Asian values
Document Type
Dictionary entry
Source Publication
The Blackwell dictionary of modern social thought
Edition
2nd ed.
Publication Date
1-1-2003
First Page
33
Last Page
34
Publisher
Blackwell Publishers
Abstract
‘Asian values’ is an expression that straddles two meanings. On the one hand, it denotes a subset of human values in general, purportedly discerned by anthropologists during close ethnographic encounters or identified by sociologists and economists investigating the Asian path to modernization. In this context, ‘Asian values’ aspires to be a scientific concept seeking to explain Asian cultural and economic exceptionalism. Typically, debate turns on how Asian values are especially conducive to consistently high rates of economic growth, an argument that inverts earlier claims that, for instance, Confucianism was a stubborn cultural obstacle to modern capitalism. On the other hand, and in recent times most prominently, ‘Asian values’ is inseparable from the highly charged, polemical set of assertions of some Asian leaders designed to deflect criticisms of their human rights record and to affirm, with various degrees of triumphalism, that Asian societies are better – more ethical, cohesive and disciplined – than their decadent counterparts in the West.
Publisher Statement
Copyright ©2003 Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
Additional Information
ISBN of the source publication: 9780631221647
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Baehr, P. (2003). Asian values. In W. Outhwaite (Ed.), The Blackwell dictionary of modern social thought (2nd ed.) (pp. 33-34). United States: Blackwell Publishers.