Try to use historical facts and materials to discuss how to deal with westernization and traditional culture in the historical process of China's modernization.

There are two tendencies to be prevented in the treatment of traditional Chinese culture: national nihilism and retrofuturism: there are also two tendencies to be prevented in the treatment of foreign cultures: closed-door self-defense and wholesale westernization.

National nihilism: the belief that the development of China's reality can be cut off from the link with history, denying the value of traditional culture.

Retroism: unilaterally elevating traditional culture, viewing, measuring and evaluating the reality with traditional values, and denying the essential difference between traditional and modern societies.

Comprehensive Westernization: On the one hand, modernization is equated with Westernization, and on the other hand, modernization is antagonistic to China's inherent culture, and thus the process of modernization is regarded as the process of transplanting Western culture into our nation.

Close-mindedness: absolute rejection of foreign cultures, especially Western culture, which embodies modern civilization, which is in fact not thinking of change and holding on to the past.

The above views are all metaphysical negativity.

The negation of proof is the negation of negation, is the scientific view of negation, the use of dialectical view of negation, we treat the traditional culture, we have to remove the dross, take the essence, criticize its wrong things, inherit its positive things, and be transformed; treatment of foreign culture, we should have a discriminatory, selective learning, and strive to come out of a modernization road that can reflect the modern level of the world's civilization, but also have their own national characteristics. The modernization road.

Modern Western culture is basically the culture of capitalist society. However, there are two types of culture in capitalist society that are in opposition to each other: bourgeois culture and proletarian culture. Bourgeois culture is, of course, the dominant culture in capitalist society, while proletarian culture, such as that guided by Marxist theory, cannot dominate under the capitalist system. The Chinese bourgeoisie of course has to absorb Western bourgeois culture to justify its interests, which is what the current elite is doing. The proletariat, of course, has to absorb Western proletarian culture in order to fight for its own liberation, as the Chinese ****proletariat under Mao Zedong did in his time. Of course there is also a great deal of natural science in Western culture, which is classless. This kind of western culture in terms of natural science content, in order to build our country, of course, must try to learn and absorb.

As for the traditional Chinese culture, it is mainly the culture of feudal society, which should also be analyzed. The content of traditional Chinese culture belonging to the social sciences is mainly for the maintenance of feudal rule, for the maintenance of the feudal system, the dominant position, is the ideology and culture of the feudal landlord class. The ideological content reflecting the interests and demands of the exploited and oppressed working people is not absent, but it does not occupy a dominant position. Nowadays, some people hold traditional Chinese culture in high regard. In fact, the so-called traditional culture they advocate is precisely the dregs of feudal culture that should be discarded, such as the propaganda of feudal superstition in disguise and the promotion of feudal superstitious activities, which is the most obvious example. The theories of some so-called Neo-Confucian figures abroad are essentially attempts to revamp those ideological theories that served the feudal exploitation system in history and use them to serve modern capitalism, in an attempt to use them to resolve the contradictions of modern capitalism and to safeguard the rule of the bourgeoisie. The traditional culture advocated by such people is nothing but capitalist culture in the garb of traditional culture. "China should absorb a great deal of foreign progressive culture as the raw material for its own cultural food, something that has not been done enough in the past. This is not only the current socialist and new democratic culture, but also the ancient cultures of foreign countries, such as the cultures of the Age of Enlightenment in various capitalist countries, whatever is of use to us today should be absorbed. But all foreign things, like our food, must be chewed and chewed by our own mouth and gastrointestinal movement, and fed into our saliva and gastric and intestinal fluids, and broken down into the essence and the dross, and then the dross must be excreted and the essence absorbed, in order to be beneficial to our bodies, and must not be absorbed uncritically and unconsciously, but must not be swallowed alive and eaten alive. The so-called "wholesale westernization" is a wrong view. China has suffered greatly in the past from the formalistic absorption of foreign things. This is also true of the application of Marxism in China by the Chinese ****productivists. The universal truth of Marxism and the concrete practice of the Chinese revolution must be completely and properly unified, that is to say, combined with the characteristics of the nation, in a certain national form, before they can be of any use, and must not be applied subjectively in a formulaic manner. Formulaic Marxists, who are only joking about Marxism and the Chinese Revolution, have no place in the ranks of the Chinese Revolution. Chinese culture should have its own form, which is the national form. The national form, the content of New Democracy - this is our new culture today.

This new democratic culture is scientific. It is opposed to all feudal and superstitious thought, and advocates seeking truth from facts, objective truth, and consistency between theory and practice. In this respect, the scientific thought of the Chinese proletariat is able to establish a united front of anti-imperialism, anti-feudalism and anti-superstition with the materialists and natural scientists of the bourgeoisie, who still have progressiveness in China; but it must not establish a united front with any reactionary materialism. * * * Members of the proletariat may establish a united front with certain materialists and even with religious people in their political action against imperialism and feudalism, but they must not subscribe to their materialism or religious doctrines. A splendid ancient culture was created during China's long feudal society. Cleaning up the process of development 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. It is necessary to distinguish between all the corruptive things of the ancient feudal ruling class and the excellent people's culture of ancient times, which was more or less democratic and revolutionary. China's new politics and economy have developed from the old politics and economy of ancient times, and China's new culture has developed from the old culture of ancient times, so we must respect our own history and must not cut it off. But this respect is to give history a certain scientific status, to respect the dialectical development of history, not to glorify the ancient and not the modern, not to praise any feudal toxins. For the people and the young students, the main thing is not to lead them to look backward, but to lead them to look forward." (Mao Zedong, "On New Democracy" (January 1940))