[Guangming Forum]

Author: Wang Jun (Professor of the School of Marxism, Wuhan University of Technology)

Recently, data released by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage showed that in 2024, the national museum received more than 1.4 billion visitors in 2024, a new record compared with 1.29 billion in 2023. As the "museum craze" continues to heat up, young people have become the main force in the audience. Taking the National Museum of China as an example, the proportion of young visitors under the age of 35 who entered the museum in 2023 and 2024 exceeded 60%.

The two-way trip between the museum and young audience is, on the one hand, because the museums that carry a profound history and long-standing culture no longer show themselves with "cold" and "serious" faces, but deeply impress the young people with various fresh and lively cultural and creative products; on the other hand, it is because the confident and self-reliant contemporary young people increasingly feel the charm of China's excellent traditional culture and feel the responsibility and obligation to understand the cultural treasures left by the "ancestors". To promote such two-way rushing to be more lasting and enthusiastic and bear more fruits, we need to take multiple measures to allow young people to shoulder the heavy responsibility in cultural heritage and development.

Cultural confidence, in short, is a full affirmation of one's own cultural value, a firm belief in one's own cultural vitality and a key role in promoting social development. Firm cultural confidence is closely related to a high degree of cultural awareness, and requires people to have a deep insight into the ins and outs of their own culture. To cultivate young people's cultural confidence is to let young people deeply understand the ideals, beliefs, patriotism and national integrity contained in Chinese civilization. With an overall grasp of the historical development and future of Chinese culture and Chinese civilization, young people can always adhere to the "soul vein" of Marxism and the "root vein" of Chinese excellent traditional culture in cultural heritage and development, and actively participate in the cause of developing advanced socialist culture, promoting revolutionary culture, and inheriting the excellent traditional Chinese culture with a high degree of consciousness and confidence.

Contemporary youth life and growth are in the rapid advancement of Chinese modernization. On the one hand, the demand for a better life has entered the "post-material era", and on the other hand, the competitive pressure of modernity has made young people "material survival anxiety". Therefore, to let young people bravely shoulder the important task of cultural heritage and development, we must first solve the survival and development problems of young people, so that young people have no worries. In 2020, Hunan girl Zhong Fangrong applied for the "unpopular major" archaeology at Peking University with high scores. After the news of her enrollment in the Dunhuang Research Institute in 2024, netizens expressed their sincere admiration. After the documentary "I Repairing Cultural Relics in the Forbidden City" became popular on the Internet, cultural relics restorationists became a hot "Internet celebrity" profession among young people. It can be seen from this that contemporary young people do not lack enthusiasm for cultural heritage and development. As long as we continue to develop the cultural and tourism industry and cultural and creative industries, create more jobs, and give "unpopular skills" more space for survival and development, we will attract more young people to consciously devote themselves to the tide of cultural heritage and development.

General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized, "We must strengthen archaeological work and historical research, so that the cultural relics collected in museums, the heritage displayed on the vast land, and the words written in ancient books will be alive, and enrich the historical and cultural nourishment of the whole society." Let cultural relics, heritage and words "live" live, which is inseparable from the empowerment of modern technology. In October 2024, a short video that popularized the principles of Dujiangyan's engineering became popular on the Internet. The video blogger vividly restored the terrain structure, protective structure and water control principles of Dujiangyan through a simulation game. Some netizens said: "I didn't understand how to learn in high school, I didn't understand how to travel to Dujiangyan, I understood how to watch the video for three minutes!" There are not one such video blogger, but a group of people. Before this, a blogger born in the 1995s became vivid and interesting in short videos, and brought a craze to learn oracle bones online. Modern information technology makes the unique charm of traditional culture more tangible and tangible. To promote the inheritance and development of China's excellent traditional culture, it is necessary to cultivate and create a large number of young talents with deep cultural heritage and understanding of modern information technology, and give wings to fly for cultural heritage and development.

Build a display stage to win attention for young people to bravely shoulder the important task of cultural heritage and development. In the fast-paced and information overloaded Internet age and digital age, attention becomes a scarce resource, and being seen means a certain degree of success. For young people, being "seeing" on the Internet means that they have gained the attention and even recognition of others; for cultural heritage and development, "seeing" means that culture has a profound charm to attract and influence others. Both youth and cultural heritage and development are eager to be seen, which determines that young people need to receive more attention and recognition when bravely shouldering the heavy responsibility of cultural heritage and development.