Dave, over at Peking Duck, posts about a new book entitled, The Confucian Mind: A Historical and In-Depth Look at Asian Culture and Psyche. I know it is not fair to criticize the book before you read it, but I guess I am in an unfair frame of mind this morning (perhaps I have been grading too many papers of late!). In any event, from Dave's description, and witty critique, I will almost certainly not read this book. And I'll tell you why.
This seems a cruder and even more overgeneralized analysis than the recent "Chinese Mindset" dust-up over at China Law Blog. In that discussion I argued that there is no singular Chinese mindset. So, I will repeat myself somewhat here and say that there is no "Confucian mind' or "Chinese mind," or, at least not in the simplified form offered in the blurbs of the book Dave has discovered.
Of course there are "cultural differences," which here would imply varying expectations of social behavior, etiquette and formality. I would even go so far as to say some cultures, Thais come immediately to mind, are generally more polite than others, New Yorkers, say. But the term "mind" hardens dynamic social differences into unchanging mental constructs, which I believe distorts things. I think Dave's critique is right on the money:
But it is when the psychological profile of another culture is made utterly foriegn ("they don't guarantee the child's survival needs! What barbarians!") instead of pointing out that the difference between cultures is one of degrees and not kind (Woody Allen freaks out about other people's opinions, family thanksgivings in America are sometimes a tour de force of fake ingratiating, lip service to hierarchy and thinly veiled threats) that I feel it crosses a line. The tone shifts from how different human cultures place different emphasis on universal human feelings and ideas, to how "Asian values grown out of that social structure (subservience) diametrically contradict core Western values of freedom and justice".
There seems to be a certain urge, on the part of some people, to reduce large and complex cultures down to small and compact statements and sound bites. This is not a new thing. As I suggested before, in the nineteenth century people from Europe and America wrote all sorts of books and articles about Chinese characteristics. They were convinced that Chinese were lazy and backward and superstitious and dirty and... you get the idea. Conclusions would then follow about how Chinese cannot really rule themselves or modernize their economy or fight wars effectively. The "Confucian mind" was just not suited to modern life.
Fast forward a hundred and twenty five years or so and we have a strong and rising China which has been the fastest growing region of the world economy for twenty years and whose governing institutions, however overly repressive they may be, have maintained routine administrative rule across a vast population and territory (Max Weber would be proud!). In other words, what was thought to be impossible, given the "Confucian mind" as it was understood by Westerners in the 19th century, has come to pass. It would seem then that either: 1) the "Confucian mind" was misjudged in the 19th century; or 2) the "Confucian mind" has changed; or 3) any conception of "mind" is of little significance compared to other historical forces (military strategies, economic forces, political structures, etc.). I think all three are true.
Just about any assertion of a "Chinese mind" or a "Western mind" fails to capture an intricately multifaceted underlying reality. This might best been seen in the counter-construction of the "Western mind." Notice in passage above that Dave quotes the author as saying that the subservience of the "Confucian Mind" contradicts "core Western values
of freedom and justice". But what does it mean to assert that? Yes, there is an intellectual history of "freedom," and the concept has certainly shaped the creation of political institutions and economic practices in the "West." But there have also been regular transgressions of that principle in the West - when did African Americans finally gain the freedom to vote as they wish? With the 1964 Voting Rights Act or later? American society, in other words, tolerated a fundamental violation of one of its "core values" for decades and decades after the formal dissolution of slavery. And let's not even talk about the restriction of basic freedoms that American society now tolerates in the name of the "war on terror." So, when did the "West" become the "West"? Or has it ever really been the "West"?
Bottom line: any society is always more diverse - in good and bad ways - than any oversimplified assertion of "mind" or "core values" can even capture. So, why create categories that are bound to fail? Why not just be patient with complexity, and narrow our explanatory and descriptive focus to more manageable questions?
My last complaint: this is a very crude rendering of Confucianism. Yes, there are ways that ideas derived from Confucius and Mencius get mixed in with Legalist practices to produce a repressive ideology that has gone by the name "Confucianism." But there is more to Confucianism than that, much more. And why should we characterize the "Confucian mind" as "subservient" when the Analects tells us that the wisest men (supposedly those to whom subservience is due) should exercise reciprocity toward others. Indeed, the powerful should be subservient to others, as this passage from the Analects suggests:
As for Humanity: if you want to make a stand, help others make a stand, and if you want to reach your goal, help others reach their goal. Consider yourself and treat others accordingly: this is the method of Humanity. 6.29.
By this standard we should all make ourselves "subservient" to others - rather like the Biblical teaching of "do unto others..." - and, through that social interaction we will discovery ourselves. And the beauty of it is: if everyone is thus "subservient" then no one is really superior.
I would just like to note that China Law Blog takes the same position as The Useless Tree in believing there is no such thing as A Chinese Mindset. I mention this because unless you go look at the China Law Blog to which this post refers, you might get the idea that we at CLB have promulgated the view that there is such a thing as a Chinese Mindset.
Indeed, not only do we (co-blogger Steve Dickinson and I) not think there is such a thing as a Chinese Mindset, we go even further in saying that if there is such a thing, tracking it down and de-ciphering it is not likely to help in conducting your business in China.
Posted by: China Law Blog | November 29, 2006 at 02:29 PM