Griffith Asia Institute Research Seminar | Civility and Its Development: The Experiences of China and Taiwan, 2018, Hong Kong University Press

Griffith Asia Institute Research Seminar | Civility and Its Development: The Experiences of China and Taiwan, 2018, Hong Kong University Press
Griffith Asia Institute Research Seminar | Civility and Its Development: The Experiences of China and Taiwan, 2018, Hong Kong University Press
Principal speaker

Associate Professor Adjunct Associate Professor David Schak, Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University

This is the first book-length study of the development of civility in Chinese societies. Although some social scientists and political philosophers have discussed civility, none has defined it as an analytical tool to systematically measure attitudes and behaviour, and few have applied it to a non-Western society. By comparing the development of civility in mainland China and Taiwan, Civility and Its Development: The Experiences of China and Taiwan analyses the social conditions needed for civility to become established in a society. I argue that the attempts to impose civility top-down from the state are ineffective. Civility appeared in Taiwan only after state efforts to impose it ceased at the end of the 1980s when Taiwan began to democratize, and the PRC government civility campaigns have so far had only limited success. The book concludes with an examination of various differences between Taiwan and the PRC relevant to Taiwan's having become a society with civility while the PRC still encounters difficulties in doing so. The essential factor in developing civility in Taiwan, I contend, was its evolution from a place composed of myriad small, inward-looking communities to a society in which everyone shares a strong identity and civic consciousness, and people consider others as fellow members, not anonymous strangers.

David Schak is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Griffith Asia Institute. Trained in anthropology at UC-Berkeley (Ph.D. 1973), he has researched and published on a variety of issues in Chinese/Taiwanese society including courtship and marriage, family relationships, poverty, beggars, Taiwanese business culture and management methods, civil society, and Taiwan Buddhism. His recent book, Civility and its Development: The Experiences of China and Taiwan, was published last year by Hong Kong University Press.

Event categories
RSVP

RSVP on or before Monday 8 July 2019 , by email events-gai@griffith.edu.au , or by phone 07 3735 4705

Event contact details
  • Location N72_-1.18 | Nathan campus
  • Time 12.00 pm to 1.20 pm
  • date Thursday 11 July 2019