How Do Values Influence Culture: A Comparative Study

Abstract

Key words

Huge differences exist in Chinese and western value system. As to the study of socialists, human’s social behaviors are always either driven or restricted by some social values, for example individualism or collectivelism. In addition, there is a version of the definition of culture going like this: culture is a system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that the members of society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning. As we can see, culture is largely related to the values and human behaviors. This paper will elaborate the influence of values upon culture both in Chinese and western social background from the following aspects: the Chinese and western way of thinking, the communication style, and the concepts about family.

I. Chinese and western way of thinking.

In the development history of the culture in the world, each culture is a relatively independent system. It is the different thinking way in the Chinese and western values that leads the culture developing in their own separate ways. The world is different in the eyes of Chinese and western people because both of them think and understand the world on the basis of their own culture and world outlook. Their thinking ways are different in the following aspects:

a. Emotional instinct thinking and rational logical thinking.

The Chinese thinking way is emotional and instinct, so it is vague. This kind of thinking way makes us unable to understand the world exactly, to reason in a logical way, and to examine the correctness. Thus, everything in the world seems vague in the Chinese thinking way and no one would think why. On the other hand, the western thinking way is rational and logical, so it is clear. This characteristic is obvious even since the very beginning of the western civilization. The philosophers in ancient Greek said that water is the origin of the world. The statement is so affirmative that people must deny it in order to make any progress. This is the basic characteristic of the western culture: to march forward by denying. The ancient Greek culture laid the foundation the western culture and also cultivated the thinking way of the western people. They are good at the rational and logical thinking. Innumerous scientific inventions and findings are all the benefits of their way of thinking.

b. Thinking as a whole and thinking as parts

For thousands of years, in the Chinese thinking way, the emphasis on the whole of things has never been changed. People think that the parts rely on the whole, and the whole decides the parts. This is the reason why the highly united political system has empired the country for thousands of years. And this is why the collectivilism is so emphasized. Different from China, the western people believe individualism. They emphasize everyone in the world is unique. They advocate the pluralism in personality, in minds and different voices are welcomed.

c. Ethical thinking and scientific thinking

China is a country with strict ethical system. The ethical thinking way has been rooted in the minds of Chinese people. Chinese people believe holy power and the power of emperor are limitless. The ethical standard is made by the emperor. So people admire and obey the ethical rules as much as they admire the holy power. Comparatively, western people think in a scientific way. All the scientific achievements since the ancient Greek time has proved this. And the benefits of it has spread to the modern western world.

II. Chinese and western communication style

III. Chinese and western concepts about family

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