分类：Chinese Civilization & the Way of Chinese

Is Chinese Studies Anti-Science?

Chinese Civilization & the Way of Chinese2019.01.25
Is Chinese Studies Anti-Science?
At the request of China Science Daily, this was published in the January 28, 2019, issue of China Science Daily, page 1. Recently, two things within the education system have stirred up heated discussion: one is the “mind-boggling exam paper” from Beihai College of Art in Guangxi, and the other is Sun Nan and his wife sending their child to attend a “Guoxue class.” These incidents are by no means accidental isolated cases. Some commentators have already linked them to “Quan Jian,” seeing in them all the spread of a certain “anti-intellectualism,” or, to put it another way, a lack of public scientific literacy. The college that produced the mind-boggling…
China freedom commentary education
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2019年1月25日
“It Must Be Rectification of Names” — Politics, History, and Science

Chinese Civilization & the Way of Chinese2016.04.20
“It Must Be Rectification of Names” — Politics, History, and Science
Recently, the issue of the extension of property rights on Chinese real estate has come to light, and many people have only then discovered that the so-called “automatic renewal” in the Property Law as they had understood it was merely a misunderstanding; “automatic,” it turns out, does not include the meaning of “free,” and moreover there is no fixed amount for how much one must pay to renew. Wenzhou said one would have to pay 30 percent of the housing price to renew, and then issued a clarification saying the matter was still under study. But the problem is: if the rules were already established long ago, why must the…
culture China commentary tradition
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2016年4月20日
Night Reading Mencius: The Traitor Faction

Chinese Civilization & the Way of Chinese2012.03.21
Night Reading Mencius: The Traitor Faction
This article arose from the explanation in the previous post. Of course, apart from taking issue with one particular junior classmate, my more important intention is to emphasize that interpretations of the Confucian classics are plural, and the Mao left can forget about monopolizing the right to interpret the Confucian classics. When I was a freshman, under Yang Zi’s influence, I read some chapters of the Mencius. Though I have little recollection of them now, I did come away with a rough impression: even though the Mencius is not as invigorating to read as the Analects, it still felt pretty good. The night before last I dug it out and…
philosophy culture China freedom
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2012年3月21日
“The Kingly Way” — The Road to the Supreme Good

Chinese Civilization & the Way of Chinese2012.01.26
“The Kingly Way” — The Road to the Supreme Good
You can read this article as a continuation of this earlier one: Freedom vs. Equality—I Am a Right-Wing Socialist In that essay I expressed a certain resistance to “equality”: equality in the sense of a condition for freedom, or equality as the rules that must be observed for the game of competition to unfold—those senses of equality I certainly support. But equality for equality’s sake, taking equality as a principle, is not something I agree with. So if one does not champion equality, must one necessarily tolerate “inequality”? Not necessarily. One reason for opposing “equality” is that it is an overly abstract concept; in fact, equality always requires a standard…
philosophy China freedom autobiography
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2012年1月26日
What Can Chinese Tradition Bring to Modern Politics?

Chinese Civilization & the Way of Chinese2010.12.21
What Can Chinese Tradition Bring to Modern Politics?
Of course, restoring China’s traditional Confucian ritual order and bureaucratic politics is impossible. That would first require the restoration of the imperial system and the revival of the clan order. A wholesale return to the old is hopeless, and unnecessary as well. No matter how Chinese politics develops in the future, it is bound to be Westernized and modernized. So, amid all this, what can Chinese tradition still bring, what elements can it still provide? Of course, you may think that not a single element of so-called Chinese tradition is needed at all, and that it would be enough simply to introduce Western modern democratic institutions. But a complete…
culture China democracy Arendt
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2010年12月21日
On CCTV’s Blocking of English Abbreviations

Chinese Civilization & the Way of Chinese2010.04.08
On CCTV’s Blocking of English Abbreviations
After all, the General Administration of Radio, Film, and Television has always been an institution that only knows how to issue bans. That said, it is not the case that I would automatically oppose, or even ridicule, every ban issued by the General Administration of Radio, Film, and Television. As for this particular ban, overall I am affirmative and supportive. If replacing foreign-language abbreviations with their full Chinese names does not involve much difficulty, then why not do it? If the difficulty is very great, and switching over and adapting is hard, then all the more reason there is for correction. One argument is that most people actually do not…
culture commentary tradition Chinese
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2010年4月8日
Solar Eclipse and Ritual

Chinese Civilization & the Way of Chinese2009.07.01
Solar Eclipse and Ritual
When the ruler’s conduct is irregular, and the dukes and ministers are unvirtuous, when the Yi and the Di are strong and invade, and all affairs are thrown into confusion, then the sun is eclipsed.——《Spring and Autumn Wei: Gan Jing Fu》 When the ruler indulges himself and does not follow the ancients, when he acts against Heaven and brutalizes things, calamity arises and then the sun is eclipsed.——《Spring and Autumn Wei: Yundou Shu》 When the ruler’s joy and anger are irregular, when he lightly kills the innocent, executes the guiltless, disrespects Heaven and Earth, and disregards ghosts and spirits, then the sun is eclipsed.——《Liyun Wei: Dou Weiyi》 When the…
culture China ritual astronomy
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2009年7月1日
On Protecting Tradition and What Tradition Is, and So On

Chinese Civilization & the Way of Chinese2007.08.19
On Protecting Tradition and What Tradition Is, and So On
First, I’m reposting a discussion from the Ceiling blog. http://ariela.ycool.com/post.2668095.html Omitted above… mist @ 2007-07-29 10:29 If contemporary people are only preserving tradition, then where are we to create the spirit of our age? Ceiling @ 2007-07-30 00:11 I believe that tradition and creation should, in essence, be continuous. Besides, what is being shouted about most fervently right now is the preservation of tradition, even more than the creation of spirit…… so I’m chiming in *_^ 古 @ 2007-08-05 21:35 I recommend that Mist listen to a lecture by Wu Guosheng~ Which occasion of “creating the spirit of an age” has not taken preserving tradition as its basis?…
culture China tradition Wu Guosheng
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2007年8月19日
The View of Humanity and Nature in Traditional Chinese Philosophy

Chinese Civilization & the Way of Chinese2005.07.31
The View of Humanity and Nature in Traditional Chinese Philosophy
The annotations were lost in the original YiKu webpage; they have been reinserted according to the original doc.
philosophy China Confucianism Buddhism
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2005年7月31日