A paper on finding the outline of modern history

When I was in middle school, I watched part of 12 series The Rise of Great Powers. This year, I took the course Outline of Modern and Contemporary History of China. Under the teacher's strong recommendation, I selected several movies that I haven't seen or seen, but I didn't have a deep impression.

First of all, I want to applaud this series. I have seen some large-scale series documentaries with different themes before, both at home and abroad. It can't be said that the overall feeling is that some documentary stories in Europe and America are more vivid, more impressive, more thinking and admiration. For example, the famous Discovery series, IMAX series and some BBC programs have brought me a lot of shock and enlightenment. However, in recent years, I have noticed a very good phenomenon. It seems that a series of high-quality feature films are constantly emerging in China. Such as the Silk Road and the rise of great powers. Obviously, some feature films like this are not crudely made and pieced together, but have been created after a lot of efforts and creation. This result-which I think is inspiring and beautiful, can be compared with those excellent feature films in Europe and America-makes it have a high ability to stand the test of time. I think maybe after five years and ten years, I won't necessarily think about watching this movie again, but if I watch it again, I will certainly have new gains and enlightenment.

Now I want to talk about some deep feelings.

The future form of collective power

This question is natural. The reason is an extension of national thinking.

In recent years, the concept of "globalization" is rampant. But in fact, this is not a natural statement, but in a sense, it can be regarded as a long-term artificial propaganda slogan of western neoliberalism, representing the interests of transnational financial capital and multinational companies. We often talk about how the western media are biased and manipulated by political purposes. But are European and American governments actually manipulating them? To a large extent, it is not, but serves the major consortia and economic interest entity alliances. The potential meaning of "globalization" is to weaken the political, economic and cultural sovereignty of nation-States, so that transnational financial capital and economic power led by the United States can be unimpeded in the world and the resources and wealth of all countries can be maximized. Bourdieu, a famous French sociologist, deeply exposed this in Curbing Wildfire. This in turn involves various conspiracy theories of the recent economic crisis, such as how the behind-the-scenes pusher of an economy manipulates the world. Conspiracy theories are always interesting and tempting. I think I can't believe it all, but it can often explain some aspects of the problem. So we naturally think that these events and the above interpretation reflect a question, where are the forces of this world concentrated? If we ignore Song Hongbing's conspiracy theory of currency war, which many people have heard of, it seems that in the 400-500 years described in The Rise of Great Powers, a large number of collective forces are still concentrated in the form of human society. Of course, judging from the appearance of the present world, the country seems to be the strongest and largest polymer in human history. But the most thought-provoking thing is here. Is this the appearance or the essence? I really don't know.

The nation-state, in my opinion, seems to have happened almost together with the state, and perhaps it should be said later. But it is also possible that "country" is an identity concept formed by a group of people who are adjacent to each other but related by blood after living together for a long time, and it is also the formation of the original concept of "race". Later, it gradually expanded, and the concept of "nation" with equal emphasis on physiological inheritance and culture appeared. It goes without saying how much humiliation, blood and tears, glory and dreams the nation-state has carried in human history. Almost all the great powers in the rise of great powers are nation-states. So, do we think the nation-state is the only normal state form? Is it a kind of happiness that a particular nation should strive for to establish its own nation-state I don't totally agree. To be precise, I don't think this historical law will necessarily continue in the future. It's just an idea of mine.

In view of my sense of identity with China's strength building, I sometimes have all kinds of unfriendly concerns about the United States. The United States is not a nation-state, so will it represent the new trend of national construction? If so, will we fall behind? At present, I still have a great sense of identity with the Chinese nation-state. I don't believe that we will fall behind on this issue.

In 2006, the urban population in the world surpassed the rural population for the first time, and now there are hundreds of cities in the world. But the most important ones can be divided into regional cities, national cities and so-called global cities. Saskia Sassen, a famous geographer and sociologist, expressed the view in his book Global Cities 1990 that there are only three truly global cities-Tokyo, new york and London. Many global economic organizations and multinational organizations have their headquarters there, and so do many powerful large enterprises. They happen to be the biggest intersection of three time zones in the financial market, so they gather the world's top professional services such as law, accounting and insurance. These cities hold the economic lifeline of the world. They are connected with cities all over the world to form a network, which is much closer than some cities with closer geographical location in China. Their economic power is so important that they will force the government to decentralize and open the market. Some countries even sacrificed some sovereignty in order to own such a global city. So has the ability of the central government been weakened? Is the city gradually encroaching on the countryside? Will the future cities force the country to make concessions, become the most important communication unit between regions, and be different from the future collective power form of the country?

Second, the change of personal concept.

There are more and more such people in the world now. They are not without roots. They originally belonged to a certain nation or country. But in the end, this root no longer has much effect and no longer forms any fetters on their specific lives. And the experiences of such people are often very different from each other.

There have been such people since ancient times. In the Han Dynasty, there was a Chinese official who was frustrated in the officialdom of the Han Dynasty and was excluded, so he went to Xiongnu and became a big official. The result is amazing. Many years later, he planned several great plots against Han by the Xiongnu regime. From the point of view of Han people, he must be heinous; But for himself, if he doesn't agree with the bondage of his roots, then he has undoubtedly realized his self-worth greatly and is a great hero of the Huns.

In the 20th century, some non-profit organizations appeared in the world, such as MSF and Greenpeace. We can't help but say that the ideological realm and actions of their members are noble. But at the same time, we should also pay attention to that sometimes their thoughts and actions no longer take into account their own roots. From the perspective of his own country, they may think that they have forgotten their roots and even turn their elbows outward. So, do they have advanced values, or are they naive?

Now some businessmen who invest all over the world and have no fixed place in the global market also have this phenomenon of "international citizens". Their roots are only trivial matters in personal history, and their spiritual and value judgment system does not have to bear the weight of any nation-state. Similarly, some researchers are also a typical example.

Let's start with immigrants from all over the world. Some of them are still mired in the conflict between root culture and foreign culture, while others completely abandon their inherent burdens, fully accept the new culture, live very comfortably, and strive to realize their personal values in situations unrelated to their own roots.

The reason why I put forward this phenomenon is mainly because if this is a trend of thought in the future of mankind, then it will greatly affect the construction of the future national social form.

What kind of future will we create?

Since the end of the cold war, the shadow of the nuclear winter seems to have faded gradually, but mankind is always facing a new challenge-a life-and-death problem-environmental problems. This is actually an implicit premise to talk about everything. If the environment deteriorates to a certain extent, how to continue civilization will have to be put on the agenda (similar to the situation of ancient humans), and all kinds of superstructures that always control the public's vision will collapse in an instant. But in this matter, all of us seem a little slow, and sometimes I wonder if this fundamental problem can be saved. However, now it seems that we have to talk about the superstructure again, so we can't keep entangled, we can only put it aside first.

The Rise of Great Powers says that human development has developed rapidly in the past 120 years. We seem to have no doubt that the past 120 years or even now is an era of great changes in the whole world. I often think about this question, whether my time is a critical period for the evolution of all mankind. On the contrary, in a sense, we can say that a century in the Middle Ages is not so critical for Europe, and a fifty-year period in the Ming Dynasty seems to be less important (this is just a rough statement for ideographic reasons, and history can't be separated, of course). If my time is a critical period in the evolution of all mankind, what is changing? Is it technology? How many new powers will rise and how many old empires will decline? Or, as mentioned above, can we imagine some kind of "future form of collective power" Does the country still want to play the leading role? And where is the ideological trend of human spirit going?