Grassroots Philosophy in East and West

Walk the bridge between East and West (you see more when walking) and reopen the gate between inner and outer Man
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Monday , April 7 , 2008

West has been Confusianized for a long time and now has taken up Taoism also.

Posted by talkfact , Reader : 385 , 23:51:56

A look at Chinese history confirms two mainstream forms of thought: Confucianism (law-making and rule-making) and Taoism (on liberating the soul). Looking at the Western world history, it confirms a similar struggle between the two. I think everyone can agree that Western world culture has displayed a keen interest in law-making and rule-making as well – typical Confucianism that is. What about Taoism – where is it and what is it in the West? It’s the idea of the free market which, according to Adam Smith, is capable of taking care of its businesses without interference from the State. The idea being that the human ego always strives to do the best of a situation and in so doing improves the lives of its contemporaries as well. There is a remarkable difference, however, between Taoism in the West and Taoism in the East. In the West the idea is to surrender to your ego and let it has its ways. Thus creating free market and a maximum freedom of the individual and his soul. In the East the idea is exactly the opposite, namely to overcome, to liberate yourself from, your own ego and thus liberating your soul and reach a maximum freedom. Amazing, isn’t it?

A look at Chinese history confirms two mainstream forms of thought: Confucianism (law-making and rule-making) and Taoism (on liberating the soul).

Looking at the Western world history, it confirms a similar struggle between the two. I think everyone can agree that Western world culture has displayed a keen interest in law-making and rule-making as well – typical Confucianism that is.

What about Taoism – where is it and what is it in the West? It’s the idea of the free market which, according to Adam Smith, is capable of taking care of its businesses without interference from the State. The idea being that the human ego always strives to do the best of a situation and in so doing improves the lives of its contemporaries as well.

There is a remarkable difference, however, between Taoism in the West and Taoism in the East.

In the West the idea is to surrender to your ego and let it has its ways. Thus creating free market and a maximum freedom of the individual and his soul.

In the East the idea is exactly the opposite, namely to overcome, to liberate yourself from, your own ego and thus liberating your soul and reach a maximum freedom.

Amazing, isn’t it?

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comment 31
wch date : 12/04/2008 time : 08.47

The reason I write here is, to point out the failure of the great ancient philosophy of Han people, that still influence the negative effect into this east Asian civilization.

The period of BC 500 - AD 0 is the important turning point of western and eastern civilizations.
Hellenic culture and its spiritual value - Hellenism worked seriously to the Roman Empire. Today's Europeanism is the recovery effort of the past glory, against the threatening Americanism and seemingly Chinism (Cinism) and Japan Korean alliance.

The first mistake of Han civilization was the refusal of littoral civilization of 'East China Sea'. by building the 'Great Wall', and discrimination against Manchu-Korea-Japan civilization, and later on, against the southerners, under the Yangtsu river.

Ancient Han civilization was developed in the ' golden triangle' linking Sian (Wu river basin) culture, Nanjiang-Shanghai culture and Beijing-Tenjin port culture.
The last two are originated from earlier Lung-Shan culture (Shantung peninsular), that was more cosmopolitan, less dicriminative, culture developer and receiver, littoral-pelagic commerce that connected far south, Hunan empire (Phnom people that traded between Han and India).

This Shantung culture closely interreacted with Korean peninsular and Japanese early culture.
Confu birthed here (BC 500) and his Confusianism founded the great social, governmental fabrication that deeply influenced into the pelagic civilization.

It is Hellenism in this east Asia.

Roman envaded into the north and built 'Road' first.
Han empire (BC 200 - AD 200) destroyed Manchu- Korean culture and set curb to Japanese trade. They limited the culture exchange with Fuan and India, Persian into the far south - Gwangdung province (today Hong Kong, Simjun area).

Earlier, Han's Wu culture was the caste system.
At top, Han people ruled with their 'misterious architecture skill' and 'chariot battle skill'.
The commoners are different races and the bottom slaves were the prison of war. When a ruler was buried, his harem and slaves were buried along.
Today, many believe this 'HAN' people is a alien, not linked with Peking man. By time, this Wu culture died out.
Han empire started from Lungshan culture and its philosophical value " Cosmopolitan Confusianism" that contained the differences of race, culture, trade and social tradition.

Therefore new Han culture was birthed, based on multi-ethnity and consequently Han culture can be called "Monolithic Han'ism".

Monolithic Han'ism later expanded into 'Hwa'ism' or Zhong Hwa philosophy that contains the expanded ethnities including, Manchu, Mongol, Tibet and various the southern 'Babarians'.

However Hwa'ism is corrupted by modern
communism introduced by PRC.
Their communism is the emperialism that ignore the ethnity, exploit the minors, hostile to other culture.

Diapora of non-conformity racial groups was started, by hostile Chine empire (1644 -) and modern communist China.

This diapora into south east Asia is today's primary causes of 'Five devilish decivilizations' (by the academic, Khun Thirayut Boonmi).

So, Han people developed such degree of upper hand culture that Hellenic or Roman people pleasingly accepted and used own civil development ?. If not they received from them !.

Anyone can translate back the English "CHINA' to a most proper Han script vocabulary ???

comment 30
talkfact date : 11/04/2008 time : 19.47
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/jern
penfact

Felix; I'm on the top now and have sent a
piece called "Laws against laws" as an
answer to you

comment 29
talkfact date : 11/04/2008 time : 16.09
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/jern
penfact

Felix, you should have an answer in a couple of hours, I just have to climb to the mountain top
and get some fresh air and a clear view

comment 28
Ian date : 11/04/2008 time : 09.44
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/anterian36

wch, no offense but I often fail to understand your English. If the quotes you give are truly by a professor they are so incomprehensible that I pity his students.I am sure you have some useful comments, perhaps if you deal with them one at a time I might understand you better.

comment 27
wch date : 11/04/2008 time : 08.30

Felix,
At your surprising imaginations, I opened the history book again, this time, "Early China History written by Prof. James T.S. Liu, of Princeton University (Liu would be a descendant of Liu Bang, the founder of Han Empire, and an imperial paragon of China history.)

Major statements made by the professor,

- Chinese acheaologists exerted their indefatigable effort to complete 'year-to-year' diary like history, from Shang to Jin dynasty (prior to Han Empire BC201-AD200).

- In the history of BC 3000-BC500 by way of turtois inscription, the culture of Wu river basin, and Lusan culture of Santoong peninsular is un-identical and still fails to its linkage.
Note : Wu river is located 1500km upstream of Huangha river and Yangtzue river, from the Yellow sea. Santoong peninsular is just opposite to Korean peninsular, and two peninsulars are the vary points from where Japan received Han civilization.

- Chinese historians always try to establish the theory of Peking man being the unchallengiable forefather of two cultures above.
They tend to justify their history by more the ruler's failure than the comprehensive analysis of politics, economy, society, human strata and their motivation of movement.

Comments : I agree one must speak out from own linguisitic sensuality, than the litter, here English lingua franca !.

(In next post, Let me continue on Comparison between Hellenic culture and Han culture)

comment 26
FelixQui date : 11/04/2008 time : 00.32
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/FelixQui

Ian,
I think we agree on this one.

comment 25
Ian date : 10/04/2008 time : 20.02
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/anterian36

Felix, I leave this to you, when a non scientist starts talking bullshit about science most sensible scientists just walk away.
Science does not need defending, its achievments are its own defense.

comment 24
FelixQui date : 10/04/2008 time : 18.39
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/FelixQui

talkfact,
Most people eat things like: fruit, which is fairly natural, although it now grows bigger, better and cleaner because of science; vegetables, same as for fruit; meat, from various animals, which is less disease and parasite ridden than at any time in our past because of science; cereals, which are grown more productively in more places because of science. Our diets are vastly better because of the contributions science has made possible.

The pills people take, such as antibiotics, actually keep people alive - the next time you have a serious infection, or operation, skip the antibiotics and see what happens. Antibiotics are a pretty direct result of modern science. Other pills and medicines control diseases such as diabetes which were once rapidly fatal. Again, most people recognise the benefits, and choose to take them. That's right people CHOOSE to use these things because they want them. THey want them because they work and contributa alot to life, including making life possible. In case you had not noticed, the average life expectancy in advanced Western nations is higher than it has ever been. And it's increasing.

Was Aspartame really the best example of a mistake you could think of? What about thalidomide? Asbestos? Sure, people make mistakes. We also tend to learn from them, because we approach the matter in a critical way looking to see what went wrong, where and how the mistakes were made. Given the ever increasing number of drugs coming online, the decreasing rate of disasters is evidence of success, not the total failure you absurdly claim. Trans fatty acids are indeed bad for health, and now that we are aware of that, there use is coming under more strict observation and control, and people are of course free to choose to avoid them. It is possible: I consume almost none; I hate fast food and so choose not to eat such muck, others obviously feel the risk is worth the convenience or whatever it is that prompts people to eat such muck. I wonder, do you think that people should not be free to make choices for themselves? That all their acts should be dictated by a wise emperor? That would explain your fondness for the traditional, and current, Chinese system of totally centralised control of everyone. I think freedom is preferable.

You wrote: "Yet worse: the petrol engine was a failure. It has done much more damage than good. " This sounds so idiotic I'm not sure if it deserves a response, but here goes: the petrol engine made possible unprecedented degrees of personal liberty and freedom of movement, it made possible enormous increases in trade, it boosted employment, thereby spreading about as well increasing production and its benefits. Again, it has been such a success because people freely, eagerly, chose to adopt it because of the enormours benefits it brought to their lives. You naturally did not specify any actual damages in your claim. Could you perhaps mention a few to offset teh benefits I've just listed?

Oddly, in view of your comment about Ian, ALL the examples you gave are specific technologies, not science at all. The engine is based on the laws of physics, things like the laws of motion, of force, momentum, and the like, the drugs are based on an understanding of how atoms bond to form molecules, which today is greatly enhanced by the contributions of quantum mechanics: those things are teh science. Why did you ignore them to pick on few scattered applications?

I notice you have completely ignored all the points and questions I raised in my comments 18 and 19. Why might that be?

I think your comment 23 merely proves that you know as little of science and nature as you do of Thai and Western people.

comment 23
talkfact date : 10/04/2008 time : 16.05
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/jern
penfact

Science works AGAINST the human body

We don’t have to go far to understand what science do to Nature and the laws of Nature.
We just have to go to our own bodies and the way we treat them.
What do we do with our bodies?
We load them with ready-made, pre-prepared food full of artificial ingredients, all invented by science, and most of them poisoning. Just one example: Aspartame.

We load our bodies full with thousands of different pills, all created by science, in order to get relief. Those pills make us unbalanced in some other way and so, we need more pills to help it up.

We use vehicles instead of our own bodies which were born to move and exercise. Yet worse: the petrol engine was a failure. It has done much more damage than good. It’s so typical for science, if something works it should be put into use without reflecting one second about the effect. I’m not against the engine but I’m against the fuel.
Take another scientific invention: Trans fatty acid. This is something that should never have come into existence. The only thing it does is killing people by severe heart problems and circulation problems. Ten years ago it was estimated it killed 100 000 people annually in the US. Today all food companies use it, often secretly without giving any notice about it. To shop ready-made, pre-prepared food, is to some extent today a suicidal act.

What all this boils down to is that we can no longer catch up. Science invents 100 new chemicals every week and if discovered that they work they are immediately put into use without checking their effect on the human body.
Is this Science proper? No.
Ian’s trick, to separate Science and Technology, is totally unacceptable, even immoral.
Should the gangster be separated from his deeds and not be charged by the court?
No way.

One way would be to degrade Science to a craft, like shoemaking or tailoring. Then we could guard against every step the tailor takes…and realise that as a Philosophy it is useless and as a hope for the future there’s nothing to hope for among the tailors, so, we have to turn elsewhere.

Free press and media in the US? If anyone thinks so he might need a doctor.

comment 22
FelixQui date : 10/04/2008 time : 12.16
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/FelixQui

wch,
Thank you for the thoughtful comments.
I am sure it was unintentional, but the way you quoted my words out of context could seriously have misrepresented their meaning.
The phrase you should have quoted is: "explicit contrast with China's monolithic unity" (C. 14). There was no direct connection at all between ancient Greece and its contemporary China, and it is certainly NOT the case that China was in any way "crucial to the contributions that the Greeks made to the foundations of the West". I think you may also have misunderstood what I wrote in comment 14; I hope it now clear.

I have no desire to start a "new history of this world." I think our current understanding is more or less correct, although there remain plenty of controversies and arguable interpretations and guesses to keep historians and the rest of us amused for the foreseeable future.

I agree that there were many different groups that the Chinese sought to rule from Beijing, when I use the phrase "monolithic unity" I do not necessarily mean that that aim was always fully realized, although for long periods, the various Chinese emperors, who were not always Han emperors (the Yuan and Ching dynasties for example), were fairly successful in imposing their ways on the empire, and from 221 BC they were certainly successful in stamping out the possibility of anything like what happened in Greece.
_____________

If I might also make a suggestion which you are free to take or ignore: don't use a dictionary or other reference work to find words when you are writing. Explain your ideas in words you already know, perhaps using a dictionary to check spelling or to confirm a meaning. Teh time to enrich your vocabulary with new words is when you are reading, so that you learn them in a context and can see how they are used.

My own written English isn't exactly very typical of most native speakers', and although I try to tone it down for these blogs, if I'm writing in haste or in passion it reverts to my default style, which not everyone here finds entirely satisfactory. I can understand how you might have misunderstood my meaning in comment 14. I should have made it clearer.

comment 21
wch date : 10/04/2008 time : 09.52

To all,

I found the reason why such idea, Han and Hellenic culture relationship is sweatingly to be established.

Wikipedia.

I like to inform all of you that, Wikipedia is written by many freelancer writers through their imaginations, some material evidences too.
They are not the scientific works by professional academics.

One grave problem is the effort to newly interpretate Han culture, nonthless they are unable to distinguish between the meaning of "CHINA" and "HAN", and the non-conformity ethnities of hundred.
The typical vocable of such self-controversy is "Monolithic China".

Please accept it as a reference, not the truth.

comment 20
wch date : 10/04/2008 time : 09.22

Felixqui,
You have through repeated in this forum,

"China's monolithic unity, was probably crucial to the contributions that the Greeks made to the foundations of the West."

It seems that you start new history of this world.

comment 19
FelixQui date : 09/04/2008 time : 23.50
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/FelixQui

And ditto for your inanely puerile comments about money in teh West.

comment 18
FelixQui date : 09/04/2008 time : 23.45
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/FelixQui

talkfact,
In what way is the science of today "not Science proper"?

In what way is Western, now world, science against the laws of nature? It aims to understand nature, and all pure research is done with that aim in mind. Any practical or commercial applications come later, and even if the goal is practical, how does that make it contrary to nature? Indeed, I think there is a serious problem even making sense of the idea of science, or anything else, being contrary to nature. We are a part of nature. Anything we do is necessarily constrained by and in accord with the laws of physics and chemistry, or do you think our science is in some way super-natural? What do you mean by saying that science is contrary to nature?
And I would love to know what "different concept" science is about to switch to any day now. The one that is being developed "secretly, hiding".

Your concept of democracy also seems a bit unusual. What do you think the word "democracy" entails that was missing in ancient Greece and in teh US and Europe prior to 1970?
Can you give an example of something prior to the Iliad where men were free to fight not because they were coerced but because they believed it was right to do so? And where people could tell the king exactly what they thought of him and his behaviour with the expectation that he was obliged to listen? Can you give an example prior to Socrates (other then teh pre-Socratics) of someone who thought everything could and should be subject to critical assessment? Aristotle got almost all of his science wrong, but can you give an example of anyone earlier, other than his Greek predecessors, who sought an understanding of nature in the same critical way based on observation and reason, unimpeded by religious dogma or political orthodoxy?

You are exactly wrong to say that Thailand offers more freedom than the US. Try expressing your opinion on a couple of hot topics subject to draconian legal strictures and see how free you remain. It is true that a small number of Western people would like to settle here, but vastly more Thai people aspire to move to Western countries, and not because they want less freedom. In Thailand, the poor are not even assured of being able to say that some rich idiot should have been more careful driving his Mercedes without being run down with little or no consequence for the perpetrator. That does not sound much like a "freedom" worth having to me. But perhaps I've misunderstood, and you can demonstrate that the mans father was right to point out that poor and uneducated people don't matter and it's OK to run them down when they speak rudely to their rich betters. In case you have not noticed, money counts for a lot in thailand, especially amongst those whose families have had it teh longest.

You wrote: "Life in the West is about
work, work, work. So far, so good."

Well, some people do choose to work a lot, but a lot also devote themselves to social issues, like black rights, female suffrage, gay rights, environmental issues many others choose to devote some or all of their time to self-improvement, learning for the pleasure it gives, pursuing art and so on. You are completely wrong to say the West is about work and nothing else. I do not know where or how you learnt about life in Western countries, but it appears to have been an extraordinarily blinkered existence you led there. And you appear to know absolutely nothing of life for most people in Thailand - they worry about getting a job, often shitty, that will pay enough to get by on, and for most ordinary Thai people there is a real and constant worry that ends won't quite meet. You appear to be as ignorant of life for Thai people in Thailand as you are about life for Western people in the West. Might I ask, how well do you speak Thai and how many ordinary Thai people, who do not generally speak English, have you gotten to know at all well? Or at all?

The news is now available all over the world; that doesn't mean it's the same every day.

With all due respect, I think your ideas are all drivel driven by personal bitterness and some sort of weird idea of the noble Oriental and teh evil West.

comment 17
talkfact date : 09/04/2008 time : 21.01
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/jern
penfact

Science of today is a short-cut, not Science proper

wch, If you mean that Chinese at the time didn’t develop Science because their thinking, their Philosophy, was based on faith (was blocked by faith in this case – as science is a secular thing), I agree with you and I think also you might be on the right track in answering your own why-question.

Yet, again, I don’t agree with Ian on his ideas about science. I don’t think what we call science today will look the same the 30 years. I think it has to switch to a different concept any day now – and I think it’s doing it secretly, hiding…otherwise we should be very worried about our future. I think the way the Chinese tried to do it was a better way, not a short-cut.
What we nowadays call Science is a short-cut and do you know what they say about short-cuts?
Most often they slow your down and sometimes they even lead you astray.
This is what has happen with present-day science.
Half-way on its short-cut it met Money, a Man so handsome that science immediately
fell in love. The two hurriedly married and when they appeared in public again the two had become one.
The marriage is typical patriarchal: Money, who is the Man, is in command. The woman, Science, just has to listen and do.
And the doings she is doing are not discoveries of laws of Nature, on the contrary
they are an ever- developing list of tricks on how to trick Nature to do Man's will
AGAINST the laws of Nature.

I certainly do not agree with Felix on his description of Ancient Greece.
The only original thing the Greek did was to show us a concept of democracy.
They also put forward a secular philosophy of Science at a time when all
philosophy was embedded in religious faith.
Science was not founded by the Greek; the technology of science was rather
founded by the Chinese and if it had been combined with the secular philosophy of the Greek
we had had Science already then...
Now, instead science was something that gradually evolved in Europe during the
Renaissance but virtually didn't come into being until the industrial revolution
took speed. (1750-). Democracy came later, at the end of 1800 or beginning of 1900
when women started to become full members of society and got the right to vote.
That's not so long time ago. I have heard for Switzerland the women got the right to vote
1970 something. I just checked on Internet, it was 1971.
To say that aristocratic Europe before that, or the US, were democracies prior to that would be to stretch the concept into meaninglessness.
Democracy as a concept and phenomena is not completed yet, rather it's on decline.
I see the US as less democratic now than it was before 1989 when the famous Berlin wall
was being demolished. US today have more the feature of a Speculaty than a Democracy. It's
all about money, as if money was identical with freedom. Which it isn't.
Westerners come to Thailand and sometimes they settle here. Why. Because here is
an atmosphere of freedom of a kind they haven't experienced before. I talked to
Americans here in Thailand, after a couple of years here they can see all the disadvantages
with the Western life and they don't want to go back. Life in the West is about
work, work, work. So far, so good. But is that all there is? Is the fate of a human being
to work, work, work, and shut up and work, work, work and shut up and never ever have time to reflect about themselves, people, life, about universe. (That’s the way of life at an American workplace). The profit of the Big Corporations has increased with 4000%. So,
we work for them, not for ourselves. We have
much less money now to spend compared with 20 years ago. You see the Executives, the new Aristocracy, must be paid billions of dollars and their gangs of mid-level managers not much less.
Democracy? No, Speculaty. And now this concept has spread all over the Western world
and is taking ground even elsewhere.
The so called freedom of the US and the West has run amok, why not admit it? It has turned into a money-thing.
I see US as a major world power, and as a democracy, on decline. And Europe stands next in line. Free press and free media? It looks more like an enormous media-machine spitting out exactly the same news, no matter if you are in Iceland, Texas, Melbourne, Copenhagen, London or wherever. It’s more of a machine, instead of a free press.

comment 16
FelixQui date : 09/04/2008 time : 14.36
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/FelixQui

Ian,
I agree about the rivalry, also the melting pot.
I think science has now progressed to the point that it can be seen as valuable in its own right, and individual states can agree to cooperate on specific large scale projects, like CERN and ITER fusion project. That can be done without the stultifying need to force agreement or sameness on everything else.
I think you are right to have reservations about the centralisation of decision making in both the US and EU. Both are good ideas, but having a set of specific common goals should not require that all decisions on all matters be made or endorsed by a central authority. As much as possible should be left to member states to decide for themselves. And competition encouraged.

comment 15
Ian date : 09/04/2008 time : 13.40
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/anterian36

Felix, I think you have to take it one stage further, it is the rivalry between these little states, both economic, cultural and militarily, which drives the engines of progress and discovery.
With the present firming up of the American Union and now the growing European Union, I am not sure if this is ultimately a good thing. On the other hand much of science has progressed to a level where a small state could no longer afford it.

comment 14
FelixQui date : 09/04/2008 time : 13.12
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/FelixQui

Ian,
Sorry, but I think we agree, which is a little unusual.
It's not being a single country was one of the great strengths of ancient Greece - it was not a single entity like China, Persia, Egypt and teh rest. That fact, which I was assuming as basic knowledge and in my explicit contrast with China's monolithic unity, was probably crucial to the contributions that the Greeks made to the foundations of the West.
Simiarly, later Europe's strength was that it was a hodge-podge of little kingdoms.
ANd the United States is a mess of very independent states.

National unity that equates to sameness and centralised dictatorship is not a strength and is not something to admire or strive for.

comment 13
wch date : 09/04/2008 time : 10.43

Penfact,
So why Han people failed to develop further from their many initial findings and invents ?.

Felixqui,
Western philosophy has been developed as a part of science, critical thinking, supported by metaphysics, religion and humanity. The focused earlier the nature and challenges to conventional human belief.

To the contrary, Han people tried to complete the humanity and its application to the community and the nationhood, ignoring the nature and its deemed rules. Communism existed in even Congzu era and practised during Taiping rebellion of mid 19c.
However han people failed in the principle of humanity because of the failure of Cinism, equivalent to 'Americanism'. Cinism contains racial descrimination, and more importantly the historic, chronical bureaucracy corruption..

Failure of cinism (Hwa-ism or Zhonghwa'sm), as one of critical ones, the diapora of Hakka and many southerner ethnities who seriously affect now, the south east asian nations and their morality crisis.

Han people refused them and vice versa.
Han's humanity failed accordingly.
(Please take this as an academic view, no personal emotion please).

comment 12
Ian date : 09/04/2008 time : 10.22
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/anterian36

I find myself in disagreement with both Felix and talkfact, not unusual and no hard feelings:-)
Ancient Greece was never a country, is was a land of city states, the people were not one people, the land had been invaded twice during the classical period by "barbarians" from the north First by Celtic people the "barbaroi" then by the Dorians from the Balkan region.
Thus Greece was a melting pot of ideas and cultures from Minoans, Myceneans, Dorians, Ionians, Aeolians and Phoenicians, and as far afield as Persia, Egypt and India. This was the source of its strength and vigour.
In the modern world Turkey is seen as a country that bridges Asia and Europe, in Classical times Greece bridged the North, South, East and West, it was the true crossroads of the ancient world.

China was both politically and geographically isolated, many claimed Chinese inventions actually had their origins in India, medicine, the compass, Buddhism etc all had their origins in India.
Indian culture itself was derived from the Harappan or Indus valley civilisation which extended into Persia and beyond and was contemporary with the Ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian cultures.

Chinese growth ceased when it severed contact with the rest of the world simply because no new ideas could enter.

I am not sure why talkfact adresses a comment to me on the meritocracy of the mandarin orders, I am familiar with the badge of the feather and how it was obtained.

comment 11
FelixQui date : 09/04/2008 time : 10.15
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/FelixQui

wch,
Thank you for explaining. That's much clearer to me now.

comment 10
wch date : 09/04/2008 time : 09.32

Felixqui,
A set of dialogue between you and me was ;

(Your insight)
wch,
I think the main problem with the Oriental philosophy is that it was never permitted to devolop, but was sedulously suppressed from about 221 BC when China was first unified into a monolithic empire from which the people were never permitted to recover.

(My opinion)
Felixqui,
Yes, although Han people destroyed by name of "culture revolution", it looks alive, why ?.
The root is at other place, the tungusic ancestorworship faith. Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam are prospering

Here, if you are lost, probably the new entry of "Tungusic ancestor worship faith".

Han people brought up many philosophies but to be abolished later. Then what is the bottomline of their faith ?.
So I brought up this new entry - the most common faith shared by all Tungusic tribes that include, ancient irish, some baltic tribes, turk, mongol, hsiung no, juchen, HAN, josen, tartar, yennis, khitan, koguri, puyo, Bat hai, Khan, Tai-jiu, yuan,Komphu,

who all built Kobun (tumuli or mausoleum) in common culture identity.

(Anyhow this is not the issue to the main theme, "If the western world receive the Confusianism,")

comment 9
PasaNINJA2499 date : 09/04/2008 time : 02.04
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/PasaNINJA2499
Keep walking forward. Don't give up. Don't fed up.

amazing...yup.

also complex….
as it is all about human and society. It is always complex, hard to understand.

comment 8
FelixQui date : 08/04/2008 time : 23.29
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/FelixQui

No, it isn't time to rewrite Western history.

That the relation of Greece to Western Europe was weak in 700 BC is irrelevant. The relation of Greek thought to the rest of Europe in 33 AD was very strong, and grew until the decline of the Roman Empire.

What if? What if? Well, yes, what if? Speculation is fine, but there is no evidence for this particular what if about the origins of the Greek ideas that continue to form the foundation of our culture, which is now the world's culture.

We know that the Greeks got ideas from Egypt, indeed, they frankly admired it's antiquity and the amazing monumental structures. Had they got their ideas from them, they would probably have been equally open - it would have strengthened the pedigree. But there is no evidence at all to think any such thing. So far as we know, teh Greeks created Western culture. That is not to say they created it out of a vacuum. They did not, but they were the ones who first created teh crucial elements.

China did not develop as quickly or as well as the West because it was a monolithic entity subservient to a single ruler. That was its true weakness and the reason it was so very, very easy for the numerically much smaller West to conquer it from the other side of the world. And China only freed itself from Western control by adopting Western approaches to things like war and technology. We might argue about whether that was a good or bad thing, but that's the way it happened. In practice, the planet is now well on the way to being a Western culture that traces its roots back to Greece, and no further. The ideals of liberty, critical thinking, and an impartial justice had no origin except in Greece. China as it was could never have developed a Western science - that sort of free thinking and questioning of everything was simply not permitted by the sons of heaven, however many there may have been at one time. Had it never been united, the story might have been different, but that's not the way it turned out.

It is also not entirely true that even a thousand years ago it all depended on birth in the West and merit in China. In reality, passing the imperial (the correct adjective) exams required years of intense preparation to conform to the inflexible orthodoxy of the Confucian Canon that the exams tested (zero marks for Taoism there), and only a very few families could afford that. It helped a lot to be from a wealthy and privileged family, which is another way of saying that it mattered who you were. Meanwhile, in the West, the church and the state had great need of administrators, and someone of ability could get a start that would allow them to rise to a high position, based largely on merit, which could always be enhanced by a strategic marriage, just as the right family connections were, and continued to be until very recently, in China, where filial piety institutionalised the practice of nepotism 2,000 years ago far more so than it ever was in teh West.

Teh old testament of the Bible includes visions and mystical songs, are they not something other than law?
In teh new testament, Jesus explicitly states in Matthew that he came to fulfill and CONTINUE all the laws - that none would be changed in the slightest until heaven and earth have passed away. Heaven may not be there, but the earth is still here.

In ancient Greece there was a god called Dionysus, with his own cult, which was decidedly unrational. And in the celebration of his mysteries, and others, teh devotees were inclined to go into trances and generally carry on in a pretty free, and sometimes bloody, manner, if the ancient texts are to be believed. The intent was an explicit contrast with Apollo and the more orderly gods. Aphrodite was no great model of lawfullness either, and hence the war that Homer celebrates. If you remember, it started because the goddess persuaded a silly man to indulge his ... free soul. And in that poem at the beginning of the West, the remarkable thing is the freedom of the participants and their ability, their expected right, to be able to speak as free men to everyone, including Agamemnon, who gets some unminced words from more than just Achilles. Had anyone spoken to Pharoah that way, his body would have been slowly taken apart. Same for China - free souls were permitted to indulge in innocuous tales of dreaming butterflies and nothing more threatening to the imperial prestige. No Chinese was permitted to speak to the emporer as an equal or to indulge any freedom of the soul. Freedom of teh soul in any deep sense is Western, not Egyptian, Persian, or Chinese. The people's of the world crave to Westernise not just because of medicines and mobile phones, but because of teh ideals of liberty, equality under the law, and free thinking. (China today is still not at all keen on the last of these.)

comment 7
talkfact date : 08/04/2008 time : 21.34
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/jern
penfact

Time to rewrite Western world history?

I’m looking for similarities, not differences. Why should medieval Europe have been so different from China at that time, and if it was, why was it?
I see every reference to Ancient Greece as a weak argument. Greece was Europe’s connection to Asia. At early time Greece it “belonged” culturally to a region comprising West part of Asia (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Syria). Its relation to the rest of Europe was very weak at the time.
Every Westerner has learned in school about the fantastic achievement in Ancient Greece. The impression has been that the civilisation of the world started in Greece and that it started from scratch!
This is history turned upside down. What if the Greek did what the Japanese and Chinese have been doing recently: they copied everything they could get their hand on – only for the Greek they copied thoughts mostly, not technology.
What if they copied 70 percent of their so called achievements from Egypt, Mesopotamia and India and Iran and only created the other 30 percent themselves? That 30 percent would still be a remarkable achievement and this especially so as they went on and developed the copied thoughts further. Medieval Europe began to discover the achievement of Ancient Greece around 1300-1400. That’s another story.

China developed its thoughts and technology almost all by itself – in fact a greater achievement, especially if you look at a list of all their inventions and discoveries;
Compass, gunpowder, cannon, fan, parachute, hot air balloon, porcelain, papermaking, clock, printing, chemical warfare, a place for zero in maths, the First law of Motion (Newton’s) petroleum and natural gas as fuel, manned flight with kite, deep drilling for gas, water power, cybernetic machine, algebra, watertight compartment in ships, multiple masts on ships, recognition of sunspots as solar phenomena, concept on a steam engine, discovery of the solar wind, matches, discovery of diabetes, paper money, immunology, most of those discoveries and inventions took place 1000 year or more before Western civilisation.
And this I say to Ian: There was also for a time something we can call Chinese meritocracy; civil servants were enrolled solely by merits – what they had accomplished in exams, many of the came from poor background. That is the very opposite to the situation in Western world at the time which solely was based on the aristocracy. (Who are your parents? – instead of What are your skills?). This concept has been taken up recently again.
Suffice to say if China had been left in peace it had sooner or later invented Science too. But it didn’t. And it wasn’t left in peace.

Taoism is difficult to track in Western world civilisation (and that’s the main problem of the Western world culture – the lack of Taoism proper), so far I agree with FelixQui, but it does exist. The phenomena of Free market economy and the freedom associated with it, is part of Western world Taoism as a compensation for the, in the West, underdeveloped concept of inner freedom of soul.
The Christian bible is interesting. The Old Testament is nothing but law, law and law again.
Then, finally, we get the New Testament, the very opposite, not based on law but on the (Taoist) idea of freedom for the soul (which partly includes freedom from the law – again the man problem of the West: law but no freedom, only the illusory freedom that the law gives).
What a hopeless life for those who only had the Old Testament to rely on, those who didn’t know anything else.

comment 6
FelixQui date : 08/04/2008 time : 12.46
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/FelixQui

wch,
I'm sorry, but i honestly could not understand your last comment or how it relates to this blog. Could you perhaps explain your point(s) in a little more detail?

comment 5
wch date : 08/04/2008 time : 11.07

Felixqui,
Yes, although Han people destroyed by name of "culture revolution", it looks alive, why ?.
The root is at other place, the tungusic ancestorworship faith. Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam are prospering.

comment 4
FelixQui date : 08/04/2008 time : 09.53
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/FelixQui

wch,
I think the main problem with the Oriental philosophy is that it was never permitted to devolop, but was sedulously suppressed from about 221 BC when China was first unified into a monolithic empire from which the people were never permitted to recover.

You describe things like filial piety as "bongage", which is correct. They were yet more laws, not something other than laws, and Confucianism clearly speaks of them as laws that bind and control relationships throughout society, exactly as the laws of the son of heaven. It would be a misinterpretation to see them as anything other than set laws that are not subject to critical review and assessment. And that whole way of thinking is seriously defective.

comment 3
wch date : 08/04/2008 time : 09.29

In the comparison between the occidental culture and the oriental culture, the difference of individualism will be the distinct scale.

Apparently the western individualism is the interaction between "I" and "others", that needs clear rules and laws.

The eastern individualism is the determination between " I" and " others", that needs rules and laws, and often more importantly ' traditional faith".

Primary relation of the eastern individualism is the bondage between the father and the son. The faith of them is 'Filial Piety'. This relation will expand into the Clanship, and the clanship determine the relationship with the sovereign of the community.
This is called, Fidelity to the sovereign.

Therefore, Asiatic " I " is not owned by 'Me' completely. I is owned by a woman as 'husband', father, son, brother or even dutiful soldier to the sovereign power.

Here when the community shall judge " I ", the scale is the law and equally 'the traditional values' of Filial Piety as well as Fidelity.

A ruler can be punished by this traditional value, along with the laws.

Thailand face the crisis in this term.

(Occidental humanity and its individualism was achieved by struggle but the oriental individualism was through philosophical conflicts such as Confucianism, Taoism, Ancestorworship and Fidelity. Therefore all religions indigeneous or imported were used as supplementary faiths to have complete the oriental philosophy).

comment 2
Ian date : 08/04/2008 time : 08.40
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/anterian36

Eastern legal systems have all been based on paternalism, a supreme person, king or Emperor, who decides the law.
The West has spent centuries of struggle moving away from this concept to one where the law is made by men for men.

comment 1
FelixQui date : 08/04/2008 time : 01.04
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/FelixQui

Amazing indeed.
Any similarity between Confucianism and Western legal practice is very superficial. Confucian thinking presupposes as ideal a system where the Son of Heaven gives the law and that's it. The Western system, as inaugurated in Greece, rather presupposes a body of free citizens ruling themselves and taking a very active and critical part in the creation of law. The two have little in common, and the Western system is vastly better: morally and practically.

Taoism is more complex, and perhaps does have some genuine similarities with the Western mystical tradition, which again dates back to Greece and has had a hearty run through Christian thinking. Like Taoism, this does aim to acknowledge the value of teh mystical and even the irrational. I don't think it has any thing, even superficially, in common with Adam Smith.

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