Debate about Confucian Education continues...across the Straits

Thanks to another big Confucius statue raised in Beijing, the issue of Confucian education is being brought under the spot light again by the media.

It is interesting to see how the proposal of bring back Confucian classics to the existing education system had been sort of portrayed negatively by media on both side --mainland China and Taiwan.

In the recent gathering of National People's Congress in March 2011, a representative from Hubei Peng Fuchun proposed government control over the 'over-heated' popularity of the classic-reading education movement. He argues that having children to receive classics such as Dizigui, Sanzijing, and other Confucian classics are 'anti-democracy, anti-science' and is the obstacles for modernization of education in China. Although he recognize the the values in Confucian classics, he sees the importance of government intervention in standardizing the text and make sure that only the 'appropriate' materials (pro-science, pro-democracy) are included.

In Taiwan, students are protesting online against the government decisions to make studying Confucian classics mandatory in school. Teachers and students question the usefulness of the text in changing students' behavior (namely, bullying). Liberal media, however, sees the problem more along the link with Peng in mainland China -- that is, Confucianism contradict with the value of democracy and modernization. And of course, we know that what Peng meant by democracy may well be very different from the Taiwanese' understanding of democracy.

The logic of modernization is still prevailing in the discourse of Confucianism. Its compatibility with the 'modern' had been an issue for scholars and intellectuals since the May-fourth movement in the early 20th century. The question is till remain unresolved.


What make it even more complicated, as suggested by Joseph Tamney and Linda Chiang (2002), is that China is simultaneously influenced by the modern and late-modern development in which self-actualization ethos, globalization and the lost of the naive faith in persons are shaping Chinese social life. That is, in my understanding, while the work of 'de-secularizing' the role of Confucianism from political and other social institutions is yet to be completed, the challenge of late-modern society and the yearning for solution to crisis of meanings is already kicking in. Therefore, we see that while on the one hand, people are crying for the 'threats' (regardless of validated empirically or not) of Confucianism to modernity. At the same time, one cannot completely reject the re-emerging public roles of Confucianism.

As Peng correctly put it: ' There are needs to raise awarness in studying Guoxue (or, 'National Studies') in our time. The Chinese economy is rising, so as our pride to our national identity. We now see the values in the ancients traditions that we had abandoned before. There are lot of good things in our traditional culture, which is even better than those in Western society. There are things in Chinese traditional culture that we need to continue and transmit. Furthermore, there are too much competition in economic sphere and too little seeking of satisfaction in spiritual life in our society. We need the traditional culture to fill the gap, providing value and emotional support to our spiritual needs'. [ 国学热确实有其时代需求。中国经济崛起，中国人民的民族自豪感提高了，过去曾经抛弃了很多老祖宗的东西，现在看来，很多传统文化、传统思想是很好的，甚至比西方社会的东西还要好。这让很多人开始重视中国传统文化的传承和发扬。

　　另外，在当前的社会上，经济层面的追求太多，精神层面的追求确实很少，我们需要国学来弥补，寻找传统文化所传承的价值观念和情感的支持，是一种精神寻根的需求。]

Confucianism filling the spiritual vacuum -- the next question is: how and why?