The process of ideological and cultural pluralism and modernization in the contemporary world (One of the Economic Volumes of the Contemporary World in Sixty Years)
Huang Anni's blog/published in February 2008 19.
This is one of the general remarks in Sixty Years' Economic Volume of the Contemporary World (1945-2005), which was written on February 4, 2005 and contained in "Reference to History Teaching in Middle Schools" (No.4, 2006), p. 18-20. Now post it on my blog.
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Since 1945, the contemporary world has become more and more diversified and unified, and the unity of the contemporary world is largely reflected through diversity. The economic modernization, globalization, diversified development, political democratization and multipolarization of international relations in the contemporary world have provided extremely rich material and political advantages for post-war social, ideological and cultural life. The characteristics of modernization, globalization and diversification are fully embodied in various fields such as material life, social life, urban life, academic thought, religious philosophy, culture and art, and together with the contemporary world economy and politics, they form a complete picture that vividly describes the history of the contemporary world.
The diversity of the contemporary world is highlighted in the importance of social ideology and cultural diversity.
First, the study and teaching of the contemporary world can not be separated from the study of the social thought and culture of the contemporary world. If we don't study social ideology and culture seriously, the study of the contemporary world will be incomplete. For many years, the research in this field in China is still quite weak and still in its infancy.
Second, the ideological and cultural diversity of contemporary world society conforms to the reality of contemporary world history. The contemporary world is neither an era when capitalist ideology and culture prevail over socialist ideology and culture, nor an era when socialist ideology and culture triumph over capitalist ideology and culture, nor an era when Christian culture triumphs over Islamic culture or Islamic culture triumphs over Christian culture. It is neither an era when western culture triumphs over eastern culture, nor an era when eastern culture triumphs over western culture. This is an era of coexistence, sharing, cooperation and competition between different social systems, different religious beliefs and different regions. We can't expect capitalist countries to be guided by Marxist thought, and we can't imagine that socialist countries will allow bourgeois liberalization to flood. Nor can we expect a religious belief or a regional culture to dominate, thus replacing different religious beliefs and regional cultures. In this global village with more than 220 political entities, the social system, economic and social development, values, cultural background, living customs and religious beliefs are different, and it is impossible to influence the whole world with one thought, one culture and one religion. Contradictions and conflicts between various social and cultural concepts are inevitable, but the exchange of social and cultural concepts, seeking common ground while reserving differences and mutual benefit are the mainstream of historical development.
Third, the social, ideological and cultural advantages of the contemporary western world are obvious. Teaching and research that emphasizes the ideological and cultural diversity of the global society is conducive to maintaining the ideology, culture, religious beliefs and values of people in weak or emerging socialism and emerging developing countries.
In the 60 years after the end of World War II, there are two obvious trends in social life. One is the great development of modernization, globalization and diversification of human material life, which is not only reflected in housing construction, textile and clothing, catering and entertainment, transportation and other fields. It is also reflected in the new development of radio, film and television, book publishing and news media, the rapid progress of medical and health undertakings and the great development of urban modern service industry. The other is that with the development of modernization and globalization, global social problems are increasingly plaguing the whole world.
In the contemporary world, whether it is a developed capitalist country, a developing country at different initial stages, a socialist country at the primary stage or a former socialist country in transition, material life, urban and rural life, social life, environmental life, cultural life, educational welfare, national quality and social structure have all changed in their respective economic modernization processes. The modernization of the contemporary world is advancing in breadth and depth, and the modernization, internationalization and diversification of material life are undergoing drastic changes round after round at an ever-changing speed. This change often first appears in the western developed countries headed by the United States, and then in the newly industrialized areas of developing countries, and it also shows a rapid development trend in some departments and regions of socialist countries. With the scientific and technological revolution, especially the development of information technology, it also provides new opportunities for developing countries to accelerate the modernization of material life.
The new development in the field of material life is clearly manifested in:
First, modernization, diversification and internationalization in the field of food, clothing, housing and transportation. No matter in the clothing industry, catering industry, housing construction industry and transportation industry, people have personally felt the rapid changes in the past half century since 1945, and its rapid update is dizzying.
Second, the modernization and globalization of health care, ecological environment and social services are also changing rapidly.
Thirdly, the modernization, globalization and diversification of cultural publishing, news media, film and television communication and electronic network are the leading trends of the times.
Fourth, the change of industrial structure has brought about the adjustment of urban and rural structure, the process of urbanization and suburbanization has accelerated, and a number of megacities have emerged, and the gap between urban and rural areas in the rapidly developing areas of modernization has been relatively narrowed. However, there is an unbalanced trend between developed and developing countries. In some developing countries, urban and rural development is unbalanced, and excessive urbanization has brought some negative effects.
Fifth, the social structure has undergone major adjustments to adapt to the development of modernization, and the democratization, autonomy and mobility of social members have accelerated.
Sixth, with the gradual popularization and modernization of education, the improvement of residents' cultural knowledge level and the constant adjustment of cultural knowledge structure, the difference between manual labor and mental labor in developed areas has been relatively narrowed, and the quality of the population and the quality of the people have also been continuously improved.
Seventh, with the development of economic growth and modernization, countries and regions living in absolute poverty around the world are experiencing variables that are shrinking and expanding from time to time.
Eighth, in developed countries and regions, the socialization and institutionalization of welfare security have improved the quality of life. The quality of life in modern countries and regions has also improved compared with the past.
Although the above situation is obviously unbalanced due to different countries, regions and economic development levels, the general trend of development is self-evident.
In the process of the modernization of global material life, there have also been a large number of all-round social problems, among which the most influential ones are:
First, affluent society and poverty run through the contemporary world. Due to the inequality of the international economic and political order, the unbalanced development of the modernization process, and the poverty of some residents accompanying the modernization process, serious social problems such as the aggravation of the inequality between the rich and the poor in the international community, especially in developed and developing countries, and the aggravation of the inequality between the rich and the poor in social and economic life in many countries.
Second, in terms of population movement, due to the constant influence of local wars, the imbalance of economic development between countries and regions, and the turmoil of political and economic life in some countries, abnormal illegal immigrants and refugee flows have appeared, which has adversely affected normal economic and social life.
Third, rampant international terrorism and organized crime, global drug abuse and drug trafficking, and the accelerated spread of infectious diseases such as AIDS are serious social problems that threaten social stability and the safety and health of residents, especially in densely populated cities and regions.
Fourth, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the use of chemical and biological weapons, and the leakage and pollution of nuclear energy have brought serious threats to a peaceful developing world.
Fifth, the ecological environment is seriously polluted, and major natural geological disasters affect people's life stability and quality of life.
Sixth, electronic information technology, bioengineering and other modern high technologies have greatly enriched human life, but also brought new troubles to the stability of social life. Futurists predict that ingenious criminal means such as hijacking, identity tampering and organized crime on the 2 1 century information superhighway have appeared at the end of this century.
Seventh, the modern and global lifestyle has also brought many new hidden dangers, affecting the stability of residents' lives. For example, the impact of vicious traffic accidents, new problems in high-rise buildings and modern buildings, and food safety precautions.
Because these problems are not only subject to the social system, but also related to the modernization process and its unbalanced development, which is a social problem that puzzles the whole world to a great extent.
Over the past 60 years, the development trends of global academic ideology, culture and religion are as follows: First, the overall development trend of world culture and education, academic emancipation, numerous schools and great activities. Second, the modernization and post-modern development trend of academic thought. Third, the trend of integration and fusion in the field of academic thought. For example, the rise of marginal disciplines and interdisciplinary disciplines; The rapid development of weft discipline; And the development of comprehensive disciplines; There is also the rise of great science, which embodies the unity of science and technology, the unity of natural science and social humanities, and the unity of science and technology and society. Fourth, world religions are developing towards sectarianism, secularization and modernization.
In modern world philosophy, it is difficult to draw a clear line with the world war. There are two major ideological trends in the contemporary west: humanism and scientism, and the development of new cognitive methods. The ideological basis of modern humanism can be traced back to Schopenhauer's "voluntarism" and Nietzsche's modern western humanism. Heidegger developed modern western humanism, Sartre used it brilliantly, and Freud proved it in psychological science. Modern western scientism arose from Comte's positivism and Spencer's comprehensive philosophy. Mahism is the development of this trend of thought. The Vienna School shows the growth of this school. "Analytical philosophy" is a new form of this trend of thought. Philosophy of language is the sublimation of this trend of thought. "Philosophy of Science" and "Historicism School" are the completion of scientism. There are many theories in modern western philosophy, in addition, western Marxist schools, such as Frankfurt School, also have great influence. The popular structuralism and pragmatism in the west have also brought great influence to the humanities and social sciences.
In the field of religion, Christianity, Buddhism and Islam are divided into three parts and intertwined in Europe, America, Asia and Islamic countries. Buddhism in South Asia and Southeast Asia has a far-reaching influence on the ideology and culture of this region, and the influence of Buddhism in Northeast Asia and North Asia can not be ignored. It also has some influence in Europe and America. Islam occupies an important position in Muslim countries and regions, especially the rise of fundamentalism, which has had a great impact on the Muslim world and the world. Christian schools still have the greatest influence in the contemporary world. Since the Roman Catholic Church held its second Grand Council in the Vatican in the 1960s, Catholicism has emerged in an innovative way, and has continued to develop all over the world, becoming the fastest growing church in the world. Protestantism, which is the most widely distributed in the world, has made new progress with the development of theological pluralism and modernization. After the Cold War, Islam revived, and Islamic fundamentalism became more active and expanded. Generally speaking, the number of religious schools in the contemporary world is increasing, their influence is expanding, and the trend of secularization, modernization and diversification is obvious.
In the field of history, fundamental changes are taking place, the pace of transformation from traditional historiography to new historiography is accelerating, and a new historical paradigm has emerged in terms of historical concepts, research scope and content, and research methods. The main features of contemporary western historiography are: paying more attention to holistic dynamic research, comprehensive research from single line to multi-line, research on environment and conditions, research on quantitative analysis and research on underlying historiography. The rise of Marxist historiography and global historical view is a new development in the field of history. It is a noteworthy new phenomenon that Marxist historiography and western new historiography move from confrontation to dialogue. The global view of history is the innovation of the world historical system.
In the field of education, there has been a general trend of reform, which is obviously manifested as follows: legalization, democratization, nationalization and structural systematization of education; Scientific and differentiated educational theories, technical educational methods and lifelong educational objects; Modernization and globalization of education. The reform, development, popularization and improvement of education are related to the prosperity of the country, the improvement of national quality, the enhancement of comprehensive national strength and whether it can stand on its own feet in the world. Education-oriented, rejuvenating the country through education and strengthening the country through education have become the national policies of more and more countries.
In the field of literature, European and American literature is generally divided into post-war realistic literature, which is the dominant position, and later manifested as modernist literature. The literary schools in the contemporary world mainly include: Existentialist Literature in its heyday in the 1950s, Absurd Drama and New Fiction School in the 1950s, American Beat Generation in the 1950s, Black humorous story in the 1960s and Latin American Magic Realism Literature in the 1970s. Since 1970s, postmodern literature is the manifestation of the increasingly serious social crisis and spiritual crisis in the West, and it is also the reflection of the distortion of human nature and the alienation of human beings. Its basic characteristics are anti-tradition, anti-system and anti-center. They pay attention to the process, but ignore the purpose, present, history and future. Soviet Russian literature is an important school in the contemporary world. It experienced the rule and thawing of traditional socialist realism literature, the closure and opening of socialist realism, rebellion and return. The remarkable characteristics of contemporary Asian, African and Latin American culture are the development of national traditional culture and the expansion and coordination of foreign culture (mainly western culture). On the issue of traditional culture, there are Islamic cultures that advocate the complete restoration of traditional fundamentalism, ideas that advocate total westernization and deny tradition, and ideas that advocate absorbing foreign advanced cultures on the basis of carrying forward the excellent traditions of traditional culture. Realism and critical realism are quite popular in contemporary African literature. The "black" cultural movement once prevailed in post-war Africa. Since the 1960s, there has been a new novel trend in Latin American culture. Magic realism, psychological realism, structural realism, social realism and other styles and forms of expression have their own magical powers, and a hundred flowers are blooming, which is called the big explosion of Latin American literature. They are rooted in the social and historical life of their own country, inherit the traditional cultural heritage and learn from the beneficial foreign cultures in the West.
In the field of art, the mainstream of contemporary world art is mainly western art, including modernism and anti-traditional and unconventional postmodernism. In the field of music, it has entered the trend of modernization and postmodernism. In the field of dance, modern dance schools in the contemporary western world have risen. Film and television art is the product of modern science and technology. It has just gone through a century, from black and white to color, from silence to sound, from ordinary screen to widescreen, big screen, dome movie and stereoscopic movie; From a single film to a great change in film and television culture; Revolutionary changes have taken place in film recording technology; Computer technology began to be applied to film art. The trend of multi-orientation, modernization, diversification and pluralism of contemporary world film art.
The process of global modernization needs a spiritual culture, or what we usually call spiritual civilization. In the tide of peace and development, if the cold war mentality is excluded, the existing civilizations are fundamentally complementary, and there is no question of whether you fight or not, and there is no fundamental confrontation. Some cultural phenomena that were relatively resistant, exclusive and closed in history have turned to the development trend of mutual exchange, mutual reference and mutual absorption in contemporary culture. The outbreak of the two world wars was not based on the confrontation and conflict of civilizations. Contemporary Japan's economic take-off and the rise of a political power benefit from the complementary advantages of western civilization and Japanese civilization. The rise of emerging industrial countries in East Asia benefits from the combination of western civilization and the national spirit of East Asian countries and regions. Diversity and compatibility have become the main trends in the development of various cultures in the world. In the process of globalization and modernization, all civilizations in the world have opportunities for common development and are facing new challenges and crises in spiritual and cultural aspects. Whether modernization and spiritual civilization can develop harmoniously has become a common concern of all countries. After "9. 1 1", this problem surfaced again. We have talked about the general situation of contemporary western culture and art, which not only reflects the great development and enrichment of cultural life in the process of modernization, but also shows the serious crisis of cultural concepts and values. This crisis is mainly manifested in: the mainstream philosophy characterized by pessimism and anti-rationalism; The mainstream of post-modern literature with anti-social characteristics; The proliferation of popular culture characterized by hedonism; A lifestyle characterized by anti-tradition.
Huntington put forward the argument that the clash of civilizations will replace ideological and other forms of conflict and become the most important conflict affecting global politics in the future, and even advocated the fallacy that the combination of Confucian countries and Islamic countries will be the number one threat facing the West after the end of the Cold War. Differences in civilizations or cultures, values, national feelings and religious beliefs should not affect mutual respect, understanding, tolerance and cooperation between cultures or civilizations of different countries, including different social systems. In this contemporary world where globalization and diversity coexist, we attribute the differences in the level of cultural development in history, especially to the differences in western colonialism, and demand to act in accordance with the values of the United States and the West under the slogans of "civilization", "democracy" and "modernity", which is essentially to promote the cultural hegemony of western centralism. In fact, in a multipolar and pluralistic world, the era when a culture or civilization dominated the world is gone forever. This is the case in the West, and the East is no exception.
With the development of globalization, the modernization and diversification of contemporary society, ideology, culture and art have put forward some problems worthy of attention in academic research.
First, attach importance to the study of the relationship between world society, ideology, culture and politics and economy in the century. Our world historians should bring the overall study of material social life, ideology and culture into the research scope of world history. Try to study the present situation and absorb the academic achievements in this field.
Second, attach importance to the study of civilization or cultural conflict. In particular, compare Christian culture, Islamic culture, oriental culture and national cultures of various countries, respect each other's characteristics, learn from each other's strengths, seek common ground while reserving differences, and achieve common prosperity.
Third, attach importance to the study of global cultural modernization and multiculturalism and their relationship. In the contemporary world, it is not true to deny the trend of cultural globalization or cultural diversification. Replacing nationalization with total westernization is a kind of cultural hegemonism and an argument that denies national culture.
Fourth, attach importance to the study of cultural exchange and influence. With the accelerated development of globalization and modernization, cultural exchanges around the world are carried out in an unprecedented scale and manner. In this case, how to learn from and absorb foreign excellent cultures and carry forward traditional culture under new conditions is a big problem related to the development prospects of various cultures. The research in this field is not only of practical significance, but also of far-reaching influence.
In the surging tide of globalization, most countries in the world believe that it is proved that it is not only impossible to rule the world by American military power alone, but also will arouse greater resistance and more deaths. Therefore, we must seek another kind of globalization, that is, multipolar balance, a kind of globalization in which cultural diversity is born and all ethnic groups are harmonious, that is, the construction of a "harmonious world" proposed by China.
How to construct diversified global culture, protect diversified cultural ecology, and resist cultural hegemony and cultural simplification. , is the core of cultural consciousness. Because politics, economy and science and technology are all "people-oriented", people can't live without a certain culture.
Without cultural consciousness, there will be no pluralistic life of different cultures. What is cultural consciousness? Mr. Fei Xiaotong, a famous sociologist in China, pointed out: "The life and death of culture is different from the life and death of biology. It has its own laws, its own genes, that is, its seeds ... seeds are the basis of life. Without these seeds, life would not exist. The same is true of culture. If it is divorced from foundation, history and tradition, it will not develop. Therefore, history and tradition are the roots and seeds of the continuation of our culture. " Actively and consciously maintaining the history and tradition of a culture so that it can be continued and carried forward is the first meaning of cultural consciousness.
To continue and develop, only seeds are not enough, but also create conditions for seeds to blossom and bear fruit. Fei Xiaotong believes that the combination of tradition and creation is a very important issue. "Because tradition will die if it is not created, it can only be given life if it is constantly created." Cultural consciousness should include past, present and future directions. Such cultural consciousness is not to go back to the past, but to face reality. Fei Xiaotong believes that the most important features of the reality we are facing are "mechanical civilization" and "information civilization". These two civilizations developed in stages in the West overlap each other here, and even the changes between them are incomparable with the changes from manpower to steam engines to motors in the past! We must know the changes we will encounter from their changes at that time. Therefore, we should not only learn from their current experience, but also learn from their experience in the early and middle stages of development, compare their ideological culture at that time with ours, and know the changes we will encounter from their changes at that time. Therefore, we should not copy the western experience, but go our own way. This kind of "seeing the future from the combination of tradition and creation" is the second meaning of cultural consciousness.
In addition, we should pay special attention to the current external environment, which has never been faced in any era in the past. The reality of globalization needs some behavioral order and cultural norms that we should abide by. We should not turn a deaf ear to these orders and norms, but should master them, find our own national culture in this context, know the significance of China culture in this new context, and understand what contribution China culture may make to the future development of the world. This is the third meaning of cultural consciousness.
In short, we know, understand and interpret our own national cultural history, connect with reality, respect and absorb the experience and strengths of other cultures, and build a new cultural context together with other cultures. This is what we call cultural consciousness.
I hope these can help you!