The spirit of the Yangtze River culture is more fully and maturely reflected in Xuelin's essays | As a frontier of modern economic and cultural thought | The Yangtze River | Spirit | Culture
Cultural community is a humanistic consciousness and also a historical logic; It is the will of the nation and also the driving force of the spirit. The Yangtze River and the Yellow River, together known as the "mother river" of the Chinese nation, carry the historical, cultural, and spiritual characteristics of Chinese civilization.
From "Limiting North and South" to "Connecting North and South"——
Geography is related to the natural environment, has materiality, and also contains social factors, with humanistic qualities. The profound historical logic of the cultural community allows differences to transcend and be coordinated and unified at the national level.
Starting from the struggle for supremacy in the Spring and Autumn period, the two river basins entered a historical process of co constructing Chinese cultural traditions, giving rise to the initial dual coupling cultural form. At that time, the geographical axis of the Yangtze River and Yellow River was also the cultural source of ancient Chinese civilization. The emergence of Confucianism, Taoism and other ideas guided China into the axis period of world civilization, and driven the continuous evolution of history and social development with the attitude of local culture.
From the Song and Yuan dynasties until the end of the Qing dynasty, Chinese culture was more integrated into global cultural factors. With the coupling of the South and North Rivers and the symbiosis of the great rivers and oceans, a new cultural quality is subtly changing the views of literati and scholars on China and the world.
It should be noted that coupling is relative to separation. From a geographical perspective, the Yangtze River runs through the east and west, seeming to be a natural "north-south" trench. However, from historical facts, the Yangtze River has not truly formed a "barrier", or in other words, the so-called "barrier between north and south" is always in a state of being broken through.
In the mid to late Tang Dynasty, the Yangtze River Basin had already formed a prosperous economy. Afterwards, a city cluster was formed along the river in the entire southern region, from Shanghai, Nantong, Zhenjiang, Nanjing to Wuhu, Anqing, Jiujiang, Wuhan, Yichang, and Chongqing, simultaneously improving economic level and trade capacity.
Accompanied by it, the political and cultural views of North South unity are increasingly showing strong vitality. Yang Weizhen, a poet from the Yuan Dynasty, wrote a poem that goes: "The divine Yu drew the heavenly moat, dividing the north and south provinces horizontally. Today, there is no limit to the north and south, and a reed is as isolated as a Zhanggou. The source of the flood rises from the mouth of Qutang, and the Yellow Ox competes in the Qixia Gorge. The Han Jia Xiang meets the Yuan and Li rivers, and the two concubines experience both storms and floating in the sky." When the cultural community becomes a humanistic concept, it will be internalized as a pursuit of faith, becoming an inevitable trend in historical development.
The Yangtze River, as a national memory, is playing a role in the construction of a cultural community by narrowing the gap and eliminating exclusion in the ever-changing historical process.
Modern economy, culture, and ideology are "outposts"——
Many major events in modern history are almost always related to the Yangtze River Basin. The modern times, starting from the Opium War, were the most profound period of changes and transformations in the Yangtze River Basin. Aggression and resistance, humiliation and shame, challenge and response constitute the main theme of modern Yangtze River history.
In this historical melody, the Yangtze River culture has undergone a reconstruction from passive to active. Active reconstruction requires a group of foresight scholars who have grown up in the soil of traditional culture and are able to "open their eyes to the world", and more importantly, the concept of reform and rejuvenation is needed to guide the overall awakening of society. The transformative spiritual characteristics and cultural quality of the Yangtze River culture are thus reconstructed and highlighted.
Since modern times, as a "outpost" of economy, culture, and ideology, the spirit of Yangtze River culture has been more fully and maturely reflected, demonstrating the spiritual characteristics of grand vision, innovation and competition, open pattern, and collaborative inclusiveness.
Li Ming Hongyuan is a vast and vast terrain, as well as a profound and grand cultural vision and historical pattern; Only new competition and progress are the natural ecology of the surging river, as well as the constantly changing and innovative humanistic ecology.
The open pattern is a vast and overlapping "continent ocean" geographical environment, as well as a social landscape with six virtual flows and a hundred rivers facing the sea; Collaborative inclusiveness is the acceptance of the water meridian phenology that connects the north and south, and the east and west. It is also a human aura that harmonizes with all directions, combines hardness and softness, and combines similarities and differences.
Understanding the culture of the Yangtze River requires a dialectical and historical perspective, as well as a perception of reality and contemporary consciousness. The changes in the Yangtze River and the Yangtze River Basin, such as the changes in the original ecological environment of the Yangtze River and the current ecological environment, the changes in the original population structure of the Yangtze River Basin and the current population structure, the changes in the original urban-rural landscape along the Yangtze River and the current urban-rural landscape, the changes in the original spatial information aggregation of the Yangtze River and the current information aggregation, change the extension and connotation of the Yangtze River culture, and enrich and interpret the Yangtze River culture.
In this way, evolving, updating, and enriching in new practices, showcasing the endless power of material and spiritual life, truly achieving the goal of "never wasting a river for eternity".
