Zuo Yuhe: Strengthening Cultural Confidence through Deepening Cultural Research

When culture flourishes, the country flourishes; when culture is strong, the nation is strong. Firming up cultural confidence is a major issue concerning the rise or fall of national fortunes, cultural security, and the independence of the national spirit. Firming up cultural confidence is inseparable from continuous and in-depth research into our country’s cultural development. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Socialist culture with Chinese characteristics originates from the excellent traditional Chinese culture nurtured by the Chinese nation’s more than 5,000 years of civilization history; it is fused into the revolutionary culture and advanced socialist culture created by the people under the Party’s leadership during revolution, construction, and reform; and it is rooted in the great practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics." On the new journey, if we are to better shoulder our new cultural mission, we must deepen cultural research, particularly the in-depth study of the historical foundation, essential essence, and practical role of socialist culture with Chinese characteristics, providing theoretical support for firming up cultural confidence and promoting cultural development.

Culture is a complex, diverse, and interconnected organic whole that continuously accumulates and develops in the long river of history. Cultural research possesses characteristics such as diachronicity, empiricism, and systematicity. The diachronicity of cultural research is reflected in studying the emergence, development, and transformation of culture in history, tracing the origins and streams of the national spirit. The empiricism of cultural research requires adopting empirical methods to establish research on a solid foundation and gain a profound understanding of what culture is. The systematicity of cultural research requires examining culture in connection with the political, economic, and social environments, analyzing various factors affecting cultural development, and exploring and summarizing the laws of cultural development. To deepen cultural research, we must emphasize diachronicity, empiricism, and systematicity, constantly researching new problems, constructing new theories, and opening up new paradigms.

Deeply study and implement Xi Jinping Thought on Culture and form scientific research methods. China is an ancient civilization with a glorious cultural history; its vast collection of cultural relics is unparalleled in the world, and its profound cultural traditions have been passed down without end. Since the day of its founding, the Communist Party of China has been both an active leader and practitioner of advanced Chinese culture and a faithful inheritor and promoter of excellent traditional Chinese culture. Since the New Era, General Secretary Xi Jinping has proposed a series of new ideas, new viewpoints, and new judgments regarding cultural construction, forming Xi Jinping Thought on Culture. The connotations of Xi Jinping Thought on Culture are extremely rich and its expositions are deeply profound, providing the fundamental adherence for deepening cultural research. For example, General Secretary Xi Jinping creatively proposed the important thought of the "Two Combinations" ^[1]; in particular, the "Second Combination," as another liberation of the mind ^[2], has important guiding significance for deepening cultural research. Furthermore, General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed promoting the creative transformation and innovative development of excellent traditional Chinese culture, guiding us to treat excellent traditional Chinese culture correctly, adhering to the principles of making the past serve the present, using the past as a mirror for the present, critical inheritance, dialectical selection, and upholding the fundamentals and breaking new ground.

Adhere to a problem-oriented approach and construct an autonomous knowledge system for cultural research. Problems are the starting point of innovation. Only by adhering to a problem-oriented approach and proposing and solving original problems in cultural research can we construct an autonomous knowledge system for cultural research. At present, a series of major issues in cultural research—such as the combination of the basic tenets of Marxism with excellent traditional Chinese culture, the basic picture of the origin, formation, and development of Chinese civilization, the evolution paths of various regional Chinese civilizations, the spiritual characteristics and developmental forms of the Chinese nation, and the prominent traits of Chinese civilization—are all major issues requiring in-depth research. They are also new points of academic growth. Researching these issues is of great significance for us to better shoulder the new cultural mission of the New Era. We must adhere to a problem-oriented approach, strive to resolve the "controversy between the ancient and the modern, the East and the West" ^[3], and extract and generalize identifying concepts and categories during the deepening of research into major issues, forming new understandings and viewpoints.

Strengthen analysis and interpretation to reveal the deep-seated meaning of culture. The evolution of culture can be described and narrated, but its deep-seated meaning can only be presented through analysis and interpretation. Deepening cultural research cannot be limited merely to clarifying socio-cultural phenomena; it must also explore where their meaning lies. Only by providing a deep interpretation of the cultural significance behind socio-cultural phenomena can we reveal the deep-seated meaning of socio-cultural activities and grasp the value of culture. To conduct deep analysis and interpretation, we must introduce methods of cultural analysis, cultural hermeneutics, and meaning interpretation to parse phenomena of social life, promoting the continuous deepening of cultural research. First, we must present the phenomena of social life to answer the question of "what is it"; second, we must explain the direct causes and surface meanings of social life phenomena to answer the question of "why"; finally, we must reveal the cultural connotations and cultural meanings hidden behind social life phenomena and how to improve and renew them, answering the question of "how." We should take solution-seeking based on truth-seeking, and deep interpretation based on empirical evidence, as important paths for deepening cultural research.

Update research paradigms and enhance explanatory power. A research paradigm is a theoretical interpretation system composed of specific perspectives, concepts, and propositions. Updating research paradigms means a shift in the perspectives and standards of cultural research—for example, moving from causal analysis to meaning interpretation, starting research on cultural phenomena from the internal logic of cultural development and internal cultural structures, interpreting historical phenomena from the perspective of cultural construction, and excavating the cultural significance of historical phenomena to conduct cultural interpretation. The update of research paradigms will surely expand the fields of cultural research, thereby strengthening and enhancing explanatory power.

Promote integrated development and leverage the advantages of multi-disciplinary integration. Since the objects of study involve multiple fields, cultural research requires the joint participation of multiple disciplines. Disciplinary integration can break down disciplinary barriers, allowing for joint examination from different research perspectives such as economics, politics, history, sociology, and ecological civilization. We must integrate the concepts, theories, and methods of disciplines such as history, political science, economics, sociology, anthropology, and psychology to open up new research fields and provide new interpretive paths in cultural research, promoting the innovative development of research perspectives and technical methods.