Some blogs encourage reader comments, instead I encourage readers to email me, and in this short article I would like to summarize the kind of things people have been saying.
An example of an email sent to me by a Chinese reader appears below:
I am who one might call a Chinese-American. I live in the US but I was brought up in China and am fluent in Chinese. Where China's future lies very much interests me these days.
The big internal debate to China for years, is basically one of inevitable triumph of "Western Liberal Democratic model" (WLD) vs Pragmatism with old-Marxists largely sidelined. The pragmatic model has often been derided as cynical attempt to prolong the status quo and thus preserve the rulers, not just abroad but in China too. However with China's success admiration is rapidly replacing cynicism at least internally.
In the past arguments have come down to that of : since the West is advanced WLD must work and China must advance along WLD lines. Also, WLD is increasingly being held up as nearest example of "Da Tong", or the ancient philosophic tradition of "great common" or "peace on earth" if you will. The pushers of WLD in China are increasingly ones that advance a "Judeo-Christian" message that openly despises and looks down up on Traditional Chinese Philosophies and portray themselves as the only true realities. Personally I find this incorrect and offensive hubris.
There is a third "mood" however, especially post 2008, which believes the inevitability of WLD may not be true, that China may develop some sort of new hybrid or alternative system. This holds great sway with in the new generation, who were very pro-west during 80s, but are now utterly disillusioned by how in practice the West treats China. On the one hand America loves its Middle Eastern Dictators, on the other it lectures China on human rights and dictates terms to trade. For many young Chinese today there is a great sense of bitterness toward America and WLD is no longer satisfying. Chinese people are beginning to want their own Chinese system, with its own philosophical perspective, not Judeo-Christian liberal moral dogma but instead something more sophisticated.
I think the third mood is taking over, but many Chinese people are still trying to make sense of the ancient philosophic traditions. I have found your writing most interesting, especially the yin-yang moral model, also the idea of the Age Of Enlightenment Part II, and I ask please for permission to translate some of your works to discuss with other Chinese.
It is not always easy for Western Philosophers to connect with Chinese minds. The Socratic style of argument is confrontational, it revolves around exposing the opponents 'emotional' flaw. I realise that Chinese thinkers are much better able to grasp both sides of the argument simultaneously, and don't need such bombastic presentation. Anyway, I encourage Chinese readers to write to me, and please forgive my slightly crass Western style.
Unfortunately my email exchanges with Westerns readers are, in general, pretty depressing. It is impossible to understand my work without detaching from Christian / Humanist moral dogma, and very few people have the intellectual discipline to look at the world in a whole new way. A handful have said they enjoy my writing, but no non-Asian person has so far said my work has moved them. I am happy to clarify things, and to have mistakes pointed out, but hearing from people who understand absolutely nothing I say is pointless.
One type of Western reader who contacts me is the "democracy is turning into tyranny" type. These people are obsessed with the surveillance state, often conspiracy theories as well. For the record: I believe that democracy is excessively liberal not tyranical. I believe that the sense of tyranny many in the West now claim to feel is symptomatic not of real tyranny, but rather excessive individualism. This excessive individualism has not only made Westerners paranoid, it has made them irrational and self destructive as well. Now the West needs a paternalistic authoritarian government to restore idealism, discipline and effectiveness. How authoritarian? I think Singapore is doing a great job. I would say that Singapore is in many important ways a little more authoritarian than China, probably just because its smaller size makes it easier to manage, and I worry about Chinese individualism a bit. Perhaps the violence of the cultural revolution knocked a bit of the idealism out Wen Jiabao's generation, and the younger generation are in danger of consumerism. For all the marvellous success of China's scientific leaders, they do not seem as philosophically switched on as Lee Kuan Yew, the Sage King who founded modern Singapore. The most heart wrenching mistake China is making is excessive private home ownership, that is truly the road to financial and moral ruin.
Very few Westerners really grasp the idea of yin vs yang metaphysics, also the idea of objective rationality vs subjective faith, and collectivism vs individualism. This resistance greatly frustrates me, and I find it very hard to steer an even course between Nietzschean style shock tactics and confusion. Sometimes I think that if I pained my arguments in more extreme terms, the violent contradiction with Western morality would crack the readers mind open; yet such an approach is just as likely to provoke an extreme and dangerous subjective vision. Nietzschean shock tactics didn't work, his Übermensch was no different from the Platonic Philosopher King, or the Confucian Superman, but his imagery mainly appealed to psychopaths. My vision actually has no yin/yang bias at its deepest level, it just appears to biased compared to the existing positions of irrational readers.
The vast majority of Western readers cannot move beyond emotional preconceptions. They write me emails asking why I believe what I do, as if there is some other reason that the many intellectual arguments I give. This is like the modern obsession with the biography, which in this shallow age is more important than the work itself. Emotion also blinds readers to the critical idea that, by Lispet, defining government legitimacy in non-utilitarian terms is unscientific. I wish readers could stop on this point and go round and round until they understood it.
Of course the New Eastern Philosophy I articulate is much bigger than utility, so Western readers generally focus on other aspects of my work. Essentially they divide into two groups of people: the humanitarians and the post-modernists.
The humanitarians can not let go of my rejection of individual suffering. The only way these people can move forward is to understand how Eastern Philosophy answers the problem of evil. For a Westerner, with all his inherent individualism, detaching completely from the importance of individual human life requires detaching from the importance of his own life, which means finding the passion to devote oneself to the common good. Because Westerners today are so extraordinarily selfish, it takes real intellectual detachment to suppress the ego deeply enough to even understand the correct resolution of the problem of evil. Yet, in fact, the truth is so staggering simple even a child could grasp it.
Philosophy is like this, it is not an intellectual challenge so much as an egotistical challenge, intellectuals fight over principles their children absorb effortlessly. All the long words and complex points are simply a journey of discovery. Remember Confucius: By three ways we can learn wisdom - by reflection which is the hardest, by imitation which is the easiest, by experience which is the bitterest. Philosophy is just the first path. In fact real philosophers are few are far between and have little impact on society, the work that gets attention mostly just articulates prevailing sentiment. Look at Adam Smith's invisible hand - was it rational? Of course not, Adam Smith was really just an ideologue who turned a blind eye to truth in the pursuit of moral justification. Look at Seymour Martin Lipset's legitimacy. His idea was not groundbreaking, it became famous because America was doing well at the time. In fact Plato's Laws opened with a utilitarian definition of legitimacy two and a half thousand years ago. Now America is not doing as well the academic community has forgotten about utility again. For Francis Fukuyama, Lipset was a hero, today he is ignored.
The post-modernists can not let go of the idea of subjective truth. They can not accept the idea of divine (eg Plato) or mathematical (eg Hobbes & Lispet) truth contradicting their own value judgements. Lets try and shock the reader with an emotive example: In Plato Laws he calls homosexuality an unnatural act which creates a particularly dangerous lust in individuals, and which should therefore be banned. Yet this kind of judgement call has gone out of fashion in the politically correct modern world - to question homosexuality, to judge it from the point of objective rational positives and negatives, rather than subjective choice, is now heresy. New Eastern Philosophy is not dogmatic, it does not believe in good in evil, but it could in theory argue that homosexually is a perverted act better banned. Why has the West gone so far off course? It is the extraordinarily self-centred outlook of the modern Western man which allows him to elevate his own subjective choices over objective truth, and it takes an exceptional person to break free of this failing.