This is actually an interesting debate in that it illustrates the immense gap - which is far from new - between Americans' supposed "traditional values" and their actions. That Vance feels compelled to redefine core Christian teachings to obscure this hypocrisy only sharpens the contradiction.
It also illustrates the perils of linking politics with religion, and particularly Christianity, whose universalist ethics—like the command to 'love thy enemy'—collide irreconcilably with statecraft’s inherent brutality (especially in America’s case). Attempting this fusion inevitably debases either the faith or the state.
The only way we know how to square this circle is to either run a theocracy that actually implements Christian principles (historically doomed to either collapse or compromise), or adopt a secular moral philosophy compatible with governance. Confucianism is a good example of the latter—a system prioritizing social harmony through reciprocal obligations, not divine edicts. Unlike religion, it rejects transcendent ideals for pragmatic role-based ethics: statecraft as collective choreography, not the application of dogma.
The Enlightenment attempted something similar with liberalism but 3 centuries later we're obviously reaching the end of that cycle: as should be obvious to anyone paying attention liberalism’s extreme individualism has eroded the social fabric and collective purpose that bind societies. Western societies are now largely adrift—atomized, purposeless, and increasingly nihilistic.
This is probably why we're witnessing this strange moment where folks like Vance perform theological contortions to grope their way towards a more communitarian framework. Vance knows that liberalism isn't working and that there's a thirst out there for more collective purpose and social cohesion. And he's trying to awkwardly retrofit Christianity to serve that role.
Today’s crisis interestingly mirrors the Enlightenment era, when the existing paradigm — Christian theology as a framework for governance — crumbled under the weight of its own contradictions. Just as the Wars of Religion exposed the dangers of dogmatic governance, today’s fractures—social isolation, inequality, America's endless wars—reveal liberalism’s limits.
And fascinatingly, few know that at the time Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire and Leibniz turned to Confucianism for inspiration. They saw in it a secular antidote to Europe’s theological bloodshed—morality rooted in social harmony, not scripture. Voltaire in particular was so in love with China that he had only one portrait in his study: that of Confucius, whom he described as “speaking only of the purest morality” and writing that, “since his time”, no “finer rule of conduct has ever been given throughout the earth”.
Yet the West chose liberalism—a system emphasizing individual rights over Confucian harmony. Three centuries later, we face the consequences: a society so obsessed with the individual it has forgotten how to sustain a common good. We've reached a wall just as our Enlightenment predecessors faced the limitations of Christian statecraft.
So in a funny way our 300-year experiment in prioritizing individual rights resembles a tragicomic attempt to outsmart Confucian wisdom. And we’re now rediscovering the value of his ‘differential order’ (差序格局)—not a rigid hierarchy, but a living network of mutual duties binding family, community, and nation.
The tragedy is that we’ll now likely repeat history’s mistakes: instead of embracing a Confucian-like pragmatism, we may distort Christianity into a state ideology — the very outcome the Enlightenment sought to escape. Vance’s rhetoric hints at this path: using faith not to unite, but to exclude.
All in all, three centuries later, the question endures: can we craft a moral framework that honors both individual dignity and the common good, free from dogma or nihilism? The answer, I think, lies not in hollowed-out liberalism or mangled theology, but rather in humility — recognizing that traditions once dismissed as ‘backward,’ like Confucianism’s reciprocity, Ubuntu’s ‘I am because we are,’ or even Hindu dharma’s contextual ethics, may hold keys to rebuilding societies that balance I and we.
It also illustrates the perils of linking politics with religion, and particularly Christianity, whose universalist ethics—like the command to 'love thy enemy'—collide irreconcilably with statecraft’s inherent brutality (especially in America’s case). Attempting this fusion inevitably debases either the faith or the state.
The only way we know how to square this circle is to either run a theocracy that actually implements Christian principles (historically doomed to either collapse or compromise), or adopt a secular moral philosophy compatible with governance. Confucianism is a good example of the latter—a system prioritizing social harmony through reciprocal obligations, not divine edicts. Unlike religion, it rejects transcendent ideals for pragmatic role-based ethics: statecraft as collective choreography, not the application of dogma.
The Enlightenment attempted something similar with liberalism but 3 centuries later we're obviously reaching the end of that cycle: as should be obvious to anyone paying attention liberalism’s extreme individualism has eroded the social fabric and collective purpose that bind societies. Western societies are now largely adrift—atomized, purposeless, and increasingly nihilistic.
This is probably why we're witnessing this strange moment where folks like Vance perform theological contortions to grope their way towards a more communitarian framework. Vance knows that liberalism isn't working and that there's a thirst out there for more collective purpose and social cohesion. And he's trying to awkwardly retrofit Christianity to serve that role.
Today’s crisis interestingly mirrors the Enlightenment era, when the existing paradigm — Christian theology as a framework for governance — crumbled under the weight of its own contradictions. Just as the Wars of Religion exposed the dangers of dogmatic governance, today’s fractures—social isolation, inequality, America's endless wars—reveal liberalism’s limits.
And fascinatingly, few know that at the time Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire and Leibniz turned to Confucianism for inspiration. They saw in it a secular antidote to Europe’s theological bloodshed—morality rooted in social harmony, not scripture. Voltaire in particular was so in love with China that he had only one portrait in his study: that of Confucius, whom he described as “speaking only of the purest morality” and writing that, “since his time”, no “finer rule of conduct has ever been given throughout the earth”.
Yet the West chose liberalism—a system emphasizing individual rights over Confucian harmony. Three centuries later, we face the consequences: a society so obsessed with the individual it has forgotten how to sustain a common good. We've reached a wall just as our Enlightenment predecessors faced the limitations of Christian statecraft.
So in a funny way our 300-year experiment in prioritizing individual rights resembles a tragicomic attempt to outsmart Confucian wisdom. And we’re now rediscovering the value of his ‘differential order’ (差序格局)—not a rigid hierarchy, but a living network of mutual duties binding family, community, and nation.
The tragedy is that we’ll now likely repeat history’s mistakes: instead of embracing a Confucian-like pragmatism, we may distort Christianity into a state ideology — the very outcome the Enlightenment sought to escape. Vance’s rhetoric hints at this path: using faith not to unite, but to exclude.
All in all, three centuries later, the question endures: can we craft a moral framework that honors both individual dignity and the common good, free from dogma or nihilism? The answer, I think, lies not in hollowed-out liberalism or mangled theology, but rather in humility — recognizing that traditions once dismissed as ‘backward,’ like Confucianism’s reciprocity, Ubuntu’s ‘I am because we are,’ or even Hindu dharma’s contextual ethics, may hold keys to rebuilding societies that balance I and we.
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