[Liu Xicheng] The cultural nature of intangible cultural heritage

Executive summary: (1) The theoretical preparation for cultural actions to protect intangible cultural heritage is seriously insufficient.

It is manifested in: Our cultural research started late, and many people are deeply influenced by political ideology.

Instead of scientifically exploring the rationality and regularity of any cultural phenomenon created in human history, they are only accustomed to simply judging it based on political concepts such as progress or backwardness, beneficial or harmful, good or bad, and binary opposition methodologies.

Therefore, folk culture, especially those that belong to folk beliefs, is regarded as folk beliefs.(such as belief in gods and ghosts, witchcraft and superstition, etc.) The negative impact of various cultural phenomena is regarded very seriously and is regarded as the opposition of human rational thinking and current ideology.

(2) Intangible cultural heritage, that is, national and folk culture, is the root of ethnic culture, and it itself contains the rationality of existence and development.

The universe, nature, and human affairs are all infinite, and human knowledge, rationality and science cannot figure out the truth.

Witchcraft, religion and science are all common components of human culture and are all consistent with mankind.

Just like viewing religion as the opium of the human spirit, viewing witchcraft as a feudal poison in the spiritual field is also mechanical materialism rather than historical materialism.

(3) To maintain the uniqueness of Chinese culture and carry forward the fine traditions of Chinese culture, it is important to carry forward the spirit of Chinese culture.

Folk culture contains or is filled with a strong awareness of "endless life" and "self-improvement", and this is the cultural spirit of the Chinese nation.

It is manifested in individuals, families, families, and ethnic groups, and it is an advocate for life consciousness; it is manifested in the country, nation, and even individuals 'settlement and achievements, and it is an advocate for self-improvement.

Cultural phenomena such as ghost worship, soul belief (worship of natural forces and worship of personified gods), and witchcraft and superstition are some cultural phenomena that occurred during the low stage of human beings during the barbaric period.

They are both inevitable and inevitable in historical development.

The limitations of historical development are ideological forms that cannot be crossed by any ethnic group.

Marx said that this is the "higher characteristic of human beings" at the lower stage of society.

(Note: Marx.

Abstract of Louis Heng Morgan's Ancient Society [A].

Translated by Cao Baohua.

Marx and Engels on Art [C].

(Volume 2) Beijing: People's Literature Publishing House, 1963.5) This kind of ghost worship, soul belief, and witchcraft thought, which originated in the lower stage of the barbaric period, cannot be surpassed by any nation.

Once they were born, they surged in fields beyond knowledge and science, and spanned different social systems-slave society, feudal society, and the lower stage of socialism-and a long historical journey of thousands of years, and it has been endless to this day.

Such mysterious cultural factors have also penetrated into or mixed into oral literature, mythology, performance art and handicrafts, integrated with their content, and even become the ideological soul of folk creation.

This is probably common sense that goes without saying.

If you want to eliminate the concepts of ghosts and gods, soul, and witchcraft from folk creation and turn folk creation into the purest and most beautiful literary and artistic works, it is just an unreachable delusion unless you change the content and nature of folk culture., there is no other way.

What is the cultural spirit of our Chinese nation? There has long been debate on this issue.

However, except for a group of cultural revolutionary pioneers at the beginning of the May 4th New Cultural Movement, all parties involved in all subsequent debates without exception excluded folk culture created and enjoyed by the broadest masses of the people, and the debate became a debate only within Confucian culture and only about different understandings of the cultural spirit expressed by Confucian culture.

Today, when globalization and economic integration are forced, and when we emphasize the uniqueness of national culture, cultural diversity, and the protection of intangible cultural heritage, that is, folk cultural heritage, the situation is very different when we talk about the spiritual issue of national culture.

Folk culture can no longer be ignored.

The culture of the Chinese nation is composed of the lower-level culture or folk culture created by the vast majority of the population, and the upper-level culture or elite culture created by a small number of social elites (in China, of course, there are Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist cultures, but the most influential ones are Confucian culture and thoughts).

The two cultures not only oppose and exclude each other, but also absorb and integrate each other in their respective development, but they always maintain their own cultural spirit.

This is an indisputable fact.