How to treat the history and culture of China?

China is an ancient civilization with 5,000 years of traditional culture. In the process of China's modernization, there is a constant debate about whether China's traditional culture can be modernized. This historical phenomenon clearly enlightens us: Can China's traditional culture be modernized? How to modernize? This is a problem of great practical significance and must be understood.

First, denying traditional culture is also denying history.

Culture, in a broad sense, refers to the sum of material and spiritual production capacity and wealth created by human beings in the social practice of transforming the world, including material civilization, spiritual civilization and institutional civilization. Culture in a narrow sense mainly refers to spiritual production capacity and spiritual products. Traditional culture is the cultural heritage of material civilization and spiritual civilization accumulated by a nation in long-term social practice, and it is also the spiritual embodiment of a nation's unique way of thinking. Traditional culture has both essence and dross. Therefore, traditional culture can neither be completely denied nor absorbed. Only by standing at the height of the times and passing the test of practice. Only by taking its essence and discarding its dross can it play a correct role.

When a country moves towards modernization, it must always have a culture based on a certain economic and political foundation. To deny traditional culture is also to deny history and national spirit. Cut off one's "roots" artificially. White, an American cultural philosopher, said: "Culture is a continuous unity, and every stage of cultural development comes from an earlier cultural environment." "The present culture depends on the past culture, and the future culture is only the current cultural trend." It can be said that the development history of a nation is also the history of developing and enriching traditions. Similarly, national spirit, as an important force to unite and inspire people, is also the result of long-term edification and cultivation of traditional culture and the crystallization of traditional culture. It is not terrible for a nation to get into any trouble. What is terrible is that it has lost its national spiritual pillar and spiritual support. Therefore, how to treat traditional culture is not a simple cultural problem, but a problem related to the development of national destiny. Many historical facts have proved that a country embarks on the road of national rejuvenation and modernization, starting with carrying forward the national spirit. National spirit is the soul of a nation. Denying traditional culture will inevitably obliterate the national spirit. It is wrong to think that China's modernization can only draw strength from foreign culture and try to replace China's traditional cultural model with western cultural model. From the perspective of epistemology, it is mainly caused by the following three reasons:

First of all, there is a lack of in-depth understanding of the rich connotation of China's traditional culture. China's traditional culture is not a pile of worthless rubbish as some people say, but has rich connotations in many aspects. Its outstanding part is the precious spiritual wealth of mankind and one of the renewable resources of all new and higher civilizations. The rich connotation of China traditional culture is mainly reflected in the following aspects:

A spirit of self-improvement. China culture has always been concerned about real life. Confucius said that "I don't know life, I don't know death", and that "a gentleman strives for self-improvement". It is this philosophy of life after China's entry into WTO that has cultivated the Chinese nation to dare to fight tenaciously against all the harm and injustice of nature and society. China people have the spirit of not believing in evil and not afraid of ghosts since ancient times, emphasizing that happiness in life is created by themselves. To realize modernization, this spirit of self-confidence and self-esteem is absolutely indispensable.

Second, the concept of "unity of knowledge and action". China's Confucian culture says that "doing is close to benevolence", which, to some extent, embodies the epistemological thought of "paying more attention to doing than knowing", which is consistent with the practical character. Practice is the source of knowledge. To realize modernization, of course, we must study foreign advanced things hard, but what is more important is our own socialist practice.

Pay attention to people's spiritual life. China traditional culture attaches great importance to people's inner cultivation and spiritual world, and despises greedy and vulgar material desires. Mencius put forward that "wealth is beauty", "you can't be lewd, poverty can't be moved, and power can't be bent", which is the fundamental requirement for personality. This traditional virtue is also very valuable for shaping modern personality.

4. Be patriotic. Patriotism is one of the deepest feelings we have consolidated for our motherland for thousands of years. Patriotism is a fine tradition of our Chinese nation. The ancients said that every man is responsible for the rise and fall of the world. Today, only when a country embarks on the road of modernization can it be prosperous and strong. To achieve modernization, we must rely on the unity and common struggle of the people of the whole country.