Will traditional culture promote cultural development in the debate?

Grasp the modernization of China's traditional culture from the development trend of world culture

How to treat traditional culture has long been a problem. However, after entering the modern society, in the great collision between Chinese and western civilizations, we began to reflect on our traditional culture and largely adjusted our previous views on traditional culture. However, this kind of reflection has been moving forward in a very difficult process. There are progress, obstacles and sometimes even retrogression. So it has been 160 years since the end of the Opium War, but there is still no fundamental breakthrough in the reflection on traditional culture. This situation is unique in all countries in the world, and it also puzzles many people.

Because of the bad political environment, it is difficult to reflect on China's traditional culture. Politicians in China, in the process of China's modernization, are relatively conservative in their ideological and cultural concepts, and it is easy for them to have a spiritual * * * sound on autocratic ideology and culture. Once the reflection on China's traditional culture has made some progress and breakthrough, there will always be some politicians who benefit from privileged politics, jumping out from behind the scenes and attacking them with political power. Didn't some warlords in modern times preach respect for Confucius at home? Ignorance of and interference with ideology and culture are the important reasons why China's reflection on traditional culture is difficult to advance.

The complex composition of China's traditional culture is also a reason. The traditional culture of China has a history of thousands of years. It takes a long time, and something has to be added at every stage of its development, so the content is very rich and the composition is extremely complicated. There are many things that are good. A lot of things are dross. Essence and dross are often mixed together. This makes future generations very confused: it is not easy to say I love you. Because there are too many decadent ingredients. I want to hate you, but I can't. Because there are many valuable things in China's traditional culture.

We can't help but say that the complex elements of China's traditional culture make future generations feel embarrassed. It is also a reason why China's traditional culture is difficult to reflect.

The author mainly talks about the characteristics of China traditional culture and its future development direction. In the process of writing, trying to put forward some new ideas may play a role in attracting jade.

(A) to reflect on the advantages and disadvantages of China's traditional culture, we must grasp the direction of human progress.

Human society is always progressing. Politically, this progress is people-oriented until the people decide. Economically, it emphasized agriculture and commerce until the later market economy; In terms of ideology and culture, it shows respect for other people's ideas and opinions until later freedom of thought; In dealing with people and things, I cared about people, cared for them, and respected their value and dignity until later.

People-oriented thought has always existed in ancient China. There is a saying in Shang and Zhou dynasties that "the people only care about the country, and the country is better." Mencius said, "The people are the most important, the country is the second, and the monarch is the light." Xunzi said, "Water can carry a boat, but it can also overturn it." These ideas are progressive in themselves. In terms of attitude towards life, Sima Qian's enterprising spirit, Su Dongpo's bold and open-minded mind, Zhang Heng and Xu Xiake's persistent love for truth, Mencius' ambition of "I am good at cultivating noble spirit" and Du Fu's ambition of "climbing to the top of the world and being the leader of other mountains" are all dwarfed. Are all healthy spiritual fields. On the issue of dealing with nature and destiny, Xunzi's "controlling the destiny and using it", Liu Zongyuan's and Liu Yuxi's "Heaven and Man win each other" and Wang Fuzi's "Harmony between Heaven and Man" and "Creating Life" all contain brilliant ideas that man can conquer nature. On the right and freedom of individual life, Nineteen Ancient Poems and Ruan Ji's love poems pay attention to the meaning of life, Shi Shuo Xin Yu affirms personal value, and Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu's passionate pursuit of free love in A Dream of Red Mansions all inject fresh blood into China's traditional ideology and culture. In dealing with the relationship between individuals and society, "every man is responsible for the rise and fall of the world", "everything in the world is concerned about national affairs and family affairs", "humble people refuse to forget to worry about the country", "worry about the world first, and enjoy the world later" and "no one has died since ancient times, so it is a very noble spiritual realm to keep a pure heart and shine on history". When it comes to man and nature, many literary works, such as prickly river, Yueyang Tower, moonlight night on the riverside, reflect the special feelings between our nation and nature.

Boarding the Yangtze River and reciting "The great river flows day and night" suddenly gives birth to a kind of lofty sentiments. Near the mountain, I read, "All other mountains look short in the sky." Give you a fighting spirit. Reading the preface to Wang Teng-ting, I read that "the sky is vast and the universe is infinite", which gives birth to a kind of generosity. So thick, so unyielding, so strong, only Sri Lanka can have it!

However, like other countries, China's ideology and culture also has its dross. Due to the age, it has not been cleaned up in time for several years, which has caused more and more dross and brought great harm to our nation. Do women have unique life values? Just a vassal of mankind. Every woman in China should be grateful for living in modern times and sad for living in ancient times. Not only women, but also men have no independent life value. Bureaucrats, large and small, and countless ordinary people all went to Portugal under the pressure of imperial power. They may have despaired, doubted and opposed, but later, they never thought of it again, and even took shouting "Long live my emperor" as their lifelong glory. Marx once called this social phenomenon with China characteristics universal slavery contemptuously. It is not lofty innovation, nor advocating that each generation is better than the next, but advocating conservatism. "The sky is changeable, the earth is changeable, and the laws of the ancestors are immutable." For thousands of years, the political system, ideas, science and culture have been difficult to progress, and finally they inevitably lag behind the international community in modern society. On the one hand, the emperor was extravagant, lived in three palaces and seventy-two courtyards, lived a decadent life, and bureaucrats and nobles oppressed and plundered the people. On the other hand, they advocate that "the gentleman is righteous and the villain is profitable" and that "the gentleman cares about Tao but not poverty". They seek more material benefits for ordinary people through business or other means and carry out various repression. Even if it is difficult to further improve people's living standards, social and economic development will lose its internal motivation. Suppress individuality, suppress free thought and suppress the legitimate desire of individual life. Whoever is maverick is "shooting at the head with a gun", which leads to a large number of people, but in fact there are thousands of people, and there are no people with courage and insight. With a new idea, it is "pass the parcel". If you are arrogant, you will "harm nine families" and "destroy ten families." Listen to parents at home, listen to elders in the countryside, listen to bureaucrats in society, and all bureaucrats listen to the emperor. Personal marriage, listen to your parents. Otherwise, it will be a "great rebellion", and we must rise up and cut it. Closed-door, arrogant and indifferent to the outside world. Although he was defeated in the Opium War, he still refused to admit defeat, pretending to be a country of China, refusing to put down his airs and seriously learning valuable things from other people's cultures. After repeated failures, we still haven't learned from them, and we can't reform our own system to fully stimulate national vitality. Well, scars forget to hurt, and there are countless such situations!

There are so many factors that are ignorant, backward, inhibit human nature and hinder development! If a person does not have enough resistance and lives in such a cultural environment, can his thoughts not degenerate and his personality not be distorted? At the same time, in this social environment, it is inevitable that people who are good at obtaining, cheating and having backgrounds will rise to the top; People who are muddleheaded, mediocre and smooth sailing, mediocre people are safe all their lives; And talented, honest, kind and ambitious people are often difficult for heroes to use, and they are depressed all their lives. Not the survival of the fittest, but the survival of the fittest. The whole society is in a phenomenon of backward elimination-almost every generation has it, with few exceptions, with few exceptions!

(2) To reflect on the advantages and disadvantages of China's traditional culture, we must look at the problem with comparative viewpoints and methods.

I don't know the true face of Lushan Mountain, just because I am on this mountain. Whether the culture of China is superior or inferior is difficult to draw a correct conclusion in isolation. We should compare the traditional culture of China with that of other countries and nations. By comparison, we can understand their respective advantages and disadvantages and draw correct conclusions from them.

Here is mainly to compare the traditional culture and western culture in China. This is also a question that scholars are very interested in in in the past 1200 years.

Compared with western culture, China's traditional culture has its advantages. "Being in a foreign land, I miss my relatives twice every festive season" and "The thread in the hands of a loving mother makes clothes for my wayward son". China people have lofty family ties, which are often unmatched by western culture. They have warmed our lives to a great extent and supported us to overcome all kinds of difficulties. "Birds and beasts can't be in the same group, and I'm not human." And "dancing to find shadows is like being on earth." China people's love and concern for reality, to a great extent, has overcome the harm of various nihilistic ideas to people's hearts and attracted people's attention to the construction of real life. "A gentleman strives for self-improvement". Faced with various challenges in life, China people have never given in, but have always maintained a confidence, fighting spirit and indomitable spirit. "The benevolent loves others". China people tend to pay attention to morality, treat others with a friendly attitude and treat other ethnic groups with a friendly attitude, which is also positive for the establishment of domestic social order and a good international order. Have a strong idea of contributing to the country and the people. This strong ambition can be found in Ma Yuan's The Wrapped Body of Ma Ge, Huo Qubing's Why the Huns Are Not Broken, Cao Cao's Being the Master of Wine, Life Geometry, and Wang Changling's The Bright Moon of Qin Dynasty, Customs of Han Dynasty. There are also natural songs with nature: "Where the petals have shed tears, the lonely bird has sung grief", "People are idle and osmanthus flowers fall, and the moon is quiet and spring is over", and so on.

These are beyond the reach of western culture. The arrival of the world cultural era is ultimately unstoppable by any conservative forces. These advantages of China's traditional culture will surely become an extremely valuable part of the world culture.

However, China's traditional culture was formed in the long ancient history, with the feudal social civilization as the background. Strictly speaking, western culture was gradually formed before the Renaissance, with capitalist civilization as the background. The ancient Greek civilization before the Renaissance was endowed with new connotations. Before that, medieval civilization was thoroughly criticized. One is a civilization with a strong feudal color, and the other is a civilization with a strong capitalist color, which determines that China's traditional culture is bound to be backward and has weaknesses in many aspects.

Try to summarize several aspects.

China's traditional culture does not say enough about the freedom and dignity of individual life. It is more the rights of the emperor than the rights of the people; It is the right of superiors, not the rights of subordinates; It is the right of the unit, not the right of the individual. Modern sociology believes that social vitality comes from stimulating the enthusiasm of individuals, and social dignity comes from respecting the value and dignity of individual life. However, the practice of traditional culture in China obviously runs counter to this, which is not only a manifestation of underdeveloped civilization, but also an inevitable obstacle to social development.

In the treatment of ideology and culture, China's traditional culture tries its best to restrict the freedom of thought, so as to unify its views. Require people's thinking to be highly consistent with official thinking. Otherwise, it is regarded as deviant. This makes it difficult to develop all kinds of new ideas and creativity. The west insists on freedom of thought. All kinds of academics can contend freely. Therefore, for hundreds of years, talents in western ideological and cultural circles have emerged in large numbers, and new academic achievements have emerged one after another, which has amazed the world.

Some people say that in the traditional culture of China, Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism coexist. Why is there no freedom of thought? Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism are not antagonistic, but in fact, there are three aspects of the next thought under imperial power politics: becoming a Buddha, being Confucianism, and cultivating oneself for Taoism. The orthodox position of Confucianism, the emperor replaced the law with words, can not be challenged, nor can it be challenged. Only when the regime declines or collapses, some thoughts that criticize Confucianism and authoritarian politics will rise slightly.

In dealing with social contradictions, China traditional culture advocates the rule of man. Replace the law with power. The phenomenon of judicial injustice is very common. In the west, the rule of law is lofty, and the authority of the Constitution and laws is lofty in the whole society. It not only protects citizens' rights and freedoms, but also minimizes social costs.

In the mode of talent selection, western culture pays attention to fair competition. This can make outstanding talents stand out; Can provide fair opportunities for others who want to develop; It can ensure the smooth metabolism of the talent team. China's talent selection model is unscientific and unreasonable. The cadre team is "officials choose officials", and the upper level chooses the next level. Objectively encourage cadres at all levels not to serve the people as the center, but to cater to the will of their superiors. The selection of civil servants is not transparent enough. This makes the overall quality of China's talent team not high; Low efficiency; Corruption is rampant; It also dampened the enthusiasm of a large number of enterprising people.

On the road of development, western culture stresses science and democracy. Science not only attaches importance to science and technology, but also respects objective laws and truth. Democracy means that people elect state organs and supervise them accordingly. This has enabled western society to flourish for hundreds of years. China's traditional culture stresses human feelings and centralization. The minister of health and the mayor of Beijing seriously neglected their duties in dealing with SARS. In countries with a relatively sound legal system, it is enough to deal with it according to the legal system. But China's handling of this matter is very laborious. This situation is very common in China. After every corruption case, there are many people behind the scenes, looking for someone to talk to. Nothing can be done without human feelings. The solution of all kinds of things, such as the evaluation of professional titles, the establishment of major projects and various rewards, can not be separated from human feelings. Human feelings are the panacea for the operation of this society. Centralization, that is, power monopoly, is decided by the relevant leaders. The result can only be divorced from public opinion, go its own way, and even seek personal gain from the public. This will inevitably make people depressed and destroy the normal social order; While safeguarding the privileged interests of a few people, it has harmed the fundamental interests of the broad masses of the people to the greatest extent and hindered the continuous development of the whole nation to the greatest extent.

From this perspective, China's traditional culture has major defects. Generally speaking, our traditional culture is one stage behind western culture. In other words, western culture has experienced a relatively complete stage of modernization. On the other hand, our country has not experienced this stage of modernization. To say the least, our modernization stage is very immature and inadequate.

(3) The new era calls for a new culture that meets the requirements of social development.

In the new era, we must build a new culture. Make people's life more noble and noble, and further promote the economic and social development of our nation.

What should a new culture look like? People will care about this problem. One thing is certain, it should be much better than the present culture.

-You bet! People will say.

When I say beautiful, it means so much.

First, the understanding of nature and society will be more profound. The new culture is not based on ignorance or little knowledge of the outside world, but on a deeper understanding of oneself, society and nature. A culture based on ignorance cannot bring real happiness to individuals and society.

This requires individuals to seriously study scientific and cultural knowledge, get rid of all kinds of superstitious ideas and dogmatism, and dare to explore a correct understanding. It also requires the society to advocate freedom of thought, respect truth and attach importance to the development of scientific and cultural undertakings.

Second, the new culture must take promoting economic and social development as an important mission.

The progress of personal life is inseparable from the progress and development of society. It is always the responsibility of every generation to continuously promote economic and social development. The new culture must also take promoting economic and social development as its important mission.

Therefore, in the construction of new culture, we must advocate people's social responsibility and encourage people to make more contributions to society on the basis of realizing personal interests; We should guide people to correctly handle contradictions among the people and maintain normal social order; We must make people master more scientific and cultural knowledge, cultivate and stimulate people's innovative spirit and creativity, and create more excellent labor results.

Third, the new culture must vigorously promote people's value and dignity, and respect people's reasonable needs.

Man is the noblest life in the world and the soul of all things. It is brave and proud to live, and it deserves full respect. Any attack on human dignity while enhancing the dignity of other things and forces other than human beings is not allowed. The rights and freedoms between people are equal. No one is allowed to arbitrarily infringe upon the dignity, rights and freedoms of others. The new culture must arouse people's dignity consciousness of their own lives! Inspire his enthusiasm for creating life! Arouse his respect and love for the life value of others. Try to be a capitalized person and create a capitalized life.

At the same time, we should also consider people's needs and create corresponding spiritual and cultural products. Elegant and popular, it enriches people's spiritual and cultural life. Without human demand, such spiritual and cultural products must be lifeless.

(4) Inheriting, learning from and innovating, and actively integrating into the world culture are the only way for China's future cultural development.

The construction of China's new culture, as people often say, must adhere to inheritance, absorption and innovation.

Inheritance is a must. Mainly, there are many valuable things in traditional culture, which reflect the essence and laws of things, or reflect some noble qualities of China people in transforming nature and society, and should be inherited. However, we should oppose unlimited elevation. China's traditional culture was formed in a specific period, which inevitably has its limitations. Any exaggeration is wrong.

Over the years, some people have seen the value of Zhouyi, Analects of Confucius and Zen, which is a good thing. However, blind worship and flattering words have gone astray. Even some people, after seeing some setbacks in western civilization, in turn strongly advocated that western civilization has gone bankrupt and the revival of Confucian civilization is the general trend! This is pure obscenity and stupidity. Chinese civilization is to be revived, but it is by no means to revive Confucian culture, but to be based on science, democracy and lofty human dignity and value. This is the new Chinese culture.

Learn with an open mind. From the perspective of the whole world culture, the cultures of all nationalities in the world have their own strengths and weaknesses, and they should learn from each other in order to make common progress. Others can learn from us, and we can learn from others. It is foolish for others not to learn from us. It is foolish of us not to learn from others. Learning is never a shameful thing, but a smart performance, a performance of pursuing progress. Be good at learning the advantages of others, so as to catch up with others and surpass them. Even if we have surpassed others, we should continue to learn from others, because others will always do better than us in some aspects.

Different countries have different national conditions and cannot be copied in learning. That's for sure. What is the difference? Large population, low starting point of productivity, slightly backward culture and education, and low per capita resources are all our particularities. However, many aspects are the same. For example, everyone should develop economy, be scientific and democratic, love a better life, respect human values and dignity, and stress morality and law. Therefore, other people who succeed in these areas should actively learn from them.

Some people always try their best to set up obstacles for learning other people's advanced culture on the grounds of different national conditions at home and abroad. China and foreign countries have different national conditions. China cannot engage in a market economy, lofty human rights, universal suffrage, freedom of thought, joint-stock system and so on. This is not so much attaching importance to national conditions as complacency and backwardness. Many advanced achievements of other people's civilization have been excluded. Who did it to? It harms the future of our nation and the most vital interests of the broad masses of people. If we use this wrong idea to guide our cultural construction, then the gap between our nation and the advanced nations in the world is not getting smaller and smaller, but it is bound to get bigger and bigger.

In my opinion, human society, as a big family composed of many nationalities, is the wisest to move forward hand in hand. You see what I do, I see what you do. You learn something from me, and I will learn something from you. So everyone will become smarter and more mature. Human civilization must advance in this way in order to develop better and make all ethnic groups progress faster.

About innovation. Innovation is the key link in the development of things. Without innovation, the old things will not perish, the new things will not develop, and the world will never stagnate and cannot move forward. The same is true of culture. It is not enough to inherit or learn from others. We must also keep pace with the times and keep innovating.

Innovation is not easy. First, there must be a certain cultural accumulation. Deep roots and luxuriant leaves. Cultural accumulation is the root, the foundation is not solid, and no new branches can grow. Even if it breaks through the ground, it will not grow tall and strong.

Second, we must clarify the direction. The direction is wrong, not innovation, but old-fashioned and retro, and all previous efforts have been wasted. We must grasp the direction of cultural development through all kinds of fog. In the final analysis, this direction is in line with the social development trend and the people-oriented and people-oriented values.

Third, there must be a relaxed environment. To allow the existence and development of friction things, we should not treat new things as a scourge, but encourage different ideas and cultures to confront each other freely.

Fourth, we must have courage and will. Replacing the old culture with a new culture is not smooth sailing, and it is bound to encounter struggle. This is inseparable from the courage of politicians and the tenacious struggle of people of insight. In the final analysis, it needs the courage and will of the whole nation. Old culture cannot represent the direction of social progress. As long as the new culture persists in struggle and respects the law of development of things, it will surely win in the end.

The modernization of China's traditional culture has been going on for more than one hundred years. The general impression is too slow. The modernization of traditional culture in several developing countries in Asia is much faster than ours. This may be related to the fact that they directly embarked on the capitalist road and easily accepted the advanced achievements of the western world, which belong to capitalist countries. We directly embarked on the socialist road. Because we can't understand Marxism with an open mind for a long time, we have always been on the alert to capitalist civilization, and we can't take the initiative to learn those advanced achievements of western culture, which has further damaged the modernization process of our national traditional culture.

However, it is an inevitable requirement of historical development for the traditional Chinese nation to move towards a modern nation, and no one can stop it. The modernization of China's traditional culture, though bumpy, will eventually be completed. We have reason to believe that with the deepening of domestic reform and the increase of international exchanges, our thoughts will be more open, our understanding of the law of cultural development will be more profound, various obstacles affecting the modernization of China's traditional culture will be gradually broken, and the modernization process of China's traditional culture will be greatly accelerated.

Here I also want to talk about my shallow thoughts on the national fever.

After more than ten years, there was a craze for Chinese studies and some masters of Chinese studies appeared. But the author found that some people just talk about Chinese studies, which has gone astray. Times are different. Today, when we talk about Chinese studies, we should study them from the cultural background of the whole world. To learn Chinese studies, one must be proficient in western learning. We must understand the development trend of modern society. Modern sinologists must also be modern westerners. Only in this way can he really draw a more comprehensive, mature and pertinent conclusion by studying Chinese studies.