Mencius
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How Others See Us
A sad story of a young Chinese woman killed by a drunk driver in New York raises some unsettling questions about American culture. Here is an excerpt from a translated blog post over at Roland's (original Chinese blog post here):… Continue reading
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Obama’s Mencian Themes
I was as happy as all of those cold people out on the Mall in Washington DC yesterday, even though I watched the proceedings in the warmth of the local movie theater, transformed into a public square for Obama's inauguration. … Continue reading
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The Tao of Personal Genomics
When I saw the cover story in the Sunday Times Magazine by Steven Pinker, "My Genome, My Self," I was ready to pounce. I thought: here comes a biological determinist trying to assert that we can understand personal identity and… Continue reading
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Mencius and Sun Tzu on Gaza
It is apparent that the Israeli attack on Gaza fails on both moral and strategic grounds. The wide-scale killing of innocents and disproportionality of the Israeli violence make it an unjust war. And, even though he did not argue in… Continue reading
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John Travolta’s Agony: Taoist and Confucian Views
John Travolta's son died. Apparently he had a seizure disorder and was killed by a seizure – that is what the death certificate says, at least. The parents must be devastated. My heart goes out to them. It seems that… Continue reading
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Wei Jingsheng, Mencian Gentleman
Thirty years ago today, on a wall at the intersection of Xidan Avenue and Chang'an Avenue in Beijing, an electrician from the Beijing Zoo, Wei Jingsheng, put up a big character poster (dazi bao) entitled, "The Fifth Modernization." He would… Continue reading
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Confucianism in Hard Times
Yesterday in class I was talking about Japan in the 1990s, the persistent economic stagnation and the cultural pessimism it spawned (the pessimism is expressed in this article by Masaru Tamamoto, "The Uncertainty of the Self: Japan at Century's End"). … Continue reading
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Things that are not alike…
The wisdom of Yao and Shun was that they didn't treat all things alike: they devoted themselves to essentials first. Mencius 13.46 I've been noticing how some conservatives are disgusted by Obama's victory. They seem to suggest the joy being… Continue reading
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Honoring a Modern Mencius
This news was reported today: BEIJING — Hu Jia, a soft-spoken, bespectacled advocate for democracy and human rights in China, was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, Europe’s most prestigious human rights prize, on Thursday. The award was… Continue reading
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What Does Palin Mean by “Corruption on Wall Street”?
In the Vice-Presidential debate last night, Sarah Palin railed against "corruption on Wall Street." She referred to this notion at least five times, by my count. But the more I think about it, the less it makes sense (which is… Continue reading
The Useless Tree 