One of my favorite philosophers is Ludwig Wittgenstein, who is widely regarded as the foremost philosopher of language. Wittgenstein was fascinated by how we can share the meanings of words, and communicate with each other, and learn to use language to describe the world and our experience in it. In his book Philosophical Investigations, he said, famously, “In most cases, the meaning of a word is its use.”

Wittgenstein would have been engrossed by the arrival and rapid introduction of terms that have come to dominate everyday discourse in 2020. At the end of last year, words and phrases such as self-isolation, lockdown, and social distancing were all relatively unknown. Now they’ve become the main topics of our conversation. With this comes the realization that, much of the time, what one person means when they say “self-isolation,” for example, is not the same as the meaning that another understands when they use that same term.

Wittgenstein can offer insight into why this might be. The philosopher described language as rule-following behavior; we learn the shared use of a term or phrase through contact with others. What enables us to share a language, Wittgenstein proposed, was not that we formally comprehend grammar and definitions, but that we share the underlying “forms of life” (his famous phrase) that a particular language describes. A form of life can be understood as a way in which those who share a language make sense of the world, their world. Shared forms of life lie beneath language and are what enables us to communicate and understand others.

We are used to acclimatizing ourselves with new terms through a wide range of sources, but many of these opportunities are not available due to the necessity of social distancing. Part of the stress of the pandemic is having to employ a new and evolving vocabulary in our dealings with other people at a time when those interactions are much fewer, and in many instances, radically altered. The terminology that describes and articulates our new situation now often comes to us through news media, official declarations, and electronic communication rather than witnessing the words and actions communicated together, in-person, with real-time approval and confirmation.

Take the words “lockdown” and “self-isolation,” for example. Some friends have considered themselves “in lockdown” while permitting themselves visits to relatives’ homes, family gatherings, a long trip to a distant beauty spot. Others I know have enforced a virtual total exclusion from the world.

Conversations I have both overheard and participated in reveal confusion and conflict: “When you say you are in self-isolation, does that mean you have symptoms?” or “I do wonder sometimes about what certain people consider to be an ‘essential journey’ in the present circumstances.”

Wittgenstein might tell us that these experiences are to be expected in times of rapid change. They are how we come to grips with a new way of living, through social interaction and the experience of submitting our understanding of new vocabulary to the checks of others. “Getting it wrong”—failing to exhibit in our actions a full understanding of the terms used to describe our new situation—seems to indicate carelessness, lack of appreciation at the gravity of our shared situation, and perhaps even selfishness.

Selfishness—and individuals’ lack of concern for the common good—are a common topic of discussion right now. Recently, British newspaper editorials have directly referred to a betrayal of the social contract, implying that they are identifying not just wrongdoing but the wronging of the rest of us and our efforts to follow rules and contribute our best efforts to this common cause. The concept of the social contract emerged at another time of great social upheaval, the revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. Thinkers who influenced this period of history, such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, each developed a variant on the concept that citizens of a society agree to surrender some freedoms in order to achieve a greater good which they want and which they understand organized society can provide. Thomas Hobbes described the aim as to be protected from what he described as “war of all against all.”

It is too early to state categorically what the current crisis means for the sense of belonging to society and agreeing to projects undertaken with shared responsibility and contributions demanded of us all. Just as scientists are quick to point out when pressed for hard facts about the future of the pandemic that it is newly encountered and time is needed for research, those of us in the humanities must admit that the changes which will result from this period of history will have to reveal themselves over time.

Confined indoors for much of the time, it has been easy to look on this moment as a temporary pause before a return to “the old normal.” The skies are noticeably clearer, and while walking in my nearby park, the air is perceivably fresher. Roads are clear, trains restricted, empty buses pass. It seems we are already in a new London.

The very circulation of people, now hesitantly emerging from lockdown, is what has historically given strength to London as one of the great metropolitan centers of the world. Richard Sennett, in his book Flesh and Stone: The Body and the City in Western Civilization, noted how the circulation of people in the city underwent a revolution in response to popularization of the discovery of the flow of blood by the physician and medical researcher William Harvey in the 17th century.

Harvey explained how it was the heart (and not the lungs as previously had been believed) which was responsible for blood pumping through humans. This was heralded and explored by a number of thinkers, who (according to Sennett) came to associate rapid and free-flowing circulation with health. Once of these thinkers was Adam Smith, who extrapolated this new image of the healthy human body to argue that the unimpeded circulation of labor and goods was also essential for, as he termed it, The Wealth of Nations.

In the century that followed, the Victorians expanded on this association of rapid circulation of people with the vitality of the city. Improved travel in London did not just mean workers journeying efficiently to their places of work; the Victorians placed value on citizens traveling to enrich themselves, and to enjoy cultural experiences, galleries, and parks.

The return to “Victorian values” has become a disparaging comment over the past few decades, usually referring to long-discarded conceptions of class, morality, and the hypocrisy with which these were upheld. This year has seen Londoners yearn for our theaters, museums, cinemas, and galleries, while also enjoying the city’s many parks and open green spaces—all of which are also the Victorians’ legacy to our century. I am not sure what form, if any, a reappraisal of the Victorian era will take, now that our complacent faith in the superiority of our own epoch has been shaken so severely.

Similarly, I have been asked by friends overseas about “the British response” to this global pandemic. I am at a loss to describe how the reaction in this country has been unique or particularly different to that of the rest of the world. Or how, at a time when the issues of national identity posed by our vote in favor of leaving the European Union in June 2016 are experienced if anything ever more deeply, that response might be characterized as “uniquely British.”

As London tentatively emerges from lockdown, the debate over what kind of city its inhabitants want to have, and what they are going to get, will emerge from much discussion. I cannot help feeling that this period of isolation, change, and recovery calls out for reflection and contemplation. Many of us now have only tentative answers to the questions that have started forming within us during these challenging times.

The realm of philosophy is uniquely placed to discuss these questions. Of course, speaking from experience, we are not likely to find in philosophical debate everlasting and entirely convincing answers, but my experience also tells me that much of the enjoyment of the debate is the articulation of views the owner might not realize they held, however fleetingly. I would like to hope Londoners who might not have been attracted to philosophy before will consider engaging with the discipline in the search for answers to the questions of 2020.

Philosophers are traditionally portrayed as insular hermits who spend much time in solitary thought and have little need of interaction with our fellow humans. But the best thinkers I have encountered relish exciting listeners through the understanding of complex and historically significant ideas. I personally depend on a live and physically present audience to give a really good lecture, one I take pleasure in giving. I need to tailor jokes appropriately, based on audience reaction, to see if the material is being digested. I look forward very much to the return to my pub philosophy sessions, once pubs are able to play host once again.

The post A Letter From London, Where a Philosopher Ponders Self-Isolation, the Social Contract, and When the Pubs Will Reopen appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

These two points help us better understand why the Chinese sense of legitimacy is vastly different from the Western one; for China is not a typical nation-state, but rather a deeply historical and civilizational state. It is an amalgam of the world’s longest continuous civilization, and a super-large modern state with its sense of legitimacy rooted deeply in its history.

An apt analogy would be to something like the Roman Empire, if it had endured into the 21st century—with all its regional and cultural diversities, with a modern economy and a centralized government, with a population nearly equal to that of 100 average-size European nations combined, situated on a vast continent, with its people speaking thousands of different dialects while sharing one written language called Latin.

This kind of state, a product of hundreds of states amalgamated into one over its long history, would become ungovernable if it were to adopt an adversarial political model. Such was the case in China beginning with the 1911 Republican Revolution, when the country attempted to copy the American model and degenerated into chaos, with rival warlords fighting each other and tens of millions of lives lost in the decades that followed.

As a civilizational state, the legitimacy of China’s government is deeply rooted in its own historical tradition, shaped over the millennia since the country was first unified under the Emperor Qin in 221 B.C. China’s one-party governance today may look illegitimate in the eyes of many Westerners, yet it is to most Chinese nothing extraordinary. For most of the past two thousand years, China has practiced a kind of one-party rule: governance by a unified Confucian elite that was selected through public exams (the Keju) and which claimed to represent—or genuinely represented—most if not all under heaven. Furthermore, during much of the one-party-rule era, China was arguably a better-governed, more peaceful and prosperous state than the European states of the same epoch. China began to lag behind Europe when it closed its door to the outside world in the 18th century and missed the Industrial Revolution.

Chinese paramilitary policemen stand guard in front of a sculpture of the ancient philosopher Confucius on display near Tiananmen Square in Beijing, Jan. 2011. Photo by Andy Wong/Associated Press.

Three key concepts have underpinned the Chinese sense of state legitimacy:

The first is the Confucian doctrine of the “mandate of heaven,” which has prevailed since the Han Dynasty (201 B.C. to 220 A.D.). Confucius admonished Chinese rulers that “water can carry a boat but also overturn it,” which meant that unless the rulers worked with diligence to ensure good governance (liangzheng shanzhi)—with a particular emphasis on promoting the country’s unity and people’s livelihood—ordinary people could rise up and rebel in the name of “heaven.” In other words, the Chinese mandate of heaven was not a God-given right; the people’s acceptance of the rulers’ legitimacy rested on the condition that the rulers had to perform. This Chinese idea of a “social contract” between the rulers and the ruled preceded the French philosopher Rousseau’s by over two millennia. China’s leaders today have adapted this idea into a sense of mission to realize the Chinese dream of restoring the country’s standing in the world and creating a more just and prosperous society for all.

Despite its various weaknesses, over the past thirty years the Chinese state has presided over the world’s fastest economic growth and improvement of living standards in human history. Key independent surveys, including those by the Pew Research Center and Ipsos, show consistently that the Chinese central authorities command a high degree of respect and support within the country. The latest Ipsos survey (Oct. 2016) showed that 90 percent of Chinese are satisfied with the track the country is taking, while only 37 percent of Americans and 11 percent of French feel the same about their countries. Depicting China’s polity as lacking legitimacy, or even being on the verge of collapse, is out of touch with China’s reality.

The second concept, which is related to the mandate of heaven, is the idea and practice of meritocracy (xuanxian renneng, or selecting and appointing the virtuous and competent). As Dr. Francis Fukuyama has observed in his book The Origins of Political Order, “It is safe to say that China invented modern bureaucracy, that is, a permanent administrative cadre selected on the basis of ability rather than kinship or patrimonial connection.” China’s Keju system, or civil service exams, was long used to select the most talented individuals into leading positions in government.

The Communist Party of China has adapted this tradition for modern China, building a system for selecting its leaders based on merit and performance. For example, China’s top decision-makers (members of the Standing Committee of the CPC Political Bureau, including President Xi Jinping) have almost all served at least twice as party secretaries or governors of a province, which means, given the size of China’s population, they have administered populations of 100 million or more, and performed well, before being promoted to their top-echelon positions.

The third concept of legitimacy derives from the Chinese philosophy of political governance, including, among other things, the two distinctive concepts minyi and minxin. The former approximately refers to “public opinion,” and the latter to “the hearts and minds of the people,” and the pair was first put forward by Mencius (372 – 289 BC). Minyi, or public opinion, can be fleeting and change overnight (especially in today’s internet age), while minxin, or “hearts and minds of the people,” tends to be stable and lasting, reflecting the whole and long-term interest of a nation. Over the past three decades, the Chinese state has generally practiced “rule by minxin.” This allows China to plan for the medium and long term, and even for the next generation, rather than for next 100 days or until the next election, as is the case with many Western democracies.

To sum up, while the West has for so many years engaged in promoting the Western political model in the name of universal values, China has pursued its own experiments in the political domain since 1978, drawing lessons from the disastrous Cultural Revolution, in which ideological radicalism expunged China’s governance traditions and dashed people’s hope for prosperity and order. Thanks to this effort, China has since managed to varying degrees of success to re-establish a connection with its own past as well as borrow many useful elements from the West.

China’s meritocratic system today is essentially a mechanism of “selection plus election,” with the former originating from China’s own tradition and the latter imported from the West. Pioneered by China’s late leader Deng Xiaoping, this institutional arrangement has succeeded in ensuring an orderly transition of power for this vast country over the past three decades, and this year may mark a new milestone as the CPC will convene its 19th National Congress.

However imperfect, this system is in a position to compete with the Western political model. Indeed, it would be inconceivable for the Chinese system today to produce an awkward leader like Donald Trump.

The Chinese experience since 1978 shows that the ultimate test of a good political system is how well it ensures good governance as judged by the people of that country. The stereotyped dichotomy of “democracy vs. autocracy” sounds so hollow in today’s complex world, given the large numbers of poorly governed “democracies” around the world. China’s experience may eventually usher in a paradigm shift in international political discourse from the dichotomy of the so-called democracy vs. autocracy, to that of good governance versus bad governance, with good governance taking the form of the Western political system or of a non-Western one. Likewise, bad governance may take the form of the Western political system or a non-Western one.

It follows that, from the Chinese point of view, the nature of a state, including its legitimacy, has to be defined more by its substance, i.e. good governance broadly acknowledged by the people of that country rather than by mere correct procedures. China emphasizes substance over procedures, believing that ultimately the pursuit of right substance will evolve and produce the right procedures, appropriate to each nation’s own traditions and conditions. A plethora of uncertainties are gripping the world today for reasons directly related to how government legitimacy has been defined by the West, and it’s high time to pause and reflect on this issue, and in this context, that China’s age-old wisdom and well-tested practices may be interestingly relevant.

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