Fast becoming an economic superpower, do you think China's unrelenting pursuit of capitalism is causing it to lose its rich culture and tradition?

It is indeed scary, a people without moral or ethical standards to live according to. However, the environment most of us live in changes so rapidly, its almost ridiculous to think that century old practices are still relevant especially when they are handed down as hollow rites (or so it seems to me), things that one must simply 'do'. To hold onto them makes little sense to me. But discarding the practices doesn't mean discarding the wisedom within. Wisedom such as the confucian emphasis on filial piety.

I don't believe such wisedom to be dated nor do I believe that such wisedom will be lost (due to the demise of specific practices) in this age of information. If we focus on understanding such ideology then the practice of which should come naturally and the changes to the practices should in fact enable them to be better carriers of traditional wisedom.

I may seem a bit optimistic but I don't see the lost or change in tradition or culture to be a negative incident. 20 years down and in hindsight, it may actually be the best catalyst for the revision of said morals and values.

That's true too, but you mustn't forget that China went through a Cultural Revolution 1/2 a century ago... and after that extensive brainwashing where religion was not encouraged and communist beliefs were. Now with capitalism in the forefront, many are rejecting their communist beliefs altogether and electing individualism.

But the new generation doesn't have their culture to fall back on (since a lot of it was erased during the cultural revolution) and no religion either as the west or many other countries have. This in itself is a bit scary since it's usually culture and religion that gives people basic moral or ethical standards to live their lives on.

In fact if you compare the program content for China Revealed and Italy Revealed.. it'd actually seem that Italy is the more traditional of the two as they still deeply practice their religion even if they don't profess to be catholics, it still forms the fabric of their society and it's in their sub-conscious. While China revealed had that young monk-looking guy (who isn't actually a monk) but studies at the monastery so he can "graduate" and become a security guard / police officer in the future. Which sounds really sad.

Cultures have always changed or evolved.

Traditions, while some kept, some are lost over time. I guesse one could look at the Amercian Indian, Jewish or Christian traditions, misc imigrants who came to the USA, etc for examples.
Generally it seems just the most valuable ones are clung too (by some.. especially meaningful ceremonys and authentic foods), while the rest become mostly historical information.

Id say that in the same fashion; while China grows some things will obviously change. I think their will always be parts of their tradition they will keep just as anyone else. It is their heritage and no matter how advanced they may get, i honestly dont believe they would want to let that go altogether.


to moderator:
btw.. i tried to make a new post about something else, but it says it cant be done.

quote:

Originally posted by Chad:
Tradition is only as good as it is relavent. The world needs progress not stagnation.

While I do agree with that, I think its too easy to forget all the good that tradition stems from and doing so we lose a lot of individual identity and ethical education. Sadly the balance of finding those to hold fast to and those to discard is often too hard to discern. That distinction might be in itself a poor choice in the past to break from tradition.