The Useless Tree

Confucius/Confucianism

  • Barak Obama, Confucian Gentleman

    In a Father's Day speech in Chicago today, the Democratic nominee said it straight: “Too many fathers are M.I.A., too many fathers are AWOL, missing from too many lives and too many homes,” Mr. Obama said to a chorus of… Continue reading

  • Learning Humanity from Same Sex Couples

    A story a couple of day's ago in the NYT reports: For insights into healthy marriages, social scientists are looking in an unexpected place. A growing body of evidence shows that same-sex couples have a great deal to teach everyone… Continue reading

  • Modern Confucianism

        A good post over at Granite Studio by Jeremiah brings up a question I have posed here before: How modern can Confucius be?  Jeremiah is responding to a talk given by Daniel A. Bell, a philosophy professor at Qinghua. … Continue reading

  • Confucianism as a State Ideology? I Don’t Think So….

         A good post over at The China Beat by Xujun Eberlein on contemporary Chinese Confucian thinker Jiang Qing (yes, the name has the same English transliteration as Mao's infamous wife).   Here are a couple of Eberlein's grafs: In his… Continue reading

  • That Theodicy Thing

                  A good review in the New Yorker this week by James Wood, surveying the problem of theodicy – i.e. how is it that human suffering and evil can be countenanced by an omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent God?  Wood… Continue reading

  • Still Here

         Sorry for the relative blog silence of late.  Between grading (which I am still finishing), preparing for a summer program that I am directing, and doing some family stuff for the Memorial Day weekend (traveled to Staten Island, NY… Continue reading

  • Confucian Civil Unions, Perhaps?

       I’ve been thinking more about the California gay marriage decision and Confucianism.  Thanks to the comments from my last, brief post, I have a new idea: a modern Confucian would be more likely to accept civil unions for gay… Continue reading

  • California Gay Marriage: Confucius Agrees

         The news today, somewhat unsurprisingly, is that the California Supreme Court has overturned a state ban on gay marriage.  What would Confucius say?      I wrote about gay marriage and Confucianism once before, and I think the… Continue reading

  • The Tao of Neuroscience

        I’m not a big fan of David Brooks, but a friend brought today’s column, "Neural Buddhists," to my attention, and it seems right for a post here.     Brooks is thinking about the intersection of recent popular… Continue reading

  • This Just In: Confucius is Right

         Here’s an AP story: CHICAGO — Newsflash for rock stars and teenagers: It turns out everything doesn’t go downhill as we age _ the golden years really are golden. That’s according to eye-opening research that found the happiest… Continue reading