Cultural Heritage And Its Active Innovation

This dissertation is going to explore cultural heritage as a whole social-cultural phenomenon. As the relics of human activities, cultural heritage constitutes a special layer of culture since it is both integrate and incomplete.Cultural heritage studies is a highly practical discipline with rich and multiplex implications. It reflects a characteristic of intersection of multi-disciplines, which leads to the integrity of cultural heritage. From this point of view, this author emphasizes the similarity between cultural heritage studies and culture studies, and uses culturology as the theoretical basis.On the other side, cultural heritage is fragmentary rather than whole relics of human beings, which embodies the metabolism of the culture. Presently, the pace of the self-renewal of culture seems to increase abruptly, the self-innovation of cultural heritage, which contributes to promoting cultural diversity, is indispensable and inevitable. This question is about what to do, only after clarification of this question, we can work on how to do it which involves methods and techniques.Culturology is characterized by complexity and being multi-disciplinary, this author reviewed several classical cultural theories and use them as the theoretic tools to serve the application of cultural heritages. Based on these theories, this author’s analysis included two perspectives:First, according to linguistics originated from Saussure, this author pointed out that as the result of the binary thinking, "definition" contributes to the limitations of language, and then the limitation of relevant cultural structure based on language; Foucault, Bourdieu, Birmingham School had been doing research along with this theoretical structure. This perspective contributed this dissertation in two aspects: firstly, the background of language and text is the key point of the structure they shaped; secondly, considering the limitation of language, we reviewed the great significance of information contained in image, which can help people understand cultural heritage comprehensively and deeply.Second, since the question of the relationship between ideology and economic basis was put forward by Marx, relevant studies have became important part of cultural studies. Webber, who modified Marx’s original theory, pointed out that ideology and cultural patterns make important effects on the progress of the whole society. Later, western Marxists did research due to the social cultural situation, especially the rapid development of mass culture after World War Ⅱ. Advocating consumption supremacy, mass culture was criticized by the Frankfurt School in light of the conception of cultural industry as it had been an accomplice of privileged class in centralizing social resources. In general, these researches and viewpoints discovered the restriction of culture, which also reminded us to pay attention to the whole cultural situation of heritage when research on this subject and notice that "cultural ecology" which is opposite to natural ecology is one of the critical factors.This dissertation summarizes some regular phenomena while discussing the conception of "Cultural Organisms" abstractly and analyze it concretely according to the studies and practices of cultural heritage and macroscopic theory of culturology. This author integrate these phenomena and get a methodology design aimed at theoretical research and applications of cultural heritage.After investigating the present situation of cultural heritage, this author reaches the conclusion that "consumer culture" which targets quick renewal is the subject of the contemporary cultural ecology. Thus, to solve the "survival crisis" of cultural heritage, cultural innovation is indispensable. Innovation is the nature of culture, whether we realize it or not, culture is actually always in the process of motion and self-invention. The conception of active cultural innovation in this dissertation is that people take initiatives consciously in response to the abnormal self-renewal rate of contemporary culture. As "consumer culture" prevails, cultural innovation has to meet market demand, and the market would be the only necessary chain for cultural heritage to deal with the reality and try to change it. A living link should be established effectively between contemporary people and cultural heritage by cultural guidance. Cultural guidance can promote the establishment of the living link of two cultural organisms in an instructive and objective way. According to the different characteristics of people and cultural heritage that needs to be guided, the design of cultural guidance is also different.By using the concept of "Cultural Organisms" and the principles related to it, this dissertation gives analysis and discussion to those questions mentioned above. This author points out that cultural heritage is such an immense database and valuable frame of reference that the purpose of setting up a link with it is to understand human beings and the whole world in a better way. Since then, based on the harmonious cultural multiplex symbioses, we can have an amicable relationship with the world and promote the quality of our life integrally.