Western domination over World History
We have been there before. The West still cultivates the out-dated notion that "knowledge only exists if it's the West that knows it." The consequences of past Euro-centricism are far-reaching: By rejecting, say, Chinese key terminologies like shengren or junzi into scientific publications, Western publishers are not only impeding Chinese culture but also withholding valuable information to the general Western public. To this day, knowledge remains a dead-end road with only one flow of direction permitted: that from the west to the east. It does not have to be like this forever.
My Language, Your Prison?
When the Germans, the descendants of the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation, came to China to evangelize it, they met categories of wisdom unheard of in Europe. Yet, in their effort to christen China, the Germans conveniently called the shengren "Heilige" -- biblical saints. This German obsession with holiness is deeply rooted in the Germanic biblical and folkloric language; and it is in language that all European cultures want to project their own taxonomies onto China. The Germans call this Deutungshoheit, meaning having the sovereignty over the definition of thought. [Read more]
