Wang Yi: Cultural self-confidence depends on the people's subjectivity

Culture is the creation of the people's practice, and cultural self-confidence is essentially the people's belief and confidence in the culture they have created. The attainment of this self-confidence depends on the exertion of the people's subjectivity, and the manifestation of this self-confidence must also be achieved through the people.

At the philosophical and social science work forum, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "We say that we must strengthen the self-confidence in the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, theoretical self-confidence, and institutional self-confidence, and in the final analysis, we must strengthen cultural self-confidence. Cultural self-confidence is a more fundamental, deeper, and more enduring force. "It shows that it is of great significance to strengthen cultural self-confidence in the new era."

First, the people are the creators of culture, as well as the bearers and expressors of cultural self-confidence.

Culture itself does not have emotional experiences such as inferiority, self-confidence or conceit, but people recognize and evaluate it to different degrees according to certain criteria, and give it a certain subjective perception and emotional feeling through people's own performance. Therefore, cultural self-confidence is the people's self-confidence, which is not only manifested in the people's sense of superiority and pride in their own cultural creation ability and cultural construction ability, but also manifested in the people's firm belief in the cultural results created, and the core is the belief and adherence to values.

Cultural self-confidence is also a good mental state that the people show outside. In contemporary China, the people's cultural self-confidence is mainly manifested in the persistence and development of the path, theory and system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the enthusiasm and consciousness of theoretical innovation, and the emphasis and application of cultural creativity; externally, it is manifested as an inclusive posture of "not rejecting the crowd" and "embracing all rivers", which is reflected in specific actions such as actively "going out". It can be seen that cultural self-confidence is ultimately presented through the people. Once it leaves the people, culture will lose its foundation of existence, and cultural self-confidence will no longer exist.

Second, cultural self-confidence is continuously acquired based on the exertion of people's subjectivity.

Cultural self-confidence is based on the people's inheritance and creation of excellent traditional culture. Chinese civilization is the only civilization among the four ancient civilizations that has not been broken and has continued to develop to this day, with extremely tenacious vitality and promising potential. It is precisely in inheriting and carrying forward the heritage of "stressing benevolence and emphasizing the people", the quality of "keeping good faith and advocating justice", and the vision of "harmony and harmony, seeking common ground", that we have laid the foundation of cultural self-confidence. Cultural self-confidence also depends on the people's acceptance and integration of the world's excellent culture, benefits from good cultural construction, and benefits from the absorption and reference of all beneficial civilization achievements created by mankind. Of course, cultural self-confidence depends more on the people's identification and construction of advanced socialist culture. Advanced socialist culture is not only the product of the contemporary people's practical activities, but also the result of historical accumulation, and at the same time draws on the favorable factors in the world's excellent culture. From this point of view, whether it is the inheritance of traditional culture, the reference to world culture, or the identification with contemporary advanced culture, it is the result of the people's conscious choice and highlights the people's subjectivity.

Third, to enhance cultural self-confidence, we need to rely on the people, so that the fruits of cultural construction can benefit the broadest masses of people.

The people are the source of cultural creation and the main force of cultural construction. To enhance cultural self-confidence, the party and the government are required to closely rely on the majority of cultural creation subjects, respect creative personality and creative labor, continue to give policy support, especially for small and medium-sized and micro enterprises in the cultural field to "help the horse and send a ride", encourage more Chinese enterprises to go out, walk steadily, and "strengthen their bones and develop and grow in international competition". Literary and art workers, philosophical and social science workers, and backbone cultural enterprises are important forces in cultural construction. To enhance the people's cultural self-confidence, these key forces are required to learn from the people with an open mind, draw creative nutrition from the people's great practice and colorful life, constantly carry out theoretical innovation, actively release creativity, put forward more concepts and theories with originality and epochality, produce and create a large number of outstanding works and rich and diverse cultural products that are popular among the population, so that the fruits of development can benefit the broadest masses of the people and solve the problem of "why people".

(The author is a professor at the School of Marxism, Chinese Min University)