Analysis of the Cultural Duality in Eastern Asia
Abstract
For a long time, Confucian culture has been synonymous with Chinese culture and Eastern Asian culture. From a historical standpoint, most cultural heritages of Eastern Asia originated in China as one of the oldest civilizations on earth, so the two terms were often used interchangeably to reflect the dominant influences of Chinese cultures on the rest of Eastern Asia. While Confucian philosophy has made itself a single most iconic cultural symbol of Eastern Asia with its emphasis on etiquette and morality, the discussion of whether Confucianism closely represents the substance of Eastern Asian culture has rarely been evaluated with a particular historical context. Under the fundamental social transitions from aristocracy in the Zhou dynasty to a unified dictatorship in Qin Dynasty, Confucian thoughts themselves were challenged by other anti-Confucian ideologies that seek compatibility with the changing regimes. The most notable of them is a school of thought known as Legalism. As two completely split views, both Confucianism and Legalism have been deeply intertwined in the history of China and eventually integrated into the complex cultural identities of Eastern Asians. The causes and implications of the existence of such contrary duality in the cultures of early China and later Eastern Asia will be the topics of interest in the paper.
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