Harmonious Variety: The Cultural Choice Of Contemporary China

In globalization and information age, every country is facing the problem of cultural choice. The final purpose is to promote the improvement of plural cultures in harmony, then carry out integrated innovation of culture and man's free and all-around development. The thesis studies the theory and practice of cultural choice to build an ideal blueprint that the contemporary Chinese cultural choice would become harmonious variety and integrated innovation. First of all, I probe into what are culture and culture choice and what is their essence. Culture is the summation of man's practice and achievement under some historical condition. It is both the symbol of man's existing mode and the design that guides man's development. When we regard culture as a design of guiding the development of man, we may easily study cultural choice. In my view, cultural choice has two meanings: one is the broadly-defined cultural choice, the other is the narrowly-defined cultural choice. The broadly-defined cultural choice is a practice of man which is a choice of man's existing mode corresponding to natural selection. It is a problem of being a man. The narrowly-defined cultural choice is cultural creations that reflect in the activities of cultural distinguishing and selecting. At deep level, the choice is not only the selection, but also an important practice activity of man, which reflects man's free instinct on creation. Therefore, we can say that the essence of cultural choice is to create culture. How the cultural choice is possible? In my view, the cultural choice is essential to every society and culture. It has a interdynamic relation with social needs and cultural development . There is no end of cultural choice at all. First of all, the cultural choice is a sign that man to be a man being. Secondly, the producing and development of cultural choice are subjective needs of man. Thirdly, the cultural choice often takes place in the cultural practice that the environment of culture changes. And the change of environment is a necessity of history, in this sense,it is essential for the social life and the historic development to select culture, and there is no alternative behaviors except choosing. Finally, to distinguish and select culture we have to examine our culture and other culture and comply with the overall trend of social cultural development. Then we may say that it is not only an objective strength but also an artificial effect to choose culture. Our ideal of cultural choice is to form a "harmonious variety"pattern and to carry out the integrated innovation of culture. According to the different understanding that the culture will be unified or various, we may divide the cultural choice into four kinds of pattern, namely the conflict unity, the conflict variety, the harmonious unity and the harmonious variety. In my view, the harmonious variety tallies with the objective needs and the trend of the development of man and culture. It is not an individual choice but a multiple choice with some levels for the cultural choice. For this reason, this thesis advocates to form " the plural cultural plates with some levels" and to promote the cultural choice changing to "harmonious variety". What we called levels means that Marxism culture guides the other kinds of culture, "the plural cultural plates " structure refers that culture is one whole that many kinds of culture may coexist hormonally in it. Secondly, I inspect the theory and practice of cultural choice andannounce that it is reasonable and proper to change from "conflict unity"to "harmonious variety"to promote the changing conscientiously. On theory, the thesis sorts out six kinds of paradigm on the cultural choice systematically, namely the cultural evolution, the cultural circulation, the cultural relativity, the cultural conflict, the cultural ecology, and the Marxism culture. Based on the practice, Marxism culture advocates the unity of opposite between the general and special, the relative independent character of culture, the ideology of culture, the propagation and creation of culture, and the all-round development of man, which enable it became a scientific methodology that may reach "harmonious variety". On the study of the practice of cultural choice, I sort out the practice of Japan, The United States, Russian and The world of Arab. In the thesis, I mainly inspect the characteristic and the contemporary problems of Japan, The United States and The world of Arab, and I also discuss the problem and the enlightenment of the development of Marxism culture in Russian. The practice also means that"Integrated Innovation"and "harmonious variety"is main way to solve the conflict not only among the different cultures of country and nation, but also in one country and nation. Finally, the thesis studies the practice of Chinese cultural choice. There are four times of cultural choice in Chinese history: esteeming the Confucian individually in the period of Emperor HanWu, choosing the Buddhism of India from the Han dynasty, choosing the western culture about the period of Opium War and choosing the Marxism culture before and after the May Fourth Movement. Since modern times, it became important difficult problem that the relation among ancient, modern, Chinese and foreign cultures. There are four kinds of solutions of this problem: Westernizing totally, Confucianism's rejuvenation, trading off to mediate and innovating synthetically. One of the main principles of innovating synthetically is to carry out the...