文化自信与民族自信--重审中国近现代史上的全盘西化论

Cultural Self-Confidence and National Self-Confidence:The Whole-Sale Westernization Theory in Modern Chinese History

在鸦片战争以来中西文化关系话语论争史上,全盘西化论占据了一个重要位置,与中国本位文化论水火不容。阅读全盘西化论的有关著述,会发现一个难以理解的悖论:文化不自信与民族自信相携而行、和平相处。作为全盘西化论的主要代表,陈序经给出了谜底:文化不但是人类的存在及其方式,更是人类满足其生命、生活需求的工具。此之谓“文化工具论”。此论虽在历史上昙花一现,但其洞见和价值并未随着历史的远去而烟消云散,在全球连接日益紧密的21世纪,它有助于扩大我们对于世界各种文化资源的开放度,提升我们将这些文化资源作为工具使用的自由自觉的选择能力,推进对于文化对话、文明互鉴的认识和实践。但此论的内在矛盾和错误亦不可忽视:一是既然以人类的现实需要为中心来主导文化的选择和引入,那么所有外来文化都有一个“球域化”的过程,“全盘”之接受绝无可能;二是未能将保守主义的“文化生命论”整合进来,它只看到人类对文化的创造和创新,而无视于文化对人类的影响和塑造。实际上,人类由于其理性反思能力能够同时审视和把握身内身外的文化资源与其内在的生命需求,从而做出最佳的选择。

In the modern Chinese history since the Opium War of 1840, the wholesale Westernization theory(WWT) occupied an important position in the debate around the cultural relation between China and West, with a sharp contrast to the Chinese-centered cultural theory(CCT). There hided a paradox in the WWT that has not been fully comprehended yet: The cultural non-self-confidence is accompanied peacefully by the national selfconfidence. As the chief representative of this theory, Chen Xujin offered his interpretation: Culture is not only the existence of man or a way of this existence, but also the instrument with which man earns and maintains his life. This may be termed as "cultural instrumentalism" while CCT as "cultural vitalism". Although WWT with its "cultural instrumentalism" seems quickly to have sunk into oblivion, its insights and values remain and will revive in the 21 st century which sees a more tightly interconnected world. However, the drawbacks and inner contradictions of WWT should not be overlooked. First, it would be impossible that the Western culture is introduced and accepted in a wholesale way when WWT holds the belief that the life and its needs of man dominates the choice and use of the culture it imports from abroad. Second, the WWT is blind to the fact that man is made of culture, and it emphasizes man’s production of culture while neglecting man as the product by culture. This article concludes that the one-sidedness of both WWT and CCT should be overcome and that a fact should be recognized that man can be both the creation and creator of culture and that because of his reflexive rationality, man can rework his culture with his culture as a means of control based upon his needs.