Y. YANG
of different types for culture, one is a kind of culture to expand,
the other is a kind of culture to give birth to shell and cease to
grow (Fei, 1985). Youth culture belongs to the former. It firstly
is reflected in the first level and is the external appearance of
youth culture, and it is changeable. To a certain extent, this
expanding culture has a subtle inner link with the youth values.
It is usually the most important basis to observe the youth cul-
ture for the second level. Because these values are directly re-
flected the status and roles of the young in society. These val-
ues are essentially a kind of the evaluation standard and a kind
of the more solid and enduring belief that can determine a
young people to choose what kind of life form and behavior
patterns in groups to judge right and wrong, beauty and ugli-
ness, love and hate, etc. However, some ti mes they wil l be chan-
ged over time, and even be rapidly changed in a short period.
The general basis of modern youth culture is together made up
of the third level and the objective background of the period,
the social environment and the traditional cultural in which the
youth live, which also has the characteristic of change. Its trait
of rebellion means that youth who is always curious about the
new things and won’t be conformist and atavistic, recognize the
traditional and modern society by themselves and express their
ideas from their own perspective. So, a certain rebellion and de-
viation against mainstream culture will be emerged. Its rebel-
lion is fully reflected in its vanguard and emotion (Li, 1997).
Parsons believes that the youth culture is an independent cul-
tural sy stem all shared by the y oung . A different degree kind of
irresponsible youth culture has conflicts with the adult concepts
which emphasis the duty, obedience and productive labor and
youth culture stresses the uninhibited lifestyles and resists the
hopes and constraints from the adults (Huang, 1993).
Its functions From the perspective of structural functionalist,
youth culture, as a part of social consciousness, assumes some
social functions that have both positive and negative sides.
About the positive features, youth culture is necessary for the
survival of social consciousness and has made a positive con-
tribution to it. Firstly, youth culture can be beneficial to econo-
mic and social development. Then, it may create an active and
rich social life. Meanwhile, it also can promote the cultural pro-
gress, consciousness changes, and shape new values. It as well
can create a new life and form a new lifestyle. Specific to the
youth, youth culture can help the young to do the self-reali-
zation and develop the personality. It may assist them in gain-
ing recognition from groups. Besides, it also can satisfy their
divergent needs and improve the life quality and so on. About
the reverse functi on, youth culture may waste the social re-
sources, and to some extent, it increases social costs. Specific to
youth again, youth culture may make youth lose themselves,
waste money and even cause a bad motive and behavior. Then,
from the perspective of structural functionalist, youth culture
lets young people have their own culture, helps them to have
self-realization and satisfy their individual needs, and at the
same time makes the young people release a certain degree of
confusion about the society and the reality. All of these achieve
the function of culture as a safety valve to the whole society.
Developing the Advanced to Further Boost the
Youth Culture
Young people are the hope of the motherland and the nation.
Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin all have made
many brilliant expositions about the youth and youth work,
which reflects the Chinese Communist Party has a high atten-
tion, enthusiasm and ardent hope to the youth and also shows
the importance of youth to a state or nation. Youth, who are the
main force of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and
the national reunification, take on the significant task of build-
ing a moderately prosperous society. Therefore, correctly guid-
ing, supporting and booming the youth culture is the important
step to cultivate mainstay for modernization construction.
The relationship between advanced culture and youth
culture Advanced culture and youth culture are the dialectical
relation of mutual influences and mutual promotion. Advanced
culture is a result of the human civilization’s progress and his-
torical development, is the thought basis, the spiritual motive
power and intellectual supporting to promote the progress of
human society. The culture’s power is deeply rooted in the na-
tion’s vitality, creativity and cohesion. The youth culture is in-
fluenced by advanced culture. Advanced culture makes its na-
tional, scientific and popular socialist thought toward moderni-
zation, the world and the future into the youth culture by osmo-
sis. Because youth culture is their own culture for the young
people and deeply influences their values, cognitive, aesthetic
and psychological tendence, and will further affect their social-
ism practice in future, such as to build an advanced civilization
of socialism, the development of the advanced productive
forces and to achieve the socialist modernization strategic task.
Only by strengthening the advanced mainstrea m culture of Three
Representatives, it can provide the final standard of the core
idea and the value selection for the society and the youth. The
young people are improved themselves by the mainstream cul-
ture to get the noble pursuit, the positive way of life and beha-
vior and they will really be the hope of nation and society and
really become the spokesperson of society and nation.
In turn, the advanced culture is also influenced by the youth
culture. As the young people possess their self-esteem, self-re-
spect, self-confidence, self-reliance and have a high spirit and
noble character, the advanced culture is pour into a fresh impe-
tus by their pione ering and creative spirit ual culture. It will make
us cohering public feeling and refreshing, and it will compre-
hensively boom the economic construction and other undertak-
ings in our count ry. With the te nde ncy of society becomin g more
younger and young’ experience tends to be consistent, youth
culture and the social mainstream culture showed the tendency
to be close and mix together. Youth culture no longer has the
property that the previous youth culture have the simple and
general ly not have the ma in str eam cu lt ura l c harac t eri sti c s, but i t
has the characteristics of the mainstream culture in some degree.
In such conditions, it has been greatly improved for the reaction
that the mainstream culture is influenced by the youth culture.
Define the advanced culture Youth culture, which is des-
tined to change-forward or backward, cannot be stagnant. Ad-
vanced culture determines the youth culture. Culture also fol-
lows the law that everything is from less advanced to advanced,
but to what extent can we consider that culture is advanced? In
history, many scholars have made exploration and statements
about the criterion of the advanced culture. For example, the
American anthropologist Morgan stated that culture has three
stages which are barbarism, half-civilization and civilization,
and each stage was divided into low, intermediate and high le-
vels of evolutionary concept. There is a typical view that Pope-
noe divided the culture into the material culture, cognitive cul-
ture and cultural norms. In cultural anthropology, culture has
been classified into the material culture, spiritual culture and
OPEN ACCESS 59
