Culture And Thought And The Modernization Of China

The culture and thought of Tseng Kuo-fan is mainly based on two kinds of culture. The first was Chinese traditional culture. Tseng Kuo-fan who called himself 'ancestor of Confucianism in Song Dynasty' believed in the rationalistic philosophy of Cheng yi and Zhu xi as well as 'all-embraced the theory of both Han Dynasty and Song Dynasty' and 'learned from all other schools of thought', becoming a collector of Chinese traditional culture. Meanwhile, he carried forward the spirit 'useful for ages' in the modern HuXiang culture, and developed the thought 'Deal with foreigners with what have been learned from them'. Second, modern western culture , which greatly influenced the culture and thought of Tseng Kuo-fan by making it in the way escape from the thought of 'China is the focus', and from the doctrine of 'domestic theory as subject foreign theory as supplement' while insisting on the Chinese traditional culture as the noumenon.The rich content of Tseng Kuo-fan culture and thought consists of the rationalistic Confucian philosophy of 'sincerely believe in ChengZhu', the thought of 'all-embracing', the thought of 'be pragmatic and simple', the thought of 'domestic theory as subject, foreign theory as supplement', the thought of 'be self-reliant and prosperous' and so on.Tseng Kuo-fan advocated, launched, and carried out the Westernization Movement. His Westernization thought about politics, foreign affairs, military affairs, economy, education etc. has provided some prerequisite for the outset of Chinese modernization. Hence, Tseng was honored as 'The Father of Chinese Modernization'.Tseng Kuo-fan culture and thought was of a dual characteristic-both conservative and open. On one hand, it was open and enterprising, which as a very important factor in Chinese modern culture and thought, accelerated academic research, strengthened cultural communication between western countries and China, accelerated the propagation of modern science and technology, and provided certain prerequisite for the outset of Chinese modernization. On the other hand, it was out of date and conservative, which took in every dregs of feudaltraditional culture, and which wholly repelled modern western advanced thought and political policy. It protected the out of date feudal doctrine so as to protect the feudal hierarchy and absolute monarchy. So it initiated the conservatism of modern culture, which indicated that the cultural thought of Tseng Kuo-fan was of great historical and class limitation, led to its limited influence on Chinese modernization.This paper tries to study the relationship between the culture and thought of Tseng Kuo-fan and Chinese modernization, and to study the tortuous course of Chinese modernization so as to serve our socialist modernization.