Is there any dross in China's traditional culture?

Correctly recognizing and treating traditional Chinese culture, we must be wary of cultural retrofuturism and historical nihilism.

How can we take the essence and discard the dregs of traditional Chinese culture?

We must first of all not look at traditional Chinese culture in isolation, but reconceptualize it from a Western and Chinese perspective.

Traditional Chinese culture was formed in the long history of ancient times, with feudal society and civilization as its background. Western culture, on the other hand, strictly speaking, was gradually formed before the Renaissance, with capitalist civilization as its background.

The main features of capitalist civilization are the emancipation of human nature, the emphasis on science and invention, and the promotion of social progress. The main feature of feudal civilization is the suppression of human nature, focusing on ideological confinement and intensifying the education of fools.

In traditional Chinese culture, there is a general disregard for human life, freedom and dignity. However, Chinese culture still has a great positive effect on the importance of kinship, the challenges of life, and the establishment of social order.

Compared with Western culture, traditional Chinese culture, has its own strengths. "Wish people a long time, thousands of miles *** Canyuan Juan", "the bright moon on the sea, the end of the world *** this time", "a kind mother in the hands of the thread, the wandering son on the body clothes".

"The sky is healthy, the gentleman is self-improvement; the earth is Kun, the gentleman is virtuous", "the head hangs over the beam and the awl stabs the stock", "where there is a will, there is a way, breaks the cauldron and sinks the boat, a hundred and two Qin passes belong to Chu finally.

The painstaking people, the sky will not bear, lying down to taste the gall, three thousand Yuejia can swallow Wu."

"It is kind to return to one's self. The world will return to benevolence if one day one restores one's self to propriety." "Do not look, do not listen, do not speak, do not move." "Benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom, and trust" and so on. These, the western culture can not be compared.

Secondly, we have to look at traditional Chinese culture from the perception that society is always moving forward. Society is always moving forward, and traditional culture may have been the best at the time, but it may be the worst now. Some cultures may not have been advocated at that time, but they are very important today. It is only when we look at our traditional culture in the past from the perspective of the values of the modern society that we will be able to find the strengths and weaknesses of our traditional culture.

Modern sociology holds that social vitality comes from stimulating individual enthusiasm, and social dignity comes from respecting the value and dignity of individual life. The practices of traditional Chinese culture clearly run counter to this, both as a sign of an underdeveloped civilization and as an obstacle to the development of society.

Finally, the most important point of both Chinese and Western cultures is to insist on freedom of thought. Culture only a hundred schools of thought, a hundred flowers blossom, will quickly promote the progress of human society, to promote science and technology to move forward quickly. Traditional Chinese culture is about grand unification and singularity. Even if it is Ru Shi Tao, traditional Chinese culture can blend them together, and eventually the three are as one.

Cultivation is Taoism, entry is Confucianism, and exit is Buddhism, which becomes the overall thought of a society. It is only by promoting traditional Chinese culture on the basis of respect for freedom, democracy, science, truth, and objective laws that the essence of traditional Chinese culture will be cleansed.

Overall, China's traditional culture, built on the foundation of a long feudal society, has major flaws that are incompatible with modern society.

Recognizing, learning and assimilating China's traditional culture is a major issue. It concerns the direction of China's thinking in the social process of modernization, and what kind of posture China will take toward the future. It is even about the long-term destiny of a modernized China.