Chapter 9 Section 7 The Poverty Gene of Chinese Culture

Poverty is never a good thing.Poverty covers a person's eyes and prevents him from seeing things other than food; poverty shackles a person's body, making him tortured by primitive desires like an animal; poverty deprives a person of his strength, dignity and rights, and makes him Consciously weak and servile before nature, gods and power. In the 1950s, American scholar Lewis put forward the concept of "poverty culture".The characteristics of the poverty culture he summed up have existed in our country from ancient times until before liberation.Such as higher death rate, lower life expectancy, lower level of education, long struggle to survive, pawning, living a bondage life, busy life without leisure, desire for power, machismo, and short-sightedness , distrust of the government, powerlessness, sensitivity to status differences and lack of class consciousness, etc.This poverty culture makes people have a strong sense of fate, helplessness and inferiority complex.They are short-sighted and not far-sighted, and they have a narrow vision that fails to recognize their difficulties in the wider socio-cultural context.

We have to redefine the relationship between civilization and wealth.Wealth gives people extra time and energy to care about their own hearts, care about the vast world beyond their vision, and think about those extravagant issues that have nothing to do with the stomach.Wealth is the soil on which civilization grows. The ancient Greek civilization was built on the rolling in of gold coins.Because the barren land could not support themselves, the Greeks had to try to venture out.The huge Greek fleet continuously exported wine, olive oil, pottery, and brought back food and money.An economic historian asserted: "Between the 6th and 4th centuries BC, the Greek economy was rising rapidly... If the specific conditions of different eras are fully estimated, the impression of the Athenian economy is somewhat similar to that of Europe in the 19th century."

Wealthy commoners demanded political rights, which eventually led to the birth of democratic politics. After the Middle Ages, the fundamental reason why Europe was able to break through the darkness and usher in the Renaissance was that with the improvement of production technology, European serfs became richer and richer, and they could bargain with feudal lords to obtain citizenship.Their educational level continued to improve and their spiritual strength continued to grow, which eventually drove the wave of commodity monetization and ushered in the development of capitalism. But China has been sinking deeper and deeper in the process of poverty.Contrary to the upward trend in Western society, the development of Chinese history has shown a downward trend.As mentioned earlier, the average arable land of Chinese farmers has never returned to the level of ten mu per capita since the Song Dynasty.Therefore, the Song Dynasty became the last glorious dynasty in the history of Chinese civilization.After that, in the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, the intensification of poverty increasingly consumed the spirit of the Chinese people, causing Chinese culture to enter a long-term stagnation and retrogression. “The consequences of poverty on the dignity of man and the degradation of humanity are immeasurable” (Charles Wilbur).After a family declines and is impoverished, its members tend to become listless and vulgar in spirit instead of full of confidence and high spirits in the past, and the style of their parents will become increasingly short-sighted, authoritarian, and rough.The changes in China are similar to this.Since the demise of the Song Dynasty, the noble temperament and humanistic atmosphere have become increasingly weak in Chinese culture, and the confidence of the Tang Dynasty and the elegance of the Song Dynasty have never been reproduced.On the contrary, restraint and cowardice grow and develop in the Chinese character day by day.

Zhu Yuanzhang, who was born in abject poverty, was an important driving force in the deterioration of Chinese civilization.