On May 30, the Culture Office Invited a Greek Professor to Attend the "Distinction Between Ancient and Modern" Symposium
On the morning of May 30, 2019, from 10:00 to 11:50 AM, the Department of Marxist Development’s Research Office for Cultural and Ideological Construction at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) Institute of Marxism Studies held a symposium with Professor Paschalis Kitromilides in Conference Room 1011. The symposium was titled "The Distinction Between the Ancient and the Modern: Civilizational Dialogue and Exchange." Professor Kitromilides is a renowned historian of ideas and a representative figure of the Cambridge School of intellectual history [1]. He is a Professor of Political Science at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and a member of the Scientific Council of the Greek Parliament. He has served as Director of the Centre for Asia Minor Studies, President of the Hellenic Political Science Association, Director of the Institute for Neohellenic Research at the National Hellenic Research Foundation (NHRF), and President of the European Society for the History of Political Thought. He has also taught at Harvard University, Cambridge University, Oxford University, the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, and the European University Institute in Florence.
The symposium aimed to draw upon Greece's experience in utilizing ancient cultural heritage resources to revive and develop contemporary culture, thereby discovering new perspectives on how to sublate [2] traditional Chinese culture. The themes discussed included: the contemporary value of maritime and Ancient Greek civilizations; how the modern Greek state utilizes tradition in its national construction; and given the commonalities between Ancient Greece and Ancient China, how inherent civilizations can be excavated to serve emerging civilizations.
The distinction between the ancient and the modern [3], and the "quarrel between the ancients and the moderns," occupies a central and deeply rooted position in Greek consciousness, bearing similarities to the debates over the ancient and modern in China since the modern era. Professor Kitromilides shared his views regarding the distinction between the ancient and modern, "making the past serve the present" [4], and the modern value of ancient civilizations. First, he argued that the proposition of "how to make the past serve the present" has existed since ancient times; even within antiquity, the question arose of how to use even older or the most ancient cultural heritage resources. The core cohesive force of Greece is linguistic inheritance, which has been passed down via oral tradition and transcription through the Middle Ages to the present day, continuously performing a cultural and educational function for subsequent generations. This linguistic inheritance precisely demonstrates that ancient cultural heritage can be used for the present. Second, he argued that the relationship between the ancient and the modern is, to a certain extent, a form of spirit—objective spirit [5] that flows from the past to the present. One must avoid the phenomena of both excessive reverence and excessive neglect regarding the relationship between the ancient and the modern. While contradictions exist between ancient and modern Greece, it is precisely these contradictions that play an important role in defining Greek identity. Finally, he argued that one should not feel a sense of inferiority when faced with a glorious past; one must not follow the ancients exclusively, nor blindly imitate antiquity solely to engage in dialogue with the ancestors. Rather, ancient culture should be treated as a resource for modern creation, not as a means of returning to the past.
During the symposium, researchers from the Research Office engaged in in-depth exchanges with Professor Kitromilides on issues such as how to sublate traditional culture for contemporary use, the dialogue between ancient and modern civilizations, and the Greek debt crisis.
(Contributed by Xu Muxi)