Seek common ground to spread cultural seeds

• Source: Global Times
• [23:25 December 02 2009]
• Comments

This may seem to be just a personal interest of Obama's. But in fact, it reflects a bond between our two cultures, just like two people who become friends through shared interests.

In fact, some Western ideas and culture are understood and loved by the Chinese people because they also resonate in our hearts. Without this resonance, there would be no space for the spreading of these ideas and culture.

There are many different civilizations, and their differences produce a colorful world. However, different civilizations have common pursuits, through which they can come closer together and the world can share certain norms. From this perspective, ideas belonging to a nation also belong to the world and vice versa.

Whether a country's ideology and culture can go beyond their origin point depends on whether they can resonate widely and be widely recognized. Otherwise, only differences can be maintained and no common ground can be sought.

Today, with more convenient interpersonal communication, in order to truly affect and change others, it is more important whether your codes of conduct and way of doing things can meet the standards of the majority of humanity than whether you have a profound historical culture and priceless museum collections. This is the problem Chinese ideology and culture face when competing in a global marketplace of ideas.

We often talk about "harmony without uniformity." In fact, it is easy to understand difference but difficult to seek "harmony" in differences. What to harmonize? How to harmonize? What can be harmonized and what cannot? If these problems are not resolved, it is impossible for Chinese ideology and culture to spread.

Sometimes we find others unwilling to harmonize due to the lack of common ground or because our behavior does not meet world standards.

For example, some Chinese businessmen sell fake and low quality products worldwide, and some students go to foreign universities to buy diplomas. This is understandably a source of concern for other nations.

Therefore, while communicating with a country with different cultures, nationalities and languages, mutual respect is not enough. In order to achieve harmony, it is necessary to have something recognized by both nations, which can be a link between two countries.

This is not the same as convergence or imitation. China has its own civilization and traditions, so it is unlikely to become a carbon copy of the West.

Purely Western seeds cannot be planted in Chinese soil, yet both are still rooted in humanity, and there will always be things in common. Exploring this common ground, we can fi nd best ways to spread our own ideas.

Talking about the cultural differences between East and West, the famous Swedish sinologist Torbjorn Loden said, "We are all human. After all, we have the same needs and emotions. Everyone has his unique nature and each culture has its uniqueness. But I believe that the uniqueness is still based on universality, or uniqueness is a concrete manifestation of universality."

We must let foreigners understand the differences as well as the universal aspects in Chinese culture. Otherwise, we will always run on different tracks, forever separated by culture.

Therefore, in the future, in order that China's ideology and culture can spread, instead of stressing differences, we should emphasize or create a large number of cultural and ideological ideas that have been firmly believed and practiced by ourselves but which are also rooted in universal principles.

In order to break the "limits" of the West, Chinese ideological and cultural influence have to truly resonate with others worldwide.

The author is a senior editor with the People's Daily. dinggang@globaltimes.com. Cn