A Comparative Study Of Chinese And Western Family Culture In The Perspective Of Historical Materialism

Family is the product of history,and family culture is the result of rational reflection after people consciously examine family life in practice.The family is the organic cell of the social organism,and the family culture is an important factor in ensuring the health of the family cell.Family harmony,family culture and health,individual talents can be cultivated,society can be stable and orderly,and the role of the family as a "bridge" connecting individuals and society can be truly realized.Today,under the development of modernity,the market economy dominates,while changing people's production methods,it also changes people's family life concepts in a deeper sense.Traditional families and their family culture have been disintegrated in new social practices and relationships.Individuals face constant departure from traditional family life,and once again fall into the predicament of looking for modern families.The family itself also faces value dilemmas,ethical dilemmas,family education dilemmas,and inheritance and fracture dilemmas.Entering the new era,people urgently need to explore new cultures to solve the dilemmas of individuals and families,and to ensure the orderly development of society.Based on the historical materialism as the theoretical basis and the cultural philosophy as the observational perspective,this paper explores the reasonable resources of traditional family culture and western family culture through the comparative study of Chinese and Western family culture,and tries to provide a reference for the exploration of family culture in the new era.Historical materialism is a magic weapon for people to study human social phenomena and social existence.As a social phenomenon and a social existence,the family and its family culture must conform to the general law of historical materialism.Throughout the history of ancient Chinese and Western society,it can be found that the family is the common choice of human life in the early days and is a common phenomenon in human society.From the animal-like nature to the consciouschoice of the family as a way of life,from the disorderly blood marriage family to the modern civilized society,the family is monogamous.Every step of the family and the focus of people's practice "production of living materials" It is inseparable from "man's own production".The need for “two productions” directly creates a need for family life.Through the family,the survival data and the reproduction of life are realized,and the family's self-identification is realized through family interaction.In line with this,the family as an economic production unit has the production function to meet the needs of people's living materials.As a family of fertility units,it has the production function of continuing its own and ethnic life.At the same time,the family as a breeding unit has the function of raising and cultivating future generations.The "two kinds of production",which combines the dual attributes of nature and society,determines the nature of the family on which it is produced.Family culture is the manifestation of human nature in family life.It is the result of externalizing and objectifying people's essential forces in concrete family life practice.It is a concentrated reflection of people's social relations,and it is also inevitable for people.Non-free state goes to the process of human freedom.Since entering the civilized society,family culture has played an important role in safeguarding people's survival and life,but it has also become a tool to bind people's freedom in the will of the ruler.To achieve human liberation,it is necessary to criticize the non-freedom of buying and selling marriage as the essence.The family culture began,taking human liberation as the value appeal of family culture,and actively constructing a family culture that realizes human liberation as the content.From the perspective of historical materialism,the change of family culture is inseparable from the changes in people's social practice and social relations.In the early days of mankind,the whole society was the whole society,and the marriage system was the social system.Under the natural economic conditions in which the social production capacity is low and the scope of life is limited to blood relatives,the individual is more dependent on the family,the blood,and the ethical relationship.The society is based on the blood family.Once the new social system is generated from private property,private property can be used to control others through wealth,and class opposition will arise from it,followed by the transformation of classrelationship power,the blood ethics organization society will be replaced by the state,and the family culture will also be traditional.The blood ethical family culture changes to the individual-based family culture.The evolution of Chinese and Western family culture is transformed from social economic conditions to industrial-based market economy conditions to social dynamics.From the perspective of cultural philosophy,the content of family culture revolves around the relationship between ownership.The self-sufficient agricultural nature of the pre-Qin period made traditional family culture a typical ethical blood culture.Family culture is centered on blood relationship and has the main characteristics of ethics,group,family-based,and parent-child relationship.In the"Book of Changes" and Confucian culture,the relationship between men and women is affirmed,and the family culture belonging to the ruling class has a distinct level of honor.The legal family stipulates family culture in the criminal law order.Taoism breaks the ruling and rule of law culture of Confucianism and Legalism,and achieves worldly liberation with nature.With the burgeoning of modern industry and the influx of new cultural ideas,the family of blood ethics began to transform into individual families with independent individuality.This idea was consolidated in the marriage system.In the market economy,the individual family culture is highly praised.However,due to the existence of the “paradox” in the transition period,people enjoy the freedom of individual family culture and lose the support of traditional family culture,becoming the “homeless” wandering.".Individual family culture is in a dilemma of individual family culture that is alienated,utilitarian,and liberalized.Western ancient Greek family culture presents the process of individual family culture liberating from the ancient Greek city-state interest family culture and medieval religious family culture to the capitalist individual family culture.Plato dispels the natural family for the purpose of city-state interests.Aristotle affirms the perfection of the city-state and family community from the perspective of ethical justice.Happiness starts from the happiness principle of individual nature and affirms the righteousness of individuals to get happiness from the family.Medieval religious family culture began with the early Christian abstinence,and experienced Aquinas' s“sacred” marriage for the purpose of childbearing,and finally ended up with the“Knight's Love” as the budding personality.But the true Western-style individual-based family culture really began in the capitalist society realized by private ownership.Bacon and Rousseau stand in the emerging bourgeois perspective,exploring the family culture from the perspective of nature and humanity.From the issue of ownership of private property,Kant incorporates marriage and family into the legal contract relationship.Contract marriage belongs to the scope of “the right to human rights with property rights” and is the right of both parties to possess each other.The obligation and right of reciprocity are the essence of marriage.Hegel regards marriage and family culture as the direct substantive existence of ethical spirit.Family culture has the nature of ethical love.Mutual love is the highest purpose of family culture and opposes Kant's physical contract culture.The evolution of Chinese and Western family culture reflects the transformation of family culture from natural blood family culture to individual-based family culture.It is the purpose of family culture to realize individual freedom and happiness.Comparing the development process,we can see that there is a commonality between Chinese and Western family culture.From the perspective of lifestyle,the blood family is the earliest way of life,and the family culture is the fate,the power,and the community culture of interest.From the perspective of order,family culture is a culture of order.The generation of the family itself is the process from disorder to order.The natural division of labor between men and women and the division of family roles are themselves the embodiment of the self-construction order.From the perspective of the function of family culture,family culture is a culture of educating people.Parents are also supported while taking care of the offspring of childbearing.This is the historical commonality of Chinese and Western families.There are differences in commonality,and difference is an inevitable existence.From the perspective of family value,Chinese family culture belongs to the family-oriented group,and the West is individual-oriented and individual happiness.In the concept of family culture,Chinese family culture emphasizes the responsibility of clan and family,while the West pays more attention to the equivalence of obligations and rights.Judging from the family culture model,the family model under the Chinese patriarchal ideology is the father and son culture,and the male esteem focuses on themale ideology.Western individual culture belongs to the husband-and-owner culture,and the family culture is centered on the relationship between husband and wife,paying more attention to the equality between men and women."Social existence determines social consciousness." The differences between Chinese and Western family cultures are caused by their respective dominant economic forms,social political structures,natural factors and cultural spirits,and they have their own unique background.The current dilemma of family culture itself,the development of market economy is pointing to the exploration of family culture in the new era.In the face of the unavoidable family problems in the new era,the essence of the rationality of Chinese and Western family culture thoughts is the starting point and the conclusion point of the thesis.Under the premise of analysing the family culture history and the ideological resources of Chinese and Western cultures,it is concluded that Chinese and Western families and their cultures have the commonality in essence.This paper believes that the exploration of family culture in the new era must resolve the relationship with traditional culture,Western culture and national culture.While inheriting the essence of human thoughts at the same time,we must take the needs of people in the new era for the needs of a better life,and take the individual,social and national requirements of socialist core values as the value orientation,with Xi Jinping The socialist ideology with Chinese characteristics as the theoretical guidance in the exploration of family culture,and to achieve the integration of purpose,value and ideas.Based on the new era and the development of market economy,we will integrate Chinese and Western family cultures,and build a benign existence and development of the family by cultivating the independent individual personality that is needed to shape the modern society,thus stabilizing the modernization of social security.