The Useless Tree

The Dao of Pandemic

A nice piece in the SCMP by Lijia Zhang and Xia Chen has roused me to return to this blog. They offer a Daoist take on the current crisis, which, in the most general sense, recognizes root causes: human interference in animal habitats that brings in its wake the jump of viruses from animals to people. They write: 

An expanding human population, industrialisation and urbanisation at breakneck speed have disturbed the ecology, and our continued erosion of wild space has brought humans uncomfortably close to animals. As a result, more zoonoses – diseases transmitted from animals to humans – have emerged around the world in the past two decades.

This is not just a China problem:

Scientists estimate that 75 per cent of new or emerging infectious human diseases come from animals, including many of the worst diseases in recent years: HIV, avian flu, Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome), Mers (Middle East respiratory syndrome) and Covid-19.

It's a modernity problem, a result of intensified human interference in Dao, 道, which we might translate as the "natural unfolding of things."

I want to push a bit further, however, on the paradox that humans pose for Dao: we can simultaneously act in ways that obstruct the natural unfolding of things but those actions in themselves are also within the purview of the natural unfolding of things. While humans can sometimes act against Dao they are never outside of Dao themselves. Seen in this light, pandemics are an inevitable product of the Dao of humankind.

One of the best places in the Daodejing that gets at the paradoxical nature of humankind in Dao is passage 77, which bears quotation in full (Hinton's translation):

The Way of heaven is like a drawn bow pulling dow the high and raising the low:

it takes away where there's abundance and restores where there's want.

The Way of heaven takes away where there's abundance and restores where there's want, but the Way of humankind isn't like that; it takes away where there's want and gives where there's abundance. 

Only a master of the Way can give abundance to all beneath heaven. Such a sage acts without presumption and never dwells on success:

great worth has no need to be seen.

Most people are selfish, acting on base interests with little care for distributional justice and the social and ecological effects of their behavior. That human impulse runs against the "Way of heaven," which is about as close as we ever come in the Daodejing to a definition of the natural course of things.Thus, humans have an unnatural quality about them. However, the text suggests in passage 51, humans are not outside of Way, they are included in the "ten thousand things," which arise from, are nourished by, and eventually return to Dao.

The things that people do, therefore, including the intrusion into animal habitats in ways that bring pandemic, are part and parcel of Dao. 

Does that mean Daoism would tell us not to try to stop the spread of the coronavirus? If our actions that create the problem are "natural" in a sense, should we just let the illness unfold along its "natural" course? No. This question came to mind after a tweet by Alan Levinovitz, which took issue with anti-vaxxers sayng they would avoid a coronavirus vaccine should one emerge:

If you're wondering why an influential pro-life advocate is resisting a hypothetical COVID-19 vaccine, let me explain:

It's because of faith in natural goodness that confuses Nature w/ God. When you worship naturalness, it becomes a universal value.

Here are the receipts. https://t.co/1ikebOzy8Z pic.twitter.com/TIGP1JnKI5

— Alan Levinovitz (@AlanLevinovitz) April 19, 2020

Levinovitz, who has weighed in on the virus crisis, is not attempting to put forward a self-consciously "Daoist" understanding of what is "natural" versus "unnatural," (new book; on my to-read list). But his argument resonates with Daoist philosohical sensibilites. 

Although wuwei - 无为- famously suggests that we "do nothing," or in a fuller sense "do nothing that interrupts the natural unfolding of things," we should not reify it as a behavioral standard, we should not, in Levinovitz's words, "worship naturalness." To hold back completely on acting in the world would run against the natural qualities of being a person. The point, therefore, is not to do absolutely nothing, but to be prudent and careful and limited in our actions, and just as importantly be humble in our expectations about what we might be able to accomplish in the world. 

I know, someone is going to cite passage 29 of the DDJ, one of my favorites: "For those who would like to take control of the world and act on it - I see that with this they will simply not succeed." (Hendricks translation). A clear statement of the folly of attempting to intervene in and improve the world. But, let's go to passage 64, which suggests that careful action at the outset of an unfolding process can be efficacious, as in this excerpt (Hinton translation):

Work at things before they've begun and establish order before confusion sets in,

for a tree you can barely reach around grows from the tinest rootlet, a nine-tiered tower starts with a basket of dirt, a thousand mile journey begins with a single step. 

That first phrase - 為之於未有，治之於未亂 - is especailly apt in the case of vaccination. Ames and Hall translate it as: "Deal with a situation before it happens; Bring it under control before it gets out of hand." Hendricks has it thus: "Act on it before it comes into being; Order it before it turns into chaos." 

Clearly there is a sense here of anticipatory action that can lead to "control" or "order." If you have some sense of the natural unfolding of a virus, and you know you can intervene early in the process to shape that unfolding in ways that might mitigate harm on others of the "ten thousand things" in Dao, then act. And if you are presented with a relatively simple action, receiving a vaccination, that could allow for the continuing "natural" unfolding of your life, your current form in Dao, there is no reason to avoid it.

Perhaps the most important Daoist insight for our present moment, our strange times, is an acceptance of uncertainty. We were settled in our ways, our jobs, our daily routines. We thought we knew what tomorrow would bring. And suddenly now we don't. We have been cast into uncertainty, extending to things we thought were fairly well estaslished. Well, it turns out our apparent certainties are always fragile. We can't know, for certain, how Dao will unfold. The unexpected is never far off. And that's OK. While we shouldn't go to the extreme of thinking nothing is predictable and routine, we should, when things fall apart, let go of our previous expectations, open ourselves to what is transpiring around us, and find a new way forward. Zhuangzi, as usual, got it:

故知止其所不知，至矣

Therefore understanding that rests in what it does not understand is the finest (Watson)

Hence to know how to stay within the sphere of our ignorance is to attain the highest (Graham)

Understanding that abides in the unknowable is realization (Hinton)

Walking on Path, Ma Yuan

Mencius on Protester Violence in Hong Kong

The months-long protests and demonstrations in Hong Kong have devolved into uncompromising police repression, sporadic protester violence, and a general sense of urban insurrection. It is difficult to see any good outcome. We can just hope that, when the tumult has subsided, Hong Kong is able to retain a fair portion of the rights and freedoms that make it a unique place.

Some protesters have, in recent weeks, been responsible for some truly grisly acts of violence. Perhaps the saddest case is that of the 70 year old man who was killed when he was hit in the head by a brick thrown by a protester. A horrible and inhumane attack.

Although this case, and protester violence in general, has sparked a range of commentary, one question has yet to be asked: What would Mencius say? What would he say about violence and the general situation now in Hong Kong.

First off, he would condemn the killing and harming of innocent people. Indeed, he states this twice in the book that bears his name.

In chapter 2A2 (Gong Sun Chou I), when he is describing how two sages are morally accomplished in a manner that approaches Confucius, he states that neither they nor Confucius "would have performed one act that was not right or killed an innocent person in order to possess all-under-Heaven" (Bloom translation)

This injunction is repeated in 7A33 (Jin Xin I) when Mencius is describing the character of a scholar (士), which we can take in this case as a person who is learning how to live a morally good life: "Being committed to humaneness and rightness, that is all. To put one innocent person to death contravenes humaneness. To take what is not one's own contravenes rightness." (Bloom).

Although these statements apply to officials and scholars, not common people, we can assume that Mencius believes that violence against innocents should be condemned regardless of who commits the crime.

But for Mencius people in positions of power have a particular responsibility when social and economic conditions deteriorate. He generally understands political leadership as bearing a special duty to ensure that people have a "constant means of livelihood," (恆產) because he understands that crime, and by extension certain sorts of violence, are rooted in a failure of political leadership to ensure a "constant means of livelihood."  Here are two examples:

1A7 (Liang Hui Wang I): "The people, lacking a constant means of livelihood, will lack constant minds, and when they lack constant minds there is no dissoluteness, depravity, deviance, or excess to which they will not succumb. If, once they have sunk into crime, one responds by subjecting them to punishment - this is to entrap the people." (Bloom).

6A2 (Gaozi I): "The goodness of human nature is like the downward course of water. There is no human being lacking in the tendency to do good, just as there is no water lacking in the tendency to flow downward. Now, by striking the water and splashing it, you may cause it to go over your head, and by damming and  channeling it, you can force it to flow uphill. But is this the nature of water? It is force that makes this happen. While people can be made to do what is not good, what happens to their nature is like this." (Bloom)."

For Mencius, abhorrent actions are contrary to the basic goodness of human nature. When violence occurs we should take a stand against it but we should also seek the deeper political reasons for its ignition. Material conditions are an important but not exclusive catalyst. If people are in desperate circumstances, if they do not have a "constant means of livelihood," they will be susceptible to act violently. This has some application to Hong Kong, where young people feel they have been shut out of the city's prosperity. But it is not just about having a secure material life. Notice in 1A7, Mencius tells us why material comforts are necessary: "Therefore an intelligent ruler will regulate the livelihood of the people, so as to make sure that, for those above them, they shall have sufficient wherewith to serve their parents, and, for those below them, sufficient wherewith to support their wives and children..." (Legge translation).  People need material resources so they can take care of their families in a dignified manner. What matters here is moral dignity.

That is the link to 6A2. Circumstances can impel a person to immoral acts but that kind of coercion, that "damming and channeling," runs contrary to basic human dignity, the inherent human impulse to do the right thing.

If we notice the timeline of protest in Hong Kong it is clear that the movement started out peacefully. Most symbolically significant was the march on June 16th, when approximately two million people took to the streets in an extraordinary show of peaceful dissent. But the "damming and channeling" of the Hong Kong government, the attempt to impose a massively unpopular law and the continued intransigence in the face of overwhelming public opinion, has thwarted Hong Kong people's impulse to protest peacefully. They have been pushed toward violence by the violence they have faced. Yes, perhaps they should not succumb to their baser instincts, but for them now it is a matter of dignity, a struggle to maintain a society where they can care for their families and themselves in a dignified manner, not dominated by an external power beyond their control that impairs their material well being and their moral sensibilities.

What's happening in Hong Kong now is what Mencius tells us in 1A7: the government, both in locally and in Beijing, has created conditions through which Hong Kongers have been entrapped. In defending their dignity, they face brutality and arrest and incarceration. The violence produced under these circumstances demonstrates the inhumanity of the current political leadership.

 

New Book: Blogging China in the 21st Century

 

I've made a book out of parts of this blog. With material stretching back to 2005, I concentrated on various questions surrounding the reinvention of "tradition" in the PRC today, creating a volume focusing on ancient Chinese thought in modern Chinese life.

The title might be better than most of my other efforts: Blogging China in the 21st Century: Philosophical, Historical, and Political Observations from The Useless Tree Blog.

It is available in both Kindle and on-demand paperback

 

The Unbearable Lightness of Beijing: July 2018

Most of the usual haunts haven’t changed too much from last year. The hipsters are out and about on Gulou, the touts energetically try to pull people into the electronics malls in Zhongguancun, and the craft beers flow abundantly down at Jing-A and Great Leap.  Beijing seems its hot and sultry and bustling self this July. 

The hutongs are quieter after the city government swept through this past year to close down so many marvelously motley shops and cafes and bars and to chase away unfortunate out-of-towners lacking the all-important Beijing residence permit.  But the jumble and throng of the city remains. The incongruous combination of overlarge boulevards and undersized alley-way streets (undersized, at any rate, for the number of cars barging in), and the sheer mass of 20-odd million people, impose a particular and inexorable logic to this urban sprawl.  However hard the planners try to make this place over in their controlled and antiseptic vision, multitudes of Beijingers will ignore their decrees and bring out their plastic stools in the evening, fire up the barbeque, sit with friends and family, and make their best lives.

On one level, there appears to be a certain middle class satisfaction about this city.  The myriad commodities on sale allow for a wide range of material self-expression.  People, young and old, create unique lifestyles though their clothes, their hair, their online profiles, their look, their stuff, to suit themselves.  There is a familiar kind of social and cultural freedom.

We shouldn’t make too much of t-shirts, but it’s hard not to notice those that seem to press for greater personal autonomy. Here are some I’ve noticed in the past few days, all in Beijing, all in English:

“Democracy”

“Feminist”

“Girls don’t dress for boys”

“Girls can do whatever they want”

“Thought is free”

“Make your own rules”

Yes, “democracy” is a Socialist Core Value but I can’t help but wonder if the person wearing it might be thinking somewhat differently.

The feminists messages – another was “the future is female” – could indicate support for the emergent #MeToo consciousness here. It is a “consciousness” and not a “movement,” not yet at least, because the party-state is so determined to block any larger-scale overt political organization around this or any other message outside of the ideological orthodoxy. But the t-shirts suggest a different story.

Refreshingly, a critical eye is also cast on the US, as this message made clear:

“Elect a clown, expect a circus”

There is a fair amount of respect for Trump here, an assumption that he must know what he’s doing and that he has a fully developed foreign policy strategy. Perhaps Chinese folks have to presume that the man behind the developing trade war is somehow smart and capable; they have to try to discern a clear pattern of behavior in order to formulate their response.  But there are obviously those who realize that the US has, indeed, elected a clown and we all just have to hold on tight until the democratic cycle shuts down the circus.

All of this, the messaging for personal freedom, is not unusual. Over the past five years, during my annual July sojourn to teach Chinese undergraduates at a university here, I’ve encountered similar aspirations, not just on t-shirts but also in conversations with students and faculty and friends.  It does not add up to a significant challenge to the regime’s power or even the policy directions of the government. There isn’t enough political space. Whatever the dissatisfaction, it does not seem to run deep enough to motivate overt resistance.  The material wealth, though unequally distributed, together with the diversity in social and cultural expression, are still sufficient to counteract the political and ideological constraints.  Although this is an incredibly competitive society, you can make a fairly good life – xiaokang as the Party line would say – if you stay away from oppositional politics.

The horrors being inflicted on Uighur people in Xinjiang are kept out of the public eye here and, even if the news of “re-education camps” circulated more widely, it is unlikely that middle class Han Chinese would rise up to defend Muslims in the far west.  The state-sponsored narrative of “terrorists” and “splittists” and “radical Islamacists” vitiates the recognition and understanding that must proceed rage and action.

And so the Beijing summer unfolds.

Yet there is something different this year, an underlying anxiety that has not found its full political or social articulation.  The economy is sputtering.  Official figures report continued healthy growth but official figures have been faked before and there is reason to question whether rosy GDP numbers truly reflect the real economic situation.  The stock market is down, despite state efforts to prop it up; the currency is weakening; and debt is growing.  The developing trade war with the US further adds to economic uncertainty.

A journalist friend, who works for a Chinese financial magazine, told me the other day that people here are increasingly worried about near-term economic prospects. Everybody knows the official numbers are fiction; everybody can see the need for some sort of policy change. But Xi Jinping is not exercising the leadership that he has claimed since he rose to power. Economic reform is required but all that is happening is economic drift.

And the recent vaccine scandal has only heightened public skepticism toward the powers-that-be.

Small political signs are starting to emerge, suggestions that people are questioning the power and wisdom of the supreme leader (lingxiu).  Some could be people at the top of the hierarchy, those who encouraged the recent Xinhua article, since taken down, that reminded us of how former Chairman Hua Guofeng once apologized for creating a personality cult.  In discussing Hua, the writer allegorically raises questions about Xi.

A few rungs down the power structure, a law professor at Tsinghua University, Xu Zhangrun, has just published an essay in which he warns of the revival of a personality cult -  个人崇拜 – and a “return to totalitarianism” - 极权回归.  He doesn’t mention Xi by name, but we all know what he is talking about.

Xu clearly crosses the lines that have been established in the past few years for how much criticism of the leadership will be tolerated.  He even calls for a reversal of the verdict of the June 4^th Beijing massacre, taboo for the past twenty-nine years.  Either he is just personally fed up with the tightening political climate of the Xi years and is willing to risk his career and livelihood, or he has some powerful backers who have promised to protect him if he comes forward and starts a broader effort to rein in Xi’s power. Whatever the case, his intervention is extraordinary. Does he reflect a broader public mood?  

When political power is highly centralized into the hands of a single leader, that person can claim the credit for all of the apparent successes of national development. But the supreme leader could be held responsible for the failures, too. My journalist friend speculated that perhaps Xi is letting things drift because he knows just how precarious the economic situation is. He knows that if the system no longer delivers the goods, political legitimacy could be undermined. He knows that the authority he has amassed since 2012 could work against him when the going gets rough.

And everyone knows this.  The out-of-town visitors to Beijing, the people who come from the provinces to see the sights and stores, to wander up and down Nanluoguxiang and gawk at the boutiques and nibble on the Taiwanese snacks, they all know. They know that life is pretty good just now but that could change rather quickly.  They know, maybe as Hua Guofeng learned, that whoever is on top one day could find himself out of luck the next.

Some Pieces for The China Channel

While this blog has been dark for a few months, I've been writing some stuff for The China Channel, a rather new endeavor sponsored by the LA Review of Books. I'm going to leave the links here, since all of these pieces involve contemporary interpretations of ancient Chinese thought of one sort or another:

Philosopher King: The classical philosophy that Xi Jinping ignores

Liberal Confucianism: Yan Xuetong's qualified acknowledgment of liberalism

 

Why Xi Jinping's China is Legalist, Not Confucian: The philosophical basis of China's "New Era"

Happy Reading!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thoughts on the Classic of Filial Respect 孝經 and Student Protest in Hong Kong

This past semester, on leave from my usual gig at Williams College, I've been teaching at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. The time here is now coming to an end (returning to the US next week), but it's been a fascinating experience. My class, "Government and Politics in Contemporary China," has been enhanced by the Hong Kong perspective, the ongoing struggle of democracy supporters (paywall) here to maintain as much autonomy and freedom as they can against the encroachments of the PRC. Also, the community of scholars in Hong Kong working on ancient Chinese philosophy is extensive and active. And since it is a sabbatical, with only one class to teach this semester, there's been a bit more time to read texts that have escaped me over the years. One of these is the Xiaojing, the Classic of Filial Respect, which I have somehow missed.

All these things run together in my mind. Here are some thoughts on the Xiaojing and protest.

I delved into the "philosophical translation" of the text by Henry Rosemont (a fine man, RIP) and Roger Ames, which has a long and helpful introduction (that takes up most of the volume) to the very short classic text (only about twelve pages long). Rosemont and Ames place the Xiaojing in its historical context, explicate its key elements, and develop their ideas on "role ethics." But the first, most notable aspect of their work is their title: The Chinese Classic of Family Reverence. 

The standard translation is: The Classic of Filial Piety. In the very first paragraph Rosemont and Ames argue that "piety" is problematic insofar as it conjures up religious connotations and distracts from the active, this-worldly project of Confucianism. A fair point. But the word "filial" is so deeply ingrained in discussions of xiao 孝 that it is hard to jettison. "Family reverence" certainly captures the general intention of xiao and it expands the relevant social context beyond the father-son relationship suggested by "filial." But we probably need to keep "filial" in our translation, given its historical prominence, recognizing that it should, indeed, include relationships beyond that of father-son. I like something like "filial respect" for xiao, which moves away from piety but keeps contact with other translations. And we need to find a term reflects the nuanced understanding of "obedience" in the text.  "Reverence" must make room for protest, even resistance.

As for the text itself, perhaps the most striking point, especially for those not fully acquainted with the Lunyu and Mengzi, is Chapter 15, "On Remonstrance," where we have this exchange between Master Zeng and Confucius (using the Rosemont and Ames translation):

    [Master Zeng:] ...."I would presume to ask whether children can be deemed filial simply by obeying every command of their father."

    [Confucius:] "What on earth are you saying? What on earth are you saying?.....Thus, if confronted by reprehensible behavior on his father's part, a son has no choice but to remonstrate with his father, and if confronted by reprehensible behavior on his ruler's part, a minister has no choice but to remonstrate with his ruler. Hence, remonstrance is the only response to immorality. How could simply obeying the commands of one's father be deemed filial?"

 That last line is memorable: 從父之令，又焉得為孝乎！ 

It is clear that Confucius never meant filiality to be understood simply as blind obedience. Yes, in Lunyu 2.5, when asked to define filiality, he says: "It is not being disobedient." - 無違. But that is not absolute. We know that elsewhere Confucius and Mencius both urge remonstrance in the face of bad actions by fathers or even kings. The strongest expression of this idea might be Mengzi 5B.9, where he argues that should remonstrance against a bad ruler fail, then ministers of royal blood should dethrone him. One should not be silent or inactive in the face of immorality.

This is an important point to keep in mind, given the general structure of the Xiaojing. The text has an inescapably hierarchical quality about it. The opening chapter refers to the "former kings," and King Wen in particular (a typical convention of the classic texts) as exemplars of xiao. The "common people" look up at these sorts of leaders to learn how to be good. That top-down perspective is reiterated in Chapters 2-6, which begins with the "Emperor" as a paragon of xiao and then moves down the socio-political hierarchy - "hereditary lords," "ministers and high officials," "lower officials" - until finally the experience of the "common people" is discussed. While it may be true that xiao, or the lack of it, could be invoked to challenge particular leaders, the organization of the text is designed to reinforce the political authority of the existing power structure.

The implicit authoritarianism of the Xiaojing is to be expected, since it has been filtered through various political and intellectual movements throughout its history, most aimed at shaping social and cultural practice to the needs of political order.

But even within the powerfully hierarchical and disciplinary character of the text there is that ray of light: the rejection of blind obedience.

And that brings me back to contemporary Hong Kong and my students who struggle daily against the loss of their civil and political freedom. There is much in the culture here that pushes against their political activism: the highly competitive educational system; the unforgiving neo-liberal economy; the astronomical housing prices; and, yes, the generation gap with their parents who urge them not to rock the boat. Protest can be framed as a violation of filial respect in any of a number of ways. The political atmosphere is gloomy, the power of the PRC seems ineluctable. But the students persist. They know they will not achieve the kind of political autonomy they pursue, but they also know that they must resist and protect what they can.

And if, one day, their parents say to them that they are being unfilial for not following entreaties to give up the fight and go back to class and get a job, those students could say in response:

"What on earth are you saying?....How could simply obeying the commands of one's father be deemed filial?"

That's what the Xiaojing says.

Legal Exoneration: A Confucian Perspective

A reader messaged to ask for a Confucian answer to this question: what does society owe people who have been wrongly convicted of crimes?

She asks because she is working with people in Taiwan on the issue of legal exoneration, along the lines of the Taiwan Innocence Project.

Looking into the Lunyu and Mengzi we can find some passages that speak to this question, though only rather indirectly.  Perhaps the best place to start is with a reminder that Confucius holds a certain mistrust for highly routinized systems of administration, both political and legal (Analects 2.3; Analects 12.13). He believes that justice is best achieved by wise and humane leaders crafting decisions based on a careful consideration of particular social and familial circumstances. Some legal theorists have developed an interpretation of "Confucian Virtue Jurisprudence" to capture the distinctiveness of this perspective.

It might, then, be reasonable to look at how Confucius and Mencius describe noble-minded leaders (junzi - 君子) when they realize they've made a bad decision, and use those passages to answer the broader question of legal exoneration for people wrongly convicted.

In this regard we find Analects 19.21:

子貢曰：「君子之過也，如日月之食焉：過也，人皆見之；更也，人皆仰之。

Zigong said: "Mistakes of the noble-minded are like eclipses of sun and moon: they make a mistake, and it's there for everyone to see; they make it right, and everyone looks up in awe." (Hinton)

This suggests that if a miscarriage of justice occurs, it should be recognized and rectified. Indeed, the error cannot but be noticed: it is as obvious as an eclipse. How could it not, then, be made right?

That, at least, is what a good person, and by extension a good legal system, would do. This sentiment is repeated in Mengzi 2B.9, with a bit more detail. There, Mencius is asked about an apparent misjudgment made by the Duke of Zhou, one of the revered founders of the Zhou Dynasty.  It seems the wise Duke appointed his elder brother, Guan Shu, to keep the remnants of the previous Shang Dynasty under control. Guan Shu, however, sided with the Shang and attacked Zhou, an irruption that was eventually put down by the Duke but not without raising some questions about his decision-making. Mencius tells us, referencing Analects 19.21, that the Duke made things right, and he did so in a way we all can learn from:

且古之君子，過則改之；今之君子，過則順之。古之君子，其過也，如日月之食，民皆見之；及其更也，民皆仰之。今之君子，豈徒順之，又從為之辭。

"...when the junzi of old committed an error, he corrected his course. When a ruler errs today, he persists in his error. The error of the junzi of old was like an eclipse of the sun or moon: the people all observed it, and when he changed course they all admired him for it. Nowadays rulers not only persist in their errors, they make excuses for them." (Enos, pdf)

It appears that the good behavior of the Duke of Zhou had been forgotten in the age of Mencius ("nowadays").  But look at the key point: to persist in an erroneous decision, and to make excuses for it, is deplorable. The right thing to do is to change course, to correct the error in a public and transparent manner.

To return to the question at hand - what does society owe people who have been wrongly convicted of a crime? - the first part of an answer would be: a public and transparent process of exoneration, as noticeable as the aftermath of an eclipse of sun and moon.

But how do you make up for the loss inflicted by wrongful conviction: perhaps years in jail, loss of livelihood, family disintegration? Confucius, as usual, would not have a strict formula of recompense, but he would be sympathetic and generous. Look at how he treated one of his followers who had been wrongfully convicted in Analects 5.1:

子謂公冶長，「可妻也。雖在縲絏之中，非其罪也」。以其子妻之。

The Master said of Gong Ye Chang that he might be wived; although he was put in bonds, he had not been guilty of any crime. Accordingly, he gave him his own daughter to wife. (Legge)

Obviously, these days we do not treat women in such a manner: daughters have the freedom to choose to marry whom they want. But think of the sentiment behind the act here: Confucius is expressing a supreme trust and respect for someone who had been wrongfully convicted. He is establishing an on-going and valuable relationship with him. The spirit of this gesture suggests that, extrapolated to modern circumstances, society, as represented by its government and legal system, owes wrongfully convicted persons sufficient social recognition, and perhaps economic means, to allow them to reconstruct their lives with dignity and honor. 

We might also keep in mind again here that Mencius emphasizes the importance of helping people gain a "certain livelihood" so that "they shall have sufficient wherewith to serve their parents, and, for those below them, sufficient wherewith to support their wives and children; that in good years they shall always be abundantly satisfied, and that in bad years they shall escape the danger of perishing." This would point to a policy that would help the wrongfully accused find jobs and maintain a stable incomes after their re-integration into society.

Beyond these rudimentary notions of what Confucius and Mencius might advocate in cases of exoneration, there is also a response they would firmly reject: the cold, brutal Legalist treatment meted out to poor Mr. He, as recounted by Han Feizi. (pp. 224-225).

Mr. He was a double victim of wrongful punishment. He twice brought what he knew to be a valuable piece of jade to the king, and twice the king's jeweler failed to see that it was indeed genuine, and twice the king had Mr. He's foot chopped off. After hearing of Mr. He's grief (he cried until his eyes bled!) over the injustice he was dealt, the king sent an aide to investigate. The heartless message to Mr. He was: "Many people in the world have had their feet amputated - why do you weep so piteously over it?" (天下之刖者多矣，子奚哭之悲也?). Mr. He replied that he wept because his integrity had been impugned. The wrongful imputation of a deceitful character was harder to bear than even the loss of both feet.

Han Feizi makes Mr. He's story into an allegory for the travails of the proponents of Legalism: their political philosophy is like the the unappreciated jade, valuable yet spurned. What is missing, however, in this Legalist rationalization is a recognition of the victim's plight. No sympathy, no redress, no chance of exoneration. Mr. He is simply collateral damage in the king's battle to maintain political power against potential deceivers.

This inhumane ideology is clearly at odds with the views of Confucius and Mencius. That, at least, is the stance of Han Feizi, who relentlessly attacks Confucians for being, among other things, idealist dupes, destined to lose political struggles.

Chinese tradition includes both a clear Confucian justification for exoneration and a strong Legalist rejection of the same.  Activists at the Taiwan Innocence Project, should they want to, can find some solace in the Lunyu and Mengzi.  The Han Feizi, not so much.

 

Mass Evictions in Beijing: What Would Mencius Do?

Beijing gets cold this time of year and the impending winter is especially hard now for tens of thousands of city residents. In the past week or so, the Beijing Municipal Government has demanded that people immediately vacate dwellings that have been deemed unsafe. It doesn't matter that they have lived in these homes for many years and have nowhere else to go on such short notice. Police have been deployed to force people to leave as bulldozers move in to demolish large areas of housing and small businesses.

The action comes after a tragic fire, on November 19th, which killed 19 people in a cramped, migrant worker neighborhood. There certainly are fire and safety issues that need to be addressed in Beijing's working class precincts, but the government's sweeping and instantaneous uprooting of so many families goes well beyond the putative safety concerns.  It is an assault on the "low end population," - diduan renkou 低端人口 - a dehumanizing term coined by the government to describe workers from other provinces who do not hold official Beijing residency papers, in an aggressive and coercive gentrification. It is happening all over the city.

Some Chinese intellectuals have publicly criticized the heartless manner in which the mass evictions have been carried out. An open letter states: “Any civilised and law abiding society cannot tolerate this, we must clearly condemn and oppose these actions.” 

And we could add, any humane and caring society, one that lived up to the highest ideals of its Confucian tradition, should also condemn and oppose these actions. That's what Mencius would do.

Consider this passage:

As to the people, if they have not a certain livelihood, it follows that they will not have a fixed heart. And if they have not a fixed heart, there is nothing which they will not do, in the way of self-abandonment, of moral deflection, of depravity, and of wild license. When they thus have been involved in crime, to follow them up and punish them - this is to entrap the people. How can such a thing as entrapping the people be done under the rule of a benevolent man? Therefore an intelligent ruler will regulate the livelihood of the people, so as to make sure that, for those above them, they shall have sufficient wherewith to serve their parents, and, for those below them, sufficient wherewith to support their wives and children; that in good years they shall always be abundantly satisfied, and that in bad years they shall escape the danger of perishing. After this he may urge them, and they will proceed to what is good, for in this case the people will follow after it with ease.

 若民，則無恆產，因無恆心。苟無恆心，放辟，邪侈，無不為已。及陷於罪，然後從而刑之，是罔民也。焉有仁人在位，罔民而可為也？是故明君制民之產，必使仰足以事父母，俯足以畜妻子，樂歲終身飽，凶年免於死亡。然後驅而之善，故民之從之也輕。

 Mencius believes that a government is responsible for creating economic conditions that facilitate the moral lives of "the people."  The struggling migrant workers in Beijing are trying to secure a "certain livelihood," steady employment and enough of a paycheck to take care of their families. By destroying their homes and pushing them out into the cold, the municipal authorities are denying people the means to "serve their parents" and "support their wives [spouses] and children."  Should the people protest and if they are arrested, they are not, from this perspective, guilty of some sort of crime. Rather, they have been "entrapped" by an inhumane government. Desperation born of intolerable circumstances is a sign of callous leadership.

Some might want to argue that the notion of "low end population" has some resonance with the Confucian idea of "small people" - xiaoren, 小人. And it's true that Confucius and Mencius are sometimes exasperated at the moral failings of people with insufficient moral education. But that is not reason to cast people out of their homes and drive them out of the city. Indeed, their perspective would be precisely the opposite: when confronted with "small people," government must remain steady in its commitment to provide stable material opportunities and public education.

However much leaders in China like to present themselves as avatars of a revived traditional Confucian morality, the actions in Beijing trample upon the basic precepts of Confucianism and offer only the most depressing illustration of inhumane government.

 

Review of Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto by Bryan W. Van Norden

Last year, Jay L. Garfield and Bryan W. Van Norden penned an op-ed in the New York Times that took academic philosophy departments in the US to task for failing to take seriously non-Western systems of thought. They suggested that, to better reflect the historical and cultural prejudices of their actual undertakings, philosophy departments in colleges and universities should change their names to “Department of European and American Philosophy.” 

For those of us keeping track, Garfield and Van Norden's critique was hardly surprising. Among China specialists, the ingrained bias in academia against accepting Chinese philosophy as "philosophy" has been chronicled for years, most notably in the American Philosophical Association's Newsletter on Asian and Asian-American Philosophers and Philosophies, especially the Fall 2008 (pdf) and Spring 2016 (pdf) editions, and in Brian Bruya's 2015 analysis in the journal, Dao: "The Tacit Rejection of Multiculturalism in American Philosophy Ph.D. Programs: The Case of Chinese Philosophy."

But the op-ed sparked some outrage in its comments section (797 comments strong!) and initiated a sometimes pointed exchange of views  among philosophers on the intertubes.

And now comes Van Norden with a more fully developed, yet no less punchy, polemic in the form of a concise and persuasive book: Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto.  And, indeed, he pulls no punches.

What is likely to attract the most attention is the assertion of racism, both in Garfield's foreword and Van Norden's opening chapter, as part of an explanation for the exclusion of non-Western philosophies from too many philosophy curricula in the US.  Academic philosophers, the majority of whom likely identify politically as liberals or progressives, will no doubt recoil at the charge. Garfield, however, is careful to draw a distinction between structural racism and individual racism:

A social structure can be racist when it serves to establish or to perpetuate a set of practices that systematically denigrate - implicitly or explicitly - people of particular races.

Individual academic philosophers can be anti-racist but, through their participation in exclusionary intellectual activity, reproduce a kind of racism. Van Norden, in the first chapter, uses the term "essentialist ethnocentrism" to delve more deeply into the problem, and he provides more substance to it through citations of Kant and Hegel and other cornerstones of the Western philosophical canon.  He goes on to argue that Kant and his followers, influenced no doubt by racist conceptions of the impossibility of "philosophy" in non-Western histories, are responsible for the ethnocentric view that "philosophy" encompasses only those texts and traditions, starting in ancient Greece, relevant to their own European intellectual projects. Drawing on Peter K.J. Park's book, Africa, Asia, and the History of Philosophy: Racism in the Formation of the Philosophical Canon, 1780-1830, Van Norden writes:

On the one hand, defenders of Immanuel Kant's philosophy consciously rewrote the history of philosophy to make it appear that his Critical Idealism was the culmination toward which all earlier philosophy was more or less groping, more or less successfully.  On the other hand, European intellectuals increasingly accepted and systematized views of white racial superiority that entailed that no non-Caucasian group could develop philosophy.

The absence of non-Western philosophy from contemporary American academic philosophy departments is not an ahistorical accident. Van Norden's chief task is to confront his philosophy colleagues with this sad and sorry history and make the case that the time for correction, for the inclusion of non-Western systems of thought, is long past due.

In chapter 2, he turns to the affirmative case, a demonstration of the kinds of valuable insights and arguments non-Western sources bring to established philosophical issues and problems. For me, this is the most valuable and successful chapter in the book. In several tightly argued sections, Van Norden brings Cartesians into dialogue with Buddhists on matters of metaphysics; he contrasts Hobbes and Mencius on issues of political philosophy; and shows how Aristotelians and Neo-Confucians might debate questions of ethics. In each case, due attention is given to each tradition's basic premises and constructive comparisons are developed. If anyone is looking for a focused and clearly written chapter to demonstrate to a class, or a roomful of philosophers, or some other group of interested parties just how thought-provoking and refreshing comparative philosophy can be, this is it. I will likely use it in the classroom for precisely this purpose.

Chapters 3 and 4 take on broader problems in American politics and society that create obstacles to more open and inclusive ways of thinking. In Chapter 3, "Trump's Philosopher's," Van Norden presses back against the impulse to build symbolic and physical walls in efforts to construct fantasies of civilizational or nationalistic purity.  Although the US is the focus, China and Xi Jinping's invocation of Confucianism and other classical philosophies does attract his attention. This statement applies as much to Xi as it does to Trump:

Political figures who invoke philosophical or spiritual works for nationalistic purposes have no interest in the actual content of the classics they claim to revere. What is important in each case is that the classics are symbols of what is distinctive and superior about us as opposed to them.

Van Norden then moves on, in chapter 4, to argue against the notion that philosophy is useless, the domain of egg-headed academics and impractical isolates. Taking Marco Rubio's infamous line from the deplorable 2016 Republican Presidential candidate debates - that "welders make more money than philosophers. We need more welders and less [sic] philosophers" - he shows how the study of philosophy contributes to successful careers and, more importantly, enlightened citizenship. That these sorts of points have to be made demonstrates just how far down the anti-intellectual path the contemporary culture has strayed, but Van Norden is right to leave no baseless and boorish charge against philosophy unanswered.

The book concludes with a return to academic philosophers and the humanities. Here Van Norden stresses the dialogic practices of Socrates and Confucius, so highly esteemed in the higher education of their respective traditions, as a commonality that might bridge the unnecessary and unfounded divide that separates American and non-Western approaches to philosophy.  He ends with an invitation to his academic colleagues:

I too desire to bask in the lunar glow of Plato's genius, and walk side by side with Aristotle through the sacred grounds of the Lyceum. But I also want to "follow the path of questioning and learning" with Zhu Xi, and discuss the "Middle Way" of the Buddha. I'm sure you and I will not agree about which is the best way for one to live.

Let's discuss it...

This is, ultimately, a generous book that reaches beyond the initial charges of racism and essentialist ethnocentrism to show constructively how non-Western philosophies can be brought into fruitful interaction with the Western philosophical canon. While some of it engages with social and political issues well beyond the academy, it should be taken seriously as both a diagnosis of a significant intellectual problem within American colleges and universities and as a concrete prescription for a better way.

Reading "Self-Reliance" in Beijing

For the past four summers I have taught a class in July for the Renmin University of China International Summer School: “Confucianism in America.” We read and talk about the ways in which Confucian ideas circulate in US academia and society. I give them, among other things, my book to read. They find some of my ideas (an affirmative Confucian case for same sex marriage) a little crazy, but we have fun and they are good students.

The first order of intellectual business for the class is the ponder the kinds of cultural assumptions Americans bring to any encounter with Confucianism.  And that requires some familiarity with liberalism, as both a political-economic and cultural system. So, I give them the Introduction to John Stewart Mill’s On Liberty, and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay, “Self-Reliance.” I’ve written in the past about some of the issues Mill raises in a Chinese context. This year what struck me was how some of my students embraced Emerson’s call to individuality.

There are thirty students in the class and I encourage active participation. The vast majority are Renda undergraduates, most having just finished their first or second year. About a third of them quite willingly throw themselves into classroom discussions, answering my questions and raising queries of their own. English is the language of instruction, and I assume some are uncomfortable or embarrassed to speak up in a foreign tongue. The bulk of the grading centers on written assignments, and it is there, with a little more time for thought and composition, that they express more of their world views.

For the first assignment they can write about either Mill or Emerson. Mill is the safe choice: it is easy to recognize some value in his famous “harm principle” – the idea that people should be free to behave as they like as long as they do not harm others – and then argue for a rather broad definition of “harm.” For some of my students, “hurting the feelings of the Chinese people” would seem to be consonant with Mill.  Yet even though they might stray rather far from Mill’s own position, I understand their impulse.  They are simply reflecting the pervasive social acceptance here of a much greater limitation on individual behavior than would be tolerated by Americans.  Though that attitude is certainly encouraged by the ruling Communist Party, its roots run deeper culturally than Mao and his revolution and Xi and his neo-traditionalism.

The Emerson essays are of a different sort altogether. In explicating why the notion of self-reliance is important to Emerson, some of the students clearly speak to their own hopes and frustrations in China now.  This passage, edited very lightly for stylistic clarity, captures well what several expressed:

Society wants us to be obedient, punctilious and to be a yes-man; it likes obedience, nominal and traditional rules, and hates self-reliance, truth and creativity. In this way society keeps its stability. But we must know that obeying rigid social rules will scatter our strength, waste our time, and blur our personalities; our mood and thinking will be manipulated by public opinion; our brain, heart and body will not be able to keep independent; our life will be chosen by society, rather than by ourselves. We must know that sticking to the convention is useless, it cannot solve any problems or promote any progress; we need to live with self-reliance, in knowledge, in society and in law; we should break the shackles with all our might; we should trust ourselves and show our talent.

Were I teaching this text in the US, to American undergraduates, this sentiment would be unremarkable. But here it stands out: a clarion call for personal independence. And it makes sense to me, based on comments from other students and my casual observations of young people in China now.

In general (and it is always a bit dangerous to try to generalize about such a large and diverse place as China), Chinese youth are much more restrained than their American counterparts, and we might mistakenly take that reticence as a kind of self-denial: the weight of expectations of filial obedience coupled with the hectoring morality of the party-state overwhelm individuality and self-expression. But that's not true. Young people here now find all sorts of ways to demonstrate their personal identities over and against social conformity. You can see it in little things: tattoos (which not all that long ago were taboo for "good girls"); t-shirts (one young woman on the subway sported one announcing "No Commitments" - a most un-Confucian sentiment); and the wacky hair colors down on Gulou Dajie. But you also see the desire for individuality presented in more thoughtful ways, like another student paper that pushes against the usual argument that individuality must be constrained in order to protect the broader interests of society. The title of her paper is: “Self Reliance Benefits Both People Themselves and Society”. Her conclusion is that individual flourishing not only allows each of us to find and develop what is uniquely best in us as persons, but it is only when individual flourishing is promoted and supported that societal flourishing and prosperity and, yes, stability, can be achieved. We hadn't read Adam Smith (I don't know if she had previously) but she could have easily added: "as if by an invisible hand." In her own words: "personal improvement contributes to social improvement."

I am not suggesting that liberalism is about to take over China. Far from it. But we should also avoid the opposite falsehood: that young people here have no sense of their own individuality and simply conform to social norms and conventions. I found this even in the more circumspect papers on Mill, as here:

But I agree with Mill, and I insist that enough freedom or tolerance in society is the mother of variety, and variety is the origin of flourishing, and real stability comes from long-term prosperity, not assimilation.

The Renda kids are alright.