Boston Confucians

Boston Confucians are a group of "New Confucians" from Boston, of whom the best known is ethicist and scholar Tu Wei-Ming.

They believe that Confucianism has the potential as a portable ethical tradition, which could be successfully adapted to a western perspective, and does not have to be confined to Chinese culture and tradition. Both platonism and Christianity began as such portable traditions, which can be practiced outside of the Greek and Jewish roots which originally generated them.

In Islam, the al-urf (or "custom") by which Islam is adapted to local conditions, is an explicit method for this portability and adaptation, and has proven wildly successful in expanding that faith. Local tarika, for instance, often preceded the more formal ulema or Islamic jurists to begin this process. The theory of bioregional democracy also postulates that a situated ethics may be created for each unique ecoregion and climate, with deep implications for language.

All of this suggests that there is every potential for success in the Boston Confucians' project. If it can be done for Islam and must be done for democracy, then it can also be done for the methods and ethics of Confucius: These can be for instance restated less in terms of ancient Chinese ritual and etiquette, and more in terms of his most basic focus on honesty, which applies to any culture. Any New Confucian group, in Boston or otherwise, could restate all local tradition in a way analogous to Confucius' restatement of Li.

Neal Stephenson's novel The Diamond Age has a subplot regarding such restatements for an era relying on molecular assembler technology, and postulates, interestingly, that only a Confucian ethic is likely to control such dangerous technology. It is not clear if had the Boston Confucians in mind when he wrote the novel, or if this is an example of serendipity.