China and the American Dream: A Moral Inquiry (review)

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Reviews 213 pounded in die Chinese classic The Book ofChanges, there is constant and eternal change that affects both die physical world and the human world. Yet, as the twenty-first century is approaching, more and more people have come to realize that no universal pattern ofchange applies to all cultures and societies. In today's ever-changing world, where many cultural identities are striving for recognition, the new Norton will unquestionably serve as a beneficial intercultural undertaking in world literature, which, as Goethe had hoped in 1827, will promote and bring about greater harmony and communication among nations. H. R. Lan Amherst College H. R. Lan is an assistantprofessor ofChinese language and literature. NOTES1. Stephen Owen, "Poetry in the Chinese Tradition," in Heritage ofChina, ed. Paul Ropp (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1990). 2. Stephen Owen, Readings in Chinese Literary Thought (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), p. 331. M Richard Madsen. China and the American Dream: A Moral Inquiry. A Philip Lilienthal Book. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. xxiii, 262 pp. Hardcover $27.50, isbn 0-520-08613-9. There are many ways one can benefit from engaging in philosophical debates about "foreign" relations. One way is to exercise precision in defining commonly used words and their interrelationships. Another is to contemplate how recent international events have affected our view of today's world. In China and the American Dream, Professor Madsen does both by examining die interrelationships ofreligion, institutions, diversity, culture, morality, the liberal myth, geopolitics , and democracy. He uses twenty-five years ofSino-American relations, from 1970 to 1995, as a context for refining the meanings ofthese terms. He addresses the reasons for and die ramifications of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. Madsen endeavors to demonstrate that Sino-American interactions were in no© 1996 by University small way responsible for Tiananmen and that the interactions reveal much about ofHawaii Pressthe extent to which Americans "know" themselves. In addressing die educated public, he asserts that die American Dream, once an organizing principle for American society, has outiived its usefulness. 214 China Review International: Vol. 3, No. 1, Spring 1996 Perhaps the most important point that Madsen makes is tiiat many Chinese who were once committed to the Tiananmen democracy movement now are antisocial individuals who prefer to concentrate on making money. Madsen relates this phenomenon to the fact that Americans were overzealous in their interactions with Chinese beginning in me 1970s, and this caused irreparable damage to the self-confidence of Chinese nationalists. While fhe nationalists originally believed that their special contributions to the world were the virtues of self-discipline and social responsibility, after the Americans struck with dieir culture of competition and consumption, the nationalists could no longer find even one positive attribute about Chinese culture. Madsen maintains tiiat Americans, represented tiirough many diverse institutions, ignored the dynamic qualities of democracy in the United States and did not try to understand the Chinese context: we did not try to learn about ourselves before we exported our values, and this caused great harm to thousands of Chinese citizens. Before examining Madsen's definitions ofreligion, institutions, diversity, culture , morality, the liberal myth, geopolitics, and democracy, I acknowledge writing a doctoral dissertation on the Sino-American scientific and technological exchanges that occurred between 1972 and 1982. In my research, I assumed that "modernization" dirough the transfer of technology from the United States to China was bodi possible and desirable. Thus, reading Madsen's discourse about the American scholarly elite and their representative institutions was particularly enlightening, including how tiiree China groups—the National Committee on U.S.-China relations (composed ofthe elite establishment, whose membership was by invitation), the Committee for Scholarly Communication with die People's Republic of China (which also was exclusive), and the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars (which had open membership and attracted a diverse group but consisted primarily ofyoung, middle-class graduate students)—developed and declined. In addition, Madsen placed into perspective for me the controversy over Steve Mosher's dissertation research that led to his expulsion from Stanford University. While the above topics are of great concern to scholars, they probably will not interest the educated public in America. In the remainder of...