Reischauer Lecture #2: Body, Body Politic and The WayBy Tu Weiming Citation: Reischauer Lecturer, Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University, April, 1996. The typical Confucian thinker is a scholar-official who is informed by a profound historical consciousness, well-seasoned in the fine arts of poetry, lute and calligraphy, and deeply immersed in the daily routine of government. If philosophy is loosely defined as an edifying conversation informed by disciplined reflection on insights, Confucian thought is distinguished in its commitment to and observation of the human condition. It is a form of embodied thinking with insights derived primarily from practical living. Unlike the Greek philosopher, the Hebrew prophet, the Indian guru, the Buddhist monk or the Christian priest, the Confucian scholar is engaged in society, involved in politics, and dedicated to the cultural transformation of the world. We can find some striking similarities between the idea of the Confucian scholar and the modern western idea of the intellectal but the vision which informs each is different. The modern westeern idea of the intellectual which is derived from the Russian intelligentsia, is the product of the Enlightenment, a form of secular humanism. The Confucian scholar, on the other hand, is inspired by acosmologicalk as well as an anthropological vision and is, therefore not at all anthropocentric In Max Weber’s conception, the two appropriate forms of “calling” for the modern western intellectual are science and politics. The Confucian intellectual, while politically concerned and socially engaged, must also be dedicated to all the mediating cultural structures through education so that society and polity will not be dominated by wealth and power alone. Having been disenchanted with the magic garden or universal brotherhood, the modern western intellectual dictated by the demands of science, technology, and professionalism became, as Weber acknowledged he himself was, unmusical to religious matters and, we may add, unmindful of particularistic local knowledge. Yet, in light of the upsurge of interest in ethnicity, gender, language, land, class, and faith in academic circles in North America and Western Europe in recent decades, Weber’s modernistic ideas rooted in abstract universalism and instrumental rationality, seem anachronistic, if not totally outmoded. The Confucian idea of the intellectual—politically concerned, socially engaged, and culturally informed—seems to have special relevance for professionals in the academy, government, mass media, business, religion, and civic organizations who are concerned about the affairs the world, engaged in social praxis, and dedicated to the well-being of mediating cultural institutions. In this sense, the Confucian scholar, in both spiritual self-definition and social function, is more reminiscent of the modern intellectual than the aforementioned Greek philosopher, Jewish prophet, Indian guru, Buddhist monk, or Christian priest. Furthermore, given the global concerns for ecological degradation, social disintegration, and distributive justice, Confucian inclusive humanism seems more compatible with the spirit of our time than anthropocentric secular humanism of the Enlightenment. For more than a decade, I have been involved in a Confucian critique of the Enlightenment because I strongly believe that the unintended negative consequences of this powerful ideology of the modern West have marginalized the spiritual resources of the Chinese tradition and threatened the core values of the Sinic world, not tomention the future viability of the human species. I am acutely aware of course that the Enlightenment mentality has already become a defining characteristic of modern Chinese consciousness and that, with the help of some of the most brilliant minds in China since the May Fourth movement of 1919, it has fundamentally deconstructed the Confucian tradition. Any attempt to rethink or reanimate the Confucian project must take the Enlightenment critique as a point of departure. My critique of the Enlightenment is intended to broaden, deepen, and enrich rather than to deconstruct the whole enterprise. Professor Edwin Reischauer, in a thought-provoking article prepared for a conference on the “Dynamics of Northeast Asia,” arranged by the Asia Society and held in Japan in November 1973, suggests that in recent centuries “the secular ethics of Confucianism” “has played the unifying role in East Asia that Christianity has played in the West.” As an illustration, he observes that The basic ethical concepts and value systems of the four countries of East Asia (China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam) are surprisingly uniform. For example, all show a strong emphasis on family solidarity, on filial piety, on subordination of the individual to the group, on the ideal of group harmony as opposed to a balance between conflicting rights, on social organization, on careful political (as oppposed to religious or purely cultural) integration, on hard work as a value in itself, on frugality, and on education as morally uplifting and the proper road to personal and family success, though the Japanese have added to these values a special emphasis on stoicism, martial virtues, and extra-family loyalties derived from their feudal experience. Seen in such basic terms, East Asia has been in the past and still in many ways every bit as much of a cultural unit as in the West. My reflection on “the humanist spirit of the Confucian intellectual,” as a tribute to a politically concerned, socially engaged, and culturally informed East Asian as well as North American (dare I say modern Confucian) intellectual, is intended to offer a few still tentative, hopefully evolving, thoughts on yet another arena where cross-cultural and interdiscplinary joint-ventures could be fruitfully conducted in East Asian studies. The Berkeley historian David Keightley, in his “reflections on how it became Chinese,” identifies seven features which, in his view, permeated a cultural tradition later characterized as being Chinese from the Neolithic to the early imperial age in the Han (206 B.C.-A. D. 220):
The myth of Yu, a functional equivalent of the Biblical story of Noah, gives us a glimpse of what Keightley may have in mind. The story of Yu symbolizes a Chinese reflection of the worldwide flood legend. This Chinese cultural hero confronted the natural calamity with human ingenuity. He managed to control the flood waters through great coordinated efforts at many levels. First, he inspired people through exemplary teaching. He is said to have worked on the project for nine years without visiting his family once. Second, his spirit of self-sacrifice was augmented by a charismatic leadership that enabled him to mobilize thousands of people to work at gigantic irrational systems. Third, unlike his father who failed to contain the flood by constructing dams, Yu studied the terrain, understood the nature of the disaster and developed a comprehensive and practical plan to overcome it. As a result, he drained off the flood waters of the North China Plain, divided the empire into nine regions and, according to the quality of the land, equitably distributed the natural resources for all feudal lords. Thus, legend has it that Yu started the first Chinese dynasty Xia (2205?-1766? B.C.). In light of the “grand theory” of the origins of Chinese civilization, with emphasis on religion and politics, advocated by the Harvard archaeologist K.C. Chang, what Keightley proposes is a Confucian reading of a worldview laden with a profoundly religious consciousness. In the shamanistic order of things, power, authority, influence, and prestige were all centered around a strong desire to communicate with the Lord-on-High. If we take the Confucian humanist tradition as a dialectic process involving both a continuation of and a departure from the shamanist Shang culture, the particular form of humanism emerged out of the archaic political culture is both ethical and religious. In fact, it was the interplay between ethical efficacy and religious authenticity that provided the potency for this inclusive humanist life-orientation. Yet, by the Western Zhou, with the emergence of the idea of the Mandate of Heaven, this particular form of shamanism had already assumed an immanentist character affirming the intrinsic value of the sociopolitical order in the world. Human Self-ReflexivityUnderstandably, the human factor, as it was manifested in the construction of social order, the mobilization of labor, the group spirit, the ritual system, the artistic decor, the work ethic, and faith in the improvability of the existential condition featured prominently in early Zhou bronze inscriptions. Viewed in this context, Wing-tsit Chan’s straightforward characterization of Chinese philosophy seems self-evidently true: If one word could characterize the entire history of Chinese philosophy, that word would be humanism—not the humanism that denies or slights a Supreme Power, but one that professes the unity of man and Heaven. In this sense, humanism has dominated Chinese thought from the dawn of its history. Critical scholars may find too strong a Confucian flavor in this statement. They would argue that the classical Chinese thought which flourished in the Spring and Autumn period (722-481 B.C.) was noted for its intellectual diversity. The so-called Hundred Schools represented such a span of life-orientations that “humanism,” as the Confucians would have it, seems too narrow a concept to accommodate the whole range of philosophical horizons that the Chinese mind unfolded. For example, among the seventy or so masters assembled in the capital of the state of Qi, Jixia, in the third century B.C., there were naturalists, cosmologists, sophists, logicians, physiocrats, military strategists, proto-Legalists and Moists as well as Confucian humanists. However, if we use humanism to underscore a strong commitment to the world, an emphasis on social relations, and the primacy of the political order, the world of ideas in ancient China was humanistic to the core. Besides the legendary sage-kings Yao, Shun and the aforementioned Yu, the cultural heroes, vividly portrayed in ancient history, were all statesmen with profound insights into the human condition. Yan Yin and Guan Zhong were outstanding examples. The case of Prime Minister Zichan (active 535 B.C.) of the state of Zheng merits special attention. In a well-considered political move to pacify the wondering ghost of Poyu, a high official who had died of an undeservedly violent cause and who, it was feared, was haunting the people of Zheng, Zichan had Poyu’s son appointed as his father’s successor, offering the following explanation: “When spiritual beings have a place to return to, they will not become malicious.” He then observed the reason Poyu had become a malicious spiritual being: In man’s life the first transformations are called the earthly aspect of the soul (po). After po has been produced, that which is strong and positive is called the heavenly aspect of the soul (hun). If he has had an abundance in the use of material things and subtle essentials, his hun and po will become strong. From this are developed essence and understanding until there are spirit and intelligence. When an ordinary man or woman dies a violent death, the hun and po are still able to keep hanging about men and do evil and malicious things. How much more would be the case of Poyu (the descendent of ministers engaged in the government of Zheng for three generations). (Wing-tsit Chan, pp. 12-13) There are at lease three implications in this anecdote: (1) the human world is intimately intertwined with spiritual beings, (2) the human soul is a complex mixture of earthly and heavenly forces, and (3) human intervention is often necessary to harmonize the cosmic process. Needless to say, hierarchy, work, group, boundary, ritual, obligation, and destiny all feature prominently in the Zichan story. The Anthropocosmic VisionConfucius (551-479 B.C.) greatly admired Zichan. The minister’s reasonable way of handling the malicious spirit must have struck a sympathetic resonance in Confucius’ own ethico-religious thinking. When the Master was asked about “serving the spiritual beings,”, he retorted, “If we are not yet able to serve human beings, how can we serve spiritual beings?” When he was asked about death, he retorted, “If we do not yet know about life, how can we know about death?” (11:11, Chan, p. 36 with modifications) Often the modern interpreter takes this to mean that Confucius was exclusively interested in life and human beings and that he was oblivious to death and spiritual beings. This is, I surmise, a serious misreading of a profoundly meaningful statement about the relationship between life and death and between human beings and spiritual beings in Confucian humanism. The assertion that knowing life is a precondition for knowing death by no means implies the rejection of the need for knowing death. On the contrary, precisely because one cannot know death without first understanding the meaning of life, a full appreciation of life entails the need for probing the meaning of death. Similarly, it is impractical and, indeed, implausible to imagine that we can know spiritual beings without a prior knowledge of the human condition. Yet, a full appreciation of the meaning of being human demands that we try to understand spiritual beings as well. Modern scholars, impressed by Confucius’ apparent pragmatism and atheism, have difficulty explaining the Confucian dictum that filial piety is characterized by our ability to serve our parents while they are alive, bury them when they die and continuously offer sacrifice to them as if they are always present, all according to the appropriate ritual practice. In fact, the Confucian tradition is noted for its rich repertoire of elaborate death rituals and its extensive literature on remembrances and veneration of ancestors. How can the anthropologists characterize ancestral cult as a defining characteristic of Confucian religiousness, if the Master was interested in neither death nor spirits? There is a wealth of material on death and spirits in the Analects: When Confucius offered sacrifice to his ancestors, he felt as if his ancestral spirits were actually present. When he offered sacrifice to other spiritual beings, he felt as if they were actually present. He said, “If I do not participate in the sacrifice (in person), it is as if I did not sacrifice at all. (3:12, Chan, p. 25) Wang-sun Chia asked, “What is meant by the common saying, ‘It is better to be on the good terms with the God of the Kitchen (who cooks our food) than with the spirits of the shrine (ancestors) at the southwest corner of the house’?” Confucius said, “It is not true. He who commits a sin against Heaven has no god to pray to.” (3:13, Chan, p. 25) Confucius was very ill. Tzu-lu asked that prayer be offered. Confucius said, “Is there such a thing?” Tzu-lu replied, “There is. A Eulogy says, ‘Pray to the spiritual beings above and below.’” Confucius said, “My prayer has been for a long time.” (7:34, Chan, p. 33.) The human form of life envisioned by Confucius is not anthropocentric. Rather, it is anthropocosmic in the sense that there is implicit mutuality, constant communication, and dynamic interaction between our human world and the cosmic order. Confucian humanism, as an inclusive organismic vision of human flourishing, involves life, death, and spiritual beings. Human Nature as Lived ConcretenessThe Confucian assertion that “Human beings can enlarge the Way” and that “the Way cannot enlarge human beings” (15:28) is not the equivalent of the Greek idea that man is the measure of all things and that man has the will power to change the natural course of action. Surely, as the myth of Yu connotes, human beings through diligent work, collaborative effort, charismatic leadership, knowledge, determination, and sacrifice, are capable of transforming chaos (e.g. the flood) into order (e.g. the well-irrigated “nine regions”), but the Confucian human agent, endowed with rich inner resources for self-transformation, is a servant, partner, and co-creator of Heaven. As a servant, the Mandate of Heaven works through the human agent for its own realization; as a partner, the human agent, by self-cultivation, transmits the culture willed by Heaven; and, as a co-creator, the human agent joins Heaven in a collaborative enterprise to bring to completion the cosmic process: “Heaven engenders, human completes” (tiansheng-rencheng). Our ability to enlarge the Way makes us humble servants, responsible partners, and reverential co-creators. Precisely because we are empowered by Heaven to be an anthropocosmic rather than an anthropocentric being, we cherish the virtues of humbleness, responsibility, and reverence. Implicit in this idea of the human is, to use Professor Benjamin Schwartz’s term, a non-reductionist concept of human nature. Perhaps Confucius’ unique contribution to human self-understanding is his assertion that concrete living person here and now is the basis for human self-reflexivity. A person so conceived is a dynamic process rather than a static structure, inevitably changing and deliberately transforming. The Book of Change, a major source of inspiration for Confucian teaching, articulates the linkage between the Heavenly course and the human way in terms of renewal: “Heaven marches forward vigorously; the profound person (emulating it as model) makes unceasing efforts for self-strengthening.” The process of human self-renewal, individually and communally, is symbolized by three interconnected stages: poetry, ritual, and music. Aesthetic sensitivity enables us to experience sympathetic resonance with nature; ritual practice helps us to find our proper niches in society; and the harmonization between self and other in both nature and society provides a sustainable way for human flourishing. The concrete living person, in this light, is not an isolated individual but a center of relationships. As a center of relationships, the dignity of a person is never reducible to his or her useful functions in society. Surely, we are always obligated and often willing to serve as contributing members of our community, but we are not tools for an external purpose or means to achieve an outside goal. Learning, as character building, is an end in itself; it is for our own sake, not for the sake of any externally imposed condition. To be sure, fame, profit, social utility, or parental approval is important, but they do not, in essence, define who we are. However, as a center of relationships, we are forever interconnected with an ever-expanding network of human-relatedness. Our “learning for the sake of the self” is a personal task, but it is tantamount to the realization of communal well-being rather than a quest for private self-interest. It is commonly assumed that, from an etymological point of view, the cardinal Confucian virtue in the Analects, humanity (ren), presupposes a dyadic relationship, for the character ren seems to consist of the ideogram of “human” and the sign of “two.” The Berkeley Sinologist, Peter Boodberg, impressed by the significance of this combination, ingeniously rendered ren as “co-humanity.” Indeed, humanity, in the Confucian context, is understood as co-humanity. Although this by no means suggests that the dignity of a person is reducible to its sociality (nor does it imply that human worth is externally determined), it emphasizes communication, dialogue, and conversation as proper ways of learning to be human. As concrete living persons, we learn to become human through the ritual act. We can define the Confucian process of humanization as ritualization. We learn to drink, eat, stand, sit, walk, talk, see, listen, smell, and touch by personal knowledge of our environment mediated through the basic caring of those around us. No human being can survive without the constant involvement of the other. The Confucian practice of building an elaborate cultural code on the biological reality of the parent-child relationship is predicated on the belief that the loving care of the parent for the child and the emotional attachment of the child to the parent is the most immediate and natural expression of human feelings. These feelings are primordial sources for moral strength; they are also basic causes for aggression and self-destruction. It is, therefore of paramount importance that elementary education begins with the gradual transformation of the biological necessity of the child’s dependence on the parent into the ethics of filial piety. Self-Cultivation as EmbodimentSelf-cultivation, the Confucian raison d’etre involves the full recognition that the body is the proper home for self-realization. The six arts—ritual, music, archery, charioteering, calligraphy, and counting are all mental exercises rooted in the discipline of the body. Self-cultivation (xiushen), literally “nourishing the body,” is a form of personal knowledge acquired through the refinement of the six senses. The proper ways to drink, eat, stand, sit, walk, talk, see, listen, smell, and touch are serious matters of elementary education which teaches us to embody these basic ritual acts in our practical daily living. Indeed, Confucius defines humanity as returning to “ritual” through self-cultivation and enjoins his students to talk, see, listen, and act in accordance with ritual. (12:1) Through ritualization of the body, we appropriate the civilized mode of conduct. As we learn to express ourselves through the bodily constitution, we become embodied in it. This art of embodying our body as the result of a rigorous discipline of tizhiyushen (“to embody it (the experience of each of the six senses) in the body”) is precisely the process of learning to be human. Building upon this Confucian insight, Mencius (371-289? B.C.) straightforwardly envisions the sage, the most authentic manifestation of humanity, as the “full realization of the bodily form” (jianxing). However, as a disciple of Confucius’ grandson, Zisi, Mencius stresses the spiritual resources inherent in human nature as both the theoretical ground and the practical process of self-realization. He focuses his attention on the embodiment of the heart-mind (xin) as the spacious dwelling and the broad highway of profound persons (junzi). Those who aspire to become profound persons take as their ultimate concern the realization of humanity and rightness in the world through self-cultivation. In the process of actualizing their ultimate concern, the profound persons consider all external conditions secondary. They tap their own internal strength to accomplish the task. Like the spring about to gush forth or the fire beginning to burn, every human being is endowed with feelings that are necessary and sufficient for self-realization. Among them, the most precious is commiseration (a combination of sympathy and empathy) which characterizes the essential nature of humanity. The inability to bear the suffering of our most beloved kin (parent, child, sibling, or spouse) is an expression of commiseration. There is no guarantee that commiseration cannot be depleted, but, as long as the spring is not yet dried up or the fire extinguished, regeneration is always a possibility. Human beings as sentient beings can never be totally reduced to wood or stone. On the contrary, if this feeling is extended through cultivation, it can embody an ever-expanding network of human relationships. Learning to be human is primarily the extension of sympathy and empathy. Since commiseration is boundless, it can, at least in principle, fill up the distance between Heaven and earth. We can, as human beings, embody the myriad things in our sympathy and empathy. When Mencius says that the way of learning is none other than the quest for the lost heart-mind, he means that the recovery of our depleted commiseration takes precedence over all other forms of education. “Full realization of the bodily form,” as Mencius understands it, entails the whole process through which profound persons acquire the personal knowledge to fully embody all dimensions of commiseration in their hearts and minds. Specifically, Mencius envisions six stages of self-transcendence: good, true, beautiful, great, sagely, and spiritual. Goodness means tender-mindedness; truth refers to the inner resources of sympathy and empathy; beauty suggests the feeling of commiseration richly endowed; greatness implies that the inner qualities of being kind shine through brilliantly; sageliness entails the transformative power of caring; and spirituality conveys the mysterious efficaciousness of how such transformation works in the world. We learn to be good, true, beautiful, great, sagely, and spiritual by enhancing the germs and sparks of humanity (tender-mindedness, sympathy, empathy, commiseration, and kindness) inherent in our nature. Through the cultivation of the seeds of humanity in our hearts and minds, we learn to fully realize our bodily form. Similarly, Mencius asserts that if we can completely realize the capacities of our heart-mind, we will understand our nature and that if we understand our nature, we will know Heaven. This faith in the human potential for understanding Heaven through self-knowledge and the human capacity for self-knowledge through the cultivation of the heart-mind is predicated on the sensitivity of the body both as a spacious dwelling and as a broad highway for our ultimate personal realization. The body so conceived is not a private possession. We do not own our bodies; we become our bodies and through that process of becoming we learn to fully realize ourselves as concrete living human beings. Three salient features should be noted here:
The Confucian faith in the transformability of the human condition through self-cultivation is reflected in the ritualization of the body as its point of departure. The body, despite its structural limitation, is an indispensable instrument for self-realization. It is the proper home for mind, soul, and spirit; furthermore, by actively participating in intellectual and spiritual life, the body apporpriates the wrold around us and creates real possibilities of cosic union for us. Thus, when Mencius asserts that “all things are there in me,” he is not making a mystic statement about the unity of all things, but an ethical injunction that we ought to expand our humanity through a rigorous exercise of reciprocity to establish communication with the outside world. Five Visions of the Human ConditionAt least five visions of the human condition are implied in this project of human flourishing. The poetic vision involves the language of the heart. It sepaks to the commonality of human feelings and the mutuality of human concerns. It stresses a syncronized rhythm like the natural flow of sympathetic responses to inspiring music and dance. Human beings are poetic beings and, by implication, musical and artistic beings. They are aesthetically in tune with nature and capable of generating internal resonances not only among themselves but also with Heaven, Earth, and the myriad things. Knowledge of the natural world is contained in poetry and human feelings and sentiments are expressed through poetry. As poetic, artistic, and musical beings, humans are endowed with keen sensitivity to repond concretely and spontaneously to the constantly changing environment. The social vision entails a ritual form through which we learn to stand, walk, sit, eat, speak, and answer simple questions. The six are intended to transform the body, the given biological reality, into fitting expressions of the self. Elementary learning can very well be conceived as ritualization of the body which involves routine exercises, emulating models, and interacting with others. The tenth chapter of the Analects gives vivid depiction of Confucius’ attire, facial expressions, gestures, even mannerisms to show the Master’s ability to assume different demeanors in perfect accord with the various occasions he encountered. To his students, the way Confucius stood, sat, walked, ate, and spoke, all manifestations of his exemplary teaching, was awe-inspiring. Human beings are social beings. They come into existence through interchange and communication. Our bodies will have to become ritualized by the societal norms to enable us to participate fully in the web of human-relatedness. The political vision is rooted in the idea of the benevolent government. The strong belief in the inseparability of morality and politics and in the virtue of the ruler as a precondition for the governability of the people makes it difficult to conceive of politics as a mechanism of control. Rather, ture politics as “rectification” is always educational. Indeed, we can envision polity as the covenant between the ruler and the people for the purpose of mutual exhortation as well as mutual dependency. The people, far from being the undifferentiated masses, are like the water. They can sustain as polity, but they are also capable of overturning a dynasty. Since “Heaven sees as the people see and Heaven hears as the people hear,” the mandate to rule is never constant and the real guarantee for the well-being of the rulership lies in its acceptable performance. As I have already stated in “The Way, Learning, and Politics in Classical Confucian Humaism, The right of the people to rebel against a tyrannical dynasty, the right of the imperial clansmen to replace an unjust imperial household, the right of the bureaucrats to remonstrate with a negligent ruler are all sanctioned by the deep-rooted conviction that political leadership essentially manifests itself immoral persuasion and that the transformative power of a dynasty depends mainly on the ethical quality of those who governor. The historical vision presupposses that a collective memory embedded in our consciousness helps us to define who we are. History tells us, in graphic detail, how the specific events in the remote pass have a direct bearing on our form of life here and now. It also tells us that we are an integral part of a cumulative effort to make “this culture of ours” an enduring pattern of human flourishing. Yet, history is not only a record of what actually happened but also a judgment why things did not turn out to be what they could have been and ought to have been. Since history’s function is that of wise counsel for the present and the future, it is a communal verdict (praise or blame) on the shapers of major events that have lasting impact on the human community. A historian, so conceived, is a social conscience, a guardian of our collective memory, and a political critic. The sense of “fear and trembling” with which Confucius undertook the task of writing the Sopring and Autumn Annals, as noted in the Book of Mencius, suggests that the very act of writing history prsumes an air of prophecy and commits one to a judgmental mode in basic conflict with the cherished values of harmony, community, and communication. The metaphysical vision is predicated on the conviction that all modalities of being in the universe are interconnected. Xunzi observes that all things have vital energy, plants have life, animals and birds have consciousness, and human beings alone have a sense of rightness. According to the thesis of the continuity of being, Xunzi’s observation also implies that human beings are consanguineous with all things for sharing the flow of vital energy, with plants for sharing life, and with animals and birds for sharing consciousness. Indeed, according to the Book of Change, in their most refined manifestations, human virtue is identical with that of Heavena dn Earth, human brilliance is identical with that of sun and moon, human order is identical with that of the four seasons, and human fortune is idential with that of spiritual beings. Understandably, the highest Confucian ideal of self-realization is the unity of humanity and Heaven. This synoptic description of the Confucian perception of the human condition informed by the five visions suggests that, in the Confucian perceptive, a human being is more than a ratinal animal, a tool user, or a creator and manipulator of symbols. As poetic, social, political, historical, and metaphysical beings, we can tap rich cultural resources to cultivate our self-knowledge and develop our understanding of the world. It is vitally important to note, however, that the five visions do not necessarily cohere to make an integrated idea of humanity. The tension between the poetic vision and the historical vision is discussed in Mencius with a sense of tragedy. “Only when the the age of poetry disappeared did the age of history emerge” seems to suggest that the sympathetic resonance of a communal spirit was replaced by a tough-minded judgment assigning praise and blame to right the wrongs not in political reality but in historical imagination. There is ample evidence in the Analects to show the tension between the political vision and the metaphysical vision. The poignancy of Confucius’ inability to put his political ideas into practice is captured by the lamentation, “Only Heaven knows me!” Body Politic: Beyond Collectivism and IndividualismIn Mencian thought, the unfolding of a holistic humanist vision involves four dimensions of personal experience: self, community, nature, and Heaven. They are interconnected by a threefold quest: mutuality between self and community, harmony between human species and nature, and unity between Heaven and Humanity. The middle path espoused by Mencius was in response to two influential intellectual currents: Moist collectivism and Yangist individualism. The thinker, Mozi insisted that, for the sake of peace and love as willed by Heaven, people ought to sacrifice their private interests. Music and ritual should be simplified. A tight organization based upon a strict hierarchical order should replace the family and the Will of Heaven should serve as a guiding principle for action. Furthermore, universal love and peace by militant resistance against aggressive warfare are the main concerns of the Moists. The opposite view was held by Yang Zhu, an advocate of radical individualism. Yang argues that since nothing is more valuable than what we are as individuals, the preservation of what we are endowed with ought to be the highest guiding principle for action. Mencius finds fault with both approaches. Moist universal love thwards the establishment of parent-child relationship and Yangist self-centeredness makes the maintenance ofpolitical order impossible. The Confucian alternative is a middle path in which the self as a center of relationships can serve as a foundation for politics of community. Understandably, the Great Learning specifies that self-cultivation (“nourishing the body”) serves as the root for the regulation of the family, governance of the state, and peace throughout the world. The same logic that enables human flourishing as a moral agent is applied to the body politic as well. Xunzi (active 298-238 B.C.) has insightful observations to make in this regard. While he is critical of Mencius’ theory that human nature is intrinsically good, he shares Mencius’ faith in the improvability of the human condition through self-effort. Xunzi envisions self-cultivation as a cumulative process of moral transformation. He sees humanization as ritualization and underscores the importance of exemplary roles of significant social agents for the task: parents, teachers, elders, officials, and friends. Yet, he considers that the active participation of the students themselves in their own moral education the single most important factor in bringing about an ordered society. Xunzi’s systematic inquires on the rectification of names, wealth of nation, the way of the king, the way of the minister, recruitment of officials, military affairs, ritual, music, government service, and Heaven indicate that his political concerns are extensive. To him, politics as rectification involves the correct use of language, the proper conduct of rulers, the appropriate methods of governance, and the right social ethos. Yet, the smooth functioning of the body politic, like a well-integrated body, requires constant attention and rigorous discipline. The mind of the profound person is receptive, unified, and tranquil. There is always room for new information, capacity for integration, and aptitude for balance. Like the master of the house, the cognitive faculty of the mind transforms fragmented, conflicting, and chaotic information into intelligent patterns. While human nature, characterized by insatiable desires and unruly passions, tends to lead to social disharmony, the mind is endowed with the ability to know what is right and the will-power to act accordingly. Since human beings can only survive in groups, the right action is to sustain and enhance social harmony. A salient feature of Confucian thinking as interpreted by Xunzi is the primacy of the political order. Politics is seen an integral part of the ritual process through which the moral community comes into being. The purpose of politics is to provide a wholesome environment for human flourishing. The way of the sage-kings, as contrasted with the dictatorship of the hegemon, is openness to new ideas, receptivity to different voices, and hospitality to all human beings. Its political style is communal, participatory, and populist. The underlying tone, vibrating with the sympathetic resonance of contented people, is poetic. The hegemon may appeal to humanity and rightness as justification for authoritarian control, but to him politics is a mechanism by which wealth and power are acquired. Nevertheless, as long as hegemonic politics maintains law and order, despite its moral hypocrisy, it performs a useful function in society. In Confucius’ time, however, the hegemonic system had already collapsed. The new contenders for wealth and power were, by and large, oblivious to moral principles. By the time of Mencius and Xunzi, in the height of the Warring States period, the rulers did not feel any need to appeal to humanity and rightness. Indeed, brute force was the most effective, if not the only, modus operandi in politics. A Different VoiceWhen Mencian moral idealism may have prevailed over Moist collectivism and Yangist individualism, the Confucian project, despite a formidable defender in Xunzi, was seriously challenged by the Daoists. In the Analects, Confucius is reported to have encountered hermits, such as the Madman from Chu, who urged him to abdicate his social responsibility, sever relationships with the human community, and abandon the world. Since the disintegration of the political system, like the torrential flood sweeping the entire world, could not be stopped, any attempt to change the inevitable process of history would be an exercise in futility. What the hermits proposed was in fact a course of action advocated by virtually all major ethico-religious traditions: to cultivate a spiritual sanctuary outside the lived world here and now. The Christian kingdom of God or the Buddhist “other shore” are exemplification of this universal transcendental breakthrough. Confucius’ existential choice to try to repossess the Way by working through the human community as it was constituted is an anomaly. The Daoist diagnostic reading of the situation was not at variance with the Confucians’, but the approach was radically different. Lao Tzu opted for a fundamental re-examination of the value system which was thought to have sustained the human community. He questioned not only the unintended negative consequences of humanism but also the reasons underlying great humanist ideas such as humanity and rightness. He believed that not only does power corrupt but even the most refined culture also corrupts the true nature of being human. Inherent in all the positive values (e.g. true, beautiful, and good) is a self-destructive mechanism. Yet, Lao Tzu was neither cynical nor relativistic. He directed our attention to nature, the cosmic process, Dao. He invited us to transcend the mental apparatuses, to resist verbalizing it through conceptualization, and rather to see, listen, and experience it directly. Lao Tzu created a new linguistic strategy to evoke the ineffable Dao. It cannot be talked about, but since it is omnipresent, it can be directly experienced. The grammar of action, or in Daoist terms nonaction, employs seemingly negative values—weak, lowly, yielding, backward, retreating, lost, submitting, ugly, and feeble to depict the subtle, incipient functions of the Dao. Images of water, valley, ravine, baby, womb, clay, and the uncarved block give the impression that Dao as primordiality is fecund and inexhaustibly potent. The art of living is to emulate those natural processes which are consistent, steady, and enduring. A precondition for such a way of life is the spiritual discipline to transform our body into a vehicle of the Dao. Communal Critical Self-ConsciousnessThe Confucian intellectual, like the Daoist hermit, was relatively weak vis-a-vis the power structure of the time. Hu Shi’s effort to define etymologically the term ru as rao (tender-minded “weaklings”) is, in this connection, most suggestive. However, the interpretation the the Confucians failed politically whereas Legalists such as Lord Shang, who expediently changed his rhetoric from humanity and rightness to concrete ways of enriching and strengthening the state, succeeded in their struggle to gain access to the political center is predicated on narrow conceptions of power, influence, and authority in ancient China. The Confucians, by default and by choice, never gained easy access to the decision-making body of the ruling minority. Yet, from the center of the cultural elite, they became the meaning givers in society and authority legitimizers in polity. This was accomplished mainly through education. Specifically, the Confucians, in a corporate spirit, devoted themselves to a long-term investment in the cumulation of symbolic capital as a strategy of fundamental restructuring of society from within. In their own terms, the transmission of “this culture of ours” required a lifelong commitment: “a knight (shi) must be great and strong. His burden is heavy and his course is long. He has taken humanity to be his own burden—is that not heaven? Only with death does his course stop—is that not long?” Paradoxically, this heroic sense of mission was predicated on the faith in the improvability of the human condition as it was constituted in the political arena and in the realization of the ultimate value in ordinary human existence. Confucius’ democratization of education (let there be no class distinctions!) released a great deal energy from the lower echelons of society. As the Confucian fellowship gradually expanded, the Confucian school of thought emerged from a local movement to become the dominant intellectual trend throughout the Middle Kingdom. An unintended consequence of the concerted effort of generations of Confucian teachers to educate the aspiring literati was the advent of a new style of politics. No longer did brute force alone determine the strength of the contender for power. No matter how strong the king was militarily, he relied heavily on the literati to run his bureaucracy: to bring law and order to his regime by registering the people, encouraging farming, designing cities, collecting taxes, settling litigation, establishing proper rituals, building schools, and negotiating with foreign powers. While the Confucian contribution to the establishment of the Chinese civil bureaucracy cannot be exaggerated, the most significant outcome of Confucian education lies in its formation of the Confucian intellectual. The common impression that the Confucian intellectuals can only voice their discontent from within the bureaucratic structure and thus incapable of radical restructuring of the political order fails to account for the rich cultural resources that they can mobilize to transform society. The general assumption that the Confucian intellectuals always prefer to act from the political center also needs to be reexamined. Dictated by the trajectory of their core values, the Confucian intellectuals appealed to three sources for their political action: their own conscience, the well-being of the poeple, and the mandate of Heaven. The convergence of the most generalizable social relevance (the well-being of the people) and the most universalizable ethicoreligious sanction (the mandate of Heaven) enabled the Confucian intellectuals to find a secure niche for their political action. Their sense of situatedness allowed them to confront kings with dignity and self-confidence. Confucius’ discipline Zi Xia, for example, believed that since his seniority and virtue could overshadow the king’s power, he had the authority to instruct the king on behalf of the Way. Xunzi unequivocally demanded his students to follow the Way rather than the king and to follow the principle of rightness rather than the wishes of the father. Mencius depicts such a Confucian intellectual in lofty terms: A man lives in the spacious dwelling, occupies the proper position, and goes along the highway of the Empire. When he achieves his ambition he shares these with the people; when he fails to do so he practices the Way alone. He cannot be led into excesses when wealthy and honored or deflected from his purpose when poor and obscure, nor can he be made to bow before superior force. This is what I would call a great man. Symbolically, the “spacious dwelling” is humanity, the highway is rightness, and the “proper position” is the destiny wherever he finds himself. The cultural resources that he can tap in formulating his own distinctive form of life do not depend on wealth, power, or influence. He can always “practice the Way” alone. A significant portion of the Book of Mencius could be read as a “special pleading” for the worth of the Confucian intellectual. We might say that Mencius tried to find an ultimate justification for the existence of his own “class,” the Confucian intellectual who, despite his nonproductivity in land, labor, and commerce, was an indispensable member of society: “A profound person transforms where he passes, and works wonders where he abides. He is in the same stream as Heaven above and Earth below. Can he be said to bring but small benefit?” The great benefit that the Confucian intellectual could bestow on society was threefold: moral transformation, political service, and cosmic connectedness. Mencius makes this explicit in his argument against the physiocratic claim that all values are derived from the cultivation of the land. He first offers a sophsticated analysis of the functional necessity of the division of labor: farmers, laborers, and merchants are all needed for the smooth functioning of an organic society. He then presents a compelling case for the need of a “service sector” and the desirability of the mutual dependence of those who labor with their minds and those who labor with their muscles. He concludes that the time and mental energies of the rulers ought to be totally devoted to the management of the state. One wonders what is the urgent business of the Confucian intellectuals, if not to serve the rulers? Even if we grant that the Confucian intellectuals, as members of the service sector, must labor with their minds to help the rulers to manage the state, the way in which they conduct their business makes them very different from ordinary ministers or bureaucrats. As Confucian intellectuals, they serve the ruler on behalf of the people. They must cultivate themselves, encourage others to be good, look for friends in history, emulate the sages, set up cultural norms, interpret the Mandate of Heaven, and transmit the Way. In order words, they cannot abandon their responsibility as exemplary teachers. The four critical issues that Mencius addressed offer us a comprehensive view of what he perceived as the ultimate concerns of exemplary teachers. The first one is renqinzhibian—the essential difference between man (humanity) and beast (other members of the animal kingdom). The second one is yixiazhibian—the essential difference between civilization and barbarism. The third one is yilizhibian—the essential difference between rightness and profit. The fourth one is wangbazhibian—the essential difference between kingship (benevolent government) and hegemony (politically powerful and economically efficient but morally inadequate polity). As exemplary teachers, the Confucian intellectuals differed from Greek philosohers in several essential ways. They were not engaged in the contemplative way of life for its own sake. There is no functional equivalent of the Platonic cave in the Confucian literature. They did not see the light that people in the cave could never hope to see in their present situation. Even though they were first awakened, they knew that since the poeple were endowed with the same nature, they could be enlightened with proper instruction. There was no need to lead the people out of the cave. They also differed from the Jewish prophets who alone heard the voice of It is instructive to note that Mencius identified the origins of his great cultural heroes as an Eastern barbarian, a farmer, a construction worker, a jailer, an ex-convict, and a merchant. The message he intended to convey is straightforward: As a rule, a man can mend his ways only after he has made mistakes. It is only when a man is frustrated in mind and in his deliberrations that he is able to innovate. It is only when his intentions become visible on his countenance and audible in his tone of voice that others can understand him. Only then do we learn the lesson that we survive in adversity and perish in ease and comfort. The Confucian intellectuals were, in terms of class origins, common people. Through education, rigorous effort at self-cultivation, they developed a communal critical self-consciousness that their mission in life was to embody the Way in heir exemplary teaching so that the body politic can be transformed into a moral community as a wholesome environment for human flourishing. In the “Postscript” of his masterly treatment of “the world of thought in ancient China,” Professor Benbjamin Schwartz restates what he takes as the shared cultural orientations of the classical age: I shall again focus on the following: the idea of a universal, all-embracing sociopolitical order centering on the concept of a cosmically based universal kingship; the more general idea of the primacy of order in both the cosmic and human spheres; and the dominant tendency toward a holistic “immanentist” view of order. All three of these orientations are, of course, related. Is it possible to imagine that since the “universal kingship” was never a realizable possibility since the mythic time of Yao and Shun, to the Confucian intellectuals, despite all the dehumanizing forces in politics and society, the Dao as an utimate justification for the “primacy of order in both the cosmic and human spheres” constantly flows through the practical living of common people? The Confucian intellectuals, having acquired a true taste for the ultimate meaning of life in ordinary daily existence, are obligated to valorize the intrinsic value of this form of life and this culture of ours. The “dominant tendency toward a holistic “immanentist” view of order is predicated on the transformative power of the inner resources in the body and mind of each human being. The Confucian intellectuals are students as well as teachers of this “universal, all-embracing” humanist spirit.
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