How to treat the advantages and disadvantages of China traditional culture?

G: Reflection on the traditional culture of China.

Let's start with Su Dongpo's poem: "From the side of the ridge, the mountain becomes a peak, and the distance is different. I don't know the true face of Lushan Mountain, but toward which corner of the mountain. " Because people are in the mountains, their vision is limited, and because of their different positions and observation angles, they will get different impressions, so they can only generalize and avoid being one-sided. Therefore, to observe an important event, we should not confine our eyes to a small area, but need a broader vision, which requires keeping a certain distance. Theoretically, the farther the distance, the wider the field of vision. Standing in the Forbidden City, you can only see a palace that your eyes can see. When you run outside, you can at least see its general situation, and you can see the whole picture when you stand at the top of Jingshan Mountain. The same is true of history. Keeping a certain distance between time and space can get rid of the fetters of utilitarianism. Political constraints and limited horizons allow us to observe and evaluate history from a broader, deeper and detached perspective.

In the past, we always said that natural science has no class nature, while humanities and social sciences have distinct class nature. I don't think it makes sense. The laws and facts of humanities and social sciences, including history, are objective and neutral, and there is no so-called "class nature", which is no different from natural sciences. However, how to evaluate and use the research results must include value judgment, political color and personal utility. Therefore, historical research can be completely classless, and the use of history is bound to be inseparable from the position and interests of users. If these are class nature, then the use of history is of course class nature. Because of this, for historical researchers whose mission is to seek historical truth, they should not look at history from a narrow standpoint. In the past, patriotic education always said that we China people should understand the history of China and study the history of China. We must first make it clear that we are from China and are proud of the long history and splendid culture of our great motherland. If we only use history to serve reality, it is certainly not wrong. But if you want to be a historical researcher, you should be most concerned about the authenticity of historical facts, regardless of the nationality of the researcher. Otherwise, if it involves the shame of the country, the bad habits of the nation, the bad habits of culture and so on. Don't you need to study or even kill it? Even on the most sensitive issues, such as disputed territorial ownership between countries, historical facts exist objectively and cannot be changed. No matter which country's historians study, the conclusion should be the same. The only difference is how to use this fact, such as deliberately ignoring or hiding some facts, emphasizing or exaggerating some facts, so as to make one's own side in a favorable position in territorial disputes and win moral support from the outside world. But this is no longer a historical study, nor is it a matter for historians.

Therefore, to study history, we should have a broad vision: vertically, we should have the concept of historical development; From a horizontal perspective, it is necessary to examine the history of a small scope on a large scale and the history of China on a global scale. In the past, we often overemphasized our China identity and the particularity of China's history, failed to put China's history in the whole historical era and the whole world system, lacked global vision and comprehensive momentum, and even failed to include China in Asia. Those who study China's history don't know world history, those who study world history don't know China's history, those who study Ming and Qing history don't know modern history, and those who study modern history don't know Ming and Qing history, so we can't really understand China's history deeply.

It is precisely because we seldom put the history of China in the whole world before, many people, including many historical researchers, are not clear about China's position in the world at that time in history. In this way, I gradually developed a complacent mentality, thinking that China has always been the most advanced country in the world, and it was only in modern times that it was invaded by western powers and fell behind the world. Actually, it's not. Due to the restriction of geographical environment and the time-space gap of development level, China has not been strongly challenged by the outside world for a long time. On the other hand, in the cultural circles of East Asia and China, there is really no more advanced culture as a whole. This makes China people always think that only the emperor of China is the master of the world. "Under Pu (Pu) Heaven, is it the land of kings?" (The Book of Songs Xiaoya Beishan) All other countries and nationalities must obey, without exception, and can only pay tribute. As for some remote or barbaric places, it is not that they cannot be ruled by China, but that those places are not qualified and the people there are not blessed to be subjects of China. Any foreign country or nation, as long as it is not connected with China's administrative system and cultural tradition, will be a backward and barbaric land. Even the most open and generous Han and Tang Dynasties in China's history, through the history books, only found China's great power and generosity and foreign admiration and naturalization.

In fact, the communication between the Western Han Dynasty and the Western Regions is only a by-product of military diplomacy, which is also consistent with the decline of military strength. Therefore, there will be three links and three unique things in the Eastern Han Dynasty, which are intermittent. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty once gave all the hospitality to "foreign guests", but the laws of the Han Dynasty prohibited his subjects from going abroad. Crops, utensils, costumes, music and dances from the Western Regions spread to the Central Plains and were absorbed by China culture. The population of the Western Regions and Xiongnu also moved into the Central Plains, and later became a member of the Huaxia nationality. But throughout the Han Dynasty, the traditional ideas represented by Confucianism were never challenged by the outside world, and they were never prepared to learn from foreign civilizations. The influence of Buddhism introduced into the Central Plains from the early Eastern Han Dynasty (maybe earlier) is still very limited, and it has the characteristics of "China" from the beginning. Contrary to the magical rumors of the Western Han Dynasty, we simply can't see the yearning for the overseas world in the works of Han people. Besides political and military envoys, the Han Dynasty did not send other personnel to foreign countries, nor did it send scholars and businessmen abroad. Therefore, only officials, prisoners, refugees and fugitives spread the Central Plains civilization abroad, and at most only a few businessmen can benefit from foreign trade.

Tang Wenhua's radiating surface and receiving surface are much wider than those of Han Dynasty, but there is no difference in essence. Although Tang civilization actually absorbed many external factors, it never had a conscious awareness of learning, especially in spiritual civilization. Similarly, the Tang Dynasty had no intention of spreading or popularizing its own culture to foreign countries, and only foreigners were allowed to learn. It is worth noting that only a few exceptions are monks who are full of religious enthusiasm: Xuanzang, who went through difficulties and obstacles to retrieve the scriptures from India, and Jian Zhen, who went to Japan for seven times to preach Buddhism. This is in stark contrast to contemporary Japanese scholars who have joined the Tang envoys to study in the Tang Dynasty again and again. As one of China's four great inventions, papermaking spread in the Arab world, relying on the captives of Tang Jun in the Pilars War, and Du Huan, who accidentally traveled to Central Asia and West Asia and left a record, was also one of the captives. While a large number of "businessmen" from the western regions and Arab "fans" came to the Central Plains to do business and get rich, settle down and multiply, the development of Tang Dynasty people abroad was almost blank.

Under such a long period of self-isolation, the history of China developed independently and lasted for thousands of years. Fortunately, mountains, oceans, deserts and grasslands separate China from other civilization centers, making it the most powerful and only civilization center in East Asia. Before industrialization, China was hardly challenged by foreign civilizations because of its geographical distance. For example, the Crusaders of the Eastern Expedition and the armies of the Arab Empire (eating black) have never entered China. The nomadic people in the north are the only challenges of the imperial dynasty in the Central Plains, such as Xiongnu, Xianbei, Turkic, Qidan and Jurchen. The Great Wall was built to prevent these people from going south, and it has been built continuously by later generations. Although they conquered the Central Plains more than once, but because these ethnic groups as a whole, especially in economy and culture, lagged behind the Han nationality in the Central Plains, the military conquerors eventually became the cultural conquered without exception, and even these ethnic groups themselves were melted into the sea of Wang Yang of the Han nationality. After more than 1800 years' exile in western history, one of the Jewish people, who is famous for sticking to their strong cohesive religious and cultural traditions, settled in Kaifeng in the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty and lived a peaceful life for a long time, and was treated equally by the Han people. They also gradually gave up their own language, began to learn Confucian classics, took part in imperial examinations, married Han women, and finally lost their mentality of maintaining their national characteristics and integrated into the Han nationality. /kloc-At the beginning of the 9th century, there were no specialized clergy among Kaifeng Jews, and no one could read Hebrew classics. This is the only example of Jews being assimilated. A university teacher I know once told me that he is a descendant of Kaifeng Jews. After I got to know his ethnic background, I took a closer look. It seems that he looks a little different, but I really can't find anything different from us in other aspects.

Although there have been countless glories in the history of China, it is based on the absolute superiority of Chinese culture. Huaxia (Han nationality) only accepts foreign cultures condescendingly, and only allows foreigners and foreigners to learn naturalization, but does not encourage their own people to learn from others or actively spread their own culture. When tsarist Russia's power has expanded to the east of Siberia, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch fleets have sailed in the Taiwan Province Strait and the South China Sea, Britain has established colonial rule in India and pushed it to Southeast Asia and China through the East India Company. The emperor of China and most of his subjects are unconscious and continue to dream of the world in their closed doors. Even a great man like Lin Zexu believes that foreigners' leg joints can't be bent, so he once thought that as long as the Qing army knocked them down with long bamboo poles as weapons, they would easily give in.

When we study history, we certainly admit that history can develop independently, such as Mayan civilization and Aztec civilization in America, but so far we have not found any economic and cultural exchanges between them and the outside world. But these civilizations have long since disappeared, and the reasons for their disappearance are still unclear. On the contrary, civilizations that have expanded around the world have had a great impact even if they have caused fierce conflicts, and they have been maintained to this day. China culture has great influence only in Korea, Vietnam, Japan and Southeast Asia, while the cultural influence of ancient Greece and Rome has spread all over Europe, North Africa and West Asia. The reason why their influence is so great is closely related to their time, scope and function. Therefore, the study of China history should not be confined to China itself, let alone the Central Plains. We should put China in the great era at that time and compare it with other civilizations that existed in the same period or in the early and late period. Only in this way can we have a more comprehensive understanding of history and draw an objective and fair conclusion.

Because China culture had never been challenged by foreign civilizations before the19th century, the negative impact of this mentality did not show. China has obviously fallen behind, and the world has entered an era of pluralistic competition. If we have to deal with all changes with such an open mind, the result will only be more backward. China's mentality of being a "big country in China" and a "center of world revolution" is hard to blame for the difficult course of modernization and the twists and turns in the past century. Overestimation of China's status and influence in today's world, one-sided exaggeration of the possible role of China's traditional culture, and high expectations for 2/kloc-0 century and the future are still quite marketable at present, but in fact they are still just illusory masturbation of "China's great powers are everywhere". A few years ago, people often talked about it in newspapers. More than a hundred years ago, a great westerner compared China to a sleeping lion, thinking that he foresaw that China would eventually rise in the world. In fact, during the Republic of China, Wang once pointed out that western lion tamers fed their lions with beef mixed with opium, "lions are sleepy all day, and everyone is rude" (Notes of Wang Maoqing, Volume 8, Shanghai Bookstore Press, 1997), so they never woke up. This is the symbol of China, which suffered a lot in those years. What is there to be proud of?