The unique accumulation of culture requires editors to continuously spread the research results of scientific frontiers and gradually accumulate scientific knowledge.
The consciousness of cultural accumulation is an important idea guiding editing activities, and cultural accumulation has practical significance at any time.
Editorial activities have two important functions, one is information dissemination, and the other is cultural accumulation. For editing activities, cultural accumulation includes information accumulation. Information accumulation is the premise of cultural accumulation, and cultural accumulation is the inevitable result of information accumulation. Without information accumulation, there will be no cultural accumulation, but information accumulation is not cultural accumulation, because information accumulation has certain fuzziness, uncertainty, randomness and poor stability. In contrast, cultural accumulation is relatively stable because of its clarity, certainty and constancy. Cultural accumulation is based on information accumulation, which is the accumulation and sublimation of information accumulation. There is a time difference between information accumulation and cultural accumulation, that is, cultural accumulation always lags behind information accumulation. This time difference is independent of human will, because the value of information needs time to test. For example, even the achievements that won the Nobel Prize were proved to have no real scientific value after a period of time, and thus were eliminated in the process of cultural accumulation.
The transition from information accumulation to cultural accumulation is a dynamic process of eliminating the false and retaining the true and selecting the best. In this process, the editor plays an extremely important role and plays an extremely important role. As a gatekeeper, an editor must make an accurate evaluation of the value of information, so as to decide the choice. Therefore, the editor is the information accumulator first. Editors should establish the awareness of cultural accumulation, because this awareness is of guiding significance to the final completion of information accumulation and even cultural accumulation. Editors who have no awareness of cultural accumulation can't accumulate information well.
Under the influence of cultural accumulation consciousness, editors can more clearly and actively establish the dominant position, enhance the initiative of editing activities, and thus better complete the organic unity of information accumulation and cultural accumulation. Specifically, the editor's awareness of cultural accumulation can be manifested in the following aspects.
First, the positive spirit of cultural intervention.
The editor's duty is to organize and process other people's works, so as to spread them effectively. Marriage for others and obscure dedication are determined by the professional characteristics of editors. But this is only a superficial form. The fundamental nature of editing profession is that he is an indispensable and decisive intervener in scientific and cultural activities, and he directly participates in and influences the construction process of human culture. If we regard human culture as a magnificent building, then the editor is the designer of this building; If human cultural activities are regarded as a magnificent historical drama, then the editor is the planner of this historical drama. Isn't that a little too much? No, it's true. The core of editing "six arts" is topic selection and submission, but isn't topic selection and submission cultural design? Isn't the cultural framework built by a series of books and an album the result of editing, design and planning? Selecting topics and soliciting contributions is the most direct means for editors to intervene in culture, which most profoundly reflects editors' macro conception and grasp of scientific and cultural projects.
The spirit of cultural involvement shown by editors in selecting topics is the embodiment of editors' awareness of cultural accumulation (note that the topics mentioned here do not include those low-style topics chosen to cater to the vulgar tastes of some audiences). What to choose or not to choose, its fundamental criterion is to see whether the topic will produce good social benefits, so it has cultural accumulation value. The value of cultural accumulation plays a guiding role in improving the level of editing topics. With this awareness, editors will choose topics and assemble manuscripts with positive cultural intervention spirit, and build a good cultural system.
Editors' spirit of cultural intervention is not only manifested in topic selection and contribution collection, but also in cultural orientation. Cultural orientation is of great significance at any time. Human culture is a mixture of good jade and bad jade. Editors are often impacted by harmful cultures such as "yellow culture" and "black culture". For the progress of human spiritual civilization, editors must resist those harmful cultures, which requires guidance. This orientation is manifested in not providing a garden for harmful culture to spread and grow, and actively supporting and cultivating excellent culture. It should be noted that although harmful cultures sometimes appear "best sellers" and "high box office", they will eventually be eliminated because they fundamentally violate the interests of the people and have no cultural accumulation value. Regrettably, some of our editorial colleagues lack the awareness of cultural accumulation, fail to play the correct role of cultural orientation, go with the flow, and provide a market for harmful culture, which is heartbreaking.
Editorial orientation is also manifested in editors' efforts to improve the value of scientific culture. A book published by a publishing house is out of standard, and a paper published by a journal is of low quality, which will have a bad influence on readers and reduce the level of cultural accumulation. Therefore, editors must strictly control the quality of manuscripts, strictly implement article standards, and adhere to the principle of "emphasizing quality and lightweight" in order to improve the level of cultural accumulation.
Second, a rigorous and meticulous scientific attitude.
Cultural accumulation needs a rigorous and meticulous scientific attitude, which includes two meanings: on the one hand, those cultural achievements with real value should be quickly input into the social and cultural communication system to make them become human cultural accumulation; On the other hand, it is necessary to eliminate those worthless cultural dross in order to purify cultural accumulation.
Beveridge, a scientific expert, pointed out in his book The Art of Scientific Research: "We all have a psychological tendency to resist new ideas from outside, just as we have a psychological tendency to resist unconventional manners and clothes." Cultural accumulation is an endless metabolic process of old and new cultures, and seeking novelty and difference is the foundation of cultural accumulation. However, people's inherent inertia often makes things that are unconventional and have real value unrecognized and excluded from the doors of periodicals or publishing houses, thus greatly delaying the progress of human civilization. There are many examples of this. For example, 1955, Jarraud's paper Antibodies to Insulin was rejected by the famous American magazine Science, and later by the Journal of Clinical Medicine. It is such a scientific research achievement that has been repeatedly rejected, but it won the Nobel Prize 22 years later and gained worldwide recognition. The enjoyment of this scientific research achievement has been delayed for 22 years! On the contrary, although some scientific research achievements have been ignored by people for various reasons, they have been edited into books in time and incisively because of their critical vision. For example, Mendel, an Austrian, engaged in pea hybridization experiments for many years, summed up two basic laws of heredity, the separation and free combination of genetic factors, and announced his discovery at a scientific conference in 1865, but it did not attract attention at that time. However, due to the discerning eye of the conference editor, Mendel's paper "Experiment of Plant Hybridization" was published in the annual journal of the Austrian Natural Science Society, so that Mendel's scientific research achievements were finally discovered and recognized by later generations, and he was recognized as the founder of genetics.
The problem to be emphasized here is that editors need to identify fakes with a rigorous and meticulous scientific attitude in cultural accumulation. Pseudoscience and pseudoculture will bring great harm to human civilization, so we must expose them mercilessly and never let them enter the process of cultural accumulation. Editors' rigorous and meticulous scientific attitude is also reflected in editing and processing. The purpose of editing and processing is to make information orderly and carrier, which is convenient for information dissemination and cultural accumulation. To this end, we must strive to eliminate all mistakes. "The grass firefly has light, but it is not fire. Although the lotus dew is round, is it a bead? " . Editors should have such consciousness when processing manuscripts, that is, they must never let fallacies and heresies spread in my hands, so as to mislead future generations. There are many examples of editing and correcting errors. For example, there is an article that says "using white ash to make iron to achieve high quality and high yield". How to make iron with white ash? Only iron ore can be used for ironmaking, and white ash can only be used as flux. This sentence should be changed to: "Use white ash as flux to make iron with high quality and high yield". Otherwise, people will think that a new process has been invented in ironmaking production. For another example, "this kind of ore has low sulfur content and will definitely produce high-quality pig iron." There are many factors affecting the smelting of high-quality pig iron, which require not only low sulfur content, but also low phosphorus content, high iron powder, good coke quality and corresponding blast furnace operation technology. Obviously, it is one-sided and incorrect to think that high-quality pig iron can be refined with low sulfur. If the above two conditions are not modified, it will lead to misinformation of ironmaking technology. For sci-tech editors, any mistakes in decimal points, symbols and formulas may lead to serious consequences.
The editor's rigorous and meticulous scientific spirit is also the embodiment of the editor's subjective spirit. Without this spirit, editors will lose their dominant position in cultural construction. Adhering to this spirit can eliminate all kinds of interference and fully realize the editor's self-value in the process of cultural accumulation.
Third, find talents and cultivate talents.
Talent is an important part of cultural accumulation. The history of human civilization is inseparable from the names of these stars: Socrates, Plato, Kant, Hegel, Copernicus, Mendel, Galileo, Newton, Harvey, Columbus, Kong Qiu, Qu Yuan, Li Bai, Du Fu, Einstein, Zu Chongzhi, Li Shizhen, Marx, Lenin, Mao Zedong, Guo Moruo, Lu Xun ... Many of them are not just editors. Planck, editor of physics magazine, discovered Einstein and his theory of relativity. In the 1920s, Zong Baihua, editor of Deng Xue, the supplement of Shanghai Practical News, discovered Guo Moruo. Isn't this a positive cultural accumulation? In the literary world, a person has been repeatedly rejected, occasionally found and strongly supported by editors, and there are countless examples of overnight fame, which are often passed down as anecdotes. However, if we look at the rejection of several Nobel Prize winners, we will feel that such "anecdotes" are still less good! Bernard Shaw's rejected work is his masterpiece Man and Superman. The editor who rejected the manuscript said, "He (Bernard Shaw) will never become a popular writer in the eyes of ordinary people." Hemingway's rejected work is a collection of short stories, Spring Tide. The rejection said: "If this book is published, we will not only be considered as having poor taste, but even be considered extremely cruel." Gauldin's masterpiece Lord of the Flies was initially rejected because: "You failed to successfully develop potential ideas." We have every reason to think, are there any outstanding figures in the history of human culture buried forever because of our editing? Isn't this the loss that editors have caused to human culture?
Without people, there is no culture. Man is the creator of culture. To discover a person is to discover a valuable cultural phenomenon. To find a person is to find the motivation to create. Periodicals, newspapers, publishing houses, radio stations and television stations are all gardens for discovering and cultivating people. Through these media, a large number of outstanding talents have emerged and been recognized by the society. Editors have an important responsibility in discovering and cultivating talents, especially those future talents who are still young but have great potential, which can better reflect the cultural accumulation function of editors.
Editor's talent consciousness is an indispensable part of cultural accumulation consciousness. Editors who pay special attention to well-known authors and despise unknown authors are most likely to bury outstanding talents, thus bringing losses to cultural creation and accumulation.
Fourth, pay attention to cutting-edge selection.
The cutting-edge choice of editors has positive cultural accumulation value. The quality of choice determines the quality of cultural accumulation. The unique accumulation of culture requires editors to continuously spread the research results of scientific frontiers and gradually accumulate scientific knowledge. In this process, repeating the old theoretical knowledge in a simple sense has no cultural accumulation value. Only those exploratory and first-time theories can accumulate cultural value. Therefore, when an editor makes a cutting-edge selection of a paper, it depends on the extent to which it is repeating the old theory. If the old theory dominates, it means that the paper is not in the forefront, so there is no cultural accumulation value.
Without cutting-edge choice, there will be no cultural accumulation. Of course, not all frontier choices have cultural accumulation value. In frontier selection, only those theories that have been proved to be correct by practice have cultural accumulation value. Cultural accumulation is manifested in the filtration and screening of scientific frontiers. It is purification and rectification, not hodgepodge and chaos. For example, the concept of "ether" rooted in ancient Greece has long dominated people's academic thinking. In order to believe in its existence, people do not hesitate to give it many inexplicable guesses. When the fluctuation of light is determined, most scientists think that "ether" is the medium for propagating light vibration. In this way, "ether" seems to be regarded as truth and spread. However, "ether" is illusory after all! A scientific building cannot be built in rootless air. People must confirm whether "ether" exists. In order to find the absolute static reference frame of "ether", Michelson designed an experimental device according to the guiding ideology put forward by Mequez Wei, and together with American chemist Moreri, measured the drift speed of the earth relative to "ether". At that time, the accuracy of the experiment had reached one in four billion. After five days of continuous observation around the clock, they still can't see any signs of "ether" drifting. The "zero" result of this experiment denies the existence of ether, and the concept of ether is abandoned by physics.
Border selection and cultural accumulation are interactive, they complement each other and promote each other. High-quality frontier selection improves the quality of cultural accumulation, and then pushes science to a new frontier. Copernicus's "Heliocentrism" denied Ptolemy's "geocentric theory" and greatly promoted astronomy. Kepler's three laws of planetary motion denied the unreasonable part of Copernicus's theory and pushed astronomy to a new frontier. Newton discovered the three laws of motion of objects and the law of universal gravitation, thus making classical mechanics a complete system. Einstein, on the other hand, founded the theory of relativity, which solved the problems that Newton's mechanics could not solve and pushed physics to the forefront again. This is how science progresses and develops, and this is how culture accumulates the achievements of scientific frontiers and pushes science to a new frontier.
The consciousness of cultural accumulation is an important idea guiding editing activities, which has practical significance at any time. We should firmly establish this consciousness, use it to guide our editing work and make contributions to the cultural creation and accumulation of mankind.