Comparison of Effects of Cultural Characteristics on Cultural Epochal Character between China and Europe

Liu Yuanyuan(College of Arts　China University of Petroleum (East China),Qingdao　Shandong　266580)



Comparison of Effects of Cultural Characteristics on Cultural Epochal Character between China and Europe

Liu Yuanyuan
(College of ArtsChina University of Petroleum (East China),QingdaoShandong266580)

There are specific differences between the connotation of Chinese culture and that of European culture,thus leading to different cultural development ideologies and ideas and different effects on social and cultural epochal character.Therefore,by combining the basic connotation of Chinese cultural characteristics and the basic ideas expressed by European cultural characteristics,a deep exploration and comparison is conducted on their influences on epochal characters,expounding the overall development trend and direction of Chinese and European social cultures.

Chinese culture;European culture;epochal effects;comparative research

Ⅰ.Theological culture serving as the main body to inherit European traditional culture

1.God culture playing an enlightening role in social cultural development of europe

As the representative feature of the development and inheritance of European traditional culture,God culture exerts enlightening effects on the formation and development of European culture.Analyzed from the perspective of the fundamental connotation of the characteristics of God culture,the God-centered viewpoint is reflected,which serves as a cultural idea promoting social development.Seen from the connotation of God culture,it can be directly reflected that the main body of cultural development points at “God”,maximizing God’s role and significance in changing the social development environment,thus shaping idealist ideas.〔1〕This is the specific expression of the impetus role played by the characteristics of European culture in social cultural development;besides,the center of cultural development falls on the inner link between theology and the society.

2.Theological culture possessing epochal characters in European social culture

Theological culture plays an important role in European social culture and meanwhile can reflect the substantial differences between the development characteristics of Chinese and European cultures.The core of theological culture lies in the opinion that the main body of cultural development has two directions of “deity” and “power” with the former serving the latter and forming corresponding control over men’s social development thoughts,psychology and motivation.It can be concluded from the above cultural development feature that the development viewpoints of theological culture possess relatively stronger capitalist characteristics,promoting the overall social cultural development by virtue of the construction of new thoughts.〔2〕Therefore,the inheritance and development of European culture possesses relatively stronger theological characteristics,becoming the major impetus to advance the epoch progress of European social culture and meeting the fundamental requirements of European social development nature on social cultural development of the times.Yet,the substantial effect of its cultural characteristics is less strong than that of Chinese cultural characteristics.

Ⅱ.Confucian culture,Taoist culture and buddhist culture being the symbols of Chinese social culture

1.External and internal cultivation of confucian culture exerting profound effects on Chinese social culture

Confucian culture is viewed as the classic of Chinese traditional culture,the connotation of which expresses the harmonization of men’s intrinsic moral psychology,traits and extrinsic behaviors.The basic cultural connotation and core cultural development viewpoints reflected in the intrinsic inspection in Confucian culture becomes the fundamental ideological basis for China’s social cultural epochal development,and meanwhile is the key cultural development condition for Chinese social culture to meet the development requirements of times and affect the effective transformation of social development environment,〔3〕exerting profound effects on the sustainable development of Chinese social culture.Seen from the development characteristics of traditional Confucian culture,there are substantial differences between characteristics of Chinese culture and those of European culture with the former emphasizing the cultural development viewpoint of the gradual conversion from intrinsic quality and psychological traits to external behaviors.Therefore,traditional Confucian culture possesses no characteristics of theological cultural development and on the contrary pays more attention to the substantiality and reality of cultural development,providing ideological driving force of China’s contemporary social and cultural development.

2.“Tao follows nature” advocated by Taoist culture becoming the paragon of China’s social and cultural development

Chinese traditional culture shows the historical cultural characteristics of “contention of a hundred schools of thoughts”,within which as an important component,the cultural development viewpoints insisted by Taoist school emphasize the harmonious development between men and nature.〔4〕Being substantially different from the characteristics of European culture,the ideological characteristics of Taoist culture don’t take idealist development viewpoints as fundamental core.In addition,the ideological characteristics of Taoist culture have strong substantial effects,thus making the cultural development feature of “Tao follows nature” into the paragon of China’s social and cultural development.

3.To comprehend in stillness in buddhist culture impelling the epochal progress of China’s society and culture

As an important component of Chinese traditional culture,the characteristics of Buddhist culture are traditional in some points.Analyzed from social points of view,with experiencing the inner link between men and social development as its foundation,Buddhist culture emphasizes to change men’s social development psychology and subjective mentality of self-development.Combined with characteristics of Buddhist culture,it can be known that the thought of “to comprehend in stillness” presents the exploring process on the correlation,regularity and harmony between men and society;and with comprehending the society by inner heart as its root,it effectively optimizes men’s psychology and promotes intangible approaching of the development relations between men and society.〔5〕This is an important component of Chinese traditional culture,within which the ideas of Buddhist culture exert positive driving effects on macro social and cultural development and further enhance Buddhist culture’s inner link with epochal development of society and culture,becoming the cultural basis for the overall contemporary social and culture development in China.It can be seen from the overall trend of future social and cultural development that Buddhist culture possesses stronger epochal advancement and traditional characteristics,being able to become the important factor affecting the future social and cultural development in China and meet the inner inevitable requirements of the development of China’s society and culture.

Ⅲ.Effects on social and cultural development in time and space

1.China’s confucian culture,Taoist culture and buddhist culture exerting timeliness effects on the social and cultural development

China’s Confucian culture,Taoist culture and Buddhist culture elaborate men’s dominant role in social development and men’s positive driving effects on the changes of social development environment through shaping individual’s own inward and personalities.Confucian traditional culture pays attention to the development viewpoint of self-cultivation and external and internal cultivation,forming correct guidance on men’s social psychology and behavior and effectively motivating men’s social development willingness and social development subjective mentality.Taoist culture emphasizes that men’s social development laws should be mutual unified with social development laws,thus making men meet the development requirements of times and society,integrating into the social development and providing powerful impetus for the progress of society.The development views of Buddhist culture show the effective optimization on men’s inward world,making the inevitable connection between men and the society more closely and promoting the wide spread of circulation of causality.〔6〕The inheritance and development of these traditional cultures not only exert important effects on the social development environment in a certain historical period,but also more importantly,positively promotes the overall development of contemporary and future society and culture.The inheritance of culture positively promotes social development and reflects values,meanings and effects of the characteristics of Chinese culture on the social and cultural epochal development,realizing the social meaning and value contained by the spread and development of the characteristics of excellent traditional Chinese culture.

2.China’s traditional cultural ideas being impetus in space on the social and cultural development

The ideological characteristics revealed by traditional Chinese culture are featured by diversity,which is clearly embodied by the connotation and ideological direction of the development of Confucian culture,Taoist culture and Buddhist culture,and meanwhile cultural development viewpoints are mainly in full swing centering on the inner link between men’s inward world and social development.It can be seen from the overall development trend of contemporary Chinese society and culture that the components of social culture are mainly manifested in several parts such as men’s social development ideology,social and ethical norms and social development psychology etc..The formation and development ideas of traditional Chinese culture integrate the forming process of men’s social psychology,the basic motivation of social behavior and the construction of social personality,elaborating the inner link between men and social development,exerting direct effects and impetus for the development modern Chinese culture,promoting the epochal development of Chinese society and culture in space and facilitating the utmost tapping on the fundamental driving force of social development.Compared with the inheritance and development of European culture,those of traditional Chinese culture pay more attention to the essence of China’s social development and specific research,highlighting the macro guidance of the characteristics of traditional Chinese culture on overall social development.It deems men as the main body of social development and spirit guidance as the emphasis of cultural development,so the inheritance and development of traditional Chinese cultural ideas possess strong sense of space.

3.Theological culture reflecting mysterious characteristics possessed by social and cultural development of europe

As the main body of the development of traditional European culture,theological culture reflects its motivation and constraint on men’s ideology,psychology and spirit,exerting significant effects on the overall development of European society and culture.Analyzed specifically from the basic connotation of European theological culture,it can be concluded that as the basic feature of the development of European culture,theological culture emphasizes that God’s will is the fundamental starting point of men’s social development ideology and psychology,and men are not the main body in the course of social development.The theological culture in Europe exerts vital effects on promoting the development of contemporary society and culture,thus forming the cultural development viewpoint of liberty,democracy and equality with more prominent social development psychology of men on equality pursuit and social and cultural development inevitably expressing the development direction of ideological freedom and equality.It can be seen from the social essence of theological culture that it is based on intangible spiritual guidance to comprehensively regulate and deepen men’s subjective mentality on social development,which is the basic viewpoint of idealism.〔7〕And it invisibly motivates and restricts men’s subjective initiative on social development and under the effects of such characteristics of cultural development,the traditional European culture possesses strong mysteriousness and its value and effects are mainly on spiritual level,being the keynote of the development of current European society and culture.

4.Respect on deity’s power reflecting the pursuit and constraint of freedom by European epoch culture

As the core component of the development characteristics of traditional European culture,the development viewpoint of theological culture mainly focuses on respect for deity’s power.It can be concluded from the analysis on the connotation of theological culture that the core of theological culture lies in the utmost tapping on psychological effects,reflecting God and deity’s status and position in men’s inward world.Therefore,obvious idealist ideology and viewpoints are formed,and they conform with the development environment of European capitalism,thus promoting the development of European society and culture and leading to the substantial differences between characteristics of Chinese culture and European culture.Through exploring the characteristics of European theological culture,it can be known that “respect for the power of deity” taken as the core cultural development viewpoint of theological culture emphasizes that “the power of deity is greater than anything”,which can serve as an important pointcut for the ruling class to realize its social development goals.Under such cultural development environment,European social culture reflects its pursuit on social freedom and equality.And the development of theological culture can effectively control social freedom and equality;thus social and cultural development is based on idealist development viewpoints,playing a decisive role in the development direction of society and culture in different periods.This is the effects of characteristics of European culture on times and culture,and substantial differences between the characteristics of Chinese culture and those of European culture are reflected from objective point of view,which in return has caused substantial differences in the social significance revealed by social and cultural epochal developments.

Ⅳ.Conclusion

It can be concluded from the above specific analyses on the characteristics of Chinese and European cultures that the characteristics of Chinese culture lie in its specific expression on the inner link between man and the society.Man’s effect on social development becomes the major viewpoint of social cultural development,so cultural characteristics possess certain sociality.While with theology cultural characteristics as its foundation,European cultural characteristics highlight the inner roles and meanings of “God” and “Deity” on social development,thus promoting the formation of idealist development viewpoints and driving ideologically the comprehensive development of European capitalist society.However,the epochal effect values revealed by European social culture are mainly reflected in ideological and spiritual levels,lacking effects and values in social level and thus short of substantial effects.Through the above comparison,the strong effect of Chinese cultural characteristics on social and cultural epochal character can be reflected.

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About the author：Liu Yuanyuan (1982—),master of Arts,China University of Petroleum,College of Arts,lecturer,research field:European and American literature,business English.