Opinion / You Nuo
Confucius, not computers, answers the big questions
By You Nuo (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-08-14 05:33
My previous columns on the value of Confucian moral teachings in modern
business aroused varied and widespread feedback.
In many parts of the world, similar contradictory discussions, such as
those about the lasting influence of the Christian moral tradition in the
United States, would not be surprising. However, talking about the old
moral tradition in a society still in the early stages of shaping its
modern identity can be risky business.
Repeatedly I was reminded that Confucianism is too old and obsolete, not
suitable for today's China. Modern business, in particular, was defined
as an area of sheer competition, in which the best technologies win and
the fattest opportunities are seized.
Yet the reality has never been as simple as this. Despite criticism that
it is too old and irrelevant in the modern times, Confucianism is the
only moral tradition that Chinese society has and no society can function
on basically two or more diverse, let alone conflicting, moral
traditions. Admittedly, there are Taoist and Buddhist influences in
China. But in the area of people's secular achievement, it was
Confucianism that served as the key guiding force.
It is useless to claim Confucianism useless and to argue whether it
should be discarded or be replaced. The possibility simply does not
exist, just as it is impossible to remove Christian tradition from US
society.
It is hard to imagine that someday a new generation will be created out
of sheer science, however the word is defined, and be able to work and
live on complex programmes. So long as a sense of responsibility is still
required, meaning that people have to make judgments on themselves, they
will have to think about moral issues more or less in the language handed
down by their older generations.
However our society changes, and however our economy develops, our moral
philosophy has its own set of questions, which technology cannot answer.
Those questions provide meanings to life, such as how to be a good person
and why a person should be good. They were basically the same questions
asked by the thinkers in ancient China and ancient Greece, in roughly the
same times.
Those questions will always remain valid and the answer has to come from
each thinking individual through his or her lifetime effort, no matter
what tools or technologies are readily available.
Science cannot replace moral concerns. And at times, if it is not guided
by right values, science can be very bad as seen from the recent reports
about fake medicines and the fatalities they had caused. So it is a fully
justifiable cause to promote China's traditional moral teachings and the
according practices among its business circles.
Having said all this, it is only on a technical level that this author
agrees there will have to be changes not changes to abandon the
tradition, but to spread its influence more effectively.
Dogmatic teaching methods and, even worse, requiring students to memorize
the ancient books line by line, as proposed by some modern-day Confucian
scholars, is unlikely to help students grasp the tradition's lasting
value, even less to associate the classics with their daily lives.
Nor is it a proper thing for older people to treat those who have not
spent as much time on the traditional teachings as morally defective and
inferior. Being able to recite the old texts is quite different from
being able to act righteously, whether as good citizen or as an
understanding gentleman in Confucius' definition.
Email: younuo@chinadaily.com.cn
(China Daily 08/14/2006 page4)
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