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"Asian-Values" Discourse and the Resurrection of the Social

"Asian-Values" Discourse and the Resurrection of the Social 0 1999by Duke University Press. be interpreted as activism and rational innovation. Given the “translatability,” Peter Berger asserts, “the East Asian experience supports the hypothesis that certain components of bourgeois culture -notably activism, rational innovativeness and self-discipline -are necessary for successful capitalist development.”* Thus, Asia is absorbed once again and is merely reproducing, two centuries later, the Western bourgeois culture, which is by the same token universalized. T h e only Confucian value that is difficult to translate conveniently into Western bourgeois values is collectivism, which arguably inhabits the core of Confucianism. This residual concept will be taken as the core of the Asian-values discourse in this essay. Berger’s analysis exemplifies the conventional, empiricist, and essentialist reading of the Asian-values discourse, a reading that seeks to establish whether the values are, indeed, actually held by and exclusive to Asians. Alternatively, this essay attempts to show how discursive emphasis of the collective provides the space for, first, the possible deletion of the Asia/Asian reference from the discourse and, second, the resurrection of the idea of the social in different geographic-cultural locations against any excess of liberal individualism in global capitalism. An Ideologically Interested Formulation of Asian Values To begin, http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png positions asia critique Duke University Press

"Asian-Values" Discourse and the Resurrection of the Social

positions asia critique , Volume 7 (2) – Sep 1, 1999

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Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright 1999 by Duke University Press
ISSN
1067-9847
eISSN
1527-8271
DOI
10.1215/10679847-7-2-573
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

0 1999by Duke University Press. be interpreted as activism and rational innovation. Given the “translatability,” Peter Berger asserts, “the East Asian experience supports the hypothesis that certain components of bourgeois culture -notably activism, rational innovativeness and self-discipline -are necessary for successful capitalist development.”* Thus, Asia is absorbed once again and is merely reproducing, two centuries later, the Western bourgeois culture, which is by the same token universalized. T h e only Confucian value that is difficult to translate conveniently into Western bourgeois values is collectivism, which arguably inhabits the core of Confucianism. This residual concept will be taken as the core of the Asian-values discourse in this essay. Berger’s analysis exemplifies the conventional, empiricist, and essentialist reading of the Asian-values discourse, a reading that seeks to establish whether the values are, indeed, actually held by and exclusive to Asians. Alternatively, this essay attempts to show how discursive emphasis of the collective provides the space for, first, the possible deletion of the Asia/Asian reference from the discourse and, second, the resurrection of the idea of the social in different geographic-cultural locations against any excess of liberal individualism in global capitalism. An Ideologically Interested Formulation of Asian Values To begin,

Journal

positions asia critiqueDuke University Press

Published: Sep 1, 1999

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