Research On The Influence Of Official-oriented Culture On Technological Innovation In China

Official-oriented culture means that authority plays the most important role in everyone’svalue judgments and social activities, it is one of the most important parts of the Chinesetraditional culture.As the most important part of productivity, technology is not only an issue of economics,but also a research object of sociology. Culture can influence the development of science andtechnology through people’s value judgments, behavioral choices and institutional regulations.Some cultures may have positive influence on the development of technology, but on thecontrary, as some other parts of Chinese traditional culture, official-oriented culture’sinfluence on the development of technology in China is negative.Because of the influence of official-oriented culture, truth-seeking, scientific spirit andscientific methods are not really accepted by whole Chinese society. Under such condition,only some limited technology improves which mainly based on simple experience arepossible, and even improves have been made, the developer of new technology may not berewarded properly, as the whole Chinese society does not see private property and technologyimprovement as very important.Scholar’s interests and thinking methods are also influenced by official-oriented culture.In Chinese society, most of the students dream of entering government as an official througheducation and examination, so they only study anything about power and how to get power.Science and technology, however, are only considered as tools, and are hard to become theirinterests as technology achievements seldom leads to success on power.What’s more, in order to maintain power and control economy completely, under theinfluence of official-oriented culture, people prefer to set up autarkical economic system anddislike trade. But such economic mode can not form large market, and without large marketand intensified operation, machine-based industry could not appear and develop.Based on the analyze of official-oriented culture above, the following conclusion can bemade that as one of the most important part of Chinese traditional culture, official-orientedculture has greatly influenced and limited the technology development of Chinese society. Inorder to develop economy and technology, we should get rid of the valuation system ofofficial-oriented culture, and set up a new valuation system which admits various kinds of achievements as successful, including science and technology achievements. Only such kindof culture can provide enough freedom to the people, encourage them to carry out inventionactivities, and improve the creativity of the whole society.