China and Europe in mutual reflection
Towards a deeper understanding between spiritual and material cultural heritage and the contemporary world - an interview with Professor Thomas Borgard
The literary scholar Prof. Dr. Thomas Borgard teaches at LMU's Institute for German as a Foreign Language, where he plays a key role in developing the Master’s program in Intercultural Philology. Together with Chinese scholarship holders from various disciplines – ranging from physics and medicine to archaeology and law – he organizes the Intercultural Dialogue as part of the LMU-CSC Scholarship Program.
The starting points for this dialogue are the plurality of world experiences, the human drive for self-preservation, and the resulting quest for power. This influences worldviews, which stabilize the cultural internal perspective by providing meaning and orientation in contrast to the lawless pre-world. Norms and values are an expression of coping with contingency, traditionally organized and administered through rituals or ecclesiastical structures. Today, belief in transcendent powers has faded, yet the drive for self-preservation, along with the desire for predictability and calculability, persists. In current fields of discourse, this desire is evident in terms with unclear normative implications such as "knowledge society", "digitality" or "practice".
The approach chosen by Prof. Borgard harnesses the cognitive potential of interculturality by transforming insight into the local and time-bound separation from other possibilities into an awareness of what is also possible in other ways. Building on this, the dialogue poses questions to current teaching and educational practice: Could it be that the idea of "competence acquisition" cannot deliver the promised competitive advantage at all, because change is conceived here solely as the unfolding of the (original) order? Most educators and educational theorists define the "learner" in functional dependence on their environment; the "tasks" set by the "trainer" concern problem situations that are "solved" through adequate adaptation. However, only someone who can also imagine changes that have the potential for disruption can be innovative. Divergent and counterfactual thinking seems necessary, not least in view of Large Language Models (LLMs), as machine-generated discourse increasingly permeates human discourse and one must ask: Will there be more graduates than meaningful work in the future? This is also where Prof. Borgard’s "Intercultural Dialogue" comes in: experiences of cultural distance are harnessed to generate knowledge that transcends current certainties – as a "futures literacy" aimed at expanding experiences and ways of thinking.
Dr. Dongmei Zhang, LMU - CSC Scholarship Program Coordinator at LMU's International Office in conversation with Prof. Dr. Thomas Borgard:
Dr. Dongmei Zhang: Before you started working together with Chinese students, what were your impressions or perceptions of China?
Prof. Dr. Thomas Borgard: For many years, my perception of China has been characterized by great curiosity and, more recently, by an increasing scientific interest. I maintain direct contact with colleagues in German studies in China and with German sinologists, and I also read specialist literature on sinology. The cultural and linguistic distance helps me to see my own culture in a surprisingly new light, or conversely, not to be taken in by short-lived hypes.
My image of China has three facets: I see one of the oldest cultures of humanity with fascinating cultural artefacts and intellectual traditions. Precisely because the Chinese language, philosophy and artistic aesthetics are particularly unfamiliar to us, China offers a unique opportunity to learn and see the world differently. We are trapped in the concepts of our own culture that we take for granted when we generalize them and no longer recognize the normative claim, the prejudice, that lies within them. For me, Chinese culture and history have become occasions to change my perspective, explore new possibilities, challenge myself intellectually and perhaps also improve myself as a person.
The second image of China relates to Europe's colonial past in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Knowledge of history always helps us to better understand the present and, in the best-case scenario, to avoid past mistakes through wise and long-term thinking. At the moment, I am somewhat skeptical as to whether European societies, which are in a transitional phase and characterized by internal contradictions, will succeed in doing so. But without historical knowledge, we are walking blindly into the future.
The third image shows the "People's Republic" of the 20th and 21st centuries, shaped by Sino-Marxism. Despite its emphatically unique path, I recognize much that is European and "Western" here: above all, the omnipresent consumerism, the accompanying polytheistic attitudes and the attempts to curb the accompanying social centrifugal forces with the help of state control instruments. What I find particularly interesting from a professional point of view is the educational modelling that advocates individual self-efficacy but is essentially based on a radically pragmatic, simplistic view of human nature, which has become prevalent not only in the USA and Europe but also, apparently, in China.
Dr. Dongmei Zhang: What are the main challenges you have observed Chinese students facing during their adaptation to the academic environment in Germany?
Prof. Dr. Thomas Borgard: The foreign language. Another challenge is the fact that one's own cultural values no longer seem self-evident in the new environment and one is suddenly confronted with previously unknown questions concerning one's own identity. It sometimes seems to me that Chinese students are afraid to speak up in my seminars for fear of embarrassing themselves, even though I explain that a seminar is a place for open dialogue between students and lecturers. Perhaps Chinese students are not used to discussing things freely with their professors; in any case, it sometimes seems to me that they have too much respect for them.
Dr. Dongmei Zhang: Have you encountered any interesting or memorable anecdotes while interacting with your Chinese students? Could you share one or two examples?
Prof. Dr. Thomas Borgard: I can't think of any anecdotes, as I'm not very talented in that area. Perhaps it's also because I don't approach my encounters with my students with the expectation of being able to "tell" others about them later. I want my encounters to always be experienced as trusting by everyone involved. But perhaps this, and rather than referring to individual cases: My overall impression of Chinese students is that they approach their studies very diligently, seriously and with curiosity. They are very open to German culture, learn our language quickly, and what always impresses me is that they even write academic texts in this new language.
Dr. Dongmei Zhang: Given the current geopolitical climate, what is your opinion about fostering China competence at German universities?
Prof. Dr. Thomas Borgard: The belief that the "market" in conjunction with so-called "Western" values is something universal that spreads with the export of goods and leads to a general consensus around the globe has been dispelled since the turn of the millennium at the latest. One must immediately add the question: Does the so-called "West", which originally formed during the Cold War, still exist at all, considering, for example, the deliberately divisive policies of the American government?
Europe's claim to universal values may be well-intentioned. However, it fails to recognize that Europe's conflict-ridden history was by no means determined by uniformly shared values, as is often claimed in relation to others, such as China. I find it dishonest and also dangerous to begin a dialogue with self-deception. Anyone engaged in intercultural dialogue must be highly sensitive to their own divisions and contradictions. The same applies, of course, to the dialogue partner.
Today, we are witnessing a worldwide resurgence of nationalist ideologies that refer to the past and use it to predict what the future will be like. It should not be forgotten that even the "cosmopolitan left" in Germany remains largely fixated on the past. I doubt that we in Europe will be able to overcome the problems of the 21st century with the political concepts and categories of the past. It is difficult to predict whether the USA or China will be able to do better. China currently advocates a Marxist-influenced neo-Confucianism with authoritarian traits in its cultural policy. What does this orientation mean in connection with the tendency, also evident in China, to reduce the subject of education to its function as "human capital," i.e., to the division of labour organised for the purpose of increasing profit? As a European, I ask myself: What does "training" aimed at "adaptation" within the framework of so-called "competence orientation" have to do with the crisis of our democracies? What impact will "artificial intelligence" have on us in the future if we use it to transform our societies into digital factories? Will we see a new kind of feudal division if only a minority still reads, while the majority listens to podcasts and videos and prompts break books down into easily digestible bits of information?
Against this sobering backdrop, my aspiration may sound somewhat bold or romantic: I would like to learn from China and Chinese culture how things can be done differently, how they can be done better. Unfortunately, at the moment I tend to see a flat world with many repetitions, parallels and similarities, as well as idealistic harmonisations that seem out of touch with real life, such as the recently resurgent tianxia concept. In my opinion, "China competence" should include a historically deepened knowledge of the present and enable young people to encounter their cultural heritage in all its diversity. We Europeans should have a thorough understanding of the crimes committed by the colonial powers in China, the consequences of which are still felt there today. As important as economics and technology understandably are to us, China also represents enormous intellectual resources, knowledge of which helps us to avoid becoming stuck in what seems useful to us for our immediate purposes. Any view of China's millennia-old cultural heritage must be kept free of ideological claims, starting with school textbooks. To achieve this, we not only need carefully edited source editions, but must also be prepared to take on the hard work of reading such texts. A cultural practice that views history not only in the light of current interests can also be built upon in the future.
Dr. Dongmei Zhang: If you were to develop a comprehensive intercultural guide aimed at Chinese students, which key recommendations would you prioritize to facilitate their successful integration?
Prof. Dr. Thomas Borgard: Cultivate openness, patience and confidence, cultivate enquiring critical thinking, speak the language of the host country, get to know its art and literature. Have the confidence to engage in conversation with us professors right from the start.