Wang Junqi: The Values and Implications of Continuously Enriching the Spiritual World of the People
General Secretary Xi Jinping recently issued important instructions regarding the work of building spiritual civilization, emphasizing that "on the new journey of the New Era, the building of spiritual civilization must manifest a new atmosphere and new accomplishments." He clearly proposed "four requirements," one of which is to "place greater emphasis on using culture to cultivate people and using literature to educate people, continuously enriching the people’s spiritual world, and promoting well-rounded human development." This important discourse is a systematic summation and theoretical sublimation of the Party’s practical experience in leading the construction of spiritual civilization in the New Era. It contains profound value significance in resolving the principal contradiction of society in the New Era, focusing on enhancing ideological cohesion, serving the great cause of national rejuvenation, and promoting well-rounded human development.
1. Resolving the principal contradiction of society in the New Era and continuously meeting the people’s aspirations for a better life
From the perspective of the realistic context of the era's development, continuously enriching the people’s spiritual world is an inherent requirement for resolving the principal contradiction of society in the New Era. Since the 18th Party Congress, the principal contradiction in Chinese society has evolved into the contradiction between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life. The people’s needs for a better life are becoming increasingly broad; they not only place higher demands on material and cultural life but also show growing demands in areas such as democracy, the rule of law, fairness, justice, security, and the environment. To resolve this contradiction, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has paid close attention to the people’s spiritual and cultural needs, regarding the continuous enrichment of the people’s spiritual world and the promotion of the people’s "spiritual wealth" as the top priority in satisfying their aspirations for a better life.
General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "The people’s demand for spiritual and cultural life exists at all times." On the new journey of the New Era, the people’s growing needs for spiritual and cultural life are characterized by diversity, multiple levels, and multi-faceted dimensions. Specifically, from the level of spiritual experience, this is manifested as a demand for diverse cultural consumption and artistic aesthetic experiences. From the level of spiritual growth, it is reflected in the desire to improve cognitive levels through lifelong learning and the pursuit of a stable, harmonious psychological order and the enrichment and perfection of one’s inner character. From the level of spiritual sense of gain, it is manifested as a strong desire for self-actualization, including a sense of gain in growth and social recognition. From the level of spiritual pursuit, it presents a demand for a full moral world and a world of firm faith, pursuing the elevation of life's value and spiritual realm. Therefore, the value significance of continuously enriching the people’s spiritual world lies, in the final analysis, in responding to the beautiful expectations of the masses in the spiritual realm. Through "culture nourishing the heart" [1] projects and digital cultural services for the public, we can improve the universality and precision of cultural supply, making high-quality spiritual and cultural products important resources for nourishing the soul, enlightening wisdom, and edifying temperament. Through ideological and cultural construction, we can ensure that the guidance of mainstream values organically aligns with diverse cultural needs, enabling the people to form spiritual beliefs, value concepts, moral outlooks, and cultural consciousness that meet the development requirements of the new journey in the New Era. When the masses experience spiritual joy and the satisfaction of a high-quality spiritual life in cultural consumption, realize the leap of their spiritual realm in lifelong learning, and gain value recognition in creating spiritual wealth, they will possess the ideological foundation for unity and struggle, the proactive spirit of pioneering advancement, and healthy, upward value pursuits. This, in turn, strengthens their confidence that the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics can realize the vision of a better life for the people.
2. Adhering to the independence and autonomy of the spiritual world and firmly grasping the Party’s leadership over ideological work
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Without our own spiritual independence, the independence of our politics, ideology, culture, and systems would have the ground cut out from under them." [2] The independence and autonomy of the spiritual world is an inevitable requirement for upholding cultural subjectivity. The proposition of the cultural subjectivity of the Chinese nation contains the pursuit of realizing the independence and autonomy of the Chinese people’s spiritual world—that is, the inheritance and development of the spiritual pursuits, spiritual characteristics, and spiritual lineage formed during the 5,000-year evolution of Chinese culture. Only by upholding the cultural subjectivity of China, cultivating the independent and autonomous spiritual character of the masses, deeply saturating the national spiritual bloodline and cultural genes with cultural confidence, and fostering a vigorous spiritual atmosphere and an open and inclusive civilizational posture, can we ensure that the masses always maintain political firmness and improve their own strategic resolve.
Since the 18th Party Congress, against the backdrop of world multi-polarization, economic globalization, social Informatization, and cultural diversification, our society has continued to show the distinct characteristics of unprecedentedly active ideas and the deep collision of value concepts. Social members have demonstrated more significant contemporary characteristics such as autonomous judgment, diverse choices, dynamic adjustments, and individual differences at the level of ideological cognition. At the same time, Western countries are exporting values through new, intelligent, and fragmented methods of infiltration. Erroneous trends of thought, such as historical nihilism [3], are seeping into the cultural field in more hidden ways, eroding people’s spiritual worlds. Once people fall into the trap of spiritual dependence, they are prone to losing spiritual sovereignty and thus being controlled by others. When spiritual pillars collapse, even the strongest material foundation can hardly maintain national stability. Therefore, continuously enriching the people’s spiritual world requires building a socialist ideology with strong cohesive and guiding power, adhering to the fundamental system of Marxism’s guiding position in the ideological field, so as to achieve the independence and autonomy of the spiritual world.
In the long scroll of human civilization's development, faith, belief, and confidence have always been the core driving forces for individual growth and social progress. Building a socialist ideology with strong cohesive and guiding power must fill the people’s spiritual world with faith, belief, and confidence. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "No matter in the past, present, or future, faith in Marxism, belief in socialism with Chinese characteristics, and confidence in realizing the Chinese Dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation are the powerful spiritual forces that guide and support the Chinese people in standing up, becoming prosperous, and becoming strong." As a theory that achieves the inner unity of sublimity, truth, and reality, Marxism provides a stable value anchor for the people’s beautiful spiritual world through its profound critique of the logic of capital and its scientific demonstration of human liberation. Belief in socialism with Chinese characteristics reflects the collective will of the people, can evoke their emotional will, and stimulate unswerving spiritual strength. Confidence in achieving the Chinese Dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation unites the masses into a community formed to achieve the lofty goal of a modern socialist power. Therefore, we must use Marxist faith to consolidate the soul, use the belief in socialism with Chinese characteristics to lead the way, and use the confidence in realizing the Chinese Dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation to gather strength. This will enable the masses to spiritually strengthen their high degree of identification with the great motherland, the Chinese nation, Chinese culture, the Communist Party of China, and socialism with Chinese characteristics, thereby realizing the independence and autonomy of the masses' spiritual world.
3. Building a shared spiritual home for the Chinese nation and gathering the majestic strength to advance the cause of building a strong country and national rejuvenation
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "We must build a shared spiritual home for the Chinese nation." As the rich soil for nourishing the national spirit, the shared spiritual home of the Chinese nation reflects the unique spiritual identity of all sons and daughters of the Chinese nation. It gathers the common expectations of people of all ethnic groups for unity of heart, spiritual interdependence, and united struggle. It is the manifestation of the cultural identity, value pursuit, and emotional orientation shared by the entire Chinese nation.
Cultural identity is the solid foundation of the spiritual home. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that "cultural identity is the deepest level of identity." The prominent unity of Chinese civilization fundamentally determines that the cultures of all Chinese ethnic groups are integrated. The reason the Chinese nation can share a common destiny and honor is that Chinese culture provides the basis for identity. History has repeatedly proven that fine traditional Chinese culture possesses unique cultural charm and cultural integration power, always nourishing the spiritual world of the Chinese people and serving as an inexhaustible driving force for the Chinese nation’s continuous life and united struggle.
Value consensus guides the direction for the construction of the spiritual home. The core of cultural identity is the identity of values. To focus on building a shared spiritual home for the Chinese nation, we must take the core socialist values as our guide. As the "greatest common denominator" [4] commonly recognized by the Chinese nation, the core socialist values have a distinct national background and are the value expression that condenses the consensus of the Chinese nation. Only by using the core socialist values to grasp the forward direction of the shared spiritual home of the Chinese nation can we consolidate the common ideological foundation of the Chinese nation amidst various complex social trends and value concepts.
Emotional belonging is the source of warmth for the spiritual home. The cultural identity and value consensus of the masses will ultimately sublimate into an emotional belonging to the shared spiritual home of the Chinese nation. This emotional belonging includes psychological dependence at the individual level and belief in the shared spiritual characteristics of the Chinese nation at the collective level. It manifests as "the psychological feeling that people of the same nation belong to a community of their own." Entering the New Era, this emotional belonging is manifested as a collective yearning for the Chinese Dream, which can gather the powerful spiritual force of all Chinese sons and daughters to realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
4. Promoting well-rounded human development and highlighting the Chinese characteristics and significant advantages of Chinese-path modernization
From the dimension of Chinese-path modernization, the value pursuit of continuously enriching the people’s spiritual world is manifested in promoting the coordination of the people’s material and spiritual lives, and coordinately advancing the comprehensive enrichment of things and the well-rounded development of people. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "The ultimate goal of modernization is to realize the free and well-rounded development of human beings." The realization of this ideal state ultimately depends on the development of productive forces, but the spirit is the soul of "free individuality." Human spiritual liberation and the pursuit of ideals constitute the power system of spiritual productive forces and play an important role in promoting well-rounded human development. Therefore, well-rounded human development inherently requires a high degree of unity between material life and spiritual life. The Communist Party of China adheres to a people-centered approach, continuously strengthening the material foundation of modernization and solidifying the material conditions for the people’s happy life. It also vigorously develops advanced socialist culture, strengthens education on ideals and beliefs, and inherits Chinese civilization. This demonstrates that Chinese-path modernization is committed to continuously enriching the people’s spiritual world and promoting the unity of comprehensive material enrichment and well-rounded human development.
The essence of modernization is the modernization of people. The Communist Party of China is committed to promoting the modernization of people and continuously enriching the people’s spiritual world, which reflects the historical transcendence of Chinese-path modernization over Western capitalist modernization. Chinese-path modernization led by the CPC not only pursues material growth but also takes well-rounded human development as its value goal. Our Party pays attention to the cultivation of the people’s beautiful spiritual world, emphasizing that people are essentially "cultural people" rather than "reified" [5] people. We pursue the improvement of material conditions while also requiring the people to undergo a transformation toward modernization in terms of psychology, thinking, attitude, and behavior. We emphasize the improvement of the people’s "happiness index," the harmony of the "spiritual ecosystem," and the realization of the meaning of life. We continuously stimulate and satisfy the people’s multi-dimensional and deeper inner needs, such as social and spiritual needs, promoting a high degree of unity between the "measure of things" and the "measure of man." Our Party not only vigorously develops new quality productive forces and promotes high-quality development, but also strengthens the building of a culturally strong country, taking education, science and technology, and talent as the foundational and strategic supports for Chinese-path modernization. We fully stimulate social vitality, emphasize the guidance of core socialist values, and resolutely guard against undesirable trends such as money worship and hedonism. This ensures that while the masses create a higher quality material life, their spiritual life also becomes more colorful. When the masses realize their own value in spiritual pursuits, Chinese-path modernization demonstrates its most fundamental superiority—making social progress truly serve the enrichment of the human spiritual world, thereby promoting the free and well-rounded development of human beings.