preface

Now the western developed countries are in the dominant position in the world in culture, with a sense of cultural superiority and the right to speak in culture, so they always advocate the values of "democracy and freedom" and always pretend to be countries with relatively weak culture and backward economy. However, it is undeniable that the development of western civilization in today's world is relatively mature, and it is very attractive to China people in politics, ideology, culture and system. However, in the cold war with the homologous socialist Soviet Union, the values of freedom, democracy and human rights based on western ethnocentrism lasted for half a century. In the confrontation, the western camp dominated by free values finally disintegrated the Soviet Union and won cultural hegemony. Since the Soviet-style concept was completely adopted in the nearly 30 years after the founding of New China, people's thoughts were imprisoned by passively absorbing a single western socialist thought. Undeniably, our process is an inevitable but extreme absorption, which eventually forcibly disintegrated the traditional ethical values based on the small-scale peasant economy. In this learning process, China people completely copied it and gradually became rational. It is the wave of western learning spreading to the east that continues to this day. We are constantly re-integrating our culture in the search for our own position, thus realizing the modernization and civilization of our culture. In this process, we are full of spiritual confidence in culture and eager to form a new life of our own culture, which has triggered a series of social problems.

Second, the emergence of culture.

At present, academic circles have different views on the definition of culture. Here I adopt a compromise definition, that is, culture is the general name of people's thoughts, beliefs and lifestyles in a certain area. The emergence of culture is closely related to human natural activities, which have a fundamental impact on cultural characteristics in different geographical backgrounds and have produced different cultural forms. Here, the contrast between eastern and western cultures is as follows. Affected by geographical factors, the traditional way of life in ancient Greece and Rome was dominated by maritime commerce and nomadism, and agriculture was relatively secondary; China has a vast territory and a suitable monsoon climate, which is beneficial to agricultural production. This mode of material production needs the fixity of time and space and human beings to improve its reproduction cycle, which is how Confucian culture was born. The two complement each other, making gemeinschaft in China form a "copy" for two thousand years. In this case, the law is only a moral supplement. The instability of western production needs contracts to clarify the interests of both sides. This form runs through the development of western history and is also the most remarkable feature of western culture, which laid a free, open and enterprising capitalist cultural world under the contract for the birth of natural law. On the contrary, due to the improvement of small-scale peasant economy, China has achieved its own cultural stability.

I think the historical background and geographical background of various forms in social culture determine the necessity of the existence of diversified business culture. However, it is not surprising that different strengths and weaknesses are inevitably accompanied by self-centered "ethnocentrism". Isn't there such a mentality in the history of China? For thousands of years, the surrounding ethnic minorities have regarded themselves as barbarians and regarded themselves as "heaven"? ? Therefore, it is understandable that the "democratic and confident American life" instilled by Americans today is a cultural label that all ethnic groups yearn for. Undeniably, under the impact of western ideology and culture, traditional culture is facing abnormal pressure, and the constant conservation of culture is changing to compatibility. In the new round of global cultural liberalism, some conservative and bound ideas that we try to protect our own culture will inevitably collapse. In this process, what we have to do is how to guide our local culture into the world system and adapt to the impact of today's powerful culture. Non-mainstream culture under the impact of mainstream culture seeks self-orientation in today's contradictions and self-integration.

Three kinds of cultural exchanges

Some cultural anthropologists and scholars discuss the influence between different cultural forms with cultural exchange as the main line, and they sum up four points. First of all, the influence of culture is selective. That is to say, when different cultural forms are in contact, not all cultural elements communicate with each other, but the culture itself awakens and reshuffles under the artificial choice, and only chooses simple and practical parts for itself, while the current elements ignore the cultural mechanism that is difficult to accommodate and digest. Second, the influence of culture is mutual. Culture in communication is a two-way choice process, not a unilateral output, but a process of learning from each other's strengths. After absorbing excellent cultural elements, the weak culture will continue to develop its own good cultural characteristics, so there are too many concerns about the disappearance of its own culture in the world. Third, the influence of culture has adaptive characteristics. When a culture admits to being integrated into other cultures, its form and function will change adaptively, not completely, and sometimes it is only superficial self-change, but it will not change in essence. For example, the national character of Japan after Meiji Restoration is almost as aggressive as before. Fourth, the influence of cultural communication is different: some material and cultural elements are easier to spread than spiritual and cultural elements.

To sum up, in the process of cultural modernization in contemporary China, although China is in a passive position, it is difficult to find its own position. But what is even more frightening is that some scholars blindly admire traditional cultures such as Confucianism for the short-term pain of cultural integration, and they are afraid of foreign western cultures; Other scholars have lost the confidence of their own culture in the face of western culture and advocated total westernization, which is also wrong. I think we should be cautious about foreign cultures, especially western liberalism, and realize the rebirth of our culture in the long exploration, rather than seeking speed. After all, we don't have a scholar's ideological theory to ensure that our scheme is completely feasible and impossible to produce. Such consequences are unimaginable, such as the historical disaster caused by the Cultural Revolution, which has taught us a profound lesson so far.

At present, we should learn from the successful models of Japanese, Korean, Taiwan Province and Hongkong in the traditional cultural circle of China, and explore our own internal reasons. Why are their cultural patterns changing so successfully? And we do have problems everywhere, taking detours? Is it the cultural system itself? Or is it a mistake of political ideology? This is the spiritual fusion of recreating Mandarin. Now it is only a preliminary exploration, and a short period of 30 years is far from enough.

Fourth, culture and way of thinking.

Thinking has an important influence on cultural differences. The development of western civilization is based on the cultural foundation of ancient Greece. Aristotle's logical reasoning and deductive analysis are the main ways of thinking. So in some aspects, western culture emphasizes individual freedom and respects individual creativity. China's culture is an idyllic unity based on the integration of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, and has made different interpretations of nature. Especially today, the policy of social and natural's harmonious development ideological team still produces the concept of "Scientific Outlook on Development in a harmonious society". In this way, we can know that the traditional interpersonal relationship in China is complicated, so the practice in social life must be "the doctrine of the mean" and "the doctrine of neutralization", so there are fewer conflicts among civilizations, which is manifested in social stability and unwillingness to change. In the western natural society, the concept of natural law, after the rights and obligations of the society are clear, the interpersonal relationship is relatively simple, so it is necessary to build a legal society, which will inevitably lead to people's internal ideological self-analysis, social humanity and nature, and effectively promote social development.

Analysis of China's civilization under the thought of agency and religion.

In 1950s and 1960s, some American scholars who studied China's cultural problems put forward a "modernization theory" against China's cultural model to challenge China's traditional culture. Among them, Professor Fei Zhengqing and others, after comparing the economic, cultural and social factors between China and Japan, think that Japan's modernization is successful, while China's failure is caused by Confucianism, that is, there is a substantial conflict between Confucianism's demand for stability and unity and modernization's demand for change. It is believed that China's tradition attaches importance to family and obeys the authority of sages, so it is difficult to cultivate independent personality. Furthermore, it shows that China's cultural winter mode is interdependent rather than independent growth, which is not suitable for the requirements of mass production in industrialized society, so it suppresses people's creative factors in personality. Therefore, these scholars criticized the Confucian culture and advocated looking for the rebirth of China culture in batches. It advocates abandoning China's traditional Confucianism, completely rebuilding the ideological system oriented by western culture and looking for the future. With the development of the times, the theoretical system of modernization has had a great influence on China. Many local scholars in China have accepted this theory and adopted similar theories in middle school textbooks. However, the shortcoming of monocultural theory is the lack of empirical test. Fei Zhengqing and other scholars are based on the collation and analysis of historical materials. This one-sided view was criticized in the 1980s. New scholars have constructed the theory of "world system", putting cultural analysis on the culture of "power core" and "marginal position" to study the differences between culture and academics. Is based on the comprehensive strength of economy and politics. It is believed that the difference of comprehensive national strength leads to the difference of cultural and academic status, and the concrete realization is the academic domination and attraction of the powerful "power core" culture to the marginal countries. The actual international influence is that transnational cultural studies tend to approach the west or understand the concept of trauma that breeds culture, and construct a western-style cultural model according to western academic achievements.

However, the disadvantage of this cultural analysis is to understand the essence of culture in connection with the hegemony of state power. If we measure ourselves in this way, our culture will be more and more in a favorable position in the world, because our national strength is constantly increasing and our status is constantly improving, then our cultural influence will naturally show an upward trend. I think this shortcoming is that some elements are untenable in manipulation, because when culture develops to a certain stage, if we want to make a substantive breakthrough, we must have new cultural innovation in theoretical consciousness to realize the innovation in production, and the role of production is only the original motive force.

Adjustment of five local world cultures

After today's reform and opening up, under the impact of market economy, traditional values such as moral life customs are disintegrating in traditional villages in the rural world, which has led to the large-scale integration of our local culture. However, due to the rapid arrival, the small-scale peasant economic system of more than 2,000 years lacks flexibility and adaptability to changes in the market economy on a stable basis, resulting in a series of problems. (Although some rural transformation is relatively successful, it is still a minority. For example, the power of rural areas on land issues is vague, which has exploited loopholes for local governments and illegal real estate developers. The two colluded with each other to seize people's land, resulting in a disguised "enclosure movement", which led to a large number of landless farmers having to go to cities to make a living, while the dual system of urban and rural areas excluded farmers from choosing jobs and household registration, making such social groups the most struggling people on the edge of poverty. Sometimes they have to take some illegal means to survive in order to make a living, which leads to a series of public security problems.

In view of this phenomenon, the state has put forward some constructive slogan activities such as "culture going to the countryside" and "new countryside" in the cultural policy model. However, there is no substantive breakthrough in the implementation of specific measures, because they involve local interests and the interests of individual groups. Therefore, the traditional rural areas can only fend for themselves under the market economy, because the country has adopted nationalization in some aspects of itself; In the unprofitable aspect, we just turn a blind eye to the problem and will not take measures unless we have to. For example, when the international oil price rises, the market price is adopted to protect the interests of "state-owned enterprises". When the international oil price dropped to more than $40 a barrel, the gasoline in the United States was less than $0.4 per liter, while the "market price" in China was indeed more than $0.9 per liter. This is called socialism with China characteristics, not to mention the bad motives of state-owned enterprises to accumulate funds to open up the international market and beautify themselves, and accumulating funds is not a breakthrough under the conditions of economic crisis. I think the reason is that China's substantial group interests and traditional bureaucratic cultural system are at work.

At present, the most important cultural civilization is political civilization. Without political civilization, it is impossible to guide the country's rural civilization. It's a joke to treat patients with diseases that doctors can't cure themselves! ? Therefore, what the country should do in some aspects is to improve the quality of grass-roots civil servants (high-level officials don't understand, but the evaluation is not bad, I don't know if it is true, it feels like a double spring).

The government's cultural adjustment policy is difficult to put in place to protect farmers' land rights and unfair employment. At the same time, educational and cultural policies also make migrant workers the most despised vulnerable groups in the city. The trauma of material culture and the internal injury of spiritual culture are intertwined, which constitutes the transformation. Yes, under the open policy, the economy in most rural areas is depressed and farmers have not increased their production. However, in recent years, the "three rural" policy has just achieved some results, but it has encountered the possibility that the current national agricultural policy will be disrupted by the economic crisis. At present, the initial performance is a serious drop in food prices. Therefore, the plight of farmers now is more serious than the economic crisis encountered by the original city.

At present, the guidance of transitional countries in some aspects should be based on cultural support and improving the quality of grassroots party and government civil servants. This is the most practical and basic constructive breakthrough for the country to lead the countryside out of the predicament, instead of blindly plundering the last piece of land of grassroots farmers.

Six summaries

The inner spiritual essence of culture is the maintenance system to ensure the lasting happiness of social groups. Therefore, if the members of a cultural model find a reasonable way to realize it, ensure the survival of social groups and promote the material and cultural happiness of social members, this cultural model can be regarded as successful. In other words, the overall environment of a society should meet the demands of most members of a social group as much as possible. Rather than what needs to be solved during the transition period, it is necessary to realize the successful transformation of cultural patterns and deal with many problems.

Cultural reconstruction is a long-term process. The key to deal with the orientation of traditional culture and the convergence of western culture is to explore the future convergence, and the specific spiritual expression is to enrich the spiritual and cultural content as its essence.