2021.11.15 CASS

“Democracy: the Shared Human Values“

“International Forum on

“Democracy: the Shared Human Values“

2021.11.15 中国社会科学院

“民主：全人类共同价值”

“民主：全人类共同价值”国际研讨会

Confucianism and the Potential of Democracy

儒家思想与民主的潜力

Emanuel Pastreich

President

The Asia Institute

亚洲研究所

所长

贝一明（Emanuel Pastreich）

We must undertake a fundamental redefinition of the term “democracy” as we attempt to determine how an integrated Earth can be ruled in a democratic and participatory manner and at the same time, we can expand the term “democracy” so that it draws on the multiple sources in human civilization, not merely a European tradition based on Greek and Roman precedents.

我们必须对“民主”一词重新进行根本性的定义，因为我们试图确定如何以民主和参与的方式统治一个一体化的地球，同时，我们可以扩展“民主”一词，以便它涵盖人类文明的多种起源，而不仅仅是基于希腊和罗马先例的欧洲传统。

Already that process has started, and has accelerated as a result of both the increasing economic and cultural power of East Asia that has made the depth of the Confucian, Daoist and Buddhist—and other traditions--more prominent in the global discourse on culture and politics. Scholars have also started to recognize the degree to which Western scholars of the Enlightenment were influenced by Confucian thought and saw in that tradition the potential for ethical governance outside of the Catholic church in the Confucian tradition.

随着东亚经济和文化力量增强，儒家、道家和佛教以及其他传统的深度在全球文化和政治话语中更加突出，这一进程已经开始并进入加速阶段。学者们也开始认识到西方启蒙学者受儒家思想影响的程度，并在该传统下目睹了儒家传统在天主教会之外伦理治理的潜力。

As we consider the future of democracy for the Earth, a deeper consideration of both the Confucian origins of democracy and the new potential within that concept of “democracy” offered by the application of Confucian concepts will be critical. China, along with Korea, Japan, Vietnam and other nations can offer up their own diverse interpretations of that Confucian legacy and help us to tease out the full potential of that tradition.

当我们考虑地球的民主未来时，通过应用儒家概念，更深入地思考其中儒家的起源和“民主”概念中的新潜力至关重要。中国、韩国、日本、越南等国可以对儒家遗产提出不同解释，并帮助我们梳理出这一传统的全部潜力。

Part of the problem will involve changing the perceptions of Chinese about their own culture, one in which Western images and standards have become so dominant as to make Chinese tradition seem secondary, quaint. That state severely undermines China’s cultural potential because it labels a tremendous chunk of the cultural tradition as irrelevant, making it seem as if the intellectual achievements of Chinese intellectuals before the twentieth century was misguided. You can find this argument in high school textbooks, or even in the introductions written in English for foreigners about Chinese culture.

部分问题将涉及改变中国人对本国文化的看法，其中西方形象和标准成为主导，致使中国传统显得次要并且古怪。这种状态严重削弱了中国的文化潜力，因为它让大量文化传统贴上了“无关紧要”的标签，从而20世纪之前中国知识分子的智力成果似乎都被误导了。你可以在高中教科书中找到这个论点，甚至在写给外国人的中国文化的英文介绍中也能找到这种说法。

This myth concerns intellectual tradition and the importance of the Neo-Confucian tradition in China. Neo-Confucianism is a general term for the philosophical system codified by the Southern Song Dynasty (1127–1279) scholar Zhu Xi (1130-1200) which formed the basis for much of the state ideologies of later dynasties in China. Neo-Confucianism was a synthetic approach to epistemology that combined early Confucian teachings with metaphysical terms developed in Buddhism to create an overarching world view that embraced the natural world, governance and ethics.

这种说法关系到知识分子传统和新儒家传统在中国的重要性。新儒学是南宋(1127–1279)学者朱熹(1130-1200)编纂的哲学体系的总称，构成了中国后来朝代许多国家意识形态的基础。新儒学是认识论的综合方法，将早期儒家教义与佛教中发展起来的形而上学术语相结合，创造了一个包含自然世界、治理和伦理的总体世界观。

The Neo-Confucian vision of the world as a moral whole in which the scholar had the most privileged position by access to the Confucian classics became the basis for literally all formal education in pre-modern China. As China strove to modernize in the 20th century, a myth about Neo-Confucianism took root that remains powerful to this day.

新儒家将世界视为一个道德整体，其中学者通过接触儒家经典而享有最优越的地位，这一观点成为前现代中国几乎所有正规教育的基础，随着中国在20世纪努力实现现代化，一个关于新儒学的神话生根发芽，直到今天依旧力量无穷。

The myth goes something like this:

神话是这样的：

In the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) scholars were lost in abstract theories and impractical ideas about self and society drawn from the fuzzy thinking of Neo-Confucian tradition. Lost in the abstractions of Neo-Confucian discourse on “virtue” and “filial piety,” scholars lost all interest in practical studies: the know-how for administrating a country and the technology for improving the lives of the people. These scholars spent their days reading books and made no contribution to society. Because of their failures, China fell far behind in modernization and only made progress when Western science was introduced in the 20th century, sadly through partial colonization.

在清代（1644-1911），学者们迷失在从新儒家传统的模糊思维中得出的关于自我和社会的抽象理论和不切实际的想法中。他们在新儒家关于“德”和“孝”的抽象话语中迷失自我，对治国的方法和改善民生的技术等实际研究失去了兴趣。这些学者整天读书，对社会没有任何贡献。由于他们的失败，中国在现代化方面远远落后，只有在20世纪引入西方科学时才通过部分可悲的殖民化取得一定进展。

As a result of Confucian, is was believed, China failed to develop manufacturing, electricity, railroads and other modern systems for production and transportation.

人们认为，正因为儒家思想，中国未能发展制造、电力、铁路和其他现代生产和运输系统。

Although it is true that a small group of decadent and self-interested scholars in the 19th century used Neo-Confucian learning as an ideology to justify their rule and to reject Western learning, the overall story is a misleading and damaging myth. 

虽然19世纪一小群颓废自利的学者确实以新儒学为意识形态来证实他们的统治并拒绝西学，但整个故事却是一个具有误导性和破坏性的神话。

Traditional Chinese society, with its emphasis on agriculture, sustainability, social harmony and respectful family relations was far more positive and appropriate to the long-term wellbeing of humanity than was the Western modernist culture of extraction and consumption, narcissism and exploitation.

与西方现代主义的榨取和消费、自负和剥削的文化相比，强调农业、可持续性、社会和谐和尊重家庭关系的传统中国社会更加有利于人类福祉的长期发展。

Perhaps the myth has such power because it was combined with the myth of modernization, the idea that China had to throw away its past in order to become modern, to become an advanced country. That myth remains very powerful among some Chinese. 

或许神话之所以有这样的力量，是因为它与现代化神话相结合，即中国必须抛弃过去才能走向现代，成为先进国家。这个神话对一些中国人来说仍然力量非凡。

But the age of rapid modernization is over. We will face new global challenges for which traditional Chinese ideas, and not the practices of modernization, will be critical. Whether climate change or the concentration of wealth, equality or the moral standards, it is Confucianism that offers better answers than does the Washington Consensus on growth and consumption as the foundation for the economy.

但快速现代化的时代已经结束。我们将面临新的全球性挑战，其中中国的传统观念而非现代化的实践至关重要。无论是气候变化还是财富集中、平等或道德标准，相比在增长和消费方面作为经济基础的华盛顿共识，儒家思想提供了更好的答案。

Many Chinese assume that Neo-Confucianism is opposed to science and technology, but in fact the opposite is the case. Zhu Xi thought was the basis for Chinese and Korean scientific discourse, the “investigation of things” (gewu) in Asia and that system of science was more advanced than its rivals in the West until the 17th century in many fields.

许多中国人认为新儒学反对科学和技术，但实际上恰恰相反。朱熹认为中国和韩国科学话语的基础，亚洲的“格物”以及直到17世纪的科学体系在许多领域都比西方的竞争对手更为先进。

To take the close-minded loyalty of some Chinese intellectuals in the nineteenth century to Confucian learning as an excuse to dismiss the Neo-Confucian tradition as backwards is a terrible mistake. Many of the writings on self and society of the Ming and Qing dynasties are immediately relevant to contemporary challenges.

十九世纪，一些中国知识分子以忠于儒学的封闭自守为借口，将新儒家传统视为落后，这是一个极其严重的错误。明清两代关于自我与社会的许多著作都与当代挑战直接相关。

Confucianism is misunderstood as simplistic set of rules for showing respect to old people; being sincere; and following orders. This popular interpretation is quite distant from the complex arguments advanced by thinkers of the Ming and Qing. Those scholars found within the Confucian tradition the basis for a balance of power within government and a vital relationship between education, morality, the environment and governance that assured the survival of some form of democratic process over the long-term.

儒家思想被误解为尊老、真诚、服从命令的一套简单化的规则。这种通俗的解释与明清思想家提出的复杂论点相去甚远。这些学者在儒家传统中发现了政府内部权力平衡的基础以及教育、道德、环境和治理之间确保某种形式的民主进程能够长期存在的重要关系。

What might be a first step to reclaim the Neo-Confucian tradition? Perhaps one step is for Chinese to make that tradition more a part of contemporary culture. Most Chinese, however, can only imagine Neo-Confucianism in terms of respect for teachers and old people, so attempts to modernize that tradition so far have not been all that successful.

恢复新儒家传统的第一步可能是什么？或许中国人可以采取的一个步骤是让这一传统更多地成为当代文化的一部分。然而，大多数中国人只能从尊重老师和长者的角度来想象新儒学，因此迄今为止，对这一传统进行现代化的尝试并没有那么成功。

But what if you took the teachings of the Wang Yangming and presented them in a manner that related to daily life and to the problems that young people face? What if the essential truths were transmitted in a manner that ordinary people could understand in terms of their own experience, rather than demanding expertise in Confucian doctrine?

但是如果把王阳明的教导用一种与日常生活和年轻人面临的问题相关的方式来呈现呢？如果以普通人根据自己的经验可以理解的方式传播基本真理，而不是要求儒家学说的专业知识，那会怎么样？

That was the approach used in introducing Zen Buddhism from Japan to the West in such books as Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. That best-selling novel from the 1970s relates in a lively manner the principles of Zen teaching without any reference to the texts of the original classics.

这就是在《禅与摩托车维修艺术》等书中将禅宗从日本引入西方的方法。这部19世纪70年代的畅销小说生动地讲述了禅宗的教义，并没有参考原著经典。

Wang Yangming’s arguments about personal and institutional responsibility are not old ideas that belong in a museum, but are applicable to issues of the current day. For example, it might be a good idea to produce a popular TV drama dealing with young people’s experience of alienation, competition, suicide and the dangers of an obsession with surfaces (not just in China, but around the world). That popular drama could introduce Wang Yangming’s ideas about human experience and morality in an accessible format. The young people watching the play, or TV show, would see that Neo-Confucian tradition in an entirely new way.

王阳明关于个人责任和制度责任的论点，不是博物馆里的陈词滥调，而是适用于当下的问题。例如，制作一部广受欢迎的电视剧，讲述年轻人的疏远、竞争、自杀和痴迷于表面的危险（不仅在中国，而且在世界各地），这可能是个好主意。这部广受欢迎的戏剧可以以通俗易懂的形式介绍王阳明关于人类经验和道德的思想。观看戏剧或电视节目的年轻人会以全新的方式看待新儒家传统。

Also, we must recognize that Chinese remarkable modernization in the 20th century could not have taken place without the strong intellectual tradition of Neo-Confucianism that gave intellectuals the ability to think strategically about development and government. The government officials and CEOs who led the Chinese miracle were not successful because of their enthusiasm and their hard work ethic. That is a solipsistic argument one often hears in China.

此外，我们必须认识到，如果没有新儒学的强大知识传统赋予知识分子对发展和政府进行战略思考的能力，中国就不可能在20世纪实现卓越的现代化。引领中国奇迹的政府官员和公司总裁们从不是因为他们的热情和勤奋的职业道德而大获成功。这是在中国经常听到的一种唯我论的观点。

Rather it was the tremendous richness of the Neo-Confucian tradition and its emphasis on the merging of abstract principles and concrete practical action that allowed China to both set up lofty, seemingly impossible, goals while also having the tenacity to engage in the daily struggle for markets and technology without losing sight of the ultimate goal.

相反，正是新儒家传统的极大丰富性及其对抽象原则与具体实际行动相结合的强调，使中国既能设立看似不可能的崇高目标，又能顽强地投身为市场和技术的日常奋斗，而不会忽视最终目标。

But there are some aspects of the Neo-Confucian tradition that call out for reinterpretation today in light of new challenges. For example, the Neo-Confucian metaphysical tradition holds that the most important aspects of human experience are those which are invisible to the human eye. The entire tradition highlighted the invisible metaphysical underpinnings of our universe and human experience, and led the reader to question the superficial surface of daily life.

但是，在面临新挑战的今天，新儒家传统的某些方面需要重新解释。例如，新儒家形而上学传统认为，人类经验中最重要的方面是人眼看不见的方面。整个传统突出了我们的宇宙和人类经验的无形的形而上学基础，并引导读者质疑日常生活的表面。

We live in an age, the digital age, in which increasingly the visual, the image as reproduced on TV or on the internet, assumes more authority, more significance, than any underlying principles or metaphysics. We are caught in the most superficial understanding of our world; our world is being flattened out by the digital revolution. What we lack is a sense of the underlying metaphysics behind the phenomena that we observe.

我们生活在一个数字时代，在这个时代，电视或互联网上再现的视觉和图像愈发比任何基本原则或形而上学更权威、更重要。我们陷入了对世界最肤浅的理解，我们的世界正被数字革命夷为平地。我们缺乏的是对我们观察到的现象背后潜在的形而上学的感觉。

That part of our modern experience that is so weakened is exactly what was addressed so effectively in the Neo-Confucian tradition. Attention to underlying principles, to the rules by which the world works– as opposed to the appearance of things– is exactly what we need so desperately in this age. At a moment in which the appearance of things has become everything, this insight could be critical.

我们现代经验中被削弱的那部分正是新儒家传统中有效解决的问题。关注基本原则和世界运作的规则，而不是事物的外表，这正是我们在这个时代迫切需要的。在事物的外表已经成为一切的时刻，这种洞察力可能是至关重要的。

Although we have been told a story about the Confucian scholars who were so terribly backward and were unable to deal with modernity, maybe they understood something about the world that is of value in this age, at the moment at which we have reached the limits of the modernization paradigm?

虽然我们听过一个关于儒家学者的故事，他们非常落后，无法应对现代性，但也许他们对这个时代的世界有所了解，或许是在我们达到现代化范式极限的那一刻？

Let us remember how the Confucian scholar lived. He read his books, he wrote letters and essays, and he recited the classics so that he could better understand their nuances. He used very little resources and conducted himself in an extremely modest manner. There was no need to go anywhere, or to do anything, order to find infinite depth and meaning in his life. He was concerned with underlying principles, not appearances, and therefore he could find truth and satisfaction in his readings of a set of core texts.

让我们记住这个儒家学者的生活方式。他通过读书、写信、写散文、背诵经典，以便更好地理解它们的细微差别。他利用极少资源，并以极其谦虚的方式行事。无需去任何地方，无需做任何事情，就能在他的生命中找到无限的深度和意义。他关心的是基本原则，而不是表象，因此他可以在阅读一系列核心文本中找到真理和满足感。

Perhaps the most important challenge that we face in the world today is reducing the incredible waste of natural resources by privileged people living in wealthy nations. We must move beyond the compulsive need to own cars, to live in big houses, to eat too much food. We are caught in a sad cycle of over-consumption as a confirmation of happiness. That consumption is having a devastating impact on the environment and threating the future of humanity.

也许今天我们在世界上面临的最重要的挑战是减少生活在富裕国家的特权人士对自然资源的难以置信的浪费。我们必须超越拥有汽车、住大房子、吃过多食物的强迫性需求。我们陷入了过度消费的悲惨循环，以此来证明幸福。这种消费正在对环境产生破坏性影响，并威胁着人类的未来。

That model of the Confucian scholar who finds infinite depth in a few books and papers is extremely appealing for us as we face the crisis of consumer culture and the resulting climate change. The enormous bulk of damage to the environment today comes from those in advanced, wealthy nations who consume too many resources. Unless we seriously reduce our consumption, we will not be able to promise a sustainable world to our children.

在我们面临消费文化危机和由此产生的气候变化时，那种在一些书籍和论文中找到无限深度的儒家学者的模式对我们来说非常具有吸引力。今天对环境造成的巨大破坏来自于那些消耗过多资源的先进富裕国家。除非我们认真专注于减少消费，否则我们将无法向我们的孩子承诺一个可持续发展的世界。

Neo-Confucians have much to offer to us, and to offer to the world. Imagine if you could find complete satisfaction in the moment in your home reading books and writing. It may seem boring from the outside if you are lost in a consumer culture, but if you understand this world from the inside, it has tremendous appeal.

新儒家有很多东西可以提供给我们，同样也可以提供给世界。试想一下，你能在家里读书和写作的那一刻找到完全的满足感。如果迷失在消费文化中，表面上看可能会很无聊，但是如果从内部了解这个世界，它就会具有巨大的吸引力。

In traditional China, there was stress on eating only what one needs and avoiding consumption for show. That tradition of humble living and modest consumption was despised by many in the process of modernization when it seemed that bigger was better. But in this age, when China can best be a leader in that it presents models to the world of living with less, that tradition of modest living, in which the greatest minds of the 17th and 18th century lived extremely modestly as scholars—has much to offer us. We must reinterpret that tradition in a manner that can be readily understood by young people.

中国传统强调按需饮食，避免炫耀式消费。在现代化进程中，当这种简朴生活和适度消费的传统逐渐发展壮大时却被许多人鄙视。但在这个时代，中国最能成为领导者，因为它向世界展示了极简的生活模式，这是现代生活的传统，17和18世纪最伟大的智者作为学者过着极其朴素的生活，这对我们都意义重大。我们必须以年轻人容易理解的方式重新诠释这一传统。

That moral tradition of Confucian can serve as a supporting pillar for international democracy in this age.

儒家的这种道德传统可以成为这个时代国际民主的支柱。

The ruthless competition between young Chinese to get into good high schools and then be admitted to leading universities as the necessary step to finding superior jobs takes a terrible toll on the lives of many and has distorted the nature of learning.

为了进入好高中进而考上一流大学，中国年轻人之间展开无情的竞争，这是寻找优质工作的必要步骤，给许多人的生活带来了严重损失，并扭曲了学习的本质。

Education has become a concealed combat that drives us into isolation, rather than the grounds

for cooperation among all people for the purpose of discovering the truth or creating a better society.

教育已经成为一种隐蔽的战斗，这让我们陷入孤立，并不是所有人为了发现真相或创造更美好社会而合作的基础。

I have heard frequent comparisons between this obsession with exams in contemporary China as a means to achieve social status and the civil service examination system that dominated traditional Chinese society. The civil service exam was central to Chinese governance and it affected all aspects of culture before then.

我经常听到人们将当代中国对考试作为一种获得社会地位的手段的痴迷与主导中国传统社会的公务员考试制度进行比较。公务员考试是中国治理的核心，在此之前它已经影响了文化的方方面面。

The analogy between contemporary test-taking and the Confucian civil service exams of the Qing Dynasty is not entirely wrong. The examination system, especially after the complete saturation of government jobs in the late 18th century due to a rapid rise in population, became a battlefield in which a ruthless competition for jobs that were tied to wealth and power.

将当代应试与清代儒家科举考试进行类比并非完全错误。考试制度，特别是在18世纪后期由于人口迅速增加而导致政府职位完全饱和之后，成为了一场与财富和权力相关的无情竞争职位的战场。

A few powerful families monopolized the exam systems through access to excellent instruction for their sons, or through corruption, or through both means.

一些有权势的家族或通过给予后代出色的指导，或通过腐败，也可能同时利用两种方式垄断了考试系统。

The content of the exams was reduced to the memorization of set phrases, the employment of set flowery language that conformed with the demands of the examiners, and the endless practice of unimaginative model essays.

考试内容缩减到记忆固定词组、运用符合考官要求的华丽辞藻、无休止地练习缺乏想象力的范文。

But the degenerate form of the civil service examination system of the late Qing does not represent the original intentions of that exam.

但晚清科举考试制度的堕落，并不代表该考试的初衷。

Rather, we need to ask ourselves what it meant to have a society in which government service was considered the highest goal and in which being educated in moral philosophy, as opposed to business administration, or finance, or advertising, was presented as the goal for all educated people.

相反，我们需要问自己，拥有一个将政府服务视为最高目标，并以道德哲学教育，而不是工商管理、金融或广告为目标的社会，这意味着什么？这是所有受教育者的目标。

The first question we must ask is about the value of meritocracy that is the part of the examination system most frequently cited. The civil service exam system in China, Korea, and Vietnam ― which would become a model also for France, Britain and other countries in the 18th and 19th centuries ― is often held up as the model of meritocracy; rule by the capable and the educated. It has tremendous appeal.

我们必须问的第一个问题是关于精英统治的价值，这是考试制度中最常被引用的部分。中国、韩国和越南的公务员考试制度，在18世纪和19世纪也成为法国、英国和其他国家的典范，经常被奉为精英统治的典型代表，其由能者和受教育者统治，展现出巨大的吸引力。

Meritocracy forms a strong alternative to aristocracy (granted that meritocracy often degenerates into aristocracy over time) or tyranny. That is all the more true today when we witness again a radical concentration of capital.

精英统治形成了贵族统治或暴政的强大替代品，而精英统治随着时间的推移退化为贵族统治是理所当然的。今天，当我们再次目睹资本的急剧集中时，这一点就更加真实。

There is recent interest in the virtues of meritocracy (especially in the Chinese case), most notably the writings of Daniel Bell of Tsinghua University. He proposes that the current Chinese political meritocracy can serve as an alternative to Western democracy in his book “The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy.”

最近人们对精英管理的优点感兴趣，尤其是在中国的案例中，最著名的是清华大学的贝淡宁（Daniel Bell）的著作。他在其著作《中国模式：贤能政治与民主的局限》中 提 出，当前中国的贤能政治可以作为西方民主的替代品。

It is certainly true that meritocracy, a system that seeks to promote those with the skills and the ability to govern, may offer an alternative to “democratic” systems wherein citizens vote for leaders who are preselected by special interests. After all, if people vote based only on information supplied by biased media sources, it is hard to consider such a system to be an effective way to select leaders.

诚然，精英统治，一种寻求提升具有管理技能和能力的人的制度，可以提供替代“民主”制度的另一种选择，在这种制度中，公民投票选举由特殊利益预先选出的领导人。毕竟，如果人们只根据带有偏见的媒体提供的信息进行投票，很难认为这样的体系是一种有效的领导人选拔方式。

The civil service system was subject to withering critiques by reformers in the late Qing Dynasty who argued that Confucian scholars who were well versed in the classics were unprepared to deal with the challenges of modernization and that the need was for practical experts who could negotiate trade treaties, establish postal systems and run railroads and steel mills.

文官制度受到晚清改革派的严厉批评，他们认为通晓经典的儒家学者没有准备好应对现代化的挑战，需要的是能够谈判贸易条约，建立邮政系统，经营铁路和钢铁厂的实用专家。

That legacy lives on, and most tests used today to determine careers and focus on math and the English language, on administration and management, or on specific skills in accounting or in finance.

这一遗产持续存在，今天大多数考试用于确定职业并专注于数学和英语、行政和管理，或者会计或金融方面的特定技能。

Moral philosophy has disappeared from exams in the process of modernization.

道德哲学在现代化进程中从考试中退场。

So why did the civil service examinations focus on the Confucian classics and on moral philosophy? Was it because the scholars had lost touch with the needs of the nation and had lost themselves in their own privilege?

那么，为什么公务员考试的重点是儒家经典和道德哲学？是不是因为学者们忽视了国家的需求，迷失在自己的特权中？

Understanding the nature of the Confucian civil service is difficult because there is a fundamental misunderstanding about the original spirit of the civil service exams.

了解儒家公务员的本质是困难的，因为对公务员考试的本源精神存在根本性的误解。

The term “meritocracy” is a misnomer. Of course, the Chinese civil service exams were about merit, but that was not their primary function.

“精英统治”这个词用词不当。当然，中国公务员考试考的是成绩，但这不是其主要功能。

The exams were originally, from their roots in the Han Dynasty, meant to serve as the basis to establish rule by the wise and the ethical, rather than rule by the capable and the erudite. The two goals are related, but grasping the fundamental difference is critical for future reform.

考试起源于汉代，其目的是作为建立智者和道德者统治的基础，而不是能者和博学者的统治。这两个目标是相关的，但抓住根本区别是未来改革的关键。

The philosophers who systematized Confucian thought, Confucius and Mencius, were advocating not so much for a meritocracy, as for a noocracy, or “rule by the wise.” Noocracy has become an unfamiliar term, but that goal of creating a nation ruled by the wise and the ethical was also held up by the Greek philosopher Plato as the best form of government.

将儒家思想系统化的哲学家，孔子和孟子，与其说是崇尚精英统治，不如说是崇尚心智统治，或“智者统治”。心智统治已经成为一个陌生的术语，但创建一个由智者和道德者统治的国家的目标也被希腊哲学家柏拉图认为是最好的政府形式。

Most people today would consider the idea that government should be administered by the wise, rather than by the capable, to be either hopelessly naive, or perhaps dangerously elitist, but let us think carefully about this issue before we dismiss this critical assumption in traditional Chinese culture.

今天大多数人会认为政府应该由智者而不是由能者来管理的想法要么是天真无邪，要么是危险的精英主义，但让我们仔细考虑这个问题，然后再驳斥传统中国文化的这一批判性假设。

Democracy can easily degenerate into the people being misled by false information or charismatic leaders into terrible decisions that lead to the worst form of tyranny.

民主很容易退化为人们被虚假信息误导，或者有魅力的领导人做出可怕的决定，从而导致最糟糕的暴政。

Meritocracy can lead to rule by those who have clear skills and a high level of education, but who have no moral compass and who pursue their personal interests, or their family interests.

精英统治可能导致那些拥有明确技能和高教育水平但没有道德指南针并追求个人利益或家庭利益的人进行统治。

Confucius and Plato had a point in advocating for rule by the wise.

孔子和柏拉图提倡智者统治是有道理的。

How people are promoted in government and business is critical for a healthy society.

人们如何在政府和企业中得到提升对于一个健康的社会至关重要。

The problem is: how do you achieve governance by the wise?

问题是：如何实现智者治理？

Humans are flawed creatures and there will be corruption and abuse of power in any system. Periodic reform is essential to assure transparency.

人是有缺陷的生物，任何制度都会有腐败和滥用权力。定期改革对于确保透明度至关重要。

The demand that those involved in politics and governance be steeped in moral philosophy from childhood, being familiar with the humanities and capable of writing thoughtfully about how to find ethical solutions to problems in governance and in society is logical and compelling. We need exactly such an approach today.

要求参与政治和治理的人从小就沉浸在道德哲学中，熟悉人文学科并能够深思熟虑地撰写有关如何找到治理和社会问题的道德解决方案的要求，这是合乎逻辑且令人信服的。我们今天正是需要这样一种方法。

But we should pursue the spirit of traditional Confucian governance, and not its forms ― especially in later ages.

但我们应该追求传统儒家治理的精神，而不是其形式，尤其是在未来的时代。

We should not force everyone to read only the Confucian classics, or to take the exams used in the traditional China. The world today is different.

我们不应该强迫每个人都只阅读儒家经典，或者参加传统中国的考试。今天的世界已经不同了。

Rather, we can experiment with new approaches to making philosophy and literature part of the training for all those who wish to work in government, or in business, so that they will be aware of their own actions and their impact on society, so that they will see ethical behavior as the highest goal.

相反，我们可以尝试新的方法，让哲学和文学成为所有希望在政府或商界工作的人的培训的一部分，这样他们就会意识到自己的行为及其对社会的影响，并将道德行为视为最高目标。

The readings for such an education should extend down to the current day, and should not be limited to the Chinese tradition. Moreover, such an education should involve learning from a teacher, a moral and philosophical teacher, and talking with that teacher. We must move beyond the inhuman system of computer-graded anonymous tests. Exams must be more human and more organic. They can refer to abstract principles, but they must be grounded in the moral tests we face in contemporary society.

这种教育的解读应该延伸到今天，而不应该局限于中国传统。此外，这样的教育应该包括向道德哲学老师学习，并与老师交谈。我们必须超越计算机分级匿名测试的非人工系统。考试必须更人性化，且更加循序渐进。它们可以指抽象的原则，但它们必须以我们在当代社会面临的道德考验为基础。

Such an innovation in the sense of recapturing the original spirit of the Confucian tradition can bring tremendous new vitality to government and to education, giving new hope to youth in China, Korea, Vietnam and around the world.

这种重新夺回儒家传统本源精神的创新，可以为政府和教育带来巨大的崭新活力，为中国、韩国、越南和世界各地的青年带来新的希望。