[Shi Aidong] The embarrassing situation of folklore in the intangible cultural heritage protection movement
Website photo location Shi Aidong, Institute of Literature, China Academy of Social Sciences
The history of modern folklore in China in the past 100 years is a history of the game between academia and politics.
The rise and fall of folklore has always been closely related to various cultural movements and the government's cultural policies.
During the May 4th Movement period, early folk scholars took the initiative to shoulder the responsibility of cultural enlightenment.
In order to break the old culture centered on the history of sages and build a new culture centered on the history of the people, they made a vow to "bury the people's art, people's beliefs, and people's habits for thousands of years were discovered layer by layer." Unfortunately, this wish was not completed.
After 1949, the China government was determined to build a new cultural form, adopted a cultural revolution approach, and tried to completely eliminate the old culture.
It believed that there was no need to study these feudal old cultures that had to be abandoned, so it abolished folklore.
After 1978, when folklore scholars persuaded the government to resume folklore research, they emphasized the importance of folklore in "changing customs." The "multi-ethnic and one-country folklore" or "folklore school with China characteristics" proposed by Mr.
Zhong Jingwen largely echoes the basic national policy of "socialism with China characteristics."
When the concept of intangible cultural heritage entered China, folklore scholars keenly seized the opportunity to cooperate with politics again.
After 2005, folklore scholars became the main academic force in China's intangible cultural heritage protection movement and were deeply involved in this work of the China government.
China folklore scholars generally believe that participating in the intangible cultural heritage protection movement is an unshirkable social and academic responsibility of folklore, and it is also a new historical opportunity.
The Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Movement has attracted widespread attention from the whole society and provided sufficient funds for the academic research of folklore scholars, allowing them to freely conduct academic exchanges around the world and conduct field surveys across the country.
They have written a large number of academic papers, discovered and studied many new academic objects, expanded their academic fields, and greatly improved the number of folklore achievements.
The advancement of the conservation movement has greatly accelerated the expansion and improvement of folklore research institutions.
Although these institutions carry the new brand of "Intangible Cultural Heritage Research Center", in fact, most of them have been transferred from the original folklore team, continuing and expanding the living space of folklore scholars to a certain extent.
Most of these institutions have sufficient scientific research funding.
Many local colleges and universities have added corresponding courses, and many new doctoral students in folklore have been enriched into these research institutions.
The number of masters and doctoral students enrolled in folklore has increased significantly, making it easier for graduates to obtain scientific research funding.
It is also easier to find a suitable job.
Therefore, from the perspective of hardware construction, the intangible cultural heritage protection movement is of positive significance to folklore.
Folklore scholars began to take to television pulpits and accept interviews with journalists, and they became more influential in the field of public opinion.
However, behind this lively appearance, there are also disturbing hidden dangers.
1.
The marriage of academia and politics harms academic purity.
Intangible cultural heritage protection is mainly a government act, not an academic act.
Academic over-reliance on politics often comes at the expense of academic independence.
Protection and research are two categories of concepts.
The participation of folklore is mainly the participation of applied folklore, not theoretical folklore.
Intangible cultural heritage has attracted the attention of governments at all levels, and a subject category such as "Intangible Cultural Heritage Science" was quickly born.
A large number of universities such as Sun Yat-sen University, East China Normal University, and Central China Normal University quickly followed up and formed teams one after another to establish various intangible cultural heritage research institutions with similar names.
However, the main work of these research institutions is not "academic research", but rather cooperates with local governments to participate in the inspection, demonstration, writing and review of intangible cultural heritage projects, participate in the planning and design of various folk tourism, and participate in various local cultural activities to organize and promote local culture.
The shift of academic focus to applied scholarship has led to the relative stagnation of fledgling theoretical research, which is likely to further weaken the status and influence of folklore in the entire academic system.
Judging from the experience of the history of modern folklore in China, the end of any academic movement comes at the expense of the decline or stagnation of the overall theoretical level.
2.
The movement for the protection of intangible cultural heritage disrupted the gradual academic process.
Philosophy of science has established the importance of "conventional science" in modern academic development.
Conventional science refers to "research that is firmly based on one or more past scientific achievements that have been recognized by a scientific community for a period of time as the basis for further practice." Any scientific field must rely on existing research paradigms to reach maturity.
"Movement" often means a deviation from the normal order.
The so-called "movement" refers to an organized, purposeful and large-scale mass activity.
The large-scale nature of the movement inevitably means a sharp expansion of participants and the intervention of a large number of practitioners who have not received professional academic training.
As a purposeful and organized government act, China's intangible cultural heritage protection movement does not require the use of existing folklore theories.
The Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Movement discusses the issues of understanding, methods, implementation of the executors, as well as the relationship between different executors and the distribution of benefits.
It is a "working concept" rather than a "disciplinary concept." As a systematic project, the Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Movement is not so much a subject of folklore as a subject of political science or management.
In this complex conservation project, the existing folklore research paradigm has no place at all.
If a folklore scholar wants to participate in the intangible cultural heritage protection movement, he must first shelve his original research plan, abandon the existing research paradigm, and devote himself to transactional non-academic work.
Cooperation between academia and current politics and the market will inevitably come at the expense of academic independent thinking.
When folklore scholars judge the value of intangible cultural heritage and offer suggestions on protection, they do not actually give full play to their professional strengths.
They speak as public intellectuals rather than as folklore scholars.
3.
The active participation of scholars consumes scholars 'time and energy.
Once the protection of intangible cultural heritage is upgraded to a state act, to organize a massive protection movement, many temporary institutions and projects will inevitably arise.
Similarly, various positions and titles will inevitably arise.
Local governments at all levels have established expert committees on intangible cultural heritage, and most of the chief experts of these institutions are well-known folk scholars from various places.
The corresponding title must necessarily perform the corresponding duties.
Various document drafting, endless consultation meetings, endless evaluations, reviews and inspections have left many folklore scholars exhausted or happy).
After establishing intangible cultural heritage protection institutions, major universities must set up a director and several deputy director seats, be equipped with a number of professors and associate professors, and more importantly, a large amount of supporting funds.
Once professors have status and money, they are qualified to further participate in and discuss politics.
Under the current official-based academic system in China, the result of participating in political affairs will inevitably strengthen these scholars 'right to speak in the academic field, so that they can enter a "virtuous cycle" in which power and interests complement each other.
As a result of this circulation, many folklorists who are good at academic management will gain fame and fortune in this protection movement.
But "conservation work" and "folklore research" are not the same thing.
Facts have proved that almost all folklorists involved in the intangible cultural heritage protection movement have to deviate from the existing research direction and turn to a new unknown field.
Folklore is only a cold discipline, when everyone is keen on practical, conventional academic research is basically in a state of stagnation.
Without specific regular research to support, the advantages of folk scholars in political participation will gradually be lost until they are abandoned.
4.
New concepts and new disciplines have contributed to the impetuous academic atmosphere.
As long as any folk phenomenon can be labeled as "intangible cultural heritage", it means that it has achieved the legal status of "culture", followed by "protection".
For folklore scholars,"conservation projects" mean sufficient project funding.
Some scholars who were not originally engaged in folklore have also joined the folklore community, trying to share the rich benefits brought by "intangible cultural heritage."
Many scholars who have just turned their course and joined the ranks of the intangible cultural heritage protection movement have begun to recruit graduate students in the direction of "intangible cultural heritage" before they have yet to understand the ins and outs of the special concept of intangible cultural heritage.
On the surface, there are more practitioners of folklore, but these profit-seeking scholars come for profit and cannot bring any constructive results to the discipline construction of folklore.
In order to gain the trust and support of society and obtain sustainable benefits and resources, many folklore scholars often snatch the right to interpret and speak on various folk traditions in the news media.
5.
Folklore scholars cross borders and interfere in people's lives.
Folklore scholars have always advocated close the relationship between subject and object between researchers and subjects without gaps, and fantasize about integrating each other, so that they can assume themselves as the spokesperson of the inheritors of folk culture.
In fact, the identity of the so-called spokesperson is dangerous and rude.
Any endorsement may violate the true demands of the person being endorsed.
Some folklore scholars continue to deify some intangible cultural heritage as a symbol of "national spirit", trying to use nationalist discourse to manipulate themselves into guardians of the national spirit.
Some folklore scholars sensationally accuse the Spring Festival of being "stale" and propose "defending the Spring Festival" and "defending tradition." Under the banner of promoting traditional culture, they teach ordinary people how to celebrate the Spring Festival and how not to celebrate the Spring Festival, overturn various abandoned folk customs and symbols, and give them various "cultural meanings." This kind of behavior essentially constitutes interference in people's lives.
At most, what folklore scholars can grasp is a one-sided truth about folklore.
According to the social division of labor, scholars should be confined to their own professional fields and do their job well.
However, the role played by folklore scholars in this protection movement has obviously crossed the line and become dangerous elements interfering in people's real lives.
During my investigation into the protection of ancient villages, I was once scolded by villagers.
Once a scholar leaves the specific research in his professional field, he no longer has any advantages superior to public intellectuals.
On the contrary, scholars intervene too much in the protection movement as spokespersons, which may violate the public's will to a certain extent and hinder the public's free life.
6.
Most of the academic achievements in the movement are garbage achievements.
According to online searches from China academic journals, from 2004 to 2013, 18,760 papers with the theme of "Intangible Cultural Heritage" appeared in just ten years.
The three institutions that published the most papers were the Central University for Nationalities, Sun Yat-sen University, and China Academy of Art.
Most of these papers use "meaning","countermeasures","relationship" and "protection" as keywords.
They neither create any new research paradigm, nor propose any new theoretical models, nor even propose constructive theoretical standards on the value of intangible cultural heritage.
From the perspective of folklore, there is almost no current research on intangible cultural heritage that can complement the theoretical construction of folklore.
On the contrary, due to the influence of resource allocation, traditional folk research not only failed to take advantage of the wind, but became increasingly fading.
Political commentary and timeliness are prominent characteristics common to the "academic achievements" emerging from the protection movement.
Folk scholars enjoy the benefits and glory brought by the conservation movement.
At the same time, they also have to accept the cruel reality that these "academic achievements" are quickly garbage, and endure the pain and suffering of wasting their time and wasting their time.
Political commentary and timeliness determine the inevitable fate of these "achievements" to drift away with the wind.
On the surface, the intangible cultural heritage protection movement has both advantages and disadvantages for folklore.
However, as long as we analyze it carefully, we will find that all positive aspects are temporary benefits that cannot be left to future generations as academic heritage, while all negative aspects are fatal and irreparable academic wounds.
Almost all of the "Intangible Cultural Heritage Research Centers" in major universities are temporary institutions established in line with the trend of the times.
For government functional departments, each stage has its central work.
This stage may emphasize the protection of intangible cultural heritage, and the next stage will naturally have new situations and new tasks for the next stage.
When the focus of work of government functional departments shifts, intangible cultural heritage research will become unprofitable.
As a "movement", the craze for the protection of intangible cultural heritage will come to an end one day.
At that time, folklore is likely to face a more serious disciplinary crisis.
Modern folklore in China has gone through a century, but has experienced many ups and downs but has never made great development.
The reason is not unrelated to the frequent "movements." Every movement closely follows politics and the current situation.
In addition to creating a group of speculators, this movement rarely left an academic legacy to folklore worthy of inheritance and learning by future generations.
History seems to remind us that this movement for the protection of intangible cultural heritage is likely to be another new stagnation and harm to folklore, which has finally embarked on the regular scientific track.
Of course, history is unpredictable, and we cannot rule out that folklore will return to the track of regular science with a more mature face after experiencing this sports-style "carnival" nirvana.
Wen/Shi Aidong)