Editor's Note: What's wrong with our lack of moral compass today as so many Chinese race to flaunt their riches in public but fail to help a fallen old person on the street?

What’s wrong with our lack of core social values as money seems to define lots of things?Where will China be in 30 years — down the road of “getting rich is glorious” or “in conscience we trust?”

Will Chinese civilization be a threat to Western civilization as people like Samuel Huntington believe in accordance with the theory of “clash of civilizations?”

Shanghai Daily intern Li Xiecun held a special interview with Wang Defeng, renowned professor of philosophy at Fudan University (dubbed “Prince of Philosophy” by Fudan students), who gives an in-depth look into these and other thorny issues about China.

Q: What’s really behind many people’s refusal or reluctance to help a fallen old person on the street?

A: To help up a fallen old person on the street, or not to, that’s not a question in many other countries, but it is a question in today’s China. It arises from a fundamental lack of trust.

More than three decades of growth of a market economy has spawned a lot of people who strive to grab as much as they can to survive, for fear of being labeled “incompetent” and thus left behind.

The government sometimes also competes with the people for various gains. The government does not always honor its own words. That’s probably the biggest source of lack of trust in today’s society.

I once met a taxi driver who complained about a government proposal to postpone retirement ages. Postponed retirement ages mean the driver and his colleagues would not be able to enjoy their pension benefits as early as possible. But taxi driving is such a tedious job that many drivers over 50 years old can barely handle their work. Their “old bones” really suffer from sitting too long.

And it’s not just about a proposed change of retirement ages. You see broken promises also in relocation of residential homes and in medical reforms.

What do hospitals and doctors do?

By nature they help the needy. No one goes to a doctor or a hospital for fun; he or she goes for help.

When hospitals are turned into a for-profit business in the market reform, doctors will no longer help, they will no longer care about patients, they will care about business deals. (Editor’s note: Prescribing unnecessarily expensive drugs for patients has been a key source of public anger at many doctors today.)

In the West, one may not trust the government, but he or she can trust God. In Chinese tradition, people would regard government officials as their “parents” — hence the term fu mu guan (parent-official). People would always trust their fu mu guan. Who and what can we trust if our fu mu guan break their promises now and then?

Q: Why do some of our fu mu guan break their promises to the detriment of public interests?

A: In the better part of Chinese history, rulers would spare no effort to check against corrupt officials and prevent them from harming the people’s interests. Serving the people was the principle.

As the market reform set in (about 30 years ago), however, many Chinese, including certain officials, began to believe that whoever is rich is glorious and that whoever is poor is shameful. White or black, a cat is a good cat so long as it catches mice. This drastic change of social mentality is really beyond any nation’s capability to adapt.

Q: What should be done?

A: We need to set up our core values. In the United States, you have “In God We Trust.” What should we have in China?

In my view, China’s core values should include: putting people’s interests first; cultivating a sense of conscience in people; maintaining ethnic harmony.

Putting people first accords well with the thoughts of Mencius (372 -289 BC). Mencius famously said: “The people come before the ruler.”

Wang Yangming (1472-1529), a great Confucian scholar (also an accomplished military strategist) who championed the school of mind, emphasized the cultivation of conscience (zhi liang zhi). Wang believes everyone on the street can be a saint, so long as he or she cultivates conscience (which is in one’s mind at the beginning) and applies it to action.

It’s a pity that Wang Yangming’s school of mind, though already influential in his own time and admired by modern great people like Zeng Guofan (1811-1872), Mao Zedong (1893-1976) and Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975), came to a premature end in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), when emperors did not want to see intellectuals, acting out of their conscience, take it upon themselves to work in the best interest of the country and the people.

Qianlong Emperor (1711-1799), for instance, thought it was the province of an emperor, not intellectuals, to lead.

It’s my hope that someday Wang Yangming’s school of mind will be revived. We must rediscover our conscience and apply it to do the right thing. For example, we know capital requires profit, but with conscience, we will have our bottom line. With conscience, we know doctors are helpers in need, not dealers in deed.

Q: Why does conscience matter and how does it work?

A: Politics arises from thoughts, which in turn arise from intuition. True civilizations arise before reasoning, they arise from intuition and perception. Einstein’s revolution in physics arose from his intuition and enlightenment.

When you see a boy falling into a well, you naturally feel sympathetic — your heart naturally goes out for him. Your sympathy or empathy is inborn. You don’t have to reason to prove it.

Hold onto your original conscience, and follow it throughout your actions. Do the right thing, even if it means it will cost you all your fortune.

Q: How do you compare Wang Yangming’s theory of conscience with Western individualism?

A: In Wang Yangming’s school of mind, everyone has conscience and everyone can be a saint. Although people are different, at their core they can be empathetic toward each other.

This is unlike Western individualism, which emphasizes the differences between each other.

Yes, men are different from each other. In the West, people respect individual differences, but in China, we know we are empathetic at the bottom of our heart, we know what makes me happy will also likely make you happy.

In this sense, conscience works in the context of interpersonal relationships. Chinese people know they work in the context of family, community and national relationships. Conscience is simply out there. You don’t have to reason to prove it.

So Wang Yangming’s conscience is not individualism in the Western sense; it means everyone can be empathetic toward others, toward the Earth, toward the heaven, and toward all other beings in the universe.

In the theory of conscience, there’s no place for clash of classes or cultures, there’s no place for the notion that some people should govern other people.

In Chinese culture, however undesired it may have become in certain aspects, there can never be a Hitler.

China is perhaps the only nation which agrees to even shelve disputes over territorial sovereignty.