Your understanding and thinking of eastern and western cultures

First, the eastern and western cultures in the eyes of China scholars.

China's entry into WTO has brought unprecedented challenges to China. These challenges not only come from the economic and technological fields, but more importantly, with the acceleration of China's opening to the outside world, our culture is also undergoing profound changes. The experience of China's development in the 20th century tells us that sticking to tradition and westernization will bring disastrous consequences to the development of China society. In an article entitled "On the Complementary Relationship between Eastern and Western Cultures", Mr. Ji Xianlin described the historical changes of eastern and western cultures with "thirty years east of the river and thirty years west of the river". He believes that when human beings have developed to 2 1 century, western culture dominated by metaphysical analysis has come to an end, and it will be replaced by comprehensive eastern culture. To this end, he proposed that when dealing with the relationship between western culture and China culture, on the one hand, we should pay attention to absorbing all the good things in western culture, whether material or spiritual, and change our values and ways of thinking by "bringing them"; On the other hand, we should inherit and carry forward the reasonable elements in China culture, so that the oriental civilization can make due contributions to the development of mankind.

Tang further elaborated the origin of the rise and fall of China culture from the aspect of people's role in cultural inheritance. He pointed out that the trend of "total westernization" in the 20th century made China lose confidence in his own culture to some extent. China people have a strong consciousness and initiative in absorbing foreign cultures, but they lack such consciousness and initiative in spreading their own cultures abroad. This situation is related to the national character of China people. Historically, China people can treat foreign cultures with tolerance, but China people lack enterprising spirit. This situation is related to China's "great power mentality" when it was strong. It is natural for others to learn from us. We don't need to go there to spread China culture. In the past two centuries, with the rise of our western countries, our arrogance began to degenerate into inferiority and we felt that we were lagging behind everywhere. In fact, this arrogance and inferiority all indicate that China culture lacks enterprising spirit. How can we change this situation? Mr. Tang pointed out that our attitude towards cultural issues needs to be changed. On the one hand, we should pay attention to "selectivity" in dealing with foreign cultural problems and choose what we really need in other cultures; On the other hand, we should also convey China culture to other parts of the world with the spirit of self-awareness and enterprising, so that other countries can understand China and China culture. This view of two-way cultural exchange has been generally accepted, among which Shweder pointed out that there is no social and cultural environment in today's world, and people's recognition of it can be independent of other ways. The world is a pluralistic world, and various cultures influence each other, although their functions are different. The views of Mr. Ji and Mr. Tang reflect the historical thinking of eastern thinking on the rise and fall of culture, which is of great guiding significance to the inheritance and development of China culture.

Second, the cultural concept of "modernization theory"

In fact, western scholars realized the influence of China culture earlier than we did, although these understandings have limitations in history and value judgment. As early as 1950s, a large number of western sinologists noticed the influence of China's traditional culture, and the "modernization theory" put forward by Fei Zhengqing, Joseph Richmond Levenson and Wright challenged the role of China's traditional culture. By comparing modern China and Japan, these scholars want to find out the reasons for the success of Japan's modernization reform in the decades after the Meiji Restoration. China, which started modernization earlier than Japanese, failed. After analyzing the economic, social, political and cultural factors of China in the19th century, they pointed out that the failure of China's modernization was mainly caused by Confucianism-there was a conflict between the stability and unity required by Confucianism and the changes required by modernization. Wright even asserted: "Even under the most favorable conditions, Confucian society cannot be integrated into modern countries."

In order to prove the rationality of this theory, Fei Zhengqing first analyzed it from the perspective of culture and personality. He believes that China's tradition attaches great importance to the collective (referring to the family rather than the country), emphasizing obedience to authority, and it is impossible to cultivate an independent personality. The dynamic mode of China culture is dependent rather than independent, and the people trained by this tradition are only suitable for agricultural society, but not for the requirements of industrial society. Hagen, another scholar, also expressed the same view in his book On Social Change. He used whether a society can cultivate creative personality to analyze whether a country's economy can develop. He believes that it is quite difficult to cultivate creative personality in a conservative society. Without such people, social development is impossible.

Max Weber's analysis of China culture from the perspective of religion also expressed similar views. In the book Confucianism and Taoism, he sharply criticized Confucianism. He believes that Confucian ethics lacks the tension between nature and God, the tension between ethical requirements and human weakness, the tension between guilt and detachment, the compensation between secular behavior and vulgar behavior, and the tension between religious responsibility and social reality. Therefore, there is no lever to make people's inner strength transcend tradition. That is to say, because of too much emphasis on harmony, especially the integration of heaven and earth, there is a lack of tension between man and society and nature, so it is impossible to cultivate a reasonable spirit of defeating the outside world. Contrary to Confucian ethics, Christianity, especially the Puritans, believed in original sin and tried to overcome it, which enabled them to develop a set of religious cultivation skills to overcome their inner sins. This kind of effort extends to norms, customs and authority, so that people will not blindly follow, but try to improve. Weber's explanation of China's social structure and Confucian ethics is unique, and his basic views have become the basis for western scholars to analyze and study the China issue.

The "modernization theory" also seeks a "panacea" for the further development of China society from the criticism of Confucian culture. Fei Zhengqing pointed out that social development must be supported by theory, and Confucianism hindered the development of China. So if China wants to develop, it must have another set of ideas, which intellectuals need to look for from western culture. This theory was all the rage in the sixties and seventies. The "modernization theory" has had an important influence on the development of China society, and all social ideological trends since the 1980s are undoubtedly inseparable from its influence. However, the "modernization theory" is not a panacea to solve the social development problems in China. When it became popular, its criticism began. Critics believe that the "modernization theory" is extremely one-sided in analyzing Confucian ethics. Confucianism emphasizes "courtesy" and "harmony", which is not just a matter of appearance or face, as the above scholars said. In fact, there is a personal motivation in Confucian ethics, not the lack of such motivation as Fei Zhengqing said. Barry and Mecger believe that Confucian ethics emphasizes the autonomy of individuals and their morality. Although there is a theory of "good nature", it is not like Weber's lack of tension between individuals and the external environment. For example, there is tension between "justice" and "human desire" The economic prosperity of East Asia also strongly refutes the "modernization theory". Kahn pointed out that "post-Confucian culture" is the foundation and guarantee of East Asian economic development.

The "modernization theory" and its controversy will continue. Its generalization and inference of China culture are reasonable, but there are also many prejudices. Its rationality is intrinsically related to Mr. Tang's analysis of China's cultural initiative, which is obvious when we communicate with western cultures. While studying western scientific and technological civilization, have we considered exporting our culture and values? On this point, Americans are unambiguous, and the American government has clearly stated that it wants to promote its own culture and values to the whole world. In fact, this problem has attracted the attention of many cultural researchers. As an ancient civilization, China has its own thinking characteristics and values. Under the background of economic globalization, learning advanced science and technology from western countries will help to improve our competitiveness. But if we can't develop our excellent culture in this kind of communication, we will eventually lose ourselves.

Similar to the "modernization theory", psychologists' research on individualism and collectivism in the early 1980s also reflected their prejudice against oriental culture. Hofstede originally wanted to know the characteristics of the work values of employees in different countries of a large multinational company. When analyzing the collected data, he found a very interesting phenomenon: the level of economic development of a country is closely related to the work values of its employees. Countries that emphasize individual achievements and individual rights have developed rapidly, while those that emphasize group goals and interpersonal harmony have a low level of economic development. Therefore, he believes that it is the cultural value that affects people's work motivation and achievement level, and ultimately determines a country's economic development. Hofstede's research has aroused great interest of cultural psychologists, and many researchers are still interested in this issue.

Third, the cultural exchange between the East and the West under the framework of cultural psychology.

In order to inherit and carry forward our culture in the economic globalization, we also need to understand the influence mechanism of Chu culture. Since the 1960s, researchers of cultural anthropology have begun to explore the issue of cultural influence with phenomenological methods. Based on the mode of cultural communication, they summarized four characteristics of interaction between different cultures: ① selectivity: when two cultures are in contact, not all cultural elements communicate with each other. Some cultural elements are easily accepted by other cultures, while others are not easy to spread. In other words, only a few cultural elements that are easy to spread are spread from one culture to another. ② Mutuality: Cultural influence is a two-way process, and the influence of strong culture and weak culture is mutual. The existence of any non-mainstream culture in the world has its inevitability, and it will not be completely assimilated in the communication with mainstream culture. ③ Adaptability: Once a cultural element is integrated into another new culture, its form and function will change, but this adaptability does not mean that the old cultural element has completely changed. Sometimes this change is only a temporary adaptation, and the essential things may not necessarily change. ④ Inequality: Some cultural elements are easier to spread than others, and material culture is easier to spread than culture in the ideological field.

Judging from these characteristics, although the cultural exchange between the East and the West is a two-way process, it more reflects the strong influence of western culture on eastern culture, which is most obvious in the "world system theory". The "World System Theory" put forward by wallerstein in 1970s and 1980s expounded the effect and mechanism of cultural influence. According to his theory, all countries in the world today are in a power system determined by politics and economy. In this system, some countries are at the core of power, while others are at the edge. The status of a country in this system is mainly determined by its own economic and political status. For nearly a century, western powers such as Europe and America have been at the core of this system, while non-western developing countries (especially most countries in Asia and Africa) are at the edge of this system. Core countries are more influential than peripheral countries. When talking about the influence of this status difference, wallerstein pointed out that this economic and political difference often leads to cultural and academic differences-culturally and academically, the power core countries have a dominant influence on the marginal countries, but he also admitted that the marginal countries also affect the countries in the core position to a certain extent, although this influence is less than the former.

"World system theory" reveals the influence mechanism of culture from a new angle-that is, the influence of culture is related to economy and politics. This theory is supported by some psychological studies. For example, in the research before 1970s, Japan was often regarded as one of the representatives of collectivism. However, at a certain time in the 1990s, Japanese scholars found that Japanese young students were even more individualistic than Americans. These scholars believe that the mutual influence of cultures is the root of this change. The influence of foreign culture in daily life can also prove this theory to some extent, for example, the worship of surrounding culture by young people in contemporary China embodies this point. In essence, wallerstein's theory and the economic foundation of Marxism determine that the superstructure comes down in one continuous line. "World System Theory" makes us optimistic about the influence of China culture from another angle, because according to this theory, with the development of China's economy and the improvement of its political status, the influence of China culture will also shift from the periphery to the center. Economists believe that 2 1 century will be the moderns of East Asian economy, and this kind of economic development will certainly make our culture have a greater impact on a global scale.

Optimism returns to optimism, but this glory can't wait. The "world system theory" emphasizes the core role of culture between culture and economy, which is just the opposite of the "modernization theory" that emphasizes the influence of culture on economic development. How to deal with this disagreement? To deal with this problem, we need to look for it from the track of the development of eastern and western civilizations. In the second half of 1990s, a group of psychologists who paid attention to cultural influence finally found a new way to understand the differences between the East and the West, which is the study of the way of thinking between the East and the West. In the view of some cultural psychologists, the discussion on the way of thinking between the East and the West can provide evidence of cultural influence from the perspective of internal assumptions, thus helping us to understand our own culture in depth.

Fourth, understand the influence of eastern and western cultures from the way of thinking.

Professor Nisbet of the University of Michigan and his students use "thinking geography" to illustrate the differences between eastern and western cultures and their influence. In his view, the development of eastern and western cultures has its own track: Western civilization is based on the ancient Greek tradition, and its way of thinking is characterized by Aristotle's logical thinking, while the eastern culture represented by China is based on the eastern tradition deeply influenced by Confucianism and Taoism, and its way of thinking is characterized by dialectical thinking. China's dialectical view contains three principles: the theory of change, the theory of contradiction and the theory of neutralization. Based on the variability of the world, the theory of variation holds that the world is always changing and there is no eternal right or wrong; The theory of contradiction holds that everything is a contradictory unity composed of opposites. Without contradiction, there is no thing itself, while the doctrine of neutralization is embodied in the doctrine of the mean, which holds that everything has moderate rationality. Unlike China, Americans believe in Aristotle's formal logic thinking and emphasize the unity, non-contradiction and neutrality of the world. Influenced by this way of thinking, people think that a proposition cannot be right or wrong at the same time, either right or wrong, and there is no middle. For China people, the "golden mean" has been accumulated for thousands of years, and even internalized into the personality characteristics of China people. Mr. Lu Xun once commented: "The character of China people always likes reconciliation and compromise. For example, if you say that this room is too dark, you must open a window here, and everyone must not allow it. But if you advocate tearing down the roof of the house, they will come to settle and be willing to open the window. Without fierce opinions, it is always not feasible for peaceful reform. " What Mr. Lu Xun said here is the opposite of the golden mean. Of course, there is also a positive side. It can make people avoid extremes and one-sidedness, and make people's thoughts and behaviors tend to be rational.

Compared with westerners, China people like to analyze problems from a holistic perspective, emphasizing the connection and relationship between things; Westerners, especially Americans, tend to consider problems from a big background and pay attention to the characteristics of others or things themselves. Ji Li-Jun, Peng Kaiping, Nisbet and others found that when people in China know things, they often can't separate individual things from their situations. For example, when completing the pole rack experiment, the performance of China people is worse than that of Americans, mainly because China people regard the background and judgment target as a whole. This holistic epistemology has greatly influenced the social life of people in China, which makes people in China often think of a person's life background, family background and surrounding environment when evaluating others, rather than evaluating him from his own characteristics. The result of this is often to exaggerate the role of the environment and ignore the role of the individual.

Unlike people in China, westerners usually emphasize the role of personality first. When dealing with objects, they will separate an object from the background and ignore the role of its environment. This can explain some phenomena in the development of science. Needham, a British historian of science, noticed that China people realized the concepts of "field" and "far power" long ago, and they knew them 1500 years earlier than westerners. Unfortunately, both modern electromagnetism and quantum mechanics were put forward by the latter. Needham believes that this is mainly related to the overall thinking characteristics of China people. We know that the establishment of electromagnetism and quantum mechanics requires the decomposition of force.

The research work of Nisbet and others caused people to think deeply about the eastern and western cultures and their influence in the field of psychology. Compared with previous studies, their conclusions mainly come from experimental evidence rather than conclusions based on speculative theory, so they are relatively more rational. Most importantly, Nisbet's theory does not evaluate the influence of eastern or western cultures from the perspective of values, but thinks that this difference has a long history, thus providing support for the theory of cultural diversity. Any culture comes from a certain tradition, and cultures can influence each other, but one culture can never replace another. The times are progressing and the culture is developing. The purpose of cultural psychology research is not only to understand the advantages and disadvantages of one's own culture through comparison, but also to serve the inheritance and creation of excellent and vital culture. I believe that with the further attention paid by psychology and other disciplines to China culture, the excellent cultural traditions of the Chinese nation will surely make greater contributions to world civilization.