From Oracle Bones to Computers. Baotong Gu

for the Chinese culture, Xiaodao Lun points out the inappropriateness of Taoism for such a role due to its absurdity, nonsensicality, and inconsistency. This work is an illustrative example of the Buddhist self-defense against the threat from orthodox Confucianism and popular Taoism and, in a way, reflects the curious phenomenon of contentious coexistence between Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism throughout most of the Chinese history.

      Due to the fact that Buddhism in China is represented by many different schools of thought, and interpretations of Buddhism have been various and sometimes conflicting, it is extremely difficult to summarize Buddhist rhetoric. Nevertheless, it is not impossible to capture a glance at the essence of the Buddhist view of language. Because Buddhists believe “things neither exist nor non-exist in language as ‘nameable constituents,’ they argue that “the ultimate truth is beyond the capacity of language” (H. Wang, 1993, p. 62). “However, they have a firm belief in the crucial role and necessity of language in pursuing the truth in this world” (H. Wang, 1993 p. 65). The dual nature of things, which are at the same time both real and unreal, makes it necessary for us to communicate things and experiences, and language as a “skillful and expedient means to express the supreme truth” becomes a necessary tool, however inadequate this tool might be. The Buddhist view of language, points out Haixia Wang, therefore represents a balanced position between the deconstructionist and foundationalist extremes. Such a rhetorical perspective is in some way an integration of other traditional Chinese rhetorical perspectives, including the Confucian and Taoist rhetorics.

      It should be noted, though, that, as I mentioned earlier, there have been other, relatively less influential ideologies, which, however, played important roles in their respective historical periods. For example, Maoism dominated the Chinese ideological scene for several decades in the contemporary history of China. Its influence certainly can in no way be discounted when we consider the recent development of writing technologies. Such a plethora of ideologies makes it almost a certainty that several ideologies might be at work during any given historical period. This, in turn, complicates the issue of technology transfer and development and, at the same time, makes it all the more important to consider the role of ideologies in this complicated process.