WHEN Fudan University professor Zhang Qingxiong went to deliver his lecture at 1:30pm on November 10, he came upon an empty classroom.

The professor of philosophy learned later that Hong Kong entertainers including movie superstar Tony Leung Chiu Wai were to appear on campus at 6:30pm, but students had begun to gather at 3pm.

Anticipating the draw of these celebrities, the University Communist Youth League canceled the class and directed the students in Zhang's "Philosophy Armed Police Class" to help keep order at the crowd site.

For your reference, philosophy courses usually refer to courses such as dialectic materialism, scientific socialism and other subjects.

Angered and humiliated, the professor wrote an article titled "The sound from the mulberry fields by the bank of the Pu River signals national doom."

Zhang alluded to one book of the Confucian canon, Liji (The Book of Rites), in which mulberry bushes are a trysting place for lovers, suggesting the sounds of sexual activity.

"For many years I had always been proud of Fudan students ... but now a considerable number of the students have apparently viewed chasing stars and entertainment as above anything else," he wrote.

Zhang said Fudan students used to be very enthusiastic about lectures given by well-known scientists, but now their role models are no longer scientists, but those who make the most money.

Of course the students do not wake up to the value of money overnight.

Decades ago, would-be college students began to choose their majors in light of the money-making potential of a particular profession. That explains why investment banking is now the dream job for many.

If students are told to rank their subjects in order of decreasing importance, many will not be surprised if philosophy ends up at the bottom of the list.

Even archeologists are turning a good profit today.

As to philosophers - Plato once considered the philosopher to be the ideal ruler of a kingdom - they have grave difficulty justifying their existence in the market place.

Since philosophy concerns itself with fundamental issues of human existence, philosophizing would almost inevitably get in the way of worldly success.

Thus, although many a philosophy course languishes unattended, it is a miracle that it survives at all. It give researchers ample material for churning out papers, and earns the students the needed credits.

The sad state of affairs for philosophy is also related with how the courses are being offered.

Yi Junqing, chief of the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau, explained that the lack of enthusiasm about Marxism among college students is chiefly not a problem with Marxism itself - which is vigorous as ever - but with the teaching methodology.

The real problem with philosophy today may be that it is little more than teaching methodology. It has degenerated into a scholastic discipline, but ceases to be a power that can inform our attitudes and outlook on life.

Lifeless

In an article on "the dialogue about human religion and civilization" (Weihui Daily, November 21), scholars Tu Weiming and Robert Bellah exchange their views about the problems brought about by modernization, during a forum at Peking University on November 5.

Bellah cites Pierre Hadot's "Philosophy as a Way of Life" in its observations that philosophy is no longer a way of life. To classical Greek philosophers it would be unthinkable that someone devoid of beliefs and morality could pursue philosophical investigation; the same can be said of Confucianism.

Professor Tu of Peking University said the pressing issues confronting our times concern not only deteriorating ecology, but also problems of order, our loss of a sense of history, connectivity, integrity, and family-individual relations.

Tu said that like all religions and traditions in the world, the Confucianism is faced with the erosion of the Western world.

Any pursuit of meaning and justice, and the idea that justice is more important than profit, are being challenged by capitalism, particularly by market forces. "The forces stem not only from the market and economy, but are also rooted in people's ceaseless pursuit of success," Tu said.

Under such conditions any values that do not contribute to the immediate maximization of profits risk becoming obsolete.

The Confucian conception of universal order proceeds from filial piety.

This is so important that in the ancient times a son who had committed a grave sin of filial impiety could be flogged to death.

These principles were instilled in pupils at the very beginning of their education.

Uprooted

The educated, few in number as they were in those days, were expected to exemplify these virtues in their daily life, exerting powerful influence in their agrarian community.

But today's mass migration of prime-age rural residents to the cities has fundamentally undermined the rural social fabric.

Here scholar Liang Qichao's observation over 90 years ago about the triumph of industrialization and science in Europe is still insightful.

He summed up several features that distinguished city life from rural life in the wake of industrialization in Europe.

First, a large number of strangers gathered in one marketplace or factory where their only tie was material.

Second, they were kept alive by selling their labor, and lacking anything substantial to connect them to the soil, they drifted along, in constant fear of being uprooted.

Third, their nerves were constantly frayed in dealing with urban life in its myriad complications.

In their unending struggle to survive, the only thing meaningful is to gratify by whatever means their constantly created material needs.

This is also true of the plight of Chinese migrants today.

In the anonymity of the urban life, in a city of strangers, law becomes the only, feeble tool to keep order.

When philosophy becomes uprooted from reality and is reduced to exercises in sophistry within academia, our educators need to worry more about how to inspire and fire up the students.

Failing to find meaning of life, many of them get lost, and find false gods in a few Hong Kong stars.