Chinese Culture Fading as the Country Urbanizes

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Culture is just a term to indicate what people do, so the false dichotomy is false and a dichotomy.

While strictly speaking true, that seems somewhat obscurantist to the extent that people or groups of people often perceive their sets of things that they do as falling into some sort of continuity or narrative.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Culture is just a term to indicate what people do, so the false dichotomy is false and a dichotomy.

While strictly speaking true, that seems somewhat obscurantist to the extent that people or groups of people often perceive their sets of things that they do as falling into some sort of continuity or narrative.

But is it the same narrative everywhere? Or even within each 'culture'?

No, of course not, which is why it's definitely possible to interpret 'culture' in an excessively static and essentialist way. I don't think that that invalidates the premise of this article.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I think you mean 'impossible'.

I mean 'possible'. It's possible and undesirable to interpret the idea of culture in a manner that gives it too much credit as some sort of independent entity.

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Certainly--although one can imagine other, legitimate, arguments for the view that this situation is lamentable, including some that do take the idea of culture and involve it in some more developed position, it's true that waving that idea around like a magic wand really doesn't do that.

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This is, of course, ridiculous.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

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Ok, it might be possible. But would it give you a correct answer? Me? I'm skeptical.

That's what I'm saying. Possible and undesirable.

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Of course you can, but could you mind elaborating on what these are?[/quote]

Some of these are more legitimate than others, but these are some of the perspectives that come to mind:

1. Ideological, aesthetic, or lifestyle preference for the real or perceived content of the variety of Chinese culture that is fading over that of the variety of Chinese culture that is in the ascendant.
2. Ideological, aesthetic, or lifestyle preference for ruralities over urbanities.
3. Belief that, while cultures aren't mystical monolithic entities that mustn't change, having a multitude of cultural perspectives in the world is a good thing and diminishing that multitude a bad one, and that the effect of the current cultural changes in China is to bring (some variety of) Chinese culture closer into conformity with some other culture in a way that causes it to lose differentiating features.
4. Dislike for or spite towards the current government of China and desire to see its social policies fail (you could obviously argue against the legitimacy of this one; I certainly wouldn't consider it a praiseworthy reason to disapprove of something like this).
5. Concerns about the demographic and economic effects of urbanization on the remaining population of the countryside (could in some cases fall under 2).

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I'd love to see a recent study of this if there are any.