[Li Xiangzhen] The realization of internal and external values of intangible cultural heritage protection as cultural events
Foreword
Since 2004,"intangible cultural heritage" protection, as a "phenomenal" cultural event, has continued to have an impact in the domestic social and cultural fields.
In recent years, as the focus of "intangible cultural heritage" protection has shifted from the "declaration-identification" stage to the "protection-inheritance" stage, many issues worthy of reflection have gradually surfaced, including issues related to "intangible cultural heritage" and "intangible cultural heritage" protection.
The value issue is particularly worthy of in-depth discussion.
When discussing the issue of the right to speak on the protection of "intangible cultural heritage", Professor Liu Tieliang put forward the academic concepts of "internal value" and "external value".
He pointed out that "internal value refers to the role of folk culture in the society and historical time and space in which it exists., that is, the value recognized by the people within the organization and actually used in life.
External value refers to the concepts and comments attached to these cultures by outsiders, scholars, social activists, cultural industry personages, etc., or the economic benefits gained by commercial packaging,"and pointed out that" the current practice of 'protecting' folk culture and the results are more focused on the realization of its external values than the realization of its internal values." Liu Tieliang's discussion of "internal values" and "external values" and Article 6 of the "Ethical Principles for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage" promulgated by UNESCO later stipulated that "each community, group or individual should evaluate the value of intangible cultural heritage it holds, and this heritage should not be subject to external value or significance judgment." They all emphasize that the protection of "intangible cultural heritage" must pay attention to its intrinsic value.
At the same time, the external value given by external forces was criticized to varying degrees.
Over the past decade or so, discussions on the value of intangible cultural heritage have mainly focused on the discussion of the noumenon value of intangible cultural heritage.
For example, Zheng Ledan summarized the value of intangible cultural heritage into five categories based on the resource characteristics of intangible cultural heritage.
Value, cultural and scientific value, aesthetic value, spiritual value and contemporary value; Gao Xiaokang proposed that "intangible cultural heritage value includes history, science and art, and value evaluation is the basis of intangible cultural heritage protection practice." Many other studies have analyzed the value of various intangible cultural heritage categories (such as handicrafts, folk arts, festivals, ethnic minorities, etc.).
Whether it is its historical value, scientific and artistic value, in a sense, it is mostly the value given to it by external forces (such as the government, scholars, etc.) rather than by the holders or inheritors and sharers of intangible cultural heritage.
At the same time, discussions that focus too much on the ontological value of intangible cultural heritage can easily fall into a paradoxical trap, that is, these may not be the unique value of intangible cultural heritage, but the universal value of most cultures created by mankind.
In this way, the legitimacy of the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage is challenged.
In this case, it is necessary to discuss the value of intangible cultural heritage from other aspects.
Japanese scholar Yuka Suga pointed out that intangible cultural heritage itself does not have value, but its value actually exists in the relationship between the inheritors and intangible cultural heritage.
That is to say, the value of intangible cultural heritage is generated in the relationship between culture and people.
Yang Lihui also pointed out: "The purpose of intangible cultural heritage protection is to ensure that intangible cultural heritage can continue to be practiced and passed down within and through the group of people.
Therefore, the understanding and respect for the community people as 'insiders' should be the basic principle of intangible cultural heritage protection." Coupled with the above-mentioned discussion of internal and external values by Professor Liu Tieliang, these can be regarded as discussing the value of "intangible cultural heritage" and its realization issues based on the subject of "intangible cultural heritage".
In a sense, the transformation from ontology value to subjectivity value is an important breakthrough in discussing the value of "intangible cultural heritage".
However, these studies intentionally or unintentionally overemphasize the intrinsic value of "intangible cultural heritage", and the research tendency to criticize various other social forces has also caused to a certain extent that theory and practice in the field of "intangible cultural heritage" protection cannot be well integrated.
problem.
Starting from the subjects and relationships, we can find that the value realization of "intangible cultural heritage" and "intangible cultural heritage" protection depends on the common cultural practices of many social entities such as cultural holders, government organizations, social activists, commercial capitalists, and scholars.
Therefore, when we discuss the value issues of "intangible cultural heritage" and "intangible cultural heritage" protection, we must not only review the over-emphasis on external values in current practice, but also reflect on the idealism that over-emphasizes its intrinsic value in academic research.
Because a truly good practice of "intangible cultural heritage" protection should seek a coupling path between intrinsic value and external value.
Otherwise, the tension between practice and theory will only increase, which is not conducive to the practice of "intangible cultural heritage" protection or the in-depth research of "intangible cultural heritage".
In addition, from a practical perspective, as Huang Longguang said,"In the practice of contemporary intangible cultural heritage protection, we face the danger of being assimilated by administration, and we cannot fully achieve adhering to the folk stance, and there is a lack of sufficient reflexivity within the discipline."
The emergence of these problems is related to our long-term intentional or unintentional neglect of the different values given to "intangible cultural heritage" protection by different participating entities and the intrinsic relevance of various values.
As Yue Yongyi said,"Whose 'intangible cultural heritage' and whose diversity should be questions that must be questioned and alerted at all times in the 'intangible cultural heritage' movement." In view of this, this article will start with the main participants and re-examine and reflect on the ethical value and practical significance of the protection granted by each participant to "intangible cultural heritage".
In other words, what this article wants to discuss is the question of "what are we asking for from something named 'intangible cultural heritage'?" Specifically, this article attempts to answer: Why has the "intangible cultural heritage" protection movement become such an influential cultural event in the past ten years? What forces are pushing this cultural event to continue to deepen? And how to seek the greatest value consensus among the different demands of different subjects, so as to promote the continuous and in-depth development of "intangible cultural heritage" protection practice and "intangible cultural heritage" research?
1."Re-Orientalization": The State and Tradition in the Protection of "Intangible Cultural Heritage"
Since the 1980s, there has been a trend of thought to re-discuss and evaluate "traditional culture" in the domestic ideological and cultural field.
In a sense,"traditional culture craze" is a kind of "re-Orientalization" action in the cultural field.
"Orientalization" is a concept put forward by the famous literary theorist Said to discuss how Western scholars build "Orient" as "Other".
In the eyes of Western scholars,"the East is irrational, degenerate, childish, and 'abnormal'; while Europe is rational, chaste, mature, and 'normal'." This concept was gradually accepted by domestic social intellectual elites in the late Qing Dynasty.
Under the influence of social Darwinism, social intellectual elites at that time urgently needed a new concept to reshape social thoughts in order to get rid of their ideological dilemma.
As a result, the Enlightenment Movement led by Western rationalism and modernization concepts began.
After the 1980s, with the improvement of the country's comprehensive national strength, the need to seek voice and demonstrate cultural confidence in the international community has further increased.
In this context, re-examining and evaluating traditional culture has become an inevitable choice.
This process can be called "re-Orientalization".
Re-Orientalization is the struggle launched by late-developing modern countries, especially the "eastern" late-developing countries in the cultural sense, after gaining a certain degree of say in their economic and political status.
The return of tradition became the theme of cultural discussions during this period.
After nearly two decades of development, the limited return of tradition at the practical level is no longer enough to meet the needs of political construction.
Therefore, after entering the 21st century, the protection of "intangible cultural heritage" as a symbol of cultural discourse has quickly become an important event in the country's cultural undertakings once it has entered the national vision.
Driven by governments at all levels, the "intangible cultural heritage" protection movement was quickly integrated with the process of returning to tradition or "re-Orientalization", forming a strong cultural potential.
As Yang Lihui said,"Today's vigorous intangible cultural heritage protection movement in China is to a certain extent a further advancement and deepening of the local tradition of continuous and endless cultural protection."
From a national perspective, the inherent power operation of traditional cultural rejuvenation practice represented by the protection of "intangible cultural heritage" is a political need for the construction of national power.
It can be said that the "re-Orientalization" during this period was actually a cultural and political practice to reconstruct nation-state identity and condense the consciousness of national community.
In this process,"intangible cultural heritage", as a cultural resource and cultural symbol, is endowed with extremely rich connotation and significance.
As far as the country is concerned, protecting "intangible cultural heritage" is more like a political slogan, and "intangible cultural heritage" protection is the political practice of this slogan.
Wang Jiewen pointed out that "the cultural practice of 'heritage' is a creative activity that creatively selects, names, and reorganizes 'past' cultural resources based on 'present' needs." Therefore, in national political discourse,"intangible cultural heritage", as a representative of excellent traditional culture, has been constructed as a carrier of national spirit and a symbolic resource to shape the consciousness of national community.
It is also a national story that gives out a local voice on the world cultural stage.
Discourse technology.
Judging from the practical process of "intangible cultural heritage" protection, in addition to being a cultural resource that can enhance domestic pride and strive for cultural discourse externally, what is more important is that "intangible cultural heritage" and "intangible cultural heritage" protection itself can also become a kind of governance resource.
As Yue Yongyi said,"The top-down 'intangible cultural heritage' movement is also a massive cultural cleanup and self-help movement.
Not only that, it is also a cultural movement that starts from the bottom and reports, reviews, and evaluates layer by layer." Through the practice of "intangible cultural heritage" protection, the will of the country can be integrated into the cultural field and daily life.
The state obtains the right to judge cultural values by formulating policies, formulating standards, identification procedures, and setting up agencies and departments, thereby laying the institutional foundation for the implementation of social and cultural governance.
As Chen Zhiqin said,"As one of the important strategies for national cultural construction, intangible cultural heritage protection has entered a relatively mature stage at the level of government work, whether it is the construction of the protection system or the operation of inheritance practice."
In general, the state-led protection of "intangible cultural heritage" is not only a projection of "concentrating efforts to do big things" in the cultural field, but also a process of giving "intangible cultural heritage" external values such as rich politics and national spirit.
It is also an important measure for the construction of national politics and culture.
From the perspective of political practice, this state-led cultural event has at least two levels of value: first, the level of political power construction is not only conducive to breaking through in the long-term "Western-centrism" cultural hegemony, seeking the right to speak in the cultural field, and expressing your own voice can also strengthen cultural confidence and national pride, and cultivate people's sense of national community; The second is at the level of cultural governance.
As a governance resource,"intangible cultural heritage" protection itself can also form a complete administrative operation mechanism within the government system (mainly the cultural management department).
Through the establishment of various "intangible cultural heritage" protection systems, we can better implement social and cultural governance.
2.
The revival of tradition: the cultural capital of intellectual elites
Once "intangible cultural heritage" protection emerged around 2004, it quickly attracted the attention of many disciplines including folklore, art, and traditional cultural studies.
Among them, folklore, which focuses on traditional culture and folk culture, has become a popular place for this time.
The main supplier of academic resources for cultural events.
"When the concept of intangible cultural heritage entered China, folklore scholars keenly seized the opportunity to cooperate with politics again." In the domestic practice of "intangible cultural heritage" protection, according to research concepts and specific actions, academic intellectual elites generally play two different roles: "academic school" and "practical school".
Although different scholars have different attitudes and specific actions towards "intangible cultural heritage" protection, their public demands are basically the same, that is, to gain the right to speak on "intangible cultural heritage" protection.
In order to gain the right to speak on the protection of "intangible cultural heritage", both the "academic school" and the "practical school" have reconstructed the "intangible cultural heritage" originally belonging to grassroots culture or popular culture at the discourse level.
The re-construction of these discourses is essentially the academic community's "re-enchantment" of grassroots culture.
First, realize the realization of intellectual capital by participating in "intangible cultural heritage" protection.
As a practical concept,"intangible cultural heritage" is destined to become the judgment of intellectual elites represented by scholars on the groups they identify as being in a culturally disadvantaged position.
This will inevitably make some scholars become spokespersons of "cultural hegemony" in Gramsci's sense.
As Bowman and others point out, cultural hegemony "points out a subtle but effective process of operation designed to ensure a monopoly over those norms and values established by a particular order.
Culture has thus become an activity of conversion aimed at persuading people to abandon old habits and beliefs in favor of other habits and beliefs, or to accuse other cultures based on their alleged superiority." Of course, in recent years, many studies have criticized this behavior of intellectual elites that is similar to cultural hegemony.
Second, we can achieve the goal of participating in society by participating in the protection of "intangible cultural heritage".
In the practice of "intangible cultural heritage" protection, experts and scholars play a very important role.
The professional opinions and expert opinions provided by scholars can not only play a role in the evaluation and identification of specific "intangible cultural heritage" projects, but also play a role in the design of top-level systems.
Influenced by traditional cultural concepts, many intellectuals naturally have the enthusiasm to "join the WTO", that is, in addition to "cultivating one's moral character and regulating one's family", they must also participate in "governing the country and stabilizing the world." Although the national system and social structure faced by intellectuals in China have undergone tremendous changes in modern times, and at the same time, the role played by knowledge in the overall social governance has also changed, as Xu Jilin said,"In China, which advocates strength, the public opinion of literati has always been regarded as an indispensable 'enlightened' ornament by the rulers.
Although intellectuals have repeatedly tried to form 'pressure groups' or 'public opinion participation' on the periphery of politics, But he suffered setbacks in the face of cold reality.
This creates an inevitable conflict between academia and politics, putting intellectuals in a contradictory situation." In this case, the "intangible cultural heritage" protection movement has become a breakthrough for some scholars to participate in society.
Third, by participating in the protection of "intangible cultural heritage", we can explore relevant academic growth points and realize the reproduction of knowledge, cultural capital and social capital.
As a cultural event and social phenomenon, there is no doubt that "intangible cultural heritage" protection promotes the production of specialized knowledge.
"Intangible cultural heritage" is a cultural type and a set of discourses that have been "named".
It is also an entry point for the study of traditional and folk culture.
From the perspective of academic research, no matter what,"intangible cultural heritage" protection does show strong potential for academic growth.
This is also the case.
Over the past ten years, hundreds of monographs and compilations have been produced and hundreds of thousands of articles of various types around the theme of "intangible cultural heritage".
Although not all writings are helpful in improving knowledge increment, most of them do promote the in-depth of relevant research, including theoretical research, methodological research, and practical understanding.
At the same time, many schools have also established "Intangible Cultural Heritage Research Centers" or "Intangible Cultural Heritage Research Institutes" at various levels.
Some universities and scientific research institutes have established "Intangible Cultural Heritage" research directions under the disciplines of folklore, anthropology or art, recruit master's and doctoral students, cultivate specialized talents, and undertake relevant administrative tasks from cultural management departments at all levels, and organize activities such as "Intangible Cultural Heritage" training and "Intangible Cultural Heritage" entry into campuses.In addition, in recent years, some scholars have called for the establishment of an academic community around "intangible cultural heritage", which to a certain extent will also help prosper the market of disciplines directly concerned with the protection of "intangible cultural heritage", including folklore, cultural studies and art studies.
As Shi Aidong said,"From the perspective of hardware construction, the intangible cultural heritage protection movement is of positive significance to folklore."
In general, by giving "intangible cultural heritage" external values such as academic potential, scholars not only realize their original intention of participating in society through professional knowledge, but also enrich the value attributes of "intangible cultural heritage" itself.
Folklore scholars shouldering the banner of research on the inheritance and protection of intangible cultural heritage, which is not only related to the historical opportunities given to the discipline by the times, but also to the scholars 'own continuous exploration efforts based on their practical ideals of participating in society or their academic pursuits based on production professional knowledge.
In this cultural event that can be called an academic feast, the intellectual elite, with folk scholars as the main body, gained the right to speak and cultural capital, which in turn further inspired the intellectual elite to continue to participate in this cultural event, and the two formed a continuous interactive pattern.
Of course, some scholars such as Shi Aidong pointed out that the excessive participation of folklore scholars in the "intangible cultural heritage" protection movement may have a negative impact on the discipline of folklore and require special attention.
3.
Public participation: Nationality and folklore in the protection of "intangible cultural heritage"
In the movement for the protection of intangible cultural heritage, the public plays a very important role.
As mentioned earlier, although discussions on the protection and rescue of traditional culture and folk culture had arisen in academic circles before the rise of the intangible cultural heritage protection movement, it was not until 2005 when South Korea's "Gangneung Dragon Boat Festival" declared for the world's intangible cultural heritage and obtained success.
After that, domestic people really began to participate in the intangible cultural heritage protection movement.
Over the past decade or so, there have been two prominent manifestations of public participation in the domestic intangible cultural heritage movement: First, the intangible cultural heritage representing the excellent traditional culture of the Chinese nation has provided cultural resources for the rise of nationalist thoughts; Second, the people's strong identification complex with "intangible cultural heritage" has further promoted the rise of folk tourism activities with "intangible cultural heritage" as the main cultural resource.
Social commercial capital transforms "intangible cultural heritage" into economic resources through the form of folk tourism to obtain economic benefits.
Therefore, for the general public, the intrinsic value of intangible cultural heritage itself in the intangible cultural heritage protection movement is no longer very important.
What is more important is to provide a suitable cultural field for people to express the sense of the Chinese nation's community.
At the same time, social commercial capital has also found "business opportunities" in this collective identification of the general public, and has developed local folk tourism in the name of protecting and inheriting intangible cultural heritage, thereby obtaining the potential commercial value of intangible cultural heritage.
(1) Nationalism in the protection of "intangible cultural heritage"
South Korea's "Gangneung Dragon Boat Festival" triggered a debate among domestic people for "applying for cultural heritage" and provided an extensive and effective "intangible cultural heritage" enlightenment for ordinary people.
In the following years, with the active participation and promotion of all types of entities that affected almost the entire society, activities such as the application, identification, protection, and inheritance of "intangible cultural heritage" at all levels were carried out in full swing, and "intangible cultural heritage" soon became "iconic culture" of various places.
For countries, applying for "intangible cultural heritage" to enter the World List has become a national cultural feast.
According to online data, as of 2018, a total of 40 projects in China have been included in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List, ranking first in the world in total.
The fact is that every time a domestic project is included in the UNESCO "Intangible Cultural Heritage" list, it will cause a lot of heated discussion on the Internet.
It can be seen that these projects are not only a cultural form, but also endowed with rich political emotions by the people, and all of this is inseparable from "nationalism".
"Nationalism" in the modern sense generally emerged with the emergence of modern nation-state consciousness.
In terms of time, nationalism emerged around the middle and late 18th century and reached its climax in the "Furious Rush" movement led by the famous German scholar Herder.
At the beginning of the 20th century, romantic nationalism was introduced into China, which had a great impact on social ideological construction in the following decades.
Since the 1980s, some scholars have noticed that with urbanization and social development, more and more folk culture is about to disappear.
Based on their sense of mission to save national culture and traditional culture, they have begun to call for the protection of folk culture; In the early 21st century, Feng Jicai and other scholars took the lead in introducing the concept of "rescue".
Later, the concept of "intangible cultural heritage" was systematically introduced to China, and domestic scholars, especially folk scholars, began to pay attention to this issue.
It should be said that before 2004, the "folk culture protection" or "folk culture rescue" project was still limited to small groups of scholars and relevant government departments.
It was not until November 2005 that the Gangneung Dragon Boat Festival in South Korea applied for a world-class cultural heritage and was approved that many passionate people began to realize the relationship between "intangible cultural heritage" protection and national cultural identity.
As a result, more and more ordinary people participated in the practice of "intangible cultural heritage" protection, and a national carnival-style "intangible cultural heritage" protection movement soon emerged.
(2) Folklore in the protection of "intangible cultural heritage"
As an academic concept,"Folklore" was first proposed by German folklorist Hans Moser in the 1950s and 1960s.
Later, it was expanded by scholars such as Baussinger and gradually became an important concept in the analysis of folk culture.
However, the attention paid to folklore as a folk cultural phenomenon can be traced back to the birth of European folklore, that is, the end of the 18th century, and is closely related to the romantic nationalism trend of thought at that time.
With the end of World War II, after the 1940s and 1940s, the economies of capitalist countries experienced rapid growth, followed by the prevalence of consumerism.
Consumerism that permeates into all aspects of daily life naturally also affects the cultural level, and cultural consumerism appears.
Under the influence of this trend of thought, many countries and regions have begun to play the "cultural card".
In order to satisfy the curiosity of cultural consumers, the entire society has indulged in the wave of collecting various foreign cultures and folk cultures.
Under the powerful offensive of consumerism, as a means of cultural production, collection alone has become difficult to meet the increasing cultural needs.
As a result, the phenomenon of "manufacturing" folk culture has emerged.
In this regard, American folklorists call it "pseudo-folk customs" and some corresponding discussions have been launched in the academic community.
Later, with the emergence of the concept of "folklore", scholars gradually turned to the relatively more value-neutral discussion of "folklore".
Folklore, as a cultural phenomenon and cultural practice, generally refers to the practice of changing the form of a certain folk event on the basis of the original cultural tradition for some external purpose, or restoring the disappeared folk event based on oral and documentary materials, or only retaining the original form of folk event and changing its content.
From the perspective of social commercial capital, whether it is development protection, production protection, or overall protection combined with folk tourism, all of them transform, reconstruct, and even "forge" itself to a certain extent to make it more market value.
In these protection practices, various commercial projects "manufactured" under the guise of "intangible cultural heritage" abound.
Some developers create folk villages out of thin air for economic benefits.
This kind of folklore caused by commercial capital's involvement in the protection of "intangible cultural heritage" has been systematically discussed in the academic world, so I will not repeat it here.
In short, for the general public, the value of "intangible cultural heritage" and "intangible cultural heritage" protection is manifested in three levels: first, as a cultural carrier to express nationalist sentiments; second, as a cultural tradition to satisfy the psychology of curiosity; third, It is a cultural resource to carry out projects to gain economic benefits.
In the practice of "intangible cultural heritage" protection, ordinary people do not so much recognize the cultural and spiritual values contained in intangible cultural heritage itself, but rather pay more attention to its external form and symbolic value.
4.
Cultural resources: Lifestyles and cultural strategies of "intangible cultural heritage" holders
In December 2015, UNESCO reviewed and adopted the "Ethical Principles for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage", which aims to "prevent disrespect and abuse of intangible cultural heritage involving moral, legislative or commercial utilization levels." This 12 ethical principles have become one of the most important programmatic documents in the field of international "intangible cultural heritage" protection in recent years.
This marks that the protection of "intangible cultural heritage" has shifted from paying more attention to the "thing" itself to caring for the communities, groups and individuals as the holders.
That is to say, the focus of protection has shifted from "culture" to "people"."These principles first highlight the power of cultural holders, namely indigenous communities/communities, groups and individuals, in identifying intangible cultural heritage and recognize their primary role in the production, protection, continuation and re-creation of intangible cultural heritage." So, what do "intangible cultural heritage" and "intangible cultural heritage protection" mean for holders?
"Intangible cultural heritage" is the cultural wealth accumulated by ordinary people through thousands of years of life practice.
These cultures themselves have withstood and withstood the test of life practice, and are cultural forms that are compatible with people's lives and complement each other.
At this stage, major changes are taking place in social life, which will undoubtedly impact the inheritance and protection of "intangible cultural heritage".
If "intangible cultural heritage" cannot adapt to changes in life, these "intangible cultural heritage" will sooner or later be eliminated by life and given up by the holders.
Historical practice shows that the most important criterion for judging which culture a holder chooses and abandons is whether it helps to maintain production and life and whether it can become a means of livelihood.
For holders, most cultural forms that are now recognized as "intangible cultural heritage" by officials or scholars are a living resource.
They are resources on which to make a living (such as intangible cultural heritage of traditional skills), or resources on which to interact (such as intangible cultural heritage of folk festivals), or resources on which to obtain community capital and social capital (such as intangible cultural heritage of traditional arts), or resources to satisfy certain religious emotions and experiences (such as Nuo opera and temple fairs), etc.
As Liu Tieliang said,"It is proposed that the protection of intangible cultural heritage is due to cultural crisis, but protection itself cannot fundamentally overcome the cultural crisis.
As far as the feelings of ordinary people are concerned, contemporary people's awareness of cultural crisis is closely related to their own physical experience of the great changes in the environment."
In a sense, the resource attributes of "intangible cultural heritage" come not only from external participating forces (such as countries, scholars, ordinary people, etc.), but also from the holder group or individuals.
For example, academic circles often say that the aging of inheritors is one of the biggest problems in current "intangible cultural heritage" protection practices.
In fact, if we really want to give the right to speak back to cultural holders, or take into account groups and individuals as holders when implementing protection measures and formulating protection regulations and policies, then we will find that it may not be necessary to always regard aging as an issue of "intangible cultural heritage" protection, let alone a problem.
From a resource perspective, many "intangible cultural heritage" projects with strong resource monetization capabilities have greatly lost their market in modern society.
Cultural resources that used to make a living may now be only auxiliary sources of living, or even a small living subsidy.
In this case, it is difficult to emphasize too much on the rejuvenation of inheritors.
After all, everyone has the right to yearn for and pursue a better life.
Even the aging of inheritors, which is considered to be one of the problems, has its reasonable economic logic.
The resource attributes of most "intangible cultural heritage"(except for projects that still have strong market vitality such as "intangible cultural heritage" that can be protected for production or development) have either changed.
For example, projects that could previously be used as a means of livelihood can now only become some auxiliary entertainment resource, or the "input-output" is disproportionate and no longer occupies a favorable position in the market.
In this case, the elderly can just maximize the use of these "intangible cultural heritage" resources.
On the one hand, the elderly can obtain living allowances through this, which is particularly important for the elderly with less financial resources; on the other hand, they can gain fun and a sense of value from it.
In 2018, when I was conducting a survey in Enshi, western Hubei, I found that many local elderly people were following the "old master"(Representative inheritors of national-level projects) studied "Nanqu", which was included in the national-level intangible cultural heritage list, and they formed several performance teams to perform resident performances or mobile performances in various tea houses in tourist attractions.
It not only realized self-entertainment, but also gained income, and also helped to the inheritance and protection of this "intangible cultural heritage" project.
It achieved three goals, fully demonstrating the vitality of the elderly in the practice of protecting and inheriting certain "intangible cultural heritage" projects.
Of course, in the practice of "intangible cultural heritage" protection, a self-evident reason why groups or individuals as holders cooperate with the propaganda or actions of the state, scholars or other social forces is that they can obtain "benefits" from it.
The benefits here include both direct financial subsidies and indirect acquisition of social capital (including honors, status, industry authority, etc.).
This is also an important driving force for many inheritors of "intangible cultural heritage" to actively participate in the protection of "intangible cultural heritage".
Therefore, it is difficult to say that in the current practice of "intangible cultural heritage" protection, groups or individuals as holders are absent.
Rather, they have always been an important game in the "cultural field" formed around "intangible cultural heritage" protection.
Power.
However, compared with the excitement of the country, scholars, and ordinary people, they are even more silent.
It can be said that in the protection of "intangible cultural heritage", although the holders do not speak much, they have never been absent.
In short, if the return of "intangible cultural heritage" protection to cultural holders is not only a discourse technique, but a real change in the concept of protection and inheritance, then we must first recognize that groups and individuals as intangible cultural heritage holders have the right to give "intangible cultural heritage" intrinsic value, and this intrinsic value is often expressed as the characteristics of "intangible cultural heritage" resources in protection practice.
Therefore, for cultural holders, the so-called intangible cultural heritage protection is actually a path to seek cultural resources.
Although cultural holders do not always meet the presupposition of "rational people", they are not as "ignorant" as some scholars claim.
In fact, they have the most "strategic" vision of the culture they hold and share.
Although they may not necessarily know what these cultures mean to enhancing the sense of national community, let alone what these cultures mean to the cultural diversity of all mankind, they know best when and in what way they should turn these cultures into resources for a better life.
conclusion
The domestic intangible cultural heritage protection movement has sprung up like bamboo shoots after rain, and has become extremely prosperous as soon as it appears.
During the entire process, in addition to the initial scholars, the government gradually began to take the lead, the people participated, and businessmen also participated.
As mentioned above, the value given to "intangible cultural heritage" and "intangible cultural heritage" protection movements by different participating entities can be roughly divided into two categories, namely, the external value given by the state, social commercial capital, ordinary people, scholars, etc.
and the intrinsic value given by the cultural holder.
In terms of external value, through the "intangible cultural heritage" and "intangible cultural heritage" protection movement, the country can not only stimulate the awareness of national community and establish a culturally confident image of a great country, but also gain the right to speak in the world cultural field.
At the same time, it can also be implemented.
Effective social and cultural governance; for scholars, the "intangible cultural heritage" and the "intangible cultural heritage" protection movement can not only be a suitable carrier to realize their "cultural elite awareness", but also become a knowledge growth point for professional research and academic prosperity; For ordinary people and commercial capitalists,"intangible cultural heritage" and "intangible cultural heritage" protection can not only satisfy the expression of their nationalist sentiments, but also maximize the transformation of their economic interests.In terms of intrinsic value, cultural holders give more meaning to "intangible cultural heritage" and "intangible cultural heritage" protection.
What they value is the resource attributes of "intangible cultural heritage" and "intangible cultural heritage" protection.
At the same time, multiple participants jointly promoted the cultural event of "intangible cultural heritage" protection.
It is precisely because different participants can obtain different values and interests here that such a cultural event can continue to this day.
The protection of "intangible cultural heritage" that returns to the main body is not only a return to the cultural holders, but also to include all participants in the main category and truly transform from focusing on cultural events to focusing on "people".
Only in this way can the protection concept of "seeing people, seeing things and seeing life" be truly implemented.
As Huang Longguang said,"Looking at the world today, globalization is still sweeping across every corner of the earth.
Industrialization, commercialization and urbanization are spreading throughout urban and rural areas.'Culture sets the stage, economy plays the opera.' Under the banner of developmentism, the inheritance and protection of national culture are often forced to give way to local economic construction.
As the original cultural form of intangible cultural heritage is destroyed to varying degrees, the chain of organic inheritance of cultural heritage has broken since ancient times.
At this time, relying solely on internal endogenous inheritance protection is no longer able to shoulder the important task of protecting intangible cultural heritage." Therefore, we need to re-examine the tendency to overemphasize external forces in the protection of intangible cultural heritage and pay too much attention to internal forces in theoretical research.
Today, we emphasize the protection of intangible cultural heritage.
In addition to the various internal and external values analyzed above, the more significant reason is that these cultural forms with rich values are becoming fragile and even on the verge of extinction due to lack of internal protection and inheritance motivation.
In other words, many intangible cultural heritage projects that rely solely on cultural holders for inheritance and protection no longer meet various subjective and objective conditions, so they require the intervention of external forces.
In this sense, in the protection of intangible cultural heritage in my country, external forces and internal forces are a dialectical relationship.
Similarly, the internal and external values given to intangible cultural heritage projects are also a dialectical relationship.
Therefore, when we discuss the sustainability of "intangible cultural heritage" protection in the new era, we must neither overemphasize external values nor abandon the idealistic tendency of overemphasize intrinsic values.
After all, no matter how we emphasize the cultural rights of "intangible cultural heritage" holders, we cannot ignore the basic fact that the realization of the intrinsic value of "intangible cultural heritage" and "intangible cultural heritage" protection is always inseparable from the participation of external forces, and the external value of "intangible cultural heritage" and "intangible cultural heritage" protection cannot be truly realized without the subjective will of "intangible cultural heritage" holders.
In general, as a cultural event involving multiple social entities, the realization of the value of "intangible cultural heritage" protection depends on seeking the greatest common denominator between the specific demands of each participating entity.
In other words, a truly good practice of "intangible cultural heritage" protection should seek the greatest consensus between intrinsic value and external value.
Otherwise, the tension between practice and theory will only increase, which will not be conducive to the continuous advancement of "intangible cultural heritage" protection practice, nor will it be conducive to in-depth discussion of "intangible cultural heritage" research.
(This article was published in the Journal of Yunnan Normal University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), No.
5, 2021.
The annotations are omitted and refer to the original issue for details)