Cultural Crisis in the Contemporary World: Returning to Traditions and the Confucian Revival Movement in China
Abstract: It is no doubt that the 21stcentury opens a new chapter in global history. What unveiled the new century are two historical processes: the first process is“the rise of China, ”and the second“the recession of Western civilization. ”Both these two processes precipitated the movement of“returning to traditions”in China and Western countries. Although China and Western countries hope to return to their own cultural“traditions, ”their“traditions”are very different. The focus of the revival of traditional culture movement in contemporary China is the tradition of historical humanism, especially Confucianism and its values. However, Western countries seek“de－secularization, ”hoping to return to the religious traditions of monotheism. This paper aims to analyze and compare how China and Western countries deal with their respective crises through returning to“invented traditions”for solutions in an attempt to explore the global significance of the Confucian revival movement in China. If successful, China's return to the Confucian tradition will make the world more stable, but western countries' return to their own religious traditions through de － secularization will bring about more disputes, conflicts, and large－scale transnational armed clashes.
Keywords: Chinese Traditional Culture, Confucian Revival, Crisis of Western Civilization, De－secularization, Christianity
About the Author: Kai－wing Chow（1951－）, Ph. D., Professor of History and East Asian Languages and Cultures, and Curator of the Spurlock Museum at the University of Illinois, Urbana－Champaign. Research interests and specialties: Chinese intellectual history, new cultural history, history of ritual studies, history of lineage, history of print culture and public culture. Major publications: The Rise of Confucian Ritualism in Late Imperial China: Ethics, Classics, and Lineage Discourse（Stanford University Press,2004）. It was translated into Korean by Liang Huixiong（Monograph Press,2013）, and was selected as one of 2014 most outstanding academic works by the Korean National Academy of Science. The Chinese edition, translated by Mao Likun and edited by Lu Yonxing, will be published by Tianjin People Press. Publishing, Culture, and Power in Early Modern China was published by Stanford University Press in 2004. Chinese edition is translated by Zhang Zhiqiang and Fu Liangyu and will be published by SDX Joint Publishing Company. E－mail: kchou1＠illinois.edu.