The Useless Tree

Reply to Eric X. Li: Cultures are not Incommensurable and the CCP is not Confucuian

Over at the Huffington Post, Rachel Beitarie interviews Eric X. Li, under the title "Democracy is not the Answer."  Li, who describes himself as a Shanghai venture capitalist (which carries a bit of irony, as I will attempt to demonstrate), is a well known apologist of authoritarianism, author of such pieces as: "Why China's Political Model is Superior."  In the most recent interview he engages in a bit of facile Confucius-citing, so I figured that brought his arguments into the general ambit of this blog.  As you might guess, I disagree with him fundamentally.

Li's general project is to construct a kind of Chinese exceptionalism, to show that, whether in the political or economic or cultural realms, China is sui generis and, as the second title above suggests, superior to others.  As an American I am quite familiar with exceptionalist type arguments and, anticipating the Chinese nationalist critique that this post is likely to inspire, I state here that I also reject claims of American exceptionalism.  Whether American or Chinese or French or whatever, exceptionalist arguments are generally historically flawed, deeply flawed, and, bascially, intellectually uninteresting.

Let's go right to a big issue.  Li states:

...And cultures are fundamentally incommensurate to each other, as they have been developed under vastly different conditions, including hard conditions such as geography and climate. On the abstract end, one can claim we all want certain things, such as dignity - who can argue against that? Sounds universal? Yes. But what dignity means not only can be different but also totally opposite among cultures.

Incommensurability is a big philosophical idea, with various debates surrounding it.  In ethics, the notion of "incommensurable values" raises quesitons arising from the idea that: "Values, such as liberty and equality, are sometimes said to be incommensurable in the sense that their value cannot be reduced to a common measure."  I think this is what Li means when he says "cultures are fundamentally incommensurate with one and other..."

But this is where he goes wrong: moving from incommensurable values to incommensurable cultures.  These are not the same and the difference makes a difference.

Most problematically, Li does not define what he means by "culture."  And he provides only the crudest intimation of what he is getting at, something about "geography and climate."  Obviously, he wants to say that "Chinese culture" is not the same as "American culture" or "Western culture," etc.  But at this level of abstraction the invocation of incommensurability makes little sense.

The basic problem is that "culture" is not a useful category for discussing value incommensurability becuase  the value incommensurability problem exists within every category of "culture" that Li implies.  The tensions between freedom and liberty, or -  to invoke a case that Chinese exceptionalists seem to focus on - between individual and collective interests, are common within "American culture" and "Western culture."  We argue about them all the time. 

To avoid this obvious reality, Li has to conjure straw men:

One fallacy in the modern Western political ideology is the so-called freedom of speech. It makes a presumption that speech, unlike acts, is harmless and therefore can and must be allowed absolute freedom....

A quick class in constitutional law would yield rather quickly the understanding that speech is not an absolute freedom, that is it limited in the interest of public safety ("imminent lawless action" anyone?) and other public goods (obscenity). Now, Li might argue that the parameters of free speech are wider in the US than in China, to which there are two responses: 1) this is a political, not cultural, practice that can be developed in various cultural contexts; thus, speech is freer in Taiwan than in the PRC;  2) within American culture there continues to be wide divergence among various groups on what appropriate limits on speech should be, with some American groups coming much close to a "Chinese" standard than others.  Value incommensurability, in other words, is not simply an inter-cultural phenomenon. 

The problem here, for Li, is the underdeveloped concept of "culture."  It seems that he wants us to believe that "cultures" are distinct and impermeable and unchanging.  And that is simply historically and empirically false.  "Cultures" (I put it in scare quotes precisely because of the variability of any specific definition of any particular "culture") are always, and have always been, dynamic and open and overlapping.  Li seems to recognize this when he writes:

This is not to say that aspects of alien cultures cannot be imported and absorbed. Buddhism came into China from the outside and became a major feature of the Chinese civilization. The success or failure of such importation depends on how consistent it is with the fundamentals of the host cultures, whether in its original or adapted forms. Marxism found deep resonance in China's Confucian egalitarianism and its modern features were much needed in China's desperate attempt to modernize. As such, Marxism's adapted forms have taken roots in modern China.

But this just killed his assertion of cultural incommensurability.  If Buddhism is imported and absorbed then it becomes a local expression of the more general category of "Buddhism," and that general category provides a measure by which it can be compared to other examples of the general category - which seems to me to be the very definition of "commensurability."  Same with Marxism.  Now, we can argue that there are important differences between Chinese and Soviet Marxism (there are!) but that discussion operates within the framework of "Marxism" which, again, provides a set of measures to draw similarities and differences.  Commensurability, again.

This shows how useless the term "culture" is.  "Chinese culture" is a collection of many, many practices and ideas and beliefs.  It is big and vast and complicated. Within it are its own instances of value incommensurability (which is one possible way to understand Chen Guangcheng's stance v. those who seek to repress him).  In its vastness, there are similarities and differences with "American culture."  Most aspects of "Chinese culture" are certainly commensurable with "American culture" or other instances of "culture" globally.  (I am not quite ready to say all instances of "Chinese culture" are so commensurable - I am open to suggestions for more specific instances of incommensurability operating at something less abstract than the level of "culture").  Here are two examples:

1) Scientific research.  We must recognize science as a "cultural" practice, in the conventional sense of "culture" as a set of orientations and beliefs and practices.  As such it clashes with other cultural practices - i.e traditional forms of epistemology; magic; superstition; etc.  Scientists in China perform research according to widely held views on proper methodology and reporting. They also perform it within a broader "Chinese cultural" context.  Science, much to the delight of Chen Duxiu, has become a part of "Chinese culture," in a way that it was not at the beginning of the twentieth century.   And they're good at it.  Moreover, they want to be good at it -  a Nobel Prize or two would be highly coveted.  They may have some rather small variations to the usual practice of science, such that we could refer to something as "Chinese science."  But, even if that is the case, there remains a rather well articulated measure for valuing the practice of science.  Thus, that part of "Chinese culture" that expresses itself in scientific research is certainly commensurable with other forms of scientific research world-wide.

2) Women's rights. In traditional China, women did not enjoy the kinds of legal protections that are now common throughout the world.  Indeed, the Communist Party made a rather big deal of how it was the liberator of women from the feudalistic, Confucian patriarchal exploitation of the past.  The New Marriage Law of 1950 was seen, wtihin China, as elevating the social and political status of women, ideally at least.  And today, women in China complain that their rights are not being duly protected, that the social and political gains of the revolution are deteriorating in the opening and reform period.  Whatever one thinks of these particular complaints, what is notable is that they assume a general standard of "women's rights," a general standard that can be used to measure the progress or backsliding of "Chinese women's rights."  Once again, we have inter-cultural - or perhaps we should say transcultural - commensurability.

We could go on, examning more partiuclar facets of "Chinese culture" to demonstrate commensurability with those same aspects of other cultures.  Indeed, the work of Longxi Zhang is interesting in this regard. But one really needs to be called out: economics.

I, for one, absolutely believe that economic life is  a kind of cultural practice.  Markets are based upon certain cultural assumptions and, as they operate, they change other cultural practices.  Contemporary China is a powerful example of this.  Perhaps nothing has changed "Chinese culture" as much as economic reform of the past thirty years.  And those changes have increased the economic-cultural commensurability between China and the US and the "West" and other cultural formations.  Yes, of course, there are differences in how the Chinese and American economies operate.  But mere difference is not incommensurability, which suggests no general standard can be used for comparison and judgment.  And we know, obviously, that every day business men and investors and traders and, yes, "Shanghai venture capitalists," work hard to find ways to make big piles of money from the dynamic pattern of similarities and differences between China's economy and other economies.  

Further, economics, as an intellectual discipline, basicially rejects cultural incommensurability.  It claims to be a universal science (a claim that I do not really accept because they take it too far, ignoring cultural differences within a broader commensurability).  Ask Justin Lin Yifu if China is economically-culturally incommensurable and I suspect he would just laugh.  

And there's your irony: if Eric X. Li was right, he'd be out of a job.  And the fact that he is a successful transcultural investor demonstrates that he is wrong in his assertion of cultural incommensurability.

So, what happened?  Li made too sweeping a claim to try to defend the political authoritarianism of the CCP.  He is trying to construct a grand China exceptionalist argument to wall off the Party from political critics, like Ai Weiwei and Chen Guangcheng.  But upon scrutiny his Great Wall of Chinese Expcetionalism crumbles.  And he is left with a rather bare political apology. 

To get back to the beginning of this post, Li also tries to argue that Deng Xiaoping was something of a Confucian:

In the Chinese tradition, an enduring definition of the end of political governance was articulated by Confucius two and a half millenniums ago. He called it Xiao Kang (as differentiated from Da Tong -- an unattainable ideal). In contemporary terms it can be described as a society of general peace and prosperity with a just legal order and built upon a righteous moral foundation. Interestingly enough, when Deng Xiaoping launched his reforms in 1979 he declared that the goal of the Chinese nation in the next phase of its development was to build or, perhaps more accurately, rebuild a Xiao Kang society.

It was probably no accident that Mr. Deng, in declaring China's national goal, did not rely on the modern Communist ideologies that were instrumental in the revolution that established the People's Republic, but rather reached deep into China's ancient tradition, to Confucius. Measured by the "end" as articulated by Confucius and by Deng, the current one-party state model has so far served China well, albeit with real shortcomings.

Yes, xiao kang is common in Party decriptions of economic reform.  But it is, in the words of John Wong: "... fuzzy and grossly imprecise, especially when applied to a transitional economy like China."  He goes on: "To an ordinary Chinese [xiao kang] may vaguely convey the feeling of being 'neither rich nor poor' or  buqiong buhu". Moreover, it is not a central concept of the Analects or Mencius, no where near the importance of ren or yi or li.  And it is not at all clear that xiao kang is a concept that differentiates Chinese developmental goals for those of other countries, or at least not as it is used in this China Daily op-ed:

The xiaokang idea came fromthe late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s and early 1980s while he was working on the country's developmental blueprint.

The government's goal now, for 2020, is to make sure that xiaokang is everywhere and the people are well-off, in a way that is similar to developed countries in the West.

Oops - that writer needs to read the incommensurability memo...

But the big laugher here is the implication that Deng Xiaoping was a Confucian.  He was not.  He was a dedicated communist-nationalist.  His highest priority was maintaining the institutional integrity of the CCP, which he guided as the country careened into the Great Leap Forward, and saw destroyed by Mao during the Cultural Revolution, and rebuilt after 1979.  It was the Party that he sought to maintain when he gave the order to kill hundreds and hundreds of people in Beijing in 1989.  Those main lines of his career have nothing to do with Confucianism.  Indeed, Deng was anti-Confucian in his willingness to use force to defend the Party.  Xiao kang is small beer in the fullness of Deng's political life.  He was much more interested in building up China's economy as the basis of national strength, something more in line with Legalist thinking. I think the turn to reform in 1979 was a great thing for many Chinese people, and Deng deserves credit for that.  But he was not motivated by Confucianism.

To be clear: Confucianism is a valuable philosophy.  We all can learn from it; we all should learn from it.  I teach it to my students. I think about ways it applies to my own life.  But it is precisely because I take it seriously that I reject its association with the Chinese Communist Party.  Were Confucius alive today he would reject much of what occurs in Chinese politics and economics.

Confucianism is not a Religion

Now, there's an attention-grabbing headline.  It seems almost arrogant to so directly claim a clear answer to the rather complex question: is Confucianism a religion?  But I put it up there to insert myself into the perennial debate, which has been rekindled in the blogosphere by a well written piece by Peter Berger, sociologist of religion.

Berger comes down on the side of Confucianism as religion.  He does not do so rashly.  He recognizes that much of Confucianism is essentially secularist: there is little to no explicit invocation of a God or gods as creators or exemplars of moral virtue.  Rather, as is so often stated, Confucianism is a "this-worldly" philosophy, a moral theory that seeks to train people in the here and now to do the right thing and become, themselves, the enactors and symbols of propriety.  There is little, if any, concern for cosmological origins or after lives.  At least this is the case for the pre-Qin texts.  A couple of passages from The Analects get at this geist:

The Master never spoke of the supernatural, violence, disorder, or gods and spirits.   7.21

***

When Adept Liu asked about serving ghosts and spirits, the Master said: "You haven't learned to serve the living, so how could you serve ghosts?

"Might I ask about death?"

"You don't understand life," the Master replied, "so how could you understand death?" 11.12

I know just citing Analects passages does not put the question to rest.  There have been impressive analyses over the years contending that Confucianism functioned as a religion in Chinese society, even if it did not fulfill certain definitions of "religion."  And there are ways that Confucianism might be made into or used as a religion historically in China.  So the larger issue is complex.  But, at the end of the day, I find the main body of "Confucianism" to be something other than a religion.

For me the key issue is the de-emphasis on God/gods.  While the early texts presume a spirit world, they just don't make very much of it.  The spirits of our parents matter, but larger transcendent god-like spirits are not really important.  Indeed, in urging us to "serve the living" Confucius seems to be saying that we should not allow propitiation or adulation of spirits get in the way of our immediate earthly duties.

For Berger, the thing that tips the balance in favor of an understanding of Confucianism as a religion is the notion of Heaven - tian, 天 :

....However, there is one classical and rather central Confucian belief that, I think, is unambiguously religious—that of tian, usually translated as “heaven”. It is not theistic, although gods are associated with it. Rather, it is a cosmic order, supernatural in that it transcends the empirical world, over which it presides and with which it interacts. It thus serves as the necessary, ipso facto religious foundation for all the secular virtues propagated by Confucian teachings. It seems to me that this religious character of tian is most clearly expressed in the notion of the “mandate of heaven”: A ruler has this “mandate”, the basis of his legitimacy, if he rules in accordance with the moral rules governing relations between him and his subjects. If he does not so rule, the “mandate of heaven” will be withdrawn, his rule becomes illegitimate and his subjects have a valid reason to disobey or even overthrow him. The distinctively Confucian institution resulting from this idea was that of the “imperial censors”—officials at court with the express duty to reprimand the emperor if he strayed from correct ritual and moral behavior. I take it that this did not happen very often: Emperors, in China or elsewhere, do not take kindly to being reprimanded.

The notion of tian, drawn from early Zhou times, suggests a rather diffuse sense of fate and destiny.  Whether it is "transcendent" or not is not really a settled issue - Hall and Ames famously assert that Confucian thinking is more a matter of immanence than transcendence.  But even if we accept a kind of transcendence in tian, it is still not at all clear that we can say that tian "presides" over the empirical world.  Yes, fate and destiny can shape human lives, but that does not necessarily lead to a kind of predestination or "intelligent design."  Tian, and a Confucian sensibility, fit just as well with a secularist, modern, scientific cosmology, as Frederick Mote suggests, citing Carl Jung approvingly:

The ancient Chinese mind contemplates the cosmos in a way comparable to that of the modern physicist, who cannot deny that his model of the world is a decidedly psychophysical structure.

Mote goes on to give the great line from Needham, who describes ancient Chinese cosmology as providing: "an ordered harmony of wills without an ordainer."

So, I guess the question for me is: is it a religion if it has no ordainer?  If its secularism is more pronounced than Berger suggests, is it something more of a lived moral theory than a religion?  Of course it depends on the definition of religion being used but if Confucianism, with its avoidance of God/gods, is a religion, perhaps we should ask: is socialism a religion?  Liberalism?....

Yan Xuetong, History and Philosophy

Sorry for the blog silence - lots of work and distractions.  But I'm back now...

Yesterday's op-ed in the NYT by Chinese international relations academic, Yan Xuetong, has sparked a great deal of discussion on listservs and web sites.  Manyul has already posted on it here, where I made a hasty comment yesterday.  Today I want to develop my response a bit more....

Yan's op-ed is a condensation of his more recent book, Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power, in which he plumbs pre-Qin texts for insights into international politics, since the Warring States period was essentially a multipolar political struggle, and extends that thinking to the contemporary world.  A good review of that work can be found here.  Yan's thinking is complex.  He is situating himself in the intellectual realm of international relations theorists, identifying himself as a "realist," but engaging in normative theory, an "idealist"(pdf!) project typically shunned by realists.  He is also crafting arguments that speak as much to the need for domestic political reform within the PRC as with that state's foreign policy.  Some interesting stuff there...

But back to the op-ed.

I am concerned that, in his realist-idealist mash-up, Yan conflates history and normative theory.  In speaking about the pre-Qin period, he writes:

It was perhaps the greatest period for Chinese thought, and several schools competed for ideological supremacy and political influence. They converged on one crucial insight: The key to international influence was political power, and the central attribute of political power was morally informed leadership. Rulers who acted in accordance with moral norms whenever possible tended to win the race for leadership over the long term.

China was unified by the ruthless king of Qin in 221 B.C., but his short-lived rule was not nearly as successful as that of Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty, who drew on a mixture of legalistic realism and Confucian “soft power” to rule the country for over 50 years, from 140 B.C. until 86 B.C.

While it may be true that many philosophers agreed on the need for morally informed leadership - Confucians, Mohists - Legalists, especially as demonstrated by Hanfeizi, did not.  Han was merciless in his critique of Confucians, referring to them as one of the "Five Vermin."  From that chapter of his book we read:

Thus King Wen practiced benevolence and righteousness and became ruler of the world, but King Yen practiced benevolence and righteousness and destroyed his state.  This is because benevolence and righteousness served for ancient times, but no longer serve today. 

Of course, Han offered counsel to, and ultimately died at the command of, the Qin king, a man infamous for his trampling on benevolence and righteousness.

What is important to note here is that the prominence of the ideal of humane rulership was limited.  It was expounded by Confucian intellectuals but not embraced by many of the actual rulers of pre-Qin states.  If we learn anything from Mencius, it is the existence of so many political leaders whose rule was far from the standards of Humanity he advocated.

Qin Shihuangdi was the most ruthless, inhumane of them all.  And he was the ultimate victor of the Warring States period.  His state, Qin, unified, by brutal force of arms, all the rest.  Moreover, the political structure and legal system developed by Qin continued on long after the demise of his short-lived dynasty.  In that sense, Legalism won the political battle, for it was Legalism that determined the structure of Chinese states historically.

I mention this to counter Yan's statement that: "Rulers who acted in accordance with moral norms whenever possible tended to win the race for leadership over the long term."  That is not empirically true.  While many dynasties from the Han forward invoked Confucianism as a moral justification, they all also relied upon Legalist means and powers to maintain state authority.  Never was Confucianism sufficient, in and of itself, to support a Chinese state.  Victoria Hui is helpful here (pdf!):

The problem is that the actual Chinese tradition is better characterized by Legalism than by Confucianism. Legalism is the nemesis of Confucianism, for it is single-mindedly concerned with the maximization of state power through strict regulations and cruel punishments in domestic rule and territorial expansion in external relations. But many Chinese mistake Confucianism as the single Chinese tradition because Chinese rulers ingeniously followed what Chinese scholar Hsiao Kung-chuan called “Legalism with a Confucian façade.”

In the second paragraph above Yan seems to recognize this.  But in his realist-idealist melange he leans more to idealism as a source of explanation (or should we accept his self-definition as a "realist" and suspect that he is simply creating a diversion to make us think that humaneness matters while the PRC amasses material power?... I don't think so.  I suspect he is simply historically un-moored in his idealism...) . 

Why did Chinese states "succeed" in their foreign policies?  Why did they become preeminent in the region and the pinnacle of a hierarchical tribute system?  Was it the attractive "soft power" of their Confucian ideals?  Or was it based on the power of Chinese militaries and the fear and prudence that power instilled in other peoples?  Yan does not focus much on the latter (so much for his "realism") but expects us to simply accept the former.

Don't get me wrong: I think Confucian ideals of humane rulership are great.  I wish leaders in China and the US and elsewhere would embrace them.  But I recognize the uncomfortable reality that those ideals have been honored much more in the breech historically, especially in China.  We cannot simply ignore the very large presence of military and coercive power in Chinese history (pdf!).  When the Han dynasty expanded westward, it did so through military means, as did every other imperial expansion in Chinese history.  Chinese states, like all states everywhere, have been founded on power and coercion, and we must kept that historical fact in mind when we are considering how the Chinese past might be relevant to the global present.

I worry here because there is a kind of Chinese exceptionalism to be found in certain intellectual circles. The idea is that China is unique historically because it did not rely upon military power in its relations with other states.  Nicola DiCosmo, in the introduction to his edited book (linked to above), writes about:

....the influential perception that Chinese culture was inherently indifferent to the gritty matter of battles and wars and consequently paid little or no heed to military topics.  This perception has been interpreted as a preeminently late imperial and twentieth- century product and linked to the concept of an “amilitary” or perhaps “demilitarized” culture (wu bing wenhua)....

It is this perception that Yan is, intentionally or not, bringing forward in his arguments.  And it is simply historically inaccurate.  If we are to take seriously his assertions about the contemporary utitliy of ancient Chinese thought (and I believe there is some utility there),  he needs to be more explicit about the realities of China's past, especially the power realities of state-building and empire-making.

I should add that I absolutely agree with Yan when he argues in the op-ed:

How, then, can China win people’s hearts across the world? According to ancient Chinese philosophers, it must start at home. Humane authority begins by creating a desirable model at home that inspires people abroad.

This means China must shift its priorities away from economic development to establishing a harmonious society free of today’s huge gaps between rich and poor. It needs to replace money worship with traditional morality and weed out political corruption in favor of social justice and fairness.

Unfortunately, I do not see any of this happening now.  The PRC regime is not addressing legal injustice (as depressingly made plain by the Chen Guangcheng situation), economic inequality or political corruption.  

I wonder, then, if Yan would agree that the PRC government should focus its attention on these very pressing internal problems and concern itself less with expanding its global power or pressuring Taiwan?  I suspect the realist in Yan would say "no."

Chinese Liberalism

Nice to see the piece over at the WSJ by Liu Junning, "The Ancient Roots of Chinese Liberalism."  Liu is a well known Chinese intellectual, and has worked hard since the 1980's to fashion a contemporary Chinese liberalism.  He argued against "Asian Values" in the 1990s and for a more universal notion of human rights.  Although his arguments quite clearly press against the theoretical underpinnings of party hegemony, he has not faced severe political repression, even though he signed Charter 08, because he has kept away from more public political organization.  He likely has friends in high places, too.

In this WSJ piece, Liu makes brief reference to aspects of liberal-like thought in ancient Chinese sources:

Indeed, what we now call Western-style liberalism has featured in China's own culture for millennia. We first see it with philosopher Laozi, the founder of Taoism, in the sixth century B.C. Laozi articulated a political philosophy that has come to be known as wuwei, or inaction. "Rule a big country as you would fry a small fish," he said. That is, don't stir too much. "The more prohibitions there are, the poorer the people become," he wrote in his magnum opus, the "Daodejing."

For Mencius, a fourth-century B.C. philosopher and the most famous student of Confucius, a kingdom would be able to defend itself from outside attack if the king "runs a government benevolent to the people, sparing of punishments and fines, reducing taxes and levies. . . ." When asked by the King of Hui, "What virtue must there be to win the unification of the world?" Mencius replied, "It is the protection of the people."

I am sure that serious students of Chinese philosophy would take issue with the suggestion that something like a modern liberalism was in the minds, much less the actions, of ancient Chinese thinkers.  Laozi and Mencius were not, in their own times, liberals, at least as we understand the term "liberal" now.  At its most basic, liberalism asserts the significance of individual rights, and that conception individual rights was alien to ancient Chinese cultural and political contexts.

But that does not mean Liu is wrong.  Although ancient thinkers were not themselves liberal in a modern sense, ancient thought can be made consistent with contemporary liberalism.  Take Mencius.  His emphasis on serving the people and his notion that "Heaven sees through the eyes of the people, and Heaven hears through the ears of the people" raises all sorts of questions.  It could suggest that individual members of the group known as the "people" must have a certain autonomy, which then allows them to assess independently their quality of life and the efficacy of a ruler's policies.  Moreover, it could further suggest that the preferences and opinions of the "people" must somehow be expressed and measured - and how will that take place?  Long story short, a system of legal protections of individual rights and electoral participation would be consistent with the more general Mencian understanding of the political role of the "people."  Thus, even if Mencius himself was not, strictly speaking, a liberal, his thought, when transposed into a modern context, can be compatible with - and actually may require - liberalism.  

Liu's article is a welcome reminder of these possibilities.  And I must say that I absolutely agree with him on this:

To say that the narrative of liberty vs. power is uniquely "Western" is to turn a blind eye to the struggles of those who have gone before us. Individual rights are not a Western development any more than paper and gunpowder are inventions that are uniquely Chinese. Is Marxism "German"? Is Buddhism "Indian"? Of course not. When ideas are born, they take flight into the world to be used, improved or discarded by all of humanity. Constraints on political power and the protection of individual rights belong to all.

Tennessee Williams and Chinese Philosophy

As regular readers (both of you) know: I have an interest in theater and recently appeared in a college production of "Streetcar Named Desire."  So, it was marvelous last night to see the riveting production of the same show put on by the Williamstown Theater Festival, with a captivating performance by Jessica Hecht as Blanche.  A great show.

A particular passage of that play speaks directly to the content of this blog.  In scene four, the morning after the fight between Stella and Stanley, Blanche is saying to her sister that she should get away from that brute of a husband, but Stella demurs.  She loves Stanley and does not want to leave him.  Blanche is flabbergasted:

Stella: I said I am not in anything that I have a desire to get out of.  Look at the mess in this room!  And those empty bottles!  They went through two cases last night!  He promised this morning that he was going to quit having these poker parties, but you know how long such a promise is going to keep.  Oh well, it's his pleasure, like mine is movies and bridge.  People have got to tolerate each others habits, I guess.

Blanche: I don't understand you. [Stella turns toward her] I don't understand your indifference. Is this a Chinese philosophy you've cultivated?

Stella: Is what - what?

Blanche: This - shuffling around and mumbling - 'One tube smashed - beer-bottles - mess in the kitchen!' - as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened! [Stella laughs uncertainly and picking up the broom, twirls it in her hands.]

The questions that come to mind: What is Williams thinking here?  Why would he invoke "Chinese philosophy"?  What understanding of that term does Blanche have?  What kind of understanding is possible for either the character or the author?

Williams was born in 1911. He attended three different colleges: the University of Missouri, Washington University in St. Louis, and the University of Iowa, from which he graduated.  He studied journalism and literature and, thus, may have come into contact with various strands of Chinese thought that were then circulating in modernist, and modernizing, America.  Ezra Pound's "translations" (not quite the right term, since he did not read Chinese) of Confucius and various Chinese poets come immediately to mind - a source that might have been of interest to a young playwright with a poetic bent.  Thoureau, too, had been another early conduit to America of Chinese ideas.

So, Williams, as a well-read man of letters, had some sense of "Chinese philosophy."  But the above passage from "Streetcar" suggests it was an inchoate sense at best. 

For Blanche, and we might surmise for Williams as well speaking through Blanche, "Chinese philosophy" is suffused with "indifference."  Stella's resistance to seeing clearly Stanley's brutality, her "shuffling around and mumbling," is the stuff of "Chinese philosophy."

Maybe this was Williams' impression of Daoism, which, indeed, champions a kind of indifference.  Tolerance, too, which Stella offers here, might also be put down as a Daoist virtue: we should not interfere in the natural unfolding of Dao, in general, or with other individual's experience in Dao - that's a sort of tolerance. 

So, perhaps what Williams means here is not "Chinese philosophy" but Daoism.  If he had taken Confucianism seriously, or whatever understanding of Confucianism he might have gleaned from the English-language sources then surrounding him, Williams would see that Stella is acting an a completely reasonable and ethical manner: she is defending and cultivating one of her closest loving relationships, with Stanley, even in the face of a bad act on Stanley's part.  Indeed, a Confucian analysis gets at the deep tragedy of Stella: she is caught between two close loving relationships: that with her husband and that with her sister.  Both are flawed.  Which should take precedence?  Ultimately, she makes the right Confucian choice.  When the arrival of the baby is factored into the ethical equation, her duties to her immediate family with Stanley are greater than her obligation to her sister.

I could go on with a Confucian analysis of the play (Blanche demonstrates a certain Confucian virtue by staying and caring for her dying parents at Belle Reve - but you get the idea...)

The point here is to call out Williams and what he means by Blanche's invocation of "Chinese philosophy."  Of course, I shouldn't necessarily assume that Blanche's understanding is simply a reflection of Williams'.  Maybe Williams is using this reference as a sign of Blache's faux intellectualism, her dilletantism.  She can utter the term in a vague manner, without really appreciating what it could imply.  Certain mushy Daoist-y images of indifference  and mumbling (Zhuangzi comes to mind...) are what is suggested by "Chinese philosophy" in the passage.   If that is what Williams is up to, it's pretty shrewd - using that allusion to reveal another facet of Blanche's character.

But I don't think that is what it is about.  I suspect that Williams himself has a pretty narrow and vague image of "Chinese philosophy".  It is used here as a put down, a means of flowery and inderterminate escape from a hard, pressing reality.  That makes it a suitable term for Blanche - who, after all, wants "magic," not reality - but it is unfair to Chinese philosophy itself. 

Or maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe Williams could see the Confucian facets of his great tragedy....

(Photo from WTF)

Philosophy as a Way of Life

Philosophy was featured on the cover of this past Sunday's NYT Book Review: two pieces on new philosophy books.  I was particularly taken with one, Sarah Bakewell's review of Jame Miller's new book: Examined Lives: From Socrates to Nietzsche.  Bakewell notes:

If the proof of a pudding is in the eating, and the proof of a rule is in the exceptions, where should we look for the proof of a philosophy?

For Friedrich Nietzsche, the answer was obvious: to test a philosophy, find out if you can live by it. This is “the only critique of a philosophy that is possible and that proves something,” he wrote in 1874. It’s also the form of critique that is generally overlooked in the philosophy faculties of universities. Nietzsche therefore dismissed the professional discipline as irrelevant, a “critique of words by means of other words,” and devoted himself to pursuing an idiosyncratic philosophical quest outside the academy. As for texts, he wrote, “I for one prefer reading Diogenes Laertius” — the popular third-century Epicurean author of a biographical compilation called “Lives of the Eminent Philosophers.” If the proof of philosophy lies in life, then what could be more useful than reading about how the great philosophers have lived?

The notion that philosophy is something that should be lived, or that the value of any particular philosophy will be demonstrated to the extent that it leads one to a good or better life, is a profoundly Chinese idea.  Whether we are talking about Confucius or Mozi or Zhuangzi, it is all about living well or living better.  But, alas, neither Bakewell or Miller make this rather obvious point because so much of philosophical discourse in the US, and I suspect the West generally, is simply ignorant of Chinese texts.  How much more might be made of Miller's topic if some reference to some Chinese thinkers came into the conversation?...

Bakewell goes on:

As Miller notes, Descartes opened up two divergent paths in philosophy. One was the old tradition, in which one seeks a better life and recounts the search in a personal narrative. The other led to the impersonal discipline now prevalent in universities, which in theory can be practiced by anyone. Yet Descartes himself would barely have understood this separation. For him, a philosophical life required both the quest for precision and the intense personal experience that drove one to it.

Again, a contrast with China here is instructive.  When we contemplate the differences between Chinese and Western philosophy the break that Descartes symbolizes is important.  It would seem that there was less of a distinction between the two worlds before Descartes: Westerners were still generally in agreement with Chinese that philosophy should be practiced and inform how life is lived.  The rationalization of philosophy after Descartes, and its detachment from practical concerns, is a significant divergence.  We could say, the "West" doesn't start becoming "Westernized," in a philosophical sense, until after Descartes.   Nietzsche, then, could be seen as making a move not only back toward the West's past, but also toward a Chinese sensibility.  

We could push a bit further: Marxism in China could be seen as an extreme expression of the idea of philosophy for practical living.  In the Maoist years, it ultimately failed the test of whether a better life could be lived through it.  That particular philosophy, practiced in that particular Maoist manner simply made life worse.  The revival of Confucianism, and other philosophies and religions, in China now is an effort to recalibrate philosophy and life in a modern context.  And that modernity matters: it creates material conditions and incentives and behavior that press against the notions of a good life that might be derived from the old books.

However interesting these questions are, Miller's book will not land on the top of my reading list just now.  Instead, I have before another volume (thanks Tracy) that goes to the same sorts of questions: Pierre Hadot's, Philosophy as a Way of Life.  It focuses on Greeks and Romans, not Chinese, but digs a bit deeper and more systematically into the point Miller is making.  Clearly, blog fodder for the future....

Chinese Philosophy as Kung Fu (Gongfu)

A nice essay in the NYT today by Peimin Ni, on "Kung Fu for Philosophers." It is, essentially, a brief contrast of the philosophic sensibilities of ancient China versus those of the West.  He uses Kung Fu as a metaphor of sorts, to get at the practical, pragmatic, performative nature of much of Chinese thought (and he includes Buddhism in that category).  There are several apt comparison made in passing: Zhuangzi and Descartes on dreaming; Confucius and Austin on language; Richard Rorty, John Dewey and Charles Taylor make cameo appearances.  A fun read.

Having just finished a tutorial on ancient Chinese thought with ten bright students here, I especially liked this passage:

Mistaking the language of Chinese philosophy for, in Richard Rorty’s phrase, a “mirror of nature” is like mistaking the menu for the food. The essence of kung fu — various arts and instructions about how to cultivate the person and conduct one’s life — is often hard to digest for those who are used to the flavor and texture of mainstream Western philosophy. It is understandable that, even after sincere willingness to try, one is often still turned away by the lack of clear definitions of key terms and the absence of linear arguments in classic Chinese texts. This, however, is not a weakness, but rather a requirement of the kung fu orientation — not unlike the way that learning how to swim requires one to focus on practice and not on conceptual understanding. Only by going beyond conceptual descriptions of reality can one open up to the intelligence that is best exemplified through arts like dancing and performing.

By reading just the texts of the Daodejing, Lunyu, Mengzi, Zhuangzi, and Hanfeizi, without resort to interpretations from the secondary literature, I have, in effect, thrown them into the pool and made them swim on their own.  I can only hope that they continue to paddle along by bringing those texts into their own lives...

Ni goes on to explain that the "mirrors" image fails because it does not take into account the this-worldly, active, embodied quality of philosophy in the Chinese style, which concerns itself not so much with the articulation of abstract, all-ecompassing theories of Truth as with strategies for living good lives now:

...Even when philosophers take their ideas as pure theoretical discourse aimed at finding the Truth, their ideas have never stopped functioning as guides to human life. The power of modern enlightenment ideas have been demonstrated fully both in the form of great achievements we have witnessed since the modern era and in the form of profound problems we are facing today. Our modes of behavior are very much shaped by philosophical ideas that looked innocent enough to be taken for granted. It is both ironic and alarming that when Richard Rorty launched full-scale attacks on modern rationalistic philosophy, he took for granted that philosophy can only take the form of seeking for objective Truth. His rejection of philosophy falls into the same trap that he cautions people about — taking philosophical ideas merely as “mirrors” and not as “levers.”

Western philosophy may not always want to admit that philosophic ideas leverage ethical behavior now, but they do, however narrowly rationalist the assumptions of the thinker may be.

I'll leave the last word to Ni:

The kung fu approach does not entail that might is right. This is one reason why it is more appropriate to consider kung fu as a form of art. Art is not ultimately measured by its dominance of the market. In addition, the function of art is not [an] accurate reflection of the real world; its expression is not constrained to the form of universal principles and logical reasoning, and it requires cultivation of the artist, embodiment of virtues/virtuosities, and imagination and creativity. If philosophy is “a way of life,” as Pierre Hadot puts it, the kung fu approach suggests that we take philosophy as the pursuit of the art of living well, and not just as a narrowly defined rational way of life.

Read the whole thing...

Generating Meaning for Ourselves

As is evident from the last post, I am gearing up to teach the classics.  First up, the Daodejing.  I put this first because I see it as an introduction to a more expansive cosmology (compared to Confucianism).  For me, it is easier to move students from the very broad notion of Dao in the DDJ to the more human-focused Dao of Confucianism (I was going to say the Confucian Dao is "anthropocentric," but that sounds too strong to me...). 

By way of preparation I am re-reading the Ames and Hall introductions to their translation.  And this passage, in the "Historical Introduction," strikes me as particularly useful:

...Two often remarked characteristics of the Daodejing are palpable absences: it contains no historical detail of any kind, and it offers its readers no doctrines in the sense of general precepts or universalistic laws.  The required "framing" of the aphorism by the reader is itself an exercise in nondogmatic philosophizing where the relationship between the text and its student is one of noncoercive collaboration. That is, instead of "the text" providing the reader with a specific historical context of philosophical system, its listeners are required to supply always unique, concrete, and often dramatic scenarios drawn from their own experience to generate meaning for themselves.  This inescapable process in which students through many readings of the text acquire their own unique understanding of its insights informed by their own life experiences is one important element in a kind of constantly evolving coherence.  The changing coherence of the text is brought into a sharpening focus as its readers in different times and places continue to make it their own. (8)

This is especially helpful to me because m primary concern is what the text can mean to us now, in our own time.  Of course that requires consideration of what the text meant in its own time, the Warring States period of China.  But what it meant then and what it might mean now are not one and the same thing.  Indeed, by the terms of Ames and Hall's discussion of the DDJ's epistemology (if we can call it that), we should not expect there to be a singular, settled meaning of the text that transcends time and context. 

To some degree I think the same perspective can be taken on the other texts in my class: The Analects, Mencius, Zhuangzi and Han Feizi.  The Confucians and Legalists provide much more in the way of historical details and general precepts, thus the authors do more of the framing of the text (Zhuangz pokes fun at these very processes).  But even with that greater initiative on the part of the writers, I think it is still necessary for the students to take an active role in generating meaning for themselves in order to discover what the texts can mean in our time.

Why is this news?

So there I am yesterday, preparing for my ancient Chinese philosophy tutorial (which begins next week), when I see this headline on CNN: "Stephen Hawking: God didn't create universe."   I then see a similar story on the AP wire, which is then picked up by various outlets.   And I am thinking to myself: so what? This understanding has been around for over two thousand years, at least if F.W. Mote, in Intellectual Foundations of China, which I was reading yesterday, is to be believed:

The genuine Chinese cosmogony is that of organismic process, meaning that all parts of the entire cosmos belong to one organic whole and that they all interact as participants in on spontaneously self-generating life process... Needham, analyzing that Chinese model, calls it, "an ordered harmony of wills without an ordainer."  As he describes the organismic Chinese cosmos, it emerges to our full view as one in striking contrast to all other world conceptions known to human history.  It differs from other organismic conceptions, such as classical Greek cosmologies in which a logos or demiurge or otherwise conceived master will external to creation was regarded as necessary for existence.  And it contrasts still more starkly with the ancient Semitic traditions that led to subsequent Christian and Islamic conceptions of creation ex nihilo by the hand of God, or through the will of God, and all other such mechanistic, teleological, and theistic cosmologies....(15-16)

Hawking is not really saying anything new; he is saying something very old in a particular political-cultural environment.  It is not the statement itself that causes the controversy, but the environment: Christians are outraged at such a frontal assault on their beliefs.  But why should they even care?  At base, belief should not require rational argumentation.  The Christian God is a "higher power," something beyond and external to, human cognition and comprehension.  So why should there be any worry when a physicist makes an assertion about creation?  One either believes in an all-powerful creator God or not; the physics hardly matters....

Mozi gets some love

Italian journalist Francesco Sisci continues his study of ancient Chinese philosophy with a story today in the Asia Times: "A New Battle for Confucius." (h/t Western Confucian).  It is a brief review of a new translation of Mozi (ca. 430 BCE), founder of a distinct school of thought that was very much opposed to much of Confucian thought.

Sisci notes that we should take Mohism seriously as an important element of Chinese tradition, one that provides an indigenous Chinese counterpoint to both Confucius and Sunzi.  Of course, this is not a "new battle" for Confucianism, but one that stretches back to the fifth century BCE. 

I look forward to the new translation (I have only worked with the "Basic Writings" by Burton Watson) and I wonder how the key concept of jian ai 兼愛 will be interpreted.  Watson translates it as "universal love" (Sisci uses this term but I don't know if that is what the new volume presents).  This is a bit unfortunate, sounding rather like a hippie desire than an general ethical principle.  The spirit of the Mohist argument, which presses against the Confucian view that our obligations to family must take precedence over our obligations to others, is better captured in the notion of "inclusive care" or "universal altruism".  "Love" conjures more of an emotional attachment, where the Mohists, I think, are asserting a rationalist utilitarian argument for viewing all persons as equally deserving of our attention and care.  It's not so much about love as it is about what will provide the best social utility.

In any event, Sisci is right to celebrate the new book.  Mohism is generally ignored (I am as guilty as anyone) and it really is quite important in pre-Qin thought.  Even so, Mozi's own attacks on Confucianism can go a bit over the top, as in this passage, from a section aptly entitled "Against Confucians:"

Moreover, the Confucians corrupt men with their elaborate and showy rites and music and deceive parents with lengthy mournings and hypocritical grief.  They propound fatalism, ignore poverty, and behave with the greatest arrogance.  They turn their backs on what is important, abandon their tasks, and find contentment in idleness and pride.  They are greedy for food and drink and too lazy to work, but though they find themselves threatened by hunger and cold, they refuse to change their ways.  The behave like beggars, stuff away food like hamsters, stare like he-goats, and walk around like castrated pigs...(137)

"Castrated pigs"?  C,mon now.  Perhaps there is some truth in what Mozi says, but if there is, then he is reporting on men who claim to be Confucians but are not living up to Confucian morality.  Yan Hui, the favorite disciple of Confucius, would hardly fit the picture painted above.  Rather than being "greedy for food and drink," he seems quite happy to accept a modest life:

The Master said: “How noble Yen Hui is!  To live in a meager lane with nothing but some rice in a split-bamboo bowl and some water in a gourd cup – no one else could bear such misery.  But it doesn’t bother Hui.  His joy never wavers.  O, how noble Hui is!” (6.10)

子曰：“賢哉回也！一簞食，一瓢飲，在陋巷。人不堪其憂，回也不改其樂.      賢哉回也！”

Then again, this comes down to a he-said v. he-said, Confucius v. Mozi.  It's good, though, to have some contention in the old books.  Let a hundred schools of thought contend (really this time)!