Editor’s Note: "Civilization Vision of National Rejuvenation" is a recent research achievement of Dr. Gong Maohong from Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Institute of Ideological and Political Work. It mainly combines the spirit of studying the important speech of the Supreme Leader General Secretary and talks about some basic theoretical and practical issues of civilization construction. There are more than 20,000 words in the article. Here is divided into three parts for publication, with a view to enlightening the construction of civilization. The author puts forward many new understandings and viewpoints in this paper. The author believes that the essence of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is the rejuvenation of Chinese civilization and the transformation of Chinese civilization from tradition to modernity. To realize the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, we need to deepen our understanding of the relationship between national rejuvenation and the development of civilization; It is necessary to enhance the ideological understanding of the connotation and extension of civilization, broaden the horizon of civilization, conform to the general trend of human civilization development, enhance confidence in Chinese civilization and promote the consciousness of human civilization development; It is necessary to grasp the value, realistic expression and direction of the rejuvenation of Chinese civilization in the general trend of the development of human civilization. Chinese civilization is exerting more and more influence on the development of human civilization, leading the development direction of human civilization more and more obviously and making important contributions to the development of human civilization.
About the author:
Gong Maohong, a native of Mengyin, Shandong Province, is a doctor of history. He is currently the director of the Network Department of China Ideological and Political Work Research Association and Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Institute of Ideological and Political Work. He once worked in the Propaganda Department of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Beijing Ideological and Political Work Research Association. He was the director of the theoretical research department of the China Ideological and Political Work Research Association, the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Institute of Ideological and Political Work, and the editor-in-chief of the magazine Ideological and Political Work Research. Main works: Understanding the Chinese Dream (People’s Publishing House, 2013), Path Selection of Building the Socialist Core Value System (Party Construction Reading House, 2013), Understanding the Chinese Dream (Guangxi People’s Publishing House, 2013), Changing Chinese (translated by Zhonghua Book Company, 2006), and Emancipating the hearts of enterprises. In People’s Daily, Guangming Daily, Workers’ Daily, study times, Research on Ideological and Political Work, Chinese and Foreign Corporate Culture, People’s Network Theory Channel and other newspapers and networks, he published a large number of theoretical articles, research reports and academic achievements.
General Secretary of the Supreme Leader stressed at the National Conference on Propaganda and Ideological Work that it is necessary to grasp the characteristics of China, make international comparisons, and guide people to comprehensively and objectively understand contemporary China and look at the outside world; At the same time, he has made an important exposition on Chinese culture with extremely rich connotations, demanding to actively learn from the beneficial achievements created by human civilization and create new glories of Chinese culture. These important thoughts put forward an important question worthy of in-depth consideration, that is, how should we recognize and treat civilization in today’s world, especially how to correctly understand the relationship between the Chinese dream of realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and the development of civilization, how to grasp the future of the development of Chinese civilization in keeping with the general trend of the development of human civilization, and how to recognize the contribution of Chinese civilization to the development of human civilization today. To give reasonable answers to these questions and form an ideological consensus, it is necessary to further broaden the horizon of civilization, deepen the understanding of civilization and its construction, deepen the understanding of the general trend of human civilization development, deepen the understanding of the law of the rejuvenation of Chinese civilization, and further enhance the self-confidence and consciousness of civilization. This paper makes some discussions around these related issues. The civilized vision of national rejuvenation (Part I) is the first part of the whole article, which mainly talks about deepening the basic understanding of civilization and civilization construction.
Civilization is the basic attribute of human society, the socialist core value concept actively advocated by our party and the core value pursuit of contemporary China. Civilization plays a very important role in guiding and instructing the development and progress of contemporary China. But for a long time, people have lacked an accurate understanding and grasp of civilization. Some people in foreign countries, especially in western countries, believe that "civilization is a vague word". Some domestic experts and scholars have different definitions of the category of civilization. A common phenomenon is to explain the connotation of civilization with cultural concepts. However, due to the great differences in people’s understanding of culture, it is difficult to accurately express the true meaning of civilization by explaining civilization with culture. Inconsistent understanding of civilization, even great differences, has become a realistic problem that affects the realization of the modern rejuvenation of Chinese civilization and the creation of new glory of Chinese culture, and has become a major theoretical problem that needs to be solved urgently to realize the Chinese dream. It is urgent to further clarify the essence of civilization and deepen the ideological understanding of civilization and its construction. The author believes that to grasp the essence of civilization and civilization construction, we should mainly reach a consensus in the following aspects.
1. The connotation of civilization has differences between individuals and groups, and between the East and the West.
In the individual sense, civilization refers to the degree and realm of humanistic accomplishment, emphasizing individual ideological and moral cultivation, humanistic spirit and individual behaviors and habits in line with public interests. In the sense of group, civilization refers to social progress, which expresses the degree, mode, state and result of social progress. These two aspects constitute the whole meaning of civilization. Generally speaking, the essence of civilization refers to the substantial progress made by individuals or groups in the process of transforming the objective world and the subjective world, that is, civilization is a social quality.
The meaning of the category of civilization is obviously different in China context and western context. In the context of China, civilization has appeared many times in Zhouyi, the earliest classic of Chinese civilization, which has records such as "internal civilization and external submission" and "world civilization". This not only shows that China is an ancient civilization, but also shows that civilization always refers to the inner quality and the inner humanistic quality. World civilization means that members of the society have good humanistic cultivation and quality, and by extension, it means that social governance has reached a relatively high level, manifested state and achieved results. In Chinese’s ideology, civilization always refers to the degree and realm of personal or social humanistic cultivation, especially moral cultivation. This understanding is closely related to the national characteristics of the Chinese nation, which has always emphasized personal cultivation and inner cultivation.
Civilization has a unique connotation in the west. In the western context, in 1877, American ethnologist Morgan published "Ancient Society: A Study on the Development Process of Mankind from Savage Age to Civilized Age". Since then, civilization has become a category corresponding to "savagery" and "barbarism", and western civilization means advanced civilization of mankind. Until now, when it comes to civilization, in the minds of some westerners, it still refers to western civilization. This is because since capitalism won the victory over feudalism, the west has rightfully called the western modern society, including modern knowledge, modern science and technology, modern mode of production and lifestyle, capitalist system and western values, as the civilized world. Therefore, in the eyes of westerners, civilization has always contained the opposition between advanced and backward, and the difference between the west and the non-west. The west is advanced and civilized, while the non-west is backward and barbaric.
To understand the essence and connotation of civilization, we need to make an in-depth and detailed international comparison, grasp the cultural differences between the East and the West, and examine the different national psychology and positions represented by the East and the West. You cann’t follow suit.
2. Form an ideological consensus on civilization based on Chinese historical traditions.
According to the historical tradition of the Chinese nation, civilization includes internal and external connotations. From the inner deep level, civilization is the progress of values recognized by members of society. The gradually formed and constantly improved ideological and moral norms represented by Confucianism in Chinese civilization are the core content of Chinese civilization, which are universally recognized and followed by people. For example, the consensus of values such as inner sage and outer king, self-improvement, harmony between man and nature, unity of knowledge and action, harmony without difference, moderation, tolerance, harmony, symbiosis and benevolence, courtesy, wisdom and trust.
From the external level, civilization expresses the way, mechanism, state, degree and achievements of social progress, which is manifested as diversified cultural and historical phenomena. The root of civilization development is the cultivation and growth of intrinsic value, and the external phenomenon is the multi-level and diversified expression of intrinsic value.
Fundamentally speaking, the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is to cultivate modern values based on traditional civilization, realize the modern transformation and expression of traditional civilization and realize the modern rejuvenation of Chinese civilization. Among them, cultivating modern values based on traditional civilization is the root of the rejuvenation of Chinese civilization. This requires that we should cherish and revere Chinese traditional civilization, and truly understand that Chinese traditional civilization is the lifeblood of the Chinese nation and our greatest advantage, and we should not hold a blanket negative attitude, let alone advocate historical nihilism.
3. Grasp the correct direction of civilization comparison
Civilization has obvious characteristics of time and space. Due to the limitation of time and space, civilization does not express a state of perfection, but a state of obvious regional and phased progress. Therefore, civilization has diversity and difference. The diversity and differences of civilizations show that different civilizations have their own growing and living environments, their own connotations and characteristics, that is, their own regulations. Only by comparing different civilizations can people discover the characteristics of their own civilization and the essence of other civilizations. Without comparing civilizations, it is difficult to judge the characteristics of one’s own civilization and other civilizations. Therefore, civilization comparison is the basic method and path to form civilization self-awareness and enhance civilization consciousness. Similarly, it is also the basic method to objectively understand other civilizations. The comparison of civilizations should pay attention to grasping the basic direction and form a civilization cognition that conforms to the objective reality of the diversity and difference of civilizations.
The theory of advantages and disadvantages of civilizations is the wrong direction of civilization comparison. The theory of advantages and disadvantages of civilizations refers to the conclusion that which civilization is superior and which civilization is inferior through the comparison of civilizations. History has proved that this conclusion does not conform to the objective reality and basic laws of the diversity and growth of civilizations. In fact, it is a reactionary theory for invading other countries and killing people of other nationalities. This theory is the result of the proliferation of social Darwinism. Facts have repeatedly proved that the jungle law of the animal world formed by animal evolution does not conform to human rationality, can not be used to explain the progress of human society, and does not belong to the basic category of human civilization. In fact, the theory of the advantages and disadvantages of civilization was widely spread in the long historical period from the beginning of capitalism’s expansion to the world to the end of the Second World War, which caused the common tragic war scenes in the rise of great powers, which was the evil result of social Darwinism theory. Realistically, in some countries, social Darwinism did not die out with the end of the Second World War, but there is still a certain market, which is also the ideological source that some countries have always been skeptical about the peaceful development of China and fearful about the peaceful development of China. Some countries even take this as a theoretical basis, and view the peaceful development of China with the backward concept of the rise of great powers through plunder and expansion, and use this to expand their troops and lead to regional tension, which cannot but arouse the high vigilance of people all over the world. This wrong direction of civilization comparison goes against the basic direction of the development of human civilization.
The correct direction of civilization comparison is to know the advantages and specialties of one’s own civilization and other civilizations through civilization comparison, and to respect each other, learn from each other’s strong points, be harmonious but different, and coexist harmoniously. Mr. Fei Xiaotong said that "each beauty is beautiful, the beauty is beautiful, the beauty is common, and the world is the same", which accurately expresses the correct direction of civilization comparison, represents the basic attitude of the Chinese nation towards civilization consciousness and development, and is the basic follow-up of the rejuvenation of Chinese civilization.
4. Cultivate the internal and external motivation of civilization development.
As far as internal motivation is concerned, the progress of civilization is the improvement of the quality of social development. Social development always contains contradictory factors, even contradictory and intertwined factors in many aspects. Generally speaking, the two contradictory sides, on the one hand, are advanced forces that develop forward and upward, on the other hand, they are backward, eliminated and even decadent forces. The conflicts and movements of these two factors constitute the concrete process and form of civilization and progress. Social development will achieve substantial development when the factors representing the forward and upward development forces dominate and overcome the factors representing the backward and decadent forces, which is the progress of civilization. On the contrary, it will lead to the stagnation of social development, and civilization will not achieve substantial development.
As far as external factors are concerned, civilization has the characteristics of spillover and dissemination. Communication, blending and confrontation between different civilizations are the external driving force and an indispensable form of civilization development. The result of the exchange, blending and confrontation of civilizations is to see which civilization can absorb and learn from the beneficial achievements of other civilizations better and faster and consciously develop in line with the general trend of the development of human civilization. Holding a closed and conservative attitude and violating the general law of the development of civilization will not develop in the long run.
Chinese civilization has its own distinctive characteristics in internal and external dynamics. In terms of internal motivation, the worship and pursuit of civilization itself is the fundamental spiritual motivation for the development of Chinese civilization. One of the important reasons why Chinese civilization has become the only civilization in the world with endless development is that the Chinese nation has always advocated and pursued civilization. The enthusiasm and efforts of the Chinese nation to advocate and pursue civilization are unique in the history of human civilization. As mentioned above, Chinese civilization not only expressed its clear orientation of advocating civilization in the earliest classic Book of Changes, but also started the history of reviving civilization from the time of Confucius, and reviving the civilizations of Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties became a strong spiritual pursuit and tradition for later generations. It is this tradition that the Chinese nation has always been thinking about the future, looking forward to the future and creating the future on the basis of inheriting the achievements of past civilizations. People can see that the heavy 24-year history not only records the progress of civilization, but also deeply records the solemn attitude of the Chinese nation in advocating and pursuing civilization and its firm will to carry forward and develop civilization. The spirit of advocating and pursuing civilization is still a precious quality of the Chinese nation and a powerful spiritual force to promote the rejuvenation of civilization. It should be noted that in different historical periods and social development stages, people’s admiration and pursuit of civilization have their own reasons and the objective requirements of the times, which is very rich in content. Limited to space, this is not detailed. From the perspective of external motivation, it is the main reason for the continuous development of Chinese civilization to actively absorb and learn from the beneficial achievements of other civilizations in the exchange, blending and confrontation of civilizations.The absorption and digestion of the beneficial achievements of ancient Indian Buddhism and the absorption and application of the beneficial achievements of modern western civilization by Chinese civilization all show that Chinese civilization has the remarkable characteristics of open and inclusive development, which is rooted in the unique holistic thinking of the Chinese nation. The open and inclusive development of Chinese civilization will still be the basic way and feature of the rejuvenation of Chinese civilization.
5. Pay attention to excavating and evaluating the civilized value in history and realizing modern expression.
As far as the relationship between civilization and history is concerned, civilization constitutes the substantive content of history, history is the external form of civilization development, and the form and content of civilization are unified in the historical process. Therefore, a human history is the history of civilization development. Based on this relationship between civilization and history, to understand the connotation of civilization, we have to deeply understand and think about history for a long period of time, and look at some historical phenomena superficially, which often fails to profoundly grasp the essence of civilization. However, only knowing history from a period of time often fails to profoundly grasp the internal relationship between the development and evolution of civilization and cannot form an accurate understanding and cognition of civilization.
A correct understanding of the relationship between civilization and history requires people to see the progress of mankind from many historical phenomena and make a value evaluation of the progress of these civilizations. To judge the progress of civilization, we need to observe and evaluate it from two historical time nodes. One is the time node at that time, that is, the time when this civilization progress came into being. From this node, we can examine the value of civilization progress beyond the past and the possible impact on the subsequent civilization development, which is the original value evaluation of civilization progress. The other is the present time node. Standing at this node, it is necessary to investigate the significance and value of the progress of this civilization to the present development of civilization, especially to summarize the concrete influence of this civilization progress on the development of civilization since its birth and to evaluate its possible influence on the development of civilization from now on. This is a realistic value evaluation of the progress of civilization. By combining the original value evaluation with the realistic value evaluation, we can make a general value judgment on the progress of civilization. Judging from the course of human history, some civilizations have great original value but no practical value, and some civilizations have little original value but great practical value.
Chinese civilization has a profound historical accumulation, which not only provides rich soil for the development of Chinese civilization, but also carries the genes of Chinese civilization’s transformation to modernity. At present, an important task of civilization construction is to excavate and evaluate the modern significance and practical value of civilization from the complicated and rich historical treasures, and to explore and realize the modern expression of existing civilization from the actual needs, so as to inject vitality and vitality into the current civilization development and better serve the construction of Socialism with Chinese characteristics. In this regard, civilization construction has a very broad space and vivid and flexible modern expression techniques and means, and it is a long way to go to transform historical advantages into modern civilization advantages.
6. The fundamental task of civilization construction is to cultivate and practice core values.
A correct understanding of the relationship between civilization and culture is the premise of effective civilization construction. Simply put, civilization is the essence of culture, and culture is the expression and representation of civilization. Civilization is at the deep level of value and culture is at the shallow level of expression, so the progress of any civilization often has diversified cultural expressions. To correctly handle the relationship between civilization and culture, we need to find its essence, namely civilization, through cultural phenomena. The development history of civilization proves that any cultural phenomenon and cultural expression are realistic, while civilization is relatively stable. Those cultures that are far behind the development of the times and hinder the development of the times, although they have primitive civilized values, have no realistic civilized values, and even stand in opposition to the current civilized values. Such cultures have become backward and even decadent. And those cultures that reflect the development of the times and promote the progress of the times reflect the mainstream values of the times and are the concrete manifestations of the civilization of the times. Such a culture is an advanced culture.
The mission of civilization construction is to actively give new values to social development, find rich and diverse cultural carriers for these new values, guide people to gradually establish civilized ideas, institutional mechanisms and good behavior habits that reflect the new requirements of the development of the times in the process of cultural co-construction, co-ownership and sharing, fundamentally promote cultural change and cultural transformation, and improve the civilized quality and degree of the people.
From the realistic task, the fundamental task of civilization construction is to actively cultivate and practice the socialist core values. Specifically, the construction of civilization faces three tasks. One is to endow the socialist core values with diversified cultural forms, so that the people can consciously practice the socialist core values in the process of meeting cultural needs and sharing cultural achievements. A noteworthy phenomenon is that the construction of socialist core values in many places lacks basic cultural atmosphere, cultural forms and cultural carriers, which leads to the failure to carry out the cultivation of socialist core values. To change this situation, it is urgent to start with the cultural carrier, strengthen the transformation of value into culture, realize the diversified and popular cultural expression of value, and implement the Opinions on Cultivating and Practicing Socialist Core Values. The second is to further summarize and improve the socialist core values. The 24-word core value concept actively advocated by the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China has pointed out the direction for improving the socialist core values. However, the socialist core values are an open system, and the final establishment needs to be refined and improved gradually with the continuous development of practice. This is an important task to further strengthen the construction of civilization. The third is to build an institutional system and practical mechanism for diversification and diversified expression of core values. At present, the institutional system and practical mechanism of diversification and diversified expression of socialist core values are still far from perfect. Only by perfecting the system and mechanism can socialist core values be implemented from the concept level and value level to the system and behavior level. I should say,Great progress has been made in this respect, but the task is still very arduous.
7. Establish a new concept of civilization construction with the coordinated development of five civilizations.
Since the reform and opening up, the construction of spiritual civilization has been significantly strengthened and remarkable achievements have been made. At the same time, material civilization, political civilization, social civilization and ecological civilization have also made remarkable progress. The Sixth Plenary Session of the Twelfth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Sixth Plenary Session of the Fourteenth Central Committee respectively made major strategic arrangements for the construction of socialist spiritual civilization, and then the construction of socialist spiritual civilization presented a brand-new situation. With the deepening, higher-level and more comprehensive reform and opening up, especially the overall layout of Socialism with Chinese characteristics’s cause has been gradually developed in more latitudes, the essence of Socialism with Chinese characteristics’s civilization has been unprecedentedly developed and displayed in breadth and depth. The five-in-one general layout of Socialism with Chinese characteristics’s cause put forward by the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China shows that our party’s understanding of civilization has developed from two dimensions of material civilization and spiritual civilization in the early days of reform and opening up to five latitudes of material civilization, spiritual civilization, political civilization, social civilization and ecological civilization, which indicates that our party’s understanding of China’s social development level and development level has reached an unprecedented height. The overall situation of the work of the party and the state urgently needs to coordinate the construction of five civilizations and realize the coordinated development of five civilizations.
From the practice of spiritual civilization construction at the grass-roots level, it is the basic trend of civilization construction to integrate, develop and coordinate the five civilizations. Since the reform and opening up, a successful experience in the construction of spiritual civilization at the grass-roots level is to organically combine and unify the construction of spiritual civilization with the construction of material civilization, political civilization, social civilization and ecological civilization, and form the overall thinking and overall design of civilization construction. In recent years, the establishment of civilized cities has achieved good development and been widely recognized by the society. One of the important reasons is to coordinate and unify all aspects of civilization construction and realize the comprehensive innovation of civilization development. In rural areas, the "Ten-star Civilization Creation" in Zhushan County, Shiyan City, Hubei Province has been persistent for 20 years since 1993, and achieved good results. The core is to straighten out the relationship between spiritual civilization construction and other civilizations, and insist on the coordinated development of spiritual civilization construction and other aspects of civilization construction. In contrast, a profound lesson from the unsuccessful construction of spiritual civilization in some places is to separate the construction of spiritual civilization from other aspects of civilization, and pay attention to the construction of spiritual civilization. Grassroots people reflect that such construction is mostly a gust of wind in some places, and it can’t get good results, let alone persist for a long time. The positive and negative realities at the practical level enlighten us that the construction of civilization needs new ideas and new designs for the five aspects of civilization to connect and promote each other, so as to achieve all-round, coordinated and sustainable development of the five civilizations.
(Author: Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Institute of Ideological and Political Work)