For drinking tea, it is obvious that ordinary white porcelain bowls can meet the demand, but why do we prefer porcelain tea set with fine workmanship? When writing, the arm rest is used to prevent the arm from being stained with ink. Obviously, as long as it has the function of putting the arm, why do we pay attention to its material and the carving on it? When we are moved by the beautiful artistic conception of an ancient poem, when we are fascinated by the exquisiteness and elegance of a handicraft, what do we get from it? What can those humanistic details and artistic values bring to our lives? Or, is culture "useful" or "useless" to our life?

The "uselessness" of culture is also "great use"

In the dialogue session hosted by Bai Yansong at the 15th Cultural China Forum, Pan Lusheng, chairman of China Folk Writers Association, pointed out that "useful" means "practical" and "useless" means aesthetic "useless". Material and spiritual use and life use are both useful and practical, while useless is also useful and even useful.

Pan Lusheng introduced that in Lin ‘an City in the Southern Song Dynasty, the palace culture, the literati culture and the street culture were integrated, which formed the idea of "craft for practical use", and also created a life style of unity of practicality and aesthetics in the Southern Song Dynasty. During this period, the weaving technology was superb, and the fabrics made were dense and light as cicada’s wings. Not only were there various types of yarn, Luo, Qi and Ling, but the silk reeling and embroidery techniques were also superb. The gardens in the Southern Song Dynasty are like three-dimensional landscape paintings with pavilions and winding paths, which contain the spiritual complex and aesthetic artistic conception of literati. From the clay figurines of children in the Song Dynasty in Zhenjiang Museum, to the Children’s Plays in the City in Taipei Palace Museum, from the white porcelain children’s pillows in Dingyao in the Palace Museum, to Song Jin’s Paintings of the Hundred Immortals in Cleveland Art Museum in the United States, all of them reflect the aesthetics and interest of life in which humanities and art are combined with street life.

In contrast, in today’s fast-paced diet and fragmented culture, modern people no longer seem to have an attitude of attaching importance to life aesthetics, and traditional crafts no longer pursue use value. In this context, should we learn from the ancients and return to the "elegant life" way of the Southern Song Dynasty?

"The handicraft tradition of the Southern Song Dynasty is historical and contemporary, which runs through the traditional Chinese aesthetic spirit, lifestyle and cultural taste." Pan Lusheng said. Therefore, he proposed to develop a new economy of Song rhyme culture, take people’s life needs as the guide, enhance cultural life experience, and study how elegant lifestyle can be integrated into today’s life, so that people can gain a sense of cultural identity.

Pan Lusheng believes that, on the one hand, by reviving traditional crafts, we can explore how to better inherit and utilize traditional craft and cultural resources at present, inject the culture of Xixiang into education and cultural communication, and serve people’s spiritual and cultural life. On the other hand, through the development of cultural industry with cross-industry barriers, traditional craft culture can be transformed into the resources of contemporary Song Yun cultural industry, creating higher economic value, thus better serving people’s material and cultural needs.

"Cultural pension" is worth looking forward to.

On the aesthetic level of life, the "usefulness" and "uselessness" of culture may be a philosophical proposition, but in the medical field, the "usefulness" of culture is indispensable. According to Zheng Xiaoying, academician of the Academy of Sciences of developing countries and director of the Peking University Population Research Institute, culture is even more "useful" than science and technology.

Zheng Xiaoying said, "Everyone’s ultimate wish is to grow old healthily and say goodbye to the world happily. This is by no means a problem that can be solved by relying solely on science and technology or medical means, but a realm that must be achieved through the combination of culture, art and technology. In this sense, the infiltration of culture is more important than the development of science and technology. "Zheng Xiaoying believes that" medical art education should be integrated into medical education so that every doctor can accumulate deeper artistic accomplishment and cultural heritage. "

Zheng Xiaoying pointed out that cultural blessing is also needed to deal with the problem of population aging. She introduced that with the intensification of the aging process, the life expectancy of China’s population is also increasing rapidly. However, most of the increased life expectancy is unhealthy, that is, life expectancy with disabilities. Among the disabled people in China, 53% are elderly people. To solve the problems of these elderly disabled people, we need the support of science and technology, but more importantly, we need the support of culture. "Let them be happy and enjoy the benefits brought about by the reform and opening up to the maximum. This is not a problem that can be solved by a simple assistive device."

At the same time, Zheng Xiaoying emphasized the concept of "cultural support for the aged", which is a way to support the aged on the premise that the material needs of the elderly are basically guaranteed, on the basis of meeting spiritual needs, on the basis of communicating emotions, exchanging ideas and having a healthy body and mind, and on the purpose of publicizing individuality, advocating independence and enjoying the spirit of happiness and pleasure. "Cultural pension meets the spiritual needs of the elderly. For the elderly without children, this pension model is particularly important." Zheng Xiaoying said.

How to realize the mutual integration of science and technology and humanities

Undoubtedly, the integration of culture, art and technology can make people’s lives better. So, as an individual, how should we start from ourselves and realize the integration of technology and humanities? This is also a question that Wang Yuming, an academician of China Academy of Engineering and an expert in fluid sealing engineering technology, is often asked.

Wang Yuming laughed and called himself a "science man". "However, although my main business is mechanical engineering, I am not" mechanical "culturally. He is a student of Mr. Ye Jiaying, a consultant of the Chinese Poetry Society, the director of the Poetry Working Committee of colleges and universities, and the president of the Tsinghua University Lotus Pond Poetry Society. It can be said that he is a person who perfectly balances "poetry and distance".

When answering the question "how to realize the mutual integration of science and technology and humanities", Wang Yuming believes that in terms of values, science and technology and humanities and arts are both pursuing truth, goodness and beauty, and they are essentially interlinked; In the mode of thinking, both of them need logical thinking and inspiration epiphany thinking, which can promote each other. The same is true of many masters of science and technology (such as Einstein, Yang Zhenning, Qiu Chengtong, Gu Yuxiu, Qian Xuesen, etc.). However, the most important thing is to have a "pure heart" in both scientific research and literary creation.

On the "Use" of China Culture from the Outside

The Chinese culture has a long history, and the "useful" culture not only created the fashion life of the ancients, but also injected spiritual strength into solving modern social problems, and also brought about an impact on the civilized development of neighboring countries.

In the dialogue session, Cheng Yonghua, former Japanese ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to People’s Republic of China (PRC) and executive vice president of China-Japan Friendship Association, introduced the "use" of Japanese culture to neighboring countries. He said that China’s culture had a profound influence on the Korean Peninsula, Viet Nam and Japan. Take Japan as an example. The Sui, Tang and Song Dynasties were the historical peaks of Sino-Japanese cultural exchanges. During this period, ancient Japan sent 19 groups of envoys to China to study, with a maximum of 600 people at a time. In addition to sending envoys, a large number of international students also came to China from ancient Japan. Many of them stayed for many years, and some even stayed in China to work as officials in Chang ‘an until they died and were buried in Chang ‘an. In 645 AD, the ancient Japanese carried out the "Dahua Innovation" movement, abolished the monopoly regime system in big noble, and established an ancient centralized state with reference to the rules and regulations of the Tang Dynasty in China. During the Song Dynasty, more and more Japanese people came to China to study. Jian Zhen, a monk in the Tang Dynasty, traveled eastward to preach the precepts to Japan and was honored as the ancestor of Japanese Buddhist legalists. The Tang Zhaoti Temple complex built by him and his disciples in Nara, Japan, embodies the architectural characteristics of the Tang Dynasty and is the largest and most beautiful building in Japan’s existing Tianping era. Japanese characters are also born out of Chinese characters. At first, there were only languages but no characters in Japan. In asuka period, Buddhist classics introduced into Japan along with Buddhism made Chinese characters penetrate into Japanese life. The first Chinese characters were used by ancient Japanese as phonography, but they were troublesome in the process of use, so heian period invented katakana and hiragana with reference to the radicals and cursive scripts of Chinese characters. In addition, the present Japanese court music-gagaku,It is also music from the Tang Dynasty in China.

Cheng Yonghua said that Sino-Japanese exchanges have a history of 2,000 years. Today, Japanese young people are still attracted by China’s rapid economic development and technological innovation, and feel that "they should go to China to see more and communicate more".

Whether it is "practical" or "useless", the China culture of the same strain needs and deserves to be passed down and carried forward by contemporary people. As Pan Lusheng said, culture is a nation’s overall lifestyle and value system. If the ancients’ fashion is integrated into contemporary life, we may be able to create a pioneer culture with temperature, connotation and taste in the new era.