The Relationship between Folk Culture and Modernization

Zhang Jiong: Traditional Culture and Modern Culture

Under the general pattern of cultural pluralism in the world, the formation of the unique cultural traditions of each ethnic group has gone through a long historical process, and in the process of modernization, which is accelerated by the globalization of the economy and the interdependent and mutual exchanges among various ethnic groups, the culture has been constantly expanding and innovating, and the bidirectional and reverse movement of guarding and inheriting the traditions as well as departing from the traditions and moving towards modernity is constituting a great spectacle of the cultural evolution of various countries and ethnic groups in the world nowadays. This is a major spectacle in the evolution of the cultures of all countries and peoples in the world today. As a cultural phenomenon, it actually reflects the profound law of human cultural development.

Culture is the product of human wisdom and labor, and the product of human beings' transformation of the objective world and their own subjective world. Culture in the broad sense includes material culture and spiritual culture; culture in the narrow sense refers only to spiritual culture, which covers language and writing, literature and art, science and technology, morality and ethics, political and legal systems, cultural relics and canons, religious beliefs, philosophical aesthetics and customs. In ancient times, due to the isolation of transportation and the scarcity of exchanges, people lived in different places according to clans and tribes, and then gradually merged into larger ethnic groups. They created their own language and writing, and accordingly created their own way of thinking and behavior, formed their own **** the same psychological state and **** the same customs, as well as all kinds of **** the same rules and regulations, from their way of life, including the mode of production and the way of life, but also sublimation of their religion, philosophy, aesthetics and science and technology. Spiritual culture can be divided into culture with social ideology, such as political and legal systems, morality and ethics, religion and philosophy and most of the literature and art, etc., which are due to changes in the socio-economic base of the change sooner or later to produce the corresponding changes; the other is not social ideology of culture, such as language, writing, science and technology, and a considerable portion of the customs and some of the literature and art (such as music, dance, art, sculpture, architecture, acrobatics, calligraphy, and the arts), the culture of the people, The other category is culture without social ideology, such as language and writing, science and technology, a considerable part of customs and habits, and part of literature and art (like music, dance, art, sculpture, architecture, acrobatics, calligraphy, and a large part of landscape and love poems in literature), which, although they also change according to the progress of the times, do not change according to the changes in the socio-economic base. Literary arts tend to have a more constant vitality due to their ability to continue to provide aesthetic appeal for future generations. In discussing the relationship between traditional and modern culture, it is important to note the distinction between the two types of culture mentioned above. For the latter has a more solid tradition than the former. Its traditional and modern cultures are more often manifested in a state of coexistence in cultural accumulation. The former, on the other hand, is more characterized by the abandonment and transcendence of traditional culture by modern culture in its cultural development.

Generally speaking, traditional culture is formed in the continuous creation, and it is in the continuous creation that it is broken through and innovated towards modernity. In this process, lagging culture is always replaced by advanced culture, and ancient traditions are always refreshed in modern competition. In a certain sense, modernization is advancement. This advancement is identified and determined in the dual comparison of historical vertical and global horizontal. Speaking of the mutual influence of the world's literatures, Plekhanov pointed out that the literatures of the backward nations always learn from the literatures of the advanced nations. Russian literature, for example, had learned from French literature. At that time, however, European literature seldom learned from African literature. In fact, in the whole process of cultural innovation, the backward nations and countries always learn from the advanced ones. The history of our country also fully illustrates this point. The Chinese nation has a long cultural tradition, and our ancestors had created a brilliant and splendid culture. In the ancient East Asian cultural circle, Japan had long been learning from the advanced culture of China; and in modern times, our country has fallen behind due to the corruption of the ruling class and the erroneous policy of shutting up the country. This produced a profound crisis of national survival, and we were slaughtered and bullied by the great powers. So from the Opium War, generation after generation of insightful people, from Wei Yuan, Lin Zexu introduced the terroir and geography of the countries of the world, Hong Xiuquan, Hong Rengan authored the "new compilation of capitalism", Zeng Guofan, Zhang Zhidong advocated the "middle school for the body, Western learning for use", and then to the Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao's "new ways" and Sun Yat-sen's "new laws" and "new ways". It can be said that we have been learning from the advanced countries in the West step by step in all aspects of our culture, from Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao's "Reform and Change of Law" to Dr. Sun Yat-sen's "Three Principles of the People". As Japan had learned from the West first, its culture was more advanced than China's, so China also gained a lot of benefits from learning from Japan's culture. The "May Fourth" New Culture Movement, which advocated "Mr. Virtue" and "Mr. Sai", was a further indication of the large-scale modernization of China's culture. The acceptance of Marxism from the West by China's advanced intellectuals was an important part of this modernization. Because Marxism, as a worldview, outlook on life and values, was the most advanced and scientific in the world at that time. Under the guidance of Marxism, the revolution and construction of modern China brought about radical changes in the country, including profound and extensive changes in culture. All this shows the importance of learning from the advanced cultures of foreign countries and nations in the process of building or modernizing modern culture.

But the traditional culture of each country and nation always has its own advantages and strengths, and this traditional culture is also the historical symbol of the existence of a particular country and nation, and the basis for the advancement of the development of modern culture. It is also wrong to ignore the importance of traditional culture. The process of modernizing our culture has not been without its twists and turns. "The slogan "Down with Confucius" put forward during the May Fourth Era implied a complete rejection of traditional Chinese Confucian culture. "The Cultural Revolution, with its slogan of "smashing the black goods of feudalism, capitalism and cultivation", also negated the traditional cultures created by feudalism, capitalism and socialism, regardless of whether they were black or white. As a result, once there was a tendency of "total westernization" in the construction of new culture, and later there was a childish tendency of "proletarian culture" similar to that which existed in the USSR in those years, which attempted to create a new culture on a blank and flat ground. Practice has shown that these tendencies are wrong, leading to a break in cultural traditions within one or two generations, and making our cultural construction take a big detour. In fact, traditional culture has both essence and dregs. In the process of cultural "innovation" and modernization, as Mao Zedong said long ago, we should "take the essence and discard the dregs" of traditional culture. In fact, some traditional cultures are not only outdated, but also corrupt and harmful, and must be eliminated resolutely; some are still useful, and must be inherited and incorporated into new cultures; others, although old, cannot constitute a new socialist culture, but can be used as historical symbols of the traditional culture created by our ancestors, and still need to be maintained and preserved in order to reflect the display of cultural accumulation. This is also the case in literature and art. For example, in China's traditional opera, those that promote feudal superstition and obscene pornography should be eliminated; some renovated plays with positive ideological content and innovative traditional art forms can be incorporated as part of socialist theater; there are also many excellent traditional plays and techniques that, as the creations of our ancestors, should be preserved as "national treasures", even if they will not have many audiences in the future. There are also many excellent traditional repertoires and techniques which, as creations of our ancestors, should be preserved as "national treasures", even if they do not have much audience in the future. "After the May Fourth Incident, some people cursed all the traditional "Beijing Opera"; during the Cultural Revolution, they banned all the old operas and plays, all of which were wrong practices that lacked analysis of traditional culture. This is a lesson that must be learned today.

Handling the relationship between traditional culture and modern culture is very important for our country to build a socialist culture with Chinese characteristics under the guidance of Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important idea of "Three Represents". This culture is a new national, scientific and popular culture under the guidance of Marxism, oriented to the world, to the future and to modernization. We believe that such a culture embodies the advanced direction of contemporary culture. Therefore, today, we should not only attach great importance to preserving and carrying forward the excellent traditions of our national culture on the basis of critical inheritance, but also continue to learn humbly from all the advanced things in the cultures of the world's countries and peoples, and, in the light of the needs of the construction of a modernized socialist country under the new historical conditions, create a new culture that can lead to the future, conforms to the laws of science, is rich in national characteristics and can meet the needs of the broad masses of the people and raise their level of sophistication. We will create, under the new historical conditions and in accordance with the needs of building a socialist modernized country, a culture that can guide the future, conform to the laws of science, be rich in national characteristics, and satisfy the needs of the masses of the people and improve their overall quality. In other words, we are unifying national culture with modern culture in the process of socialist modernization. In this process, we still need to continue to oppose the tendency of national nihilism and "total westernization", which is a wholesale denial of tradition, as well as the tendency of blind retrofuturism and blind xenophobia, which is saying "everything is the good of the old ancestors". We believe that both traditional and foreign cultures need to be analyzed to see which things are really excellent and which we must incorporate in the building of socialism today; which things are corrupt and harmful and which we must discard today; and which things, as historical and cultural heritage, must be preserved and passed on to future generations, and that different attitudes must be adopted. All advanced things, we must resolutely learn for our use; all backward things, we should rightly and resolutely eliminated and discarded. If we don't learn what we should learn, if we don't firmly "bring it in", if we don't lose what we should lose, and if we continue to treat the carbuncle as a treasure, all of these are not conducive to the construction of a new and advanced culture. And the preservation of historical and cultural relics if not well preserved, and even destroyed at will, it will become the sinner of human culture.

China is a vast multi-ethnic country, each ethnic group has its own unique traditional culture, due to natural conditions and historical reasons, the east and the west, cities and villages in the level of cultural development is also a big difference. Thus, it will take a long historical process to unify the traditional and modern cultures of the nation in the construction of the country. Because the development of culture must also have a precondition, namely, economic development. A country, nation or region must have economic development in order to have cultural development. In the new period of reform and opening up, with the rapid development of our economy, the development of culture is also very fast. However, the economic and cultural development of various places is very unbalanced. Therefore, there is no doubt that a great deal of effort is needed and there is a long way to go before our culture can be fully modernized and move to the forefront of the world's advanced culture at all levels and in all aspects. In the process of modernizing our culture, we must not only make the cultures of all ethnic groups continue to have their own characteristics, but we must also promote our strengths and compensate for our weaknesses, promote the best and eliminate the worst, and resolutely "invite in" the advanced things of other people in the world's wide range of multicultural references. Only by doing so can we make our culture more colorful and catch up with the world's advanced level in science and technology.

China is a large country with a population of 1.3 billion, and our ancestors have made great contributions to the development of world culture. Today, the Chinese people, who are building a modern socialist country, should undoubtedly make a greater contribution to the world in terms of culture as well. It is only when we handle the relationship between traditional and modern culture well, and truly magnify the excellent traditions of our national culture, but also have the courage to absorb all the advanced cultures in the world and innovate independently on this basis, that we can make our socialist culture with Chinese characteristics go out more and more widely and shine with due splendor in the pluralistic pattern of the world's cultures. This is the only way to make our socialist culture with Chinese characteristics go out more and more widely, and emit the light it deserves in the world's cultural diversity. We must make unremitting and arduous efforts to this end.