Current Affairs
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Mencius on Sectarian Violence
I’ve been reading Mencius with my class this week. Many of his passages jump off the page with contemporary resonance. Here’s one that gets at both the futility and self-reproducing quality of the kind of violence that we… Continue reading
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Humane Treatment of Animals
An op-ed in today’s NYT discusses the issue of humane treatment of animals, especially farm animals destined for slaughter and human consumption. The author, Nicolette Hahn Niman, draws upon her personal experience to make the key point: As… Continue reading
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Mencius in Zhushan Village
Frustrations boiled over in Zhushan village in Hunan province a few days ago, as people trying to take the bus to Lingling town were confronted with price gouging. Roland has the links, and pictures! People are… Continue reading
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When Chinese Eyes Are Smiling…
Add another item to the ever growing list of expressions of Chinese-ness: Irish-Chinese (or Chinese-Irish) political representative. This story came to my attention today: An Alliance candidate has become the first person from an ethnic minority background to… Continue reading
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Jewish, Chinese, American
One of my fascinations, in studying ancient Chinese philosophy and its application to modern American life, is how the meaning of "Chinese-ness" changes over time and in different locations. My interest was piqued, therefore, when I spotted this… Continue reading
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Flexible Family Values
A good op-ed in today’s Washington Post gets at the ways in which globalized modernity (or modernized globalization) undermines traditional family structures and engenders new social practices. The author, Harold Meyerson, focuses on the divergent experiences of different… Continue reading
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Yu Dan’s Errors
It seems we have a bit of a controversy on our hands. Yu Dan, the scholar who I praised for her popularizing efforts to bring ancient Chinese thought to a wider audience, is being attacked. Critics say she… Continue reading
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Lei Feng as Confucius
Danwei has a great post today about Lei Feng. For those of you new to Chinese revolutionary propaganda, Lei Feng was a fellow who was said to have served in the PLA in the early 1960’s. He died… Continue reading
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What She Said
I have mentioned professor Yu Dan before. She is a media scholar at Beijing Normal University who has published a very popular book in China about the modern applications of the Analects. She has apparently now done some… Continue reading
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Taoism and the Transformation of Marriage
A couple of stories today keep the issue of the transformation of marriage in the media spot light. First, the Washington Post notices the relationship between marriage and social class: As marriage with children becomes an exception rather… Continue reading
The Useless Tree 