"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1)
Which country does Genghis Khan belong to? In fact, culture often knows no borders.
Corruption and decline are the inevitable fate of all traditional cultures, unless they encounter new heterogeneous cultures. This is consistent with the law of entropy in physics: a closed system tends towards singularity, disorder, and ultimately death. The reason why Earth's civilization continues to evolve is because it is an open system with the sun providing energy. Therefore, life on Earth exhibits diversity and order.
Strictly speaking, all traditional cultures have declined. However, the West seems to be a slight exception. The universality of Western civilization is due to its self-negating core. Other civilizations, on the other hand, strive to preserve themselves, leading to their decline caused by entropy. Human history thus manifests as the conquest of the non-Western world by the West.
In fact, traditional culture itself is a rather ambiguous concept. For example, Chinese traditional culture has undergone numerous hybridizations and is not a continuous entity. Ancient China experienced the transformation of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, the Qin Dynasty's "unification," the Han Dynasty's "sole respect for Confucianism," the mixing of various barbarian cultures into Central Plains culture during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the openness of the Tang and Song dynasties, the establishment of the "provincial" system by the Mongols, the Ming emperors' belief in Catholicism and Buddhism, colonization during the Qing Dynasty, the introduction of Marxism and the continental legal system in modern China, and the information civilization of the present era, among others. However, many intellectuals still superstitiously and idealistically believe in "traditional culture," without knowing which part of the above-mentioned "tradition" they are referring to.
Similarly, in East Asian societies, the cultural forms of economically developed regions that have inherited some aspects of Chinese traditional culture have already undergone earth-shaking changes. Even those that still appear to preserve "Chinese traditional culture" are actually nourished by modern civilization. The idyllic "beauty" of small bridges and flowing water is nothing more than the imagination of intellectuals. In economically underdeveloped areas, it is only possible to have "poor mountains and evil waters breed bandits." The claims of moral simplicity and the like are nothing more than shallow impressions from a distance. Some people even believe that the "human society" is an expression of the beauty of traditional culture. Are the harms of "face culture" any less?
I believe that the continuity of "Chinese traditional culture" is just an illusion. The truth is that since the "Age of Discovery," we have been following behind Western civilization, imitating and emulating, but unwilling to admit the superiority of others. There are still generations of "scholars" and "intellectuals" who cling to the idea of proving the superiority of traditional culture. They are like the officials of the late Qing Dynasty, always crying out that the ancestral laws cannot be changed, and the West is nothing more than a barbaric land. Unlike the Japanese, who thoroughly "left Asia and entered Europe" to save themselves from the long night of dreams. Lee Kuan Yew, for example, stated that Singapore's prosperity is not due to Confucian ethics, but to the civilizing influence of Western governance.
The reason why the "West" is the West is precisely because they dare to self-negate and maintain the openness of their civilization. In fact, the formation of the West is an example of cultural integration. One of the sources of Western culture is ancient Greece, and the ancient Greeks used the Phoenician alphabet to record their language, which in turn came from the ancient Semitic language of the Middle East, which learned from the ancient Egyptian script. Another source of Western culture is Christianity, which is a transformation of Judaism, but its propagators were neither Greeks nor Romans, but the forest-dwelling "barbarian" Germanic people from Central and Northern Europe.
Postmodern theologian Küng believes that the meaning of the West lies in critical thinking and humanitarianism. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, there are two core spirits: critical thinking and humanitarianism. It is precisely critical thinking that drives the West to constantly self-negate and renew itself, while humanitarianism pushes the West towards the center of life and existence.
In fact, the convergence point of these "two Greeks," ancient Greece and ancient Hebrew, is reason. The reason why Western civilization always tends towards victory is because of the victory of reason. It is worth noting that this reason is not just about logic and theorems. Hegel elevated reason to a spiritual level. And only the West has achieved this. When human reason is capable of fully understanding the spirit, this reason is not only free reason but also self-determined reason. It is self-consciousness, the reason as a self-determined spiritual entity. However, Hegel said that the East only has natural religion and no spirit. How should we understand this? We can only understand Hegel's intention through religious theology.
Rodney Stark's book "The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success" states:
Theology is sometimes referred to as the "science of faith." It is a formal reasoning about God, focusing on exploring the nature, intentions, and demands of God and understanding how they define the relationship between humans and God. Polytheism is too illogical, so there is no theology. Theology necessarily requires a conscious, rational, omnipotent, and infinite supernatural existence as God.
People constantly explore what God is doing! This is a phenomenon that is absent in cultures outside the West. However, it is precisely from this point that the West constantly negates itself because even God needs to prove that He is God, and God can also self-negate. It proves and negates itself through creative activities. Therefore, God also has personality. Thus, Christianity became the core cipher of Western culture and created the self-consciousness of Westerners. A progressive faith was born as a result.
Christianity is future-oriented, while other religions always extol the past. In principle, Christian doctrine can be revised (although not always in practice), and rational proof can continuously advance doctrine. The universities established by the church in the Middle Ages represent faith in the power of reason. Under the influence of scholastic philosophy, this faith permeated Western culture and promoted the development of scientific research, democratic theory, and democratic practice.
- "The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success"
People in Eastern cultures are always meditating on something that does not exist, something without personality, something elusive, and something without consciousness. Therefore, this culture has no place for reason. "The East has no theologians, and the people who should explore this path have rejected the fundamental premise of theology: the existence of a conscious, omnipotent God."
However, in the present world, no matter how conservative countries with traditional cultures are, their people have accepted science, and science is still constantly transforming the way humans live. And the characteristic of science is falsifiability, the ability to self-negate. Why can't non-Western cultures produce science? The famous philosopher Whitehead believes that outside the West, the images of gods in other religions are non-personal and irrational, so they cannot give birth to science, especially in Asia. Joseph Needham also spent decades seeking a materialist explanation for "why China has no science" and concluded that the root cause of China's lack of science lies in religion, "the idea of divine legislation for non-human natural legislation has never appeared."
In addition, the separation of church and state and the concept of property rights are described in Christianity. For us, perhaps the most important thing is the ethical concept of moral equality in Christianity. Eastern traditional ethics are based on a hierarchical order, so people do not pursue universal rules and order, and there are always people who are higher than others and become the highest rulers. But in Christianity, everyone is equal, for example, Paul admonishes slave owners to treat their slaves well: "And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him."
And the first modern nation, its "Declaration of Independence" says: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." The ethical view of moral equality is revolutionary. And this is precisely why it is difficult for Eastern traditions to produce modernity.
The misconception of traditional culture is a kind of nostalgia. However, like everything else, any traditional culture has a life cycle. If it is not constantly renewed, it cannot survive, and the condition for renewal can only be the acceptance of new things. This is the secret of why Western civilization always tends towards victory.
Edward Hirsch's "On Tradition" states: "Tradition cannot regenerate or perfect itself on its own. Only living, inquiring, and desiring humans can establish, reestablish, and change tradition." Respect for life, love for living, ethical care for everyone, rather than clinging to various dogmas, is the correct attitude towards traditional culture. By carefully understanding Hegel's spirit, we will develop a sense of the sublime in life and an open-mindedness towards cultural others, rather than confining ourselves and wasting our lives.