Philosophy

Why Confucian meritocracy helped build a modern powerhouse—and why it now threatens the democracy it once energized

A former professor of architecture of Qinghua university (China’s top technical university) was visiting a friend, whose multi-national Chinese company had recently moved office. As soon as he saw his friend’s north-facing office window, the professor gasped in horror. “You ought to have that bricked over,” he instantly advised, “it attracts bad qi.” The company […]

Buddhism is said to have traveled into China along the Silk Road in the first half of the first century AD. Its rise to prominence grew in proportion to the increasing traffic along the Silk Road, so that by the Tang dynasty (618–907 AD), when China’s capital, Chang’an, was one of the world’s most prosperous […]

In the introductory article on the Occult Universe, we establish the basic model of Chinese thought that Confucius inherited. His contribution was to imbue this primitive but complex system with moral value. Confucius was an innovative conservative. While upholding the ceremonial rituals of the existing cultural model, he gave them a moral significance of his […]

The short article, Occult Universe, presents the basic patterns of belief current in China from the third millenium BC. It introduces the Book of Changes, which was as influential in the development of Confucianism as it was in much Daoist doctrine. Yet whereas Confucius expanded this book’s social implications, Daoism elaborated on its metaphysical claim […]