The Cultural Dilemma And Cultural Choice Of Contemporary Social Progress Of China

Culture undertakes a vital role in the progress of human society, which becomes increasingly important in the competition of the comprehensive national strength. Considering the stage of China’s development, the main conflicts and problems, it can be concluded that culture plays a decisive role. However, the development and construction of development in contemporary China fail to satisfy the requirements of social progress, either judged by international environment or domestic environment, which makes a lasting culture construction and empowering the nation with culture necessary. The process of constructing a strong cultural power is also the process of pushing Chinese society forward. Cultural development can rearrange and recreate the disperse, individualistic and fractured society, so as to instill great spiritual power into material progress and prosperity. This paper tries to combine social progress with culture construction. On one hand, it studies the function and role of culture in social progress. On the other, it analyzes the problems in Chinese social progress form the perspective of Chinese cultural practice. On this basis, the cultural appeals and choices will be explored and the ways and measures of culture construction will be suggested, which bear both theoretical importance and academic worth.This research uses the methods of document analysis, history analysis, summary of experiences and the theories of politics, futurology, literature and art, history and sociology to reveal the universality and complexity in the relationship between Chinese social progress and cultural practice with the basic logic of “theoretical analysis-practical problems-reason revelation-policy adoption”. On this basis, the research establishes the logical relationship between Chinese social progress and culture development. It finds out the dilemma and reveal the mechanism from practical perspective. Finally, solutions are given from the dual perspective of society and country, development and price, culture and progress. The thesis is made up of five chapters.Chapter One is Idea and Value: Culture, Social Progress and Their relationship. To explore the cultural dilemma and selection in China’s social progress, the basic definitions like culture, social progress and their relationship must be clarified. This chapter provides theoretical basis for the whole research. Culture is sum of the behavioral habits and ways of thinking among all the members in a society, which may decide people’s inclination of communication, thoughts, senses and behaviors. It offers the mode of behavior, values and moral judgments for all members in a society or a group. Based on the positioning of human worth, culture can be divided in to five types: normative, regulatory, directing, infiltrating and embedded type. Social progress refers to the values that can actualize the comprehensive and free developments of individuals based on social practices. The goal or final goal of social progress is the free and comprehensive development of individuals, which, as an abstract and expected aim, can be concreted as systematic sub-goals in different times and historical environments. These sub-goals are the judgments and standards to evaluate the level of social development. On the whole, the evaluating system at least includes political, economical, social, cultural and ecological aspects, which may offer an overall perspective to evaluate the growth of individuals. The essence of social progress is the development and progress of individuals, which is reflected by values and finally in a cultural form. Culture plays an important role in social progress. On one hand, culture construction can stimulate social progress, which offers spiritual incentive, intellectual support and value guidance. On the other, social progress itself also has cultural requirements which are reflected in cultural expression of political civilization, cultural support for economic developments, civilization of individuals and the inner law of culture progress itself. In China, there are more or less disagreements or paradoxes in all these above-mentioned aspects.Chapter Two is Reflection and Retrospection: Textual Research of the Relationship Between China’s Social Progress and Culture Development. This chapter explores the development of China’s contemporary culture construction and its relationship with social progress from the perspective of social practice. At the establishment of People’s Republic of China, culture construction was performed by outer political force, which removed the obstacles for the forthcoming socialist culture. It was a profound change for the whole Chinese society, which changed the structure of social culture from a plural one to a unitary one. From 1956 to 1966, the target of culture construction was clear and many policies were issued accordingly. But in the Cultural Revolution period from the May of 1966 to the October of 1976, the socialist culture construction was out of its normal track and the existed socialist values were also denied. In Deng Xiaoping’s time, Chinese culture construction began to open to the outside world, which resumed the plural culture mode from unitary mode. In Jiang Zemin’s time, culture got an equal position with economy and politics. The strategic importance of culture began to take shape. In Hu Jintao’s time socialist culture construction entered a profound and retrospection age. Culture construction with an scientific outlook on development was formed, which included people-oriented culture construction mode, the construction of the socialist core value system and harmonious society. Cultural reform and innovations were promoted and the vigor and motivation are strengthened. In Xi Jinping’s administration, the new strategies of Chinese culture construction gradually became explicit, which are the fostering of the socialist core value system, the promoting of the traditional Chinese outstanding culture, the emphasis on ideologies, the enhancement of the nation’s soft power and the construction of a powerful socialist nation. The experiences in this period can be divided into four aspects: development of culture theories; critical cultural innovations and mindsets; ideas of constructing an open, plural and tolerant culture; new mentality from state construction to social cultivation.Chapter Three is Challenges and Restrictions: the Cultural Dilemma in the Social Progress of Contemporary China. This chapter is written from three perspectives: the deficiencies in the evaluation system of Chinese social progress; the regulation and restriction of culture development on China’s social progress; the price of Chinese social progress. The deficiencies can be summarized as: the decline of the traditional cultural identity system; the lack of modern public identity culture; the lagging behind of culture construction; the lack of a core cultural value system based on daily life and historical prototype; the lack of integration and recognition of the culture construction; failure in the formation of national cultural soft power. In addition, culture fails to become direct productivity and national influence, no to say the reflection of the superiority of the socialist system. The regulation and restriction can be concluded in the following aspects: the traditional culture fails to expand sufficient positive energy; the corrosive culture of violence based on individualism prevents Chinese society from progressing; the overflow of western culture shocks the mainstream Chinese culture and ideas; the localization of Marxism clashes with the main stream Chinese culture and puts the paradoxes of Marxism as the mainstream culture of Chinese in the process of economic construction and marketization. The culture price of Chinese social progress includes the sense of loss of the “super-cultural” society, the loss of traditional culture and cultural identity.Chapter Four: Analysis and Conclusion: the Cause for the Cultural Dilemma of Social Progress in Contemporary China. There are three causes. The first is the cognitive bias of social progress theory in contemporary China. The bias include the major misunderstanding of Marxism and “productivity only” theory. The former leads to people’s doubt on all Marxist theories and judgments. The latter causes the lagging of social and culture construction. The second is the operational faults of social progress in contemporary China, which are reflected in the conflicts between the social transformation and interest patterns, the inner and outer deficiencies in the socialistic market system and the lagging behind of the political reform. The third is the negative trend of the Chinese social cultural development. Today, three main factors influence the progress of cultural environment for social progress: cultural colonialism under the background of globalization, the spiritual manacles on cultural and social progress caused by the inefficiencies in the cultural system, as well as the erosion and destruction of the cultural ecology in daily life.Chapter Five is Strategies and Approaches: The Culture Selection of Social Progress in Contemporary China. The principles of culture selection should include the co-existence of cultures, the guidance of advanced culture and service of culture for the society. In social evaluation system, the effective strategies against the culture defects should be studied from the following aspects: to establish the scientific concept of the social progress; to highlight the soft power of the social culture; to build the long-term evaluation system. Adjustments concerning culture price must made. Adjusting system, including system mechanism and social mechanism, must be established. And they should aim to bridge the fracture between culture policies and their implementation, the gap between social progress and culture’s needs and the time and spatial breakage in culture progress. Solutions to the cultural problems and cultural innovations must be based on the prosperity of socialistic culture, including: creating and completing the socialistic core values to give spiritual support to social orders; expanding and enhancing citizens’ moral levels to push forward the growth of the main force in the society; promoting the comprehensive development of social practice; enriching people’s spiritual and cultural life to satisfy the requirements of social life; enhancing the comprehensive cultural force to integrate social benefits and economic development, etc.The breakthrough of the culture predicaments in China’s social progress is not a problem of culture itself, but of the whole social system. How to cultivate China’s civil society, and to produce citizen’s culture is an important approach for China’s culture construction and progress. It is also a basic solution to bridge the gap between macro-culture system and micro-social life. This thesis contributes to present a relational diagram of the social relation between China’s social progress and culture, as well as find out the causes of the dilemma and reveal the mechanism behind the phenomena.