A brief analysis of the differences between Chinese and western attitudes towards tradition?

Overcome the flatness and single dimension of vision.

Zhou Jun's great prose criticizes the nostalgia for the past, emphasizing the binary opposition between "ancient" and "present", and "advance, change, or retreat and persist". Wang Jun's question is also very scary: "Is it western modern culture or China traditional culture that is holding back the social change in China?" He asked us to make a basic judgment and choice. His opinion is that before the problem of food and clothing is solved, weight loss is not advocated. Chang Che's article also said that the most urgent task at present is to solve the problem of transition from pre-modern to modern, not to entangle the problem of westerners' transition from modern to post-modern, and hope to win in one battle. I can understand this painstaking effort, and I also think that the construction of democratic legal order and the values of the Enlightenment-democracy, freedom, justice, equality, fraternity, human rights, rationality, etc. Take root in China first. However, the world is in an overlapping movement in two different directions, and every country should find its own balance and center of gravity in a world where unbalanced development is intensifying. Many people of insight in the East and West re-examine the "modernity" of western civilization and re-evaluate the relationship between eastern tradition and modernization. As the earth gets smaller and smaller, the discourse space is really complicated. In this context, we can't help but realize the shortcomings of one-sidedness, one-sidedness and flatness of western thought.

In fact, human rights are inseparable from responsibilities and obligations, and laws cannot replace the functions of etiquette and music education. Individual freedom and group values need to complement each other. In short, we should not repeat "pollution first, then treatment" in the ecological environment and cultural environment, because after all, we have the experience and lessons of modernization in the West and East Asia as a reference. This includes absorbing the political, moral and other cultural resources of the nation, and it is necessary to have equal spiritual exchanges and dialogues with the ancients, absorb their profound wisdom, and solve the crisis of man's meaningful world and the alienation between man and heaven, earth, man and me. According to my idea, some intellectuals are "non-modern" and only criticize the current utilitarianism and impetuousness at the level of philosophy of life, not to hinder the prosperity and progress of all aspects of today's society, and "from ancient times" is not to return to ancient society, but to appreciate the ideal of unity of truth, goodness and beauty in the pursuit of artistic conception.

People have different realistic care, immediate care, long-term care and ultimate care. Culture has different levels-politics, economy, society, folklore, religion, art, philosophy and so on. Why can I only choose one from one level and one dimension? Even in one dimension, why are you afraid to keep some tension? Science and democracy are not enough as a yardstick (especially the only yardstick) to measure the ancient morality, art, philosophy and religion of the East and the West. Because the levels are different, the depth is also different.

I think we should have broken the thinking frame of the single-line evolution theory, broken the superstition of the western modernization model, transcended the binary opposition of forward and backward, ancient and modern, China and the west, and progressive and conservative, affirmed that the difference between ancient and modern is not the same as the difference between China and the West, and allowed different value systems to exist and respect each other. In the history of modernization in various countries, the thoughts and figures who criticize modernization always keep pace with modernization, thus ensuring the healthy development of modernization. Borrow some ancient treasures, and the sky won't fall. "Filial piety" and "loyalty" have played a helpful role in the modernization process of South Korea and Japan. Taoism, Buddhism and folk religions have played a role in the economic life of Taiwan Province Province. Although the process and changes during this period are very complicated, at least it inspires us not to design modern culture so simplistically. It is multi-level and multi-dimensional, and will never be divorced from nationality!

3. Refute the so-called "cultural Oedipus complex".

Deng Jun said that from the May 4th Movement to today, "almost no one really understands Lu Xun's self-dissection and self-criticism spirit of the whole national cultural tradition with himself as the specimen". He criticized the literati returning to tradition as "the inertia of tradition itself" and called it "the cultural Oedipus complex", that is, he always ran to the cultural matrix to seek "food" in real life, just like a grown-up child who was unwilling to wean himself. Similar to Zhou Jun's "mental impotence", Deng Jun also sneered at cultural conservatives who are "all like children" and have "narcissistic complex". "Talking about" moral realm "is like daydreaming". I don't know if there are thinkers (such as Kant and Hegel) who can seek ideological resources instead of cultural resources, and I don't know if there is modernization in the world that can seek real life resources instead of their own cultural resources.

I only know that westerners respect and cherish their cultural mothers, and there is no contempt, contempt, humiliation and contempt. Jaspers said in the Origin and Goal of History: "Human beings have always lived by all the thoughts and creations produced in the axial period. Every new leap is to look back on this period and be rekindled by it. This has been the case ever since. The awakening of axial potential and its return to axial potential, or revival, have always provided spiritual motivation. " Explain the creativity of culture, the source of living water in the cultural matrix, and the mother's milk nourishes the soul of modern people, which can't be broken! Of course, the development of culture includes the advanced return and revival of axis civilization (such as ritual and music civilization, philosophers of the Six Classics and their resources), that is, rediscovering its unexplored significance and value, and making transformation and elaboration with the significance of the times!

In my opinion, the premise of Deng Jun's self-criticism and self-reflection is to have a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the deep value of tradition. It is not self-criticism if we only satirize or ridicule based on superficial understanding and think of the negative aspects of current social life.

Deng Jun said in his brilliant masterpiece "Dance of Spirit-Expression of Chinese and Western Personality" (Oriental Publishing House, 1995 edition) that Confucius and Confucianism "want to stand and reach people" were imposed by hypocrites with my desire. "With a Zhang Shanliang, generous and considerate face, it embodies the autocracy and arbitrariness of China's traditional ethics. Parents and parents can plausibly say, for children, for the people, for your own good. In the past, victims of political movements thought it was for their own' position' and' influence' until their death. " (page 150) I think Deng Jun's criticism of this proposition and other Confucian propositions is "autocratic and arbitrary". Deng Jun also said that Zhuangzi's transcendence only stayed at the level of "things", and he didn't know what to say.

This is not corresponding in understanding. It is Deng Jun's fault to "separate" a large layer.

He also said that the promiscuity in "The Waste Capital" and the wife-killing suicide in the ancient city were not due to the fact that China people have gone bad now.

"It's that China's ethical value system for thousands of years has shown its own fatal defects" (122); It is also said that Wang Qiming's traditional moral concept in Peking Man in new york has been shattered in the west, and the only thing he can do is to gesticulate a reproductive organ with his hand, which is rooted in China culture, while China culture is just a kind of "seed-spreading" culture (he doesn't even need to seed-spread, but uses "seed-spreading").

"Because our traditional culture is rooted in living things handed down from generation to generation, it has no ability to melt the beautiful things in people's hearts with real people's things, but can only cover up, tolerate and even preserve and maintain animal things."

(ditto) What is the basis of this criticism? Is China culture really incapable of maintaining, concealing and tolerating animality? Does the author understand a lot of profound and truly human things in the traditional spiritual heritage and China people's core values? Deng Jun said that "China people seldom know true feelings", "only family ties, no feelings", only "the kind of family ties found through the genealogy of biological races, and besides, only emotions (also animal) remain (p. 10 1 page).

"China people's sense of responsibility ... always boils down to biological reproduction and generational reproduction." (page 120) "Benevolence and morality are essentially a biological principle (also applicable to tigers and wolves), that is, the principle of natural consanguinity." (Page 12 1) According to this statement, China people are just animals.

If the so-called "new criticism" refers to "ugly China people", then I think there is nothing new. It's not far to chop Ke with an axe. It is said that China culture itself has no internal power of self-denial and self-transcendence, so how did it develop so far? On the other hand, if you don't have any self-esteem, self-confidence or even sympathy for your own history and culture under the tide of westernization and pan-westernization, what is the essential difference between this "new criticism" and "old criticism"?