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In two places in the Analects, it is used that "do not do to others what you do not want." This phrase is seen by Westerners as identical to the scriptures of the Bible in Christianity, although they are expressed differently.
——Yang Huilin
Over the years Chinese have been struggling with a question, do we talk to the world about the "Chinese road" and "China model"? If you say this, will it make people feel that "Chinese hegemony" has come again, etc., which is very confusing. So that one year Chinese Min University held a large international conference, but at the meeting, words such as "Chinese model" and "Chinese road" were not used, and finally only a Chinese "exploration" was used, and the word "exploration" was a neutral word in English, as if there was no problem. But in fact, when we carefully explored where the word "China model" first came from, we were surprised to find that the original word originally came from Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the United States. I believe it is difficult for everyone to imagine that it is Benjamin Franklin of the United States who is talking about the "China model" instead of us Chinese ourselves.
Franklin
In 1691, an excerpted translation of the first edition of the Analects was published in London, England, which was not a complete version of the Analects, called The Moral Proverbs of Confucius. In 1738, benjamin Franklin, a young man in his twenties, published an article in the Pennsylvania Weekly called "Reading < confucius's moral proverbs>", but he did not publish much about Confucius in this article, but only some partial excerpts and introductions. By the time he was in his thirties, in 1749, he wrote a letter to a friend in which he again mentioned Confucius, whom he regarded as a reformer of the East. He said that Confucius saw that his country was in a state of decline and evil was rampant, what was the method he adopted? The first was to persuade the nobles so that they could be virtuous, and the people followed. He said this approach, called the "China model," had a wonderful impact on humanity. The "Chinese model" and the "Western model" are just different, the Reform in the West is not like this, it is often initiated by the people, from the bottom up, and Confucius is lobbying the nobility, letting the people follow, it is from the top down. In fact, the "people" in the Western model he said was "mass", which means a rabble, a more negative word, similar to people like thugs. As soon as these people rise up, when they gain power, interests and partisanship will follow. He concluded by saying that if the two models could be used together somewhere, the reform might go much more smoothly. This is a very interesting quote from Benjamin Franklin.
We can see what kind of content can enter the core of European thought. In September 2010, Europe held a very interesting meeting, the EU signed 8 strategic partners, china is also. Later, there were good people in the EU who wanted to know what the strategic partners they signed did. Therefore, some people have found through statistics that the biggest common denominator of these 8 strategic partners signed by the EU is that they are different from the EU's opinions on key issues. So the people of Europe are not happy to hear it, thinking that the EU has gone to great lengths to sign the opinions of the 8 strategic partners since they are different from the EU, so what is the use of signing? So they held a high-level forum for discussion, and in the end they decided that this strategic partnership was still important. Van Rompuy, the first permanent president of the European Council of the European Union at the time, said something very interesting, saying that one of the most important concepts in the framework of strategic partnerships is called reciprocity, which translates to Chinese is "mutual benefit and reciprocity", which is correct. But if we trace it back to the Chinese tradition, to the Tradition of the West itself, is this reciprocity merely mutually beneficial? I believe not.
What van Rompuy, the permanent president of the European Council, did not expect was the concept of relevance, which was actually likely to be translated into Europe by Chinese thought. Because this word is the "forgiveness" of the "way of faithfulness and forgiveness" in the Analects. When the missionaries translated "the way of the Master is only faithful", the "loyalty" used loyalty, that is, "loyalty", but "forgiveness" was not forgiveness, forgiveness, and forgiveness, but reciprocity. So I think the word goes back to their system, and it has a bit of a religious flavor. Then to penetrate into the Chinese intellectual tradition is a crucial concept in Chinese Confucianism.
Let's take a brief look at how it came about. In two places in the Analects, it is used that "do not do to others what you do not want." This phrase is seen by Westerners as identical to the scriptures of the Bible in Christianity, although they are expressed differently. In the 1990s, there was a theologian in Germany named Kong Hansi, who was committed to promoting a world ethics movement, saying that there should be a basic ethics recognized by the people of the world, a minimum ethical standard. He proposed two principles, the first of which was "Do not do to others what you do not want to do to others", and he specifically pointed out that this principle is found in all major religious traditions, the most typical of which is the Christian Bible and the Chinese Analects. James also translated the Analects, in which he introduced two questions of "do not do unto others what you do not want", the first of which is "what is benevolence" and the second is "what is forgiveness". So Richards translated "benevolence" as the perfect virtue, the supreme good. Then "forgive" he used the word reciprocity, which I mentioned earlier, the first permanent president of the European Council, Van Rompuy, also used. So why didn't he choose the English words that people often use, but instead translate them with that word? He said he had a basis for translating it. He said that Zhu Xi once made a note on what forgiveness is, and this note is "do my best to be loyal, push myself to forgive", that is, I do my best things, this is "loyalty", but if I stand in the perspective of others to think for others, push myself and others, this is "forgiveness". If self-denial is forgiveness, then it is a connection with others, a connection with external objects, so this is actually what reciprocity originally meant.
When this connection involves culture, then, there is a concept in the West that culture may actually be reproduced in a parasitic way. What is the parasitic way? The missionary entered China, so his understanding of Chinese culture may be parasitic to a certain extent a development obtained in Western culture. In turn, in fact, Western culture must also parasitize to China's native culture, so that it can be accepted by Chinese and understood by Chinese.
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President of the Chinese Comparative Literature Society, former vice president of Chinese Min University, professor and doctoral supervisor of Chinese Min University. His research interests are in the fields of comparative literature and religion. He has presided over a number of national social science funds, key research bases of the Ministry of Education and international cooperation projects. Representative monographs include "Theological Hermeneutics", "Outline of Western Literary Theory", "The Background of Christianity and Cultural Extension", "Moving Boundaries", "History of European Medieval Literature", "History of Western Literary and Art Theory", etc.
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Editor: Niu Yajie
Review: Gao Qiaoyan
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