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Baofu, Peter
Dr. Peter Baofu received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Baofu earned an entry to the list of “prominent and emerging writers” in Contemporary Authors, and was a U.S. Fulbright Scholar in the Far East. He had taught as a professor at different universities in Europe, the Middle East, and America. He finished more than 5 academic degrees, including a Ph.D. in political science from M.I.T., and was a summa cum laude graduate.
2005 0-7734-6152-3Contrary to conventional wisdom about capitalism, the pervasive norm to acquire wealth and the zealous mission to fight poverty have their double sides often unsaid, in that there is no wealth without poverty, just as there is no poverty without wealth, such that more wealth also creates more poverty.
2004 0-7734-6216-3
Contrary to the belief of many contemporaries, democracy is as evil and good as non-democracy. This sounds shocking, since democracy (of whatever version) enjoys its triumphant moment in our age, to the effect that there is a widespread belief of democracy, unlike non-democracy, as most congenial to the celebration (not condemnation) of difference. This democratic/non-democratic dichotomy therefore privileges democracy as the highest political achievement of human civilization, such that everywhere there have been endless discussions of how and why different societies and cultures are to adopt it, all in the celebration of difference in our time.
Dr.Baofu, in this wide-ranging work, shows how and why the democratic idea of difference becomes the democratic mystique of difference. His inquiry reveals, in the end, how and why democracy privileges itself by an untenable dichotomy and is essentially contingent on the historical needs of society and the dominant themes of culture in our time. Democracy will not last (to be superseded by what Dr.Baofu originally called “post-democracy”), just as aristocracy before it could not. The difference is that we believe in our version of historical destiny now, just as those before us believed in theirs then, and those after us will believe in theirs in the future.
As an anti-hero of our time, Baofu’s critique against the sacrosanct idea of democracy earns few friends and wins few hearts, in an age where the democratic idea reigns supreme as its god.
2004 0-7734-6218-X
Contrary to the belief of many contemporaries, democracy is as evil and good as non-democracy. This sounds shocking, since democracy (of whatever version) enjoys its triumphant moment in our age, to the effect that there is a widespread belief of democracy, unlike non-democracy, as most congenial to the celebration (not condemnation) of difference. This democratic/non-democratic dichotomy therefore privileges democracy as the highest political achievement of human civilization, such that everywhere there have been endless discussions of how and why different societies and cultures are to adopt it, all in the celebration of difference in our time.
Dr.Baofu, in this wide-ranging work, shows how and why the democratic idea of difference becomes the democratic mystique of difference. His inquiry reveals, in the end, how and why democracy privileges itself by an untenable dichotomy and is essentially contingent on the historical needs of society and the dominant themes of culture in our time. Democracy will not last (to be superseded by what Dr.Baofu originally called “post-democracy”), just as aristocracy before it could not. The difference is that we believe in our version of historical destiny now, just as those before us believed in theirs then, and those after us will believe in theirs in the future.
As an anti-hero of our time, Baofu’s critique against the sacrosanct idea of democracy earns few friends and wins few hearts, in an age where the democratic idea reigns supreme as its god.
1999 0-7734-7945-7
This wide-ranging book focuses on why the global spread of formal rationality contributes to a critical spirit which undermines human values and beliefs (including the scientific ones themselves), be they ancient, medieval, modern and now postmodern. This is so in special relation to the model presented here of the seven major dimensions of human existence: the True (knowledge), the Holy (religion), the Good (morals), the Just (justice), the Everyday (consumeristic culture), the Technological (technophilic culture), and the Beautiful (arts and literature). This not only has happened in the Western world, but is spreading to the civilizations of the non-West as well. When carried to its logical conclusion, this undermining will yield what the author refers to as the post-human consciousness after postmodernity, in that humans are nothing in the end, to be someday superseded by post-humans.
1999 0-7734-7901-5
This wide-ranging book focuses on why the global spread of formal rationality contributes to a critical spirit which undermines human values and beliefs (including the scientific ones themselves), be they ancient, medieval, modern and now postmodern. This is so in special relation to the model presented here of the seven major dimensions of human existence: the True (knowledge), the Holy (religion), the Good (morals), the Just (justice), the Everyday (consumeristic culture), the Technological (technophilic culture), and the Beautiful (arts and literature). This not only has happened in the Western world, but is spreading to the civilizations of the non-West as well. When carried to its logical conclusion, this undermining will yield what the author refers to as the post-human consciousness after postmodernity, in that humans are nothing in the end, to be someday superseded by post-humans.
2004 0-7734-6517-0
This study argues that human consciousness will not last, to be superceded by post-human forms of consciousness (unto the direction of post-capitalism and post-democracy). The current obsession with the question of how human consciousness can emerge out of something physical is very much like asking how many angels can stand on the head of a pin in medieval scholasticism. The obsession obscures the need to transcend the debate. To this end, Dr. Baofu proposes methodological holism, which is to examine the issues of human consciousness (and other mental states), and its evolution into other forms in the future with a comprehensive analysis of all major theoretical dimensions which have been proposed in the literature. Eleven of them are classified in this project: physical, chemical, biological, psychological, organizational, institutional, structural, systematic, cultural, cosmological, and the rest. The study concludes that the current debate between reductionism and emergencism in the literature has reached a dead end and needs to be transcended.