Questions about traditional Chinese culture? (Kneeling)

▲ A few kinds of claims about the origin of Chinese culture:

1. The spread theory and the western say-at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Swedish geologist J.G. Andersson found colored pottery in Yangshao village in Mianchi, Henan Province, and before that the colored pottery appeared in Central Asia and was distributed quite widely, and at that time, the western scholarly circles prevailed in the cultural spread theory, and Yangshao colored pottery belonged to the late stage of colored pottery culture, while Andersson later found more primitive and more progressive colored pottery in Gansu area. At that time, the theory of cultural diffusion was prevalent in the Western academic circles, and Yangshao colored pottery belonged to the late stage of the colored pottery culture. Later on, Antsen found in the Gansu area colored pottery that was more primitive than Yangshao and more advanced than that of Central Asia, and the hypothesis that the Yangshao colored pottery culture had come to the West appeared to be hard and fast. In addition, all agriculture, animal husbandry, copper casting, various cultural sectors have similar arguments. Such a Chinese culture to the west in the scientific evidence and the bias of Western scholars, became popular opinion.

In the 1950s, archaeologists discovered the ruins of the Painted Pottery Culture in Xi'an's Half-Po Village, dating to about 4,000 years ago, much earlier than the second millennium B.C., as estimated by Antheson. Also found that the Yangshao in the Central Plains iterative under the Yangshao in Gansu, the hypothesis that the colored pottery west to China was then overturned. In addition, the recent fruitful archaeological data, such as agriculture, animal husbandry and bronze culture discovery, this theory has not been tested.

2, Yangshao and Longshan culture for the east and west of the dual culture-

Early views that the two are the development of their own, in the northern part of Henan meet. But since 1950 scholars began to question, presumably Yangshao and Longshan are two back and forth, rather than the distribution of different cultures at the same time. One theory is that the core area of the Central Plains culture was in the Weishui Valley, Jinnan, and western Henan, and that later, because of population pressure in the Central Plains and advances in farming technology, it expanded to the eastern Great Plains and the hilly valleys of the southeast. Scholars have questioned this theory, thinking that there is no strong evidence for the population theory and that the rapid expansion is illogical, while some think that the theory is too much emphasis on the ****similarity of the cultures of different places during the formation period of the Longshan culture, but ignoring the differences. If we look at the differences, we can find that the Neolithic cultures excavated in different places have their own characteristics, which can not be explained by the theory of one-dimensional spread.

3. Diverse cultural origins-

More and more archaeological excavations have proved that there were distinctive early cultures outside the Yellow River Basin, such as those in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River (Qujialing Culture) and the lower reaches of the river (Hemudu Culture).

Today, archaeologists believe that China's early cultures can be divided into six major regions:

North - Yanshan North and South, the Great Wall area as the center of gravity.

, East - with Shandong as the center.

The Central Plains-centered on Guanzhong, Jinnan, and western Henan.

Southeast-centered around Taihu Lake.

Southwest - centered around Dongting Lake and Sichuan Basin.

South - centered on the line from Poyang Lake to the Pearl River Delta.

These regions each have their own traditions, but they also influence each other, so the theory of multiple origins of Chinese culture is more convincing at this stage.

Traditional Chinese Society

Introduction

Several characteristics of traditional Chinese society:

1. Humanism: valuing human beings above all else

Humanism ----- the way of getting along with others

Harmonious relations between people ----- order ----- happiness in life

2. Family Orientation : Valuing the family concept

~Why is there a strong family concept in traditional Chinese society?

a. Agricultural society needs manpower ---- so it needs to live in clans ----- forming families

b. Secondly, Confucianism deepens the concept of family.

~What makes it so?

Juns and fathers, subjects and sons, parents and officials, sons and daughters, and all brothers within the four seas.

~Advantages and disadvantages?

a. Excellent: humane, warm, harmonious

b. Poor: difficult to cultivate public morality, weak concept of the rule of law, and a collective consciousness that overwhelms personal values.

3. local friendship: agrarian society ------ re local

a. no strangers, a friendly society

b. local life ---- local

c. follow customs

4. four-people society: scholar-peasant, farmer-industrialist, and businessman

5. emphasis on morality

~to control the social order (modern society uses law to control the social order). Class mobility: social class mobility through the imperial examination system

7. Emphasis on agriculture and commerce: not to worry about scarcity but to worry about inequality, and to disregard commerce as a non-direct producer.

Highlights of the text

I. Political system

1. Monarchical despotism:

Power comes from the monarch himself (by force or hereditary, so he can be despotic. However, if he is benevolent, he can practise people-based government, but that is still not democracy.

a. Political change is limited to changes in personnel, not in political order.

b. The people's revolt was only against the tyrant, not the overthrow of the political system of monarchical dictatorship.

c. The limitation of the political power of the monarch did not depend on the legal system, (like the separation of powers in the West) but on the moral conscience

2. The idea of the people

that is, the idea of the people's ownership and the people's enjoyment. The monarch respected the will of the people to govern. But there was never a concept of democracy.

a. The people were not allowed to participate directly in politics, so it can be said that it was a "subordinate culture" rather than an "input-oriented" and "participation-oriented" one.

3. Bureaucracy of family property (Bureaucracy of family property)

~The government was an expansion of the royal family, and the royal family was the emperor's family, so the term "family property" was used.

~The government was composed of a bureaucracy centered on the emperor, with the power resting with the emperor and the authority to rule resting with the clergy. Therefore, there was only the way of governance, the rule of officials, but not the way of politics, politics. And the bureaucracy is not alongside the emperor, but is subordinate to him.

~This bureaucratic system was open, because the officials in the system were recruited through the imperial examination system. However, this does not

indicate openness of the system of government, as the system of government is not subject to change by the will of the people.

~Mou Zongsan: "The characteristic of ancient Chinese politics is that there is only the way of governance but not the way of politics.

II. Personality Structure

Chinese Personality Characteristics:

1. Closed Personality

a. Reason: Influenced by the agrarian society, the production activities and the way of life in the agrarian society do not need to be innovative and different, but are static and closed, and the people follow and use the existing experience, so it results in a closed personality of the Chinese people.

b. The closed personality is characterized by conformity, passivity, self-control, self-sufficiency, and a tendency to isolation and acquiescence, and seldom takes the initiative to "participate" in reform.

c. Impact: It created an authoritative and old-fashioned mindset, and consolidated the Chinese monarchical political system.

2. Authoritative Personality

a. Reasons: 1. The agrarian society was anxious about the inscrutability of nature, so it needed to rely on authority (the experience of the predecessors in overcoming nature) to resolve the anxiety.

2. The influence of the poorly ordered pattern of family ethics, in which the relationship between father and son is the main axis, and the son has to be absolutely obedient to the father, is projected out to become the relationship between the ruler and the subject, the teacher and the student. Therefore, there is the name of father, father, minister, son, and master.

b. Impact: 1. The authoritative personality produces a social structure associated with it in society.

2. Interpersonal relationships in Chinese society are reduced to generational relationships, and there is a distinction between the inferior and the superior. (hierarchical structure)

3. It can have the effect of stabilizing society.

3. Special Orientation and Human Taste:

a. Reason: The social structure of China is based on the family as the original hierarchical society, and the relationship between people is based on their status. For example, if you call someone "brother", "sister", "aunt", you treat them as "relatives", which shows human feelings, but people outside the circle of kinship are outsiders, and the feelings they show are not as strong as they should be. For example, in a bus, you have to give up your seat to your relatives, but to strangers, you have to fight for your seat.

b. Impact: The role of "sub-groups" will be distorted, and the phenomenon of "favoritism" will often arise, making it difficult to establish a perfect society based on the rule of law.

4. Formalization and face-saving:

a. Reason: China emphasizes on rituals and teachings. The purpose of rituals and teachings is to make people emphasize on morality and keep order, but if they emphasize too much on rituals and teachings and don't dare to disobey the rituals and teachings, they will comply with the rituals and teachings superficially, but they don't have any substantial feelings in their heart, which is just like formalizing and caring about face-saving, and it seems to be hypocritical. Example: A funeral parlor is a place where people talk and laugh, where there is "etiquette" but no morality.

b. Impact: make people become hypocritical, rigid thinking, lack of innovation.

5. Harmony with nature, the present moment

a. Agricultural society, respect for the land, love of nature and nature as one, there is the idea of "unity of heaven and man", and the appreciation of nature begins with the appreciation, and ends in forgetting each other.

b. This character has given rise to the peaceful nature of the Chinese people, which is thick, rounded and non-contentious. In addition, it also makes the Chinese people appreciate life and respect the universe, and intuitively introspect the quality of life.

c. The most important significance of this character for modern society is the "environmental spirit".

The traditional personality of the Chinese intellectuals is the absence of an independent personality

The modern personality is one that emphasizes self-personality, self-consciousness, and self-worth

This is the most important aspect of this personality for modern society.