Civilization is an important symbol of social progress and national development. Among the socialist core values, "civilization" embodies the orientation of advanced socialist culture and the value pursuit of socialist spiritual civilization. To carry forward and practice the concept of socialist civilization, we must consciously follow the laws of cultural construction, not only absorb the beneficial elements of all civilization achievements at all times and at all times, but also base ourselves on Socialism with Chinese characteristics’s great practice, so that cultural construction can keep pace with the progress of the times and the development of practice.
(A) Civilization is the spiritual power and cultural embodiment of social progress.
In the history of human development, civilization, as a kind of value pursuit, plays a very important role in guiding the practical activities of social subjects. The pursuit of civilization by social subjects can improve personal accomplishment, optimize social order and promote national development. Generally speaking, the history of human society is a history of human civilization.
1. Civilization is an important embodiment of personal accomplishment.
In eastern and western cultures, the etymological meaning of the word "civilization" is closely related to the cultural and moral qualities of social individuals. The word "civilization" in English comes from the Latin word "civis", which means the urban citizenship of Rome, which means that it is superior to the living conditions of non-urban people, and then it is extended to an advanced social and cultural development state.
The word "civilization" in Chinese originated from Zhouyi. "Gan" hexagram: "See the dragon in the field, the world is civilized", which means "bright". In other classics, the word civilization means more about people’s education and civilization. Shun Dian in Shangshu praised Shun: "Being civilized in philosophy, being courteous and accommodating." Kong Yingda, a native of the Tang Dynasty, commented: "The text is spoken in the sky and latitude, and the light is bright in all directions", which means that Xiu De, the king, is simple in folk customs. "Book of Rites" said: "It is because of deep affection and civilization, exuberance and deification, harmony and prosperity, and prosperity." The civilization here is the result of personal inner virtue and cultural accomplishment, which not only makes people radiant, but also makes others feel like spring breeze. It is under the enlightenment of civilization that the Chinese nation has not only prospered its material civilization in the long-term historical development, but also won the reputation of a country of etiquette.
2. Civilization is the spiritual power and cultural embodiment of national development.
Civilization is not only the symbol of social individual cultural accomplishment, but also the goal and motive force of national development. In the view of historical materialism, civilization is a general description of the development state of a country, and civilization is the sum of material wealth and spiritual wealth created by a country. The emergence of civilization is closely related to the development of productive forces: "The era of civilization is the period of learning to further process natural products and the period of real industry and art". [Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 4, People’s Publishing House, 1995, p. 24. The contradictory movement of productive forces and relations of production promotes the development and change of civilization: "Through the movement of private property and its wealth and poverty-or material and spiritual wealth and poverty-the emerging society finds all the materials needed for this formation". [Marx: Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts in 1844, People’s Publishing House, 2000, p. 88. ]
Nowadays, culture plays an increasingly important role in the competition of comprehensive national strength, and civilization has become the soul and spiritual motive force of national development. In contemporary international competition, whoever occupies the commanding heights of cultural development will be able to take the initiative in international competition. Since the reform and opening up, China’s socialist modernization has made remarkable achievements, and socialist civilization has also made great progress. However, it is undeniable that there are still many problems in the construction of culture and spiritual civilization compared with the achievements made in the construction of material civilization. The history of human civilization and progress fully shows that "without the active guidance of advanced culture, the great enrichment of people’s spiritual world and the full play of the creative spirit of the whole nation, a country or a nation cannot stand among the advanced nations in the world." [Selected Works of Important Documents since the 16th National Congress (Part II), Central Literature Publishing House, 2008, p. 752. ]
3. Civilization is the constant value pursuit of the Communist Party of China (CPC) people.
Building a civilized country is the Communist Party of China (CPC)’s constant value pursuit. During the revolutionary war years, building a civilized country was one of the goals of communist party’s revolution. Mao Zedong pointed out that we "should not only turn a politically oppressed and economically exploited China into a politically free and economically prosperous China, but also turn an ignorant and backward China ruled by the old culture into an advanced China ruled by the new culture." [Selected Works of Mao Zedong, Volume 2, People’s Publishing House, 1991), p. 663. ]
In the new era of socialist construction and reform and opening-up, our party has repeatedly stressed that we should not only build a highly developed material civilization, but also build a highly developed spiritual civilization. Both of them are important contents of socialist construction, which support each other and cannot be neglected. "The superiority of socialism is not only manifested in the economic and political aspects, but also in the ability to create a high degree of material civilization, and in the ideological and cultural aspects, and in the ability to create a high degree of spiritual civilization. Poverty is not socialism; Empty spiritual life and corrupt social atmosphere are not socialism. ….. We must fully realize that the construction of two civilizations cannot be socialism with China characteristics without the development of any aspect. " [Selected Documents on the Construction of Socialist Spiritual Civilization, Central Literature Publishing House, 1996), pp. 473-474. ]
In the new century and new period, our party has raised socialist civilization to the height of the soul of rejuvenating the country. The Supreme Leader pointed out that if the Communist Party of China (CPC) people want to lead the people of China to realize the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation, they must carry forward the spirit of China which embodies the essence of the socialist core value system. "To realize the Chinese Dream, we must carry forward the spirit of China. This is the national spirit with patriotism as the core and the spirit of the times with reform and innovation as the core. This spirit is the soul of rejuvenating the country and the soul of a strong country. "
(2) Socialist civilization is by far the most advanced form of civilization.
In the course of the development of human civilization, there are many definitions of the word civilization. Simply speaking, people’s understanding of the word civilization can be roughly summed up in two levels: broad sense and narrow sense. Civilization in a broad sense is the sum of the material and spiritual achievements of human beings in transforming the world; In a narrow sense, civilization mainly refers to spiritual civilization, especially ideological progress and cultural advancement.
1. Civilization is both an objective descriptive concept and a historical value concept.
Civilization is not only a descriptive concept that objectively describes the social development, but also a value concept that evaluates whether the social development is reasonable. When civilization is an objective descriptive concept, it has something in common with culture. Culture is a neutral word, "culture is humanization", and all human practical activities and their products can be called culture. The accumulation of culture constitutes civilization. The civilization here is equivalent to the generalized civilization we analyzed earlier, and it is the sum of the material and spiritual achievements of human beings in transforming the world. It is horizontally developed into five systems: material civilization, political civilization, spiritual civilization, social civilization and ecological civilization. These five systems grasp the complete form of social civilization, and each of them describes the development of human society from its own specific aspects.
When civilization is a concept of value, it is equivalent to the narrow sense of civilization we analyzed earlier, that is, ideological progress and cultural advancement corresponding to ideological conservatism and cultural backwardness. Historical materialism tells us that man, as a historical social existence, has complex and diverse subjective evaluation scales. Among them, only those values that conform to the historical development trend, promote social progress and promote people’s freedom and liberation are reasonable and advanced. From the perspective of the development of human civilization history, we can vertically divide civilization forms such as slavery civilization, feudalism civilization, capitalism civilization and socialism civilization according to social forms. These civilization forms have a progressive replacement relationship at different levels. Historically, the latter is a higher civilization form than the former, which in turn constitutes various historical stages of human civilization progress.
2. Socialist civilization is by far the most advanced form of civilization.
Marxism believes that with the continuous development of social productive forces, human civilization has been developing from low level to high level, and socialist civilization is the most advanced civilization form in the development of human society so far. The reason why socialist civilization is more advanced than previous social civilization is that it is based on the economic and political basis of public ownership and people being masters of their own affairs. Before the emergence of socialist civilization, several other types of civilization were "civilizations" based on the private ownership of the means of production and the class rule of the minority over the majority. These civilizations are nominal, and Engels even called these so-called civilized times the prehistoric times of mankind. Engels pointed out that only when private ownership was eliminated and the socialist system was established, the "struggle for existence" between people stopped, so talents finally broke away from the animal kingdom in a certain sense and entered the living conditions of real people from the living conditions of animals. ….. People have become conscious and real masters of nature for the first time, because they have become masters of their own social combination. " Only from then on, the prelude to the history of true people was opened. "People fully consciously created their own history", "This is a leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom." [Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 4, People’s Publishing House, 1995), pp. 758-759. Thus, human civilization has developed to a brand-new historical stage, and socialist civilization has opened up a broad development prospect of "real human" civilization.
In addition, socialist civilization serves the overwhelming majority of working people and takes the ultimate realization of people’s free and all-round development as its highest value goal. In various civilizations before the emergence of socialist civilization, the broad masses of workers who created social civilization not only failed to fully enjoy the fruits of civilization, but were increasingly "instrumentalized", and people eventually became "one-sided". Socialist civilization is not the case. The liberation and all-round development of human beings have always been the theme and goal of the development of socialist civilization. In the development chain from socialism to communism, socialist civilization will prepare the conditions and provide the foundation for the future advanced stage of communism of "everyone’s free and all-round development". At the same time, it is only in socialist civilization that the broadest working people truly become the clients for the first time. Lenin clearly pointed out that socialist civilization should "serve the millions of working people in Qian Qian, the essence of these countries, the strength of the country and the future of the country". [Selected Works of Lenin, Volume 1, People’s Publishing House, 1995), p. 666. When talking about the service objects of socialist literature and art, Mao Zedong also pointed out: "History is created by the people, but on the stage of the old drama, the people have become scum, and the stage is dominated by the ladies and gentlemen. This kind of historical inversion is now reversed by you and restored to the face of history." [Selected Letters of Mao Zedong, Central Literature Publishing House, 2003), p. 199. ]
(C) actively cultivate and practice the values of socialist civilization
As a new civilization in the history of human civilization development, socialist civilization is an important part of socialist core values. To cultivate and practice the values of socialist civilization, we should not only consciously follow the laws of socialist cultural construction, but also combine cultural construction with various constructions in Socialism with Chinese characteristics, so that socialist civilization can keep pace with the progress of the times and the development of practice.
1. Follow the law of cultural development and organically combine the inheritance and development of the excellent cultural traditions of the Chinese nation with the reference to all positive achievements of human civilization.
Socialist civilization is the inevitable result of the development of human civilization. The reason why socialist civilization is the most advanced civilization so far lies in that it inherits all the positive achievements of previous human civilization forms and carries them forward on a brand-new basis. For China, a country with a long civilization tradition of thousands of years, to cultivate and practice the socialist civilization concept, we must first inherit and carry forward the excellent cultural tradition of the Chinese nation. We must take a clear-cut stand against arguments such as "history is empty" and "total westernization". "China culture should have its own form, and this is the national form." We must inherit all the outstanding national cultural heritage from Confucius to Sun Yat-sen.. Of course, inheriting and carrying forward the excellent national cultural traditions is not arrogance and complacency. On the contrary, with an open mind, we should "extensively absorb foreign progressive cultures as raw materials for our own culture". "Everything we need today should be absorbed." The new socialist culture is not an old culture of "seclusion in the valley", but an open and innovative national new culture based on extensive absorption of advanced foreign cultural resources. [Selected Works of Mao Zedong, Volume 2, People’s Publishing House, 1991), pp. 706-707. ]
2. Combine the construction of spiritual civilization with the construction of Socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Historical materialism holds that the productive forces determine the relations of production and the economic base determines the superstructure. "The mode of production of material life restricts the whole process of social life, political life and spiritual life." [Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 2, People’s Publishing House, 1995, p. 32. Material production is the basic condition of all historical development. The construction of socialist spiritual civilization must be based on the construction of socialist material civilization and adapt to it. In other words, to cultivate and practice the concept of socialist civilization, we must integrate into the grand system of socialist material civilization, political civilization, social civilization and ecological civilization, which is the inherent requirement of the development of socialist civilization. In this regard, Mao Zedong profoundly pointed out that "a certain form of politics and economy first determines that certain form of culture; Then, that certain form of culture will influence and act on a certain form of politics and economy. ….. The new culture of the Chinese nation that we want to build cannot be separated from the new politics and economy of the Chinese nation. " [Selected Works of Mao Zedong, Volume 2, People’s Publishing House, 1991), p. 664. ]
3. Adhere to people-oriented, based on improving citizens’ civilized quality and promoting everyone’s free and all-round development.
The people are the creators of history and social civilization. The reason why socialist civilization is the most advanced civilization form of mankind so far lies in that it serves the overwhelming majority of working people and takes the ultimate realization of people’s free and all-round development as the highest value goal. To cultivate and practice the concept of socialist civilization, we must put people first and respect the people’s dominant position. Of course, the internal and external conditions of each social individual are different, and people’s civilization concept and value scale will also be different. Among them, there are some reasonable differences in diversity, which we should respect; Some of them belong to differences in literacy and boundaries, for which we should persist in encouraging the advanced and spur the backward. In addition, we should use the socialist concept of civilization to guide the production and creation of spiritual and cultural products, use more spiritual and cultural products that embody the socialist concept of civilization to influence and shape the spiritual world and values of the broad masses of people, and give play to the guiding role of socialist core values.
