heritage left by our ancestors, and to create and advance on this basis."

I. The Connotation, Characteristics and Duality of Traditional Culture

(1) The Connotation of Traditional Culture and Its Characteristics

1. The Connotation of Traditional Culture

Traditional culture, as a big concept, is made up of a combination of two small concepts: tradition and culture. The so-called "tradition", interpreted from the cultural point of view, refers to the social and historical factors with their own characteristics inherited from generation to generation, such as ideology and morality, customs and habits, literature and art, and institutional norms, etc. J The word "culture" in ancient China originally meant The word "culture", in ancient China, originally referred to "culture and education", as opposed to conquest by force. Zhouyi. Ben Gua (Tuan) says: "Observe the humanities in order to transform the world." This can be seen as the original reference to culture. However, the meaning of the word "culture" as we use it today is not the same as that of the ancient times, but was introduced from the West in the late 19th century through a Japanese translation. 1871, the British scholar Taylor, in his book Primitive Culture, famously defined culture: "Culture, so-called, consists of knowledge, beliefs, arts and crafts. is a complex including knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, laws, customs, and any other faculties and habits acquired by individuals as members of society." 2 Chinese scholars generally adopt the Dictionary's definition of culture: "In a broad sense, it refers to the sum of material wealth created in the course of the historical practice of human society. In a narrower sense, it refers to the ideology of society, as well as the systems and organizations that go with it.'' It should be pointed out that culture, as a conceptual thing, is always in the process of flux and integration. Therefore, not all cultures that have appeared in history can be called traditional cultures. Instead, only those cultures with important values and vitality have been accumulated, preserved and continued to become the main components of the cultures of later generations. We call those cultures with important value and vitality that have been deposited, preserved and continued traditional culture. The traditional culture of the Chinese nation refers to the grand classical cultural system that is rooted in the fertile soil of the Chinese land, formed and developed in the process of long-term historical development, and retained in a stable form among the Chinese nation, passed down from generation to generation and influencing the history of the whole society. In addition to the doctrines of Confucianism, Taoism, Legalism and Buddhism, it also includes history, cultural relics, calligraphy, costumes, tombs, medicine, agronomy, astronomy, geography and other ancient texts. Traditional culture is a crystallization of history, but it is not just a museum display, but something with a vivid life. "The ways of thinking, values, and codes of behavior contained in traditional culture and passed down from generation to generation are, on the one hand, strongly historical and hereditary, and on the other hand, strongly realistic and mutable, which are influencing and constraining today's Chinese people all the time and providing us with a historical basis and a realistic foundation for the creation of a new culture.3 This traditional culture of ours is the most unique in the This traditional culture of ours is one of the oldest and most unique cultures in the world's cultural jungle, and it has not only played a great role in promoting China's socio-historical development in the past, but has also had a significant impact on the development of culture in the world as a whole. In the construction of socialist culture with Chinese characteristics, it will surely play a powerful role in promoting the development of Chinese culture.

2. Characteristics of Traditional Culture

Traditional Chinese culture has various forms of expression, and at the center of it all is the belief that ethics and morality are at the core and Confucian ethical centrism is the starting point. Traditional Chinese ethical and political thought not only determines the cultural personality of ancient Chinese, but also determines the national characteristics of traditional Chinese culture.4 In addition to the general characteristic of ethical and political culture, traditional Chinese culture has the following characteristics:

(1) Unity of homogeneity and diversity

Traditional Chinese culture stretches over a long period of time and has formed a very vital cultural tradition in the world. . In the 6,000-year history of human civilization, only Chinese culture has followed its own track without questioning breaks until today. Most of the other countries have experienced a break in their culture, and some of them are even on the verge of extinction. Chinese culture has gone through a long and arduous process, and in the course of thousands of years, it has experienced the fusion and development of multi-ethnic and regional cultures. The traditional Chinese culture, with the Han culture as the main body and the Central Plains culture as the core, has gradually fused with the cultures of other ethnic minorities and regional cultures around it, and has formed a developmental situation combining homogeneity and diversity. It has been y integrated into the ideology and behavioral norms of all Chinese people, penetrated into all fields of social politics, economy, and especially spiritual life, and has become a powerful force influencing the development of society and history, and dominating people's thoughts, behaviors and daily lives. It plays an immeasurable and far-reaching influence on the survival and continuity of the nation, and it has a tenacious vitality, as well as a generous inclusiveness and strong assimilation force for foreign cultures.

(2) the unity of national and global traditional culture has distinctive characteristics and features of the Chinese nation, permeated with the wisdom and intelligence of the ancient Oriental nation. Each country and each nation in the world have their own traditional culture, although it is said to be traditional, but it is not static, is with each country and nation in the mutual interaction activities, mutual learning, mutual absorption and constantly enrich the development of their own. This development is to integrate with each other to make themselves more perfect and more characteristic of their own countries and nations. With the long history of interaction, the cultures of various countries and peoples have increasingly developed into a fusion of "unity and difference", gradually becoming a global culture of pluralism and unity. As a great scholar has said, the more national something is, the more cosmopolitan and global it becomes. If you lose your national character, you cannot speak of anything global or global. Because the world itself is a diversified unity, there is no value of existence if we leave diversification and unity. In the process of occurrence, development and evolution of China's traditional culture, with a broad mind and open vision, we have integrated the advantages and strengths of our national cultures and foreign cultures, and gradually enriched and perfected ourselves. With the mingling of world cultures, it is inevitable and natural to move towards globalization. Such as Confucianism, Confucius's "world view", Taoism, Laozi, Zhuangzi's "natural view" of the spirit has been widely spread in the world of academia.

(3) Unity of Inheritance and Innovation

Traditional Chinese culture emphasizes the value of the cultural heritage of the previous generation, and fully proclaims the reasonableness of the tradition itself for its existence and transmission. Although it has had its ups and downs and has faced challenges many times, it has demonstrated a great regenerative capacity time and again. It is in a long and tortuous process of formation, experienced countless descendants inherit the predecessor and develop the predecessor, learn from the predecessor and enrich the predecessor, according to the needs of the times and beyond the predecessor, such a week after week, continuous relay movement, pay dozens of generations of unremitting painstaking efforts and great effort, only gradually formed, constantly supplemented, constantly perfected and matured, not easy to come by.

(2) The duality of traditional culture

Five thousand years of civilization, the Chinese people have created a world-renowned culture. Among them, the development and evolution of Confucian culture is the main line running through ancient Chinese culture. In terms of content, Confucianism's benevolence and the way of the king, Taoism's quietness and inaction, and the legal system's following the name and accountability, and believing in rewards and punishments, these three constitute the trinity of basic elements of ancient Chinese culture, which is impregnated with the character and mentality of the nation. Its basic value system is based on the Confucian system as the backbone, and at the same time, it is also compatible with the strengths of various schools of thought, such as Taoism, Legalism, and Moxibustion. However, it is not a pearl but a mixture of sand and stone. Therefore, this heritage can neither be completely discarded nor applied wholesale, but must be removed from the dregs, taken from the essence, critically inherited, and introduced to create a new culture for China's socialist modernization. Comrade Mao Zedong pointed out: "China's long feudal society has created a splendid ancient culture. Cleaning up the development process of ancient culture, eliminating its feudal dross and absorbing its democratic essence is a necessary condition for the development of a new national culture and the enhancement of the nation's self-confidence; however, it must not be uncritically absorbed and absorbed. A distinction must be made between all that is rotten in the ancient feudal ruling class and the excellent people's culture of antiquity, which is more or less democratic and revolutionary. We must respect our history and never cut it off. But this respect is to give history a certain scientific status, to respect the development of historical discernment, and not to glorify the ancient and not the modern, not to praise any feudal toxins. These words of Comrade Mao Tse-tung clearly show the attitude one should take towards traditional Chinese culture. Take the essence and utilize it, and inherit it critically. So, how to critically inherit?

The essence of the main parts are:

(1) the strong and healthy, self-improvement

The strong and healthy, self-improvement of the spirit of enterprise has always been the dominant position in the Chinese cultural tradition. Yi Chuan": "the sky is healthy, the gentleman to self-improvement", "the earth is Kun, the gentleman to the virtue of carrying things.'' The meaning is that the virtue of "heaven" is to be able to transport oneself, people should follow its example, to be robust and enterprising; the virtue of "earth" is to be able to nurture all things, to embrace all things, to feed all things, people should also follow its example, to be inclusive, to be broadly accepting and broadly accepting. Confucius advocates the pursuit of life "to be angry and forget to eat, to be happy and forget to worry", and Mencius advocates the pursuit of life "to be rich and noble, to be poor and lowly, to be strong and powerful, to be strong and powerful, to be strong and powerful, to be strong and powerful, to be strong and powerful, to be strong and powerful, to be strong and powerful, to be strong and powerful, to be strong and powerful. Meng Zi advocated the concept of "a great man" who "can't be seduced by the rich and powerful, can't be moved by the poor and lowly, and can't be subjugated by the mighty and powerful". Qu Yuan wrote indignantly in "The Fisherman's Father", "All the world is turbid and I am only clear, all the world is drunk and I am only awake." It is in this spirit of encouragement, the Chinese people of the truth diligently seek, foreign enemy aggression to the death resistance, casting a know how to advance, hard-working, self-reliance of the national character. The Chinese people have a progressive attitude towards life, and strive hard for self-improvement on the road to success. All of these centrally express the strong will and extraordinary temperament of the Chinese nation to be aggressive and never stop.

(2) The unity of heaven and man, people-oriented

The so-called heaven mainly refers to the vast natural world, and the relationship between heaven and man mainly refers to the relationship between man and nature. The idea of the unity of heaven and man believes that man is a part of nature, and that man is one of the indispensable elements that make up the natural system; that there is a universal law of nature, and that man should obey it; and that the moral principles of the human society are consistent with the laws of nature; The highest ideal of life should be the harmony between heaven and man. The idea of "the unity of heaven and man" has given us many insights. Traditional Chinese culture focuses on the unity of heaven and man, but between heaven and earth and man, the human being is the center, i.e., the human being is the center. For example, Confucius advocated "not to speak of strange, force, chaos, God" and "failed to serve the people, how can I serve the ghosts'' This kind of thought has a great influence, although he can not deny the existence of ghosts and gods, but to take a skeptical attitude, that is, to exist but not to discuss.

(3) Cultivation of Virtue and Interpersonal Harmony

Confucianism is an ethical culture that advocates "moral supremacy" and emphasizes the ideals of life, such as "benevolence, filial piety, fraternal duty, and loyalty". 's ideal of life. In the view of ancient thinkers, heaven is a moral heaven, man is a moral man, and even a blade of grass and a piece of wood are born of morality and have moral character. _7 Under this moral radiation, they advocated "the benevolent love others" and "harmony is precious", and emphasized the harmonious interpersonal relationship of "caring for one's own aged parents, and caring for one's own young children".

(4) Collective, the world for the common good

Western culture advocates the individual, while traditional Chinese culture is family-centered, collective-based, and speaks of 4 "noble group".8 In the case of conflict between the individual, the local and the collective, the whole, and advocate the sacrifice of the former and the protection of the latter, which is the so-called "the world for the common good". "The world is public". The rise and fall of the world, everyone is responsible, patriotism is everyone's duty. So there is Fan Zhongyan's "worry about the world first, after the world's happiness and joy." Wen Tianxiang in the last moment of his life still chanting: "life since ancient times who have no death, leaving the heart of the Dan Zhihanqing." The dregs of traditional Chinese culture are mainly manifested in: (1) Retro-conservative. (2) Negative inaction. (3) the program of the name and religion.

(4) Emphasis on righteousness rather than profit.

(5) Emphasis on the way rather than the weapon.

In short, traditional Chinese culture must be analyzed and inherited critically. However, the ultimate goal of critical inheritance is to develop and innovate. That is to say, on the basis of the critical inheritance of traditional Chinese culture, absorbing valuable foreign culture, creating the unity of tradition and modernity, the unity of the nation and the world, national, scientific, popular, modern Chinese socialist new culture.