Getting Confucius Wrong on his Birthday

     Here is what I am up against, as I try to make ancient Chinese thought relevant to modern American life: caricatures of historical Confucianism (the ways in which "Confucianism" was appropriated and used by patriarchal state power) that are invoked to shut down any consideration of Confucian thought.  I found an example of this in an article in the Taipei Times: "Modern Confusions Over Confucianism."

    The author, Herbert Hanreich, is concerned about people in Taiwan who  criticize the "chaos" of democracy there by reference to the principles of "harmony" and "stability" that might be associated with Confucianism.  I have no doubt that anti-democrats might want to use Confucius to bolster their arguments.  But, I would argue that this is not the only use to which Confucian ideas can be put, and, further, there is no necessary contradiction between Confucianism and democracy.

     One clear error that Hanreich makes is to suggest that Confucian thought is dogmatic.  He writes:

Societies in which open disagreements are the rule rather than the exception take a long time to develop.
A democratic government has to provide the institutional framework within which these debates can take place while resisting the temptation to impose morality on its citizens.
Such concepts of life cannot be prescribed patronizingly by any authority; they have to be found individually.
Confucianism, on the contrary, does not suggest so.
It seems that proponents of Confucianism aim to reduce such complexity in human nature by providing simple solutions for any situation.

       A careful reading of the Analects and Mencius, it seems to me, would clearly reject the conclusion that Confucianism reduces moral complexity and provides "simple solutions for any situation."  Confucian ethics are situational.  What it means to be filial varies depending upon circumstance: Shun, the sage-king, disobeyed his father in order to be filial!  Ritual is flexible: Confucius makes decisions about what kind of cap to wear and when to bow based upon his own personal reflection on his immediate social context and the message he is trying to send.

      Now, I have no doubt that Confucianism has been used historically in dogmatic ways.  But this is more a matter of how political power bends the thought to its own purposes; it is not a reflection of some inherent tendency of the thought itself.  Remember:

The noble-minded are all-encompassing, not stuck in doctrines.  Little people are stuck in doctrines" (Analects 2.14).

     Hanreich also suggests that Confucianism puts for a notion of an "infallible" ruler.  He goes on:

The emphasis on learning as well as on teaching results from such an asymmetrical concept of society, which favors the powerful (e.g., fathers, teachers, bosses and officials) regardless of their professional or moral competence.

Moreover, this view propagates a society that is less capable of developing efficient safeguards against the misuse of power by firmly established authorities or self-appointed "sages."

This could help to explain why Confucian societies, including Taiwan, are based on control rather than on trust: A "sage" or a leader cannot fail or make any mistakes.

Therefore, these "infallibles" have to be somehow isolated from the people they dominate. They are endowed with the aura of a "sage" or an untouchable, and critical analyses of their words and deeds are deemed inappropriate. This status has to be permanently secured.

 I have no idea where, textually, Hanreich comes up with this interpretation.  It is certainly not to be found in the Analects or Mencius.  Confucius is said to have recognized his own fallibility: he did not consider himself to have achieved Humanity.  He tells us that parents and leaders can be criticized, though we must be respectful and careful when we do so.  He also suggests that one of his followers, who is now doing the wrong thing, can be "attacked."   Mencius goes further to say that bad rulers can be removed or even killed.  Indeed, Mencius is constantly himself directly criticizing bad rulers, it is his stock in trade.

    Again, Confucianism has certainly be used historically to rationalize authoritarianism - but so have many other systems of thought.  On questions of morality, Confucian thinking, as demonstrated in the classic texts themselves, is, we might say, performance based.  Simply being called a leader does not allow a person to do wrong.  To be a "true emperor" one has to constantly perform and enact moral goodness.  If you do not do good, you should not be a leader - and that can obviously be the ground for a limitation on abuses of centralized power.  To push the point further: we can use the Confucian notion of performance-based morality as a critical response to authoritarianism. 

    In any event, it would be nice to draw a clearer line, we are talking about the rather diffuse concept of "Confucianism," between the historical uses of Confucian thought and the actual content of the classical texts.  They are not the same thing.

Comments

[justsomeguy]

I'm not sure that it would be correct to downplay the authoritarian aspects of Confucianism . . . I'm not really sure that one can do that without losing a lot of the positive aspects as well. Instead, I think it is more fruitful to emphasize the reciprocal nature of relationships. You know, the "one thread" that holds Confucius's teachings together? The idea of loyalty and forgiveness being the foundation of this relationship suggests anything but an infallible leader, as you so correctly pointed out. It seems to me that the author is transposing a Christian notion of the head of a religion onto the idea of the person holding the superior position in a Confucian relationship. Now, I'm not saying that a variety of Emperors didn't demand that they were perfect, that is part-and-parcel with Imperial authority. But from a Confucian standpoint it oughtn't be: the role of a good remonstrator was heavily stressed in both the Analects and the Mencius.

Tu Weiming made a good point about the division between what people ontologically are and existentially can become. Granted, he was talking about human nature and describing a modern solution/description of the problem of evil in Ming thought, but I think that such a description can be used to describe Confucian philosophy as well. Heck, Confucius himself talked about inertia as a cause of suffering in the world, and, well, there has been some very heavy qi mucking things up throughout Chinese history.

So, er, while I'm all about owning up to the historical problems of Confucianism (wife beating is bad) but really, even in as authoritarian a state as the single unified China, do we really need to rehash issues like the prerogatives of Emperors?

[Yo]

Hello. I have a question. Does Rui thought stifle creativity?