On the Dialectical Unity of Cultural Diversity and the Common Values of All Humanity

In today’s world, the tide of economic globalization is scouring the geographical boundaries of nation-states: “Only with this universal development of productive forces are universal intercourse among human beings established.” In this kind of worldwide intercourse and practice, the field of human culture exhibits two concurrent yet mutually counterbalancing trends. On the one hand, the formation of a world market has broken down regional restrictions, enabling the cultures of different nations to learn from each other, merge, and innovate, greatly enriching the patterns of human cultural development and infusing cultural diversity with vibrant vitality. On the other hand, the inherent differences in cultural concepts among various nations, deeply interwoven with modern challenges such as geopolitics, resource allocation, and technological competition, threaten the peace and development of human society. General Secretary Xi Jinping calls on all countries in the world to “promote peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy, and freedom as the common values of all humanity, to promote mutual understanding and amity among the peoples of all countries while respecting the diversity of world civilizations.” This value concept breaks the binary opposition of “either this or that,” maintains balance in the dynamic evolution of culture, respects the uniqueness of national cultures, guards the commonality of human values, and manifests a broad vision of embracing the world and a humanistic sentiment for the great harmony of the world.

当今世界，经济全球化浪潮冲刷着民族国家的地理边界，“只有随着生产力的这种普遍发展，人们的普遍交往才能建立起来”。在这种世界性的交往实践中，人类文化领域呈现出并行不悖却又相互制衡的双重走向。一方面，世界市场的形成打破了地域限制，不同民族的文化相互借鉴、融合创新，极大地丰富了人类文化的发展样态，为文化多样性注入了蓬勃活力；另一方面，各民族所固有的文化观念差异与地缘政治、资源分配、技术竞争等现代性挑战深度交织，威胁着人类社会的和平与发展。习近平总书记呼吁世界各国要“弘扬和平、发展、公平、正义、民主、自由的全人类共同价值，促进各国人民相知相亲，尊重世界文明多样性”，这种价值理念打破了非此即彼的二元对立思维，在文化的动态演进中保持平衡，尊重民族文化的独特性，守护人类价值的共通性，彰显出胸怀天下的宏阔视野和世界大同的人类情怀。

I. The Maintenance of the Value of Cultural Diversity and Its Challenges

一、文化多样性价值的维护及其挑战

As the objectified result of human practical activity, the connotation and form of culture are profoundly influenced by the natural environment and mode of production. Culture refers not only to the implicit laws governing human behavior such as values, modes of thinking, and ethical norms, but also to external forms such as artifact styles, ritual traditions, and artistic expressions, which carry historical memory and cultural genes through perceptible and comprehensible forms. Under different geographical environments, various nations have developed distinctive modes of production, giving rise to cultural forms with clear imprints of nationality and region. With the progress of productive forces, national cultures originally scattered across the world have gradually broken through geographical boundaries, converging into a macroscopic picture of cultural diversity. As General Secretary Xi Jinping stated, “The sun has seven colors, and the world is also colorful.” However, when capital becomes the dominant force in interregional exchange, its standardized logic continuously erodes the uniqueness and difference of native cultures, increasing the risk of cultural homogenization. Dominant cultures, relying on economic advantages, accelerate their expansion, persistently squeezing the living space of weaker cultures, thereby weakening the resilience and innovative vitality of human civilization. Therefore, cultural diversity is not only a precious asset for national development but also a major issue concerning the future destiny of humanity.

作为人类实践活动的对象化结果，文化的内涵与形态深受自然环境与生产方式的影响。文化不仅意指价值观念、思维方式与伦理规范等支配人类行为的隐性法则，也包含器物样式、仪式传统与艺术表达等外在形态，通过可感可知的形式承载着历史记忆与文化基因。在不同的地理环境下，各民族发展出各具特色的生产方式，孕育出带有鲜明民族性、地域性印记的文化形态。随着生产力进步，原本分散于世界各地的民族文化也渐渐突破地理界限，汇聚成宏观层面的文化多样性图景，正如习近平总书记所言，“阳光有七种颜色，世界也是多彩的”。然而，当资本发展成区域间交流的主导力量，其标准化逻辑便不断侵蚀着原生文化的独特性与差异性，增加了文化同质化的风险。强势文化凭借经济优势加速扩张，持续挤压弱势文化的生存空间，削弱了人类文明的发展韧性与创新活力。因此，文化多样性不仅是民族发展的宝贵财富，更是关乎人类未来命运的重大议题。

(1) Cultural Diversity as the Foundation for the Continuation of Human Civilization

（一）文化多样性是人类文明得以存续的根基

UNESCO defines “cultural diversity” as “the manifold ways in which the cultures of groups and societies find expression.” As the objectified product of human practical activity, differences in cultural forms fundamentally stem from the particularities of the mode of possession of means of production, the form of labor organization, and natural geographical conditions. Without cross-national, cross-regional intercourse and practice, each culture would, in a closed state, either sustain itself in a singular form or disappear on its own, and this plurality of forms would not manifest. Thus, it is only in the interaction of economic globalization that different civilizations encounter each other, and through population migration, commodity trade, and ideological dialogue, they overcome the one-sidedness of national cultures and maintain world cultural diversity—that is, “All things are nurtured together without their injuring one another, and the courses of the seasons and the sun and moon are pursued without any collision.” This integration of diverse elements across national boundaries is primarily realized through the following three forms of exchange.

联合国教科文组织将“文化多样性”定义为“各群体和社会借以表现其文化的多种不同形式”。作为人类实践活动的对象化产物，文化形态的差异本质上源于生产资料占有方式、劳动组织形式与自然地理条件的特殊性。若没有跨民族、跨地域的交往实践，各文化将在封闭状态下保持单一形态的自我延续或自行消失，这一多元形态便无从显现。可见，唯有在经济全球化的互动中，不同文明才得以相遇，并通过人口迁徙、商品贸易、思想对话的方式，消解民族文化的片面性，维护世界文化多样性，也就是“万物并育而不相害，道并行而不相悖”。这种跨越民族边界的多元要素交融，主要是通过以下三种交换方式得以实现的。

First, the exchange of human populations [n]. Humans are the subjects of practice, and culture is essentially the objectified product of human practical activity. This determines that humans are naturally the subjects of cultural generation, inheritance, and innovation. Individuals bearing the cultural imprints of their respective nations, in the intercourse practice of cross-regional mobility, do not passively accept the impact of new cultures but actively exert subjective initiative, critically upholding and creatively transforming their native cultures, thereby enriching cultural forms. Taking the Black slave trade during the period of primitive accumulation of capital as an example: African Blacks were forcibly relocated to labor sites such as plantations and mines in the Americas. Even amidst labor and hardship, they did not lose their cultural creativity. Instead, rooted in their practical life, they used simple musical instruments and straightforward chanting to give birth to new musical cultures represented by the blues, conveying a yearning for freedom. It is precisely the cultural consciousness and creative vitality that humans always maintain in cross-cultural interaction that allow culture to break free from its passive dependence on the logic of capital or geographical boundaries, enriching cultural forms and expanding cultural connotations in the organic unity of preservation and innovation, ultimately constructing a vivid picture of the pluralistic coexistence of human civilizations.

其一，人种的交换。人是实践的主体，而文化本质上是人类实践活动的对象化产物，这决定了人天然是文化生成、传承与创新的主体。带有各自民族文化烙印的个体，在跨地域流动的交往实践中并未被动接受新文化的冲击，而是主动发挥主观能动性，对自身原生文化进行批判性坚守与创造性转化，进而丰富了文化样态。以资本原始积累时期的黑奴贸易为例，非洲黑人被强制迁徙至美洲种植园、矿山等劳作场所，即便他们身处劳作与困顿生活中，却未丧失文化创造力，反而以生活实践为根基，通过简洁的乐器伴奏与直白吟唱催生了以蓝调为代表的新型音乐文化，传递出对自由的向往。正是人类在跨文化互动中始终秉持的文化自觉与创造活力，让文化摆脱了对资本逻辑或地理边界的被动依附，在坚守与革新的有机统一中丰富文化形态、拓展文化内涵，最终构筑起人类文明多元共生的鲜活图景。

Second, the exchange of biological species [n]. As the material foundation nourishing human civilization, the cross-regional circulation of agricultural products and their cultivation techniques is essentially the practical crystallization of our ancestors’ efforts to break through natural constraints and condense their survival wisdom. After the intervention of capital, the originally benign flow of species was gradually alienated into a tool of colonial rule. Colonizers, by promoting a monoculture cropping system, attempted to control the local economic lifeline. While colonizing Ireland, the British once forced the local population to grow only potatoes. Although this practice met the short-term demand of the colonial economy for cheap food, this long-term monoculture structure ultimately triggered a great famine that claimed millions of lives. “The first of all rites originates from food and drink” [n]. Diet not only nourishes people’s physical bodies but has also been closely tied to cultural traditions from the very beginning. When a variety of native crops were replaced by a single foreign crop, the folk customs, sacrificial rituals, etc., rooted in daily dietary practices lost the material foundation on which they depended. However, the paradox of history lies precisely here: while capitalism violently alienated species exchange into colonial plunder, those seeds forcibly brought to foreign lands gave birth to new cultures on foreign soil. Chili peppers originated in the Americas. After being introduced to India from the time of Spanish colonization, they blended with local turmeric, cinnamon, and other spices, eventually becoming one of the iconic elements of Indian curry food culture. Thus, species exchange is by no means a mere material transfer; it is a key vehicle for the deep integration of different cultural systems and the birth of new cultural forms, objectively providing a unique path for enriching cultural diversity.

其二，物种的交换。作为滋养人类文明的物质根基，农产品及其种植技术的跨地域流转，实质上是先民们突破自然约束、凝聚生存智慧的实践结晶。在资本介入后，原本良性的物种流动逐渐异化为殖民统治工具。殖民者通过推行单一作物种植制度，试图掌控当地经济命脉。在殖民爱尔兰期间，英国曾强制要求当地仅能种植马铃薯。这种做法虽然在短期内满足了殖民经济对廉价粮食的需求，但长期单一的种植结构，最终引发了百万人丧生的大饥荒。“夫礼之初，始诸饮食”，饮食不仅滋养着人的血肉之躯，更自初始便与文化传统紧密相连。当多种本土作物被单一外来作物所取代时，扎根于日常饮食实践的民俗习惯、祭祀礼仪等，便失去了赖以存续的物质基础。然而，历史的吊诡之处也正在于此，资本主义以暴力形式将物种交换异化为殖民掠夺的同时，那些被强行带到异国的种子，却在他乡的土壤上催生出新的文化。辣椒原产于美洲，自西班牙殖民时期传入印度后，与本地的姜黄、肉桂等香料相互交融，最终成为印度咖喱饮食文化的标志性元素之一。可见，物种的交换绝非单纯的物质流转，更是不同文化体系实现深度融合、催生新型文化形态的关键载体，在客观上为丰富文化多样性提供了独特路径。

Third, the exchange of ideas [n]. The exchange of ideas includes both tangible transmission, relying on material carriers such as books and texts, and intangible permeation through forms such as oral tradition, religious preaching, and academic dialogue. Its essence is the continuous process of sublation of ideas in different cultural contexts. After translations of the Analects reached the West, they profoundly influenced the 18th-century European Enlightenment. Voltaire regarded Confucius as a model of “rational religion,” stating that “the religion of the Chinese savants was never spoiled by absurd myths, nor stained by civil wars over theocracy and politics.” Leibniz absorbed nourishment from the Analects’ idea of “harmony in diversity,” promoting the sprouts of early European multiculturalist thought, breaking the church’s monopoly on the spiritual world, and providing Eastern wisdom for the rise of European rationalist philosophy. Meanwhile, Rousseau’s The Social Contract ignited the reform enthusiasm of Asian intellectuals. Yan Fu distilled its core idea into “choosing the public-spirited and capable person and establishing him as their ruler,” directly influencing the political conceptions of reformists and revolutionaries such as Liang Qichao and Sun Yat-sen, providing important theoretical resources for the ideological movement to abolish monarchical power and advocate for civil rights during the late Qing and early Republic periods. Thus, the particularity of idea exchange lies in the re-encoding of linguistic symbols, which detaches spiritual products from their original context, thereby endowing them with a more universal meaning.

其三，思想的交换。思想交换既包括依托于书籍、文本等物质载体的有形传播，也涵盖通过口头传承、宗教布道、学术对话等非具象形式的无形渗透，其实质是思想在不同文化语境中不断扬弃的过程。《论语》译本传入西方后，对18世纪欧洲启蒙运动产生了深刻影响。伏尔泰将孔子视为“理性宗教”的楷模，称“中国儒生的宗教从来没有受无稽神话的糟蹋，也没有为政教之争的内战所玷污”。莱布尼茨则从《论语》“和而不同”思想中汲取养分，推动了欧洲早期多元文化主义思潮的萌芽，打破了教会对精神世界的垄断，为欧洲理性主义哲学的兴起提供了东方智慧。与此同时，卢梭的《社会契约论》则点燃了亚洲知识分子的改革热情，严复将其核心思想提炼为“择其公且贤者，立而为之君”，直接影响了梁启超、孙中山等维新派与革命派的政治构想，为清末民初废除君权、倡导民权的思想运动提供了重要理论资源。由此可见，思想交换的特殊性在于，通过语言符号的再编码，使精神产品脱离原初语境，从而获得更为普遍的意义。

Against the backdrop of economic globalization, cultural diversity has achieved mutual learning among civilizations through the exchange of ethnicities, species, and ideas, making “the intellectual creations of individual nations become common property.” [n] This interaction not only drives the iterative evolution of humanity’s cultural spectrum but also generates innovative outcomes through technological integration and inspires governance wisdom through institutional collision, injecting a steady stream of new momentum into the development of civilization. It is worth noting that excessive exaltation of cultural diversity can easily dissolve the foundation of humanity’s integral wholeness, turning human culture into “a heap of loose sand.” [n] As Huntington warned in *The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order*, the mindset of absolutizing cultural differences can transform the diversity that originally promotes mutual learning among civilizations into a blade that tears apart the human community. If this persists, human culture will fall into a closed impasse resembling the “Tower of Babel,” [n] not only losing a common value discourse and dissolving the spiritual bonds of human cooperation and coordination, but also, in the face of global challenges such as the climate crisis, public health, and energy shortages, making effective linkage and coordinated action difficult to achieve. This would exacerbate the risks of world geopolitical conflict, ethnic antagonism, and civilizational estrangement, plunging humanity into a deadlock of each fighting for itself in the face of common crises.

在经济全球化背景下，文化多样性通过人种、物种、思想的交换路径实现了文明互鉴，“各民族的精神产品成了公共的财产”。这种互动不仅推动了人类文化谱系的迭代演进，还通过技术融合催生了创新成果，通过制度碰撞激发了治理智慧，为文明发展注入源源不断的新动力。值得注意的是，对文化多样性的过度推崇极易消解人类的整体性根基，使人类文化变为“一盘散沙”。正如亨廷顿在《文明的冲突与世界秩序的重建》中所警示的，将文化差异绝对化的思维，会把原本促进文化互鉴的多样性异化为撕裂人类共同体的利刃。长此以往，人类文化将陷入“巴别塔”式的封闭困局，不仅会丧失共通的价值话语，瓦解人类合作协同的精神纽带，更会在气候危机、公共卫生、能源短缺等全球性挑战面前，难以实现有效联动与协同行动，加剧世界地缘政治冲突、族群对立与文明隔阂的风险，使人类在共同危机面前陷入各自为战的僵局。

(II) The Modernity Challenges Facing Contemporary Humanity

（二）当代人类所面临的现代性挑战

The continuous evolution of cultural diversity has always been inseparable from its response to the context of the times. As the curtain of world history slowly rises, no country can avoid undergoing the baptism of modernization. This requires not only technological innovation in the economic base’s productive forces but also an upgrade in the governance paradigm of the superstructure. This is because capital has “struck from under industry the foundation on which the nationalities were built up,” so that “the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency” have been “replaced by an universal inter-dependence of nations.” [n] Yet, although Marx believed that social history has universal laws of development, he always opposed “preformationism,” “teleology,” and “unilinearism” in light of the actual development paths arising from different national conditions. The path to modernization has never been uniform; unique historical trajectories and profound cultural endowments often endow human societies with distinctly different models of modernization. Thus, cultural diversity has a systemic constructive function in modernization, and the challenges it encounters inevitably originate from the multidimensional system of modern society.

文化多样性的持续演进，始终离不开对时代语境的回应。随着世界历史帷幕的缓缓拉开，任何一个国家都不可避免地要接受现代化的洗礼，既要对经济基础进行生产技术革新，又要对上层建筑进行治理范式升级。这是由于资本主义“挖掉了工业脚下的民族基础”，使“过去那种地方的和民族的自给自足和闭关自守状态，被各民族的各方面的互相往来和各方面的互相依赖所代替了”。然而，尽管马克思认为社会历史具有共性的发展规律，但就实际发展路径来看，由于各国的具体情况不同，他一向反对“预成论”“目的论”和“单线论”。现代化的实现路径从来不是千篇一律的，独特的历史脉络与深厚的文化底蕴，往往赋予了人类社会各不相同的现代化发展模式。可见，文化多样性在现代化建设中具有系统性的构建功能，那么它遭遇的挑战也必然源自现代社会的多维体系。

In the economic sphere, there is an irreconcilable contradiction between the homogenizing demands inherent in the expansion of capital and the heterogeneous foundations of cultural diversity. Capital has an innate impulse for limitless self-expansion; by constructing a purportedly universal system of commodity production and exchange, it brings all existing things in human society into the orbit of value augmentation. Culture is inevitably drawn into the operational framework of capital’s logic, reduced to a commodified form of existence. The commodification of culture severs its deep connection with specific historical contexts and social practices, reducing its rich forms to “cultural commodities” that meet market demands, so that culture’s originally critical, educative, and cohesive functions give way to the instrumental purpose of capital’s self-expansion. Capital ultimately “creates a world after its own image,” [n] and this world is characterized by standardized production, scaled replication, and homogenized consumption, forming a fundamental opposition to the heterogeneity, uniqueness, and contextual dependence on which cultural diversity relies. Thus, the heterogeneous foundation for the survival of cultural diversity will gradually disintegrate under the homogenizing pressure of capital’s logic.

在经济领域，资本扩张所内含的同质化要求与文化多样性的异质性根基之间，存在着不可调和的深层矛盾。资本具有无限增殖的内在冲动，通过构建所谓的普适性的商品生产与交换体系，将人类社会所有存在物都纳入价值增殖的轨道。文化也不可避免地被卷入资本逻辑的运行框架，沦为商品化的存在形态。文化的商品化过程剥离了文化与具体历史语境、社会实践的深度关联，将丰富的文化形态简化为满足市场需求的“文化商品”，使文化原本承载的批判功能、教化功能与凝聚功能让位于资本增殖的工具性目的。资本终究会“按照自己的面貌为自己创造出一个世界”，这个世界以标准化生产、规模化复制与同质化消费为核心特征，与文化多样性所依赖的异质性、独特性、语境性形成根本对立。可见，文化多样性赖以存续的异质性根基，会在资本逻辑的同质化碾压下逐渐走向瓦解。

In the political sphere, Western countries, leveraging their first-mover advantage in the modernization process, attempt to depict the Western political-economic system, deeply rooted in individualism, as the ultimate goal of human historical development and to define Western society as the sole model of modern society. American political scientist Benedict Anderson argues that the construction mechanism of the nation-state manifests as the ruling class standardizing specific cultural narratives through the communication networks of mass media, thereby shaping a collective identity framework with institutional rigidity—namely, the “imagined community.” [n] Through ideological tools such as the education system and legal institutions, the ruling class elevates its own cultural paradigm to the status of universal truth, thereby exerting structural suppression over culturally diverse groups. The hegemonic mechanisms in the political sphere “naturalize” specific cultural paradigms through institutional design, carrying out “cultural screening” under the guise of “universal governance,” thereby pushing minority cultures—and indeed all non-Western cultures—toward marginalization within the standardized institutional framework.

在政治领域，西方国家凭借在现代化进程中的先发优势，企图将厚植个人主义的西方政治经济制度描绘为人类历史发展的最终目标，将西方社会定义为现代社会的唯一样式。美国政治学家本尼迪克特·安德森（Benedict Anderson）认为，民族国家的建构机制体现为统治阶级通过大众媒体的传播网络将特定文化叙事标准化，并由此塑造出一种具有制度刚性的集体认同框架，即“想象的共同体”。统治阶级通过教育体系、法律制度等意识形态工具，将自身文化范式上升为普遍真理，从而对多元文化群体形成结构性压制。政治领域的霸权机制，通过制度性设计将特定文化范式“自然化”，以“普世治理”之名行“文化筛选”之实，致使少数群体文化乃至全部非西方文化，在标准化的制度框架中面临被边缘化的风险。

In the cultural sphere, every era has its specific paradigm of knowledge production. Today, with the deep integration of modern knowledge systems and digital technology, the cognitive paradigm of the Western rationalist tradition is being solidified through technological means. This integrative mechanism uses quantifiable “cultural capital” as a tool to negate the value of niche cultures and undermine the knowledge foundation of cultural diversity. In the digital age, media platforms construct user group profiles through data analysis, forming “interest cocoons” by prioritizing personalized, entertainment-oriented, and fragmented content to satisfy the public’s desire for ease and pleasure while avoiding deep thought—a typical manifestation of “amusing ourselves to death” [n] in the digital context. In contrast, serious cultural content faces systemic exclusion under the rule of “traffic above all else.” Thus, the knowledge foundation of cultural diversity will be completely dissolved under the impact of algorithmic hegemony.

在文化领域，每个时代都有其特定的知识生产范式。如今，随着现代知识体系与数字技术的深度耦合，西方理性主义传统的认知范式正在通过技术手段固化，这种融合机制以可量化的“文化资本”为工具，否定小众文化的存在价值，动摇文化多样性的知识根基。在数字时代，媒体平台通过数据分析构建用户群体画像，形成“兴趣茧房”，优先推送个性化、娱乐化、碎片化内容，以求契合大众追求轻松愉悦、逃避深度思考的心理，这正是“娱乐至死”在数字化境遇下的典型表现；反观那些严肃性的文化内容，则在“流量至上”的规则中遭到系统性排斥。如此一来，文化多样性的知识根基将在算法霸权的冲击下彻底消解。

In the ecological sphere, capital inherently treats nature entirely as an objectified means of production, ruthlessly breaking the benign material cycle and energy exchange between humans and nature. The ecosystem, as the material foundation for human survival and development, has an inseparable symbiotic and interactive relationship with cultural forms. Engels once warned, “Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us.” [n] The extreme dependence of capitalist industrialization on fossil fuels has exacerbated global warming, causing the rapid melting of sea ice in the Arctic. This not only destroys the polar ecological balance but also directly strips the Inuit people’s millennia-old craft of building igloos of the ecological foundation on which it depends. Thus, we must recognize that humans are a part of nature. Only by starting from the basic survival needs of real people and exploring practical paths for the harmonious coexistence of humans and nature can we provide the natural foundation for the continuation of cultural diversity.

在生态领域，资本天生地将自然完全对象化为生产资料，无情地打破了人与自然之间良性的物质循环与能量交换。生态系统作为人类生存发展的物质根基，与文化形态之间存在不可分割的共生互动关系。恩格斯曾发出过警告，“我们不要过分陶醉于我们人类对自然界的胜利。对于每一次这样的胜利，自然界都对我们进行报复”。资本主义工业化对化石能源的极度依赖加剧了全球变暖，使得北极地区的海冰急剧消融，不仅破坏了极地的生态平衡，更直接导致因纽特人延续千年的冰屋建造技艺失去了赖以维系的生态基础。可见，我们必须认识到人是自然界的一部分。从现实的人的基本生存需求出发，探寻人与自然和谐共生的实践路径，才能为文化多样性的存续提供自然根基。

II. The Logic of Building the Common Values of All Mankind

二、全人类共同价值的构建逻辑

In the process of modernization, the unchecked expansion of instrumental rationality and the gradual decline of value rationality form a stark contrast. Instrumental rationality, with efficiency and benefit as its sole criteria, reduces heterogeneous civilizations to “the Other,” exacerbating estrangement and antagonism among civilizations and providing fertile ground for the extreme form of cultural relativism. To overcome this predicament, transcend the narrow limitations of instrumental rationality, and return to the spiritual guidance of value rationality, it is necessary, while respecting cultural differences, to construct inclusive common values for all mankind. As the value consensus formed by various civilizations in addressing global problems, the common values of all mankind are not a rigid dogma but an organic system that continuously evolves through mutual learning among civilizations and practical exploration. Their vitality stems from adaptive responses to the dynamic development of human society and will continue to be enriched and perfected as human practice advances. As General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized, “Civilizations have no superiority or inferiority; they only have differences in characteristics and regions.” [n] The common values of all mankind neither deny the uniqueness of each civilization nor pursue a single uniform standard of value. Instead, they converge on the greatest common divisor based on “harmony in diversity,” [n] injecting lasting humanistic momentum into the modernization process.

在现代化进程中，工具理性的无序扩张与价值理性的日渐式微形成了鲜明对比。工具理性以效率、利益为单一评判标准，将异质文明简化为“他者”，加剧了文明间的隔阂与对立，也为文化相对主义的极端化提供了滋生土壤。面对这一困境，要想超越工具理性的狭隘局限，回归价值理性的精神指引，就需要在尊重文化差异的前提下，构建具有包容性的全人类共同价值。作为各文明在应对全球性问题过程中所形成的价值共识，全人类共同价值不是僵化的教条，而是在文明互鉴与实践探索中持续演进的有机体系，其生命力源于对人类社会动态发展的适应性回应，并将随着人类实践的推进而不断地丰富完善。正如习近平总书记所强调的，“文明没有高下、优劣之分，只有特色、地域之别”，全人类共同价值既不否定各文明的独特性，也不追求单一化的价值标准，而是在“和而不同”的基础上凝聚最大公约数，为现代化进程注入持久的人文动力。

(I) The Necessity of Strengthening Consensus on Bottom-Line Principles

（一）加强底线共识的必要性

In the contemporary context of interwoven and coexisting multiculturalism, the reason why all ethnic groups can, and indeed must, reach some form of value consensus lies in the similar essence and existential condition shared by humans as a community, as well as the holism and interconnectedness that humanity manifests when confronting common problems. In *The Essence of Christianity*, Feuerbach anchors “the essence of man” in human natural attributes, arguing from the natural necessity of species survival that human commonality transcends the ontological status of region and ethnicity, thereby laying a natural foundation for the substantive determination of the common essence of humanity. Marx, by contrast, criticizes Feuerbach for understanding human commonality only “as an inner, mute, universal character which unites the many individuals in a purely natural way.” Marx points out that humanity’s life activity of “creating an objective world through practice” constructs the material metabolic relationship between humans and nature, and also shapes the social basis of “species-consciousness” in the process of transforming the world. “Free, conscious activity is precisely the species-character of human beings.” This practical correlation, grounded in the essence of “free and conscious” labor, ensures that even when different civilizations differ in their modes of production, they can still form deep species-related connections in the historical process of transforming nature, thereby providing a philosophical foundation for cross-cultural identification. Subsequently, the concept of the human “species” extends from material production into fields such as cultural creation and social interaction: “the species-essence of humans is not a fixed existence, nor does it have a fixed nature of ‘how it ought to be’; it is itself always in a process of continuous generation, development, and ever-increasing perfection.” Within this framework, the particular practical modalities of different civilizations are no longer obstacles to value consensus but rather become the concrete unfolding of the richness of the human essence, endowing value consensus, as a “universal demand” of human practice, with historical necessity.

在多元文化交织共生的时代语境下，各民族之所以能够、也必须达成某种价值共识，是由于人作为共同体所具有的类似本质与生存状态，以及人类在面对共同问题时所表现出的整体性与关联性。在《基督教的本质》中，费尔巴哈将“人的本质”锚定于人的自然属性之中，从人作为物种存续的自然必然性出发，论证了人类共性超越地域与族群的本体论地位，为人类共性本质的实在规定性奠定了自然基础。马克思则批判费尔巴哈只把人的共性“理解为一种内在的、无声的、把许多个人纯粹自然地联系起来的普遍性”。他指出，人类“通过实践创造对象世界”的生命活动，构建起人与自然的物质变换关系，也在改造世界的过程中形塑出“类意识”的社会基础。“而自由的有意识的活动恰恰就是人的类特性”，这种基于“自由自觉”劳动本质的实践关联，使得不同文明体即便在生产方式上存在差异，仍能在改造自然的历史进程中形成深层的类属联系，从而为跨文化认同提供哲学根基。而后，关于人的“类”概念从物质生产延伸至文化创造、社会交往等领域，“人的类本质不是定型化的存在，也没有‘应当如何’的固定性质，它自身始终处在不断生成、发展和日益完善化的过程”。在此框架下，不同文明的特殊实践样态不再是价值共识的阻碍，反而成为人类本质丰富性的具体展开，使价值共识作为人类实践的“普遍性诉求”获得历史必然性。

Shifting from theoretical speculation to practical observation, we can readily see that the concentrated eruption of global crises is propelling humanity into a “thrown” existential predicament of “limit-being.” In contemporary society, this existential “thrownness” has been concretized into a series of common challenges that transcend national borders. Ecological crises such as glacial melting and species endangerment, security dilemmas including geopolitical conflicts and refugee surges, development bottlenecks like energy shortages and technological hegemony, and spiritual barriers such as value conflicts and civilizational estrangement—these crises traverse regional boundaries, civilizational differences, and ideological cleavages, disregarding the subjective will of any group, and collectively hurl all of humanity into real existential threats. The fate-sharing in an ontological sense utterly dissolves the superficial opposition of cultural differences, transforming value consensus from a theoretical construction into a practical choice concerning species survival. In this context, facing the question of the times—“What is wrong with the world, and what shall we do about it?”—General Secretary Xi Jinping points out that “peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy, and freedom are the common values of all humanity and also the lofty goals of the United Nations.” With a broad civilizational vision, this breaks the Western-centric monopoly on values and provides a value coordinate for global governance that possesses both historical depth and practical relevance.

从理论思辨转向现实观照，我们不难发现，全球性危机的集中爆发正将人类推向“极限存在”的“被抛”生存困境。当代社会，这种生存论层面的“被抛”状态已然具象化为一系列超越国家边界的共同挑战。冰川消融、物种濒危等生态危机，地缘博弈、难民潮涌等安全难题，能源短缺、技术霸权等发展梗阻，价值冲突、文明隔阂等精神藩篱，这些危机跨越地域疆界、文明差异与意识形态分野，不以任何群体的主观意志为转移，将全人类共同抛掷于现实的生存性威胁之中。存在论意义上的命运与共，彻底消解了文化差异的表层对立，将价值共识从理论构建转化为关乎物种存续的实践选择。在这样的背景下，面对“世界怎么了，我们怎么办”的时代之问，习近平总书记指出“和平、发展、公平、正义、民主、自由，是全人类的共同价值，也是联合国的崇高目标”，以宏阔的文明视野打破了西方中心主义的价值垄断，为全球治理提供了兼具历史厚度与现实针对性的价值坐标。

First, peace and development are the themes of the times in contemporary human society, following the internal logic of mutual interdependence and mutual empowerment, and they provide the basic realistic conditions for advancing global governance. History shows that peace creates the preconditions for development. Marx and Engels profoundly stated in *On Poland* that “a nation that oppresses another cannot itself be liberated.” When some nations oppress others through war or sanctions, the resulting turmoil not only severs the civilizational lifeline of the oppressed nations, but the nations perpetrating the tyranny also find themselves unsustainable due to deep involvement in conflict. At the same time, development provides the material guarantee for lasting peace. The realization of communism “presupposes the universal development of productive forces and the world intercourse that accompanies this.” After the Second World War, Western Europe was ravaged by war, with industrial collapse, a desolate people’s livelihood, and social conflicts and risks of geopolitical confrontation triggered by material shortages on the verge of eruption. To escape this crisis and permanently end the history of strife on the European continent, the European Community emerged. This plan established a common market, coordinated economic policies, promoted trade liberalization and the free flow of factors of production, and broke down trade barriers and development rifts among Western European nations. By deepening regional coordination and building mechanisms for communication and negotiation, the European Community gradually eliminated historical grievances and the hidden dangers of confrontation, transforming short-term crisis management into a long-term mechanism for peace and stability. It not only allowed the European continent to completely shake off the shadow of war but also became a model for achieving peace and development through regional cooperation. Historical practice has repeatedly proven that peace and development are like two wheels of a cart or two wings of a bird; only through interactive co-generation can a stable global order be constructed.

首先，和平与发展是当今人类社会的时代主题，遵循互依互塑、双向赋能的内在逻辑，为推进全球治理提供了基本现实条件。历史表明，和平为发展创造了前提条件。马克思恩格斯在《论波兰》中深刻指出，“压迫其他民族的民族是不能获得解放的”。当一些国家以战争、制裁压迫其他民族时，由此引发的动荡不仅会割断被压迫民族的文明血脉，发动暴政的一方其自身也会因深陷冲突消耗而难以为继。与此同时，发展则为持久的和平提供了物质保障。共产主义的实现“是以生产力的普遍发展和与此相联系的世界交往为前提的”。第二次世界大战后西欧饱受战争创伤，工业崩塌、民生凋敝、物资匮乏引发的社会矛盾与地缘冲突风险一触即发。为摆脱这一危局、彻底终结欧洲大陆的纷争历史，欧洲共同体应运而生。该计划建立共同市场、协调经济政策、推动贸易自由化与要素自由流动，打破了西欧各国间的贸易壁垒与发展隔阂。欧洲共同体通过深化区域协同、搭建沟通协商机制，逐步消弭了历史积怨与对抗隐患，将短期的危机应对转化为长期的和平稳定机制，不仅让欧洲大陆彻底摆脱了战乱阴影，更成为通过区域合作实现和平与发展的典范。历史实践已经反复证明，和平与发展如同车之两轮、鸟之双翼，唯有在互动共生中才能构建起稳定的全球秩序。

Second, fairness and justice are the core dimensions of institutional ethics. The organic coupling of substantive fairness and procedural justice constitutes the concrete methodological basis for the implementation of the common values of all humanity. Specifically, substantive fairness aims to dismantle the formal equality of capitalism, which is “confined within the bourgeois framework,” requiring that we confront the objective differences among various groups in historical circumstances, resource endowments, and development capacities. Meanwhile, procedural justice, as a standardized path of realization, requires the establishment of a unified and transparent system of universal rules. Within the common values of all humanity, procedural justice provides normative constraints for substantive fairness, upholding the core value of equality for all people; substantive fairness injects realistic concern into procedural justice, responding to the real challenge of coexistence amid difference. This view of fairness and justice provides an operational framework for global governance to resolve the fairness deficit and consolidate civilizational consensus, becoming an important practical principle for sustaining a community with a shared future for mankind.

其次，公平与正义是制度伦理的核心向度。实质公平与程序正义的有机耦合，构成了全人类共同价值落地的现实方法论基础。具体而言，实质公平旨在破解资本主义“被限制在一个资产阶级的框框里”的形式平等，要求正视各群体在历史境遇、资源禀赋、发展能力上的客观差异；而程序正义作为规范化实现路径，要求建立统一透明的普适性规则体系。在全人类共同价值中，程序正义为实质公平提供规范约束，坚守人人平等的价值内核；实质公平为程序正义注入现实关怀，回应差异共存的现实挑战。这种公平正义观为全球治理破解公平赤字、凝聚文明共识筑牢操作框架，成为维系人类命运共同体的重要实践准则。

Finally, the historical unity of democracy and freedom embodies the essential demand for human liberation and civilizational progress. It is the common ideal goal of all humanity, following the internal laws of historical evolution and morphological transformation. In *The German Ideology*, Marx and Engels foresaw the disappearance of class subordination in a “true community,” and in *The Communist Manifesto*, they formally proposed that “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all,” internally linking individual freedom with collective democracy and breaking the either/or opposition between the two. In the era of social media, digital technology provides an unprecedented platform for individual free expression, but it also allows the “tyranny of the majority” to manifest in the form of online violence, creating a sharp tension between the ease of individual expression and the disorder of public discussion. While safeguarding individual freedom, people need even more to construct the rules of rational dialogue and a public sphere through deliberative democracy, in order to prevent freedom from being alienated into boundless arbitrariness. The true historical unity of democracy and freedom is the organic integration of particular interests and universal interests, ensuring that freedom does not degenerate into willfulness and democracy is not alienated into majority tyranny. Under the guidance of the vision of a “community of free individuals,” this will truly resolve the contradictions between people, between people and society, and between people and nature, thereby achieving lasting social harmony and the genuine liberation of humanity at a higher level.

最后，民主与自由的历史统一蕴含着对人类解放与文明进阶的本质诉求，是全人类共同的理想旨归，遵循历史演进与形态嬗变的内在规律。马克思恩格斯在《德意志意识形态》中预见了“真正的共同体”中阶级隶属关系的消亡，并在《共产党宣言》中正式提出“每个人的自由发展是一切人的自由发展的条件”，将个体自由与集体民主内在联结，打破了二者非此即彼的对立思维。在社交媒体时代，数字技术为个体自由表达提供了前所未有的平台，但也使“多数人的暴政”以网络暴力的形式显现，个体表达的便捷化与公共讨论的失序化形成鲜明张力。人们在保障个体自由的同时，更需通过协商性民主构建理性对话的规则与公共领域，以防范自由异化为无边界的恣意。民主与自由真正的历史统一，是特殊利益与普遍利益的有机融合，使自由不沦为任性妄为，使民主不异化为多数专制，进而在“自由人联合体”构想的指引下，真正解决人与人、人与社会、人与自然之间的矛盾，从而在更高层次上实现社会的持久和谐与人类的真正解放。

(2) The Characteristic of Dynamic Generation of the Common Values of All Humanity

（二）全人类共同价值的动态生成特征

The “whole of social life is essentially practical.” This active, historical practical activity constitutes the realistic soil from which the common values of all humanity are generated and developed. In the historical evolution of human practice, the common values of all humanity originate from the overlapping consensus and collective wisdom condensed by different civilizations in responding to the challenges of survival and development, adjusting social relations, and exploring the meaning of existence. They continuously absorb intellectual nourishment from diverse civilizational forms, constantly enriching their own theoretical connotations in dynamic evolution. It is precisely this common value, rooted in practice and tempered and integrated within practice, that provides the key value guidance for responding to global challenges, transcending civilizational estrangement and ideological opposition, guiding humanity to seek harmonious coexistence amid civilizational diversity, and moving toward a higher form of civilization in a shared destiny.

人类的“全部社会生活在本质上是实践的”，这一能动的、历史性的实践活动，构成了全人类共同价值得以生成与发展的现实土壤。在人类实践的历史演进中，全人类共同价值源于不同文明应对生存发展挑战、调适社会关系、探寻存在意义所凝聚的重叠性共识与集体智慧，又持续从多元文明形态中汲取思想养分，在动态演进中不断丰富自身理论内涵。正是这种植根实践、在实践中淬炼交融的共性价值，为应对全球性挑战、超越文明隔阂与意识形态对立提供了关键价值引导，引领人类在文明多样性中寻求和谐共生，在命运与共中迈向更高阶的文明形态。

In the dimension of time, the common values of all mankind are the product of the combination of traditional civilizational wisdom and the practical demands of modernity. Traditional wisdom, through dialogue, selection, and transformation in historical continuity, provides deeply resourceful intellectual foundations and cultural roots for addressing contemporary problems, while modern practice endows these ancient concepts with vivid contemporary connotations and profound practical significance. The Chinese civilizational idea of "the unity of Heaven and humanity" (天人合一), originating from the cosmological view of "Heaven and Earth in dense interaction, the myriad things in pure transformation" (天地氤氲，万物化醇) in the *Book of Changes*, deepened through the Daoist ecological wisdom of "the Way emulates what is natural" (道法自然), and expanded into the Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucian [19]19 The Cheng-Zhu school (程朱理学), named after philosophers Cheng Yi, Cheng Hao, and Zhu Xi, was the dominant orthodox Neo-Confucian school during the Song and Ming dynasties, emphasizing the investigation of things (*gewu*) to fathom principle (*li*). ethic of "the benevolent person forms one body with Heaven, Earth, and the myriad things" (仁者与天地万物为一体), ultimately gave shape to an Eastern ecological philosophy. When this traditional ecological philosophy rooted in Chinese civilization integrated with the ecological view that nature is humanity's "inorganic body," it gave rise, against the real-world backdrop of the global ecological crisis, to the contemporary consensus on ecological governance that "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets" (绿水青山就是金山银山), thereby completing a creative transformation from classical idea to modern practice.

在时间维度上，全人类共同价值是传统文明智慧与现代实践需求相结合的产物。传统智慧在历史连续性中历经对话、筛选与转化，为应对当代问题提供了底蕴深厚的思想资源与文化根基，而现代实践则赋予这些古老理念以鲜活的时代内涵与深刻的现实意义。中华文明的“天人合一”思想，发轫于《周易》“天地氤氲，万物化醇”的宇宙观，深化于道家“道法自然”的生态智慧，拓展为程朱理学“仁者与天地万物为一体”的伦理观，最终形成了东方生态哲学。当这一植根于中华文明的传统生态哲学，与自然界是“人的无机的身体”的生态观相融合，在全球生态危机的现实背景下，便衍生出“绿水青山就是金山银山”的当代生态治理共识，从而完成了从古典理念到现代实践的创造性转化。

In the spatial perspective, the common values of all mankind possess a distinct character of interactivity and constructiveness, being the product of gradual condensation and dynamic sublimation in the course of sustained and deep civilizational dialogue and practical integration. Cultural subjects, while adhering to their national "roots" (根脉), maintain an open and inclusive stance, revealing the essence that the particularity of national culture is a unique manifestation of the commonality of human culture—the two complement each other and coexist as an integrated whole. As Mao Zedong stated, national culture "is the culture of our nation, bearing the characteristics of our nation. It unites with the socialist culture and new-democratic culture of all other nations to establish a relationship of mutual absorption and mutual development, jointly forming the new culture of the world." [20]20 From Mao Zedong’s essay "On New Democracy" (1940). The historical Silk Road provided an important field for different civilizations to collide in values, mutually learn from ideas, and spiritually integrate, interpreting through concrete practice the idea that the more a culture is national, the more it is international. On the one hand, Chinese papermaking, transmitted to Europe by Arab merchants, relied on its own cheap and practical qualities to revolutionize traditional local writing methods, laying the key material foundation for the Renaissance and the Reformation, and directly pushing Europe into a new stage of knowledge popularization. On the other hand, after the Eastern transmission of Central Asian *hu* music, while adhering to the local characteristics of its rhythmic patterns and instrument forms, it intermingled and interacted with the five-note system and ritual-music concepts of traditional Chinese music, giving rise to the musical and dance forms of Tang Dynasty *yanyue* (燕乐), [21]21 *Yanyue* (燕乐), or "banquet music," was a genre of courtly entertainment music during the Tang Dynasty that incorporated musical elements from Central Asia, India, and other regions along the Silk Road. which possessed both exotic melodies and Chinese musical theory. Different civilizations interacted fully across time and space, absorbing each other while adhering to their own "roots," allowing regional wisdom to break through limitations, interconnect and merge, sublimate into the spiritual wealth shared by all mankind, and expand the developmental space of human civilization.

在空间视角中，全人类共同价值具有鲜明的交互性与构建性，是在持续深入的文明对话与实践融合中逐渐凝练、动态升华的产物。文化主体在坚守民族“根脉”的同时保持开放包容的姿态，揭示了民族文化特殊性作为人类文化共通性之独特呈现的本质，二者相辅相成、一体共生。正如毛泽东所言，民族文化“是我们这个民族的，带有我们民族的特性。它同一切别的民族的社会主义文化和新民主主义文化相联合，建立互相吸收和互相发展的关系，共同形成世界的新文化”。历史上的丝绸之路为不同文明提供了价值碰撞、理念互鉴与精神融通的重要场域，以具体实践诠释了文化越是民族的越是世界的这一理念。一方面，中国造纸术经阿拉伯商人传入欧洲，凭借自身廉价实用的特质，革新了当地传统书写模式，为文艺复兴、宗教改革奠定关键物质基础，直接推动欧洲迈入知识普及新阶段；另一方面，中亚胡乐东传后，坚守其节奏韵律与乐器形制的本土特色，与中国传统音乐的五音体系、礼乐理念交融互摄，催生出唐代燕乐中异域旋律与中式乐理兼具的乐舞形态。不同文明跨越时空充分互动，在坚守自身“根脉”的前提下彼此吸纳，让地域性智慧突破局限、互通共融，升华为人类共享的精神财富，开拓人类文明的发展空间。

Modernization is a universal trend in the development of human society, referring to the paradigmatic transition from traditional agricultural civilization to modern industrial civilization. The West underwent a "serial" (串联式) gradual development path spanning several hundred years, while China achieved historical development in a span of a hundred years through "parallel" (并联式) leapfrogging. This characteristic of temporal compression allows China both to perceive the successes and failures of developed countries and to understand the development dilemmas of late-developing countries, endowing the common values of all mankind with a macro-perspective that observes global development differences. At the same time, Chinese modernization possesses both the heritage of inland civilization and the characteristics of maritime civilization. In recent years, through the Belt and Road Initiative, it has linked land and sea, connecting East and West, continuing the spatial interactive tradition of civilizational mutual learning since the opening of the Silk Road. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasizes: "There is no single model of modernization that is set in stone, nor any standard of modernization that is universally applicable." [22]22 From Xi Jinping’s keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the Party Dialogue of the Communist Party of China and World Political Parties, December 1, 2017. Chinese-path modernization, through its entirely new practice, has broken the myth of "modernization equals Westernization," constructing a compatible and pluralistic value discourse system. It provides a demonstrative Chinese approach for the common values of all mankind to transcend Western "universal values," and further manifests their practical significance and profound value in addressing global challenges and凝聚 (coalescing) human consensus.

现代化是人类社会发展的普遍趋势，意指传统农业文明向现代工业文明转型的范式跃迁。西方走了数百年“串联式”渐进发展之路，而中国在百年间以“并联式”跨越实现了历史性发展。这种时间压缩特质，让中国既能洞察发达国家的成败得失，也能体察后发国家的发展困境，赋予了全人类共同价值观照全球发展差异的宏观格局。同时，中国现代化兼具内陆文明底蕴与海洋文明特质，近年来通过“一带一路”倡议联动陆海、贯通东西，延续了丝绸之路开通以来文明互鉴的空间交互传统。习近平总书记强调：“世界上既不存在定于一尊的现代化模式，也不存在放之四海而皆准的现代化标准。”中国式现代化以全新实践打破了“现代化=西方化”的迷思，构建起兼容多元的价值话语体系，为全人类共同价值超越西方“普世价值”提供了具有示范意义的中国方案，更彰显出其在应对全球挑战、凝聚人类共识中的现实意义与深远价值。

III. The Dialectics of Cultural Diversity and Unity

三、文化多样性与统一性的辩证法

Engels once pointed out that "for the same or approximately the same stage of economic development, moral theories must of necessity be more or less in agreement." [23]23 From Friedrich Engels, *Anti-Dühring* (1878), Part I, Chapter X, "Morality and Law. Eternal Truths". When different nations are at similar levels of development of the productive forces, the value orientations formed in their material production and social interactions will inevitably possess isomorphism. This consistency is not a denial of cultural differences but an emphasis on the historical specificity of value consensus. Theoretical thinking is a "product of history"; the content and form of common values must also change with the development of the times, and their universality is always determined by historical conditions.

恩格斯曾经指出，“对同样的或差不多同样的经济发展阶段来说，道德论必然是或多或少地互相一致的”。不同民族处于相近的生产力发展水平时，其在物质生产、社会交往中形成的价值取向必然具有同构性。这种一致性不是对文化差异的否定，而是强调价值共识的历史具体性。理论思维是“历史的产物”，共同价值的内容与形式也必然随着时代的发展而变化，而其普遍性也始终被历史条件所决定着。

(1) Adhering to the Cultural Principle of "Beauty in Diversity, Shared in Harmony" (美美与共)

（一）恪守“美美与共”的文化原则

Throughout the long river of human history, various nations, relying on their own survival practices and cultural accumulation, have created distinctive and marked civilizational achievements. Cultural diversity has thus become the most authentic face of world civilization. The advance of economic globalization has broken down the geographical barriers and cognitive walls between different civilizations, allowing them to intermingle and mutually enhance each other in deep interaction. Fei Xiaotong once outlined the ideal picture of exchange and mutual learning among human civilizations with the phrase: "Each appreciates its own beauty; appreciate the beauty of others; beauty in diversity, shared in harmony, leads to the Great Unity under Heaven" (各美其美，美人之美，美美与共，天下大同). [24]24 Fei Xiaotong (1910–2005) was a pioneering Chinese sociologist and anthropologist. The phrase, often abbreviated as "美美与共, 天下大同," was proposed by Fei in the 1990s to describe an ideal of cultural harmony through mutual appreciation. Since entering the New Era, General Secretary Xi Jinping, standing at the height of the development of human civilization, has made systematic expositions on the relationship between cultural diversity and the common values of all mankind, constituting an important part of Xi Jinping Thought on Culture. [25]25 Xi Jinping Thought on Culture (习近平文化思想) was formally established as a guiding ideology of the CPC at the National Conference on Propaganda and Cultural Work in October 2023. General Secretary Xi Jinping points out: "Promoting the exchange,交融 (intermingling), and mutual learning of various human civilizations is the only way to make the world more beautiful and the lives of people in all countries better." [26]26 From Xi Jinping’s speech at the opening ceremony of the UNESCO Headquarters, March 27, 2014. This exposition clarifies that diversity provides a rich experiential soil for common values, while common values provide direction for the development of diversity, jointly driving the continuous evolution of human civilization.

人类历史长河中，各民族依托自身的生存实践与文化积淀，创造出各具特色、标识鲜明的文明成果，文化多样性由此成为世界文明最本真的面貌。经济全球化浪潮的推进打破了不同文明的地理隔阂与认知壁垒，使其在深度互动中相互交融、彼此成就。费孝通曾以“各美其美，美人之美，美美与共，天下大同”勾勒了人类文明交流互鉴的理想图景。进入新时代以来，习近平总书记站在人类文明发展的高度，对文化多样性与全人类共同价值的关系作出了系统论述，构成了习近平文化思想的重要内容。习近平总书记指出：“推进人类各种文明交流交融、互学互鉴，是让世界变得更加美丽、各国人民生活得更加美好的必由之路。”这一论述明确了多样性为共同价值提供丰富的经验土壤，而共同价值则为多样性的发展指引方向，二者共同推动着人类文明不断向前演进。

On the one hand, cultural diversity provides cultural nourishment for the generation of the common values of all mankind. "Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past." [27]27 From Karl Marx, *The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte* (1852). Culture, as the spiritual product of human practice, is essentially the conceptual representation of the plurality of social practice. The crystallized wisdom formed by different nations in coping with survival challenges and maintaining social life constitutes a rich repository of material for value innovation. When this local knowledge collides with the universal interaction of globalization, each nation, through rational reflection and value selection, will strip away and sublimate the universally significant value core within it, thereby integrating it into the system of common values of all mankind. This dialectical movement from the particular to the universal confirms Engels's thesis that "all moral theories in the past are, in the final analysis, a product of the economic conditions of their respective times," [28]28 A paraphrase of Engels's argument in *Anti-Dühring*, Part I, Chapter X. preserving not only the differences in cultural characteristics but also achieving the universal elevation of value connotations. Different civilizational achievements, intermingling on a practical basis, make common values the inevitable product of the interaction of diverse cultures in the process of human social development. On the other hand, the common values of all mankind provide a normative framework for the development of cultural diversity. As the conceptual condensation of human historical practice, the common values of all mankind are deeply rooted in concrete practical activities such as material production and social interaction. They are value consensuses gradually formed by humanity on the basis of common interests and needs under the premise of transforming the world and seeking development, profoundly reflecting humanity's universal pursuit of an ideal social order.

一方面，文化多样性为全人类共同价值的生成提供了文化滋养。“人们自己创造自己的历史，但他们是在既定的、制约着他们的环境中，是在现有的现实关系的基础上进行创造的”。文化作为人类实践的精神产物，本质上是社会实践多元性的观念呈现。不同民族在应对生存挑战、维系社会生活中形成的智慧结晶，构成了价值创新的丰富素材。当这些地方性知识与全球化的普遍交往相碰撞时，各民族会经过理性反思与价值筛选，将其中具有普遍意义的价值内核进行剥离、升华，从而融入全人类共同价值体系之中。这种从特殊到普遍的辩证运动，印证了恩格斯所说的“一切以往的道德论归根到底都是当时的社会经济状况的产物”的论断，不仅保留了文化特质的差异性，而且实现了价值内涵的普遍性提升。不同的文明成果在实践基础上相互交融，使得共同价值成为人类社会发展进程中多元文化相互作用的必然产物。另一方面，全人类共同价值为文化多样性的发展提供了规范框架。作为人类历史实践的观念凝结，全人类共同价值深深植根于物质生产、社会交往等具体实践活动，是人类在改造世界、谋求发展的前提下，基于共同利益与需求逐渐形成的价值共识，深刻反映着人类对理想社会秩序的普遍性追求。

In essence, economic globalization makes the challenges faced by humanity increasingly common. This requires us, while adhering to cultural diversity, to consciously maintain cultural commonality; within the unity of civilizational commonality and individuality, of cultural nationality and universality, to use common values to coalesce consensus for addressing global challenges, to cherish the wisdom of national cultures and promote its role in global governance. We must, based on cultural subjectivity, realize the contemporary transformation of fine traditional Chinese culture, ultimately achieving the pluralistic coexistence and harmonious development of human civilization, and truly interpreting the civilizational development vision of "beauty in diversity, shared in harmony, leads to the Great Unity under Heaven."

质言之，经济全球化使人类面临的挑战趋于共性，这就要求我们在坚守文化多样性的同时又自觉维系文化共同性，在文明共性与个性、文化民族性与世界性的统一中，以共同价值凝聚应对全球性挑战的共识，珍视民族文化智慧并推动其在全球治理中发挥作用。我们要立足于文化主体性，实现中华优秀传统文化的时代转化，最终达成人类文明的多元共生与和谐发展，真正诠释“美美与共，天下大同”的文明发展图景。

(2) Guarding Against Two Kinds of Extreme Cultural Mindsets

（二）警惕两种极端文化心态

Humanity has only one Earth, and therefore humanity has only one common future. Proceeding from a highly responsible attitude toward the future and destiny of the human race, we must consciously guard against two tendencies: cultural relativism and cultural hegemonism. These two tendencies, ostensibly opposed to each other, together weave the complex picture of the value crisis of modernity, creating a dual obstacle to the healthy development of cultural diversity and the common progress of human civilization.

人类只有一个地球，人类也因此只有一个共同的未来。本着对人类前途命运高度负责的态度，我们要自觉警惕文化相对主义与文化霸权主义这两种倾向。二者看似彼此对立，实则共同编织出了现代性价值危机的复杂图景，对文化多样性的健康发展与人类文明的共同进步造成了双重阻碍。

Cultural relativism often uses respect for cultural differences as a pretext to provide a rationalization for backward cultural phenomena. Historical materialism reveals this profoundly: “The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.” [29]29 This is a direct quotation of Marx’s 1859 Preface to *A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy*. It can thus be seen that the root of such cultural phenomena lies in the residual forces of feudal land ownership, which, through the form of cultural conservatism, safeguard the economic privileges of a minority of exploiting classes. In the context of economic globalization, although cultural relativism is sometimes used by marginalized groups as a shield against external intervention, its negative effects cannot be ignored. It suppresses the internal impetus for self-renewal within cultures, imprisoning vulnerable groups in the shackles of “cultural fatalism.” To break this deadlock, it is necessary to take historical materialism as a guide, clarify the intrinsic connection between cultural phenomena and the economic base, and, while cherishing cultural diversity, create the material preconditions for cultural transformation by reforming unreasonable economic relations, thereby promoting the creative transformation of traditional culture into modern civilization.

文化相对主义往往以尊重文化差异为幌子，为落后文化现象提供合理化辩护。历史唯物主义对此作出深刻揭示：“物质生活的生产方式制约着整个社会生活、政治生活和精神生活的过程。不是人们的意识决定人们的存在，相反，是人们的社会存在决定人们的意识。”可见此类文化现象的根源，在于封建土地所有制的残余势力通过文化保守主义形式，维护少数剥削阶级的经济特权。在经济全球化语境下，文化相对主义虽有时被边缘群体用作抵御外部干预的盾牌，但其负面效应也不容忽视。它抑制了文化内部的自我革新动力，将弱势群体禁锢于“文化宿命论”的枷锁之中。破解这一困局，需要以历史唯物主义为指引，厘清文化现象与经济基础的内在关联，在珍视文化多样性的同时，通过变革不合理的经济关系为文化转型创造物质前提，进而推动传统文化向现代文明实现创造性转化。

In contrast, cultural hegemonism, holding high the banner of the “theory of civilizational superiority,” carefully packages the values of a particular country or civilization as “universal values” and forcibly exports them. In the colonial era, Western powers hypocritically proclaimed the lofty mission of spreading civilization, trumpeting bourgeois ideas as an unassailable standard of conduct and forcing colonial peoples to passively accept them, but in the end, this could not conceal their ugly intentions of seizing the interests of other countries and enslaving people of other ethnicities. In the post-colonial era, cultural hegemony has been perpetuated through international organizations and the export of cultural products. In today’s digital age, this hegemonic penetration has become even more covert; algorithmic recommendation mechanisms, under the guise of “user preferences,” tacitly treat Western consumerist culture as a global norm, further eroding the space for the survival and development of cultural diversity.

与之相对，文化霸权主义则高举着“文明优越论”的旗帜，将特定国家或文明的价值观精心包装为“普世价值”，并进行强行输出。殖民时代，西方列强虚伪地标榜传播文明的崇高使命，将资产阶级观念吹嘘成不可违背的行为标尺，强迫殖民地民众被动接受，但终究掩盖不了其霸占他国利益、奴役异族民众的丑恶企图。后殖民时代，又借由国际组织、文化产品输出等方式延续文化霸权。在当今数字时代，这种霸权渗透更为隐蔽，算法推荐机制借“用户偏好”之名，将西方消费主义文化默认为全球通行准则，进一步消解着文化多样性的生存与发展空间。

We should uphold the dialectical thinking of Marxism to establish a rational boundary for cultural differences. The vitality of culture stems from its dynamic reflection of the mode of production and social structure of a specific historical stage; differences cannot be absolutized outside their concrete context, nor can abstract universality erase cultural subjectivity and diversity. This means resolutely opposing cultural conservatism that clings to backward systems and outdated ideas under the pretext of maintaining tradition, while forcefully resisting cultural colonization disguised as “universal values.” On this basis, we should build a platform for equal dialogue among global civilizations and forge a value consensus to address global challenges, seeking “commonalities within differences, similarities within disparities” [30]30 This is a classical Chinese expression (*shu zhong zhi gong, yi zhong zhi tong*) used by the author to formulate a dialectical approach to difference and commonality. on the basis of the common interests of humanity, providing a lasting spiritual driving force for humanity to meet shared challenges and achieve the continuous development of civilization, and thereby promoting the ongoing renewal of the form of human civilization.

我们应秉持马克思主义的辩证思维，为文化差异确立合理性边界。文化的生命力源于对特定历史阶段生产方式、社会结构的能动反映，不能脱离具体语境将差异绝对化，亦不能以抽象普遍性抹杀文化主体性与多样性。这意味着要坚决反对借维系传统之名固守落后制度与陈腐观念的文化保守主义，同时强力抵制以“普世价值”为幌子的文化殖民行径。在此基础上，构建全球文明平等对话平台、凝聚应对全球性挑战的价值共识，于人类共同利益基点上寻求“殊中之共、异中之同”，为人类应对共同挑战、实现文明赓续发展提供持久精神动力，进而推动人类文明形态的持续更新。

Whether it is Marx and Engels’ ideal vision of the “association of free individuals” [31]31 The phrase “association of free individuals” (*freie Assoziation der Menschen* or *Verein freier Menschen*) appears in Marx’s *Capital* and Engels’ *Anti-Dühring*; it is their vision of post-capitalist society. or General Secretary Xi Jinping’s contemporary initiative of the common values of all humanity, all manifest the close connection between humanity’s unremitting pursuit of community and the protection of cultural diversity. The historical practice of human modernization shows that the identification with common values is neither the passive entrenchment of cultural relativism nor the coercive imposition of universalism; rather, it must rely on the practical processes of economic symbiosis, political mutual trust, and cultural mutual learning. General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out, “Civilizations become richer through exchange and mutual learning, and such exchange and mutual learning provide an important source of inspiration for humanity’s progress.” [32]32 The quotation is from Xi Jinping’s speech at the UNESCO Headquarters, March 27, 2014. At a time of profound transformation in the global governance system, forging common values on the basis of respecting cultural diversity is both an ethical demand for maintaining the ecological balance of civilizations and a practical necessity for building a fair and just international order. We acknowledge the eternity of differences, but we are not confined by them; we pursue the universality of values, but we avoid falling into the quagmire of universalism. Only in this way can humanity, on the fertile soil of cultural diversity, cultivate flowers of common values that nourish the sustainable development of civilization.

无论是马克思恩格斯“自由人联合体”的理想擘画，还是习近平总书记全人类共同价值的时代倡议，无不彰显着人类对共同体的不懈追求与守护文化多样性的紧密关联。人类现代化的历史实践表明，共同价值的认同既非文化相对主义的消极固守，亦非普世主义的强制推行，而需依托于经济共生、政治互信与文化互鉴的实践进程。习近平总书记指出，“文明因多样而交流，因交流而互鉴，因互鉴而发展”。在全球治理体系深刻变革的当下，在尊重文化多样性的基础上凝聚共同价值观，是维护文明生态平衡的伦理诉求，亦是构建公平正义国际秩序的现实所需。我们承认差异的永恒性，但又不囿于差异；追求价值的普遍性，但又避免陷入普遍主义泥淖。唯有如此，人类才能在文化多样性的丰沃土壤中，培育出滋养文明永续发展的共同价值之花。