The Useless Tree

Confucius/Confucianism

  • Obama Does the Confucian (but not the Daoist) Thing on Stem Cells

    Yesterday President Obama eased certain limits on embryonic stem cell research in the US.  There are still various questions and restrictions remaining, especially on the issue of whether public money should be spent on experimentation on embryonic stems cells, but… Continue reading

  • On Herbert Fingarette

    Chris, at A Ku Indeed!, and Peony, at Tang Dynasty Times, have started a discussion of Herbert Fingarette's marvelous little book, Confucius: The Secular as Sacred. I'll be following along and commenting at both places.  And, if you're interested, here… Continue reading

  • Listen to the Mothers

    The IHT runs this story today: A group representing families of demonstrators killed or maimed in the armed crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests 20 years ago has urged China to name the dead, denouncing official silence over the anniversary. The… Continue reading

  • Uselessness: Now More than Ever!

    An article in today's NYT bemoans the state of the Humanities in American colleges and universities: …in this new era of lengthening unemployment lines and shrinking university endowments, questions about the importance of the humanities in a complex and technologically… Continue reading

  • Obligations to Parents

    Peony raises some questions about filial piety to which I would like to respond. I agree that a child's relationship to his or her parents is a fundamental building block of Confucian ethics.  Indeed, I think Confucius is a genius… Continue reading

  • Don’t Blame Confucius…

    A video from GlobalPost on match-making in Shanghai (embedded below).  It seems that every Friday and Saturday people come to a corner of People's Park to look for marriage partners for their sons and daughters.  The reporter says it's like… Continue reading

  • Confucius at TED

    A student of mine (thanks Gary!) pointed me toward a talk from a recent TED conference (TED, for those who are unfamiliar with it, is a group that brings together thinkers on a variety of topics to expand upon, as… Continue reading

  • Alan Greenspan does the Confucian Thing

    He gives up the dogma of the self-correcting "free market" and embraces the idea of "temporary" nationalization of banks to get out from under the financial crisis.  Confucius would agree: The Master said: "The noble-minded are all-encompassing, not stuck in… Continue reading

  • Driven to Distraction

    Last week a discussion took place at Peony's and Manyul's blogs on Confucius' lament, in Analects 15.13, which runs something like this: "It is a rare man who would turn his mind to virtue when he could follow love instead." Well,… Continue reading

  • How Confucian was Confucius?

    A few weeks back I was reading Annping Chin's book, The Authentic Confucius, and an idea came to me (which only now am I blogging): Confucius may not as been as Confucian as we think. This idea emerges when we… Continue reading