issue 147 跪求高人指点！

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There is much debate over whether tradion 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 puresuit 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 contracdictory, which is true in a sense. Modernization, a popular yet vague term, is generally understood as "Westernization", which means individualist, rights-based democracy, captalism, and technological imperatives. Meanwhile, tradition comprises the whole complex of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features and characterize a specific society or a social group. It includes not only the art and letters, but also modes of life, the value system and beliefs of the indigenous people. In this sense, it is only natual 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 detructive and painful progress. Where modernization marches on, we often see traditionla 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 society -overcrowding; slum formation; breakdown of culture, community, and family; isolation of social and age group, 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 traditon of each country, since it is an all-encompassing processlinked to each society's own values and calling for an active participation of individuals nad groups who are both the author 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 wil be lost in the process of modernization. Yet any external experience, technique or model cannot be succesfully integrated by mere adopting or reproduction; it needs to be reinterpreted or reinvented in such a way that it can be absored though the filter of the society's cultural identity and value system. In other words, any traditional society, if is aims at sustainable development, should endeavor to maintain a mutually enriching relationship between the external modernization and the internal tradition.