Currently, the revival of interest in Guoxue, the academic study of traditional Chinese culture, has evolved into a craze that has strengthened the commercial appeal of Confucianism, prompting some businesses to open up private classes on the subject.

This trend highlights the role of Guoxue in shaping values and worldview to some extent. However, from the perspective of China’s modern national construction and the development of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the enthusiasm for Guoxue should not supersede the importance of modern political values.

First, when examining the revival of Guoxue, we cannot ignore its value orientation. Confucianism is at the core of the Guoxue revival in domestic bookstores and lecture rooms. It appears that Confucianism has obtained a level of authority that approaches universal truth. Swept up in such fervor, the country, society, organizations and individuals are prone to abiding by Confucianism.

However, this trend reflects a blind worship for traditional Chinese culture. It falls short in terms of value rationality because of its lack of critical thinking, rendering it an anachronism in the current era. Theories of the Confucian classics are nothing but abstract political philosophies that cannot surpass their historical limitations at the value level. The sudden popularity of Guoxue is disseminating traditional mainstream Confucian values to the public and shaping the common personality to that of feudal subjects. It thus has a severe problem in terms of value orientation.

Second, the revival of Guoxue conflicts with political values that emphasize equality. Every society has its own mainstream political values. Certain types of political values are always associated with a certain form of political personality and order. Modern China has accepted all sorts of modern political values, among which equality is at the core. When equality is enshrined in and appears in constitutional documents-in particular when equality inseparable from human rights—it really becomes a universal modern political value. Political modernization of any country therefore must be rooted in equality and firmly maintain equality.

However, the renewed zeal for Guoxue leads to a political gap between sages and ordinary people through the dissemination of traditional Confucian culture, prompting ordinary people to identify with and submit to sages. They promote traditional principles of feudal moral conduct based on Confucianism and give priority to obedience of moral authority. The moral authority in traditional principles was only suitable for a traditional era with monarchical centralized politics. Modern society stresses rule of law, which is more beneficial to the maintenance and consolidation of political equality than the former.

Political equality is the value base of modern society. Universal rights should be equally protected. Trust and obedience demanded in traditional principles violate the notion of equality in modern times and are therefore tantamount to naked inequality. Some phenomena that have emerged in the revival of Guoxue erode the political values of modern society, which requires vigilance.

Third, the revival of Guoxue should not promote an uncritical acceptance of Confucian classics. Priority is given to Confucianism in the revival of Guoxue in the Chinese Mainland. Since the 1980s, Neo-Confucians in the Chinese Mainland have been different from those of China’s Hong Kong and Taiwan and overseas areas in terms of ideological framework and objectives. The latter mainly aims to resolve the problem of integration of modern democracy and science with traditional culture. They draw upon new ideas from modern society while emphasizing the staying power of Chinese culture. Confucianism exemplifies strong cultural creativity on their part. However, Neo-Confucians on the Chinese mainland simply follow the thinking presented in Confucian classics studies without applying pragmatism to their interpretation of traditional culture.

Venerating sages, studying Confucian classics and respecting a monarch are at the core of the mentality presented in the study of Confucian classics. This mindset supports the long-term continuation of traditional Chinese politics, which was monarchical and centralized. The interpretation of Confucian classics in the revival of Guoxue is based on textual analysis divorced from the social context. This trend has demonstrated devout belief in a series of core basic concepts, propositions and judgment through abstract inheritance of ideas from Confucian sages and classics.

Since citizenship emerged in China, the introverted and closed way of understanding Confucian classics has come into conflict with equality and openness of modern society at the personality level. There are great conflicts between that mindset and such aspects as equality, freedom, rule of law and democracy in China’s modern political value system. The former therefore should be brought to an end instead of revival in the new era. Only by absorbing new ideas from reality while learning from traditional culture can the zeal for Guoxue in the Chinese mainland be valuable in modern China.

Zhang Shiwei is a professor from the School of Political Science and Public Administration at Northwest University of Political Science and Law.

Translated by Yu Hui

Revised by Justin Ward