Monday, October 27, 2003
China and the New World Wisdom
The Chinese are generally a proud people, and consider their culture to be a marvel thousands of years in the making. But China is as much a new civilization as an old one. Although the people have lived on this land since before recorded history can tell, their modern ways of thinking are not always informed by that history.
The modern flow of information all over the earth has meant that most Chinese are as much influenced by Hollywood as they are by Confucius. The twinkle of opportunity is brighter than the spark of wisdom in the eyes of a fast-developing nation – and perhaps rightly so. Since the world’s equilibrium is passing through cycles of upheaval and drastic change every day, many people wonder how much of the old wisdom still applies.
American leaders would just love to tell the Chinese all about the New World Wisdom, and to a great extent the Chinese are actually willing to listen. They are not, however, always so inclined to agree. To some, “new” means “Western,” but to those educated in the vastness of China’s past, it means something much more, something they wish to arise and define for themselves. They take what they like from the West, and they leave what they don’t.
Time will not tell us who was right or wrong. Historians of future ages will record how each nation on this earth was a strapping young adolescent at the turn of the millennium, full of ideas about how the world should be run, and equally full of confidence that their ideas would work. They will see an emerging world community struggling to piece itself together while at the same time keeping each part distinct.
For China, as for every nation, “new” increasingly means “together” with the rest of the world, while “old” means “apart.” A new wisdom for the world’s old countries, as well as the young, may very well be the fruit of that process of learning which joins these two identities into one functioning world system.
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