Does Confucius matter outside Asia?

JR can’t promise that this will be the last time he’s coming back to the Confucius Peace Prize (孔子和平奖) – but he’ll try not to dwell on it merely for the fun it has been.

Collateral Damage: the Noble and his Prize

A prize should highlight outstanding achievements. That should be the objective. Before naming a prize after someone, a jury or the founders of a prize need to think of what a name stands for.

We’ll show the rest of the world how the Chinese understand peace, Tan Liuchang, chairman of the “Confucius Peace Prize Committee”, reportedly told the Global Times.

Should a Confucius Prize encourage “ethnic”, rather than universal values?

The Granite Studio, in a post of nine random thoughts, links to sort of an obituary on the bankruptcy of the neo-traditionalism that the CCP has to turn to time and time again as it struggles to find a narrative to legitimate its authorian rule. If you simply want to scold a bunch of brain-washed fools, there’s little to add to that, other than a note of doubt that the party leadership had really much to do with the prize – except that the “civil society” which produced it is – undeniably –  the CCP’s very own brainchild – a politically overengineered society.

But JR isn’t only here to have fun. He is here to make a small contribution to future Confucius Peace Prize deliberations, too – to help to deepen mutual understanding, and friendship between nations.

Laozi might have recommended purity free from all desire and all intentional action. Couldn’t a Confucius Peace Prize – from true civil society, that is – make sense after all?  In 2009, Wang Zhicheng (王志成), a Chinese scholar, wrote a review of how Chinese Confucians – and there are many ways of how you might define yourself Confucian – think of Confucian ways in China today, and in today’s global society. Confucianism and its revival, Wang wrote, require post-modern, critical reflection. Can Confucianism contribute to the further development of global values – and if so, how?

A translation of Prof. Wang’s review starts here. It’s far from perfect, and if you can read Chinese, the original post will serve you much better.

I can’t tell if the ideas are promising. But they do address Confucianism itself.

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Update

A Peace Prize for Katya and Maria, Asian Correspondent, Dec 10, 2011

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