The Crisis of Global Modernity: Asian Traditions and a Sustainable Future (Asian Connections)

The neo-Confucian ideal of society was the creation of a voluntary moral community led by cultivated persons who approached the ideal of the sage or gentleman (junzi).

But no movement of major social change has succeeded without a compelling symbology and affective power.

Colonial administrators and scholars relied overwhelmingly on Brahmin views of Indian society and culture, in which the cosmology of Brahmanism had priority. Colonial and modern historians have tended to ignore the genealogies, chronicles, and dated inscriptions of events and grants in the Puranic tradition, as well as the histories of the Buddhist

We may think of this locus as the source of reflexivity on consciousness as a whole that is endowed with a powerful moral authority. In turn, this moral authority serves as a historical motor to empower…

Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

It was when a mode of community-formation that I have called confessional nationalism became suitable for the competitive pursuit of global resources that doctrinal differences became salient.

Zürcher had concluded his seminal essay with the image of twin pyramid peaks which merged at the lower levels “into a much less differentiated lay religion, and at the very base both systems largely dissolved into an indistinct mass of popular beliefs and practices”; the two teachings became “branches springing from a single trunk.”

but at the very least we can affirm that dialogical transcendence has remained relevant for many who seek guidance for moral transformation of self and society.

Most alarmingly, the turn to neo-liberal globalization over the last several decades has devastated the planetary environment.

Thus, if the book is first of all about the crisis of sustainability, it is also about the crisis of transcendence and the search for sources and resources of self and communal regeneration in historical cultures.