[Liu Xicheng] On the Value Judgment of Intangible Cultural Heritage

Abstract: Value judgment is the basis and basis for reviewing and identifying intangible cultural heritage protection projects at all levels.

To judge the value of intangible cultural heritage, what values to adopt are crucial, and what values to adopt ultimately depends on what historical view to use as guidance.

Not talking about the significance and role of cultural heritage under the historical conditions at that time, but only talking about using today's "subjective values" as the standard, is a "leftist" ideological view that seems to be revolutionary but is actually super-revolutionary.

In the past, it has cut our bodies and souls, but today it is still a dangerous view that seriously endangers the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage.

The "essence and dross" theory is a political concept or policy that deals with ideological issues, which is greatly influenced by current political factors.

It is not a cultural concept or cultural concept, nor is it a methodology for studying traditional culture.

When developing and innovating contemporary culture, absorbing and carrying forward the spirit or elements of traditional culture requires choices and cannot be eclectic without choice, but the concept of cultural development and innovation cannot be equated with the principles and concepts of treating cultural heritage.

Many strange phenomena in the protection of intangible cultural heritage are due to the utopian concept of imagining intangible cultural heritage as "pure" and pure culture or literature and art.

Historical materialism has always been our only choice.

The author did not explain what the "main values of today's civilized era" he advocated were.

"Today's civilized era" is a very broad concept in concept; in terms of time, it is a rather long period of time.

According to the classic saying, human society has entered the threshold of the civilized era since it stepped out of the obscurantism and barbaric era.

In this way, the process of this civilized era is an extremely long and long concept of time.

According to Louis Henry Morgan in his "Ancient Society":"Humanity started from the bottom of the development ladder and rose from obscurity to civilized society through the slow accumulation of experience and knowledge.

Part of mankind lives in ignorance, part lives in barbarism, and part lives in civilization...

Civilized society...

began with the use of phonetic letters and the emergence of documentary records.

Civilized societies are divided into ancient civilized societies and modern civilized societies." [2]In such a long period of time, mankind has experienced slave society, feudal society, and capitalist society.

We in China have also experienced semi-feudal and semi-colonial society, and are now in the primary stage of socialism.

For these different social forms, as the author said, the value judgment standards are different in each era, and even people with different wealth, different social status, and different beliefs in the same society cannot abide by the same "subjective values".

This reminds me of a very popular book I read twenty years ago.

In the late 1960s (1969), Luther J.

Binkley, an American philosopher and then professor and chairman of the Department of Philosophy at Franklin Marshall College, wrote a book "The Conflict of Ideals-Changing Values in Western Society", which attracted great attention from my country's philosophical community.

In the early days of reform and opening up in the 1980s, it was translated into Chinese and published.

He wrote: "Just when we most need some basic consensus on the values of the nuclear age, we find that there is a major disagreement not only among countries, but also among political leaders, psychologists, philosophers and theologians in the Western world, a disagreement that is not only a technical debate about the best way to achieve a more humane world, And more importantly, it concerns the very values for which such a humane world may sacrifice itself." [3]He also pointed out that "all values are relative" and that "the current conflict of various opposing ideals in the Western world" has caused people of different status and cultural traditions to have different values, and the 20th century has had a great impact on Western society and are in the process of change include relativism, pragmatism, Marxism, psychoanalytic humanism, existentialism and its humanitarianism, and New Christian theology.

[4]In other words, there is no possibility of a unified subjective values of the times in Western society.

Using the so-called "contemporary principal values" as the criterion for judging the "essence and dross" of intangible cultural heritage, and using the values of today to demand the ancients and traditional culture is obviously inconsistent with the Marxist historical materialism, nor is it consistent with the "Scientific Outlook on Development" advocated by our party today, and therefore it is inappropriate or even wrong.

The occurrence of a cultural phenomenon is the product of certain social development and the needs of human development.

It is compatible with the local social conditions at that time and the needs of human beings.

Therefore, it has its natural rationality and is in line with social progress.

The ancestors did not understand the celestial phenomena, the laws of nature, and the laws of development and evolution of human society.

Therefore, they worshipped the mountain gods, prayed for rain, the small soil temple or the Bixia Yuanjun for children, and prayed for the prosperity of their families and descendants.

Pray for peace for the country and the people, not hesitate to create many gods to express their hopeless hopes and longings, and even believe that witchcraft can conquer the forces of nature, which is inevitable for cultural development.

However, as society develops, progresses, and the level of civilization improves, those cultural phenomena that were originally compatible with social development and human development become obsolete and become unnecessary for the people.

Then, these cultural phenomena will naturally withdraw from history and the lives of the people.

Therefore, it cannot be said that those cultural phenomena that adapted to the social development situation at that time and the living needs of the people at that time have been passed down to our society today and are incompatible with our current "subject values" and have become "dross" and "poisonous weeds".

When Marx wrote "The Abstract of Morgan's" Ancient Society "and Engels wrote" Private Property of the Family and the Origin of the State ", they faced the oncoming diverse and complex cultural phenomena of various eras, from the obscurantism era, from the barbaric era, etc., but they never used language such as absolute affirmation and absolute negation like" essence "or" dross ", but only objectively and scientifically described the inevitability of historical development.

Using terms such as progress or backwardness, fragrant flowers and poisonous weeds, essence and dross to characterize intangible cultural heritage, if this concept and method does not have no knowledge of the attributes of culture, it is obviously falling into the quagmire of subjective idealism or "super" revolutionary views, and absolutely irrelevant to historical materialism.

In the protection of "intangible cultural heritage","crossing the fire basin" is by no means an isolated case involving historical issues.

In 2005, when reviewing the application items for the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage lists, the Department of Culture of a province applied for a national totem and ancestor myth-the Panhu Mythology Project.

The expert group studied the local application materials and referred to the records of historical documents (such as "Han Shu", etc.) and ethnographic survey materials since the 1950s, after careful discussion, it was believed that the Panhu Mythology has important historical cognitive value, scientific value, and national cultural value.

In contemporary times, memories and recitation are still retained among ethnic groups in some ethnic areas, which is of great significance for understanding the history of the ethnic group (or a certain branch).

It is confirmed that entry into the national intangible cultural heritage list should be allowed in order to be properly protected at the national level.

I believe that doing so is in line with both the will of the nation and the interests of the country.

Unexpectedly, at this moment, a local leading cadre would actually say,"How come our nation is born of dogs!" Such ignorant and ridiculous questions make unreasonable accusations.

Despite his ignorance, as a provincial-level cadre, he actually lacked basic knowledge of social development history and epistemology of historical materialism, but it also forced the cultural authorities to have no choice but to temporarily cancel their declaration based on ethnic relations.

Totem ancestral myths and legends are a common type of myth in the mythology of national origin.

Many ethnic groups regard certain animals as their ancestors.

For example, the Han people believe in dragons as their ancestors, the Tibetans believe in macaques as their ancestors, and the Miao and She ethnic groups use Panhu as their totem ancestors...

Taking certain animals as totem ancestors is a kind of primitive concept and primitive belief, that there is a blood relationship between members of the ethnic group and totem animals, and that totem animals cannot be harmed by the respect of members, and use it as a symbol of national identity.

Totem is a worldwide and universal cultural phenomenon, and there is no disrespect for the nation.

This is the minimum common sense of people with some knowledge of cultural history.

The above-mentioned incident only shows that this cadre in power may have good intentions, but his understanding and handling of totem myths and legends prove that he lacks common sense of historical materialism.

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