The Civilization Losing The Cultural Identification

After the middle of 20 century, serious cultural contradictions appeared in the social circumstances of flourishing economy and stable politics in western capitalistic society, which is a historical fact that can't be neglected and denied. The crisis of ideal culture as the spiritual soul itself is the deep reflection of social crisis. So, as for the cultural contradictions of current capitalistic society, we may regard them as crisis of social development of capitalism. Generally, cultural crisis appears in the transition of social structure, and be caused by the conflicts of new and old cultural paradigm. But, cultural crisis of current capitalism society is full of spiritual distress in society, which isn't familiar in the history of mankind. Then, we should choose a new perspective to unscramble the cultural crisis rather than adopt a general theory of cultural philosophy.Cultural contradictions of current capitalistic society are induced by the mutual hostility and rivalry between culture and civilization of capitalism. The culture means the self-realization and self-creation in the mankind practice, while civilization means the social harvest of objectification of mankind's essential power. Both culture and civilization originate from the way of existence particular to mankind-practice. Man is kind of the"incomplete"existence; the essence of man is the free and self-conscious creation, while culture means the continuous action of man based on practice that embodies the internal activism and creativity. Man, as the real existence of historical creation, must prove its essential power with the help of external objectification, embodies the transcendence to nature, then the social harvest of man is civilization. The relation between culture and civilization is unity of opposites. The unity of them implies that culture is the value coordinate of civilization development and civilization is the realistic ladder of culture; while the opposite means that cultural ideality can't find the realistic foundation of self-realization in the flouring social civilization apparently and become a reachless dream, and the flouring social civilization apparently has lost the impetus and groundwork to further development because of no support and identification of value ideal that culture supplies. In fact, the unity of opposites between culture and civilization is one of internal and external values of mankind in the historical development, mankind itself and its creation of it, and the development of mankind itself and social progress.Historical progress of social civilization of current capitalism incarnates adequately that it can conquer the natural limits of the development of civilization, make man break the reliance on the nature, and develop mankind's natural instincts in the social relation, especially economic relation of market exchange. While at the same time, this kind of civilization has its inevitable social limits which is evidenced that human world created by mankind has became a natural world external to mankind and vice verse human world rule, enslave mankind and make man catabolized. Social civilization of capitalism betrays the value criterion of cultural development, becomes the strong catabolized power to enslave man and to compel culture to criticize and resist suppression of civilization by devious way, which are the essence and exhibition of cultural contradictions of capitalistic society.Cultural contradictions of capitalistic society become prominent after the middle of 20 century, whose focus has existed in the early stage of social development of capitalism. The great development of modern capitalistic society is closely related to the relevant differentiation and progressive perfection of social structure, in Bell'words, that is to say"core principles"have been established in the fields of economy, politics and ideal spirit of society, which contribute to the perfect development of society. But during the course of the 100 years of historical development,"efficiency principle"of economy field expands greatly, and destroys the"equal principle"of politics field and"self-realization principle"of ideal culture field, Protestantism as the spirit of capitalism only has leave the branch of"economic impetus"to have real effect, while the"religious impetus"that provide the moral foundation, value groundwork and cultural spirit has been cleared out by"acid of modernity"of capitalism gradually.Western scholars in different ages make analysis and diagnose against cultural contradictions of capitalistic society from their respective theoretical perspectives, and prescribe differently, but they discuss the culture only for culture, and don't explore the social shortcomings with the level of social crisis behind the cultural contradictions. Due to the above reasons, their respective prescriptions are doomed to be frustred.In fact, cultural contradictions of capitalistic society is decided by the characters of way of mankind's practice in this kind of society, which symbolize the survival crisis in this stage of historical development by the way of social contradictions, is the dual blend of the survival puzzledom in this social form and survival crisis faced by mankind in this historical stage. In capitalistic society, with the huge increase of capability of mankind's practice and the exclusive domination of instrumental reason, the number and kinds of human's creature expand greatly. On the one side, the creature adequately embodies the essential power and external values; on the other side, since the creature, such as commodity and money, does not serve the need of mankind's development but the logic of capital increase, which decide that social civilization of capitalism can't be realistic ladder of cultural development and doom that this kind of civilization necessarily betray the cultural value idea of mankind, lose the identification of value and become the catabolized power suppressing and limiting man's development. Thus, humankind's civilization harvest becomes more refulgent, hostility and rivalry between culture and civilization is more vehement, and the cultural contradictions are more serious.As the civilization deviates from culture and lose the value approach of culture, it becomes the catabolized power, which isn't the particular phenomena of capitalistic society but is the common to man's development in the commodity economy society, cultural contradictions resulting from the above circumstances become the inescapable encounter for mankind in the society of commodity economy. The essential character of society of commodity economy is materialization, that is to say it is a materialized society in which labor product of mankind exists as"commodity"and the principle impenetrates all the aspects of social life. So, the man's independence realized in the society of commodity economy society is built on the one that depends on the matters (like creature, commodity), and man's dependence gives rise to the appreciation of man and depreciation of material which become the cultural fate of man in the society of commodity economy. After man is beyond the dissimilation in the divine images, it is immersed in the dissimilation in the mundane images. In a word, the character of materialization in the society of commodity economy and man's development in the development of commodity economy, cause the reversal of the subjection of materials and the materialization of man. So, the glorious social civilization created by the society of commodity economy both facilitates the liberal development of man and causes the suppression of man's development. The suppression will appear in the way of cultural contradictions in the developed society of commodity economy. From the perspective of relation, because capitalistic society regards the pursuits of wealth as fundamental impetus of accelerating the civilization, tries to conquer all the fields of society with the logic of capital, uses the efficiency principle to slaughter the cultural world, so the cultural contradictions in the society of modern developed capitalism are the intensified and ex parte reflection of cultural contradictions in the society of commodity economy.Modern China is in the age of commodity economy, and developing commodity economy is an important part of constructing socialistic civilization with Chinese characteristics. How to avoid the cultural contradictions of commodity economy era while developing commodity economy and creating commodity civilization, is the question that should be considered and taken seriously in the constructing socialism with Chinese characteristics, and it is the cultural contradictions contained in the developed unstinted and poorly oft capitalistic society mentally that supply the most realistic and deepest edification and caution. In fact, serious cultural contradictions caused by the rivalry between civilization and culture in the commodity economy era, which are closely relevant to the essence of social system combine with the commodity economy. Capitalistic wage labor system built on the private ownership system of produced goods makes the potential rivalry between civilization and culture expand unlimitedly and cultural contradictions exhibit in the most furious and ex parte form, while new socialistic system different from capitalistic system fundamentally can mitigate and avoid the possibility of cultural contradictions in the commodity economy era, whose specific way is to decrease and lessen the opposites between commodity civilization and personal development of man through the combination of socialistic system and internal and new characteristic of commodity economy. This implies that we should insist on the"people oriented"in constructing the socialistic civilization with Chinese characteristics; avoid the pan-materialization while developing economy; promote the harmonious development among the socialistic economy, politics and ideal culture; strengthen the socialistic construction of concept of core values, realize the integration of notion of commodity and humanistic spirits, and it is more fundamental for us to regard the internal harmonization of socialistic culture and civilization as the supreme so as to promote the liberal development of man completely.