If there is any difference between the Chinese people and the Western people, one of the biggest differences is probably that the Western people do not love history, while the Chinese people, including ordinary people, are very fond of history. Why is this happening? In fact, what is reflected in deep thinking is the difference between the two cultural circles. The reasons for this include three aspects: historical reasons, cultural reasons and consumption concepts.
The first reason, the historical reason. Why do Chinese people generally love history, while Western people are not very interested in history? The most direct reason for this is that the Chinese people have "historical capital", while the West does not. Although it is now generally believed that among the four major civilizations, China is almost the "latest" recognized by the academic community, it has to be admitted that China's cultural relics are the most excavated and the historical records are the most detailed.
Whether it is ancient Egypt, or ancient India, or ancient Babylon, or ancient Greece, most of their "history" exists in the "study" of modern scholars. The only things that remain are often too far away from life practices for people to use, such as pyramids and clay tablet books. These things can only be admired in museums, and their penetration into people's lives is very shallow.
And China's history is not like this. History is integrated into our culture, and almost all our cultural products are full of historical elements. For example, watching a TV series, at least half of which are historical dramas or overhead historical dramas, while American blockbusters are all "Captain America", which is a fictional plot or soap opera like Journey to the West, which is the first reason why the historical literacy of ordinary Chinese people is higher than that of Western people: Chinese people have more history and use more than Western people.
The second reason, the cultural reason. For Chinese, the highest ancient texts are "subsets of scripture history," while for Westerners, religious texts, such as the so-called Bible. It's not hard to understand why, when some people interview Americans, they refer to the history of nationhood as "decades." Few Americans interviewed were able to accurately say how long the United States was founded, because the supreme book is the "Scripture."
For Chinese, this is completely incomprehensible. Although Confucianism or Confucianism also has a profound grasp of thought in a period of Chinese history, we, whether ancient or modern, will think that history is the source of scholarship, and the summary of history is the source of thought. Our ordinary people will not read Confucius's Analects and memorize it, but we can sneak around and read the Romance of the Three Kingdoms four or five times.
Although Confucius's words are very reasonable, there are many things that still need to be tested by history; and history is the wealth that has been tested by facts, which is why Chinese love history. Our culture has always attached importance to practice, especially to the practice of production, and only things that can act on production practice will be unanimously welcomed by everyone. This is probably the reason why China only has "science and technology" and no "science".
Chinese it is impossible to "pursue the truth" by observing celestial phenomena for decades like Tycho, Chinese also observe celestial phenomena, but they observe celestial phenomena in order to help real life, such as the formulation of calendars. The most common so-called "gossip" we have now is actually a model of the ancients observing the movement of celestial bodies to make calendars, and as soon as the 24 solar terms are drawn, the "yin and yang fish" comes out.
This is the cultural reason why Chinese people love history while The Western people are unfamiliar with history: China does not have fanatical beliefs, China has a culture of seeking truth from facts, a culture of testing truth by practice, and history is a process of testing truth by practice. The third reason that determines the Chinese people's love of history: the reason for consumption is the most important reason that affects the attitude of modern people to history. Specifically, it is manifested as: luxurious material enjoyment and advanced consumption concepts.
If we look at the world, we can probably see that Chinese consumption is the most restrained. The basis for restrained consumption is the reduction of luxury goods (of course, china is now also rising to consume ahead), and most of the Chinese cannot travel every month, nor can they engage in any parties and carnivals. When Westerners engage in luxury enjoyment, Chinese are often able to come up with their own "luxury enjoyment" - reading books and watching TV dramas.
These "extravagant treats" are relatively cheap and affordable, and the content is mostly historical. In the same way, Chinese who love to spend ahead of time often feel that they lack history, because their time and energy are wasted on luxury enjoyment, and they have no time and interest to study or appreciate historical stories. For Westerners, so much entertainment and tourism makes them less energetic to look at history.
These three reasons are why the Western people do not love history, and the Chinese people, including ordinary people, love history.