[Gao Bingzhong] The protection of intangible cultural heritage in China and the end of the cultural revolution *
[Executive Summary] The protection of intangible cultural heritage has formed a widely participatory movement in China, redrawing the cultural map of China with heavy colors and creating a new history.
It comes in with new words, replaces ideological struggle and social exclusion in the cultural field with cultural sharing, and highly affirms the value of many cultural matters originally denied by previous revolutions; It has opened up a new social process, ending the cultural revolution that has prevailed in China society for nearly a century with the ecological concept of cultural symbiosis and the cultural mechanism of mutual recognition.
It has provided cultural consciousness for ancient cultural countries that have long distorted themselves in cultural identity in modern times., providing a public cultural framework for the construction of a nation-state and the development of civil society.
[Keywords] Intangible cultural heritage; cultural revolution; cultural ecology; the politics of recognition
Intangible cultural heritage protection was introduced into China from an intergovernmental cooperation project of UNESCO and quickly evolved into a widely participatory social movement.
In this movement, new cultural concepts were spread and new laws were formulated., new public cultural policies, for the first time, through formal systems, widely recognized the legal status of many cultures that have been denied in modern times in the public domain.
The cultural results of this social movement were revolutionary, changing, terminating and even subverting the concept and logic of cultural revolution in modern times.
1.
Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage as a Social Movement
"Intangible cultural heritage" is translated from the English "intangible cultural heritage".
Obviously, this proper noun does not quite accord with Chinese word-forming habits.
It actually has seven words and starts with "no".
Anyone who thinks about it will find it strange.
However, it was such a relatively rare new word that was introduced into China society in 2001 when Kunqu Opera was declared a "masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of mankind" by UNESCO.
It quickly became one of the top ten news hot words in China in 2006.
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"Intangible cultural heritage" is by no means just a novel media fashion term.
As a foreign word, it quickly became a working term for the government and then a term for legal documents.
China joined the UNESCO Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage (hereinafter referred to as the "Convention") in 2004.
In March 2005, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Strengthening the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage in my Country" and the "Interim Measures for the Application and Evaluation of Representative Works of National Intangible Cultural Heritage" and other documents have officially launched the construction of a list system of representative works of intangible cultural heritage nationwide.
The National People's Congress passed the "Intangible Cultural Heritage Law of the People's Republic of China" on February 25, 2011, with an order signed by the President of the State.
The law will come into effect on June 1, 2011.
As a result,"intangible cultural heritage" has become a concept that is fully integrated into the current formal national system of China.
As a project of the international community, the protection of intangible cultural heritage has entered China.
The China government has fulfilled its obligations under the Convention and carried out a series of administrative work.
The China government first carried out a census of intangible cultural heritage in various provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, and obtained a total of 870,000 census data nationwide; All provinces applied on this basis, and the Ministry of Culture organized expert reviews and submitted them to the State Council for approval.
They were announced in three batches in 2006, 2008 and 2011.
1219 items have been selected into the national intangible cultural heritage representative list in various places, and 1488 people have been named national intangible cultural heritage inheritors.
31 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions) have also established their own lists, including a total of 8556 intangible cultural heritage items; and there are 9564 inheritors of representative provincial intangible cultural heritage works.
During this period, the China government mobilized all localities to actively apply for UNESCO's representative list of intangible cultural heritage of mankind.
As of 2011, 36 items, accounting for about 1 / 10 of the total, have become UNESCO recognized world heritage sites.
However, intangible cultural heritage protection is not just a special project in China, but a social movement.
It has attracted widespread social participation, changed mainstream thinking, restored positive values to long-devalued culture, and changed the relationship between modern institutions and grassroots culture.
The items included in intangible cultural heritage, whether it is Kunqu Opera, Guqin Art, Twelve Muqam, Mongolian Long Tune, the legends of Yao and Shun, the belief in Mazu, kites or traditional festivals of various ethnic groups, all belong to the categories we originally used to, such as national art, folk customs, folk culture, etc.
Once upon a time, apart from accidental individual phenomena, these matters that originally belonged to national and folk culture have never been so highly regarded by the mainstream media and formal systems as they are today.
On the contrary, the various cultural activities contained in folk culture have generally experienced experiences that have been denied by mainstream ideology and excluded by national systems over the past century, so that their inheritance generally has problems of one kind or another.
Many projects have actually been lost.
Those who survived encountered the historical opportunities brought by the protection of intangible cultural heritage, and the miracle of "a salted fish turning over" occurred.
Folk culture is the culture in the daily life of ordinary people.
They do not rely on modern industry, are not connected to mainstream urban life, cannot be passed down in the modern education system, and are incompatible with the inherent concepts of mainstream ideology.
Therefore, social evaluation is very low or even very negative.
After the protection of intangible cultural heritage entered China, many projects of folk culture were renamed as masterpieces of intangible cultural heritage.
They had completely different social visibility and suddenly became the center of media focus, transforming from waste into treasures; They used to bring danger to their practitioners and owners, and was the reason why they were despised and humiliated, but now they have turned to bring them honor, welfare and a way to make a living.
National-level inheritors can receive a living allowance of 10,000 yuan per year from the national finance alone.
As of the end of 2012, the national finance investment in the protection of intangible cultural heritage has reached 2.124 billion yuan ②.
The protection of intangible cultural heritage in China is a project carried out through social movements.
The entire China society loves "intangible cultural heritage" so much that from national leaders to farmers in remote areas, it has rarely been talked about it unanimously, so that it has become a hot topic in the media for many years.
China established "Cultural Heritage Day" ③ in 2005 to provide a special time for attention to intangible cultural heritage.
It can be seen in many museums and university campuses across the country as a festival displaying intangible cultural heritage.
China announced in 2007 that it would list Qingming Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, and Mid-Autumn Festival as legal holidays, changing its policy of excluding traditional festivals from the country's official time system for nearly a century.
China's basic education system has always rejected folk culture, but the introduction of intangible cultural heritage into campuses is now an education policy of the central government and is gradually implemented in various places.
Temple fairs across China have always been the targets of government suppression because they include worshiping and worshiping activities for various gods.
However, now many temple fairs ④ have become national or provincial intangible cultural heritage representative works and become protected objects.
Intangible cultural heritage protection in China is carried out with the participation of the entire society, and therefore it also changes all aspects of the entire society.
Intangible cultural heritage protection is indeed causing miracles of social change in China.
To analyze the reasons for the miracle, of course, we must first analyze the concept of "intangible cultural heritage".
It should be that the new cultural discourse it represents contains the ideological power to turn decadence into magic.
Not only that, the progress of China's society is entering a critical point in history after 2000.
The social accumulation of major changes has been enough, and the flames of "intangible cultural heritage protection" are burning.
More than 140 countries around the world have joined the Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage, but the social miracle accompanying the concept of intangible cultural heritage has not occurred in countries other than China.
Therefore, we must find the internal basis for this huge change in the reality of China.
2.
New discourse on the protection of intangible cultural heritage
The May 4th New Culture Movement set off a lasting cultural revolution in China society.
Although the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, which were in power before and after, pursued the modernity of China under the guidance of different ideologies, the philosophies of both parties are evolutionary or its variants, and both treat the new and the old with a dichotomy of "advanced and backward." Modern culture and traditional culture.
This modern discourse believes that time evolves in a single line.
Everything is at different points on this timeline, and its relatively advanced or backward position can be objectively judged.
The specific position determines their advanced or backward nature.
According to this way of thinking, although the advancement and backwardness of culture are objective facts, only intellectual elites and political elites have the ability to correctly point out that it is not the decisions of the practitioners or owners of culture.
China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1992) and gradually integrated into the world economy.
When China signed the UNESCO Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2004, it actually introduced a new set of discourses on culture and implemented this set of discourses in China's society through national social mobilization.
The process of establishing a list of representative works at the national, provincial and municipal levels and cultural ecological reserves has brought tremendous changes to Chinese society.
Therefore, China's practice of protecting intangible cultural heritage is a process of culturally integrating with the international community.
The UNESCO Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage is fundamentally the product of the international community's reflection on the cultural consequences of the pursuit of modernity.
Faced with the fact that the traditions of various nations in the world are rapidly losing, and facing the unfair situation of using Western culture as a yardstick to measure non-Western culture and domestic using official ideology to measure grassroots culture, the international intellectual community, mainly folklorists and anthropologists, has used the platform of UNESCO and used philosophy and humanistic thoughts that reflect on modernity to discuss the reconstruction of human culture since the 1980s.
Finally, in 2009, the plan to establish a "Masterpieces List of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" was decided.
After two operational attempts in 2001 and 2002, UNESCO adopted a more complete and systematic plan in 2003.
This was the promulgation of the Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
The "Representative List of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" project was suspended after being implemented again in 2003 and was replaced by the "Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity" stipulated in the new convention.
The main purpose of this cultural project is to solemnly recognize, in the name of the international community, the original culture of various countries that is ignored, despised or even hostile to modern systems.
The operation design of the "Directory" is like this: each member state encourages various localities, communities and even individuals under its jurisdiction, such as masters of craftsmanship and skills) to submit the culture that they believe can represent the local and local communities, and after expert review, select based on the authenticity and representativeness of the project and include it in the national list of intangible cultural heritage; Each member state selects cultural projects from the list that can represent its own country and reports them to UNESCO.
After selection by an independent expert committee, the winners are included in the "Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity".
The process for generating the directory is designed around the core concepts of a representative culture.
The English name of the "Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity" is "Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity", and "Representative Works" are "Representative Items".
The local community and group as the applicant agree that the project declared can represent them.
Therefore, the basis of the application is that the cultural project is a representative culture of a certain group of people.
"Representativeness" is the priority value of declaration and selection.
The affirmation of the priority of this value is clear in the evolution of the list from attempt to confirmation.
The English language used in the "Representative List of Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity" during the trial stage is "Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity", and the corresponding representative works in Chinese correspond to "masterpieces", which means masterpieces or outstanding masterpieces.
The design philosophy in the formal implementation phase downplays "excellence" and ensures that the priority of "representativeness" is clear and unambiguous.
The diversity of human culture lies first and foremost in the diversity of human communities, not which one or few ethnic groups are better able to create culture, nor will it be represented by the output or box office of novels or movies.
Representative culture should naturally be culture passed down through activities in life, usually cultural activities that everyone can participate in, rather than mass culture produced by modern technology and capital.
Therefore, the priority of representation determines that this is a project that non-Western countries can have equal opportunities to participate in.
Every nation and every community has its own life, its own history, and has created unique cultures in its own historical life.
Such a new cultural screening mechanism is to allow cultures that could not be presented and ignored by the previous mechanism to stand out, and thus present a cultural map that more represents the real life of human society.
The priority value of representativeness jointly determines the priority of the judgment of cultural inheritors.
What culture can represent a specific community? It depends first and foremost on who speaks.
Communities and groups that inherit culture from cultural communities, including ethnic groups, local societies, associations, etc.) may be very different for themselves and others.
The question of "what" should be transformed into the question of "who".
The design of the directory requires holders of cultural projects to declare themselves or voluntarily entrust agencies to declare, so the community that actually inherits culture is placed in the position of the first promoter of the entire system.
Any community, group, including ethnic groups) can declare and are encouraged to declare projects that can represent them.
What to declare? Of course, it is selected and recognized by the cultural community through internal mechanisms.
External people or institutions can only play a service role such as consultation and suggestion.
Why design this project this way? The Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage expresses the values and goals to be followed in many places.
The definition in Article 2 of the Convention highlights the priority of "self-perception":"Intangible cultural heritage refers to the various social (practices, cultural) presentations, forms of expression, knowledge, skills and related tools, objects, handicrafts and cultural spaces that communities, groups, and sometimes individuals regard as part of their cultural heritage." "Consider" means "recognize" in English, meaning recognition and recognition.
The definition very clearly lays the value foundation of the entire cultural project.
Self-identification among cultural practitioners is the first step.
Article 1 of the Convention talks about the goals of the Convention.
The second point is to promote recognition and respect for the intangible cultural heritage of the community, and the third point is to promote mutual appreciation among cultural groups in the local, national and international communities.Chapter 3 of the Convention stipulates the obligations of member states to protect intangible cultural heritage at home.
Among them, the government must ensure that various intangible cultural heritage is recognized, respected and can be promoted; it also highlights the importance and necessity of participation of various communities and non-governmental organizations.
The core values, basic spirit and programming of the Convention are particularly targeted for China, which has been baptized by a long period of cultural revolution.
The reality in China is that the lofty ideology denies the value of the people's cultural practice, the pragmatism of material preference devalues the spirit and ethics of daily life, and the preference for machine industrial products harms the aesthetics of opponents 'craftsmanship.
The evolution of China's social culture into this state is of course due to various political shortcomings, but in terms of cultural mechanisms, it should be attributed to the loss of cultural practitioners and holders in the public sphere and the national system.
Status and rights to evaluate culture.
It is up to society and various communities, groups, and societies in society to determine what culture is important to them and what culture is their unlost and inalienable precious wealth, rather than by ideology, industrial capital, and international brands.
Decide.
In addition, culture is mutual respect and appreciation among communities, and then shared within the community.
This is very constructive for the reality of China, which is deeply influenced by class struggle and controlled by modern ideology and has a large number of cultural negation and cultural exclusion.
China acceded to the Convention in a timely manner and actively invested in the protection of intangible cultural heritage.
In fact, a cultural movement was launched in the country.
This has not only brought about the integration of China's culture with the new mainstream of the world, but also brought opportunities for China's public culture to straighten out the relationship and interact positively with its own society.
As a result, China culture has been unique.
3.
The end of the cultural revolution in China society
The concept of intangible cultural heritage protection is completely different from the idea of cultural revolution.
Starting from the New Culture Movement before and after the May 4th Movement, faced with the differences between Chinese and Western cultures, old and new cultures, traditional culture and modern culture, the revolutionary faction's stance is irreconcilable and wants to replace the old culture with new culture; the stance of the newly emerging conservationists is to protect traditional culture from being replaced and to promote it.
When the country carried out the protection of intangible cultural heritage by joining international law and promulgating national laws and a series of public policies, we clearly saw that the value and logic of the cultural revolution that lasted for nearly a century were unknowingly replaced and subverted, and the cultural phenomenon that was denied by the revolution has regained positive affirmation.⑤
The May 4th New Culture Movement took Western modern values such as freedom, democracy, and science as its banner, and changed the inherent cultural order and way of life in China with the slogan of "Down with Kongjiadian and Oppose Old Morality", thus ushering in China's modern cultural revolution.
This cultural revolution was initiated by the emerging groups with Western knowledge represented by Chen Duxiu, Hu Shi and others.
First, the colleague magazine represented by "New Youth", which was founded in 1916, used "new thoughts of thought" to gather the ideological identity of new intellectuals.
And stimulated by the "May 4th" anti-imperialist patriotic movement in 1919, it was possible to turn the thoughts of small circles into social actions involving all walks of life.
From the end of 1919 to the beginning of 1920, it was regarded as the "New Cultural Movement" ④ by the new intellectual community.
The culture advocated by this cultural movement is not inherent in China society, so it is a "new cultural movement" in terms of space and time, and in nature it is a "cultural revolution" of China tradition.
Mao Zedong said in "On New Democracy" that the "May 4th" Movement "was a movement that completely opposed feudal culture.
Since the history of China, there has never been such a great and thorough cultural revolution." This concept of cultural revolution was continued in New China and became the blueprint for social transformation in various socialist education movements in more powerful ways.
It formed a small climax in 1958 and then entered the "Cultural Revolution" in 1966.
A new climax.
The "Cultural Revolution" as a national social movement ended at the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in 1978, but the Cultural Revolution did not end.
The cultural logic established by the New Cultural Movement and the legitimacy and effectiveness of modern ideology established thereby are still in play, and there has been no change in nature.
The cultural effects of reform and opening up are accumulating, and great changes need to wait for events that are essentially a substitute to occur at the right time.
The protection of intangible cultural heritage is such a "right" event, and the year after 2000 is such a "right" time.
History is always making the right choice, or any historical choice has its correctness.
"Historical mistakes" are just comments made by latecomers from their own standpoint, and latecomers may not view them in the same way.
The cultural revolution emerged at the beginning of modern times.
At that time, it was criticized by old scholars who were spokespersons of society, but it quickly proved that it had followed the historical trend and became the mainstream of ideology and culture.
Although the radical views of the "new trend of thought", such as total Westernization, have been questioned, the mainstream status of the new culture has never wavered.
Inevitably and interestingly, it is both the mainstream of the Republic of China and still the mainstream after the People's Republic of China replaced the Republic of China, because the cultural revolution belongs to modern times, not just to any political party in modern times.
As Geng Yunzhi has stated many times in articles studying the history of modern culture, what China's New Culture Movement pursues is the modernity and worldliness of culture.
"Modernity" refers to the affirmation of human value, human liberation and individual freedom; while "cosmopolitan" refers to the breakthrough of the self-isolation of decadent empires and leading to mainstream democratic thoughts outside the country.
Obviously, the modernity of the difference between the old and the new depends on the worldliness of the difference between the West and the West.
Therefore, the key issue is the issue of opening the country and opening the mind to accept Western culture.
Culturally speaking, if China culture is relatively similar to the world's mainstream culture, it is possible to achieve the goal through massive acceptance of quantity without changing too much.
But the problem is that there is a big gap between Chinese and Western cultures, and many works regard them as two different civilizations.
If we focus on existing culture, we will be more picky about foreign culture, easily exclude many foreign things, and the acceptance of foreign culture will be slower.
However, in the eagerness to save the nation during the May 4th Movement, the emerging intellectual group naturally chose a radical cultural revolution.
Instead of using existing culture as the criterion of judging foreign culture as in normal society, they used foreign culture as the criterion to examine existing culture as the criterion, which will inevitably lead to more negation and elimination, and will inevitably lead to unjust a large number of real culture that is actually valuable.
Using modern Western culture as the standard to reassess all values inherent in China society and rebuild new China culture, the trial result must be that the culture inherent in China society is not a culture in the modern sense, and therefore a culture that cannot be recognized by the country's formal system.
In the debate on total Westernization before and after the May 4th Movement, there seem to be empirical examples of various views.
However, in terms of discourse,"new culture" and "Western culture" are gradually what "culture" refers to.
However, the existing culture in China society is no longer a "culture" that is taken for granted, but needs to be modified and restricted words such as "old culture,""Confucian culture," and "local culture" to express its existence.
Therefore, the normal source of culture is the external world, and what intellectuals have to do is to "bring" culture and send it to the countryside.
Generally speaking, a society cannot be culturally transformed and fully armed with foreign culture, let alone China is a society with a large population and a profound history.
"Culture" is a lot contained in life.
This is why the Cultural Revolution is long-term, repetitive, and even requires a more extreme "Cultural Revolution".
However, no matter how big a cultural revolution is, it is impossible to completely transform the culture of a society.
Since the reform and opening up, China has undergone cultural rejuvenation, and those inherent cultures have emerged from the depths of memory and dark corners.
However, the situation is still the same.
They have been revived.
They have been revived in society.
They have no place in the public sphere with legal status, and are not recognized by the modern system supported by modern culture.
If you use the two indicators of school education and official media, it is clear that they have no place among them.
Their existence as aliens is not a "culture" that can legitimately appear in public places in the ordinary sense.
They actually exist in our society and also appear in a variety of informal places, but their appearance has no ideological "correctness" and no institutional "legitimacy.
In the strict sense, the modern cultural revolution in China is a revolution in daily life: on the one hand, it is a specific denial of the value order and behavioral methods of daily life, and on the other hand, it is a general denial of daily life as the source and source of culture.
The views of professional intellectuals are practiced in literature and in the world, and are collected in libraries even if they are not valued by others.
Whether it is Confucius, Mencius, Lin Shu, or Zhang Taiyan, their ideas will not be demoted.
They may just not be popular.
This does not prevent the possibility of becoming popular in the future.
What cultural revolution can really happen is in the field of life.
Culture is passed down in life, and culture is alive.
In normal society in normal times, culture is in daily life, and the value of daily life is taken for granted.
Material wealth is produced for it, consumption methods serve it, and life is also a wonderful place in it.
The Cultural Revolution used mandatory means to eliminate places for traditional cultural activities such as ancestral halls and temples) and built modern facilities such as schools, factories, village committees or neighborhood committees on the ruins).
It lasted for decades and completely changed the national spatial landscape; Similarly, a very mandatory campaign was used to prohibit people from carrying out folk activities defined as "old","backward" and "reactionary".
It lasted for two generations.
The traditional way of life no longer existed as a whole.
At the project level, some disappeared and some survived, and the inheritance of many of these projects was unsustainable.
If we stop the time in the late 1970s, 60 years after the New Culture Movement, the daily life of China society will undoubtedly complete a cultural revolution that is incomplete but has achieved remarkable results.
However, it is impossible for a society with a large population to be completely "colonized" by alien cultures in its living world.
Because life is a field where it is impossible to completely deprive freedom.
No matter how powerful the hegemony of modern ideology is, no matter how harsh the administrative control of modern governments, and no matter how pervasive the power of capital is, life will inherit many inalienable values and habits.
Faced with the high pressure of ideology and administrative power, life will adapt in various forms: it will certainly give up some activities in a compliant way, and it will also follow some activities in a flexible way to maintain life between change and unchanging.
continuity.
When the political atmosphere becomes relaxed, administrative control is no longer strict, people have more and more economic autonomy, and the free nature of life is fully released, traditional culture will gradually revitalize in life.
The reform and opening up announced in 1978 is an opening up that promises to relax restrictions on civil liberties from the perspective of time and space: it is not only an opening to add more border ports and allow more people and things to legally pass through the ports, but also an opening to foreign cultures in modern times.
Second opening; It is not only open to the world in space, but also open to multiple histories and multiple futures in time.
The historical garbage listed as the "four old" old ideas, old cultures, old customs, and old habits) has a spring again.
The communist ideal is no longer the only source of meaning for tomorrow.
In addition to legal socialist culture with institutional status, foreign cultures poured in, traditional culture was revived, and a situation of "Three Rivers Convergence" was gradually formed.
Socialist thought is still the main theme of the official media.
Although it no longer dominates the daily lives of citizens, it still survives in various forms and is classified as a "new socialist tradition." Foreign cultures are actually very diverse, including those introduced before modern times, those accepted in large quantities after the New Culture Movement, and those that have poured in in more than 30 years.
Among them, the parts that are evaluated as modern knowledge, technology, and ideas with universal values are officially listed as "culture" by the national system and spread in the media and school systems.
In fact, they constitute the main part of contemporary China culture.
Their origin does not diminish their value, but sometimes increases their credibility and exchange value.
Other content is consciously labeled as "foreign culture" because they are not accepted by the system or because they are cultures that some people are passionate about and others are disgusted with.
Although this part of culture originates from around the world, it is often referred to as "Western culture" in controversial topics.
Traditional culture can be divided into elite, ideological traditions of classics and folk lifestyles.
The former is dominated by Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, while the latter is represented by folk customs.
Of course, Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism are not only reflected in literature, but also in vivid folk customs.
If we talk about traditional culture, we mean living traditions, we mean the folk customs of folk life.
Because China is a multi-ethnic country, Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism are reflected in the folk customs of most ethnic groups, but not in the folk customs of all ethnic groups.
This part can be called "folk culture", or "national folk culture" when emphasizing multi-ethnic groups.
To sum up, the actual China culture, that is, the China culture in life, is roughly composed of four parts.
The main part is recognized as modern culture without ideological bias and ethnic affiliation.
The other parts can be further divided into new socialist traditions, foreign culture, and national folk culture.
They are all cultures that some people are keen on and others do not appreciate, accept or agree with.
There are different representative groups.
The new socialist tradition is mainly passed down among retirees and party and group cadres in state institutions and state enterprises and institutions.
Foreign culture is often popular in cities as a fashion among young people who are easy to come into contact with foreign things.
Folk culture is better passed down in rural areas and Neighborhood groups.
Some people use color to distinguish these three group cultures, calling them "red culture","blue culture" and "yellow culture".
In fact, from the perspective of the complete jigsaw puzzle of China culture, we should also add the common cultural parts with unclear colors, which can be called "colorless culture" or "white culture." At the beginning of reform and opening up, China's culture was "popular all over the mountains." The evolution of the past thirty years is huge and requires us to redraw the cultural map of real life in China society.
Obviously, this map should be a three-color picture on a white background.
As for which culture accounts for what proportion, we still need special investigation and research before we can describe it, but in any case, in this picture, the white background is the main factor.
Modern universal culture, such as mastering convenient ways of daily life, the use of home appliances and transportation, common sense of disease and medical treatment, etc.), personal concepts of the country and the government, concepts and experiences of education, concepts and experiences of the media, etc., are the broad phenomenon and common foundation of our society as a modern society.
Because of this, despite the public's own tendencies towards tricolor cultures, we still experience a common society.
China is already a society dominated by modern culture in the name of science and technology and accustomed to testing right and wrong.
On the positive side, this is an already relatively modern society.
On the negative side, this is a society full of identity anxiety.
The dominant modern culture is universal culture and cannot become the object of national self-identification.
Under the condition of a high degree of ideological unity, the identity culture of the community can be any recommended culture, such as a doctrine or an ideology; but under the condition that individuals can freely choose, it can only be selected from the inherent culture of the community.
In current China, what citizens identify with culturally is entirely a matter of citizens 'voluntariness or sincerity.It is an irreversible fact that the national identity previously established by the country around ideology has transformed into the identity of some citizens.
If the country wants to maintain itself as a stable community, it must find new cultural objects of identification.
In this case, and we also know that in accordance with natural emotions and cultural psychology, we should look for identification symbols in the inherent culture of the nation and establish the broadest collective consciousness of "we" in life.
Wouldn't it be easier for us to recognize some folk matters with a mass basis? The historical dilemma is that the simple truth of this theory cannot be implemented in reality.
Because our main culture is based on scientific rationality and technological pragmatism as its values and standards, the inherent culture in our lives was labeled as old culture during the May 4th Movement and lost its positive image.
In reality, tourism projects in ethnic villages and folk villages, the market effect of local temple fairs, and the attraction of Qingming Festival to overseas Chinese have made folk culture present positive values in many aspects.
Unfortunately, in the existing pattern, although some scholars use some tricks to argue that they should not be completely denied, no one has been able to find new reasons to argue that they are not "superstitious" and prove that they are not "backward".
It was precisely until the protection of intangible cultural heritage became a national movement in China that the way to find cultural identity objects in people's lives became smoother.
The operation of intangible cultural heritage protection in China adopts renaming techniques, so that "folk culture" that was originally relatively negative in value can be re-classified into the name of "intangible cultural heritage" after selection procedures, becoming a cultural wealth with extremely high value, becoming a legal object of protection, and becoming an object of financial assistance.
How many people have been harmed by the system because of inheritance, and whoever can harm them can gain political benefits.
Time has changed, and now anyone who harms them will be sanctioned; they are protected, honored and rewarded, and various projects that can be embodied in products will be marketed.
In this way, folk cultural projects are transformed from negative to positive through this mechanism, forming a path to establish a culture of identity at the local and national levels.
Intangible cultural heritage protection can play a magical role in alchemy on folk culture.
From a procedural point of view, it benefits from the technique of renaming, and from an internal logical point of view, it is due to the shift in priority of value judgment.
If the political correctness formed in modern times is made by high-ranking power elites or intellectual elites, the priority value in judging folk cultural projects must be the yardstick of distinguishing science and superstition, advanced and backward, essence and dross.
Folk culture is based on habitual modern Ideological thinking must belong to the latter of negative values.
However, the concept of intangible cultural heritage is that the inheritors of culture propose their own representative culture, and the work of the reviewers is premised on two acknowledgements: first, recognizing that various communities have their own representative cultures; second, recognizing that communities have the right to propose their own representative cultures.
The reviewer mainly confirms the authenticity of the project and the necessity of inclusion in the representative list.
The projects included in the national-level representative list are actually cultural projects that have long been recognized locally as unique and outstanding.
The national-level list is just a new process to recognize projects that have been recognized locally in recent years.
We have seen that the practice of intangible cultural heritage protection in China relatively accurately follows the concepts and values of the Convention, and has been recreated in response to the actual needs of China.
Among them, the use of the concept of "cultural ecology" plays a leading role.
The Chinese term "cultural ecology" is a translation of the English term "cultural ecology", while the "cultural ecology" as a social entity in Chinese is completely a word we created.
It uses a symbiotic ecological perspective to view the relationship between different cultures within the community and the relationship between culture and nature, economy, politics and social conditions.
In reality, recognizing the fact that folk culture exists and further recognizing its interdependence with other cultures is the theoretical significance of the concept of "cultural ecology"; in China's practice of intangible cultural heritage protection, because of the priority of intangible cultural heritage as protection objects, other cultures must serve better inheritance of heritage projects in sequence.
This is the practical significance of the concept of "cultural ecology".
With the help of the dual meaning transformation of the concept of cultural ecology, folk culture has changed from negative value to equal status, and the part selected as heritage is then transformed into priority value.
We have not paid enough attention to China's innovation in the protection of intangible cultural heritage, because we have not realized the epoch-making significance of intangible cultural heritage protection to China society.
The principles of mutual respect and mutual recognition for the protection of intangible cultural heritage have created a mechanism for cultural sharing, created a new type of community relationship, and changed the mechanism of creating community segmentation, exclusion, and conflict based on cultural differences.
The multi-level system of the representative works directory names local, ethnic and even individual cultural projects at the grassroots level as heritage at the county, county, province, autonomous region, and national level, and recognizes the sharing of culture in a formal way.
Ensure that cultural exclusivity and sharing are not contradictory, but transform each other.
In this way, the directory becomes a culture of social identity and a cultural guarantee for the cohesion of the community.
In the international community, representative cultural projects of various countries are named "Representative Works of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity." The opportunity for China to apply for such lists is open to all ethnic groups across the country.
In fact, cultural projects have successfully entered the Human Heritage List come from more than a dozen ethnic groups.
The concept of cultural sharing is constructive for China's national identity, and is also effective in connecting China with the world in terms of cultural concepts and cultural projects.
All in all, China's practice of protecting intangible cultural heritage has ended the cultural revolution in modern times in China.
In terms of concept, the theory of cultural evolution established by the New Cultural Movement has been suspended, and the new cultural ecology concept that emphasizes symbiosis has become the logic of public cultural activities and the basis of national cultural public policies.
In reality, the local living culture that has been pursued has turned into an object of protection, and negative folk culture has transformed into a non-renewable and irreplaceable heritage of lofty values.
Politically, culture has changed from a field of combat and a tool of struggle to a way for individuals and communities to recognize and identify with each other in the community.
China's cultural revolution is a movement with a declaration of war.
Among them, the phased "Cultural Revolution" has a launching ceremony and an end announcement.
However, the end of the cultural revolution is a continuous process of social change.
China's practice of protecting intangible cultural heritage has changed the overall picture of China's culture, replaced China's cultural and political logic, and has become a symbol of the end of the cultural revolution in many aspects.
China's modern scholarship and thought were introduced from the West, aiming to enlighten its citizens, taking advantage of the West's overall advantages to create a trend of "outsiders" living in the ascendant, and using civilized and barbaric means to seize the right to speak and label China society), continuing to transform China society.
His merits and demerits are intertwined, making it difficult to give a simple evaluation.
But one thing is clear: China's modern scholarship and thinking deprive the common people of their own cultural qualifications, renaming their own culture as something else (superstition, dross), so that the natural daily life of the public can become the object of revolution under political violence.
The protection of intangible cultural heritage obviously has limitations on the legalization of folk culture at this stage.
Although theoretically speaking, our society has created the logic and method to end the cultural revolution with exemplary events, in reality, the cultural qualifications of civil society itself have not been fully implemented.
People's common sense cannot be smoothly transformed into a yardstick for judging national plans and policies.
The details of people's lives are still difficult to serve by technological innovation.
Even ordinary people still have many obstacles to becoming good people through religion.
In short, ordinary people in China have not yet fully earned their cultural qualifications as modern citizens.
It can be seen that there is still a long way to go from the conceptual and logical end of the cultural revolution to the point where ordinary citizens become masters of culture.
This requires us to clearly understand.
* This research was funded by the Ministry of Education's major bidding project "Intangible Cultural Heritage and Cultural Ecology Construction"(06jzd0006).
The views of this article have been expressed in lectures at Central China Normal University, Shandong University, Beijing Normal University, and Chongqing University since April 2012.
They have also been presented at the American Folklore Annual Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana, on October 25, 2012, and at the American Institute for Advanced Research "Policies and Practices for Protecting Intangible Cultural Heritage of Traditional Culture-A Comparison between China and the United States" seminar on April 9, 2013.
Thank you to these institutions for their invitations and the criticisms of colleagues present.
[Notes]
① On January 12, 2007, the National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Center, Beijing Language and Culture University, Communication University of China, China Federation of Journalists and Technology Workers, and China Chinese Information Society jointly released the "Top Ten Popular Words in Newspaper, Radio and Television in 2006 in China." "Intangible cultural heritage" has entered the top ten buzzwords in the comprehensive category.
See "China Media Technology", No.
1, 2007, pages 8 - 10.
② Ma Shengde: "Intangible Cultural Heritage and Protection in China","Intangible Cultural Heritage Policies and Practices for Protecting Traditional Culture-A Comparison between China and the United States" seminar, April 9, 2012.
③ On December 22, 2005, the State Council issued the "Notice of the State Council on Strengthening the Protection of Cultural Heritage", deciding that starting from 2006, the second Saturday of June every year will be the "Cultural Heritage Day" in China.
④ Temple fairs as representative works of national intangible cultural heritage include more than ten temple fairs in Beijing, Dongyue Temple Fair, Miaofengshan Temple Fair, Taishan Temple Fair in Shandong, and Jinci Temple Fair in Shanxi.
In addition, the Mazu Festival, Yan Di Mausoleum Festival, Huangdi Mausoleum Festival, Confucius Festival, etc.
are also similar to temple fairs.
5 Since the People's Communes implemented the implementation of contract production and distribution of farmland to households in the early 1980s, farmers, who account for the majority of China's population, have gradually gained free time, independent space and their own resources, so they began to practice independently, and the end of the cultural revolution has entered the countdown.
The end of the cultural revolution is a continuous process, and the protection of intangible cultural heritage only witnesses the end of this process.
However, the fact that happened in China government, intellectual circles and public society makes the author believe that the practice of intangible cultural heritage protection in China is the terminator of cultural revolution, not just the witness.
④ Zheng Shiqu: "Discussion on the" New Culture Movement "after the May 4th Movement", Journal of Beijing Normal University, No.
4, 2010, p.
6.
③ Mao Zedong: "On New Democracy", Selected Works of Mao Zedong, Volume 2, Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1991, p.
700.
8 Sun Sibai: "On the Stages of the May Fourth Cultural Revolution and its Transformation before and after", published in Historical Research, No.
2, 1963.
Geng Yunzhi: "The Origin and Trend of China's New Culture", published in Historical Research, No.
2, 1994; Geng Yunzhi: "Cultural Transformation in Modern China: Problems and Trends", published in Guangdong Social Science, No.
3, 2008.
For example, Liang Shuming: "Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophy", Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1922 edition.
Gao Bingzhong: Department of Sociology, Peking University)(This article was published in Open Times, No.
5, 2013)