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Tradition and Modernization Can Be Compatible

There is much debate over whether tradition and modernization are compatible. Some people maintain that they necessarily conflict with each other, while others argue that it is possible to combine tradition and modernization in our pursuit of development. As far as I am concerned, these two forces undermine each other at times, but they can also compliment each other, if handled properly.

Most people take it for granted that modernization and tradition are contradictory, which is true in a sense. Modernization, a popular yet a vague term, is generally understood as "Westernization," which means individualist, rights-based democracy, capitalism, and technological imperatives. Meanwhile, tradition comprises the whole complex of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features that characterize a specific society or a social group. It includes not only the arts and letters, but also modes of life, the value systems and beliefs of the indigenous people. In this sense, it is only natural that modernization, as a foreign culture forced upon non-Western cultures, tends to cause damage to the tradition and arouse confrontation from the native people involved in this destructive and painful process. Where modernization marches on, we often see traditional customs disappearing, traditional value systems collapsing, traditional craftsmanship withering, and traditional ways of life disintegrating. As a result, modernization has not brought about prosperity and happiness at it promises to traditional societies. On the contrary, we are alarmed at the deterioration of the cities and disintegration of society—overcrowding; slum formation; breakdown of culture, community, and family; isolation of social and age groups, etc. —as well as the environmental destruction—water and air pollution; noise; destruction of wildlife, vegetation and land, etc.

However, if we understand modernization as sustainable development, we must believe in the necessity and possibility of synthesizing modernization and tradition. Development can only flourish where it is rooted in the culture and the tradition of each country, since it is an all-encompassing process linked to each society's own values and calling for an active participation of individuals and groups who are both the authors and the beneficiaries of it. The success of Japan and the South-East Asian "dragons," is a case in point. While espousing the free enterprise system of the western development model, these traditional societies dosed it with more than a little government control, a form of paternalism alien to the West but totally in keeping with their own traditions. In the same vein, China is confidently pushing forward its development by synthesizing modernization and tradition.

To conclude, it seems unavoidable that some traditional cultural elements will be lost in the process of modernization. Yet any external experience, technique or model cannot be successfully integrated by mere adopting or reproduction; it needs to be reinterpreted or reinvented in such a way that it can be absorbed through the filter of the society's cultural identity and value system. In other words, any traditional society, if it aims at sustainable development, should endeavor to maintain a mutually enriching relationship between the external modernization and the internal tradition.

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