Chinese Culture--The collision of traditionalism and modernism
Name: Du Xiaohong Student ID: S08700
Research paper supervisor:Dr.Sekou Conde
Minzu University of China
2008-2009 Academic Year
Abstract
Culture, which is created by human beings, is the expression of human essence. It is a necessary part of social life, and the result of human wisdom. With the development of human society, the culture has been changing all the time. In the same way, Chinese culture has been separated into two main parts---traditional culture and modern one. Both of them have a double-edged effect on Chinese culture, and with the collision of the traditionalism and modernism, what has happened to it? And what shall the heritor do to solve the contradiction? In the following content, what traditional culture is and the double-edged effect brought up on the whole Chinese culture will be narrated. In the counterpart, modern one will be specified. What’s more, some effective solutions to the collision will be presented. No matter what has happened to Chinese culture, it is believed that Chinese culture has absorbed so much distillate in the two types of culture that it has been improved a lot.
Key words: traditional culture, modern culture, collision, Confucianism, positive effect, negative effect
Traditional culture
What is traditional Chinese culture? With a 5000 years history, China can be one of the very rare countries which have a continuous history and culture record. Chinese traditional culture is handed down, with the excellent virtues of the former saints. It stands for the national spirit and reflects national characters. The essence of the Chinese traditional culture can properly encourage its people to improve themselves and their country. However, not all the culture has the positive effect to the improvement of the whole nation. In fact, there are some negative ones that can badly destroy the achievement. After all, it is universal truth for all the things in the world that there is no garden without its weeds. The key point is how the heritors deal with such compositive factors and in the end gets what they want.
1 Positive effect to the whole nation
The widespread Chinese basic spirit mainly contains the following aspects: upholding ethical, humanities-oriented logos, stressing on the concept of harmony and advocating a sense of crisis.
Upholding ethical means everyone should seek for his/ her governance in his/ her place, while if not, they needn’t. Everyone has proper individual status, responsibilities, obligations and rights. It is necessary that he would say what he should say and do what he ought to do .[2] Under such moral principle, people has formed a logical thinking that one should tries one’s best to complete the obligation. In some meaning, they may put the responsibility before their own rights. Just as Jihui Zhao, the writer of The Introduction of Chinese Traditional Culture says, “Chinese culture puts the emphasis on the groups, but not individuals. Even the politics also pursuits for etiquette to govern their people.” [1] In other words, through the etiquette, the whole society implements the rule that the right of the country is the most important one, then the collective one, and finally the individual one. “Chinese people have the custom of pursuit for the self-esteem and group-esteem from culture,” [3] Qiuyu Yu, a famous Chinese writer has ever estimated in the book, Knowing something about Chinese culture.
Obviously, the whole nation has deep-rooted logic thinking. Such culture form has greatly influenced Chinese people that they perform according to this rule in their daily life and work time. When the whole nation acts in the same way, it is a tremendous power. The positive effect given to the whole country is people will practice in a common sense once they confront with something. They put the stress of rights to somebody else, not themselves firstly. In some extent, Chinese traditional culture speaks highly of a kind of value tropism which thinks collectivism most while western culture may put more emphasis on individualism.
Further more, this kind of collectivism will be developed into a deeper lay, which is called patriotism. Most Chinese people have accepted a strong patriotism education as they were very young. As soon as they received education in the kindergarten, the teachers would give the stories about the national heroes. I have remembered that a friend born in Taiwan, but living in Beijing has ever said that he would send his children back to Taiwan to receive education, for he thought mainland has a strong patriotism education. Ignoring his real purpose of such action, the conclusion can be drawn that Chinese traditional culture has greatly affected its people and the whole nation in a positive way. Just because of these feelings of patriotism, the forerunners have reached the success of the final revolution, no matter the 8-year Sino-Japanese War or the 3-year War of Liberation. It is a kind of spirit stanchion to encourage the people and the whole nation to keep moving, even if the difficulties are tremendous. It is a perfect belief just as some people from western countries believe in god.
Humanities-oriented logos insist the importance to people's physical presence, the human existence of spirit, and focuses on the people’s etiquette and music education. Chinese traditional culture adheres to the people-oriented theory, which means human is the most important centre between the heaven and earth. It puts attention to the rights and obligations of human’s, which constitutes a person’s value and meaning of life as the core of the humanistic spirit. [2] It is obvious that Chinese history is long and is mainly based on the etiquette. Even different layers and classes have limited music, including the music and dance items, musical instruments and number of varieties, even the number of workers who play the music. It is convenient for this pattern in a certain period to reinforce the clan perspective, and then formed the thinking of “we are the world”. This theory puts more importance on moral cultivation. Chinese traditional culture thinks highly of the educating and fostering to human, and the spread of culture and inheritance. So a person in china who has a noble morality will be a leader and pioneer in the adapted business. It is said that china is a country of etiquette. That is the performance and proves for Chinese traditional culture.
China has been famous for its emphasis on personal improving. However, in some extent, such culture has also brought some negative effect on today’s society. In the same way, every coin has two sides. That is just what the heritor of the culture should do to deal with the advantages and disadvantages. Just as Yu Qiuyu said, “Chinese traditional culture is like a grand mountain. We should not steer clear of it, but stand in its foot and look upward with respect. What is more, people should ask about its content.”[3] When looking deeply into the content, something valuable could be found out, too. It is widely accepted that Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism have ruled the whole Chinese culture world in the later period, especially the Confucianism. The initiator, Confucius has ever said, “Man of honor should check himself three times a day.” It means a person should think more often of himself about his action, in order to make him excellent. Analyzing from the main stream of Chinese traditional culture, people can easily get the idea that humanities-oriented logos can improve the individuals. If everybody can be a man of honor, then the world will be more beautiful. So in some meaning, it consummates the spirit of the whole nation. According to this theory, on March 4, 2006 president of china, Hu Jingtao made the Eight Honors and Eight Disgraces as the nation’s action rule.
Stressing on the concept of harmony is a kind of harmonious relationship, which emphasizes on the rule of interpersonal harmony and exceeding action will reach everything between heaven and person. The most widespread one is “harmony between man and nature”. It is the worldview of traditional Chinese culture, and the method of knowing things with Chinese traditional culture. For example, "Huang Di Nei Jing" has described this issue that the heaven, earth and mankind is a uniform and a perfect combination. The logic thinking which inspects things from the overall and the contact, pays attention to the whole and stresses the harmony is formed in a invisible way.[2] What does that mean? There is no doubt that Chinese people, even the whole nation from the upper class to the lower class [...]
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