The Useless Tree

Current Affairs

  • Confucius Institutes are not about Confucius

    There is a bit of a dust up over Confucius Institutes, those Chinese-government sponsored organizations that promote Chinese language teaching in US (and locations all over the world). But before we get to the details of this kerfuffle, a word… Continue reading

  • Daoism is not a Strategy

    A rather odd blog post over at Huffington Post College, by Keith Weigelt, a Professor at the Wharton School, gets off to an incongruous start: I am a strategist in the Daoist tradition. One tenet of Daoism is that individuals… Continue reading

  • Chen Guangcheng, Mozi, and Daoism

    This just in from a Reuters profile of Chen Guangcheng: From Chinese history, Chen said he admired 5th-century BC philosopher Mo Tzu, and Taoism founder Lao Tzu, the works of which had also been read aloud to him. I must… Continue reading

  • Filial Piety: Only for the poor?

    Two contrasting articles suggest how demographic and social-cultural changes in China are making it ever more difficult to realize Confucian virtues there. First, we have a piece in The Economist that reports on the growth of nursing homes – or,… Continue reading

  • How Confucian is the US?

    I hadn't realized just how widespread the concept of "filial responsibility" is in American jurisprudence.  It turns out that 28 states have laws on the books that state that children are responsible for the care of their elderly parents.  … Continue reading

  • A Confucian Critique of Santorum’s Environmental Denialism

    Rick Santorum, who somehow is being taken seriously by Republican primary voters, rejects the idea that global warming is a real phenomenon and that it is connected to human activity on the planet.  He castigated President Obama for having a… Continue reading

  • When “Confucianism” isn’t really Confucianism

    Alistair J. Nicholas, an expatriate pr exec in Beijing, pens a piece in the China Daily that reflects upon cultural differences between China and the West, especially in corporate workplaces.  There are some useful insights into how to get things… Continue reading

  • Confucius as Contemporary Art

    Not sure what to make of Zhang Huan's new exhiibtion at the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai, entitled, "Q Confucius."   All I know is what I can see on the intertubes.  From that limited perspective, however, it does not… Continue reading

  • How to lose a culture war

    In a speech given last October, and published in a Party theoretical journal on January 1st (Happy New Year!), China's President, Hu Jintao, throws down the cultural gauntlet: “We must clearly see that international hostile forces are intensifying the strategic… Continue reading

  • The Commodification of Education

    I'm a teacher.  A college teacher.  Every day, or just about every day, I am engaged in the dissemination and creation of knowledge.  I put dissemination first because, as a teacher, whatever knowledge I create is often (not always) bound… Continue reading