Reasons for the Weakening of Farmers' Subject Status in Rural Cultural Construction
Rural cultural construction is an important component of national cultural construction, and both the key points and the difficulties of national cultural construction lie in rural areas. It can be said that without the improvement of farmers' cultural level, without the improvement of the conditions for rural cultural construction, and without the development and prosperity of rural culture, there would be no development of the culture of the entire nation. Doing a good job in rural cultural construction is an important content and inherent requirement of establishing and implementing the Scientific Outlook on Development and building a new socialist countryside. It is an important approach and method for satisfying farmers' spiritual and cultural needs, improving their ideological and moral quality, and cultivating new socialist farmers.
I. The Importance of Strengthening Farmers' Subject Status in Rural Cultural Construction
From the perspective of the connotation of rural culture, rural culture in the broad sense refers to the sum of material wealth and spiritual wealth created by farmers in the long process of production and living practice. Rural culture in the narrow sense “refers to the culture formed under certain socioeconomic conditions and carried by farmers. It is the reflection of farmers' cultural level, ideological concepts, and the deep psychological structures such as cognitive styles, modes of thinking, values, emotional states, attitudes toward life, life pursuits, and lifestyles that have been formed and sedimented over the long course of agricultural practice. What it expresses is farmers' inner world, personality traits, and degree of civilization and enlightenment. Rural culture reflects farmers' lifestyles and modes of production, and refracts the influence of the times and society on farmers' modes of production and living. Without the fertile soil of rural areas and without farmers' production and living, rural culture cannot be created. Therefore, rural culture is the culture of farmers, and farmers are the subject of the formation and development of rural culture.
From the perspective of the purpose of developing and prospering rural culture, the target of rural cultural services is farmers, and any form of rural culture is meant to satisfy the broad masses of farmers' demand for culture, enrich their spare time, and elevate their spiritual realm. At the same time that tremendous achievements have been made in rural economic construction, farmers' incomes have increased, living standards have improved, and the infrastructure for production and living has been improved, farmers' demand for culture has become particularly prominent and urgent. In the process of rural cultural construction, only by respecting and giving play to farmers' role in rural culture
as the subject in construction, mobilizing farmers' intrinsic enthusiasm, initiative, and creativity to participate in rural cultural construction, and by safeguarding and realizing farmers' cultural interests, giving farmers more rights to participate in cultural construction, to speak, and to express themselves, and respecting and understanding farmers' views on culture, can culture that meets the requirements of the times and is enjoyed by farmers truly be created, and can the great development and prosperity of rural culture truly be promoted. Only then can the broad masses of farmers benefit from cultural development and prosperity, can farmers' demand for spiritual culture truly be satisfied, and can they personally experience the sense of happiness and satisfaction brought by culture in the process of participating in cultural construction.
II. Reasons for the Weakening of Farmers' Subject Status in Rural Cultural Construction
⟦NL> From the formation and development of rural culture and the purpose of rural cultural construction, farmers are the masters of rural culture, the subject of rural cultural construction, and the participants in and beneficiaries of rural cultural construction. Rural cultural construction is a weak link in our country's cultural construction, and in practice it faces difficulties and challenges. In the current rural cultural construction, there exists a situation in which farmers' subject status is weakened, their cultural rights are expressed, and their cultural interests are neglected. We need, on the basis of reality, to clarify the subjective and objective reasons for the weakening of farmers' subject status, and to find solutions to the problems in a targeted manner.
1. Under the urban-rural dual social structure, the unbalanced development of urban and rural culture.
Under the influence of the urban-rural household registration system, the gap between urban and rural socioeconomic and cultural development has widened. For the entire country, urban culture is the center of national cultural development and occupies a dominant position in cultural construction; the content, methods, goals, and models of cultural construction are very clear and distinct. Rural culture, however, occupies a secondary position in cultural construction, and its cultural construction content is outdated, its methods simple, and its goals vague. Because of the difference in their status in cultural construction, the state tends to favor cities more in the distribution of cultural public goods, the allocation of cultural resources, the construction of cultural infrastructure, and the training of cultural talent, and cities occupy a great advantage in the process of national cultural construction. Relatively speaking, rural culture is a byword for backward, negative, conservative, and monotonous culture, and rural areas are at a disadvantage in the distribution of cultural public goods, the allocation of cultural resources, the construction of cultural infrastructure, and the training of cultural talent, and farmers' cultural interests and rights cannot be properly guaranteed. “In 2006, financial authorities at all levels invested a total of 4.46 billion yuan in rural culture, accounting for only 28.5%c of the nation's total fiscal investment in culture, while the proportion invested in urban culture was as high as 71.5%c, exceeding that in rural areas by 43 percentage points. The national per-capita cultural undertaking fee for farmers was only 1.48 yuan. The severe insufficiency of public financial investment in culture has caused backward rural cultural facilities and impoverished cultural life for farmers in most areas. Taking the situation of township cultural stations in 2010 as an example, there were 73,920 employees nationwide, averaging 2.24 per station, among whom 39,588 were full-time personnel, averaging 1 per station. Of the 34,121 township cultural stations nationwide, 14,503 had no full-time personnel, accounting for 32.14% of the total number of township cultural stations; that is, nearly one third of township cultural stations had no full-time staff. These unfavorable factors will objectively and inevitably affect farmers' enthusiasm, initiative, and creativity in participating in rural cultural construction, and will inevitably cause farmers subjectively to exclude themselves from being the subject of cultural construction and to regard themselves as supporting players in cultural construction.
2. Improper methods of rural cultural construction.
At present, the methods of our country's rural cultural construction were formed under the planned economic system, adopting a top-down track by the state. “The top-down track refers to the state's control over rural society and culture. This track has been refined since the Ming and Qing dynasties and was further consolidated and strengthened under the framework of nation-state building after the Republic of China. Under the top-down track, the state unilaterally develops rural culture through administrative power, treats rural culture with a lofty attitude, and directly and simply instills values completely different from local culture into farmers. In the long process of cultural construction, farmers are marginalized and regarded as outsiders to rural cultural construction. Farmers are simply defined as passive recipients of cultural construction and merely beneficiaries of cultural construction, not creators or participants of culture. Simply delivering culture is taken as the method of rural cultural construction, and even the methods, content, models, and concepts of urban cultural construction are directly transplanted to the countryside. This neglects the soil and roots from which rural culture arises and neglects farmers' subject status in cultural construction. There is a lack of understanding and awareness of farmers' true needs for culture and their inner thoughts. At the same time, “government agencies control resources and monopolize the methods and content of the supply of cultural products. Farmers are basically excluded from supply decision-making, have no right to participate, and have no voice or channel to express their true wishes regarding public goods. Farmers, who should be the subject of new rural cultural construction, are in a state of aphasia. It is precisely because of the singularity of methods, the outdated and insipid content, the scarcity of resources, and the misplacement of roles that farmers' enthusiasm and interest in participating in cultural construction have been greatly reduced.
3. The long-term influence of small-peasant consciousness, and farmers' weak subject consciousness.
China is an agricultural country with a feudal history of several thousand years, and farmers' thinking has been deeply influenced by the small-peasant economy. Farmers throughout Chinese history regarded land as the foundation of their survival and standing, and in the long process of social development they formed a Chinese-style farming culture. Under the long-term influence of farming culture, farmers' ideological concepts, ways of thinking, living habits, values, and behavioral patterns have all been deeply branded with conservatism, closure, passivity, being content with minor comforts, lack of ambition to make progress, and contentment with what one has. “For a long time, farmers have often been unable to rid themselves of the self-psychological positioning of subordinates to powerful forces, and there is a considerable lack of subject consciousness and subject capacity, as well as of the independence, dynamism, creativity, and autonomy needed to prosper rural culture. It is precisely this drawback of weak subject consciousness in cultural construction and lack of cultural self-awareness that makes the broad masses of farmers treat rural cultural construction with the passive, dependent psychology and attitude of waiting, relying, and demanding. And such psychology and attitude will not only affect farmers' own cultural rights and interests, but also affect the entire rural cultural construction.
4. Farmers' overall cultural quality is not high.
The fact that farmers' overall cultural level is relatively low and their cultural quality is not high is an important reason constraining farmers' participation in cultural construction. Bound by old concepts, influenced by thousands of years of farming culture, and constrained by economic conditions, the broad masses of farmers generally have not received a high level of education. According to the white paper “New Progress in China's Rural Poverty Alleviation and Development” released by the State Council Information Office of China in 2011, “by the end of 2010, the illiteracy rate among young and middle-aged adults was 7%, and the average number of years of education received by the young and middle-aged labor force reached 8 years.” The relatively low number of years of education, low cultural level, and low cultural quality have caused farmers to be conservative and backward in thought and prone to deviations in values; they lack a correct understanding of the significance and role of cultural construction in farmers' production and living, and cannot promptly and accurately understand the relevant policies and measures of the state concerning cultural development. In the process of cultural construction, they easily subjectively regard themselves as objects to be constructed, lose the initiative in cultural construction, and cannot effectively safeguard their own legitimate cultural rights and interests.
5. The loss of the subject of rural cultural construction.
Since the reform and opening up, a large number of farmers have left the land on which their ancestors depended for survival for generations, and, carrying their dreams, have come to the cities, forming the special social group of migrant workers. According to the migrant worker survey and monitoring report published by the National Bureau of Statistics in 2012, “in 2011 the number of migrant workers nationwide was 250 million. By age group, migrant workers were mainly young and middle-aged: 16-20 years old accounted for 6.3%c, 21-30 years old accounted for 32.7%C, 31M0 years old accounted for 22.7%c, 41-20 years old accounted for 24.0%, and migrant workers over 20 years old accounted for 14.3%., ’16 to 40 years old is the golden period of life. People in this age range are brave in accepting new things, active in thinking, daring to try, daring to innovate, and have relatively strong self-awareness and conscious awareness. They are precisely the subject of rural cultural construction and the rural social elite. But from the actual situation, the loss of the rural social elite puts the originally traditional art forms with local characteristics and folk unique skills, etc., in danger of being lost. Having long been influenced by the rich and colorful culture of the city, and faced with the gap between urban and rural cultural development, as well as the adverse effects brought by urban culture and foreign culture, farmers' identification with and cognition of folk culture and local culture are being changed, and farmers themselves subjectively reject the relatively backward and monotonous rural culture, becoming outsiders and bystanders in rural cultural construction. “Farmers' overall cultural quality is relatively low, while the young and middle-aged population with the greatest cultural vitality is lost outside all year round. This not only intensifies the trend toward monotony in rural culture, but also makes it difficult for the state's many policies and measures for building rural culture to be implemented in rural grassroots communities.” The rural social elite adopt an indifferent and passive attitude toward rural cultural construction, causing rural cultural construction to lose its source and vitality.
6. Economic poverty.
Cultural construction is built on an economic foundation; without material development, there can be no cultural development. After more than 30 years of reform and opening up, farmers' incomes have increased, living standards have improved, and the problems of survival and food and clothing for rural residents have been basically solved. But by “the end of 2010 the rural poor population was still 26.88 million, and the proportion of the rural poor population in the rural population was 2.8%.” For farmers still on the poverty line, their primary task is to solve problems of food, clothing, and shelter; the issue of cultural construction at the spiritual level is necessarily not the first thing they consider.