The politics of virtue have once again come to dominate public discourse in China as officials have begun the most significant anti-corruption campaign of recent decades. Chinese citizens have been seeking truth, virtue, and beauty in a variety of texts, practices, and sites. Confucian ritual, Christianity, Buddhism, as well as medical and psychological self-help, doctrines of “positive thinking,” have all proliferated.
The phrase zhen, shan, mei – here translated as “true, good, beautiful– encapsulates total goodness, a phrase used in everything from self-help literature to soap-opera television, associated with both idealism and naivete. We use it to open a discussion across the bounds of languages and disciplines, on the politics and economics of the forms of virtue in contemporary China.
New York City, NY; NYC