The Useless Tree

Legalism

  • Han Feizi on why Xi Jinping must destroy Bo Xilai

    So it looks like Bo Xilai's trial will start on Thursday.  His is a long and sordid story: an ambitious and powerful politician looking to climb to the very top of the CCP pecking order, who ran a deeply corrupt… Continue reading

  • Legalist “Tiger” parenting is bad for you

    Over at Slate, Paul Tullis reports on some new research by Su Yeong Kim, a specialist in human development at the University of Texas-Austin, and others that suggests "Tiger Parenting" – made infamous by Amy Chua – is generally not… Continue reading

  • Amy Chua is a Legalist Mother

    Amy Chua's now infamous piece, "Why Chinese Mothers are Superior," has already garnered significant blog reaction.  Perhaps most poignant is this comment by Christina Lu at Quora: Drawing from personal experience, the reason why I don't feel this works is… Continue reading

  • This just in: Confucius wins!

    I discovered Google Books Ngram just now, which allows searches of the Google Books data base of volumes going back to 1800.  So, I plugged in "Confucianism," "Taoism" (and "Daoism" to capture transliteration changes), and "Legalism" to see which gets… Continue reading

  • Why Don’t We Call China a “Legalist Society”?

    I am catching up on my work here (the forty papers that have been sitting on my desk are now graded and returned to students!); so, I can get back to some of the ideas that were running through my… Continue reading

  • Francesco Sisci on Law in Ancient China

    Last week, in the Asia Times, Francesco Sisci, a journalist who has of late been delving into ancient history and philosophy to good effect, has a long-ish article, "China no longer a law unto itself."  Basically, he shows how Legalism… Continue reading

  • On the Costs of Legalism

    The folks over at the New Legalist web site are after me again.  They have posted "Part II" of their critique, "Who is 'Distorting Chinese History and Chinese Philosophy': The New Legalists or Prof. Sam Crane."  (Guess which one they… Continue reading

  • The New Legalists respond, again

    The folks over at the New Legalist web site have responded to my last response to them.  I guess we could call this a debate.  The post, authored by Sherwin Lu, is entitled: "Who is 'Distorting Chinese History and Chinese… Continue reading

  • New Legalists, Again

    I have written about the New Legalists before (the first of three posts is here, with more here and here).  That was over a year ago.  Well, last month Zhai Yuzhong, whom I do not know, courteously sent along to… Continue reading

  • Han Feizi on North Korea

    North Korea is acting up again.  I think the US response thus far has been generally correct.  Options are obviously limited and the best way forward, as I have suggested before, might be something like: don't feed the troll. With… Continue reading