Lu Pinyue: The Philosophical Connotations of Xi Jinping Thought on Culture and the Construction of Cultural Discourse Power
"Culture is the soul of a country and a nation." Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has placed cultural development in a prominent position within the governance of the state. In October 2023, the National Conference on Public Communications and Cultural Work formally proposed Xi Jinping Thought on Culture. This important thought not only points out the developmental path for contemporary Chinese cultural development in practice but also contains profound philosophical principles regarding culture and cultural development in theory. This article conducts a preliminary exploration of these profound principles.
I. The Spiritual Structure of the Social-Cultural System
The meaning of "culture" is highly complex. In a broad sense, "culture" corresponds to "nature" and refers generally to all man-made things. Cultural development as a component of the "Five-Sphere Integrated Plan" is not a broad, generalized discussion of culture, but rather refers to human spiritual production activities and their spiritual products. It permeates all fields of social practice and runs through the entire process of social life, thereby forming a social-cultural system. Its spiritual dimension constitutes the social-cultural content, while it is simultaneously expressed through various material carriers.
Core values are the spiritual bond that maintains a society. General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out: "In any society, diverse value concepts and orientations exist. To coalesce the will and strength of the whole society, there must be a set of core values that are compatible with the economic base and political system and capable of forming a broad social consensus. Otherwise, a nation will have no spiritual bond to rely on, and a country will have no common ideological and moral foundation." Core values belong to the category of social culture; they are the reflection of the social economic base in the human mind and express the value objectives that the social community seeks to realize. To be truly realized, they must be put into practical activity. Consequently, a contradiction inevitably arises between core values and objective reality, the latter of which does not change according to human subjective will. To resolve this contradiction, it is necessary to form programmatic ideas. At the macro level, these become the guide for national decision-making; at the micro level, they become the norms for the behavior of the masses.
Programmatic ideas need to be expressed through a complete discourse system. General Secretary Xi Jinping noted: "Attention must be paid to strengthening the construction of the discourse system. ... We must be adept at distilling signature concepts [1] and creating new concepts, categories, and expressions that are easily understood and accepted by the international community, thereby guiding the international academic community to conduct research and discussion." The "discourse system" constructed in this way is the expressive form of programmatic ideas. Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era is the programmatic idea of the New Era, throughout which the core value of "people-centeredness" runs. As the general program, programmatic ideas generate three spiritual branches through the three paths of "cognition, emotion, and will" [zhi, qing, yi], thereby creating the spiritual structure of social culture.
First, "entering the brain" through the rational path. This involves constructing the academic foundation of programmatic ideas—the knowledge systems of various branches of the philosophy and social sciences—to conquer the human mind through the power of reason. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "The foundation supporting a discourse system is the system of philosophy and social sciences. Without our own system of philosophy and social sciences, there can be no discourse power." Programmatic ideas are contained within the knowledge system of the philosophy and social sciences; the latter is the academized expression of the former. This academized research can only be undertaken by various disciplines of the philosophy and social sciences. Their task is to use programmatic ideas to analyze and study various social fields, forming the academic foundation that supports the programmatic ideas—the knowledge systems of the philosophy and social sciences—thereby "entering the brain" through the rational path and convincing people through reason. Capital is a model of such a knowledge system; it provided scientific demonstration for the programmatic ideas of the Communist Manifesto, giving them powerful academic support.
Second, "entering the heart" through the emotional path. This involves constructing the emotional foundation for identifying with programmatic ideas, demonstrating the humanistic care of these ideas through news media, literature, and art, and conquering people's hearts through the power of emotion. Using perceptive narratives and artistic images that reach directly into the heart, and through the logic of human emotion and reason, we evoke an emotional resonance toward core values and cultivate identification with programmatic ideas. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Great causes require a great spirit. To realize this great cause, the role of literature and art is irreplaceable, and literary and art workers have much to contribute." Lu Xun’s Call to Arms [2] awakened a strong anti-feudal consciousness; "The March of the Volunteers" [3] aroused the anti-Japanese fighting spirit of hundreds of millions of Chinese people; the opera The White-Haired Girl [4] inspired countless soldiers and civilians to rush to the front lines of the War of Liberation; and news reports on the deeds of heroic models [5] have been soul-stirring. These all reflect the immense spiritual power of literature and art.
Third, "entering the rites" [6] through the path of interpersonal social activities. Through public ceremonies, rituals, and customs that embody programmatic ideas, we construct a social collective will and codes of conduct consistent with those ideas. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "For a set of values to truly play its role, it must be integrated into social life so that people perceive and internalize it in practice, reaching a point where 'the common people use it daily without even realizing it' [7]." Here, "the common people use it daily without even realizing it" means that values are unconsciously integrated into the daily behavior of the masses by "entering the rites." General Secretary Xi Jinping further noted: "In this regard, our country in ancient times could be said to have reached the ultimate level; moral education permeated every aspect of clothing, food, housing, transportation, speech, and behavior. Through various rituals and systems, people's words and deeds were regulated and constrained, emphasizing that 'look not at what is contrary to propriety, listen not to what is contrary to propriety' [8] and 'rites are the norms for humans; observing the rites is the way to establish oneself.'" The sociologist Durkheim divided the social world of human life into two major domains: the "profane world," which pursues secular interests, and the "world of sacred objects," consisting of worshipful rituals—"a special world, a world completely different from the one he usually lives in; an environment filled with various particularly powerful forces completely possesses him and turns him into another person." The so-called "sacred object" is the symbolic carrier of social collective power. "Worship of the sacred" is, in essence, the worship of the core values upheld by the social collective, thereby forming a spiritual bond that unites social members and regulates human behavior. Therefore, public rituals and folk customs are by no means meaningless "forms," but are important ways of shaping people's spiritual beliefs.
II. The Material Carriers of the Spiritual Dimension of Social Culture
General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "Core values are the spiritual bond on which a nation relies and the common ideological and moral foundation of a country." A "spiritual bond" is a spiritual relationship between people; the spiritual dimension of social culture is essentially the social spiritual relations between people. These spiritual relations cannot exist in the abstract; they must pass through material carriers to generate real spiritual relations. The material carriers of culture constitute the material dimension of the social-cultural system, appearing in the surrounding world.
First are the material carriers of the spiritual production activities of social culture: the human brain that performs spiritual production is itself the most important material carrier of cultural activity, and the survival of the human brain requires material resources for nourishment. At the same time, cultural production activities require a series of material conditions such as ink, paper, computers, and the internet. Spiritual production activities such as calligraphy, painting, song, dance, theater, and film require countless pieces of equipment and materials. Without material carriers, spiritual production activities of culture cannot be carried out.
Second are the material carriers required for the presentation, storage, and transmission of cultural products: books and paintings are among the most basic material carriers of culture. At the same time, spiritual products permeate material production, making all material products—such as handicraft products, gardens, and architecture—carriers of social culture, because "man also constructs according to the laws of beauty." In the digital age, databases and digital museums have become important material carriers of culture.
Third are the material carriers for the social dissemination of culture: media such as books, periodicals, newspapers, radio, television, and the mobile internet undertake the function of cultural dissemination. The internet is one of the most important material carriers among them; it can digitize all cultural products and disseminate culture at an exponential rate.
Fourth are social public cultural facilities: museums, libraries, cultural centers, art galleries, science and technology museums, memorial halls, and sports venues. General Secretary Xi Jinping attaches great importance to the construction of public cultural infrastructure. He pointed out that "Museums are important halls for protecting and inheriting human civilization, bridges connecting the past, present, and future, and play a special role in promoting mutual learning and exchange among world civilizations." He also noted we should "improve the public cultural service system, strengthen the construction of grassroots venues and facilities, so that every village, township, and county can widely carry out cultural and sports activities... and accelerate the construction of libraries, cultural centers, gymnasiums, and youth palaces," and so forth.
Without material carriers, cultural production cannot proceed, and cultural products cannot exist. The process of cultural spiritual production and its products both possess a dual nature—their spiritual dimension is a spiritual social relationship acting as the spiritual bond and moral foundation of society, while their material dimension is the material carrier and material condition for establishing this spiritual relationship. The dialectical unity of the two constitutes the reality of social culture. This philosophical principle contained in Xi Jinping Thought on Culture is a creative extension and development of Marx's principle of the dual character of labor in material production activities into the field of human spiritual production activities, and is an important innovation and development of historical materialism in the New Era.
As is well known, Engels summarized Marx's great contributions throughout his life into two major discoveries: historical materialism and the theory of surplus value. Capital, as an encyclopedia of Marxism, contains these two discoveries simultaneously. The principle of the dual character of labor [9] put forward in Capital is not only the "pivot for understanding political economy" but can also be extended to the entire historical field, becoming a "pivot" for understanding historical materialism as a whole—that is, the "pivot" that connects the historical development of social relations with the natural material laws of the production process. Why does the historical development of society possess objective laws? This is the fundamental question historical materialism aims to answer. The answer to this question cannot be like Dühring's simple definition of society as a special matter within the "all-encompassing, single existence," thus possessing objective laws. This kind of "proof by three or two words from a magician" that the world is unified in matter, defining the conclusion within the premise, is a tautology; it says nothing and confuses social laws with natural material laws. Only through the principle of the dual character of labor discovered by Marx, based on human practice, can this question be deeply answered. The reason the historical development of society has objective laws is that all practice that creates history is both a material process of transforming the objective world, thus possessing a natural materiality that follows objective natural laws, and a social activity that produces social relations between people, thus possessing sociality. All social relations must be realized through natural material processes and are therefore constrained by objective natural laws, from which the objective lawfulness of the historical development of social relations arises. This is the natural extension of the principle of the dual character of labor, because labor is the most fundamental activity in creating history. Because of this, all actual social relations are inevitably constrained by objective natural laws; natural laws thus enter the social field and are sublimated into higher-level laws—social historical laws—which originate from but are higher than natural laws. This yields the basic viewpoints of historical materialism.
In such a view of historical materialism, the spiritual content of the social-cultural system consists of people's spiritual social relations, which are the reflection of material production relations in people's minds. These spiritual relations must be realized through certain material carriers and material conditions; the social-cultural system thus formed is the dialectical unity of the spiritual dimension and the material dimension.
III. The Mechanism of Governance for Cultural Discourse Power
The British sociologist Michael Mann said: "Societies are constituted of multiple overlapping and intersecting socio-spatial networks of power." Here, "power" refers to social relations of dominance and subordination among people, including economic power, political power, and spiritual power. Only when the spiritual dimension of culture is combined with its material dimension can spiritual power be formed. "Spiritual power" is not a coercive power of dominance but a kind of "spiritual influence" realized through the form of discourse; it is therefore called "cultural discourse power" [10]. Cultural discourse power is the "intersubjective spiritual relationship" of actual people and the spiritual influence of people upon people; it thus possesses class and national characteristics. The discourse power of Western "universal values" is not the influence of a mysterious "universal spirit" detached from people and society, but the spiritual dominance over the social masses by monopoly capital groups through spiritual products under the banner of "universal human nature." Socialist cultural discourse power is the spiritual influence on the people by the advanced class and its political party, which represent the fundamental interests of the people. Xi Jinping Thought on Culture contains profound philosophical principles regarding the mechanism of generating discourse power, specifically including the following three links.
The first link [11] is the spiritual dimension of social culture; it constitutes the spiritual foundation of cultural discourse power and generates cultural soft power.
In the spiritual dimension of social culture, core values determine the moral essence of a culture. General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out: "Values play a pivotal role in the culture of a given society; the influence of a culture is, first and foremost, the influence of its values. The various cultural struggles in the world are, in essence, struggles between values—struggles for people's hearts and minds, and struggles between ideologies. As the saying goes, 'Strength and weakness for a moment depend on force, but victory and defeat for all time depend on reason [12].'" Whether a value system is "in the right" (zài lǐ) determines the essence and foundation of its discourse power. Value systems that accord with the objective requirements of human existence and development, and thus comply with the laws of social development, are "in the right." Their essence and foundation are just; conversely, they are unjust. This justice changes along with the requirements of the development of the times. During the early stages of capitalism, individualistic values impelled people to liberate themselves from the oppression of feudal theocracy, meeting the objective requirements of the laws of historical development. Its discourse power was "in the right," and its essence possessed justice. In the current era, however, these values have become thoroughly capitalized and have degenerated into cultural tools used to enslave the people of the world—centered on capital and aimed at maintaining hegemonic rule. Consequently, they possess "force" (lì) but are not "in the right" (lǐ); they are essentially unjust. Just cultural discourse power may temporarily occupy a position of weakness when suppressed by hegemonic force, but because it is "in the right," it will ultimately break through that force and achieve victory. Thus, "victory and defeat for all time depend on reason." This is the basis for our "cultural confidence."
In the spiritual dimension of social culture, its spiritual "permeability" determines the depth of cultural discourse power. This "permeability" refers to the intensity with which culture "enters the brain," "enters the heart," and "enters social ritual [13]" through rational, emotional, and interpersonal paths. To enhance this "permeability," the philosophy and social sciences should conform to the logic of reason, news media and literature/arts should conform to the logic of emotion, and etiquette and customs should conform to the logic of social interaction. These are the different manifestations of the laws of human thought.
In the spiritual dimension of social culture, the holistic systematicity of the cultural structure determines the solidity of cultural discourse power. Programmatic ideas permeate various branches of the philosophy and social sciences, echoing and supporting one another to form an integrated spiritual force. The reason Western discourse power remains dominant to this day is that, through centuries of academic management, the bourgeoisie has infused its "universal values" and programmatic ideas into every discipline of the philosophy and social sciences. They have formed a complete, interlocking system of disciplinary knowledge: including a philosophical system based on individual subject structures, systems of ethics and jurisprudence based on abstract theories of human nature, a system of political science based on social contract theory, and a system of economics based on marginal utility analysis. These constitute a mutually reinforcing holistic system that generates collective power. Simultaneously, this knowledge system permeates news media and works of literature and art through narrative and sensory modes, entering daily life through various etiquette and customs to shape people's behavior. The resulting cultural "hodgepodge," though seemingly kaleidoscopic, is in fact a systematized cultural framework of mutual support. Despite being riddled with fallacies, it is difficult to shake due to its interconnected systematicity—any local shock will encounter systemic resistance and rejection from the entire structure, thereby strengthening the solidity of its discourse power. Socialist culture likewise needs to establish a spiritual cultural structure with a high degree of holism.
In the spiritual dimension of social culture, cultural tolerance and openness determine the resilience and developmental space of cultural discourse power. General Secretary Xi Jinping has noted: "Chinese civilization possesses prominent inclusivity, which fundamentally determines the historical orientation of the Chinese nation toward interaction, exchange, and integration; determines the harmonious pattern of co-existence among China’s diverse religious beliefs; and determines the open-mindedness of Chinese culture in embracing and drawing upon world civilizations." Under the command of programmatic ideas, the inclusivity of a social culture serves at least four functions: first, satisfying the diverse spiritual needs of different social members and broadening the "circle of identity" for that culture; second, maintaining the "topical heat" of the culture through debate, thereby increasing public attention and participation; third, providing space for self-correction and free development in response to challenges; and fourth, allowing the culture to enrich itself through mutual learning among civilizations. Monotonous cultural forms often lose the space for development needed to advance with the times, thereby damaging their discourse power.
The second link is the material dimension of social culture; it is the material foundation for cultural production and dissemination, determining the hard power through which culture is realized. The discourse power of the spiritual dimension of social culture must pass through material carriers to become actualized. The spiritual dimension does not automatically translate into material carriers; it must be implemented by mastering the ownership and usage rights of these carriers. Whoever owns the material carriers of culture possesses the right to select, dominate, and disseminate social culture, forming the hard power of cultural discourse power. The reason the capitalist cultural system has been able to form powerful, real-world discourse power is that the capital groups and state powers promoting this culture have monopolized the material carriers of culture for the entire society—and even the international community. Through the capitalization of culture, they carry out expanded reproduction, generating a powerful material system for production and dissemination. This involves investing massive capital into educational and research institutions and various think tanks to dominate the production of spiritual products; establishing various funds and awards to select cultural products and set the value orientations and selection criteria for social culture; and building transnational media organizations, academic publishing houses, film and television production bodies, and internet dissemination systems to monopolize global channels for cultural products. Contemporary Western capitalist culture, centered on capital and aimed at hegemony, possesses the hard power to monopolize international cultural discourse. While occupying people's spiritual worlds with "spiritual opium," it uses the "invisible hand" of culture to extract massive profits from their pockets, realizing the accumulation of cultural capital while the broad masses fall into an accumulation of both spiritual and material poverty.
The third link is the degree to which cultural products satisfy the spiritual needs of the audience; it determines the audience's identification with that culture. After the spiritual dimension is transmitted to society through material carriers, it must still be accepted by the audience to finally generate spiritual influence. This identification depends on how well cultural products satisfy the spiritual and cultural needs of the recipients. These needs are the pursuit of ideal goals arising from people's practice. The more a cultural product resonates with the ideal goals pursued in the audience's heart, the more it can produce identity and resonance, thereby strengthening the resulting cultural discourse power.
The "ideal goals" people pursue are not determined by abstract human nature, but are ultimately determined by social existence: first, by the current, actual social existence, which depends on people's cognition of reality—including both direct personal experience and "indirect experience" obtained through the media; and second, by historical social existence formed through the generational accumulation of culture and transmitted through education.
The three links above constitute the outline of the mechanism for forming cultural discourse power: the structure of the spiritual dimension of social culture is the soft power foundation; its material carriers determine the hard power through which it is realized; and the degree to which cultural products satisfy the spiritual needs of the people determines their identification with the culture. Together, these generate actual discourse power, with education and media playing a massive role in the process.
IV. The Historical Mission of Constructing China's Cultural Discourse Power Amidst Great Changes Unseen in a Century
Today's world is facing great changes unseen in a century. The great historical process of China advancing the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation through Chinese-path modernization is taking place against this backdrop. In this process, China's cultural construction—specifically the construction of cultural discourse power—bears two major historical missions: first, to counter the containment and suppression from the cultural discourse hegemony of Western capitalist countries, frustrating their plots to instigate "color revolutions" [14] aimed at disrupting China's modernization process; second, to establish and develop a just socialist cultural discourse power, using a powerful spiritual force to unite the Chinese people in the struggle for national rejuvenation, while also using the power of culture to unite the peoples of the world, promoting the common values of humanity and actively building a community with a shared future for humanity. We must follow the mechanisms of cultural discourse power formation to fulfill these two historical missions.
(i) The Roots of the Western "Hegetonic Discourse Aberration" and the Inevitability of Its Collapse
As capital moves from free competition toward international monopoly, the fundamental contradictions of capitalism are deepening. The socialization of contemporary productive forces has reached a level of high globalization, yet the capital that owns and controls these forces is highly concentrated in the hands of international capital groups (especially the "military-industrial complex"). Hegemonic states representing the fundamental interests of monopoly capital groups practice double standards, using any means necessary to create illusions, cover up the truth, and spread rumors and slanders against China and other developing nations. They provoke global conflicts and even wars, using military and political deterrence to force other countries into dependency within their hegemonic system. Western scholars have called this "Disaster Capitalism"—capitalism that maintains its hegemonic rule by manufacturing human disasters.
However, a hegemonic state that brings such disasters to humanity is still somehow able to stand on the so-called "moral high ground" (dàoyì zhìgāodiǎn) to dominate international discourse power, with its touted "universal values" still regarded by many as gospel. This is the most incredible "hegemonic discourse aberration" in the contemporary world; it has created a situation where "the international public opinion landscape is characterized by a strong West and a weak China," posing a serious threat to our national security. Hegemonic states exploit this discourse power, portraying the game of monopoly capital groups fighting for political power through the competition for votes as a "liberal democratic system." They form so-called "international democratic alliances" and instigate "color revolutions" under the guise of "democracy replacing authoritarianism" to sabotage China's modernization process. General Secretary Xi Jinping hit the nail on the head, pointing out: "Various hostile forces have always attempted to manufacture 'color revolutions' in our country, vainly plotting to subvert the leadership of the Communist Party of China and our country's socialist system. This is a realistic danger facing our national security. One of the breakthroughs they have chosen is the ideological sphere, attempting to confuse people's thinking, and then fish in troubled waters to win amidst the chaos [15]."
How did this aberration come about? General Secretary Xi Jinping noted: "Some of our people, and even some comrades within the Party, have not seen the 'hidden trap' [16] buried within this. They ask: if Western 'universal values' have existed for centuries, why can't we identify with them? Why can't we borrow certain Western political discourses? We wouldn't suffer any big losses by accepting them, so why must we be so obstinate? Some people treat Western theories and Western discourse as golden rules and have unconsciously become the buglers for Western capitalist ideology." What is the "hidden trap" in the discourse power of Western "universal values"? It is worthy of deep investigation.
In the spiritual dimension, the "hidden trap" of Western cultural discourse hegemony is the discourse trap of "universal values." The so-called "universal values" are a discourse system of capital fetishism that nominally promotes the "supremacy of individual freedom" but is in essence "capital-centered." One important reason it possesses such strong spiritual power is that it is supported by a corresponding knowledge system of philosophy and social sciences. These knowledge systems adopt methods consistent with human rational thinking and appear in the guise of "science," causing people who revere science to unconsciously become its spiritual captives. However, their theoretical premises are fictional, and from these, they construct a fictional "ideal social order." The "hidden trap" of this discourse system is as follows:
Originally, the objects of study for the philosophy and social sciences were the real social relations generated by social practice and the real people shaped by them. However, Western philosophy and social sciences strip away all the real social relations in which people are situated, resulting in a view of people detached from social relations...
The "abstract individual" is treated as a conceptualized "free person in a universal sense." Through logical deduction, a social structure composed of these "free persons" is fictionalized, governed by the laws of "universal values." This, in turn, constructs a knowledge system for various branches of philosophy and social science with "individual freedom" as the core value. For example, in the economic sphere, the abstract individual is understood as the self-interested "rational economic man." Through logical deduction, an economic knowledge system is established with the maximization of individual interest as its core value, fictionalizing a "liberal market structure of private property based on the equality of all" that does not exist in reality, yet is enshrined as an economic structure following "universal values." In the political sphere, the abstract individual is understood as the free individual in a "state of nature." Through logical deduction, a political science knowledge system based on "social contract theory" is established, thereby fictionalizing a political power architecture generated via elections by equal individuals, enshrined as a political structure following "universal values." The capitalist economic and political structures completely conceal the dominance of capital power over the individual and its manipulation of society. These theories professing "universal values" thus become the conclusions of "rational science," possessing supreme discourse power and being believed by the masses; extremists even believe that "to reject universal values is to cut oneself off from humanity."
From this, it can be seen that while the Western philosophy and social science knowledge systems follow rational logic, their premise is false, because the object of study for any philosophy or social science can only be real social relations and the real people shaped by them. These Western knowledge systems strip away the true research object of philosophy and social sciences—humanity’s real social relations. What is established is fundamentally not a true philosophy or social science, just as it would be impossible to establish "mechanics" if "force" were stripped away from the physical world. The society constructed with this "abstract individual" as the logical starting point is not a real society at all, but a fictional "society of individual freedom." Once this fictional society is applied to a real society dominated by the power of capital, the fictional "individual-freedom-centered" society manifests in reality as a "capital-centered" society. In such a real society, individual freedom becomes a freedom measured according to the money and capital one possesses. Thus, "freedom of speech for equal individuals" manifests in reality as the freedom of monopolistic cultural capital groups to occupy the global space of public opinion, selling their occupied "freedom of speech space" as a commodity, while the masses are dominated by cultural capital groups. No matter how unequal or cruel reality may be, this system of "universal values" discourse is regarded as "eternal truth," using its fictional "world of individual freedom and equality" to whitewash a world ruled by hegemonic capital—this is the truth behind so-called "universal values."
The "hidden trick" of Western cultural discourse hegemony manifests at the material level through monopoly capital’s possession of the material carriers of culture to dominate the international system of cultural production, dissemination, and evaluation. Monopoly capital establishes education and think tanks to dominate the production of culture; it determines the value orientation of culture by establishing various awards and titles; and it monopolizes cultural dissemination channels by investing in the global media system. By controlling the material carriers of culture, it exerts whole-process control over the production, evaluation, and dissemination of social culture, establishing a cultural system centered on the interests of monopoly capital.
Monopoly capital's control over the material carriers of culture inevitably leads to the broad masses losing, to a large extent, the right to use the criterion of practice to test truth. People should originally test the merits of various social cultures and social systems according to the criterion of practice. However, the world is so vast that the direct practice the grassroots masses can experience personally does not amount to one ten-thousandth of it. Everyone can only make judgments based on media information received as "indirect practice." In today’s highly informatized world, this media information serving as "indirect practice" has already been monopolized by media controlled by various capital groups. These media outlets select objective facts, or even fabricate facts out of thin air and spread lies, according to the needs of the capital groups they represent. Consequently, a strange phenomenon emerges: the "criterion of practice" for testing truth is replaced by a "media criterion" that distorts the facts, and the Western opinion machines that manufacture lies instead occupy the high ground of "truth." General Secretary Xi Jinping has clearly pointed out: "'A lie repeated a thousand times becomes the truth.' Various hostile forces want to utilize this logic! They want to describe our Party and our country as a total mess and completely devoid of merit, enticing people to dance to their magic flute." The cultural material carriers possessed by Western capitalist countries are tools for turning lies into "truth."
The manifestation of the "hidden trick" of Western cultural discourse hegemony in shaping the spiritual needs of the masses is populism instrumentalized by monopoly capital. Populism is an irrational trend of thought and spontaneous protest movement among the grassroots of society. It has a dual nature: on one hand, it expresses certain spontaneous demands of the masses and contains rational components; on the other hand, the foothold of these demands is the individualistic value system promoted by capitalist culture, and the facts they rely on often originate from the media system controlled by monopoly capital, making them easily reducible to tools of monopoly capital. Therefore, populism is an irrational monstrosity born from the mixture of the spontaneous emotions of social grassroots—containing certain rational demands—with bourgeois liberal values, provoked by the capital-monopolized media. If the rational demands therein are not transformed into an organized collective force under the leadership of a party representing the fundamental interests of the people, but are instead integrated into the "universal values" discourse system under the manipulation of monopoly capital media, they will degenerate into a destructive force under the banner of some "rational demand," becoming a tool for hegemonic states to promote color revolutions [17] in other countries in the name of "democracy." This underhanded move by hegemonic states to divert the "evil waters" of populism toward other countries will inevitably backfire, leading to a populist explosion within their own borders.
This is the formation mechanism of the "hidden trick" of Western discourse hegemony; it is the manifestation of the general formation mechanism of discourse power under the dominance of monopoly capital. While revealing its deceptive essence, we should acknowledge that the rational methods it employs contain reasonable components consistent with the logic of human thought. Only by distinguishing these reasonable components from the absurd values of abstract human nature theory can we see through its "hidden trick," thereby providing both positive and negative experiences for the construction of a just cultural discourse power.
(2) Constructing Socialist Cultural Discourse Power in the New Era
Facing the current state of discourse power in the world, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "The international public opinion landscape is characterized by the West being strong and us being weak; major Western media dominate world opinion, and we often have the truth on our side but cannot speak it out, or if we speak it, it does not spread." This identifies both the current "strong West, weak us" situation of discourse power and its crux, while also containing the basic thinking for the construction of our country's cultural discourse power: to achieve a state where "the truth can be spoken and, once spoken, can be spread," thereby gaining broad identification from the masses.
First, we must persist in cultural confidence and construct a philosophy and social science knowledge system that reflects the programmatic thoughts of the New Era, changing the situation of "having the truth but being unable to speak it" and achieving "speaking the truth."
Cultural confidence is the prerequisite for the construction of cultural discourse power. We must fully leverage the advantage of Marxism as the commanding heights of human values by being "people-centered"; leverage the advantage of Marxism as the commanding heights of truth by seeking truth from facts and taking real social relations and real people as the objects of study; and leverage the advantages of fine traditional Chinese culture to construct a new type of philosophy and social science knowledge system in human history. While integrating the basic tenets of Marxism with China’s specific realities and fine traditional Chinese culture, we must actively conduct humanities exchanges with countries around the world and promote the common values of humanity through mutual learning between civilizations. While criticizing the theory of abstract human nature in Western philosophy and social sciences, we should absorb the reasonable components that conform to the laws of human rational thinking. We must conquer hearts through profound philosophical and academic reasoning, changing the situation of "having the truth but being unable to speak it" to "speaking the truth" with full confidence—because we have the guidance of Marxist truth, the accumulation of over five thousand years of civilization, the unprecedented great achievements of Chinese-path modernization, and the peace and development brought to the people of the world by the Belt and Road Initiative. This is where the confidence of the philosophy and social science knowledge system for the New Era lies.
At the same time, we must strive to combine the construction of the philosophy and social science knowledge system with literary and artistic creation, expressing profound philosophical and academic principles through vivid facts and emotional reasoning. "Telling stories" is an important method for this. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "We must organize various wonderful and concise story carriers to embed the Chinese path, Chinese theory, Chinese system, Chinese spirit, and Chinese strength within them, making people want to listen, love to listen, think as they listen, and gain as they listen." We must simultaneously emphasize the construction of ritual systems, folk customs, and social habits, "improving codes of conduct such as professional regulations, civil conventions, village rules and community agreements, and student codes in accordance with the basic requirements of socialist core values, making socialist core values the basic observance of people's daily work and life," so that this system of values "enters the brain," "enters the heart," and "enters ritual practice."
Second, we must fully utilize new quality productive forces to carry out the construction of the material level of our country's cultural system, changing the situation of "speaking but not spreading" and achieving "speaking and spreading."
One important reason Western cultural discourse power dominates world opinion is that monopoly capital groups possess powerful cultural material carriers and occupy the international public opinion space. The current era is in a period of historical change where new quality productive forces are replacing traditional productive forces. We must fully utilize this historical opportunity, taking the construction of the material foundation of our country’s cultural system as a vast development space for new quality productive forces, and establishing a world-class cultural production and dissemination system based on new quality productive forces. The successful advancement of the Belt and Road Initiative will effectively enhance our country’s international cultural discourse power.
Third, we must leverage the advantage of the natural alignment between "people-centered" values and the spiritual needs of the masses, so that socialist culture receives broader identification from the masses, thereby generating a just discourse power that represents the forward direction of history.
Youth are the future of the nation and the people. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "To run Ideological and Political Theory courses well is to carry out Marxist theoretical education, using Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era to cast the soul and nurture people, guiding students to strengthen their confidence in the path, theory, system, and culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics, deeply planting the sentiment of patriotism, and consciously integrating patriotic feelings, the ambition to strengthen the country, and the action of serving the country into the struggle to persist in and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics, build a modern socialist-power country, and realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation." We must use vivid facts and profound yet accessible reasoning to puncture the discourse traps of Western "universal values," using this as a breakthrough point to cultivate the spiritual demand for a just culture among the broad masses (especially young students). General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "It must be admitted that in terms of mastering and utilizing international discourse power, we are generally novices; on many occasions, we simply repeat what others say, and there is even the phenomenon of abandoning oneself to follow others [18]." To overcome this state, we should critically draw on the effective methods of Western cultural discourse dissemination while resolutely exposing their despicable acts of manufacturing rumors and deluding the public, using the principle of seeking truth from facts to publicize the truth and gaining the people's trust with sincerity. "As long as we maintain close contact with the masses, frequently go deep among the masses, firmly rely on the masses, sincerely take the people as our teachers, honestly learn from the people, and humbly seek guidance from the people, we will be able to obtain a steady stream of practical power and theoretical wisdom." We must analyze and study the spiritual and cultural needs and psychological characteristics of different groups, truly understand public opinion and the heart of the people, use "people-centered" values to unite the Chinese people in the struggle for Chinese-path modernization, and guide the people of the world to identify with the important concept of "building a community with a shared future for humanity."
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out with great foresight: "Cultural soft power centrally reflects the cohesion and vitality of a country based on its culture, as well as the resulting attraction and influence. Throughout history, the development process of any great power is not only a process of increasing hard power such as economic volume and military strength, but also a process of increasing soft power such as values, ideology, and culture." Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era provides the fundamental compliance for advancing Chinese-path modernization; Xi Jinping Thought on Culture provides the commanding heights of human morality, the commanding heights of truth, and the commanding heights of history for our country’s cultural construction. At a new historical starting point, we must actively construct socialist cultural discourse power for the New Era, continuously promote the building of a socialist cultural powerhouse, and contribute greater strength to realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
Source: Philosophy Study (《哲学研究》) November 27, 2024 Online Editor: Jing Mu