Traditional Culture Encyclopedia - Traditional festivals - Comparison of Agrarian Civilization and Emancipation Civilization

Comparison of Agrarian Civilization and Emancipation Civilization

Historically, the geography of Hunan is in a state of total isolation, she relies on its own fertile land, warm and humid climate, crisscrossing the three Xiang four rivers and water systems and scattered more than 6,000 reservoirs and dongting lakes, the development of an even today are said to have a considerable level of farming civilization in the region, only rice production, each year, around 60 billion kilograms, accounting for more than 1 / 10 of the country. Hunan since ancient times is the land of fish and rice, known as the "Lake ripe, the world's feet" reputation, living conditions are sufficient. It does not ask for the plateau in the west, does not ask for the desert in the north, and even more in the south, the east of the sea. Hunan to Shennong Yandi as a representative, is the founder of China's farming culture.

The typical manifestation of the farming culture is the culture of planting, which constantly improves the technology and skills of planting, increases the yield, and digs out the potential from itself to realize the benefits of agriculture. Given that agriculture is an industry with a strong dependence on nature, it is often a case of planting a wide variety of crops and relying on the weather. Rice is the main crop in Hunan and the main source of income for Hunan farmers, but over the past years, Hunan's resource advantage has not formed a comparative advantage and economic advantage, accounting for 86% of the province's population of 54.2 million farmers, although all year round hard work in the countryside between the three Xiang and four waters, to the land to be effective, and to the hard work to ask for, but the state of survival is not ideal. There is a limit to digging out potential from oneself, and from the perspective of developing economy, the farming culture is no longer adapted to the new situation!

China's farming civilization has stretched over thousands of years, the reason why there is a strong vitality, because of its culture has a very human nature in line with the harmony of the gene. --Harmony between man and nature, harmony between man and man. In the past, Hunan farmers generally loved their land very much; in the past, after the autumn harvest, the land had to be turned over to prevent it from sloughing off and becoming dead soil, and to plant zi Yunying, to fertilize it with biological methods; in the past, rural neighbors, after tea and dinner, walked around each other, greeted each other with greetings and greetings, and discussed the raising of pigs and buying cows, and discussed the rice and sorghum, which was very joyful and happy. The annual festival to send each other home sticky rice patties, passing is the deep love of nature, the love of neighbors. The smiling faces of farmers are the most sincere and their feelings are the most simple. However, farmers in the new era no longer love their hometowns and the land where they were born and raised as much as their fathers did, and they aspire to the city and go out for development. Agricultural civilization in the kind of "people do not go out of the body is not expensive" idea y affected this generation, desperately to the city to drill, eager to "with the city", to feel the baptism of urban civilization, to stay in the countryside is mostly 386170 troops. National arable land is decreasing every year, Hunan's arable land is decreasing every year. Although there is land for development, there is also a lot of good land that has been left uncultivated and deserted. Under the strong winds of modern civilization, the countryside far from the city, or even high mountains and distant waters, can often smell and feel the impact of indifference and greed behind the modern civilization, the ancient harmony, the most beautiful of human nature to the step-by-step erosion. Neighborhoods are no longer as close as they once were, every house has a color TV, who still goes next door to watch TV at Ah Niu's house? Every house has a telephone, who still go to the opposite door of Aunt Li's house to answer the phone, call ah? It's so-called "the sound of dogs and chickens", but the old and the dead don't talk to each other anymore. The farmers left behind in the new era discuss among themselves buying Mark Six, playing cards and gambling. Therefore, there was once in our province in Buro, Yueyang, Pingjiang and other places and even the province-wide prevalence of "Mark Six fever". Farmers discuss how to go to the river in front of the poisonous fish to generate income, how to go to the field "digging quail seeking snake playing" to generate income. Now many rural rivers can not fish a wild fish, many mountains can not catch a snake, a lot of wildlife extinction, so that the food chain breaks the ecological deterioration of the problem. Yueyang plague, that is clear evidence.

China's southeastern coastal region and Egypt's Mediterranean coast belong to the more typical coastal culture. Coastal culture may be one step forward to become marine culture, perhaps because of the historical background and the nature of the limitations of its emergence, decided that it can only stay at this level

One of the most important features of the ancient Chinese civilization is the long and protracted agrarian society. At the dawn of Chinese civilization, we cannot even find a record of animal husbandry among the Chinese people. The history of farming in China goes back at least 5,000 years. If China was a sea of layers in the agricultural world until modern times, then its cities were like islands in the sea. However, in sharp contrast to the medieval cities of the West, the ancient Chinese city was not only an independent commercial city destroying the natural economy of the countryside, but also a political center, a relay station for the feudal regime to rule the countryside. This feature not only prevented the emergence of a civic class that would have contributed to the disintegration of the feudal economy, but also slowed down the development of the commodity economy. However, this economic and social characteristic began to change after the Western powers entered China in modern times.

After the Opium War in 1840, the Qing Empire was forced to implement the "Open Door" policy, which made China's southeastern coastal port cities open and semi-open to the economy as its main function of modern cities. Some old feudal political cities, such as Guangzhou and Wuhan, began to transition to modern economic cities. While Tianjin and Shanghai gradually developed into new modern commercial ports. These cities not only acted as bases for foreign investment and foreign business, but also became the center of modern industry and the concentration of new social forces that were separate from and opposed to the traditional agrarian society. It was in these coastal cities that China's first civil society emerged. It is in this sense that French sinologists refer to the development of China's modern coastal economy as "coastal civilization". China's modernization was not only the process of China's emergence from thousands of years of agrarian society, but also the process of China's economic system integrating into the whole world economic system. In this process, it was undoubtedly the coastal cities, where China first opened up to the outside world, that became the locomotives of this trend.

As the author of the book "China in the Twentieth Century" points out, China's modern coastal cities were not only the bridgeheads for the Western imperialists to colonize China, but also the continuation of the tradition of commercial seaport routes along the coasts of China from the sixteenth century onwards, the outposts of China's contact with the West, and the embodiment of the traditional features of Chinese civilization that were open, aggressive, and eclectic. At the beginning of the twentieth century, due to the weakening of the central government's power, the coastal cities once made great development. From 1900 to 1949, the economic development of the coastal cities went through three different stages. From 1900-1911 was the stage of cooperation between the Qing government and the urban forces. 1911-1927 was the stage of development of the urban private economy. 1927-1949 was the period of control by the national government, which, according to expert research, was the period when China's central government was in decline and warlords were entrenched in the cities. 1911-1927 was the period of great coastal economic development. During this period, the coastal cities, freed from the strong centralized power, gained a sudden economic growth, although they grew up between the war and the local economy. Foreign investment was very active. According to statistics, by 1936, foreign investment in China amounted to 3.488 billion U.S. dollars, and in 1931, the city of Shanghai alone absorbed 34% of the country's total foreign investment. Shanghai became the economic center of East Asia.

While the growth of the coastal city inevitably bore the marks of Western colonization at the time, the concentration of Western capital here was a major factor in its growth. However, it was here that Western capital was concentrated, management styles, science and technology took root, and the organization of modern society began. These southeastern port cities, which represented China's coastal civilization, were indeed the most essential elements of China's modernization. The dawn of the modern era in China broke the harmony and tranquility that characterized the traditional Chinese cities. Cities like the ancient city of Xi'an, the square, surrounding city, the administrative capital of the empire with its bell tower and drum tower as the end of the street, gradually gave way to the modern city, organized around commerce and suited to economic development. The emergence of Western tenements in the major shopping centers marked a break from the traditional path of development of Chinese cities. Shanghai's city walls were torn down in 1912, and after 1920, Guangzhou's city walls ceased to exist. Along with these changes in the external appearance of the city came the birth of new urban forces, new classes. And this is one of the important signs of modern society that sinologists have emphasized - the birth of civil society.

According to Western political science, only the development and strength of an organized, legally recognized, independent civil society, balanced with the power of the state, cooperating with it, and keeping it in check, can be a reliable guarantee for a nation's development towards the modern era and the development of a free economy. Therefore, it is also the indispensable foundation for the establishment of the only lasting and solid democratic system. It was in these coastal cities that the first horizontal organizations of society began to spring up since the beginning of the century, such as various societies, chambers of commerce, agricultural associations, and educational associations. The traditional scholarly class also splintered into modern intellectuals, and the League of Alliance founded by Sun Yat-sen in Japan was one of these social organizations. In fact, without the emergence of this early civil society, not only was it difficult to overthrow the Manchu rule, but also the emergence of the Kuomintang and the ****productivity party would have been impossible. However, the victory of the KMT in the Northern Expedition in 1927 slowed down the development of this civil society, and the victory of the ****productivity party in 1949 fundamentally blocked the way for the development of civil society.

It is true that the civil society that developed in the early twentieth century was very fragile, not only controlled by the political power of the Kuomintang, but also limited by the traditional Chinese cultural background of centralization, imperial supremacy, and ideological unity. It was also because of this cultural background that the centralized unity of the ****production party was made possible. However, a state without the existence of civil society cannot be oriented towards modernization.

Reviewing the history of the development and subsequent resurgence of civil society in China can provide us with at least two important insights. First, the stifling of horizontal social forces by vertical state power can only fundamentally block the path of national modernization. Secondly, since civil society once gained significant development in a short period of time against the background of traditional Chinese culture, this shows that Chinese cultural tradition itself is not an obstacle preventing China from moving into modernization. In China's ten-year reform, the elite of civil society is returning to the land of China, and the development of market economy will inevitably bring about the emergence of civil society. The development of the market economy will inevitably bring about the emergence of a civil society, and the growth of civil society will inevitably bring about a fundamental change in the political landscape of China. And in this historical tide, the coastal cities will also play a pioneering and bridging role

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