Mencius
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Still looking for enlightened rulers
This story, about China’s nouveaux riches, has been getting some attention around the internet today: A generation ago, when people still dressed in monochromes and acquiring great wealth, never mind flaunting it, was generally illegal, the route to… Continue reading
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A Confucian-esque Coup d’Etat?
Thailand, of course, has never been a "Confucian society." Its culture is shaped by Buddhist and indigenous beliefs and practices. But yesterday’s coup d’etat in Bangkok, while not inspired by Confucian ideology, can be seen as consistent with… Continue reading
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Bush and Hu: Losing the Mandate of Heaven
A couple of perceptive comments to my post on the Rui’an affair have raised the question of political legitimacy, especially as expressed through the notion of the "Mandate of Heaven." Alexus McLeod, who blogs at… Continue reading
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The Rui’an Microcosm
About three weeks ago a high school teacher in China, Ms. Dai Haijing, was found dead. She was determined, by local officials, to have committed suicide. Her students found this unbelievable and they started asking questions and demonstrating,… Continue reading
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Mao Lives!
Or, at least, a distorted image of him is kept alive by an authoritarian political party too afraid to face up to its own history. That, at any rate, is what this story in today’s Globe and Mail… Continue reading
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Mencius Responds to Bush and Rumsfeld
President Bush is intensifying his rhetoric on the Iraq war. So is Rumsfeld. Mencius replies: Talk is easy when you don’t have to get the job done. (136). They are not trying to "get the job… Continue reading
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Mencian Biology
Richard Rorty reviews Marc D. Hauser’s new book, Moral Minds: How Nature Designed our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong, in yesterday’s NYT Book Review. Rorty describes the book’s project thusly: Nazi parents found it easy to turn… Continue reading
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The Fame Motive
In today’s NYT we have this article,"The Fame Motive," which considers our desire to find personal validation in the attention of others: Money and power are handy, but millions of ambitious people are after something other than the… Continue reading
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Mencius on Airport Security Screening
Story in today’s NYT: "Faces, too, Are Searched at U.S. Airports." Mencius: "Nothing reflects the person so well as the eyes. The eyes won’t hide the evil in a person. If a person’s heart is noble,… Continue reading
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What Kind of China?
Howard French has a nice piece in today’s International Herald Tribune. Reflecting on the dizzying pace of development in Shanghai, he asks a good question: The question I am working my way toward, having acknowledged the extraordinary capacity… Continue reading
The Useless Tree 