MCLC: No room for western values in university education (10)

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No room for western values in university education (10)
My thanks to Rujie Wang for sharing his translation of Cai Zhaoyang’s spirited talk on educational values.  As I understood it, Prof. Wang originally made reference to Teacher Cai in order to demonstrate (1) that the movement for educational reform in China is imbued with (and comfortable with) Western ideas, so that the concern that has been expressed in this thread is overstated; (2) that since Teacher Cai is not in prison, one need not worry about the direction in which China is moving. (I will pass over in silence Professor Wang’s implication that the imprisonment of Liu Xiaobo is nothing to worry about.)
Although I am not in a position to refute either of these two points, I feel there is some uncertainty attached to both of them. With regard to the first, Teacher Cai represents himself as a lonely prophet (citing a parent’s jocular but pointed remark about beating him up, for example, and claiming that his friends don’t understand him and talk down to him). Except for one blogger from Nankai University, he does not mention anyone in the profession who shares his values.  Although I doubt this is an entirely accurate picture, it certainly doesn’t suggest a robust and broad-based movement of reform.  Moreover, even making allowances for the fact that he seems to have been addressing a general audience, one can’t help being struck by his failure to mention Dewey, Piaget, or any of the other educational philosophers who provide a grounding for his values.  The speech reads more as an engaging though perhaps superficial indictment of current norms than as a charter for reform. Teacher Cai nowhere suggests that he has observed any momentum toward the kind of change he wants.
With regard to Prof. Wang’s second point, I, too, am glad Teacher Cai is not in prison, and perhaps in the present climate that is to be celebrated as a blessing.  However, I foresee for him a difficult future.  With the exception of one quote from Lu Xun and one mildly favorable reference to the 2013 film comedy based on Journey to the West, every aspect of Chinese culture to which he refers in this talk he quite plainly considers deplorable.  And every work of literature or cinema that he mentions as inspiring comes from the West.  Even less likely to go over well in high places is his explicit attack on regimentation and the odious propaganda of the Mao era.  Did Teacher Wei not get the memo about renewing the Mass Line?  Eventually, I suspect, it will be brought to his attention.
A. E. Clark <aec at raggedbanner.com>
by denton.2 at osu.edu on February 10, 2015
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