The tasks I face ahead

An email exchange with a friend in Singapore made me realize that I have 2 tasks on hand:

1) With regards to Western values, I need to give evidence of how a particular Western thought (that seems deviant from the perspective of Chinese ethics) can be answered by Chinese values, so as to reconcile differences between East and West and avoid Western dominance in the age of globalisation;

2) Faced with those who have been overly-infused with the thinking that Confucianism offers the answers to all the social problems we face, I need to show them that this school of thought has its limitations when placed in the modern context. It is thus imperative to see Chinese culture as not just Confucianism, but also a combination of many other schools, including Taoism (which is in fact the metaphysical basis of Chinese philo), Buddhism and folk belief which has today been relegated to the status of superstition. The combination provides the answers to the first abovementioned aspect, not just Confucianism itself.

That’s why I’m using 中国古代启蒙读物 as my entry point, because they encompass a more “humane” perspective that may transcend the limitations of Confucianism alone. Let’s see what China’s history has to offer in terms of an “all-rounded” education.

Only by doing so, we can then get answers to these questions:

中国人是否能够驾驭于思想之上？

历史上对思想的驾驭，以什么样的方式呈现？

最终，我们是否能像法国人类学家一样，从人和思想的互动关系这样一个高度上，简而明了地从人类学的角度对中国进行“人之历史”的阐释？

When we can resolve these, we can then say that Chinese thinking is on par with Western thinking. At the moment, Western philosophy which has its focus on the persona (人的“位格”）since the Renaissance and which during the Enlightenment developed political systems upon that basis dominates our lives. Chinese philosophy on the other hand has been relegated to a purely ethical arena, simply because western Reason has rendered us incapable of comprehending something like 《道德经》，when it in fact forms the basis of Martin Heidegger's philosophy which so many of us have tried and seemingly grasp, albeit not totally. (Btw Heidegger read the German translation of 《道德经》...)

Moreover, we didn't have enough "rebels" in Chinese history, or when we did, forgot their presence or obscured them on purpose. Such is the case in Singapore - because our political system needed that purely classic Confucianism to ensure "systematic order". Yet, it is time we uncover such rebels from the dust of time and once again pay attention to what they advocated. Why? Simply because they also form part of our culture, and in today's context they may just be able to pin-point the limitations of mainstream philosophy and offer us an insight into how we can bring East and West - again, back to point (1) above.

It is never enough to simply say that the world will become "cosmopolitan" one day, or purely shout slogans like "Beware Western-centricism!". It is first of all imperative to discover what our ancestors left behind as close to its whole as possible. And, if there is a need for a school of thought to dominate, politically (and since from Aristotle "ethics" has always been the stepping stone to "politics", ethically) we need Confucianism, but in life, in academics and simply as a person (and as not an affliation of a certain Idea, borrowing Plato's concept), pls, friends of mine, read Lao Tze. Take it philosophically, and u'll find that u can make more sense of all the "rules" u've acquired from Confucianism and also gain a deeper insight into Chinese Buddhism.