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CHINESE HARMONY AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY IN21ST CENTURY 
centurywww.chinaview.cn 2006-11-01 14:18:02www.worldharmonyorg.netBEIJING, Nov. 2 (Xinhuanet)-- Following is an excerpt of a paper byFrancis C. W. Fung, PH. D.In his paper, Fung said, as the ancient world culture with the longestuninterrupted historical record, the richness of China's teachings of harmony as a dominant philosophy is unparalleled.But, he noted, "China is going through dramatic changes in adjustingto the conflicts of the new and the old."To address the multitude of domestic and international conflicts," hesaid, China has promoted the ancient teachings of harmony and hasachieved much in its great efforts of building a Harmonious Societyand Harmonious World.From the perspective of harmony, Fung examined three majormovements of human civilization: religion, democracy and harmony."As the world is in great disharmony with religion conflicts,international inequity, and the disparity between North and South,"Fung stressed, "we must look beyond religion and democracy toharmony."Then after comparing with religion and democracy, Fung asked, "Willharmony bring a more moderate future world?" His answer is yes.Finally Fung stressed that democracy -- American style -- is challengedby Chinese harmony as the leading global philosophy in the 21stcentury, because harmony is a basic human longing.Fung concluded his paper "Teaching harmony in U.S. is paramount."Only corrections of language errors, typo changes and editing aremade, but the viewpoints are all Fung's.From time immemorial humans had to cope with nature, the need of shelter and the fear of nature's extreme furor. This fear was as naturalas nature itself and a solution was paramount from the outset.Obvious approaches to addressing this issue were: acceptance of life,submission to the will of God to placate nature, harmonizing withnature, and persevering as best as one could. These approaches werecombined, at times, for expediency. As civilization progressed, and
 
local and global societies became more complex and conflicting issuesprolific, more harmony solutions were needed.As far as one can ascertain the major world religions practiced todayoriginated from the mystic East and can be narrowed to Central Asiaalong the silk-road including India and the middle East. There seemsto be continuity in development from the earliest religion to the latest.The following is a short introduction of origin of modern religion asmankind's effort to harmonize with nature. One might surmise thatorganized religions are human's group effort to harmonize with natureby submitting to the will of God. There are reasons perhaps to acceptthe speculation that certain cultures may be more spiritual from areligious view point, although some cultures have defined spiritualityfrom a moral value view point.All religions offer the faithful harmony to nature and God and peace of mind.Democracy grew out of the Age of Enlightenment in Europe (1600 to1789), a movement to resolve the conflicts between the ruler and theruled in France and England. Its philosophy was against superstition,encouraging development of science, and against easy acceptance of authority. Two leading philosophers of the time were the Frenchman,Rousseau, and the Englishman, John LockThe United States of America, formerly a colony of England, defeatedthe occupier and declared Independence on 1776 during the Age of Enlightenment. The early new citizens being immigrants of Europe,were quick to adopt the ideas of liberty, fraternity and democracy. As aresult, the drafters of the U.S. constitution and Bill of Rights thatguaranteed citizen rights were heavily influenced by Rousseau andJohn Lock.Many elements of the present day U.S. government including theory,structure and policy were penned by Thomas Jefferson, an originalsigner of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. The documentsspelled out the rights and duties of the citizen, majority rule and theseparation of powers. These harmonizing concepts were a greatinfluence on today's governments. The drafting of a constitution fornew governments is today a standard fare.The leaders of the U.S. government then and still now are mostlyaristocrats or elites of the society. From the very beginning there weretwo opposing forces, the powerful at one end and the masses at theother, which see-saw through out the entire relatively short U.S.history.Although American citizens have more freedom of choice in life inrelation to other societies of today, true democracy of equality andmass representation on important issues remains elusive.Today the U.S. media is owned by a few big businesses, and is easily
 
influenced by the government and big business. In foreign policyespecially, media self censorship is prevalent and political correctnessis the name of the game.Despite freedom of press and freedom of speech, U.S. citizens are notfully aware of real world opinion towards the U.S.. U.S. foreign policyis again controlled by minority elite supporting the government. In itseagerness to export democracy as an ideology supported by the U.S.military, media and elite, U.S. approaches can be inflexible anddoctrinaire. Often democracy is touted as transparent and peaceful.Attempts to export the democracy model between government andcitizens in this case have the opposite effect of causing worlddisharmony. This is seen in the U.S. unilateral Iraq war that hasexasperated U.S. population and the world. All wars of aggression of modern times were launched with high sounding goals necessary forthe morale of the invading forces.Throughout China's long history as an ancient culture, unlike theMiddle East, it did not produce a religion of world importance, andunlike the West it did not produce a comprehensive home growndemocracy system to resolve conflicts between the ruler and the ruled.China obviously, however, had notions of religion and democracy, whenConfucius admonished his followers to respect God but keep adistance, and Mencius advocated good government and put citizensabove the rulers.Instead, through considerable debate and evolution, China settled onthe philosophies of CHUNG YUN, HE XIE (moderation, harmony) andhierarchy social structures. Family and social order were promoted byemphasizing SAN GANG WU CHANG, REN, YI , LI , ZHI, XIN (the threeimportant relations in the order of: ruler and the ruled, father andchildren, husband and wife and five basic societal moral values) andLUN LI DAO DE (family and moral values).This system of profuse teaching was drilled into students from DayOne and all through a scholar's life. Youngsters' first standard readingtext was SAN TZE JING (a simple rhyme of Confucius teaching).The moderation and harmony philosophy reinforced by morals andvalues as a social system was very different from the Westerndemocracy concepts of citizen rights and duties enforced by law andorder. Ancient China did practice laws, but sparsely, when compared tothe comprehensive European laws and the complex and voluminousU.S. case study system. The strength of U.S. modern culture lies in theimplementation of Government and law practices, and not merely in itsdemocratic ideology. The ideal of democracy, as harmony betweengovernment, society and citizens, is universally accepted by today
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