Ai Weiwei on Confucius: "Disgusting"
Chinese artist, activist, and dissident Ai Weiwei? He’s not a big fan of Confucius, apparently. From his Twitter:
From whatever angle you look at it, Confucius is disgusting.
He followed that with the rather vulgar:
I don’t understand Confucius and Confucianism, do I also not understand your mother’s c**t?
Lest one be confused and think he’s reacting to this news, make no bones about it. In response to a tweeted question: “Are you talking about the movie Confucius or the person?” he said,
Kong Qiu, the second eldest son [i.e., Confucius the historical figure].
Not much room for doubt there.
I suppose I should also note that I, very reluctantly, have gotten a Twitter account. I still have serious misgivings about Twitter, but I suppose if you wanted you could follow ChinaGeeks (i.e, me, for the moment). Sigh…
Related posts:
Eww, Custer uses Twitter. Eww.
Well, as he says, he’s never studied Confucianism. He grew up in the 1960s, when school kids was taught that Confucius was feudalism incarnate. Now the party is trying to make Confucianism the state ideology again…. (They are copying 国民党.)
Confucianism’s modern success is indeed evident in TW (that’s not the only reason for TW’s success, of course) and South Korea. It has serious flaws, though, but nothing is without flaws. But hey, like xyz said, Ai grew up being taught Conficius was the root of all evil in China, so it’s not surprising.
I think Weiwei has gone a bit far. Criticize the CCP all you want, but don’t Criticize Confucius. You may not agree with all his views but most of his views were great. His stance on education, his stance on piety, his stance on respect. Something that honestly many modern Chinese have lost. Have you lost it Weiwei?
Mao too hated Confucians, look how great the Cultural Revolution turned out. Yay.
It was writer Lin Yutang who said he didn’t understand how the old school teacher Confucius with his rather conventional wisdom had became China’s greatest philosopher. He had a point
Had he lived to day, he might have been asking how Ai WeiWei - a guy with mainly a filthy mouth and a rather banal and boring art to his credit - has become China’s most famous artist.
I guess in the end, it’s about your views more than anything else. Confucius preached honoring your parents, valuing education, and respecting those around you during a time when China was wrought with violence and political divisiveness.
Ai Weiwei, I imagine, is famous not so much for his art, but rather because of his strong decries of the Chinese political system. (see: 草泥马, 组国). I think another source of his popularity was his perseverance in the civilian fact finding project on the child victims of the Wenchuan earthquake. Again, nothing to do with his art.
Obviously, Chinese police has damaged his brain. Let us overthrow CCP.
On Confucianism in contemporary China, there was recently an interesting exchange between Professors Daniel Bell and Michael Walzer at China Beat. http://www.thechinabeat.org/?p=1340
Ai Weiwei, a petulant obese man-child still desperately trying to be rebellious, edgy and controversial. Raging against the CCP is just so common.
Though Confucian thought may be conventional in a modern sense, back then it was revolutionary. In an age where we know so much, it’s easy to look down on ideas of the past. But in simplicity, there is complexity. Who where claims to know all the great works of Confucius? If you read the works of any ancient philosopher, you may think “oh well duh! of course the earth is round” but imagine if no one ever told you; it would it be as conventional?
I think the people who can’t see the true beauty of philosophy have lost their sense to reason, their sense to be analytical and their ability to think beyond what they read.
Ai Weiwei is nothing but an artist, I wouldn’t depend on him to help me formulate an opinion on anything other than art. The way Ai Weiwei goes about it “sticking it up to the man” does resemble a rebellious child that likes to rebel just for the sake of rebelling. No matter what angle you look at it, it’s disgusting.
However, if he’s talking about the movie, I do agree that having Chow Yanfat play Confucius is disgusting…
2D version of “Avatar” shut down early to make way for “Confucius the Movie”.
http://news.163.com/10/0119/09/5TCN0FQ900011229.html#
内地多家影院证实《阿凡达》23日提前下线
2010-01-19 09:19:51 来源: 红网(长沙)
尽管通知的出台比较蹊跷，但《阿凡达》2D版下档一事并非虚构，全国各地的主要影城都已开始做调整工作。由于《阿凡达》2D版下档的日期正好与《孔子》的上映期重合，一位圈内知情人士透露，《阿凡达》2D版下档的目的非常明显，就是给《孔子》让道，只不过官方不方便出面，只好由《阿凡达》片方来操作，“之前《阿凡达》为《十月围城》的票房增值推迟了内地上映日期，然后《孔子》为《阿凡达》推迟上映，这样一来，说是‘还人情’也可以，说是‘让道’也有道理。总之，不论《孔子》之前上的是什么影片，它来了就得‘让道’。”对此，《孔子》片方明确表示不对此事做任何回应。
Confucius is not disgusting, but neoCons are.