Four Dimensions of Modern Civilization of the Chinese Nation
[In-depth study and implementation of Socialism with Chinese characteristics Thought of the Supreme Leader in the New Era]
Author: Wang Qingfeng (Professor, School of Philosophy and Social Sciences, Jilin University)
General Secretary of the Supreme Leader stressed at the forum on cultural inheritance and development: "It is our new cultural mission in the new era to continue to promote cultural prosperity, build a cultural power and build a modern civilization of the Chinese nation at a new starting point." Building a modern civilization of the Chinese nation is a scientific judgment made by the CPC Central Committee with the Supreme Leader as the core at a new historical starting point, based on a profound insight into the development trend of human civilization. Marxism and Chinese excellent traditional culture are the "soul pulse" and "root pulse" of our construction of modern civilization of the Chinese nation, and laid the cornerstone of modern civilization of the Chinese nation. On this basis, the Chinese nation has formed its own unique concept of civilization in different dimensions, such as people themselves, people and people, people and nature, and countries and countries, and in the process of building a modern civilization of the Chinese nation with national responsibility, historical consciousness and human values, it presents four dimensions: subject civilization, shared civilization, ecological civilization and world civilization.
All-round development of subject civilization
In the final analysis, civilization is human civilization, and the development degree of civilization has historical consistency with that of human itself. The construction of modern civilization of the Chinese nation, in its primary sense, is to promote people’s free and all-round development in the practice of new civilization with a high degree of historical consciousness.
As soon as the western modern civilization began, it was not "man himself" but "active" capital that acted as the "real historical subject". Capital has "independence and individuality", while active individuals have lost "independence and individuality", and people’s fate is always dominated by the abstraction of capital. This modern civilization is regarded by Engels as "hidden slavery" or "slavery that was fully developed in the civilized era". In this situation, people lose their subjective status and are only an objective existence of "active" capital. On the one hand, capitalism has turned the material civilization of human beings into a carnival of material desires, and concepts such as materialization, objectification and fetishism have characterized the alienated existence of modern people. On the other hand, "every progress in production is also a retrogression in the living conditions of the oppressed class, that is, most people". Although capitalist civilization constitutes the initial or even universal form of modern civilization, it does not constitute the final and overall fate and needs to be sublated by human beings.
Marx believes that the changes of human society generally go through three stages: ancient society — — Man’s complete dependence on nature; Modern society — — The stage of human independence based on the dependence of things; Future society — — The stage of "free personality based on the all-round development of individuals and their common social productive capacity becoming their social wealth". In China’s excellent traditional culture, there is always an abundant pursuit of complete personality such as "learning to be an adult", "gentleman’s personality" and "being sage inside and king outside". Comrade Supreme Leader once pointed out in Zhijiang Xinyu: "People are essentially cultural people, not ‘ Materialization ’ People; Is a dynamic and comprehensive person, not a rigid, ‘ One-dimensional ’ People. Human beings not only pursue material conditions and economic indicators, but also pursue ‘ Happiness index ’ ; Not only pursue the harmony of natural ecology, but also pursue ‘ Spiritual ecology ’ Harmony; Not only pursue efficiency and fairness, but also pursue the harmony of interpersonal relationships and the enrichment of spiritual life, and pursue the meaning of life. " This exposition is a concrete and profound expression of the concept of subject civilization.
The modern civilization of the Chinese nation constructs and composes modern civilization in the historical coordinates of Chinese modernization, and endows people with a real historical subject position in the actual achievements of civilization. The core essence of this all-round development of the subject civilization lies in: transcending the alienated existence of human beings in the capitalist civilization state and making people move from a repressive one-dimensional person to a free and all-round development person.
People-oriented shared civilization
People are not isolated individuals, but "the sum of all social relations". The progress of civilization is not only reflected by people themselves, but also represented by "the relationship between people". Different interpersonal relationships reflect different levels of civilization development.
Under the condition of capitalist civilization, although the relationship between people transcends the interdependence in natural economy or agricultural civilization, it has formed "all relations that make people become insulted, enslaved, abandoned and despised". The reason is that "the silence of economic relations forces the capitalists to rule the workers", and the relationship between people is not only alienated and unfamiliar due to the intermediary of "things" itself, but also presents a kind of "inhuman" relationship. As a "silent coercion of economic relations", capital power is not only an "economic power", but also a "political power". This dominant power of capital eventually led to the slavery and exploitation of workers by capitalists, which made the great achievements of material civilization created by capitalism monopolized by a few people. The national concept, political model, system design and the whole social operation of the western democratic system are all based on the principle that the bourgeoisie can obtain profits, and ultimately serve the capitalist countries. Parliament, as the core element of western democratic system, is essentially only the representative of the bourgeoisie, a special interest group. It can be seen that capitalist civilization is a kind of private civilization in essence.
Based on the criticism of capital logic, Marx and Engels emphasized that the future society should "turn capital into public property belonging to all members of society", change the social nature of property, and let capital "lose its class nature". In line with this, in the excellent traditional Chinese culture, the concepts and ideas such as "people-oriented", "great harmony", "well-off" and "harmony" embody the unique and distinctive value goals and cultural pursuits of the Chinese nation. An important reason why the proposal and construction of modern civilization of the Chinese nation can stand on the right side of history and the progress of human civilization is that it adheres to the people-centered development thought and is essentially a shared civilization. Sharing civilization means that the relationship between people is not antagonistic, but equal and harmonious.
General Secretary of the Supreme Leader pointed out: "Let the broad masses of the people share the fruits of reform and development, which is the essential requirement of socialism, the concentrated embodiment of the superiority of the socialist system, and the important embodiment of our party’s fundamental purpose of serving the people wholeheartedly." In the process of building the modern civilization of the Chinese nation, our party attaches importance to regulating and restraining the profit-seeking nature of capital, not only ensuring that capital participates in social distribution to gain proliferation and development, but also giving full play to the positive role of capital in promoting the development of social productive forces; It also pays attention to education and guides capital subjects to practice socialist core values, stresses credit and faithfulness, and emphasizes social responsibility; Pay more attention to maintaining the dominant position of distribution according to work, adhere to the principle that development is for the people, development depends on the people, and development results are shared by the people, and unswervingly follow the road of common prosperity for all people. At the same time, our party has made democracy a way of life by developing people’s democracy in the whole process and ensuring that people carry out democratic elections, democratic consultations, democratic decision-making, democratic management and democratic supervision according to law. In practice, whether the well-off society is built in an all-round way or the common prosperity is solidly promoted, whether it is the establishment of the concept of building, co-governing and sharing social governance or the promotion of urban-rural integration and regional coordinated development, it all shows the people-centered sharing characteristics of modern Chinese civilization.
Harmonious and symbiotic ecological civilization
Man is a part of nature, which is the premise of the sustainable development of human civilization, and the boundary of nature constitutes the ontological limit of human civilization. In terms of how to deal with the relationship between man and nature, the relationship between man and nature is antagonistic under the condition of western capitalist civilization, while ecological civilization shows a brand-new civilized concept of dealing with the relationship between man and nature.
Since mankind entered the era of industrial civilization, traditional industrialization has developed rapidly, which has not only created great material wealth, but also accelerated the capture of natural resources, broken the original cycle and balance of the earth’s ecosystem, caused the tension between man and nature, and brought about the dysfunction of civilization. Under the capitalist civilization, man and nature are binary opposites. While disenchanting nature, capitalist civilization "destroys all restrictions that hinder the development of productive forces, expand needs, diversify production, and use and exchange natural and spiritual forces", reducing nature to the object of conquest and materialization. The western social development model based on capitalist civilization is unsustainable because its economic growth is at the expense of plundering and destroying nature, and "for every such victory, nature retaliates against us".
According to Marxism, the relationship between man and nature is characterized by material transformation, and man should realize the harmonious coexistence between man and nature through labor. Engels emphasized, "Therefore, every step we take must remember that we will never dominate nature as conquerors rule aliens, and we will never dominate nature as people who stand outside nature". Chinese excellent traditional culture also advocates the idea that "heaven and earth coexist with me, and everything is one with me". Based on these theoretical resources, the modern civilization of the Chinese nation has realized the change of thinking mode in dealing with the relationship between man and nature, that is, it has surpassed the concept of taking nature as the object of being squeezed and plundered, and turned the relationship between man and nature into a harmonious and symbiotic relationship.
General Secretary of the Supreme Leader pointed out, "Man and nature are a community of life, and human beings must respect, conform to and protect nature. The modernization we want to build is the modernization of harmonious coexistence between man and nature. " Ecological civilization is not fundamentally opposed to industrial civilization or economic growth, but only to the growth doctrine dominated by capital logic. Chinese-style modern ecological civilization does not passively conform to nature, but advocates the concept of green development, realizes the coordination between ecological protection and economic development, and maximizes the efficiency and benefit of ecological economy. In this sense, "harmonious symbiosis" is a positive reconciliation between man and nature, not only a way of coexistence, but also a way of development. On the one hand, through industrial ecologicalization, we can improve eco-economic efficiency, achieve maximum economic benefits with minimum resource consumption, and protect green mountains and green hills when creating Jinshan Yinshan; On the other hand, through ecological industrialization, ecosystem services have economic value, and green mountains are turned into Jinshan Yinshan. The modern civilization of the Chinese nation has integrated the concept of "harmonious coexistence between man and nature" into the road of Chinese modernization and devoted itself to the sustainable development of human civilization.
The world civilization of concord and all nations
Since human society entered the modern era, economic globalization has become an irreversible trend. "The more capital develops, the more the market through which capital circulates, and the more the market that constitutes the road of capital circulation space expands, and the more capital strives to expand the market in space, and strive to use time to eliminate more space." The western society marked by capitalist civilization has gradually formed the self-superiority consciousness of "western-centered theory", which eventually leads to the colonial ideology and racist ideology of civilization, which is embodied in the handling of the relations between countries as "center — Marginal "monistic modernity mode.
This is the "illusory" community criticized by Marx: a community with a name but no reality. "When we turned our eyes from the hometown of bourgeois civilization to the colony, the extreme hypocrisy of bourgeois civilization and its barbaric nature appeared naked in front of us." Capital creates a world with its own face, but in the process of economic globalization, this way of creation is extremely unequal "subordinate" relationship: "Just as it makes rural areas subordinate to cities, it makes uncivilized and semi-open countries subordinate to civilized countries, peasants’ nationalities subordinate to bourgeois nationalities, and the East subordinate to the West." The "subordinate" relationship between countries highlights the unfinished business of modern political liberation and reflects the political barbarism in civilized times.
General Secretary of the Supreme Leader pointed out: "The Chinese nation inherits and pursues the concept of peace, harmony and harmony. We have not invaded and bullied others in the past, nor will we seek hegemony in the future. China has always been a builder of world peace, a contributor to global development, a defender of the international order and a provider of public goods, and will continue to provide new opportunities for the world with the new development of China. " The Marxist theory of world history and the ideas of "loving and not attacking", "valuing harmony", "upholding faith and repairing friendship" and "harmonizing all nations" contained in Chinese excellent traditional culture are concentrated in China’s practice of promoting the construction of a community of human destiny in the construction of modern Chinese civilization. To promote the building of a community of human destiny is not to replace one system with another, nor to replace another civilization with one civilization, but to share interests, rights and responsibilities in international affairs among countries with different social systems, ideologies, histories and cultures and different levels of development.
It can be seen that promoting the construction of a community of human destiny is to advocate interdependence, common destiny and win-win cooperation between countries in the connotation of civilization. Interdependence is a structural transcendence of "western centralism", that is, it does not impose its own values and models on others, does not engage in ideological confrontation, and transcends "centralism — Edge "model, establish a partnership of equal treatment, mutual business and mutual understanding, and jointly promote the development and progress of human civilization; Common destiny is a systematic criticism of the "clash of civilizations", that is, deepening the understanding of the differences between different civilizations, recognizing the uniqueness of national civilizations, respecting the diversity of world civilizations, advocating and carrying forward the common values of all mankind from the common well-being of all mankind, and promoting harmonious but different and inclusive civilized exchanges; Win-win cooperation is an overall deconstruction of the theory that "a strong country must dominate", that is, it insists on peaceful cooperation, mutual benefit and win-win, and strives to promote the common development of all countries and build a harmonious world of common prosperity.
The modern civilization of the Chinese nation is the modern form of Chinese civilization, and it is the "self-assertion" and "self-creation" of civilization in contemporary China. It has transformed and directed the development course of modern human civilization, and will surely show the world historical significance in creating a new form of human civilization.
Guangming Daily (11th edition, March 29th, 2024)