Is the equation between modernization and Westernization that marginalizes Confucian culture both within and without China, humanity’s best hope? Or, at our present juncture as we experience the sea change that is occurring in the economic and political order of the world, would we be better off inventorying and taking advantage of all of the cultural resources available, East as well as West?

“现代化即等于西方化”，这个等式是在中国国内、国外都要排斥儒家文化的，它是人类最佳的选择吗？或者更好的选择是，把人类一切可用文化资源，不管东方的还是西方的，都作为我们的选择、发挥它们的优势？

In a single generation, the ascendency of Asia, and in particularly the rise of China, has dramatically reconfigured the global economic and political order. The Chinese economy grew over the first few decades at sometimes double-digit rates to overtake Japan as the second largest economy in the world, and is predicted to become the world’s largest economy sometime in the 2020s. Up to now, these economic and political changes have been relatively easy to track. But perhaps such a seismic geopolitical shift will have perhaps less visible but also transformative cultural consequences for the human experience.

仅仅在一代人时间，亚洲的崛起，尤其是中国崛起，显而易见地重塑全球经济和政治秩序。中国经济在数十年时间内，有时甚至是以两位数速度增长，超过了世界第二大经济体的日本，而且根据预测，中国在二十一世纪二十年代将成为跃居世界第一的经济体。到今天，这些经济和政治的变化，也是较为容易跟踪的。但是对于人的经验，也许如此天地翻覆的地缘政治变动，或许不那么显而易见，但依然要对文化发生改造性的结果。

We might say that we are living in the best, and in the worst of times. We can assert that it is the best of times because of what we humans as a species have become. That is, a fair claim can be made that world hunger is no longer a problem for us. This magnificent animal called the human being has now developed the science and the technology that could enable a global initiative to quickly address the world’s hunger problem in all of its parts. We do not have a problem if we already have its solution. Our present predicament, then, is not a technological one; it is ethical. While we clearly have the science to solve world hunger, we lack the moral resolution to act upon it.

我们可以说，我们现在活着的时代，是最好也是最坏的时代。我们可以宣称它是最好的时代，是因为我们作为人类，跃居为这样一个物种；也即可以恰当地宣布：饥饿对于我们，已不再是一个问题。这个伟大的、叫做人类的动物，今天已经掌握科技，已经能够提出迅速解决世界所有地方的饥饿问题的方案。我们如果已有解决方案，那它就不再是问题。然而我们现在面临的，是一个困境，但不是一个技术困境；它是一个伦理困境。虽然我们明明已有解决世界饥饿的科技办法，我们却缺少道德的决心行动起来。

On this score then, it is the best of times. But it is also the worst of times. Our recent and dramatic geopolitical reorientation has remained largely entrained within the troubling dynamics of a “perfect storm:” global warming, pandemics, food and water shortages, environmental degradation, massive species extinction, international terrorism, proxy wars, nuclear proliferation, and the list goes on. Our unprecedented scientific and technological successes are mixed with ever-amplifying environmental, political, and social challenges. Indeed, this perfect storm has several underlying conditions that might encourage us to view our current predicament as requiring a shift from prioritizing technical solutions for world problems to giving privilege to what is ultimately an ethical dilemma—that is, for us to acknowledge our lack of commitment to do what we know is right. After all, the fundamental difference between problems and a predicament is that where problems are to be “solved,” a predicament can only be “resolved” by effecting a radical change in human intentions, values, and practices. Human beings as a species, if we are to survive, will need to live and to think differently.

是在这个意义上，我们现在是最好的时代，同时也是最坏的时代。最近地缘政治的显著倾向，一直是整体上的一种困扰丛生的“全面危机”：地球变暖、疫情肆虐、粮食与饮水短缺、环境恶化、物种大量灭绝、国际恐怖主义、代理人战争、核扩散，等等一大推问题。我们获得空前发展的科学和技术成就，但它也跟向我们挑战的越来越严重的环境、政治和社会的为题交织在一起。其实，这种“全面危机”的形成有几重条件，这或许给我们一个启示，即要把我们目前陷入的困境，对待为是一个，在解决世界困境问题上，需从奉行“科技第一”转移到重视“什么造成最后的伦理悲剧”——也即，对我们来说，要承认，我们缺少承诺之心，去对做我们认为正确的事情。毕竟，问题和困境在根本上的不同，是在于问题是“属于”用办法“解决”的（to solve）；而“困境”的转变，必须先有一个转折性的人的意图、价值和行为的改变。人类作为一个生物种类，如果要还想活下去，就需要采取一种不同的生活和思维方式。

There are four defining conditions of our current situation. First, human beings and our ways of being in the world are clearly complicit in the predicament we are facing. We are in some important degree responsible for it. Secondly, this predicament is not constrained by national, cultural, or social boundaries. Crises such as pandemics and climate change have global reach and affect everyone regardless of nationality or status.Thirdly, an organic relationship obtains among this set of pressing challenges that renders them in large degree zero-sum—we either address them all or we can solve none of them. These challenges cannot be met seriatim by individual players engaging them piecemeal, but must, instead, be addressed by the shared commitment of a world community acting in concert. Lastly, and it is good news: We human beings in sum probably have sufficient cultural resources to identify and activate the changes in values, intentions, and practices we will need to respond immediately and effectively to our current predicament.

现在我们面临的情况是由四个方面决定。第一，人类以及我们当今于世界存在的方式，对于造成我们面临的困境，明显地，是负有责任的。我们在很重要程度上是要对此负责的。第二，这个困境不存在受到国家、文化或社会边界阻断的限制。传染病疫情和气候变化造成的危机，必会肆虐全球、殃及任何人类，不会因为谁的国籍或者社会地位不同而不会影响到他。第三，这一系列紧迫危机之间存在着有机的联系，使得它们成为一个在整体程度上的“零和”结构——也即，要么我们考虑可将它们一揽子解决，要么我们一个都解决不成。这一系列挑战，不是靠单个玩游戏者所能一个一个地单个解决的，而是相反，必须是由世界作为共同体一齐担当、通力合作解决的。第四，是个好消息：我们人类合在一起，很可以找到充分文化资源，达成共识，行动起来，改变价值、改变意图，改变行为。我们急切地需要它们，用以回应与治理我们当前面临的困境。

The contemporary historian of religion, James P. Carse, provides us with a distinction between “finite” and “infinite” games that might be useful in beginning to think through how Confucian values might make an important difference in a newly emerging cultural order. Carse in formulating this finite and infinite distinction uses “games” as an analogy for the many activities that constitute the human experience broadly—for the many things human beings “do” such as business, sports, politics, military security, international relations, and so on. The focus with such finite games is on the agency of single actors who engage in a game played over a finite period of time and in accordance with a finite set of rules that will guarantee a specific result—that is, a winner and a loser. Finite games thus have a defined beginning and end, and are played by individual agents with the express purpose of winning.

当代宗教历史学家卡斯（James P. Carse）为我们做了“有限游戏”与“无限游戏”的区分，这有利于我们开始思考，儒学价值怎样可为一种新兴世界文化秩序做出贡献。卡斯为区分“有限”和“无限”的不同性质，用“游戏”做比喻，阐明广义上人类经验的许许多多活动，说明构成人类经验的各种活动—也即人类所做的很多很多事情，如商业、体育、政治、军事安全、国际关系等等。这种“有限”游戏中心点，是单个玩家为主体，进入的游戏，是按照固定一段时间之内和一套限定规则进行的，是保证产生一个具体结局的——即要有一个赢者和一个输家。是这样，“有限”游戏是有固定开局与结局的，是由单个玩家进行的，是以迅速赢取为目的的。

This understanding of game playing seems most immediately relevant to those competitive human activities that we think of in terms of means and end, and that are directed at the success of one player over another. The pervasiveness of our individualism and the liberal values that attend this self-understanding of who we are as human beings, has made finite games a familiar model of the way in which we are inclined to think about human transactions at every level of scale: as particular persons, as corporations, and as sovereign states.

这样理解的游戏，似乎最直接地、即能与那些人与人的竞争活动联系起来；那些我们能想到有“手段和目的”意义的、还有是一个人成功和一个人失败结局的活动。我们的无所不在的个人主义与“自由价值”，渗透在作为人类的我们的自我意识，已然把“有限”游戏搞成一种无人不晓的生活方式。以这种生活方式，我们总是倾向这样看待各种层次人与人之间的事务交接，无论是个人、公司还是主权国家的。

Infinite games have a different structure and a different desired outcome. There are no beginnings or endings in infinite games. And the focus is on strengthening collaborative relationships within entities to succeed together rather than engaging in a competition among single actors who then play to win. Further, infinite games are played according to rules that can be altered by players as required to serve the purpose of continuing to play the game. Indeed, with no beginnings and no discernable ends, the goal is quite simply a shared flourishing. The relationship among family members might be a good example of the infinite games we play, where a mother is committed to continuing to strengthen the relationship she has with her son, and son with mother, so that together they can manage effectively whatever increasingly complex problems that they might encounter. In the case of infinite games, the interdependence of relationships means that mother and son either coordinate their efforts and continue to succeed together, or they fail together. Infinite games begin from strengthening relations, and are thus always a win-win or lose-lose proposition.

“无限”游戏是不同的结构和导致不同效果的。“无限”游戏没有开局也没有结局。它们的用心之处在于加强相互关系，这样人与人为的是要共同成功，而不是为搞单子个体人之间竞争，为让对方输而玩游戏。进而言之，“无限”游戏的规则是由游戏参与者可更变的，更变的目的，是为让游戏继续下去。其实，“无限”游戏并没有开局也没有结局，目的十分简直，就是共生共进。家庭关系可作为我们的一个很好的“无限”游戏例子。母亲总是倾心于她同儿子的关系的——儿子也一样——所以，他们一起呵护、加强彼此关系，以共同应对所能遇到的任何复杂情况。 在“无限”游戏情况，关系的相互依存性意味着，母亲和儿子要么合作协同、永远共赢，否则就是一起失败。“无限”游戏总是以增强关系为出发点，所以总是一个不是双赢就是双输的命题。

When we look for the cultural resources necessary to respond to the global and national predicament I have described above as a “perfect storm,” we must anticipate the need for a critical shift in our values, intentions, and practices that takes us from the preponderance of finite games played among self-interested, single actors to a new pattern of infinite games played through the strengthening of those relationships at every level of scale—personal, communal, corporate, and those among nation states as well. We need to move from finite to infinite games to face and hopefully overcome what are the shared challenges of our day. Priority must be given to those values and practices that will support replacing the familiar competitive pattern of single actors pursing their own self-interest, with the collaboration of players strengthening possibilities for coordinated flourishing across national, ethnic and religious boundaries.

当我们寻找能够用以应对堪称“全面危机”的全球与国家困境必要的文化资源的时候，我们必须预先想到，我们需要一种价值观、意识和行为方式的根本性改变，我们得从一己私利出发的“有限”游戏转到到慮及加强各种层面关系——包括个人、公共、团体和国家的——这样“无限”游戏上来。我们需要从“有限”游戏站到“无限”游戏，为的是面对并有希望克服今天大家共同遭遇的困境。为了利于我们取代无人不晓、从一己私利出发、单子个体玩家的竞争模式，换成参与者协同合作、强化超越国家、民族和宗教界线、共生共进的可能合作，我们必须把“无限”游戏价值观与实践作为优先选择。

I want to suggest that the Confucian tradition, and particularly, the Confucian conception of relationally-constituted persons as “human becomings,” has an important contribution to make in this effort as we struggle to resolve our current human predicament. We are in urgent need of a more inclusive world cultural order drawing upon all of the resources available to us that can provide the change in our values and practices necessary to guarantee a future for our own children, grandchildren, and for those of generations yet to come.

我想要说，儒家传统，尤其是儒家将“人”视为关系构成的“做人/成仁”思想，会成为对进行解决我们人类面临困境的斗争的重要贡献。我们正急切需要一个更可容纳百川的世界文化秩序，它要汲取一切为我们可用的必要资源，有助于我们改变价值观和行为方式，保证我们的子子孙孙，将有一个可继续生存下去的未来。