Tasan Lecture #3: A Confucian Response to the Feminist CritiqueBy Tu Weiming Citation: The Tasan Lectures, Korea, November 2001. In conceptualizing a possible Confucian response to the feminist critique, I would like to note, from the outset, how varied and complex the critique has been. As one of the most fascinating and influential intellectual trends in recent decades, the feminist discourse has gone through several important phases and assumed different shades of meaning. In North America, it has significantly altered basic categories of thinking and substantially restructured fundamental spheres of human existence such as household, workplace, school, church, and club. In a deeper sense, it has also profoundly affected our understanding of social roles, human-relations, authority, and power. Of course, the most obvious manifestation of the feminist movement’s enduring presence of is in social praxis, including linguistic usage, etiquette, interaction between sexes, and sexual behavior. Yet, in the long run, the movement’s most meaningful legacy will be the unprecedented transformation of attitudes and beliefs as well. While my response takes the most recent developments in feminism as the main reference, I am acutely aware that, historically, the feminist critique of the Confucian tradition began in the late nineteenth century and that its momentum has never lessened. The story of woman’s fight against and liberation from patriarchal authority, notably the prescribed roles of the father and husband, is well known. The Confucian idea of the ”three bonds,” underscoring the dictatorial power of the ruler, father, and husband, has been roundly attacked since the 1919 May Fourth cultural movement. Informed by the Enlightenment values of the modern West, specifically liberty and rights, the social norms associated with the “three bonds,” such as filial piety and loyalty, were condemned as oppressive and outdated feudal mores. The iconoclastic rejection of Confucianism was predicated on the belief that the Confucian ethic as practiced in family, society and politics was diametrically opposed to the enlightened modern values of the independence, autonomy and dignity of the individual. The disintegration of the imperial political system, the hierarchical social order and the patriarchal family clearly indicates that Confucianism practiced as feudal ethics has become dysfunctional. Actually, few modern East Asian intellectuals have ever defended the rhetoric of the ”three bonds.” Prominent proponents of Confucian teachings have rarely tried to rally support for the dictatorial power of the ruler, father and husband. Kang Youwei, for example, never considered inequality justifiable in Confucian terms. While he wholeheartedly advocated constitutional monarchy, true to the Mencian spirit, he insisted that the ruler should be publicly accountable, that the rule of law be transparent and that equality between sexes be maintained. Even Gu Hongming’s defense of polygamy avoided any reference to male dominance as an acceptable social practice. The Confucian values that were often evoked to support traditional institutions and conventional practices are the five cardinal virtues: humanity, rightness, civility, wisdom, and trust. In the initial stage of the Confucian response to the Western liberal democratic critique, there was a confluence, indeed a sympathetic resonance, between those who promulgated woman’s liberation and those who attempted to revive the humanist spirit of the Confucian tradition. Their common enemy was the national and regional power holders, who attempted to maintain the status quo by using Confucian values as mechanisms of political and social control. However, in the eyes of the liberal-minded westernizers and the radical revolutionaries, the Confucian revivalists were at best seen as cultural conservatives who inadvertently supported the feudal elements in the political ethos, inhibiting Chinese society from definitively breaking with its brutish past. Chinese feminists’ concerns, while compatible with the westernizers and the revolutionaries, have been more deeply rooted in social justice. Their hearts and souls have been with the oppressed, especially women and children, who desperately need help just to survive. A distinctive feature of feminism is its identification with the marginalized and its commitment to the principle of equality for all. As a result, the feminist critique of tradition as a form of cultural criticism has been and is more comprehensive and thorough than the political agenda envisioned by the westernizers and the revolutionaries. Often, the goals of westernizers and revolutionaries are defined in terms of modernization. The feminist struggle, however, goes beyond the quest for modernity. Nevertheless, the feminist critique of the Confucian tradition has been intertwined with the modernist discourse. In its recent phase, especially in literature, the feminist modern discourse frequently allies itself with the West. The century-old impression that the Christian West, through missionary work, has helped East Asian women to free themselves from the “Confucian” bondage of foot-binding, concubinage, domestic violence, abusive fathers and husbands, and sexual enslavement is firmly inscribed in the public mind. The idea that a Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese woman can only find her true identity as an independent, autonomous and dignified individual through emigration to the New World is a recurring theme in Asian American literature. If the Confucian tradition were inescapably entangled in an agriculture-based economy, paternalistic polity and family-centered society, the advent of industrialization, democracy and civil society would automatically undermine its viability as a dynamic transformative force. The feminist critique, as a reflection of modern Western consciousness, can simply appeal to the Enlightenment values of the modern West. Yet, the revival of Confucian humanism in East Asia since the end of World War II, strongly suggests that a highly industrialized society, such as Singapore and Hong Kong, does not have to abandon its Confucian roots, that Confucian societies, such as Japan and Taiwan, can become fully democratized, and that Confucian resources can be mobilized to develop vibrant civil societies as in the cases of South Korea and, to certain extent, the People’s Republic of China. Newly coined terms, such as network capitalism and Confucian democracy, are controversial precisely because of the deeply entrenched impression that Confucian ethics is detrimental to the spirit of capitalism and of democracy. The economic “miracles” of Japan and the Four Mini-Dragons definitively refuted the Weberian thesis that the Confucian ethic, unlike Protestant ethic, is incompatible with industrial capitalism, although the euphoria of the 1980s was short-lived. The assertion that the financial crisis of 1997 proved the bankruptcy of the Confucian ethic in a modern economy was also ill advised. While the Confucian emphasis on education and meritocracy was praised for its contribution to a disciplined workforce and social stability, the Confucian preference for consensus formation and emphasis on the group spirit was condemned as the source of corruption, cronyism and the lack of transparency and public accountability. In all of these cases, Confucianism’s relevance is assumed. Whether positive or negative, we cannot ignore the importance of Confucian culture in our interpretation of East Asian economy, polity and society. However, the feminist critique, by rising above the modernist discourse, offers a more formidable challenge. Surely, several East Asian societies have become thoroughly modernized. If a dynamic market economy, a sustainable democratic polity and a vibrant civil society are salient features of modernity, industrial East Asia and portions of socialist East Asia are modern. While East Asian modernity has been deeply influenced by the West, East Asian forms of life are significantly different from those in Western Europe and North America. I have specified the distinctiveness of East Asia modernity in Confucian terms:
Are the Confucian elements in East Asian modernity still gendered in such a way that they have not yet freed themselves from a basic male-dominated orientation? If the answer is in the positive, the feminist critique must be extended from traditional Confucianism to its modern transformation. Some feminists, Margery Wolf for example, insist that Confucian self-cultivation is a male-oriented ideal of learning to be human. They believe that the idea of human flourishing as exemplified by the noble person, scholar-official, worthy, or sage is so involved with “male” qualities that it is difficult to image how a girl or woman could ever emulate this specifically gendered course of action. The issue is closely linked to the role of public service. Understandably, some liberal-democratic scholars, such as Tang Yijie, also maintain that Confucian self-cultivation is elitist because only a small segment of the population has the resources to engage itself in such a dispensable luxury. However, from the Confucian perspective, self-cultivation is an indispensable way of learning to be human; it is applicable to a farmer, an artisan or a merchant as well as to a scholar; indeed both young and old and women and men must learn, through personal experience, to live a life appropriate to their unique circumstances. Self-cultivation is neither gendered nor elitist. As the Great Learning notes, each of us, “from the Emperor to the commoner, all without exception,---- must regard self-cultivation as the root.” Education as civil religion could be gendered, if preferential treatment is consciously or unconsciously implemented. As the matter now stands, universal education is readily available in East Asia for both sexes. Women have done as well as or better than men on standard college entrance examinations. As the percentage of college women continues to rise, the number of women entering public life will also substantially increase. Women can very well realize the ideals of the noble person, scholar-official, worthy, and sage. Similarly, civil society and governance are not necessarily gendered; they can well provide opportunities for women who choose to work in the public sector. The issue of the family is more complex. If the Confucian ideas of self-cultivation and education, in the contemporary context, can transcend their historical circumstances and become fully compatible with feminist thought as well as liberal democratic demands for equality, can the Confucian idea of the family undergo similar transformation without losing its inner identity? Huey-li Li in “Some Thoughts on Confucianism and Ecofeminism” asserts: ... Confucianism contributed to the establishment of a cohesive polity. The patriarchal family is, to a large extent, the cornerstone of this cohesive polity, and an elaborate sex/gender-role system is indispensable for sustaining such a patriarchal structure. A celebrated statement in the Book of Rites clearly indicated Chinese women’s subordinate status: “the woman follows and obeys the man: in her youth, she follows her father and elder brother; when married she follows her husband; when her husband is dead, she follows her son.” Obviously, as this cohesive polity, presumably the imperial system, disintegrates, the political utility of this patriarchal family is also lost. Does this mean that the Confucian idea of the family is also outmoded? If women no longer follow their fathers, elder brothers, husbands, and sons, is there still a “Confucian” family? The Confucian idea of the family is not inextricably intertwined with an outmoded polity in which the patriarchal family is perceived to be the cornerstone. The Confucian family without the “three bonds” can still underscore affection between parent and child, a sense of sequence among siblings and genuine cooperation between husband and wife. Indeed, the five relationships, including rightness between ruler and minister and trust among friends, are all based on mutuality. The importance of the Confucian idea of the family is widely recognized as social disintegration occurs at all levels from the nuclear family to international organizations: The dyadic relationships within the family, differentiated by age, gender, authority, status, and hierarchy, provide a richly textured environment for learning the proper way of being human. The principle of reciprocity as a two-way traffic of human interaction defines all forms of human-relatedness within the family. Age and gender, potentially two of the most serious gaps in the primordial environment of the human habitat, are brought into a continuous flow of intimate sentiments of human care. This description of the family may seem too romantic and sentimental to tough-minded feminists. After all, the conception of the family itself has been so fundamentally changed that discussing the family in the abstract makes little sense. The United Nations’ 1995 Social Summit allowed the primary caretaker(s) of the family to be defined in five ways: heterosexual, single, gay, lesbian, and bisexual. Nevertheless, there is virtual consensus that the family is the basic social unit and the locus where values are transmitted between generations. Similarly, the Confucian idea of the civil society, not as an arena above the family and below the state, but as an expansive space wherein the family and state continuously interact may serve as a corrective to the sharp distinction made between the private and the public realm which is characteristic of modern liberal thinking. Feminists may find the Confucian approach more congenial to their conviction that what happens in the privacy of one’s home is not just personally important but also socially and politically significant. By analogy, the Confucian emphasis on civility and on the responsibility of the government in the market economy is also compatible with the feminist agenda that aims to bring about a more humane and just society. Confucianism and feminism can both be conceived as reflections on and critiques of the modernist discourse informed by the Enlightenment mentality of the modern West. It may not be far-fetched to suggest that a new critical spirit has replaced the feminist modernist denunciation of Confucian male-domination. The total rejection of Confucianism as a misogynist tradition, like the thorough iconoclasm of the whole-sale westernizers and radical revolutionaries, is based on the assumption that modernization as the universalization of the Enlightenment values of Western Europe and North America is necessary and desirable. Feminists are no longer modernists. As they begin to probe the inner logic of the modernist discourse, they discover that their hope for human flourishing is often at odds with the Enlightenment mentality. Humanist insights in the Confucian tradition can be relevant to their understanding of the weaknesses as well as strengths of the Enlightenment legacy. Confucian humanism can also enrich the feminist worldview. However, Confucian cosmology and ethics is often alien to feminist thinking. A digression is in order, if we want to appreciate more fully this new feminist critique. The distinctiveness of East Asian modernity rooted in Confucian traditions seriously challenges the idea of modernization as linear development and a process of homongenization. It also raises a critical issue: If modernization can assume different cultural forms, why can’t we imagine the possibility of multiple modernities? East Asian modernity illustrates that modernization does not necessarily mean Westernization and that not all non-Western societies will eventually converge on the Western model. This rejection of modernization as Westernization does not mean that a sort of reverse convergence is occurring. The idea of the Pacific century, like the American century, is wishful thinking. Rather, East Asian modernity implies the authentic possibility of Southeast Asian, South Asian, Latin American, Eastern European, Islamic, and African modernities. As we move beyond the dichotomy of tradition and modernity, the continuous presence of traditions in modernity is taken for granted. Furthermore, traditions may take an active role in shaping the modernizing process. In light of this, there is no reason to doubt that the Confucian traditions have significantly affected the trajectory of East Asian modernization. We may even take a further step to entertain a Confucian critique of modernity. The emergence of Confucian humanism as a critique of and an alternative to Western modernism enabled a coterie of philosophically minded scholars to explore possible linkages between Confucianism and feminism in thought-provoking ways. Whether or not the Confucian ethic, as a functional equivalent of the Protestant ethic, actually contributed to the spirit of capitalism in industrial East Asia in the 1970s and 80s, it was obviously present in the habits of the heart of East Asian entrepreneurs. Whether or not Confucian network relationships (quanxi) were responsible for corruption and cronyism, which led to the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s, thickly textured human interactions are defining characteristics of East Asian societies. The contemporary relevance of Confucian humanism does not depend on its perceived causal relationship to modernization as an alien concept imposed from the outside. Rather, the critical issue is how the Confucian habits of the heart, for better or worse, will shape the East Asian forms of modernity. The feminist critique of the Confucian tradition, moving beyond its modernistic early phase, must deal with this fundamentally different situation. The major changes in the intellectual horizon of the modern West in the last four decades have enabled it to do so. When the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Commission of 2000, published its work in progress in 1965, it paid scant attention to four major currents of thought that, in my opinion, defined the contours of the intellectual landscape of the next thirty-five years: environmental consciousness, feminist sensitivity, religious pluralism, and global ethics. The main reason for the trajectory of the Commission’s idea to miss the major targets is that the scholars involved were so much seasoned in the modernization discourse that they could not have imagined otherwise. With hindsight, it is not difficult to identify the main reasons that the modernist discourse based on the Enlightenment mentality of the modern West is seriously flawed. With all its brilliant insights and intellectual dynamism, at the core of the Enlightenment movement’s value-orientation was a rejection of the spiritual realm and a domination of nature. This dispirited and denatured approach to life and mind greatly limited the scope of human flourishing. Despite the rich variety of the Enlightenment legacy (some scholars strongly believe that the Enlightenment Project is yet to be completed), its aggressive scientism, anthropocentrism, Eurocentrism, instrumental rationalism, and isolated individualism are incompatible with the emerging ethos of the global community in the last decades of the twentieth century. A new humanist vision—integrated, inclusive and comprehensive, yet congenial to diversity and distinctive identities—is called for, reflecting the spirit of the time. Surely, Enlightenment values, such as liberty and human rights, have been proposed as universal values. Confucians and feminists agree with liberal democrats that for any society to be civilized, these values ought to be promoted, even though they may recommend approaches that underscore the importance of social justice as well. However, the modernist ideology, whether socialist or capitalist, will lose its persuasive power if issues of poverty, violence, drugs, environmental degradation, social disintegration, and human security are not addressed. A humanist vision that undermines aggressive scientism and transcends anthropocentrism may appeal to ecofeminists. A humanist vision that goes beyond Eurocentrism, instrumental rationalism and isolated individualism may appeal to all feminists. Can Confucianism provide such a humanist vision? Some scholars, notably Henry Rosemont, Jr., believe that philosophically significant parallels can be found between classical Confucian and contemporary feminist perspectives on the self that can serve as a common ground for mutual reference: “seeing human beings as role and value-carrying persons, and seeing them as value carriers all the time, both ethically and epistemologically, which is the thrust of early Confucian interpersonal particularism, and much contemporary feminism.” However, Terry Woo in her essay on “Confucianism and Feminism” concludes that Confucianism is, in its core values, against feminism: The ruling Confucian principle is duty not choice; so that one does not choose to have a family or not: one is obligated to have a family. Moreover, Confucians conceive of woman and man not as individuals but as natural complements, and their relationship is regarded as the root of all others, since family begins there and family is the foundation of society. Furthermore, Confucianism differs from feminism in its emphasis on self-cultivation over the fights for rights and justice. The matter is complicated by Woo’s assumptive reason that feminism is a liberal agenda and Rosemont’s critique of the liberal conception of the self as a rights-bearing autonomous choosing individual. It seems, on the surface, that Woo’s argument is modernistic, whereas Rosemont’s interpretation is a critique of the liberal democratic vision of modernity. If I am right in assuming that feminism has gone beyond its modernist phase and taken on a critical posture toward the Enlightenment mentality of the modern West, Rosement’s plea that we not “abandon our roles, communal rituals, customs, and traditions all together” nor allow “the increasing atomization of human life, the loss of community, of common purpose, and the increasing rending of the social fabric”—greater threats than totalitarian government to human well-being—to persist may strike a sympathetic resonance among feminists. Actually, Woo also notes similar points of convergence between Confucianism and feminism: In a world where people speak increasingly of their rights rather than their responsibilities, and where there is a spectrum of opinions, Confucianism, in its most simple adage of jen (ren, humanity), seems to offer a sensible start. It stresses self-understanding and correction, then personal responsibility before the external process of admonishing and changing others. Finally, despite an apparently rigid hierarchy, Confucianism cherishes at its heart, equality in education and the li (pattern, principle) of change. These two principles, an equal opportunity to learning and an attitude of openness and flexibility, do not contract feminism. Rather, this is where the two philosophies meet and where they are most able to reinforce each other. As Rosemont straightforwardly states and Woo implicitly notes, the apparent incompatibility between Confucianism and feminism can be mitigated by their shared concerns for the human condition. Indeed, both traditions are responsive to the humanist impulse to re-establish the great relationships essential for our survival and flourishing: within the self, between self and community, between human species and nature, and between the human heart-and-mind and the Way of Heaven (or between humanity and the transcendent). Liberal feminists who subscribe to human rights, freedom of choice, autonomy, and the dignity of the person, radical feminists who advocate the complete eradication of reproductive difference and Marxist feminists who advocate overhauling the existing economic, political, social, and cultural structures, all strongly promote the values of responsibility and distributive justice. While the ideas of civility and community may appear to be too conservative to some feminists, the Confucian conception of the self as a center of relationships rather than an isolated individual is widely accepted by feminists of different persuasions. In a deeper sense, the existential question of how we can live a meaningful life in our ordinary human existence may provide a real basis for communication between feminism and Confucianism. The move from an exclusivist dichotomous mode of thinking to an inclusive complementarian style of acting may appear, at first blush, a rather simplistic way of describing the feminist challenge to the Enlightenment paradigm. Surely, the overworked dualistic comparisons of masculine/feminine, exclusive/inclusive, dichotomous/complementarian, thinking/acting, like the conventional views of male/female, rational/intuitive, individualist/communal, cognitive/affective, strong/weak, hard/soft, independent/dependent, universal/ particular, abstract/ concrete, and idealist/practical, can hardly capture the profound significance of the feminist turn in epistemology and ethics. However, it is undeniable that the exclusive dichotomies, characteristic of the Enlightenment mentality—mind/body, spirit/matter, subject/object, nature/nurture, sacred/profane, and creator/creature, are no longer tenable from a feminist perspective. As a result, “embodied thinking” with particular emphasis on the “situated self” becomes a new way of doing philosophy. The Confucian insistence that we take the concrete living person here and now as the point of departure for our thoughts and actions may well serve as a bridge for a fruitful feminist-Confucian dialogue. If we focus our attention on the concrete living person here and now, abstract universalism privileging objectivity, reason and mind, must be replaced by concrete particularism. The situated self is contextualized and historicized. It is unique. The uniqueness of a person with his or her concrete particularities must necessarily be of a specific sex, race, age, language, class, and faith. In addition, the given body endowed with its own physical, biochemical, neuropsychological, mental, and spiritual particularity is absolutely unrepeatable and irreproducible under any other circumstances. How can the more than six billion unique selves live on this planet together peacefully? We must first begin with ourselves. We may think abstractly that we are isolated individuals, but the interpersonal relationships that define who we are—father, mother, daughter, son, teacher, student, colleague, patron, client, employer, employee, and so forth—are real. The Confucians take the familial relationships (parent-child, siblings and husband-wife) as primary. Marxist, socialist, liberal, lesbian, and other patterns of feminist thought may suggest otherwise. Yet, when we are aware of our own existential situation defined in interpersonal terms, we immediately recognize the importance of subjectivity, emotion, and body. Confucian learning, as “learning for the sake of the self,” is more than the acquisition of knowledge or the internalization of skills; it is primarily character building. Although the martial spirit is incorporated in the mastery of the six arts (ritual, music, archery, charioteering, calligraphy, and arithmetic), the focus of Confucian education is the cultivation of humanity (ren). Humanity implies care and nurturance. It entails being honest with oneself and considerate toward others. As a cardinal virtue, humanity permeates all other virtues and enables them to cohere into an integrated philosophy of life. Under the caring and nurturing of humanity, knowledge is transformed into wisdom, uprightness into justice, bravery into courage, propriety into civility, and promise keeping into trust. Ideally, in the inclusive humanistic perspective, no human being is treated as an object; indeed nothing is outside the orbit of human concern. A distant star or a blade of grass is an integral part of “the communion of subjects.” Nature is never perceived merely as “a collection of objects.” This all-embracing humanist worldview is not only “subjective” but also “emotional.” It is predicated on our awareness that the self is a center of relationships. As we begin to appreciate the existence of the other, our self-consciousness incorporates a variety of other selves to form an expanded notion of the self. As a result, an ever-expanding network of relationships becomes a constitutive part of us. The initial stage of this interconnectedness may well take the form of an emotional attachment to those who are close to us (parents or the primary caretakers). Failure to understand and appreciate this irreducible affective dimension of human existence is a major blind spot in abstract universalistic thinking. Our emotional attachment to those close to us is a source of inner strength that ought to be tapped for personal growth. The inability to bear the suffering of those we love (children, parents, spouses, and friends) is the root of sympathy. If it can be properly nurtured to extend outward, it can broaden our humanity and enrich humanity throughout the world. The Neo-Confucian assertion that a person of humanity “forms one body with Heaven, Earth and myriad things” is not a romantic vision of organic unity. It is a conviction that, through care and nurturance, even such a small creature as a single person can regard all human beings as brothers and sisters and all things as companions. A concrete living person, though contextualized and historicized, can rise above situatedness and embrace the whole cosmos in his or her humanity. Strictly speaking, this “embodied” thinking is not diametrically opposed to objectivity, reason and mind. It can accommodate the insights abstract universalism presumably tries to offer, for subjectivity is generalizable, emotion can be reasonable, and the body should be an authentic articulation of the mind. However, the situated self is not necessarily incompatible with the independence, autonomy and dignity of the individual. Rights-holding, rational persons making free choice may not reject the importance of social roles and interpersonal relationships. The real strength of inclusive humanism, as the “Confucian feminist” would have it, lies in its ability to fuse two seemingly contradictory horizons: abstract universalism and concrete particularism. We are still in the initial stage of thinking through the implications of this imagined dialogue. It is perhaps premature to entertain the possibility of a “Confucian feminist” project. At this juncture, the urgent task for Confucians is to learn extensively, inquire diligently, think carefully, discriminate clearly, and practice earnestly so that the following questions can be thoroughly addressed:
It should be mentioned, in conclusion, that Confucianism, despite its enduring historical legacy, is strategically well positioned to become a truly ecumenical humanism in the 21st century. From a comparative civilizational perspective, the Confucian tradition is blessed with no ideological, intellectual, theoretical, practical, and institutional constraints against its creative self-transformation through fruitful dialogue with feminism. As the Confucian tradition has benefited immensely from interactions with Moism, Daoism, Legalism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Western science, liberal democracy, socialism, and capitalism, its self-understanding can be enhanced by learning from feminism as well. Yet, while there is little doubt that Confucian humanism is a trans-temporal, cross-cultural and interdisciplinary phenomenon, open to all sorts of ethico-religious challenges, the strong suspicion that the Confucian tradition is inherently incapable of responding positively to the feminist critique persists. As Master Zengzi notes, if the realization of humanity is the authentic Confucian task, the burden is heavy and the road is long. Much still lies ahead!
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