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The Exemplary Society: Human Improvement, Social Control, and the Dangers of Modernity in China

Author

Listed:
  • Bakken, Borge

    (Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS), Copenhagen)

Abstract

In modern China, technocratic utopias go side by side with moral panics. The modernization process is seen as creating the `disorders' of criminality, sex, and modern youth culture. The official answer to disorder is an exemplary societyan educative and disciplinary society where `human quality' and model behaviour is advocated. Modern Chinese society, however, resists being reduced to the exemplary discipline of its social engineers, and strategies of `lying' and resisting control are routine. This pathbreaking study analyses traditional and modern Chinese beliefs about and reactions to education, discipline, human improvement, and social control. Although these reactions to modernity have a Chinese colouring, they are not exclusive to the Chinese culture. By describing the terra incognita of China, The Exemplary Society also describes something about ourselves.

Suggested Citation

  • Bakken, Borge, 2000. "The Exemplary Society: Human Improvement, Social Control, and the Dangers of Modernity in China," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198295235.
  • Handle: RePEc:oxp:obooks:9780198295235
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    Cited by:

    1. Zhaoguo Wang & Fengli Dong, 2022. "Experience of Pro-Poor Tourism (PPT) in China: A Sustainable Livelihood Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-13, November.
    2. Stig Thøgersen, 2015. "“I will change things in my own small way”: Chinese Overseas Students, “Western” Values, and Institutional Reform," Journal of Current Chinese Affairs - China aktuell, Institute of Asian Studies, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, vol. 44(3), pages 103-124.
    3. Cynthia Ho & Kylie Redfern, 2010. "Consideration of the Role of Guanxi in the Ethical Judgments of Chinese Managers," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 96(2), pages 207-221, October.
    4. Kathryn Gomersall, 2021. "Governance of resettlement compensation and the cultural fix in rural China," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(1), pages 150-167, February.

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