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The Chinese Interpretive Context of Democracy
Yilan Luan Center for East-West Relations Beijing Foreign Studies University
Asymmetry in making cultural comparisons
We are ready to ask:
Is Confucianism democratic?
It would not occur to us to ask:
Is democracy Confucian?
This is interpretive asymmetry: shoehorning Chinese feet into Western shoes
Using Chinese Interpretive Context:
Trying to take Chinese philosophy on its own
terms
Pre-Religion 前宗教时代
Axial Age 轴心时代
Postmodern 后现代
West西方
China 东方(中国)
Western
Transcendental
Cosmology
6
Duality of the one and many
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The Western Interpretive Context of Democracy
The presuppositions of Liberal Democracy:
Deity
Human nature
State of nature
the Contract
The mechanisms of Democracy——Competitions
Individuals
Successful individuals;
Two parties;
check & balance (rights, liberty, power, and
wealth — gaining procedures)
The Western Interpretive Context of Democracy
Democracy as: Procedures for Individual Successes
Person as the individual:
Stand up everybody!
Everyone is equal before the law!
The Western Interpretive Context of the Individual
The Western Context of Democracy: the individual
China：
Myriad things/events, making a whole in terms of
correlations
Myriads of correlative and indivisible things
Relationships：
indivisibility, inseparability, correlativity, continuity
one in many, many in one
no absolutism, non-dualism
Indivisible one and many
the Indivisible one and many（天下一多不分）
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Students of Chinese philosophy would do well
to repay this compliment by reflecting on the
cosmological assumptions that ground Chinese
democracy as touchstones for finding out bearing
and retaining a secure footing in the fast flowing
philosophical narrative.
The Chinese Interpretive Context of Democracy （大家）
16
Focus/Field（场心结构）
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Confucian Focus-Field Notion of Person
Within the interpretive framework of Confucian
philosophy, associated, interpersonal living is
taken to be an uncontested, empirical fact. Every
person lives and every event takes place within a
vital natural, social, and cultural context.
Confucian role ethics—is an achievement; it is
what we are able with imagination to make of the
fact of association.
Using the holistic methodology allows us to discover that：
minzhu民主 democracy
ziyou自由 liberty
renquan人权 human rights
duibuqi对不起 sorry
geren zhuyi个人主义 individualism
Using renquan 人权 as an example
It simply does not match with the English human rights, they
do not correspond, are not synonymous and cannot be
translated into each other.
Human rights is the result of the Renaissance, the
Enlightenment, and the change in the relative role of God.
Before, man was dominated and controlled, as God always
declared that man was wrong, and that man always had to go
to church to ask for repentance.
1. Who gives the individual rights? Was there the state of
nature? How to answer Hume’s questions?
2. Only rights? What that correlates with rights?
3. Freedom is paramount? From where and what?
4. Problem with competition (runs against harmony)
5. Is the democracy that operates necessarily with money 民
主？
6. Is democracy too abstract? Got to be more specific?
7. How does democracy prevent from being run by the rich?
China’s Difficulty in Rights, Liberty and Democracy
It was in this setting that China developed its
political thought and practices; this tradition plays
a facilitating role in one’s effort to understand
better Chinese politics and practices.
How did China develop its political thought and practices?
Zhengzhi 政治 In tongbian, politics or zhengzhi,
a classical word, means appropriateness (also
uprightness and righteousness) and flow, or the
dao extends appropriately to all parts of the land,
enriching populace’s lives. Here, there are no pairing
woes of the ruling and those it rules, but propriety
and harmony being nurtured between them.
Politics
It lacks the sense of power acquiring, referring
more to handling the affairs of the people. The
personal character of rule has always been and
continues to be the case in China that to object to
the policies that articulate the existing order is in
fact to condemn the ruler’s person. Good rulers
take care of the people and promulgate good
policies.
Politics
The people regard the ruler as their heart; the
ruler takes the people as his body … The holiness
of the body determines that of the heart; the
damage of the heart happens when there is harm to
the body. The existence of the ruler is determined
by that of the people; the perishing of the ruler is
due to that of the people.
Confucius claims
Let good people in power, it’s possible!
Good people out of self-cultivation, but not created
by God!
By self examination of one’s own heart-mind and
behaviors three times a day.
Think what to do three times, then put into action.
Nurturing yourself with virtuosity.
Everyone self-examine and cultivate him/herself in
improving your own.
It’s Minben 民本 the primacy of the masses？
Junzi, or an exemplary person; with a will to be engaged in cultivating and nurturing your virtuosity and become someone who is good at running community affairs. To be ren, knowing how to nurture appropriate human relationships. Those who is excellent in this is wang 王，in comprehending what the harmony of Heaven, Earth, and Man means and capable of working on these issues.
What kind of person is a good person?
non-hereditary leadership succession How? Observation: long personal record, growth, attitudes, everyday personality, persistently in one’s manners, in handling relationships, while having made mistakes, too selfish? Specially educated, accepted by the masses, and recommendation.
How to select good people?
Some mechanisms of general election, but not
making this the only means for selecting
leading persons.
Good people could not be successfully selected
only by means of elections.
Thank You 谢谢
