At present, there are two diametrically opposed attitudes toward culture: one view holds that there is no distinction between high and low cultures, and there is no difference between advanced and backward, and that we should adhere to a pluralistic and inclusive cultural attitude, insist that all cultures of all countries are equal, develop the cultures of all nationalities, and jointly safeguard and promote cultural diversity. Another viewpoint holds that culture is constantly developing and evolving, and that there are advanced and backward countries, and that every nation and country should learn from and absorb the advanced cultural achievements of other nations in light of the development of society and the times, improve and innovate its own culture in keeping pace with the times, and promote cultural modernization.
From a practical point of view, there is truth to these two opposing views. No one would oppose the preservation of the cultures of peoples and the preservation of cultural diversity, and the United Nations was also naming various world cultural heritage sites to promote the protection of national cultures. On the other hand, however, no one can deny that the culture of any nation state needs to be constantly improved and innovated, and it is necessary to constantly renew its ideological concepts, and to use the advanced concepts of modern society to update its traditional cultural concepts and promote cultural progress and modernization.
Why is there such a seemingly contradictory phenomenon that opposing views are justified? The root lies in a different understanding of the concept of culture.
Culture is a rather complex and broad concept whose connotations are constantly evolving. In a broad sense, all material and spiritual activities and achievements of human beings can be called culture. There are at least 200 different definitions of "culture". Many philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists, historians, and linguists have been trying to define the concept of culture from the perspective of their respective disciplines, but so far there has been no accepted and satisfactory definition.
Therefore, in order to understand culture, we must first have a clear understanding and definition of the connotation of culture, otherwise, the controversy about cultural issues will not be able to reach a clear conclusion, and it will not be possible to deepen the understanding of cultural issues.
From the etymological point of view, "culture" is an existing word in ancient Chinese. "Wen" is a standing person from the hieroglyphs of the oracle bone inscription; "Transformation" means change, generation, and creation, which shows that the ancient Chinese believed that culture was something related to human activities.
The original meaning of "text" refers to the interlacing of textures. "Yi · Department of Resignation" contains: "Things are mixed, so it is said to be written." "The Book of Rites and Music" said: "The five colors are written but not chaotic. On this basis, the meaning of "wen" has been continuously extended, one is that wen includes various symbols in the language, such as cultural relics, classics, ritual and music systems, etc. The gossip of Fuxi's paintings contained in the "Shangshu Preface" and the book deed are "born from the literary books"; The second is that the text is artificially cultivated. For example, "Shangshu Shundian" says that "Jingwei Heaven and Earth are said to be written", and "Analects of Yongye" says that "quality is better than literature, literature is better than quality, and history is better than quality, and then gentlemen". The third is to further extend the text to the meaning of beauty, goodness, and virtue. For example, in the "Book of Rites and Music", it is said that "the rites are reduced and advanced, and the progress is the text", Zheng Xuan's note "The text is still beautiful, and the good is also", and the "Shangshu Da Yu Mo" says that "the text is applied to the four seas, and it is only inherited by the emperor".
Wen" and "hua" are used in parallel, which was earlier seen in the "Zhou Yi" in the last years of the Warring States period. The "Book of Changes" is biography: "Rigidity and softness are intertwined, and astronomy is also; Civilization ends, and so does humanity. Observe astronomy, observe time changes, and observe humanities, so as to transform the world. It means to understand the changes in time series by observing the celestial phenomena; By observing various phenomena of human society, we will govern the world by means of education and probation. Here, the idea of "educating with culture" is very clear, which is the main understanding of cultural connotation in ancient China.
Liu Xiang of the Western Han Dynasty combined the words "Wen" and "Hua" into one word, and wrote in "Shuo Yuan Zhiwu": "The rule of the sage is also the rule of the world, first Wende and then force." The prosperity of all martial arts is not convinced. If the culture does not change, then it will be punished. Therefore, in the Chinese system, the original meaning of "culture" is "to educate with culture", which means the cultivation of human temperament and moral education, which belongs to the category of the spiritual realm.
The word "culture" in modern China was translated from the English culture at the end of the 19th century. Culture is derived from the Latin colere, which originally means farming, through artificial efforts to make animals and plants beyond the natural state, and become in line with the ideal state of human beings, and later extended to cultivation, cultivation, domestication, care, etc., and later developed into the cultivation of human skills, personality and spirit. Therefore, from the semantic point of view of the word "culture", China and Europe have about the same cultural connotation, that is, they both refer to activities related to people that are different from nature.
Of course, culture as a social phenomenon is completely different from the etymological meaning of the word culture in China and the West. Europeans' attention and research on cultural issues mainly stemmed from the process of foreign expansion, especially the colonization of the Americas, and the discovery that the cultures of backward peoples such as Indians in the Americas and the Pacific were completely different from those of Europe, which stimulated the interest of comparative studies. In the 19th century, Darwin published the book "The Origin of Species" through the investigation and study of the biological world, and put forward the theory of biological evolution, which had a huge impact on the social and scientific thinking at that time and became the mainstream of scientific thought in the 19th century.
People extrapolate the idea of evolution to the realm of human society, arguing that since living things evolved, human culture also evolved gradually. Therefore, anthropological research was started to study the development of underdeveloped primitive societies and cultures, in an attempt to discover the laws of human social development.
Of course, many scholars believe that the development of society and the evolution of the natural world have an immutable law, and as long as we find the law of the development of human society, we can transform human society in the same way as transforming nature and promoting industrial development, and establish a perfect society that makes everyone live a better life.
The British sociologist Herbert Spencer, based on the idea of evolution, put forward the theory of social organism and the theory of social evolution, which is known as the originator of social Darwinism. He understood society as an organism, proposed that society is both a system and a collection of individuals, and advocated that sociology should focus on the development and evolution of social structures and institutions. Society and biological organisms have many similarities, they are constantly evolving and developing, and social evolution is a continuous and uninterrupted process, which has to go through the process of growth, structural evolution, functional differentiation, interdependence and so on.
He explained the evolution of society from the perspective of social structure-function change, and pointed out that the evolution of society first comes from the change of social structure, that is, the organization within society changes from simple to complex. In every society, evolution is a change from a homogeneous society to a heterogeneous society. Social evolution is largely a spontaneous process, and the conscious activity of man cannot have any influence on it.
Social evolution is also a process of functional differentiation, with the development of history, the social structure has become more and more complex, the society has a specialized class structure, the structure is increasingly complex, the occupation is specialized, different parts perform different functions, and the social division of labor is becoming more and more refined.
Two famous anthropologists of the 19th century were the British Edward Taylor (E. Taylor). b.Tylor and American anthropologist Louis Morgan (L. Morgan). h.morgan), both of whom advocate the theory of cultural evolution.
Taylor, known as the father of cultural anthropology, believed that the development of human society and religion has a universal functional basis, and that the development of all societies must go through a process of development from ignorance, barbarism to civilization. He studied the customs and beliefs of contemporary and prehistoric tribal societies from ethnography and archaeology, and his results were represented by Studies in the Early History and Development of Civilization, published in 1865, and Primitive Culture, published in 1871. The latter has not only made outstanding contributions to the overall study of human civilization, but also had a profound impact on the rise and development of cultural anthropology.
Through his study of Indian tribes, Morgan constructed a classic theory of linear cultural evolution in his book Ancient Society. Morgan sees kinship (family) ties as a fundamental part of society, and complex societies develop from blood families. From the perspective of technological invention, he divided the development of human society into three progressive stages: obscurantism, barbarism and civilization, the obscurantist stage is represented by bows and arrows, fire and pottery, the barbaric stage is represented by agriculture and metallurgical technology, and the civilization stage is represented by writing.
In the first half of the 20th century, with the end of the era of colonial expansion and the establishment of democracy in the Western world, some cultural anthropologists in the West put forward the ideas of cultural relativism and pluralism, believing that the culture of any nation has its uniqueness and value, that different cultures are equivalent in value, and that no culture is more advanced and valuable than other cultures.
For example, American cultural anthropologists Boas and Herskowitz believe that the culture of any nation has originality and sufficient value, which is formed in the course of a long period of history and wants to adapt to its economic conditions, and that there is no common equivalent of cultural values, and that the moral concepts of Europe and the United States cannot be used as a yardstick for evaluating other cultures, and that anthropology should safeguard the right of each nation to develop independently, and cannot use a Eurocentric viewpoint to evaluate them.
They believe that all cultural values are relative, play an equal role for each group itself, and can serve the group. For example, various types of social organizations, secret societies, various ritual groups, men's assembly houses, military organizations, handicraft guilds, etc., all play a role in uniting the group internally and externally as a whole, so culture cannot be said to be progressive or backward.
Culture is the sum of the behaviors, habits and thinking patterns of the groups in a particular society, and the culture of each ethnic group has its own values that have been passed down from generation to generation, and they recognize the facts of the material world through the screen of cultural inheritance, so the concepts of time, distance, total amount, size and group reality are the result of the group's conventions. Social stability and harmony come from respect for different cultures, from mutual respect, and from emphasizing the value of multiple rather than one way of life, and that all cultures and ways of life have their own value for existence.
This viewpoint of cultural relativism and pluralism has been widely supported by developing countries, because developing countries generally have a mentality of maintaining their own traditional cultures, hoping that all cultures can treat each other equally, recognize each other, and tolerate each other, and do not want to feel backward and inferior in the face of European and American cultures.
However, China and other developing countries pay special attention to cultural issues, mainly because their traditional cultures, such as the traditional Chinese Confucian culture, and the new modern industrial and commercial culture of Europe, which is centered on liberal democratic and scientific thought, have no resistance to fight back, and have encountered an unprecedented dimensionality reduction and crushing blow, and how to deal with their own culture and foreign culture has become an extremely prominent problem. In modern China, it is the question of how to learn from the West and the West, in order to maintain the traditional culture and its system, the Qing Dynasty clearly put forward the idea of "middle school as the body, Western learning as the use", that is, still adhere to the traditional Confucian culture, just learn the advanced technology and industry of Western countries, and claim that the traditional Chinese Confucian moral doctrine is more advanced than the modern culture of the West, and Westerners only pay attention to economy and technology, are relatively superficial, and lack cultural and moral cultivation.
Except for a few countries such as Japan, the vast majority of developing countries have adhered to the same position as China after encountering the strong impact of Western culture in modern times, unwilling to admit their own cultural backwardness, unwilling to reform traditional culture and systems, but trying their best to maintain the traditional cultural and social ruling order, and insisting that "the law of the ancestors is immutable".
More than 100 years later, the same is true now, the vast majority of developing countries adhere to the position of cultural relativism, believing that their own culture is no worse than that of Western countries, and that they should carry forward their national culture and national spirit, and should not learn from Western culture and should not be completely Westernized, believing that total westernization will lose the spirit and soul of their own nation, which is not conducive to the development of the country and the nation.
The problem, however, is that if we do not accept the so-called Western cultural values such as freedom, democracy, science, and human rights, we will not be able to learn from the advanced market economy, science and technology, and management methods of Western countries, and we will not be able to vigorously raise the level of economy and science and technology.
Although Western countries emphasize the need to uphold the common values of freedom, democracy and human rights, they should be culturally pluralistic and tolerant of many developing countries. There is no objection to the idea of safeguarding and promoting the traditional culture of our own nation, and it cannot be said that the cultural values of the West are more advanced than those of developing countries. Otherwise, it may be perceived as cultural arrogance and disrespect for the culture of other peoples.
The fundamental reason for such a problem is that the understanding of cultural connotations is different.
He advocates the theory of cultural relativism and pluralism, believes that the cultures of all ethnic groups have the same value, and there is no distinction between advanced and backward, emphasizes the protection of the cultures of various ethnic groups, the protection of traditional cultural heritage, and the persistence of the diversity of national cultures. The culture mentioned here mainly refers to the culture in a broad sense, the culture of history, which is the various achievements created by different ethnic groups in the past, including language, ideological and artistic works, clothing, production technology, living customs, historical buildings, historical relics, etc. These things can be said to be a kind of historical and cultural heritage, a kind of dead culture that has no real impact on the real life of the people, and is a dead culture of history.
The Encyclopædia Britannica divides culture into two categories: one is the "general" definition, which refers to "the overall social heritage of mankind"; The other is the definition of "pluralistic relative", which includes the "language, traditions, habits and institutions" of all groups, "including the ideas, beliefs and values that motivate them, and their embodiment in the material and manufacturing tools".
The Chinese Cihai argues that culture is divided into broad and narrow senses. "Culture" in a broad sense refers to the sum total of material and spiritual wealth created by human practice; In a narrow sense, it refers to the ideology of society, as well as the institutions and organizations that adapt to it. ”
The most important thing for Western countries is to adhere to common cultural values, and the culture here is not the culture of history, but the culture of people that actually affects people's real lives, that is, culture in a narrow sense, which refers to the ideology that dominates a nation and country, as well as the systems and organizations that adapt to it.
In Western countries, this culture refers to the values of freedom, democracy, and human rights, as well as the corresponding constitutional democratic system and democracy**. In Chinese society, this culture is the ideology of Marxism-Leninism and the most centralized political system under the leadership of the Communist Party. In the Islamic countries of the Middle East, this culture is the teachings of Islam such as the Qur'an, and the Islamic theocracy that goes with it.
Therefore, it is emphasized that the "culture" referred to in the inheritance and promotion of traditional culture refers to the cultural heritage that has become history; The "culture" referred to in the emphasis on accepting modern values and systems and promoting cultural modernization refers to the realistic cultural values and systems that can play a practical role in people's lives. These are two completely different cultural concepts, and the two are not contradictory. On the one hand, it is true that the cultural heritage that carries forward the tradition should be inherited; On the other hand, we should also accept modern advanced values and systems, and promote the modernization of real culture.
However, some developing countries only emphasize the inheritance of traditional culture, emphasize cultural pluralism and inclusiveness, do not recognize the advanced nature of modern cultural values, and do not mention promoting the innovation and modernization of real culture.
This is obviously not to promote the country's reform, development and progress, but to fall into the historical trap of the Qing Dynasty's "middle school for the body, Western learning for use".