Culture

The sum total of material and spiritual wealth created by man on the basis of productive labor. In the West, the word culture originated from the Latin word cultura, which originally meant farming, cultivating plants, and refers to the reshaping of the natural world by man. Since the Renaissance, the meaning of the word gradually expanded to include both material contents of human activity and non-material factors such as literature, music, painting and art. In China, the word wen has the meanings of writing, literary talent, rules and system, and hua means “transformation through teaching”.

Culture in the “Five-in-One” overall layout of economic, political, cultural, social and ecological civilization construction of socialism with Chinese characteristics refers to the culture as formation of ideas. It is a widely used concept of culture in the contemporary Chinese social life. The culture as formation of ideas is the product of human activity in immaterial forms, including knowledge, faith, religion, philosophy, political ideas, juridical ideas, morality, art, psychology, habits, etc. Intellectual and cultural achievements can materialize and embody themselves in material form, and manifest themselves as the formation of objects, technological means, art works, etc. The material form of culture contains the contents of spiritual culture.

Mao Zedong pointed out: “A certain culture (as a culture of ideology) is a reflection of the politics and economy of a certain society, and it also gives great influence and functions on the politics and economy of a certain society.” Culture has its origins in human productive labor and develops along with the development of the mode of production, and every society has a culture that corresponds to its mode of material production. The rich cultural contents created by man constitute the cultural environment for their production and intercourse activity, and human activity is carried out under the influence and constraints of culture. The development of culture has a relative independence and its laws of development. Culture at different stages of social development is characterized by certain socio-historical forms. In capitalist society, a culture that serves the exploiting classes has a dominance; in socialist society, a culture that serves the masses has a dominance. Socialist culture with Chinese characteristics is a national, scientific and popular socialist culture oriented towards modernization, the world and the future.