This blog post examines methods for traditional and foreign cultures to coexist harmoniously in modern society, where mixed cultures are spreading, and explores ways to maintain identity and suitability.
Transitional mixed cultures face at least three new crises. These three crises are: first, a crisis of appropriateness; second, a crisis of identity; and third, a crisis of integration.
Transitional lifestyles involve elements of traditional societal lifestyles and foreign lifestyles coexisting without full integration, revealing gaps between social classes, generations, and regions. In this process, traditional values and foreign elements may clash, potentially generating new forms of social conflict. Such conflicts extend beyond mere lifestyle changes, potentially leading to weakened trust and the breakdown of social bonds across society. This hybrid culture may fail to take deep root and could cause social instability. Alternatively, a somewhat altered past lifestyle may compromise with foreign types to form practices enabling temporary adaptation. Such transitional behavioral patterns also face constant challenges to their suitability as behavioral changes continue.
Furthermore, the foreign patterns coexisting within these transitional behaviors are perpetually tested for their compatibility with our society’s structure. Therefore, transitional mixed cultures are not well-integrated cultures; they struggle to maintain the enduring suitability necessary for full institutionalization. Moreover, such mixed cultures can lead to confusion about cultural identity. People become confused about which culture they belong to, often losing their sense of identity.
Transitional cultures contain many borrowed foreign elements that lack suitability for our society. Such borrowed cultures are foreign elements introduced to fill the cultural void created by the dissolution of traditional culture following changes in social structure. Consequently, they are cultures accepted hastily through imitation and adoption rather than through sufficiently selective, critical, and autonomous acceptance. This kind of cultural introduction tends to merely mimic outward appearances without fundamental societal change, potentially hindering social development. Thus, once foreign behavioral patterns become widely disseminated after a period of imitation and adoption, they threaten the very identity of cultural traditions.
In societies facing such identity crises, interest in cultural traditions and traditional culture intensifies. However, it is clear that restoring cultural identity cannot be achieved through cultural retrograde tendencies or cultural isolationism, such as a return to traditional society and culture or the rejection of foreign culture. Cultural复古ism or cultural isolationism may be effective in restoring identity, but they will only intensify the crisis of cultural relevance. Therefore, the restoration of identity and the establishment of cultural traditions are only possible within the bounds of not sacrificing cultural relevance. That is, it is only achievable through the rediscovery of cultural traditions that can maintain relevance with modern society and the selective acceptance of foreign cultures that integrate well with such cultural traditions.
As mentioned earlier, transitional cultures inherently contain significant confusion and conflict. Traditional societal patterns coexist with foreign patterns, leading to cultural gaps between generations, social classes, and regions. These gaps can deepen social inequality, and if left unresolved, risk undermining the integrity of society as a whole. Transitional cultures face crises of cohesion, such as the emergence of anomie stemming from the absence of clear norms. To overcome this crisis, cultural gaps between social classes, generations, and regions must be reduced, and clear values and norms compatible with modern social structures and our cultural traditions must be established. Ultimately, this should lead to the pursuit of cultural integration.
