Comments on: “The Chinese Way”

By: Xilin

Xilin — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 20:44:28 +0000

I heard he got nailed by a Level 5 Confucian Battle-Scholar (Xi is only a level 3).

By: King Tubby

King Tubby — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 20:37:13 +0000

O/T. Just where is Xi Jinping? Sports injury, spending some private quality time with his millions? (Beijing gossip is that Bo squirreled away $1.3 billion.)

By: King Tubby

King Tubby — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 20:18:27 +0000

@Xilim. You are attributing more to my comment (plus typos) than it warrants).

@Kevin. I couldn’t agree more with the content of your op ed as I noted.

@FOARP gets reasonably close to my objection, so I will can the vicious follow up on this form of credentialism I scribbled (in bile) in my head last night.

KT
Negroid blogger/member of the chatterati

By: Xilin

Xilin — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 18:39:53 +0000

I agree with Carrico, KT, the ‘Level 5 Confucian Battle-Scholar’ comment was a stroke of genius.

I don’t know where else we can go with this thread. Carrico takes the op-ed to pieces. I think that Confucianism as a political system belongs in the feudal past. To suggest it as otherwise would be like trying to get rid of parliament and bring back the ‘divine right of kings’ in England.

Richard, I sent you an email.

By: kevinc

kevinc — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 17:21:25 +0000

King Tubby, hi, I certainly didn’t mean to cram anything down anyone’s throat. Op-eds have bylines providing a brief description of the author, and I’m currently not doing much of interest besides working on completing a dissertation. So, that’s my byline, for better or worse- feel free to disregard it.
I like the D&D comparison!

By: Richard

Richard — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 16:54:15 +0000

Maybe, but with any op-ed you always list the writer’s credentials, even if you feel they are inadequate. This is usually a short description of who the author is/what he does that goes at the bottom of the column. Absolutely standard, and being a PhD candidate is not irrelevant. Enough about that; it’s a distraction from the column’s content.

By: Gil (AKA FOARP)

Gil (AKA FOARP) — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 16:39:23 +0000

@Richard – I guess KT’s point is that PhD candidacy is not a credential, at least by Anglo-Australian standards.

By: Richard

Richard — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 15:55:52 +0000

KT: You don’t need credential to make a valid point, and many who make valid points/claim etc usually have the good manners not ram their academic gonads down the throat of the reader.

Telling the people the credentials of an author is not “cramming them down their throat.” For an op-ed I nearly always give at least a few words telling who the writer is, such as telling people Daniel Bell is a China historian, etc. It would have been irresponsible of the CSM to offer an op-ed without giving the credentials of the author. It is totally standard in journalism, and your remark is incomprehensible.

By: justrecently

justrecently — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 12:54:09 +0000

Richard linked to the previous debate already - and I explained there why I do believe that there is (or can be) a future for Confucianism in China. It's a great topic for controversy, of course. Even Foarp takes King Tubby's ways when hearing 'Confucianism'. But I don't want to repeat myself.

By: Xilin

Xilin — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 11:36:09 +0000

I can see that T_co isn’t too keen on D&D. From his views on Chinese regional ambitions I would say he is more a fan of Risk.

As I said in the last thread on Confucianism; it isn’t compatible with gender equality and as such won’t work in a modern society. Without gender inequality the whole Confucian system breaks down.

The only chance of Confucianism getting a look-in in modern China will be as a T-shirt. An example of this would be the Confucius institutes.