Taiwan Today

Tu Weiming (杜維明), an internation­ally respected authority on Chinese phi­losophy, is professor of Chinese History and Philosophy at Harvard University, di­rector of the Harvard-Yenching Institute, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and chair of the advisory committee for the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica. Tu was in Taipei last November to partici­pate in a China Quarterly conference on contemporary Taiwan. At the conclusion of the meeting he spoke at length with the Free China Review on a broad range of cultural issues. Excerpts follow.

First, a social question that draws upon one of the issues discussed in the China Quarterly conference—that the consolidation of democracy involves the growth of an autonomous civil society vis-à-vis the government; hence, non-government organizations are essential to the health of democracy. Yet people in Taiwan seem to have a difficult time organizing themselves into such groups. Why?

Tu Weiming: Two conditions are needed for a fully developed civil society to emerge. One is the proliferation of all kinds of civic organizations—business as­sociations, issue-oriented groups such as environmentalists, volunteer organiza­tions, and other non-government organiza­tions that are relatively independent of the political center. The second condition is that each of these independent social or civic organizations must have direct access to the political center, to the power center, through an institutionalized structure that is sometimes formal, sometimes informal. The second condition is very difficult to meet, because Taiwan evolved from an authoritarian society, if not totalitarian one, to a civil society. Of course, the word "civil" has three different meanings: if a society is "civil," it's not official, it's not military, it's not barbaric.

As the central power is relegated to a secondary role, people experience an opening up of society. That leads to the gradual sophistication of a pluralistic so­ciety, but through a transitional period in which all the players look for new rules by which to interact with each other. This is why, in the early stage of Taiwan's democ­ratization, especially in the mid- to late­-1980s, there was what in Chinese is called fei-fa [非法, literally,“no law/rules"]. But this doesn't mean things were anti-legal, just "not yet" legal. In other words, the le­gal constraints or the necessary rules of the game had not yet been set. Therefore, it became sort of a no-man's land, with a great deal of dynamism on the one hand, but also a sense of impending luan [亂], or chaos.

One thing that now has to be consid­ered is that democratization is closely linked to a constitutional culture, to con­stitutionalism—and Chinese culture lacks this. A constitutional culture means that everyone's behavior is governed by a tran­scending set of rules and, at the same time, by a sense of decency and civility, even in reference to your opponent. This is the source of the idea of a loyal opposition. But all these elements, which are essential for the full flourishing of a civil society, are still missing here. They need to be cultivated.

Another problem: Traditional Chi­nese culture has rich resources in terms of structured human interactions—actually rituals of human communication—but these resources became totally politicized before Taiwan's recent process of liberali­zation. They became mechanisms of con­trol. So the majority of liberal-minded students reacted against these resources because they saw them as forms of authori­tarian control. They rebelled against this pro forma ritual and highly politicized ide­ology. As a result, they now find it diffi­cult to tap the rich cultural resources needed for civility, decency, and a consti­tutional culture. In addition, very few of them have any kind of personal experience of how democracy actually works in soci­ety. They have to imagine what it is. There­fore, liberty comes to mean that you are free to do anything, to free yourself from constraints.

One more thing. Many of the very good, sensitive, and well-trained stu­dents who left Taiwan to study in the West acquired a certain spirit of pro­ test-protest against any authoritarian mechanisms of control. So they all know how to weaken authority, to ridi­cule it, to marginalize it, to destroy it. But what this society needs now, as the center rapidly disintegrates in terms of total control and influence, is not a de­structive mode. We need a constructive orientation.

Add the broader picture of "one China," the conflict between independence and reunification, and the ten­sions between provincial and ethnic groups—and suddenly you see a society that is confronted with just too many contradictory demands and issues. I think we are still in that transitional period [here in Taiwan]. Yet I'm not to­ tally pessimistic about it. I see the dynamism, but also the precari­ousness of the situation.

What is the role of education in building a civic spirit?

Education is very impor­tant. I'm concerned about the lack of accumulation of what is called "social capital." Social capital, unlike economic capital, is the development of a common ethos. This comes through hu­man interactions, through volun­tary associations, through all kinds of groups that are not geared to narrowly defined goals or orientations. For example, choral groups in southern Italy playa very impor­tant role in giving a rich texture to that de­mocracy. In the United States, sports help hold it together, so do Boy Scouts, all kinds of clubs for men and women, all sorts of recreational organizations and hobbies, and also political and civic groups. Through such experience, people accumu­late a lot of social capital.

Education in Taiwan is primarily the acquisition of a certain kind of knowledge or skill for getting ahead in society. One thing that's totally lacking in Taiwan's secondary and higher education is a broadly defined, liberal arts education. Liberal arts education is the training of the total person, which in fact is very much in keeping with the Confucian idea of char­acter-building. We have the Five Confu­cian Classics, and you can say that these texts deal with the five major aspects of being human—existence as a social being, a political being, a poetic being, a meta­-physical being, and certainly a historical being.

But today, education in Taiwan is mostly technically oriented, narrowly pro­fessional, and geared toward certain de­finitive goals that you can put a dollar sign on. That kind of pragmatism is very down­-to-earth, but since it's so focused, it relegates liberal arts education to the background. As a result, even though society is rich in terms of its financial resources, it's very weak in terms of civic organizations and other insti­tutions—and it's extremely weak in terms of social capital, not to mention cultural competence.

Unfortunately, this is not the situation in Taiwan alone—it's found throughout what I call "cultural China"—in Mainland China, in Taiwan, in Hong Kong, in Sin­gapore, in overseas Chinese communities. The fascinating thing about cultural China is that there's a great deal of dynamism in terms of entrepreneurial spirit, to be able to get ahead in technical fields, in business connections, in accumulation of capital for investment. And yet it's very, very weak in terms of cultural and spiritual resources, even though society may be deeply steeped in religious activities.

Do you think that the definition of lib­eral arts in China is too narrow?

Very narrow. It's a big problem, be­cause if you look at Mainland China, some of the key comprehensive universities­ Beijing University, Fudan University, Nanhai University, and others—are, strictly speaking, more like institutes of technology. The Taiwan situation is bet­ter, but not much better. Actually, many of the major universities here are not even as broadly based as institutes of technology in the United States. Not as broadly gauged as MIT or Caltech, and certainly not as much as other liberal arts uni­versities. This is a major issue that needs to be addressed.

In the past, the Chinese family pro­ vided the setting for moral education. I think moral education, in terms of tso-jen [做人], is still very strong—it's a power­ful force in all East Asian societies, and still gives them a strong moral fabric. I think that's the reason why, even with the rapid economic transformation of society, young people here are not as prone to vio­lence or a drug culture, at least not on the scale found in advanced industrial socie­ties. So people still have a certain kind of inner quality through moral self-reflection and family education.

But I'm talking about an issue that is not just moral. I am addressing the whole arena of what we call the arts, the liberal arts, where sociologists should have inter­ests in art, music, and philosophy, and where people in business administration ought to have a good background in history and literature.

What's behind the widespread em­phasis on wealth and conspicuous consumption as indicators of success in Chinese societies?

China is known for its huge agricultural population­ it's still more than 80 percent of the total. The term "Chinese" itself evokes thoughts of a long history of people making a dif­ficult living in the rice paddies. But since the Second World War, we've seen the develop­ment of a new type of Chinese mentality linked to the entre­preneurial spirit. This is related to the overseas Chinese phe­nomenon since the sixteenth century, but especially since the mid-nineteenth century, when Chinese from the lowest echelon of society went abroad to work. Most of them were from Guangdong and Fujian provinces, so the traditional local culture of these places is very important. These people went to strange places—they were adventuristic, rather like the American frontier mental­ity—and they went from virtually nothing to a certain level of wealth. I think today' s nouveau riche situation is linked to this earlier phenomenon.

All the terms—kung-hsi-fa-tsai [恭喜發財, "Congratulations and pros­perity to you!"], and so forth—are from a southern mentality. They are the product of a merchant culture, where people meas­ure their success by earning power. There's not much of a political dimension in this. People in some respects are politi­cally naive—if they can buy their way into the political system they'll do it, but they don't feel the need to be integrated into local society.

Over the long term, this has been very costly. It is one of the reasons why "cul­tural China" gives the impression that its cultural resources are extremely thin, and its values are few. In any kind of highly in­dustrialized modem society, very "thick" cultural resources—many talents in many fields—are needed for sustainable growth. But Chinese are now focusing their talents in a limited number of areas. For example, in engineering they tend to focus on elec­trical engineering, and in economics on econometrics. This lack of a broad-gauged orientation can be seen in the dominance of family businesses, rather than institu­tionalized multinational corporations. Large Chinese corporations turn out to be family businesses writ large.

But I sense a change under way. For instance, overseas Chinese are doing more soul­ searching, more reflection, about their economic culture. There's more awareness of communications, of building networks geared to certain kinds of business. They are also focusing more on cultural identity. After all, overseas Chinese often found them­ selves in hostile environments. They weren't allowed to be­ come politically vocal, and weren't allowed to express their cultural feelings.

One can even say that kind of situation occurred in Taiwan. The local Taiwanese didn't feel totally free to express their cul­tural concerns, because of a kind of hegemonic control imposed from the outside, first by the Japanese, then by the mainlanders. As a result, the only real gratification for the very successful turned out to be conspicuous consumption. That was about the only outlet for them to express themselves.

But the situation in Taiwan is chang­ing. Now the horizon is much broader, and you can see the manifestations in film, dance, music, and even to some degree in architecture. A transformation is going on, but the overall situation is still dominated by a superficial kind of commercialism, with conspicuous consumption on the one hand, and relative cultural depriva­tion on the other. Everybody's being sucked into this tide of commercialism because of the democratization of eve­rything. The worry is that commerciali­zation—commercial corruption—is going to make everybody soft, in terms of rigor­ous thinking and reflection.

Are you optimistic that things will im­prove? For example, Buddhism is surg­ing in Taiwan. What does this indicate?

We see two areas of Taiwan publish­ing becoming very popular. One is know­ how books—on how to play the market, how to invest, how to do things, even en­tertain. The other is books that teach you how to meditate, how to reflect, how to purify your heart and mind. Now you could say the second category is a kind of psychological technology, as opposed to a highly commercialized technology. But the area we call ling hsiu [靈修 ], is a form of spiritual cultivation linked to deep and powerful sources in Chinese culture. It involves self-cultivation, self-improve­ment, and self-reliance.

In the liberal arts, we know that many of the things that the average American stu­dent is exposed to are not part of the educa­tional process for Chinese. But the average Chinese student does have a kind of inner strength or moral fabric because of the fam­ily. This is often expressed as, "I will lose face if I do this." Let me point out that this isn't a difference between shame and guilt. I think Ruth Benedict's anthropological distinction between "shame culture and guilt culture" [between East and West] is wrong. Chinese society is ridden with guilt, but it's guilt without original sin. Shame comes in the social arena: "I've lost face, not for myself but for my family." But the guilt feeling is also very strong, because it's an internally generated sense of trying to improve oneself. Every­ one's involved in doing that. There's a competitiveness going on: I want to be better than I am-financially, artistically, even morally. This is a drive that pushes society, and it's very healthy.

But then you look at the superficial manifesta­tions of commercialism, relative deprivation, and things of that nature, and another judgment is possi­ble. One can ask, "Just how good is this guy really? Is he good because of his fam­ily connections? Is he good because he's just shrewd? Or is he good because he really is a charismatic leader that pulls everybody together?"

Now if members of society are will­ing to tap into traditional resources, they can be enriched, they can become well formed. If they search for spiritual cultiva­tion, they may turn out better. I think I'm optimistic to the extent that the kind of commercializa­tion and nouveau riche environment we see today does not necessarily indi­cate a total lack of potential cultural resources. These re­ sources can be regenerated. We can draw from these, besides learning from the West. Throughout "cultural China" there is a dynamism, and it's not manifested only in the economic or entrepre­neurial spheres. It's also emerging in quality-of-life concerns, broadly defined in terms of taste—real-taste—and in terms of self-knowledge, and the Confucian sense of human flourishing. People are seeing that there are so many things they need to do to cultivate their bod­ies, not to mention their hearts and minds, souls and spirits. There are hopeful signs of this happening.