Education Without Morality--Would Taiwan Still Be Beautiful?

 Education Without Morality--Would Taiwan Still Be Beautiful?

China Times Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

January 21, 2018

Recently, some groups want to push for a plebiscite on the “reconstruction of cultural ethics"; through a plebiscite on "reconstructing cultural ethics," could we truly "reconstruct" cultural ethics? But this plebiscite advocacy per se, however, has aroused an ineschewable issue. After several educational reforms, the curriculum on ethics and morality originally in the national education has been completely deleted! Right now, only education on civics knowledge is being taught; however, can education on civics knowledge truly substitute traditional moral education? We are afraid the answer is negative!

This is truly an inexplicable development. Taiwan was once praised as a place where "the most beautiful scenery is people."; the most important thing is that Taiwan is a society with moral consciousness and civilities. Nevertheless, the formation of these social atmospherics was due to the long-term cultivation and accumulation of moral education in the past.

In the past, the content of moral education partly overlapped with Confucian ethics, and Confucian ethics, in turn, is a core component of traditional Chinese culture. Those with strong anti-China consciousness cannot accept even his part; hence from “de-Sinicization,” they pushed to "de-Chinese culture," and then further to "de-moral education" and even to "de-morality"! Going to the bottom, this has been denigrated to a link of cultural reform engineering of the pro-Taiwan independence elements.

This brutal rupture perhaps has satisfied the wishes of some pro-Taiwan independence elements; however, the consequences are very serious. This rupture and deletion will seriously affect the next several generations, causing for them a twisted world view, a fuzzy outlook on life, a chaotic value system, and finally leading Taiwan, the most beautiful scenery, the asset everyone is most proud of, to gradually disappear in the process of "de-morality." And it will be very difficult to remedy once this cultural bedrock is lost!

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