 |
| Worshipers at the Tree of Souls from the Movie Avatar; credit here |
Post global empire is not built on racial, ethnic or religious markers. Those are the detritus of modernist empire, which collapsed of its own weight--and the growing irrelevance of those markers as effective and efficient modalities of imperial incarnation and control. Post global empire is not built on territory; an insight that second tier states fail to recognize as they continue to equate empire with physical territory. That also is an impediment to effective imperium.
Post global empire is built on markets and its management; it is built on production; and it is built on the control of meaning in the social, economic, and cultural spheres. Post global empire abhors anarchy, order without a center--which was the foundation of the post 1945 settlement that produced the first generation globalized global ordering anchored through the UN system and based on the supremacy of the state and sovereign equality. Post global empire is ordered on centers, on cores of comprehensive leadership from which spokes of authority are arranged. Those spokes arrange social life within the imperial metropolis, and another set arranges the interconnections between the metropolitan leadership core and its outside collectives sitting along spokes of economic, social, cultural, and political chains. Post global imperium, then, is built on tendrils of dependency--of mutual obligation vertically arranged and extending out from a core. Dependency is comprehensive but not coercive in the ways of modernist empire effectively extinguished in the last century.
While both China and the United State occupy, at this stage of historical development, at the core of empire. Others do not. Russia certainly aims for a reactionary revival of notions of racialized ethno-territorial empire in its raiding and pillaging adventurism in what is now Ukraine. Even should they manage to wrest territorial concessions, that sort of imperium is a dead man walking-- the foundations of which were blasted away with the subjugation of the last great imperial exponents of that view (Germany and Japan) and the senescent devolution of the rest (mostly European based). Still others project culture--and cultural power in more modest settings, though powerful within their spheres all the same. And others thrive beneath the overlay of cultural imperium; intact but at the edges and in the safe spaces where imperium leaves spaces open, though supervised (for a curious example here).
China and the US have adopted quite distinctive ways of building both the dominance of the imperial cores and the construction of the tendrils through which mutual dependencies can be structured, managed and disciplined. One thing both share is the conviction that each is the true heir of a substantially unbroken line of cultural development extending back to the edges of pre-history. That unbroken line of cultural development provides both the marker of legitimacy and its structure. It is, semiotically speaking, both an object and a symbol. As a tool and the expression of imperium in the post-global, then, culture acquires singular characteristics. Culture in this context--and the long unbroken line of connection between culture at its origin and its contemporary expression-- is a 'thing' evidenced by the artifacts that evidence both origin and continuity (books, language, customs, dress, architecture, habits, and the like). These are 'things' that can be touched--and put in museums, and to which youth may be exposed. At the same time these objects are 'activated' by their connection to a viewer who invests the object with an animating quality (language is spoken or written, architecture is used to certain ends; dress is worn and understood to signal, etc.). Nonetheless, it is the movement from object-symbol to signification within an ordered universe of meaning through which communities are constructed and cultural production is rationalized and made an instrument for communal discipline (rules determining clothing choices; the meaning of words in context; the meaning and use of buildings; the relationship of the individual to all of these objects-symbols and the constitution of the societal order).
The signification of object and symbol, that is the way each is given meaning embraced (and managed) by human collectives, in this way serves as the glue that gives a collective its form, protects its autonomy (from other cultural collectives), and creates the means through which it may interact with (and to some extent absorb) other collectives. Cultures, of course, exist in the contemporary world in complex ecologies, overlapping in part, conflicting in part, and arranged in dynamic vertical relations at times. In the era of the post-global, these ecologies suggest the ordering of interaction. For political collectives, it follows that culture and cultural production is of crucial importance-- and all the more so when exercising imperium in whatever form appeals in any particular stage of historical development.
To speak of culture, then, is to speak of the fundamental structures of authority--not external but internal; nor coercive but consensual (in the sense of consent as a price for belonging to a community). The imaginaries of empire, its lifeworld (Lebenswelt), is expressed through its culture, even as its cultures become the instrument in and through which post-global empire is constituted. This is not Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations, but its post-global manifestation, not as a clash but as a series of interconnected dependencies based on the core ordering notions of cores and collectives--of cultures that absorb (cultures through which imperium may be exercised) and cultures that do not. Chinese and U.S. cultures grow stronger in contact with interaction with others; they change even as they encounter and nationalize the foreign and make it their own. In both cases, this cultural power is founded on the cultivation of a deep connection with and the nurturing of a sense of origin. These, then, are origin cultures, the curation of the collective meaning of the past serving as the foundation for encountering and adjusting to current conditions. To those ends one needs a priesthood (Nietzsche, Antichrist), when the medium of empire was exogenous and the semiotics religious; or one needs a vanguard, in the later case organized as a political or economic or social collective (party in the language of Marxist-Leninists) within, without or through the organizational structures of the collective. One needs, in other words, a Communist Party or an aristocracy (elite in contemporary 'speak').
From the core of the heartland of one of the great origin cultures, Xi Jinping has lately been speaking much to these ideas of cultures. In particular he has devoted a substantial energy to the constitution and autonomy of Chinese culture as an object (with a pedigree), as a symbol (of success, prosperity, and longevity), and as a meaning universe (an imaginary or lifeworld around which communities of collectives may proceed together under the leadership of the cultural core of leadership). It was reported that on 27 May 2022 the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee conducted the thirty-ninth collective study on deepening the project of exploring the source of Chinese civilization at which Xi Jinping delivered an important address .
Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, emphasized when presiding over the study that the Chinese civilization has a long history and is extensive and profound. It is the unique spiritual symbol of the Chinese nation, the foundation of contemporary Chinese culture, the spiritual bond that maintains the Chinese around the world, and the treasure of Chinese cultural innovation. (习近平：把中国文明历史研究引向深入 推动增强历史自觉坚定文化自信 [Xi Jinping: Lead the study of the history of Chinese civilization in-depth, promote the enhancement of historical consciousness and strengthen cultural self-confidence]).
The insights are deeply embedded in New Era theory, and thus in the construction of the Chinese political-economic model going forward. The summary of the speech is critically instructive on the paths to the orientation of socialist post-global empire built on its post-racial/ethnic/religious/territory sensibilities of core-collective frameworks and webs of dependency built through them. To these ends culture provides the critical object-symbol-signification; the core of empire measured against the eternity of the apex culture. But it is an apex culture precisely because it is of its essence global in the sense that its draws strength from its interaction with and absorption of other cultures with which it comes in contact. And it draws its strength from the meaning and preservation (as well as its curation) of its origin as an imperium bearing culture. That may well be what (at least in this line of thinking) differentiates the cultures of post-global imperium from the rest. Where naturalization and absorption mark a dependency for others, for core imperial culture, the essence of its strength is the ability, even the desire, for contact, engagement, absorption and naturalization within its ever extending imaginaries. That project, in turn requires first the protection of the sources of imperial culture(its past), and the projection of that culture outward as a core leadership culture (the skin defining the body post global empire) within which its economic, social, political leadership may be manifested. That appears to be the way of post global empire manifested through the semiotics of origin culture--more rationally manifested in China and better veiled in the more loosely organized (in accordance with its own imaginaries) US-Anglo-European-Japanese imperium. To that end the control of origin stories, and the preservation of its artifacts (writings, statuary and the like) is a critical function of the manifestation of imperium, both internal and as projected abroad. Its iconoclasm, especially in the US-Anglo-European-Japanese sphere, is however misguidedly, meant to purify and reach back to a better understood and useful past, obliterating error and privileging manifestations of the past that serve the present. But that an imperial space may attempt this and not obliterate itself remains to be seen (and thus the great not yet fully digested lessons of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and the cultural aspects of the ongoing equally great social justice revolution in the West).
That, at any rate, is one possible way of looking towards the future through the preservation of the past. The text of 习近平：把中国文明历史研究引向深入 推动增强历史自觉坚定文化自信 [Xi
Jinping: Lead the study of the history of Chinese civilization
in-depth, promote the enhancement of historical consciousness and
strengthen cultural self-confidence] follows in the original Chinese along with a crude English translation.
习近平：把中国文明历史研究引向深入 推动增强历史自觉坚定文化自信
习近平在中共中央政治局第三十九次集体学习时强调 把中国文明历史研究引向深入 推动增强历史自觉坚定文化自信
中共中央政治局5月27日下午就深化中华文明探源工程进行第三十九次集体学习。中共中央总书记习近平在主持学习时强调，中华文明源远流长、博大精深，是中华民族独特的精神标识，是当代中国文化的根基，是维系全世界华人的精神纽带，也是中国文化创新的宝藏。在漫长的历史进程中，中华民族以自强不息的决心和意志，筚路蓝缕，跋山涉水，走过了不同于世界其他文明体的发展历程。要深入了解中华文明五千多年发展史，把中国文明历史研究引向深入，推动全党全社会增强历史自觉、坚定文化自信，坚定不移走中国特色社会主义道路，为全面建设社会主义现代化国家、实现中华民族伟大复兴而团结奋斗。
中国社科院历史学部主任、研究员王巍就这个问题进行讲解，提出了工作建议。中央政治局的同志认真听取了讲解，并进行了讨论。
习近平在主持学习时发表了重要讲话。他强调，我们党历来用历史唯物主义的立场观点方法看待中华民族历史，继承和弘扬中华优秀传统文化。经过几代学者接续努力，中华文明探源工程等重大工程的研究成果，实证了我国百万年的人类史、一万年的文化史、五千多年的文明史。中华文明探源工程成绩显著，但仍然任重而道远，必须继续推进、不断深化。
习近平强调，中华文明探源工程对中华文明的起源、形成、发展的历史脉络，对中华文明多元一体格局的形成和发展过程，对中华文明的特点及其形成原因等，都有了较为清晰的认识。同时，工程取得的成果还是初步的和阶段性的，还有许多历史之谜等待破解，还有许多重大问题需要通过实证和研究达成共识。
习近平指出，我们运用生物学、分子生物学、化学、地学、物理学等前沿学科的最新技术分析我国古代遗存，使中华文明探源有了坚实的科技分析依据，拓展了我们对中国五千多年文明史的认知。对文明起源和形成的探究是一个既复杂又漫长的系统工程，需要把考古探索和文献研究同自然科学技术手段有机结合起来，综合把握物质、精神和社会关系形态等因素，逐步还原文明从涓涓溪流到江河汇流的发展历程。要加强统筹规划和科学布局，坚持多学科、多角度、多层次、全方位，密切考古学和历史学、人文科学和自然科学的联合攻关，拓宽研究时空范围和覆盖领域，进一步回答好中华文明起源、形成、发展的基本图景、内在机制以及各区域文明演进路径等重大问题。
习近平强调，中华文明探源工程提出文明定义和认定进入文明社会的中国方案，为世界文明起源研究作出了原创性贡献。要同步做好我国“古代文明理论”和中华文明探源工程研究成果的宣传、推广、转化工作，加强对出土文物和遗址的研究阐释和展示传播，提升中华文明影响力和感召力。
习近平指出，在五千多年漫长文明发展史中，中国人民创造了璀璨夺目的中华文明，为人类文明进步事业作出了重大贡献。要把中华文明起源研究同中华文明特质和形态等重大问题研究紧密结合起来，深入研究阐释中华文明起源所昭示的中华民族共同体发展路向和中华民族多元一体演进格局，研究阐释中华文明讲仁爱、重民本、守诚信、崇正义、尚和合、求大同的精神特质和发展形态，阐明中国道路的深厚文化底蕴。对中华传统文化，要坚持古为今用、推陈出新，继承和弘扬其中的优秀成分。要建立中国特色、中国风格、中国气派的文明研究学科体系、学术体系、话语体系，为人类文明新形态实践提供有力理论支撑。
习近平强调，中华优秀传统文化是中华文明的智慧结晶和精华所在，是中华民族的根和魂，是我们在世界文化激荡中站稳脚跟的根基。我们坚持把马克思主义基本原理同中国具体实际相结合、同中华优秀传统文化相结合，不断推动马克思主义中国化时代化，推进了中华优秀传统文化创造性转化、创新性发展。要坚持守正创新，推动中华优秀传统文化同社会主义社会相适应，展示中华民族的独特精神标识，更好构筑中国精神、中国价值、中国力量。要坚持马克思主义的根本指导思想，传承弘扬革命文化，发展社会主义先进文化，从中华优秀传统文化中寻找源头活水。要充分运用中华文明探源工程等研究成果，更加完整准确地讲述中国古代历史，更好发挥以史育人作用。
习近平指出，中华文明自古就以开放包容闻名于世，在同其他文明的交流互鉴中不断焕发新的生命力。要坚持弘扬平等、互鉴、对话、包容的文明观，以宽广胸怀理解不同文明对价值内涵的认识，尊重不同国家人民对自身发展道路的探索，以文明交流超越文明隔阂，以文明互鉴超越文明冲突，以文明共存超越文明优越，弘扬中华文明蕴含的全人类共同价值，推动构建人类命运共同体。要立足中国大地，讲好中华文明故事，向世界展现可信、可爱、可敬的中国形象。要讲清楚中国是什么样的文明和什么样的国家，讲清楚中国人的宇宙观、天下观、社会观、道德观，展现中华文明的悠久历史和人文底蕴，促使世界读懂中国、读懂中国人民、读懂中国共产党、读懂中华民族。
习近平强调，文物和文化遗产承载着中华民族的基因和血脉，是不可再生、不可替代的中华优秀文明资源。要让更多文物和文化遗产活起来，营造传承中华文明的浓厚社会氛围。要积极推进文物保护利用和文化遗产保护传承，挖掘文物和文化遗产的多重价值，传播更多承载中华文化、中国精神的价值符号和文化产品。
习近平指出，各级领导干部都要重视文物和文化遗产保护传承工作，为历史和考古工作者开展研究、学习深造、研修交流提供更多政策支持。要营造传承中华文明的浓厚社会氛围，广泛宣传中华文明探源工程等研究成果，教育引导群众特别是青少年更好认识和认同中华文明，增强做中国人的志气、骨气、底气。（新华社）
编辑：张琰 校对：曲智鹏
__________
Xi Jinping: Lead the study of the history of Chinese civilization in-depth, promote the enhancement of historical consciousness and strengthen cultural self-confidence
Website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and State Supervision Commission 2022-05-28 01:53 Posted on Beijing
Xi Jinping emphasized during the thirty-ninth collective study of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee
Lead the study of the history of Chinese civilization to an in-depth
Promote and enhance historical consciousness and strengthen cultural self-confidence
On the afternoon of May 27, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee conducted the thirty-ninth collective study on deepening the project of exploring the source of Chinese civilization. Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, emphasized when presiding over the study that the Chinese civilization has a long history and is extensive and profound. It is the unique spiritual symbol of the Chinese nation, the foundation of contemporary Chinese culture, the spiritual bond that maintains the Chinese around the world, and the treasure of Chinese cultural innovation. In the long historical process, with the determination and will of self-improvement, the Chinese nation has gone through a development process different from that of other civilizations in the world. It is necessary to have an in-depth understanding of the development history of Chinese civilization for more than 5,000 years, lead the research on the history of Chinese civilization in depth, promote the whole party and the whole society to enhance historical consciousness, strengthen cultural self-confidence, and unswervingly follow the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, so as to build socialist modernization in an all-round way. The country and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation are united and struggled.
Wang Wei, director and researcher of the History Department of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, explained this issue and put forward work suggestions. Comrades from the Political Bureau of the Central Committee listened carefully to the explanation and held discussions.
Xi Jinping delivered an important speech while presiding over the study. He emphasized that our party has always viewed the history of the Chinese nation with the standpoint and method of historical materialism, and inherited and carried forward the excellent traditional Chinese culture. Through the continuous efforts of several generations of scholars, the research results of major projects such as the Chinese Civilization Origin Project have demonstrated my country's million-year human history, 10,000 years of cultural history, and more than 5,000 years of civilization history. The Chinese civilization exploration project has achieved remarkable results, but there is still a long way to go, and it must continue to be advanced and deepened.
Xi Jinping emphasized that the Chinese Civilization Origin Project has a relatively clear understanding of the origin, formation and development of Chinese civilization, the formation and development process of the diverse and integrated pattern of Chinese civilization, and the characteristics and causes of Chinese civilization. know. At the same time, the achievements of the project are still preliminary and phased, there are still many historical mysteries waiting to be solved, and many major issues need to be reached through empirical research and research.
Xi Jinping pointed out that we use the latest technologies of biology, molecular biology, chemistry, geology, physics and other cutting-edge disciplines to analyze the ancient remains of our country, which has provided a solid scientific and technological basis for the exploration of the origin of Chinese civilization, and expanded our understanding of China's more than 5,000 years. cognition of the history of civilization. The exploration of the origin and formation of civilization is a complex and long-term systematic project. It is necessary to organically combine archaeological exploration and literature research with natural scientific and technological means, comprehensively grasp the factors such as material, spiritual, and social relations, and gradually restore civilization from the trickle. The development process of stream to river confluence. It is necessary to strengthen overall planning and scientific layout, adhere to multi-disciplinary, multi-angle, multi-level and all-round, intensify joint research on archaeology, history, humanities and natural sciences, expand the scope and coverage of research time and space, and further answer Chinese civilization. Major issues such as the origin, formation, and development of the basic picture, internal mechanism, and the evolution path of each regional civilization.
Xi Jinping emphasized that the Chinese Civilization Origin Project proposes the definition of civilization and the identification of China's plan to enter a civilized society, which has made original contributions to the research on the origin of world civilization. It is necessary to simultaneously do a good job in the publicity, promotion and transformation of my country's "ancient civilization theory" and the research results of the Chinese civilization exploration project, strengthen the research, interpretation, display and dissemination of unearthed cultural relics and sites, and enhance the influence and appeal of Chinese civilization.
Xi Jinping pointed out that in the long history of civilization development of more than 5,000 years, the Chinese people have created a dazzling Chinese civilization and made great contributions to the progress of human civilization. It is necessary to closely combine the research on the origin of Chinese civilization with the research on major issues such as the characteristics and forms of Chinese civilization, in-depth research and interpretation of the development direction of the Chinese nation's community and the evolution pattern of the pluralistic unity of the Chinese nation indicated by the origin of Chinese civilization, research and interpretation of Chinese civilization. The spiritual characteristics and development form of people-oriented, honesty, justice, harmony, and harmony, clarify the profound cultural heritage of the Chinese road. For traditional Chinese culture, we must adhere to the principle of serving the past for the present, innovating the old and bringing forth the new, and inherit and carry forward the excellent elements in it. It is necessary to establish a civilization research discipline system, academic system, and discourse system with Chinese characteristics, Chinese style, and Chinese style, so as to provide strong theoretical support for the practice of new forms of human civilization.
Xi Jinping emphasized that the excellent traditional Chinese culture is the crystallization and essence of the wisdom of Chinese civilization, the root and soul of the Chinese nation, and the foundation for us to stand firm in the turmoil of world culture. We insist on combining the basic principles of Marxism with China's specific reality and with the excellent traditional Chinese culture, constantly promoting the modernization of Marxism in China, and promoting the creative transformation and innovative development of the excellent traditional Chinese culture. It is necessary to adhere to integrity and innovation, promote the adaptation of Chinese excellent traditional culture to socialist society, display the unique spiritual identity of the Chinese nation, and better build Chinese spirit, Chinese value, and Chinese strength. We must adhere to the fundamental guiding ideology of Marxism, inherit and carry forward revolutionary culture, develop advanced socialist culture, and seek the source of living water from the excellent traditional Chinese culture. It is necessary to make full use of the research results of the Chinese Civilization Origin Project, to tell the ancient Chinese history more completely and accurately, and to give better play to the role of history in educating people.
Xi Jinping pointed out that the Chinese civilization has been famous for its openness and inclusiveness since ancient times, and it has been constantly radiating new vitality through exchanges and mutual learning with other civilizations. It is necessary to adhere to the civilization concept of promoting equality, mutual learning, dialogue and tolerance, understand with a broad mind the understanding of different civilizations on the connotation of values, respect the exploration of their own development paths by the people of different countries, and transcend the barriers of civilizations with exchanges and mutual learning. In the clash of civilizations, the coexistence of civilizations surpasses the superiority of civilizations, promotes the common values of all mankind contained in Chinese civilization, and promotes the building of a community with a shared future for mankind. We must base ourselves on the land of China, tell the story of Chinese civilization well, and present a credible, lovely and respectable image of China to the world. It is necessary to clarify clearly what kind of civilization and country China is, and clearly explain the Chinese people's outlook on the universe, the world, society, and morality, so as to show the long history and humanistic heritage of Chinese civilization, so that the world can understand China and understand China. The people, understand the Chinese Communist Party, and understand the Chinese nation.
Xi Jinping emphasized that cultural relics and cultural heritage carry the genes and blood of the Chinese nation, and are non-renewable and irreplaceable resources of excellent Chinese civilization. It is necessary to make more cultural relics and cultural heritage come alive, and create a strong social atmosphere for inheriting Chinese civilization. It is necessary to actively promote the protection and utilization of cultural relics and the protection and inheritance of cultural heritage, explore the multiple values of cultural relics and cultural heritage, and spread more value symbols and cultural products that carry Chinese culture and Chinese spirit.
Xi Jinping pointed out that leading cadres at all levels should attach importance to the protection and inheritance of cultural relics and cultural heritage, and provide more policy support for historical and archaeological workers to carry out research, study and exchange. It is necessary to create a strong social atmosphere for inheriting Chinese civilization, widely publicize the research results of the Chinese civilization exploration project, educate and guide the masses, especially young people, to better understand and recognize Chinese civilization, and enhance the ambition, backbone, and confidence of being a Chinese. (Xinhua News Agency)
Editor: Zhang Yan
Proofreading: Qu Zhipeng
Image
No comments:
Post a Comment