Lecture 01 Why Talking about Neo-Confucianism Now?

Lecture 1 Why Talking about Neo-Confucianism Now?

• A current proposal: Confucian democracy for China? (1993-, 儒家民主)
  • http://danielabell.com/ Daniel A. Bell
  • Qiang Qing 蔣慶, Zhengzhi ruxue 政治儒學 (Political Confucianism)
  • Bring back the ancient Confucian political ideas: Kingly Way (wangdao 王道), All under Heaven (tianxia 天下), the great unification (dayitong 大一統) etc.
  • A genuine search for the future of China or a pretense to justify the status quo?
• The Confucius Institutes as the soft power (2004-孔子學院)
  • The 2008 Olympic Game in Beijing and the 2010 World Exhibition in Shanghai
  • "The 21st century is the century of Chinese."
  • The issue: spreading culture or politics?
  • The questions: Why there is always a link between culture and politics? In Chinese case, especially for Confucianism?
• The economic power of the East Asian countries and Confucian ethics (late 1980s to early 1990s)
  • The June Fourth Movement (1989) vs. The May Fourth Movement (1919)
  • The cultural heat in 1980s and the June Fourth Movement
  • The economy of the Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea: what is the relation between Culture and Economy
  • Ezra Vogel, Japan as Number One
  • The current Chinese economical power and Chinese culture
• The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 文化大革命 (1966-1976)
  • A anti-tradition revolution
  • "Criticizing Confucius and praising the First Emperor of the Qin"
  • 1949 "Chinese People have stood up"
  • Death of Chiang Kai-shek 蔣介石 (1975-04-05) and that of Mao Zedong 毛澤東 (1976-09-09)
• The contemporary Confucians' declaration to the whole world (1958, 為中國文化敬告世界宣言)
  • People's China vs. literati's China
  • The spiritual root (linggen 靈根) abiding at no where
  • What's right about Chinese culture and what's wrong with the western one
  • Lacking of faith vs. lacking of knowledge
• Mr. Democracy and Mr. Science and the old feudal cultural tradition (early 20^th century, 民主與科學)
  • The May Fourth Movement 五四運動 (1919-05-04)
  • "Throwing the thread-binding books to toilets." 把線裝書丟進茅廁坑
  • Symbols of the old tradition: Confucius and the "feudal" system (fengjian 封建)
  • The unbalance between the speed of the politico-economical development and that of the cultural development
• Conclusion:
  • Does the rise of China in the 21st century solve the problems that China felt urgent to tackle on in the 20th century?
  • What is the role that Confucianism, Neo-Confucianism or New Confucianism has been playing in the above issue?