Link to External Source Article Wednesday, November 14, 2007 Are young intellectuals possessed?
Monday, November 12, 2007 By Joe Hung, Special to The China Post Page 1 of 2 – click on “external source” for complete article Let me first define who Chinese intellectuals are. In imperial China, they were — for lack of a better English equivalent — literati, most of them serving as government officials at one time or another. There were others who never passed the civil service examination and couldn’t join the civil service. But they were all educated and intelligent because they learned much from Confucian books. They were the elite. Nowadays, people who have college degrees are considered intellectuals. Therefore, it follows that college students are young intellectuals. Confucianism is an existentialistic and activist religion, albeit many prefer to call it a philosophy or a way of life, with most monotheist Western scholars convinced that it isn’t a religion. Chinese literati were activist when they were young. As they grew older, they almost invariably turned to Taoism — usu
