Culture needs protection just as the environment does

The environment we live in can be divided into two sorts--- one is natural, the other is cultural. Obviously, human beings have already suffered enough from air pollution, sandstorms, water-shortage and other ecological damage. As a matter of fact, the environment’s deterioration draws a lot of attention from major institutions around the world, including the United Nations Environment Climate Conference held in Copenhagen recently. So, will the cultural atmosphere, the second environment that we live in, receive the same protection?

The cultural atmosphere is the air in our spiritual world, which can have a great impact on our ideology and behavior through frequently breathing in and out. In fact, the cultural environment is the physical manifestation of one’s emotional surroundings, so protection is a must that should be attached to the cultural environment.

Although the mainstream of the current cultural environment is good, there are still some flaws and blemishes in the cultural circle which fall into four categories:

The first one is the omnipresent advertisements. As a tool of the market strategy, ads function like a pill which can puzzle consumers’ thoughts and spirits. So many boring and disgusting ads can be found in the streets, supermarkets, subways and any other places, which is difficult for consumers to avoid and fall in love with. In such an interests-first world, companies and businessmen are fond of using ubiquitous ads as a tool to affect consumers’ choices and encourage them to be materialistic. People can gain no knowledge from ads and the only information they get is merely a strengthening of the price and function of products. As a result, people are defeated in the battle between ads and spirit, and they are submitted to the useless and poisonous ads. Their spiritual and ideological health becomes lower and lower in front of the vulgar and obnoxious ads.

The TV entertainment program, which is the second cultural circle in our life, is the second one. Driven by profit, ratings become an important scale to weigh the good or bad of a program. Under the guidance of ratings, in order to attract as many spectators as possible, performers try their best to do weird things, such as cross-dressing or speaking in an abnormal way and sometimes they even parody the classics in ridiculous jokes. It not only hurts some people’s feelings in the real cultural domain but also brings people some negative sentiment. Some programs even twist people’s belief in fun, such as XiangSheng, one kind of Chinese traditional cross-talk, and some performers choose insulting, inflammatory or even dirty words to mock others. There are also some gossip sites in the Internet to broadcast pop singers’ privacy to satisfy fans’ curiosity. Both of the two aforementioned ways deviate from the right track to propagate the Chinese traditional and modern culture, and instead lead people into a vacuum filled with ridicule.

The third one is the TV drama program. Nowadays, the masses still quite rely on TV to spend their time. As the main content of broadcasting, TV provides people with necessary news and fun and life guidance. Unlike in the past, today one can receive not only the local programs but also the foreign ones, and the large demand of spectators enable the producers and actors to produce TV drama programs as fast as possible. The declination in quality and meaning can’t broaden people’s knowledge and may not satisfy their spiritual demands. On the other hand, ratings also play an important role in the creation of TV, and as is known to all, the thing which is rare is dear. So this promotes the birth of some pseudo-scientific and bizarre programs, such as Ghost Catching. There is also another view that equates TV to amusement, so you will be defined as successful as long as you can draw people’s attention no matter what you express. These TV programs usually show some vulgar things or even make up stories to entertain the masses, which may not benefit human civilization.

The last one is books. These days, fewer and fewer people like to read books because of their busy work schedules, and during their free time, they would rather take several hours to swim or to talk at the bar than spend time reading in the library. With the development of electronic products, such as MP3s, MP4s and PCs, more and more people like to read while taking a bus or waiting for someone in order to kill time rather to read books in the library or at home. Even though they are sitting in the library reading some books, the supercilious ones are preferred to the obscure classical literature, which contains wisdom. As a result, people are getting more and more peripheral and ignorant, and people’s progress has been blocked by the abandonment of books.

Maybe this is not a comprehensive summary of the problems facing our culture, but the four aspects of cultural circles can cover a large part of the cultural environment. Naturally, the four circles form like the air. The first one is derived from the instinct of merchandising; whether you accept it or not, it will disseminate to encourage consumption. There seem to be no relations between the second, the third cultural circle and the merchandise, but both the entertainment programs and TV are products themselves in the market economy. As to the fourth one, books contain the wisdom of humanity and the essence of culture, which can improve people’s inner character and spiritual and ideological health, as well as the social order. However, this circle has no great relationship with profit; it’s a great pity to neglect this circle.

From the four circles we can see there is no balance in the Chinese cultural environment. There are so many elements of stimulants and entertainment, but nothing to nourish the spirit. People inside can not absorb comprehensive and healthy nutrition, and their minds are not sound enough to face the challenges and difficulties in life. This causes a lot of problems in our national social life, such as lacking integrity, being proud of wealth and ashamed of poverty. So it is no wonder to see that so many people are daydreaming to be millionaires in one single day. What a shame!

In order to change the existing circumstances, we need all different departments of the government to work together to save our cultural environment. For example, the Ministry of Culture Department should try its best to balance the elements in the cultural environment by propagating civilization and standards of morality. The Department of Commerce should also set a rule or some laws to regulate the order of advertising and capital management. Here are some words of advice: the corporations responsible for such advertising should add more cultural elements instead of fake information into the ads, and every region should set up some administration specifically to supervise the artificial and vulgar ads; The entertainment programs should create some activities to both amuse participants and lead them to think deeply on the activities, such as TuoZhan (a mission which can be achieved easier by a team than by an individual); Put up some quotes from celebrities to educate the public; Check the TV drama programs strictly before transmitting; Compile the classical literature into some articles which are easy to understand and disseminate their wisdom to all of us.

After all, culture is the soul of the nation. From the ancient times to now, lots of examples show us the importance of paying close attention to consolidating culture and adjusting the cultural environment in order to promote the prosperity of the country. Therefore, society, different departments and the individual should act together to purify the cultural environment and create a bright future for later generations.