Harmonie optimale, enrichissement mutuel et étrangéisation

Shen, Vincent K.; Arapu, Daniel

doi:10.3917/dio.220.0122

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…In this sense I agree with Chenyang Li that the comprehensive idea of harmony that integrates the idea of centrality and the virtue of shu seems to provide Chinese diaspora with new guiding principles to live in the world of diaspora . As to the concept of harmony, I have elaborated elsewhere my concept of “optimal harmony,” to say the process of maximal harmonization instead of harmony pure and simple, that I will not discuss here because short of space (Shen 1996, 2007, 2008). For me, there is indeed an urgent need of some guiding principles, or normative principles, for interacting with many others in the context of diaspora , and I trust that Confucian values such as cheng 誠 (sincerity), ren 仁 (humaneness), shu 恕 (altruistic extension) and he 和 (harmony), etc.…”

Section: Harmony Through Empathetic Understanding Of Others and Altrumentioning

confidence: 99%

The Concept of Centrality in Chinese Diaspora

Shen

2012

Religion Compass

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Chinese people in diasporas, though far from their homeland, still refer to the concept of centrality as defining their own Chineseness. The meaning of ''centrality'' has its religious, metaphysical, psychological and political layers. This paper offers a comprehensive survey of the development of understanding of the meaning of this concept from Tang Junyi to today's leading Chinese intellectuals and attempts to update Tang's model of Self-replanting of Spiritual Root (lingen zizhi 靈根自植) to the model of Altruistic Extension for Harmony (hexie waitui 和諧外推) by way of mutual strangification. Chinese DiasporasWhen we apply the term diaspora to the Chinese emigrants or sojourners elsewhere than their homeland, we should notice some difference with the Greek or Roman experience. Diaspora in Greek or Roman sense refers to their experience of spreading or dispersion in the process of colonization always with the violence of conquering and ruling over the aboriginal population when establishing their colonies. By contrast, Chinese diaspora in its historical context has not been the result of massive and violent conquest for colonization. Also, although the Chinese diasporas were separated from their homeland and always kept some links to their homeland, they were different from the Jewish experience of separation from their Temple, because of Chinese people's humanistic concern, multiple faiths and secular life-ideals. Recently, many Chinese scholars use the term 離散 lishan to translate diaspora, though with the advantage of combining the Greek and Jewish meanings of dispersion and separation, it has to be alerted that this combination is somehow misleading for understanding Chinese diasporas. To give a more Chinese sense to the term, I prefer to use the term piaoshan 飄散 or even piaoshan sifang 飄散四方, which is closer to Tang Junyi's term piaoling 飄零, all in keeping its meaning of dispersion, while excluding the meaning of piecemeal scattering or dispersed in odd pieces the term ling 零 implies.For me, among contemporary Chinese thinkers, Tang Junyi 唐君毅 , a Hong Kong based philosopher, was the one who took seriously Chinese diasporas into his intellectual reflections. Tang used an elegant term or metaphor of Chinese diasporas, when he wrote On the Floating About of Chinese Nation's Flowers and Fruits (論中華文族之花果飄零) Indeed, the metaphoric image of 花果飄零 floating about or flying and drifting away is quite vivid and poetic in describing the fact of dispersing Chinese culture because of the mass Chinese emigration in modern China.Most interesting was the idea that Tang Junyi proposed for the new settlers in foreign lands to replant their spiritual root in the new cultural context-what he called as linggen zizhi (靈根自植), the self-replanting of one's spiritual root or spiritual re-enrootedness. Tang understood this root as contained in the ''Chineseness'' of Chinese people, that they were the people of ''the country of centrality'' ( 「中」國人), therefore should keep Religion Compass 6/1 (2012):

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Section: Harmony Through Empathetic Understanding Of Others and Altrumentioning

confidence: 99%