Ben,
David Boaz is no manic, he is Christian Right, he is merely expressing an opinion, which is what we are all here for, I am Christian Left, and often disagree with David, but one thing I can tell you is he knows what he's talking about. David and I don't have to agree all the time, and I lean more your way, however David does make some good points.

Oliver


Sorry for the delay. Still learning the ropes.

I found your comments instructive and challenging in areas where your knowledge is superior to mine.

My judgements are based as much on experience in Japan and elsewhere in Asia, as on experience in China. Despite their nominal capitalism and communism respectively I consider Japan and China today have very similar governments, systems and values, Confucian-Daoist for want of a better name. On the basis of this evaluation I argued, very much against the otherwise consensus view, in the Australian Embassy in Beijing in 1976/77 that China would emulate Japan. In The Confucian Renaissance in 1989 this projection was repeated and again mocked by many.

Communism and capitalism are Western, not Asian, hang-ups, very much a secular product of the Christian messianic tradition. I think that recent history shows the contemporary Confucian bureaucratic strategist is an even more formidable adversary than the Shang.

One also needs to remember, despite inhibitions encouraged by Anglo-American intellectual apartheid, that, apart from the past 200 years, Chinese technological achievements generally overshadowed those of the West. I am coming to the conclusion that the non-theory character of Chinese science and technology was and is a major strength. East Asians can handle theory (note contemporary patent numbers) but both the Daodejing and the Yijing effectively scorn theory as the West knows it. The dismissal of the Yi Jing by Needham, despite his long, passionate dedication to Chinese science, is instructive.

Much more on this, including many lingering questions, can be found in A Confucian-Daoist Millennium?

Reg

Reg,

"Communism and capitalism are Western, not Asian, hang-ups, very much a secular product of the Christian messianic tradition."

Fully agree. Lucian Pye notes that in the 1920s, Mao didn't really operate like your typical Western-Orthodox Communist. Perhaps, several Asian leaders studied Communism and Fabianism, because these ideologies were instructive with respect to organizing people. Capitalism is a moderation of merchantilism, which which was out-growth of Elizabethan monopolies (c.1600)... very Western (colonialism, dominance).

Civilizationalists (e.g., Quigley, Toynbee) note, there was a split in the Sinic civilization c. 400 , leading to Chinese society and Japanese society. There is a common thread through both. Neither society; I suggest, and you allude to, are particularly theocentric. Chinese famililism (Redding, Silin) links to ancestor workship; Japanese workship links in part to animism. The Judeo-Christian approach is more to do with dominion over the environment. Historically, Confucianism is cosmocentric and seeks "world affirmation" not "world abnegation": i.e., "adaption to the world" (harmony), not "mastery of the world" (control) (Chen). Just the same, in China, there is a penchant insider "Chineseness", vis-a-vis, outsiders, going back two thousand plus years. Maybe, Japanese nationalism is not quite the same, but, both appear to be ethnocentric and self-isolating?

"Chinese technological achievements generally overshadowed those of the West. I am coming to the conclusion that the non-theory character of Chinese science and technology was and is a major strength."

In dynastic times, Chinese technological advances tended to gain strength in unification periods (Jin, at China U. in HK. I have discussed with him). Also, Chinese technolgies tended to buttress the State, including significant capital works.

On the other hand, the West may have lost contact with the better Greek teachings, because Rome spoke Latin in its decline. The remnants, from which the West grew, could have been better.

Over centuries, China progressed slowly, but consistently, except during periods of disunity. The West really jumped ahead c. 1760.

If true, China's reported containment of a fusion reaction is also instructive. This would be primary innovation.

Japanese technologies seem to be integrative and transformational: e.g., solid state TV, walkman. Whene Japan entered Meiji Restoration, China's Qing [last] Dynasty was in decline. Nonetheless, some pretty cultural antecedents have been carried forward to this century. If China, is to grow its own global companies I feel it must be more horizontally integrative to outsiders, elsewise Kin Altruism will drive it more towards Korean chaebol style operations, than Japanese keiretsu [which may now be a thing of the past?]. My own experience with Chinese SME owners [Singapore, Hong Kong SAR]going IPO, that some entrepreneurs inappropriately carry-forward business and accounting practices, perhaps not appropriate to a public company.

Oliver

Many thanks for the extra comments.

My impression is that we are beginning to talk at cross purposes, although I still find it most instructive. The issue seems to me to be that you are working within an English language conceptual framework, while I have now spent about forty years trying to figure out what is wrong with that.

The first lines of the Daodejing (after 20 years or so of pondering)proved very helpful to me:

The Dao that can be explained is not the everlasting Dao.
The name that can be named is not the everlasting name.

To me this now signifies that words, concepts, rational structures and scientific theories are just useful props for the human mind but need to be continually checked by the direct perceptions of a disciplined intuition.

Both the Daodejing and the Yi Jing (as well as Chan and Zen Buddhism) work to assist this but there is little in the Western tradition.

John Hobson's The Eastern Origins of Western Civilization is the source I trust most on the achievements of Chinese innovation.

China's progress in developing IPv6 for possible release during the 2008 Olympics and its recently revealed apparent capacity to close down American satelites suggests to me we are close to being confronted with a number of scientific and technological breakthougha and surprises. At the same time, I believe both Japan and China have been much more cautious than the West in seeking to conquer nature and trigger the problems we encounter today with environmental sustainability, ecological balance and human well-being.

For Fred Sion(and yourself if interested), A Confucian-Daoist Millennium? can be purchased through the publisher at www.connorcourt.com.au/little.pdf or a google search for the title will also guide you to The Asia Bookroom in Canberra and China Books in Sydney.

Best regards

Reg

Hello Reg,

Thank you. Interesting follow-up.

“The Dao that can be explained is not the everlasting Dao. The name that can be named is not the everlasting name”.

Everyday, contemporary Western society would to seem downplay holistic perspectives and gestalts. Agreed. Nonetheless, perhaps, similar notions are known to Western philosophy and quantum physics.

Immanuel Kant mentions the influence of noumena on phenomena, where space and time belong only to intuition as a state of mind. For Kant, “space and time are intuitions of our minds which in order that we may have experiences of the appearance of objects and events” (Baggott). For example, we perceive spatial relationships, but these are not noumena, rather “sensible intuitions” of phenomena. Michael Polanyi, maintains we make commitments to a reality that the will be confirmed at some “indeterminate” future. Polanyi knew Einstein. Herein, in conversation, Einstein said to Polanyi intuition preceded his discoveries.

Underlying the concept of superposition in physics is the idea of the knowledge of the observation of a wave (only) or a particle (only). Herein, the observed conditions are mere complementarities of reality, not reality itself.

Maybe, the success of classical mechanics and the industrial revolution has made the Western person in-the-street too limited in contemplations of, what is so? If Einstein was Indian, would he have found Heisenberg more tolerable?

In sum, I think Eastern ideas present themselves in Western thought, but have been assigned esoteric or as impractical. The East can draw on the same in their everyday lives. In a post-Newtonian era, this wider perspective could prove to the East’s advantage.

Thanks for the book details.

Cheers,

O.