According to statistics, there are more than 260 definitions of culture in the world today. Today, "culture" is still a controversial issue in academic circles. In fact, culture is a multidimensional concept with rich connotation and extensive extension. As a realistic existence of human society, culture has a long history as human beings themselves. A human history is a history of human culture, and all aspects of human life are inextricably linked with culture, such as national culture and corporate culture.
Let's take a look at how the ancients understood the concept of "culture".
The original meaning of "Wen" refers to the interlaced texture of various colors. The earlier explanation of "Wen" was a passage in the Book of Changes: "Things are mixed, so it is called Wen. The ancients held the king of Xi family, looked up at the sky, bowed their heads and looked at the land of Dharma, looking at the products of birds and beasts that were suitable for the land, taking everything near and far, and so it began. It refers to observing various interlaced textures on birds and animals. This passage shows that our ancestors paid attention to observing nature and human beings, learned the truth from nature and human beings, and summarized it as "gossip" to understand the wonders of everything in the world and classify and summarize the situation of everything. In modern scientific research, China's "Eight Diagrams" should be regarded as the originator of logic and mathematics. The binary calculation method used by computers refers to the carry method of "eight diagrams". Here, "Wen" is mainly used to represent the texture of animals. Later, on this basis, the word "Wen" has many extended meanings. First, extended to words and articles. On this basis, it is extended to poetry and music. Second, it is extended to the ancient ritual and music system, and on this basis, it is extended to legal provisions. On the basis of the system of rites and music and self-cultivation, the meanings of beauty, goodness and virtue are also extended. For example, "Wen" in idioms refers to literary talent and cultivation virtue. In short, in the eyes of the ancients, "Wen" originally refers to texture, and later it is extended to nearly a dozen extended meanings. Among them, speech, writing, self-cultivation, morality and presentation.
The original intention of "transformation" has three aspects: one is change, the other is generation, and the third is creation. Mainly refers to the process of dynamic change of things. "Hua" in Zhuangzi Xiaoyao Tour refers to change. In Yi Shaq, "men and women make sperm and everything changes". Change is a change in the form or nature of things. On this basis, it was later extended to customs, national spirit education and so on. The extended meaning of the word "Hua" is closest to the word "culture" understood by modern people, that is, the formation of ethical virtues, such as "osmosis".
The juxtaposition of "Wen" and "Hua" (but not a whole word) was first seen in Yi Ben Gua Xiang Zhuan: "(rigid and soft) astronomy is also. Civilization stops, and human nature is also. Watch astronomy and observe changes; Look at the humanities and turn them into the world. " (page 2 of the textbook), in which the word "rigid and flexible staggered" is enclosed in brackets, which is highly supplemented by modern people and the original text is blank. No one who studies China culture can ignore this article. This passage is about the turn of the sun and the moon, the combination of yin and yang, and the alternation of rigidity and softness, which is called "astronomy". The purpose of cultural education is to make people do business and stop. Observing the humanities and cultivating the world through education. Obviously, "astronomy" here refers to both "the law of natural change" and "people's understanding of the law of natural change". The "humanity" here refers to both the laws of social change and people's understanding of the laws of human society. "Astronomy" and "humanities" are roughly equivalent to what we call natural science and social science today.
After the Western Han Dynasty, "Wen" and "Hua" were often used together, and then gradually solidified into one word. However, the word "culture" that people often use in the modern sense did not appear. According to the understanding of the ancients, "culture" means "cultural education". In modern times (around the May 4th Movement), when translating and introducing western words (Latin culture), China's inherent "civilization" was borrowed.
Taking "culture" as an object of rich connotation and multidisciplinary exploration actually originated in modern Europe. The word culture in western languages is similar to that in Chinese, but there are also differences. The Oxford Dictionary regards 15 10 as the spirit of culture, and the date when humanistic usage first appeared in English. But the culture at this time mainly refers to cultivation, the significance of cultivation and the resulting temperament cultivation.
Since the Middle Ages, culture is equivalent to today's cultural concept. The original meaning of "culture" in English refers to spiritual culture, that is, humanistic-religious culture. China culture has a spiritual and humanistic orientation from the very beginning. Therefore, countries have slightly different understandings of culture, but they also have similarities.
187 1 year, British anthropologist Taylor made a systematic explanation of culture in his book Primitive Culture. He said, "Culture or civilization, in its broad national sense, is a complex whole, including knowledge, belief, art, morality, law, customs and the abilities and habits acquired by anyone as a member of society." Taylor emphasized that culture is a society.
American cultural scholars Kroeber and Kluckhohn made a detailed investigation and arrangement of the concept of culture. They published the Concept of Culture in 1952, sorted out and analyzed more than 60 definitions of culture collected by the west at that time, and pointed out that culture is not only the product of human behavior, but also a certain factor that determines human behavior.
On the Modern Significance of China s "Culture";
According to the incomplete statistics of today's scholars, there are almost more than 260 definitions of culture in China since the May 4th Movement, and the textbook basically adopts Mr. Feng Tianyu's statement (page 3 of the textbook): "Culture is the unity of opposites between man and nature, subject and object in practice (Reflections on the Cultural History of China, page 17)".
The subject here refers to people, and the object refers to nature. Man refers to all mankind. Man is the product of nature, the result of long-term evolution of nature, and a part of nature.
The nature mentioned here not only refers to the nature on which human beings live and are opposite to it, but also includes various natural and physiological attributes of human beings. For example, the human brain has natural and physiological properties. In the process of understanding and transforming nature, human beings have gradually mastered the laws of nature, created culture and improved human beings. For example, a piece of clay has no cultural significance, but it has been baked and painted by human beings. Injected with human aesthetic concepts and labor skills, it has become a painted pottery culture. Another example is a cave, where human beings just go in to shelter from the wind and rain and reproduce. It seems that this cave has no cultural interest. However, after careful design by designers and careful construction by builders, a building reflects its aesthetic taste and artistic conception through stones, wood and sand, so this building can be called an architectural art that embodies cultural values.
From these two examples, we can draw a conclusion that the essence of culture is "humanization" or "humanization" is a process in which human beings transform nature and gradually realize their own values. In short, "humanization of nature, that is, humanized nature is the essence of culture."
According to the idea that humanized nature is culture, there has been a cultural upsurge in China since 1980s, with many cultural branches, such as corporate culture, regional culture, folk culture and a large number of practical cultures, such as catering culture, wine culture, tea culture, clothing culture, advertising culture, green culture, communication culture and tourism culture. It should be noted that none of the above branches are the focus of our research and discussion. At best, it is only the material of cultural research. The core content of our study and research is spiritual culture, which is a traditional culture with literature, history and philosophy as the backbone. It is the most beautiful flower of China people's spirit and the crystallization of China people's wisdom.