The strong impact of western civilization is like a torrent, with mud and sand flowing down. From the beginning, apart from human instinct, the motive force of communication between the western world and another world was mainly interest. At the same time, people in this civilization also spread their beliefs and ideas. This kind of communication means both civilian and military. For a long time, war has been the main means, or at least the auxiliary of other means; This is still the case today. In this way, the strength of the western world has brought positive factors to other worlds, but in fact, negative, superficial and secondary factors often have far greater influence on other civilizations than positive factors. This fact may cause double harm to other parts of the world, which is already a reality in some areas: on the one hand, the positive and mainstream factors in the invaded civilization tradition have been destroyed and not discarded and preserved, on the other hand, they mainly accept the negative, tributary, superficial and temporary things in western civilization. The flood surged away, leaving perhaps mud everywhere.
This situation is not an imaginary threat to China, but a fear with realistic reasons. The powerful effect of the negative factors of western civilization led to the sudden interruption of China civilization. What the fault of civilization leaves behind and exerts its realistic influence is its ruins, its rubble and ashes, and even the long-standing negative factors, while what it loses is its grand structure, broad spirit and the organic and spontaneous organizational development ability of the social grassroots, that is, its core factors. Any civilization needs a kind of self-initiative, continuous innovation on the basis of tradition, and even the ability to constantly adjust its own structure after being impacted by foreign civilizations; Various factors in a civilization, and everyone in this civilization is integrated into this structure in a complicated relationship. When the existing structure collapses, it will inevitably be replaced by a new structure; In the modern world, the connection and influence between civilizations are becoming more and more direct, the society is changing rapidly and the organization is complex, so it is inevitable that the new structure will be transplanted to a considerable extent. However, if people who accept this new structure do not have a comprehensive and profound understanding of its source civilization, then the result will be and in fact often those negative, superficial, secondary and temporary factors take advantage of it, while the positive, lasting and profound factors will be ignored. In this way, the new structure will cause some deformity, and the old civilization will be destroyed together with its positive factors, but the new civilization cannot be established reasonably and effectively. This is especially true if a civilization is destroyed by the negative, secondary, temporary and superficial factors in Western civilization and its name.
In this regard, for Chinese civilization, which is facing a critical moment of life and death, on the one hand, people certainly need to re-examine their own inherent civilization and carry out the cause of rejuvenation; On the other hand, people must re-understand western civilization, deeply analyze and criticize it, and summarize its positive and negative factors, its lasting, fundamental and main factors, and its temporary, superficial and secondary factors. On this basis, we should re-examine our attitude towards western civilization and our attitude towards our own civilization. Only in this way can the revival of the Chinese nation be the right choice under the conditions of clear understanding, clear goals and reasonable roads, otherwise, China will eventually become a colony of western civilization after a noisy outbreak. Whether the great rejuvenation of Chinese civilization can be successful, and then whether Chinese civilization can continue to maintain its uniqueness, is not only related to the Chinese civilization itself and the people of China as the inheritor of this civilization, but also related to the diversity of the whole world civilization, which is the essential requirement of human social life.
In this paper, the analysis of the core factors of western civilization will be mainly carried out from the following aspects: first, analyze the western factors in China people's living world and people's awareness of them; Second, discuss the provisions of western civilization and try to give a reasonable definition; Thirdly, combing the reasonable factors of western civilization and trying to give a minimum classification; Fourthly, the conclusion of the full text is mainly to make some concluding comments.
First, the ubiquitous western factors.
Since the missionaries systematically spread western culture to China in the16th century, the communication between Chinese and western civilizations has basically been characterized by the one-way input and influence of western civilization on China. There is only one exception, that is, the influence of China's civil service system on the formation of civil service system in modern western autocratic countries. However, because it was not directly spread by China people, only a few people in Europe recognized or talked about the social impact of the system established by China people nearly two thousand years earlier than them. Since Britain defeated the Qing court with opium and guns in the middle of19th century, the factors of western civilization have been rolling in, but just like the consistent practice of westerners and the usual situation of such events, the negative, superficial and temporary things in this civilization are wrapped in positive and substantive things. In fact, the influence and function of the former factor is far better than the latter, even among the positive factors, the external sum.
These factors, either forced by revolution and political violence, or infiltrated by lifestyle and ideas, have profoundly and comprehensively influenced and changed China society and filled contemporary China society with ubiquitous western factors. But the fatal point is not the actual existence of these factors, but that people, especially the intellectual class, other backbone forces and politicians in society, have neither a clear consciousness nor enough research and understanding. Therefore, people generally lack a clear understanding of what kind of influence and function these factors have had on China society, in what sense and in what direction, how they have influenced and changed China society, and how they will continue to change China. Directly related to this, we don't know what role and influence the inherent factors of Chinese civilization are still playing in modern China society, how these factors exist-in its simple form, in its varied form or in its mixed form, and what the future of these factors will be in China society.
One thing directly related to the above two aspects is whether the factors of western civilization have been transformed into, led to or promoted the creativity of this civilization after they entered China, or whether they have always maintained a foreign, colonial and alienated form, so they are just a transplanted and lifeless thing? In other words, do we in China, like westerners in the early stage of western civilization and its Renaissance, absorb the factors of foreign civilization and integrate them into the organic part of our own civilization, thus forming and producing new creative elements? Or this is a question, that is, whether the positive and lasting factors in Chinese civilization are integrated with those in western civilization, thus forming a new form of Chinese civilization. If this is the case, then the factors of western civilization will evolve into an organic part of the new and revived Chinese civilization; If not, has Chinese civilization lost its vitality as a whole and its ability to absorb external factors? And its final outcome will be some past events and cultural relics, and its position can only be in history books and museums?
We don't know this. We don't even have a general knowledge outline. However, the actual situation seems to indicate that this will be a possible prospect. Because, as we can see, China people's daily life is full of ubiquitous western factors, and there are too many western factors around us. In this regard, people can investigate and judge in many different ways. For example, a simple way to trace the source, that is, to trace the sources of various systems, customs and artifacts in our living world; Or we can take a comparative approach, that is, set a certain moment in China's modern history as a reference point to compare the nature of various phenomena in contemporary China's life world. Then the result, even a rough result, will be unexpected.
For example, we take Emperor Naganlong (Emperor Gaozong of Qing Dynasty, year of birth and death:171-1799, reign: 1735- 1795. ) With the last year as the control point, let's take a look at the lifestyle of today's China society, or compare the lifestyle and utensils system of today's China society with the year of the Revolution of 1911 as the control point, then we will find that we are almost too Thai and semi-westernized. We can start with the most superficial phenomenon here.
Weddings and funerals are a kind of civilized grass-roots culture. Needless to say, even the external manifestations of the ceremony, such as wedding clothes and mourning clothes, are enough to explain the problem. In traditional China, who used black to represent funerals? Today, in China, black veil has become a formal funeral form. The traditional white mourning in China was almost completely subverted by the official black. Funeral has the status of national etiquette in modern times, so its expression can best reflect the official attitude. What makes people feel uncomfortable is that this custom, which originated from nomadic people in ancient West Asia, seems to represent some modern and fashionable significance in today's China.
Before 1950s, people in China used to keep the traditional style, but in the Cultural Revolution, the tradition seemed to disappear one day.
Housing is also the grass-roots form of civilization. However, even in rural areas with few space constraints, traditional China architecture is becoming a rare phenomenon, not to mention the arrangement and layout of families. As a symbol, Mao Zedong Memorial Hall, built in the late Cultural Revolution, is a typical western-style building. Its origin can be traced back to the temples in ancient Greece, and it has little to do with China's inherent architectural tradition. This is of great significance for understanding and studying that the Cultural Revolution was a catastrophe that destroyed Chinese civilization.
The etiquette of daily communication is also very different from the form adopted by our recent ancestors. At a banquet, people shake hands instead of fists, and people touch glasses instead of holding them high with both hands. Wait, wait.
Let's take a look at the phenomenon of social organizations and systems, then we can see that from universities, political parties to the stock market, from the constitution to * * * and countries all come from western civilization.
So what is the situation at the conceptual level that dominates our spiritual world? Ideas and theories from Marxism, socialism and capitalism to market economy, freedom and democracy all come from the West. Here, the items that can be listed will be a long list.
Almost all cities in China with a little scale and money will build squares. What is a square ("there is a closed space in the center of the grid, agora, as a public meeting place." See The Significance of Western Architecture (Norberg Schultz, China Building Industry Press, 2005), p. 26. )? Now many people in China don't know that this is the product of authentic western civilization, and it is also its iconic product.
From the perspective of existence, our living world, internal level and external environment, and things from the west constitute an important factor that cannot be separated for a moment. We can imagine, excluding these factors, whether our life today can be maintained? Obviously not. However, a question that needs to be asked is: Do we have a clear understanding of this phenomenon? This understanding can be considered from two aspects. First, do we have a clear and in-depth understanding of this phenomenon and its reality and potential significance? Secondly, do we understand the practical and potential significance of these things that have become indispensable factors in our living world? Can you recognize their origins? Or further ask, do we have a systematic understanding of all these concepts, things and systems, and can make necessary distinctions between them?
Faced with these two problems, we are actually forced by a more fundamental and important problem at the same time, which is identity. Among these ubiquitous factors of western civilization, any China person is faced with an unavoidable question: What is China, or why do you call yourself China? Is this the concept of nationality? Therefore, as long as he acquires nationality, he can be regarded as a China person, whether he uses the language of China or not, and whether he agrees with the culture of China or not. Or is it just a regional concept? Therefore, as long as all the people living in this land are from China, this standard is the same as the previous one in terms of its nature, and it is a reason that is quite powerless. Or a concept of civilization? If so, it is the spiritual and cultural basis of identity. However, if the civilization one agrees with, even the most fundamental factor, is imported from other civilizations, then this foundation is quite fragile. For Chinese civilization, which is one of the few special civilizations in the whole history of human society, the foundation and reason for its existence is its uniqueness, which is different from the creativity and self-renewal ability of other civilizations. To identify with this civilization is to identify with these unique factors, this creativity and self-renewal ability.
This also brings another question, that is, after accepting and accommodating a large number of factors of other civilizations, whether a civilization has the ability to absorb them into its own factors and form new nature and creativity. This involves at least two levels. First of all, while absorbing other civilization factors, have the positive and lasting factors in our own civilization been preserved? Secondly, are the external factors entering this civilization positive, lasting and substantial, or negative, temporary and superficial?
In order to answer these two questions, and then answer a series of related, macroscopic and comprehensive questions, we must understand what western civilization is and what factors constitute its core in this civilization, so that we can identify the positive, lasting and substantive content, and then examine the nature of those factors that have forcibly entered our civilization or been actively introduced and absorbed by us. This is the basic task of this paper.
The necessity of a deeper understanding of western civilization is not limited to this, but there are other equally urgent reasons: the basic rules of today's world are designed and formulated by westerners according to their ideas and interests, and in today's globalization, these rules are things we have to deal with every day. If you don't understand western civilization, you naturally don't understand how these rules are formulated and what their basis is; If we don't understand the core factors of western civilization, we can't understand why the main rules in today's world come from western civilization, not other civilizations, why these rules operate in this way, and so on.
Second, what is western civilization?
However, when we began to ask what is western civilization, especially what is the core factor of western civilization, we immediately encountered a major difficulty, that is, what is western civilization. Above, I talked about western civilization as if it were a clear and definite concept; The same is true in people's daily consciousness and writing. However, once in-depth questioning, the three concepts of the West, Western civilization and the core factors of Western civilization have extremely complex characteristics in theory and practice, and even have considerable uncertainty because of the complexity of Western society-history and its historical evolution. This is true not only in China, but also in the West and other non-West Renye Fang. Today, people are more and more aware of the reality and seriousness of the clash of civilizations, which is also an urgent problem for westerners to solve. (Huntington said, "People and nations are trying to answer the most basic question that mankind may face: Who are we? They answered this question in the traditional way that human beings used to answer this question, that is, by mentioning what is most meaningful to them. People define themselves by ancestors, religions, languages, history, values, customs and institutions. They identify with tribes, ethnic groups, religious groups, nations and civilizations at the broadest level. People not only use politics to promote their own interests, but also use politics to determine their identity. We only know who we are. And often we don't know who we are until we know who we are against. The nation-state is still the main factor in world affairs. Their behavior is influenced by the pursuit of power and wealth in the past, but also by cultural preferences, cultural differences and cultural differences. " See Clash of Civilizations and Reconstruction of World Order (Beijing: Xinhua Publishing House, 1998), p. 6. )
No matter in theory or in practice, a universally accepted western concept has never existed. Therefore, how to strictly define western civilization academically is always a thankless thing, and every time such a definition is inevitably imperfect, it will be criticized and criticized. But in academic research, especially in academic work with western civilization as the central topic, this is a necessary prerequisite for research and discussion. Therefore, people must put forward regulations about the west from different angles for different academic purposes. People can find that the following aspects are the usual focus of people's investigation and standardization of western civilization, namely, origin, region, history and types. Now I will make a slightly concrete analysis of this.
First of all, the origin of civilization is an important factor in defining the nature of a civilization. For example, we usually say that Chinese civilization has a long history. According to the existing written records, although Chinese civilization itself has several sources, these sources have finally merged into the whole Chinese civilization, and there is no longer its independent development. However, western civilization is different. Its origin can be traced back to many other civilizations, such as Egyptian civilization, two-river valley civilization, Phoenician civilization and Jewish civilization. When western civilizations were formed in Greece, they still developed independently. As a whole, they were not included in Greek civilization or other forms of western civilization later, although they were an important source of some core factors in Greek civilization and its subsequent forms. These civilizations as a whole do not constitute a part of western civilization under any circumstances. Therefore, if we define the western civilization from the source, the following difficulties will arise, or the adjacent civilizations that are quite different from western civilization will be included in western civilization, thus making the definition of western civilization meaningless to a considerable extent; Or by this standard, western civilization will also fall into the dilemma of being counted as other civilizations, such as Egyptian civilization.
Second, the region. People may think that this should be a decisive rule, because it goes without saying that the west is originally a regional concept, and western civilization is first and foremost a civilization in a regional sense. However, this definition also encountered the following insurmountable difficulties.
(1) Even in the narrow sense of the West, that is, Europe, civilization has gone through the process of migration from one place to another. It first rose at the southernmost tip of Europe, and then gradually extended to the central and western Europe, and finally extended to areas outside Europe, such as North America.
(2) In our opinion, the eastern part of Europe belongs to the West, but in the minds of people in certain parts of Europe, they belong to the East, not within the scope of Western civilization, or at most, they were later classified as the territory of Western civilization. So even in Europe, there is still a process of integration into the West. The prospect of this process is still difficult to predict at present. (In his historical research, Toynbee once compared the scope of western society in 775 AD, 1475 AD and 1675 AD, and the regional changes in these three periods were quite great. See Toynbee, Historical Research (I), Shanghai: Shanghai People's Publishing House, page 8- 10. )
(3) After Japan's "leaving Asia and entering Europe", it is often classified into the category of western civilization, which is obviously not judged from the region, but from some characteristics of politics or civilization.
Third, history. Because western civilization is constantly developing, some people say that the so-called western civilization is a historical concept. In other words, the so-called western civilization has different meanings in different historical periods, and even refers to different civilizations. For example, the civilization of ancient Greece is not only far from today's western civilization, but also very different from later Roman civilization, and also very different from later medieval civilization and Renaissance civilization. According to some extreme views, they are different civilizations. Although they inherit from each other, there are some consistent contents. However, even other civilizations have something in common with the local civilization. Toynbee said: "Tracing the life of our western society back to 775 AD, it appeared under another name-in the name of the Roman Empire and the society to which that empire belonged. ..... If we trace any important factors of western history back to the history of earlier society, then we will find that their roles in these two different periods are very different. " (Toynbee, Historical Research (I), Shanghai: Shanghai People's Publishing House, p. 12. )
Fourth, western civilization and cosmic civilization. This is first of all related to the judgment and evaluation of western civilization and the reality of today's world. In the process of globalization, western civilization seems to be sweeping the whole world. In this sense, western civilization has become a universal civilization, or in today's popular saying, a universal civilization. This statement is naturally controversial, and it is difficult for us to admit and accept it. However, it does provide people with a reference to examine the core factors of western civilization.
Fifth, the type. A feasible way for people to reach * * * knowledge is the concept of type, that is to say, on the basis of the combination of region and society-history, some basic factors are summarized to refer to western civilization. Undoubtedly, this theory still has its possible weaknesses, but it is most suitable for us to sum up and stipulate the core factors of western civilization, so as to understand and recognize the characteristics of this civilization. Establishing such a type is a huge task, because it requires us to investigate and master all parts and levels of western civilization, and to grasp the relationship between them. Here we can take a step backwards, that is, first select the core factors in western civilization, and then add other important factors on this basis to make it perfect. However, this paper only tries to complete the first step, and the rest of the research can only be paid temporarily.
There are realistic conditions for taking such a step, that is, the spread and diffusion of western civilization in the world. People can find the elements of western civilization not only in China, but also in Japan. Even the phenomena that have disappeared in western society, such as tuxedo dress in major events, can be seen in Nepal and even in North Korea. Undoubtedly, in these different societies and regions, the existence of western factors certainly has the same content, but there are also very different forms and phenomena. However, in any case, they provide us with important references, examples and inspirations.