What are the characteristics and spirit of China's traditional culture?

Human nature is more important than heaven.

As early as the Spring and Autumn Period, Zichan said that "the sky is far away and people are near." Although from the perspective of cultural origin, Taoism emphasizes heaven; Confucianism attaches importance to human nature, but China culture is fundamentally people-oriented. Especially after Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty "ousted a hundred schools of thought and respected Confucianism alone", Confucianism took it as its responsibility to cultivate a gentleman's personality and harmonize the world. Even if it talks about "harmony between man and nature", it is also handing over people's moral concepts and value principles to heaven, and then it talks about "God's will is hard to violate" and "Heaven carries Tao", and completely regards heaven as a means and tool to show human nature. The ethical and moral features of his theory can be found everywhere in philosophy, history, literature, art and other fields. It is the highest and ultimate pursuit to achieve virtue through music, to embody morality through literature, and to achieve personal moral cultivation and universal improvement of interpersonal relationships, which shows the distinctive characteristics of attaching importance to human nature and human relations and profoundly affects the direction of China culture. As a result, only 16 of the 46 "departments" recorded in Literature and Art in Tang Dynasty are about nature, such as heaven, earth, mountains, water, wood, animals and birds, and the rest are about people and their creations. Compared with the philosophical view that "nature itself explains nature" which runs through western encyclopedias, China culture is indifferent to nature.

This tendency of valuing benevolence over heaven in China culture is directly related to the theoretical value orientation with Confucian ethics as the main body. Confucianism should cultivate a series of moral qualities, such as benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and faithfulness, and shape the ideal personality of "being sage inside and king outside", so as to build a harmonious world with clear hierarchy and order from top to bottom. This is not only the starting point of Confucian ideal, but also its ultimate goal. Therefore, other things, including the exploration and concern for the natural laws of heaven, are dismissive. Zhu once said: "Now, for this purpose, we are not poor in the principles of nature, the wisdom of feelings, the wisdom of sacred words and the knowledge of the world. However, what kind of knowledge is this? If you want to get something in this way, it is to cook sand and turn it into a meal. " It is this cultural tendency that ignores the laws of nature and the universe that hinders the emergence and development of modern science and technology in China. Therefore, in China culture, all academic cultures can be regarded as the periphery and edge of Confucian ethics.

Pursuing stability and reality

Unlike the traditional festivals of other cultures in the world, which originated from religion, most of the traditional festivals in China originated from farming. This is because the material basis of China culture is self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy. For thousands of years, the working people in China have been engaged in agricultural production for generations, and the concept of "attaching importance to agriculture" has a long history and is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Zhouyi said, "If you don't plow, you won't be rich". On the basis of "attaching importance to agriculture", Shang Yang formulated the policy of "attaching importance to agriculture and restraining commerce", thus ensuring the smooth implementation of the great cause of Qin reunification economically. Subsequent dynasties also put the policy of "emphasizing agriculture" in the first place.

In this strong "agriculture-oriented" atmosphere, thousands of years of almost stagnant ecology have created China people's realistic and stable cultural mentality, and cultivated a simple and heavy "practicality-empirical rationality" and pragmatic spiritual orientation. In this sense, China culture can be called "farming culture". No pains, no gains. This simple summary of agricultural life experience has been internalized into the national mentality and firm mentality, and even deeply infected the cultural elite. "Adults are flashy, gentlemen are pragmatic" has become the attitude and spirit advocated by China and Tessa.

In ancient China, based on self-sufficient agricultural production mode, a relatively closed social mentality was formed. Farmers stick to the land, their daily lives are fixed, and sometimes they farm, forming a cultural mentality of moving from different places, which often changes. In line with this mentality of seeking stability, China culture regards eternity as an important measure of value judgment. Zhouyi, The Doctrine of the Mean and Laozi are typical expressions of this concept, so they pursue long-term stability in politics and enduring in articles and religions.

Closely related to the consciousness of "seeking stability" is the unique interpretation of the concept of "change". As an agricultural country, China people, inspired by the cycle mode of agricultural production from sowing, growth to harvesting to sowing and the phenomenon of four seasons cycle, added the "cycle theory" to the concept of "life is called change" and formed a unique concept of "cycle change" containing eternity. "The general trend of the world, if it is divided for a long time, it will be combined, and if it is divided for a long time", and "the five elements are against each other" represents the philosophical representation of this concept of change that contains "invariability". It is manifested in the process of development and change of things, that is, "extremes meet." The most typical example is the ideological and social reforms in the history of China, whether it is Confucius' "self-denial" or Wang Anshi's New Deal; Both Han Yu's ancient prose movement and Kang Youwei's reform and reform held high the banner of "retro". This is not only in the name of "Tuogu", but also contains the concept connotation of "circular change".

Pay attention to overall coordination

The social composition of China is from family to family, from clan to clan, from clan to community, from community to country, which has formed and maintained the pattern of "national unity", and the patriarchal clan system has deeply penetrated into all levels of social life and cultural vision. Within the clan, everyone is not regarded as an independent individual, but is surrounded by patriarchal blood groups. Therefore, the interests of the group are above all else, and everyone should first consider only the responsibilities and obligations that his specific role should bear: for the clan and for the whole, which naturally extends to the responsibilities and obligations of race, society and country. In this way, it is easy to extend the so-called reasonable order of society and country on the basis of "human kiss", in which individuals are placed in a subordinate and dominant position. Everything of the individual is subordinate to the whole, thus integrating and unifying the whole society. Therefore, in the political field, he advocated the ideal of great harmony; In the social field, it emphasizes the indivisibility of individuals, families and countries, and advocates "protecting the country and defending the country"; In the field of culture, advocate "advocating China and emphasizing harmony"; In the military field, determine the basic strategy of "overall consideration"; In the field of ethics, we flaunt "giving up our family for everyone", and when necessary, we will sacrifice personal and local interests to safeguard the value orientation of the overall interests, and so on. All these constitute the mindset of the Chinese nation's collective supremacy and the psychological characteristics of * * *. This concept, which can be called "patriarchal collectivism", has made great contributions to safeguarding national unity and national unity. But it also hinders the free development of human personality to a certain extent, and sometimes becomes an excuse for the ruling class to force people to make unnecessary sacrifices.

Putting the concept of "emphasizing the whole" into practice requires "coordination". In order to make the huge and complex society and countless individuals of different natures unite into an organic whole and carry out the overall order, people must be generally consistent in value orientation, thinking mode and psychological structure, and have highly coordinated moral and spiritual qualities, which will be transformed into concrete coordinated behaviors. Confucianism, as the main body of China culture, meets this demand from the spiritual and cultural aspects. Confucius said, "Harmony is the most precious thing". Mencius said: "The weather is not as good as the geographical position, and the geographical position is not as good as human harmony." "Book of Rites" even said: "Harmony is the way of the world." In fact, the word "harmony" embodies the principle of loyalty and forgiveness, embodies the gentleman's demeanor of harmony but difference, embodies the realm of cultivating harmonious and peaceful life, and embodies the people's open-minded mind and deep feelings of being a family in the world. This word "harmony" is really the soul and core of China's cultural synergy thought.

More important than Tao, less important than implement.

Laozi said, "The metaphysical is the Tao, and the metaphysical is the device." "Tao is impermanent and does everything." "The Tao gives birth to one, one, two, two, three and three things." Divide the world into "Tao" and "Qi", and fully emphasize the main position and leading role of "Tao" in cosmic life. Confucius said, "Listen in the morning and die at night." Tao in Chinese refers to the way of benevolence and righteousness in ethics and politics. Although it is different from Taoism's "Tao" as a universal law system, it still belongs to the "metaphysical" or spiritual category, and is still in the primary position of winning life and grasping the essence of the world. It can be seen that the traditional culture of China has a prominent tendency of attaching importance to spirit over material.

This idea of "valuing Taoism over utensils" is not only reflected in the relationship between heaven and man, but also in the relationship between righteousness and benefit, between name and body, and between subject and object.

The relationship between justice and benefit is an important issue in China's ideological and cultural history. Confucius said, "A gentleman means justice, while a villain means profit." Mencius said, "Those who sacrifice their lives for righteousness are also." Emphasizing righteousness over profit fully embodies the Confucian value orientation and attitude towards life, and occupies the dominant position of China traditional culture. Neo-Confucianism in Song and Ming Dynasties advocated "preserving nature and eliminating human desires", which pushed the cultural concept of valuing righteousness over profit to the extreme.

Paying attention to the name and ignoring the man's fit is another manifestation of "paying attention to the road and ignoring the equipment". China culture is obsessed with the pursuit and recognition of goodness, taking the perfection of reputation and honor and being praised by others as its greatest satisfaction, taking good reputation and good word-of-mouth as the foundation of its existence in the world, and "If you don't believe, you won't stand" has become an eternal moral creed. "Name" is the expression of a person's virtue and the evaluation and affirmation of its value by social groups. Naturally, we can't take it lightly. Neo-Confucianism puts forward that "starvation is a trivial matter, but dishonor is a major matter", which is the best footnote of this concept of valuing fame over profit.

The cultural tendency of "attaching importance to Taoism and neglecting utensils" is reflected in the relationship between subject and object, that is, paying attention to the moral cultivation of the subject and ignoring the discussion and analysis of the object. Ceng Zi said "three rescues a day", and I will always take seeking self-reflection and strengthening moral cultivation as the only goal of study and research. This kind of reflexive persuasion is common in the history of China's cultural development, which greatly restricts the development direction of China culture. Until modern times, after the West opened the closed door of China with a strong ship and a sharp gun, some people dismissed the advanced science, technology and utensils in the West as "small skill in carving insects" and "exquisite skill in prostitution". This has caused the embarrassing situation that China was beaten while deceiving himself in modern times.