The poor understanding of two thought cultures

Increasingly, it is apparent that Western thought lacks the qualities needed to address the fundamental challenges of the 21^st Century. These challenges include competition in a global marketplace and economic productivity that does not destroy human environments and health. Chinese thought has proven itself on the first challenge and offers greater hope on the second.

The West today is characterised by a tradition of Platonic thought in crisis. Over time, this thought has travelled from the philosophers of Ancient Greece through the doctrines and dogmas of the Medieval Roman Church and the "universal values" of the European Enlightenment. Today, it is characterised by a disposition to abstract rationality, or railway line thinking, which insists on continued observance of the rules of a declining Anglo-American global order.

In contrast, the East is characterised by a pervasive and flexible tradition of Confucian thought, although, of course, this does not reach to the Indian sub-continent. This thought has origins that predate the birth of Confucius by several millennia and is characterised by a rich diversity of influential texts that might not all be narrowly identified as Confucian. This thought is also characterised by a rich, continuous recorded history that displays the strengths and weaknesses of the Confucian tradition in action. All of this is preserved by a rigorous educational ethos without rival globally. Since the middle of the 20^th Century this thought has been closely associated with the world's most dynamic economies and often its most stable polities.

Put simply, we live in a time of great global transformation from West to East, or from dominant Platonic to pervasive Confucian thought. Today, people everywhere are becoming aware of the many ways in which their lives are transformed by the growing dynamism and reach of the Chinese economy. Yet, very few have any awareness of the influence of Confucian tradition and thought in bringing about this remarkable change.

While power and influence fluctuated between Church and State in the West, social and political cohesion and discipline was developed in China from even before the time of Plato, through correct ritual and behaviour. This was enforced by a type of legalist authority with a growing and public emphasis on administration by those deeply educated in Confucian tradition. This has produced today what Eamonn Fingleton has criticised in his book, "In the Jaws of the Dragon: America's Fate in the Coming Era of Chinese Dominance" as the "selective enforcement of the law". This practice is seen to lack the forms of due process and justice promoted as the virtues of the West's "rule of law". This assessment has two failings. First, it deliberately overlooks the reality that Western law has been increasingly subordinated to financial and corporate power in a way that corrupts and damages social justice and economic competitiveness and productivity. Second, it fails to acknowledge that Eastern "selective enforcement of the law" has equipped Confucian administrators with the authority to ensure that corporate energies serve the broader community.

Some commentary suggests these "universal values" may have been developed discreetly as a form of distraction from the concentration of the West's real political and economic power in hidden financial and corporate entities, often directed by powerful intergenerational families. This type of evaluation sees these "universal values" and forms of associated economic doctrine and dogma as defining habits of politically correct thought and behaviour.

This has led to the crisis in Western, or Platonic, thought that is the source of many failings in the contemporary West. The pervasiveness of "intellectual apartheid" has ensured that this remains largely beyond comprehension outside Asia. It has also led to widespread misapprehension about the value of Western education. For someone with a educational foundation based on Chinese traditional thought, a Western education can be useful in developing a deeper strategic understanding of the global economic battlefield. For anyone without this educational foundation, a Western education is only likely to lead one into the rigidities and follies of Platonic thought and railway line thinking and an easy victim on the global economic battlefield.