What are the characteristics of traditional culture?

First, various views on the types of traditional culture

People in China have long known the cultural types. The ancients compared the Chinese farming culture in the Central Plains with the nomadic culture or fishing and hunting culture of four neighboring nationalities. After the Han dynasty, they compared the local Confucian culture characterized by the spirit of joining the WTO with the Buddhist culture characterized by the spirit of being born in South Asia.

Modern times, such as Yan Fu, Li Dazhao, 1893- 1988, a native of Guilin, China, was one of the early representatives of modern neo-Confucianism. He insisted on telling the truth all his life and was famous for his open "struggle" with Mao Zedong in 1953, but he did not fully agree with the class struggle carried out in a period after the founding of the People's Republic of China .5989.99999999999995

The first opinion is to distinguish cultural types according to geographical environment, and holds that the generation, evolution, enrichment and development of any national culture are completed in a specific geographical environment and unique economic and social soil, so it can be roughly divided into valley type, grassland type, mountain type and ocean type, while the main body of China culture belongs to valley type.

The second opinion classifies culture according to the internal relationship between conceptual culture and a certain mode of production, divides culture into agricultural culture, industrial and commercial culture and nomadic culture, and holds that Chinese culture belongs to agricultural culture type.

The third viewpoint examines the formation and development of China culture, and holds that Confucianism, Taoism, Mohism, Buddhism and France constitute the main content and core of China culture. In its formation period, Confucianism, Mohism, Taoism and Buddhism went hand in hand, while in its development period, Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism went hand in hand. Although various ideas complement each other and are interrelated, Confucianism has always dominated. The fourth view holds that the traditional culture of China is the feudal culture of China. Mingtian system is a land management and land use system based on the military service system in Qin and Han dynasties and under the condition of vast land and sparse population.

1 Mr. Liang believes that "culture can also be said to be the way of life of a nation", that is, "the method of solving problems in life", and "these three methods cannot be found in all human life": First, "the original direction: strive to get what is required and try to meet his requirements"; Second, "when we encounter problems, we do not seek solutions or changes in the situation, but look back at the carefree situation;" His way of dealing with problems is only the reconciliation of his own wishes "; Third, "when he encounters a problem, he simply cancels the problem or request." At this time, he doesn't like the change of the situation in the first direction, nor does he like the change of his own meaning in the second direction. He just wants to fundamentally cancel the problem, and he thinks that westerners are "taking the first direction", "China culture is based on self-interest, harmony and persistence" and "taking the second direction".

In the first year of Tang Longshuo (66 1), Huineng paid an audience with the five ancestors of Zen in Huangmei. The fifth ancestor asked his followers to work, chop wood and walk for more than eight months. At that time, Hong Ren was very old. He was eager to pass on the clothes and ordered his disciples to present them. At that time, there was a cloud in Shen Xiu: "I am a bodhi tree, and my heart is like a mirror platform. I always wipe hard to keep the dust off. " Hongren thought that he didn't see his nature and didn't pass on his clothes. Huineng recited a poem and wrote it on the wall: "Bodhi has no trees, and the mirror is not a stage. Nothing, then where did it cause dust? " Seeing this, Hong Ren called Huineng to the hall to tell him about the Diamond Sutra and gave it to him.

Second, the characteristics of China traditional culture

In addition to the general characteristics of ethical and political culture, China traditional culture also has the following remarkable characteristics:

1, unity and continuity

As one of the earliest Chinese characters in the world, although the Chinese characters came into being a little later than the cuneiform characters in Mesopotamia and the sacred script in ancient Egypt, both cuneiform characters and sacred script have disappeared from history. Only Chinese characters, after a long history of 4,000 years, still have strong vitality, and are still used by us today and will be used for a long time.

In the past, most researchers regarded Chinese characters as ideographic characters together with ancient Egyptian holy books and cuneiform characters in the two river basins. However, ideographic characters cannot completely summarize all the attributes of Chinese characters. This is because pictophonetic characters, which account for over 80% of Chinese characters, are ideographic characters. For example, the words "marriage" and "marriage" are ideographic parts, and the words "faint" and "cause" on the right are ideographic parts. More importantly, there are some words in Chinese whose symbols are not specially recorded, but borrowed a word with the same sound or similar sound as it. For example, the word "er" whose original meaning is beard is used to record the conjunction "er" with the same pronunciation in Chinese. In this case, the Chinese character is completely phonography. So, after the 1950s,

In the first half of this year, some scholars in China suggested that the nature of Chinese characters should be a combination of ideographic and phonological symbols.

The theory of "Six Books" put forward by Xu Shen, a scholar in the Eastern Han Dynasty, is the earliest theory to systematically analyze the structure of Chinese characters from a scientific perspective. Xu Shen systematically expounded the provisions of the "six books" in the preface to explaining words, pointing out that "Li Zhou entered primary school at the age of eight, and he used the six books first to protect the teacher and teach the country; Second, hieroglyphics; Three sounds; Fourth, know; Fifth, transfer bills; Six words to borrow. " Later generations often take Xu Shen as the name of "Six Books" when expounding the theory of "Six Books". Pictophonetic characters are one of the most powerful word-forming methods. More than 80% of the nearly 10,000 words collected in Shuo Wen Jie Zi. In modern Chinese characters, the proportion of pictophonetic characters has exceeded 90%.

Chinese characters have a long history. The so-called legend of writing created by Fu Xi and Cang Xie, historians of the ancient Yellow Emperor, reflects the long history of writing in China. According to archaeological findings, the materials related to the origin of Chinese characters are: first, the traces of Yangshao, Liangzhu, Majiayao and Longshan cultures in the late primitive society; One is the pictographic symbol of Dawenkou culture in Shandong Province in the late primitive society. Ancient philologists used to think that Dawenkou site (about BC)

The carved images of pottery unearthed 3000-2500 years ago should be relatively mature inscriptions carved on tortoise shell bones. Oracle Bone Inscriptions refers to a writing carved on the bones of tortoise shells, which was unearthed in Yin Ruins of Xiaotun Village, Anyang, Henan Province. It was first discovered and collected by King imperial academy, who offered wine in the 25th year of Guangxu (1899). After textual research by scholars Sun Yirang, Luo Zhenyu and Wang Guowei at that time, it was determined that it was a musical instrument of the Yin Dynasty, which recorded many deeds of the Yin Dynasty and was a precious material for studying the history of the Yin Dynasty. According to incomplete statistics, there are more than 200,000 pieces of Oracle bones unearthed in Xiaotun Village, Anyang.

Napoleon once said to the old China, "Don't wake the sleeping giant". Britain defeated Napoleon and immediately launched the Opium War, which revived China.

East Asia is made up of China, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese, with a large population. These ethnic groups are as energetic, hardworking, brave and intelligent as any other ethnic group in the world. ? As far as the people of China are concerned, for thousands of years, hundreds of millions of people have been United more successfully politically and culturally than any other country in the world. They have demonstrated this ability to unify politics and culture, and have unparalleled successful experience.

World unity is the way to avoid human collective suicide. At this point, the Chinese nation, which has cultivated a unique way of thinking for two thousand years, is now the most fully prepared among all ethnic groups.

Judging from the historical experience of maintaining reunification for two thousand years, China is qualified to become the new main axis for realizing a unified world. ([British] arnold toynbee, [Japanese] Ikeda's masterpiece Outlook 2 1 century, International Culture Publishing Company1985110, 29 1-295. )

"The future is probably not a western European country, nor a westernized country, but China. I'm afraid it can be said that it is China who shoulders the fate of bringing political unity and peace not only to half the world, but also to the whole world "(ibid., p. 289).

These are some remarks made by arnold toynbee, a famous British historian, director of the Royal Institute of International Studies, professor of the history of international relations at London University, and Daisaku Ikeda, a famous figure in Japanese religious and cultural circles and a social activist, when discussing human society and contemporary world issues.

China culture is characterized by constant unification and monism. In the course of its historical development, Chinese culture has gradually formed a unity with Chinese culture as the center and the cultures of all ethnic groups in China merging with each other. It has developed independently without external influence and has great continuity in space and time. The specific performance is as follows:

(1) political unity

Dong Zhongshu, a Confucian scholar in Guang Chuan, responded with profound Confucian cultivation, put forward "Three Strategies for Heaven and Man", and systematically expounded the theory of the induction between heaven and man based on The Spring and Autumn Ram Study. He said in "Three Strategies for Dedication": "The Spring and Autumn Period is a great unity, and heaven and earth often learn, and the friendship between ancient and modern times is also. Today, teachers have different methods, people have different theories and a hundred schools of thought have different meanings. What can't be unified is that the number of changes can be controlled.

From the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the agricultural economy in the Central Plains gradually occupied the mainstream, and agricultural culture and other cultures assimilated and merged with each other, thus promoting people's practical and rational spirit of attaching importance to secular personnel. Therefore, from the Western Zhou Dynasty, people-oriented religious consciousness began to replace the religious consciousness based on God, so the Book of Rites said, "Yin people worship God, lead the people to worship God, and worship ghosts first." "Zhou people salute and still give, and ghosts respect God and stay away." Confucius also said, "If you can't convince people, how can you convince ghosts?" "If you don't know life, how can you know death!" Although there have been gods and religions in history, they all believed in certain conditions and scope. Once theocracy exceeds monarchical power, it will be ruthlessly eliminated. Therefore, China culture pays attention to the right and wrong of people, pursues the ethical norms and moral laws that people should follow, and pays little attention to the afterlife. Therefore, in the early days of ancient civilization, that is, countries that did not experience theocracy, after entering the Middle Ages, there was no Christian theocracy like Europe. (2) People-oriented thought of respecting the monarch and valuing the people

During the Yin and Zhou Dynasties, people-oriented thought appeared in China. Duke Zhou put forward the idea of "respecting morality and protecting the people", Confucius put forward the idea of attaching importance to the people and enriching the people, Mencius put forward the idea of attaching importance to the people and neglecting the monarch, and Laozi also had the tendency of "impermanence and taking the people as the heart". "Hua Yan Jing" "If all beings are happy, everything will be happy".

The progressive thoughts expressed in Zuo Zhuan through the characters' words and deeds are remarkable. First of all, people-oriented ideas, such as defending the people and chasing the king, are too many to be advocated. Shi Kuang said, "or * * * you are very real. ? Husband, Lord of God, hope of the people. If democracy is trapped, the gods lack worship, the people despair, and the country has no owner, will it be safe to use it? What will happen? " He added: "God loves people very much! Do you want a person to be above the people, thus (vertically) following her lewdness and abandoning the nature of heaven and earth? No. " On the surface, it seems that he didn't get rid of the concept of heaven and ghosts. In fact, he expressed his political views according to the interests of the people. This is just like his "Speech on the Stone" (eight years of Zhao), which is used as an excuse to sound the alarm for the rulers. Dan Ming said to his son-in-law, "People are like children, and unkind people are like birds chasing eagle horns." In the twenty-fifth year of Xiang, he said to Chen Huaigong: "It is my blessing to hear about the prosperity of the country and treat the people like injuries; It is also a disaster to regard people as dung and die. " (The first year of mourning)

3. Pay more attention to groups and less attention to individuals.

The biggest feature of China society is family orientation. Family is not only the refuge of a person's life, but also the mother fetus of personality growth. In China's ethics, consanguinity is not only a basic interpersonal relationship, but also the premise of all other relationships. Individuals are family members first, and then social citizens. When dealing with the relationship between individuals and families, they often regard family as more important than individuals, paying special attention to the ethical relationship between family members and personal responsibilities and obligations, that is, extending their love for family to their loyalty to the country. When you can't do both, loyalty is the most important thing, that is, the so-called "filial son seeks loyalty at the door", doing filial piety at home and being loyal outside.

(2) the principle of patriarchal collectivism

(3) Pursuing social value

China's traditional culture often regards people as a whole "class" as opposed to livestock and beasts, and thinks that people are social animals, so they attribute personal values to social values, mark individuals with society, emphasize people's social obligations and responsibilities, and emphasize people's obedience to society. Therefore, it emphasizes pushing oneself and others, and emphasizes individual dedication and sacrifice to society.

4 Yi Yin's "Heaven is embarrassing, and life is often ruined" ("Salty and Virtuous"), and later Zhou rulers also concluded that "Heaven is not credible, my way is only peaceful, and Wang Deyan" ("Jun Xuan"). Xunzi, "Heaven is always there, not born by Yao, not dead by Jie", "Think about the sky, which is made by things and beasts; Praise it from the sky and use it to control your destiny. "

As the history books say, "the people are the foundation of the country, and this is the foundation of the country", "Heaven is rational and the people are wise", "Heaven sees the people and listens to them" and "Heaven obeys their wishes".

6 Xunzi's "Nine Chapters of the King" said: "Fire and water are angry but lifeless, plants are angry but ignorant, animals are knowledgeable but meaningless, people are angry and alive, and knowledge and righteousness are the most expensive in the world. Strength is not like an ox, walking is not like a horse, and both are used. Why? It is said that people can group, but not group. How do people group? Minutes; Why it can be done is righteousness; So justice is divided, harmony is stronger, more is stronger, and strength is better than things. Can people live in the Palace Museum? Therefore, life cannot be without groups. If a group does not split, it will struggle. If it struggles, it will be chaotic. Messed up and left. If it leaves, it will become weak. If it is weak, it won't win. If you are a good group, you are right, then everything is suitable, and six animals are long and live in groups. "

4. China's traditional philosophy emphasizes the relationship between people, not nature. It focuses on the relationship between people and the fulfillment of moral obligations, rather than studying the external nature as an objective cognitive object.

5. The Chinese values of respecting the old and the ancient take the ancient "golden age" as the value orientation, the adherence to patriarchal ethics as the highest personality ideal, and the patriarchal social tradition as the value evaluation standard. People always look back to look for social ideals, learn from Wang Zhidao before resuming the ceremony of "three generations", and regard the life picture of three generations of clan society in ancient times as the highest social pursuit and ideal realm. Therefore, Confucianism, Mohism, Taoism and Legalism all emphasized their own theories before the King of France, and used the King of France to publicize their political ideals. Therefore, not only the ideal of "great harmony" in The Book of Rites and Li Yun is a memory of the society before Confucius, but Mencius also said: "There are three things in the world: the first is the highest honor, the first is teeth, and the first is virtue." Moreover, among the pre-Qin philosophers, other Confucian figures are also called Yao Shun, Taoism must be called Huangdi, Mohism must be called Dayu, and farmers must be called Shennong. Not only that, even after the Qin and Han Dynasties, the social ideal of "fair world" in Lv's Spring and Autumn Annals still began in the era of "the sages ruled the world".

6. The fictional "Country of Hua Xushi" in Liezi Huangdi is also said to be the place where Huangdi sleeps and dreams. Ruan Ji also sent the ideal of naturalism into the vast world of "creating the world and making everything healthy", and the ideal of "no monarch and no minister" put forward by Bao Jingyan was even placed in the realm of "learning from the past".

7. After the difficult road to study abroad 190 1 boxer indemnity, the United States used reparations to help China study abroad. Until now, China people still regard studying abroad as a shameful and terrible thing. The first batch of international students planned to recruit 120 students, but few of them signed up and had to be distributed to various places as a political matter. Even so, it was difficult to recruit students, so we had to recruit students in some relatively open areas such as the southeast coast, and finally recruited some students from Hong Kong to barely complete the task. This is because people are afraid to study abroad. According to legend, international students should be skinned after going abroad, and then changed into dog skins for exhibition. Zhan Tianyou, an engineer of China's first railway, Jing-Zhang Railway, promised his son to go abroad only when his neighbor Xie promised to marry his daughter for God's sake.

Therefore, for a long time, China only had Yuan without the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the "Li" department of the six departments handled the relations with its neighbors. Until the Ming Dynasty, there was still the "Siyi Pavilion", which was responsible for diplomatic translation and other affairs. Nevertheless, it is still difficult to meet the demand. When the Treaty of Nebuchadnezzar was signed in the Qing Dynasty, two missionaries were invited to translate it. The "Minister of Trade with Five Ports" was established only after the trade with five ports in the Qing Dynasty, and was not full-time. The governors of Guangdong and Guangxi are concurrently appointed, and then the governors of Liangjiang are concurrently appointed. The relations between North Russia are concurrently appointed by General Ili and General Heilongjiang. After the Second Opium War, Emperor Xianfeng still refused to set up British and French embassies in Beijing. Finally, as a last resort, he had to set up a "museum for international students" according to the Russian way, instructing foreign ministers of various countries not to travel every year. 1860, after foreigners invaded Beijing, Emperor Xianfeng fled to Jehol, and Prince Gong called for the establishment of "Foreign Affairs Office of the Prime Minister" to deal with "Westernization". However, Emperor Xianfeng still suggested the establishment of "Foreign Affairs Office of the Prime Minister", but it was still a temporary organization, with the military and political minister as its chief executive and the South Beiyang minister coexisting with it. The office space was simpler than the other six departments until after the Boxer Movement.

Lin Zexu, as the first person who "opened his eyes to see the world" in modern China, still believed that the British could not bend their legs, so China soldiers could defeat the British with only one bamboo pole. Yang Fang believed that the gunboats used by the British were "witchcraft" and advocated "controlling evil with evil", so he tied bamboo rafts and put all kinds of filth, especially women's articles, in order to break the enemy. Wei Yuan's Atlas of Seas and Xu Jishe's A Brief Introduction to the World were the first books to introduce the situation of the Quartet, but they were criticized by people as "promoting foreign style and damaging the prestige of China". Their idea of "learning from foreigners to control foreigners" is still called "foreigners", and some people still criticize them for "turning foreigners into summer".

Boxers call missionaries "big boys", believers in China "two boys" and people who use foreign goods "three boys" or even "ten boys". They thought that they could be invulnerable by practicing boxing, but Empress Dowager Cixi actually believed it.

Generally speaking, many ethnic groups merged with China in the Spring and Autumn Period, such as Dongyi; Others have grown rapidly, competing with China, such as Chu, which dominates one side on the basis of national integration. Judging from the general trend of national struggle in this period, the Northern Emperor and Chu had the greatest influence on China. North invaded the Central Plains, and Chu extended to the Central Plains, which constituted two powerful opposing forces of Huaxia vassal states in the Central Plains during the Spring and Autumn Period. Therefore, The Biography of Yang Gong in the Spring and Autumn Period records that "the friendship between Nanyi and Beidi is endless in China". The Spring and Autumn Period was the first period of great ethnic integration in China, and the integration of all ethnic groups was realized with the Chinese nation as the main body and the big country as the center. After more than 240 years of development in the Spring and Autumn Period, the Chinese nation entered the Warring States Period. Since then, China's ethnic groups and their mutual relations have undergone profound changes. Some of them are powerful, some are extinct, some are integrated with other ethnic groups, some keep their old names, and some adopt new names. However, no matter how it changes, all ethnic groups still live in China, interdependent, migrating and gradually merging.