Confucianism And Modernism

HIS 255

Take Home Final Exam

Name: Sonia Zhen Ying Tan

1. The Japanese Intellectual Maruayama Masao made a famous statement about how Japanese modernity was hindered because of its Confucian past. What do you think of this statement in relation to the histories of Japan, China and Korea? Explain how you think Confucianism influenced each of these countries and discuss how the elements of the Confucian tradition either contributed or hindered their transformation to modernity. Please use concrete examples to explain your point.

The modernizing experience in East Asia is unique and challenges the concepts and definitions that have been used to characterize Western modernity. The modern West may have kick started the initial stages of modernity in the region, but as the process gathered momentum, a variety of ethnic resources were utilized. It seems that the social and cultural modernization that sustained the dynamics of East Asia has in some ways, been influenced by Confucianism. Confucianism does not hinder the development of modernity in traditional East Asia because Confucianism may have actually helped East Asia progress to a different form of modern industrial capitalism. Confucianism provides East Asian with the mentality and work ethics that economists believe, are conducive to economic growth. Today, East Asia may not exist in a Confucian sociopolitical society, but Confucian values have been mixed with Western influences, creating a whole new cultural system that has contributed to modernity in the region.

Traditional Confucianism has been lethally challenged with the end of China’s civil service examination in 1905, the fall of Qing dynasty in 1911 and the New Culture Movement that began in 1915. With institutions giving...

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...at Han Empire, was founded, under the threatening shadow of Japanese imperialism. To distance Korea from China and to resist Japan, the Korean nationalists strove to define a Korea that had been ethnically homogenous, culturally unique, spiritually independent, and politically resilient. Thus, the imagining of Korea as an ethnic nation involved an intellectual transition from a worldview of universal civilization (associated with Confucianism) to that of imperialism and nationalism. In Japan, national unification efforts during the Meiji period included not only the inclusion of Okinawa and Hokkaido within its national borders but also efforts to make the peoples of those places assimilate as Japanese nationals. In China, the campaign for the Xinhai Revolution explicitly appealed to ethnic nationalism and urged the Han Chinese majority to expel the ruling Manchu.