I don't know but Confucian democratic constitutionalism seems like an attempt to save liberalism with the application of some Confucian window dressing. If we've learned anything since the fall of the Berlin Wall, it's that there must be some common baseline understanding of who man is, what he's made for, AND this understanding must accord in some way with the underlying reality; otherwise, society does not cohere, the wheels start to come off, chaos grows. When God is dead and 8 billion gods sprout up in His place, well, not even Confucius can bring coherence out of that. In other words, liberalism's anthropology (every man is a god unto himself) is wrong and Confucius can't save it.
That said, I am ready to be told that I have misunderstood the essence of Confucian democratic constitutionalism, especially as this meeting between Eastern thought and Western governmental systems appears, from the outside anyway, to hold much potential.
fascinating! What a place substack is for finding insight into totally new areas.
I don't know but Confucian democratic constitutionalism seems like an attempt to save liberalism with the application of some Confucian window dressing. If we've learned anything since the fall of the Berlin Wall, it's that there must be some common baseline understanding of who man is, what he's made for, AND this understanding must accord in some way with the underlying reality; otherwise, society does not cohere, the wheels start to come off, chaos grows. When God is dead and 8 billion gods sprout up in His place, well, not even Confucius can bring coherence out of that. In other words, liberalism's anthropology (every man is a god unto himself) is wrong and Confucius can't save it.
That said, I am ready to be told that I have misunderstood the essence of Confucian democratic constitutionalism, especially as this meeting between Eastern thought and Western governmental systems appears, from the outside anyway, to hold much potential.