“How traditions survive in today’s modern society?”  The Cross-Straits Center of Guoxue held its 18^th monthly lecture on the evening of Jan.13. Luo Chuanfang, a researcher from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences was invited as the guest speaker for this lecture, under the title of “How can tradition evolve for the modern society?” Live stream of the lecture attracted over 1.83 million viewers.

To start with, Luo put forth her perspective about the transition from tradition to modernity. She indicated that, driven by the governments and non-governmental organizations in recent years, there has been an upsurge in promoting and reviving traditional culture in China, but some negative phenomena come about in the process. So we should rethink what is the purpose of promoting traditional culture today. How to comprehend the transformation of traditional culture?

The lecture site

Luo believes that in order to answer the questions above, we need to first get to know the features of Chinese traditional culture. She said: "The naure of culture can be summarized as the combination of prolonged lifestyles and values formed by people living together in a specific region. The traditional Chinese society was an agrarian one, characterized by emphasizing experience, ethics, respect for hierarchy, and the patrilineal inheritance of property and social status. "

According to Professor Luo, the concept opposite to "tradition" is "modernity". In the view of modern people, traditional society has undergone great changes. In terms of production and transaction model, lifestyles, and values, connotations of “modernity” and “tradition” are poles apart. It is inappropriate to term indistinctly as “promotion” and “revival” of traditional culture .

So how does tradition find its place in modern times. Professor Luo pointed out that three dimensions should be considered: revaluing against the world background, inheriting, and localization.

Luo Chuanfang

She elaborated that, "We should look at our Chinese history in the world history. Instead of just being confined to our own history and culture, we should look at what's happened in the world for the past hundreds of years. Otherwise, we can't face our history and traditions rationally and get lost. Inheriting what should be inherited. Traditions must conform to the universal nature of civilization and the intrinsic requirements of modernization. Localization is to find the growth point of traditional culture. To what extent traditional culture can be preserved largely depends to what degree it fits into modern life and how well it meets the needs of modernization.

In a nutshell , Professor Luo pointed out that clarifying the differences of orientation of social values between ancient society and modern society is the premise for us to judge, analyze and choose what traditions to inherit in modern times.