Confucianism and Protestantism: prospects for the East-West transcivilizational convergence

Abstract

The aggravation of the struggle for global leadership between the United States and China in the context of rapidly developing globalization has brought to the fore the problem of a comparative analysis of the ethical and value foundations of socio-economic dynamics, innovativeness and competitiveness of the Euro-Atlantic (primarily Protestant) society, on the one hand, and the East Asian (primarily Confucian) society, on the other. The purpose of this study is to compare the religious and ethical systems of Confucianism and Protestantism in terms of their competitive advantages, compliance with the interests of global economic leadership, and mutual adaptability. The study applies the interdisciplinary approach, methods of synergetic, civilizational and world-system analysis. It is argued that the modernization potential and mental-value compatibility of the Protestant and Confucian worlds is much higher than that of respectively the Protestant and the post-Soviet Eurasian. The key correspondences of ethical-value principles and motivations of Protestant and Confucian cultures in their genetics, historical dynamics and modern dimension have been determined. It is shown that such fundamental principles of modern Western society as pluralism and the rule of law have their traditional correspondences, albeit in a transformed form, among the core values of Chinese and, geographically wider, Confucian social culture. Therefore, the current trend of China’s return to its cultural roots, to Confucian ethics not only does not interfere with the process of modernization and the country’s movement towards global financial and economic leadership, but, on the contrary, contributes to these processes. In this regard, the prospects for a rational convergence of East and West values, primarily Protestantism and Confucianism, within the framework of a new globalized civilization of the future look rather likely.