Reference: Confucianism
[NOTE: In color are Vinaire’s comments.]
Ultimately, the victory goes to the state that develops the highest wen, the most exalted culture—the state that has the finest art, the noblest philosophy, the grandest poetry, and gives evidence of realizing that “it is the moral character of a neighborhood that constitutes its excellence.”
Deliberate tradition differs from spontaneous tradition in requiring attention. It requires attention first to maintain its force in the face of the increased individualism that threatens to erode it. This Confucius regarded as the main responsibility of education in its broadest sense. But, second, it requires that attention be given to the content of that education. What is the character of the social life it should engender? The main outlines of Confucius’ answer can be gathered under five key terms.
Deliberate tradition requires attention to maintain its force in the face of the increased individualism that threatens to erode it. This is the main responsibility of education in its broadest sense.
1. Jen. Jen, etymologically a combination of the character for “human being” and for “two,” names the ideal relationship that should pertain between people. Variously translated as goodness, man-to-man-ness, benevolence, and love, it is perhaps best rendered as human-heartedness. Jen was the virtue of virtues in Confucius’ view of life. It was a sublime, even transcendental, perfection that he confessed he had never seen fully incarnated. Involving as it does the display of human capacities at their best, it is a virtue so exalted that one “cannot but be chary in speaking of it.” To the noble it is dearer than life itself. “The determined scholar and the man of jen…will even sacrifice their lives to preserve their jen complete.”
Jen, etymologically a combination of the character for “human being” and for “two,” names the ideal relationship that should pertain between people. It is a display of human capacities at their best.
Jen involves simultaneously a feeling of humanity toward others and respect for oneself, an indivisible sense of the dignity of human life wherever it appears. Subsidiary attitudes follow automatically: magnanimity, good faith, and charity. In the direction of jen lies the perfection of everything that would make one supremely human. In public life it prompts untiring diligence. In private life it is expressed in courtesy, unselfishness, and empathy, the capacity to “measure the feelings of others by one’s own.” Stated negatively, this empathy leads to what has been called the Silver Rule—“Do not do unto others what you would not want others to do unto you,” but there is no reason to stop with this negative wording for Confucius put the point positively as well. “The person of jen, desiring self-affirmation, seeks to affirm as well.” Such largeness of heart knows no national boundaries for those who are jen-endowed know that “within the four seas all men are brothers and sisters.”
Jen involves simultaneously a feeling of humanity toward others and respect for oneself, an indivisible sense of the dignity of human life wherever it appears.
2. Chun tzu. The second concept is chun tzu. If jen is the ideal relationship between human beings, chun tzu refers to the ideal term in such relations. It has been translated the Superior Person and Humanity-at-its-Best. Perhaps the Mature Person is as faithful a rendering of the term as any.
Chun tzu refers to the maturity of relationships among people. It has been translated the Superior Person and Humanity-at-its-Best.
The chun tzu is the opposite of a petty person, a mean person, a small-spirited person. Fully adequate, poised, the chun tzu has toward life as a whole the approach of an ideal hostess who is so at home in her surroundings that she is completely relaxed, and, being so, can turn full attention to putting others at their ease. Or to switch genders, having come to the point where he is at home in the universe at large, the chun tzu carries these qualities of the ideal host with him through life generally. Armed with a self-respect that generates respect for others, he approaches them wondering, not, “What can I get from them?” but “What can I do to accommodate them?”
The chun tzu is the opposite of a petty person, a mean person, a small-spirited person. Such a person approaches others wondering, not, “What can I get from them?” but “What can I do to accommodate them?”
With the hostess’s adequacy go a pleasant air and good grace. Poised, confident, and competent, she is a person of perfect address. Her movements are free of brusqueness and violence; her expression is open, her speech free of coarseness and vulgarity. Or to switch genders again, the gentleman does not talk too much. He does not boast, push himself forward, or in any way display his superiority, “except perhaps at sports.” Holding always to his own standards, however others may forget theirs, he is never at a loss as to how to behave and can keep a gracious initiative where others resort to conventions. Schooled to meet any contingency “without fret or fear,” his head is not turned by success nor his temper soured by adversity.
Schooled to meet any contingency “without fret or fear,” his head is not turned by success nor his temper soured by adversity.
It is only the person who is entirely real, Confucius thought, who can establish the great foundations of civilized society. Only as those who make up society are transformed into chun tzus can the world move toward peace.
If there is righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character.
If there is beauty in the character, there will be harmony in the home.
If there is harmony in the home, there will be order in the nation.
If there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world.
It is only the person who is entirely real, Confucius thought, who can establish the great foundations of civilized society.
3. Li. The third concept, li, has two meanings.
Its first meaning is propriety, the way things should be done. Confucius thought it unrealistic to think that people could wisely determine on their own what those ways should be. They needed models, and Confucius wanted to direct their attention to the finest models their social history offered, so all could gaze, and memorize, and duplicate. The French, whose culture not only in its regard for cooking but in its attention to the art of life generally is China’s nearest counterpart in the West, have several idioms that capture this idea so well that they have made their way into the Western vocabulary; savoir faire, the knowledge of how to comport oneself with grace and urbanity whatever the circumstance; comme il faut, the way things should be done; apropos, that which is appropriate; and esprit, the right feel for things. Confucius wanted to cultivate the Chinese character in precisely these directions. Through maxims (burlesqued in the West by parodies of “Confucius say…”), anecdotes (The Analects are full of them), and his own example (“Confucius, in his village, looked simple and sincere; when in court he spoke circumspectly”), he sought to order an entire way of life, so that no one who was properly raised would ever be in doubt as to how to behave. “Manners maketh man,” a medieval bishop observed. Confucius anticipated that insight.
Confucius thought it unrealistic to think that people could wisely determine on their own what those ways should be. They needed the finest models their social history offered.
Propriety covers a wide range, but we can get the gist of what Confucius was concerned with if we look at his teachings on the Rectification of Names, the Doctrine of the Mean, the Five Constant Relationships, the Family, and Age.
“If terms be not correct,” Confucius pointed out,
language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language is not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried out to success…. Therefore a superior man considers it necessary that the names he uses be spoken appropriately, and also that what he speaks may be carried out appropriately. What the superior man requires is that in his words there be nothing that is incorrect.
Language must be in accordance with the truth of things. There should be nothing incorrect in the words used by a person.
This may sound commonsensical, but Confucius was grappling here with a problem that in our time has spawned a whole new discipline: semantics—the inquiry into the relation between words, thought, and objective reality. All human thought proceeds through words, so if words are askew, thought cannot proceed aright. When Confucius says that nothing is more important than that a father be a father, that a ruler be a ruler, he is saying that we must know what we mean when we use those words. But equally important, the words must mean the right things. Rectification of Names is the call for a normative semantics—the creation of a language in which key nouns carry the meanings they should carry if life is to be well ordered.
All human thought proceeds through words, so if words are askew, thought cannot proceed aright. We must know what we mean when we use words. And, the words must mean the right things.
So important was the Doctrine of the Mean in Confucius’ vision that a book by that title is central to the Confucian canon. The two Chinese words for mean are chun yung, literally “middle” and “constant.” The Mean, therefore, is the way that is “constantly in the middle” between unworkable extremes. With “nothing in excess” as its guiding principle, its closest Western counterpart is the Golden Mean of Aristotle. The Mean balances a sensitive temperament against overdose and indulgence, and in so doing checks depravity in the bud. “Pride,” the Book of Li admonishes, “should not be indulged. The will should not be gratified to the full. Pleasure should not be carried to excess.” Respect for the Mean brings harmony and balance. It encourages compromise, and fosters a becoming reserve. Wary of excess, toward pure values “equally removed from enthusiasm as from indifference,” China’s regard for the Mean has typically, but not universally, protected her from fanaticism.
The Mean is the way that is “constantly in the middle” between unworkable extremes. Respect for the Mean brings harmony and balance.
The Five Constant Relationships that constitute the warp and woof of social life are, in the Confucian scheme, those between parent and child, husband and wife, elder sibling and junior sibling, elder friend and junior friend, and ruler and subject. It is vital to the health of society that these key relationships be rightly constituted. None of them are transitive; in each, different responses are appropriate to the two terms. Parents should be loving, children reverential; elder siblings gentle, younger siblings respectful; husbands good, wives “listening”; elder friends considerate, younger friends deferential; rulers benevolent, subjects loyal. In effect Confucius is saying that you are never alone when you act. Every action affects someone else. Here, in these five relationships, is a frame within which you may achieve the maximum selfhood without damaging the web of life on which your life depends.
The Five Constant Relationships that constitute the warp and woof of social life are, in the Confucian scheme, those between parent and child, husband and wife, elder sibling and junior sibling, elder friend and junior friend, and ruler and subject.
That three of the Five Relationships pertain within the family is indicative of how important Confucius considered this institution to be. In this he was not inventing but continuing the Chinese assumption that the family is the basic unit of society. This assumption is graphically embedded in Chinese legend, which credits the hero who “invented” the family with elevating the Chinese from animal to human level. Within the family, in turn, it is the children’s respect for their parents that holds the key; hence the concept of filial piety. When the meanings of the parents are no longer meaningful to their children, someone has recently written, civilization is in danger. Confucius could not have agreed more. “The duty of children to their parents is the fountain from which all virtues spring.” Accounts of devoted children pepper Confucian literature. They are outlandish stories, many of them, as for example that of the woman whose aged mother-in-law was pining for fish in the depth of winter. The young woman prostrated herself on the ice of a pond and bared her bosom to melt the ice so she might catch the fish that surfaced in the hole.
That three of the Five Relationships pertain within the family is indicative of how important Confucius considered this institution to be. When the meanings of the parents are no longer meaningful to their children, civilization is in danger.
This regard for one’s elders was not to stop with one’s parents; it tied in with Confucius’ Respect for Age generally. Two points locked together here. On purely utilitarian grounds it would be good to have a society in which (after a certain age) the young would tend the old, for soon enough the young would be old themselves and would need to draw on their investment. But more than this utilitarian argument was at work. Confucius clearly thought that the young should honor and serve the old not simply to repay a contractual debt. He saw age as deserving veneration by reason of its intrinsic worth. For on balance, he believed, years bring not only experience and seasoning, but a ripening of wisdom and mellowing of spirit; on counts that matter most the old are ahead of us. This view is so contrary to the West’s, which venerates youth, that it is almost impossible for us to imagine how life would feel if one could look forward to being served and respected more with each passing year. After childhood, in each successive year proportionately more people would jump up from the table to fill the teapot instead of expecting you to do so, and you would be listened to with increasing attention and respect. Three of the Five Great Relations focus on looking up to one’s elders.
Confucius saw age as deserving veneration by reason of its intrinsic worth. For years bring not only experience and seasoning, but a ripening of wisdom and mellowing of spirit.
In the Rectification of Names, the Doctrine of the Mean, the Five Great Relationships, and Regard for Age and the Family we have sketched important particulars of li in its first meaning, which is propriety or what’s right. The other meaning of the word is ritual, which changes right—in the sense of what it is right to do—into rite. Or rather, it infuses the first meaning with the second; for when right behavior is detailed to Confucian lengths, the individual’s entire life becomes stylized in a sacred dance. Social life has been choreographed. Its basic steps have been worked out, leaving little need for improvisation. There is a pattern for every act, from the way thrice-yearly the Emperor renders to Heaven an account of his mandate, right down to the way you entertain the humblest guest in your home and bring out the tea. Alfred North Whitehead’s wife reported a Cambridge vicar who concluded his sermon by saying, “Finally, my brethren, for well-conducted people life presents no problems.” Li was Confucius’ blueprint for the well-conducted life.
The first meaning of Li is propriety or what’s right. The other meaning of the word is ritual. Li was Confucius’ blueprint for the well-conducted life.
4. Te. The fourth pivotal concept Confucius sought to devise for his countrymen was te.
Literally this word meant power, specifically the power by which men are ruled. But this is only the beginning of its definition. What is this power? We have noted Confucius’ rejection of the Realists’ claim that the only effective rule is by physical might. How right he was in his judgment, history demonstrates through the one dynasty, the Ch’in, that fashioned its policy on Realist lines. Stunningly successful at the start, it united China for the first time and bequeathed to it its name as “Ch’in” became “China.” But it collapsed in less than a generation—vivid witness to Talleyrand’s dictum that “You can do everything with bayonets except sit on them.” One of the best known of all Confucian stories is of how on the lonely side of Mount T’ai he heard the mourning wail of a woman. Asked why she wept, she replied, “My husband’s father was killed here by a tiger, my husband also, and now my son has met the same fate.”
“Then why do you dwell in such a dreadful place?” Confucius asked.
“Because here there is no oppressive ruler,” the woman replied.
“Never forget, scholars,” said Confucius to his disciples, “that an oppressive rule is more cruel than a tiger.”
Te means power, specifically the power by which men are ruled. But oppressive rule is the worst thing to have. Power of just rule is good.
No state, Confucius was convinced, can constrain all its citizens all the time, nor even any large fraction of them a large part of the time. It must rely on an acceptance of its will, an appreciable confidence in what it is doing. Noting that the three essentials of government were economic sufficiency, military sufficiency, and the confidence of its people, Confucius added that popular trust is by far the most important, for “if the people have no confidence in their government, it cannot stand.”
The three essentials of government are economic sufficiency, military sufficiency, and the confidence of its people. If the people have no confidence in their government, it cannot stand.
This spontaneous consent from its citizens, this morale without which nations cannot survive, arises only when people sense their leaders to be people of capacity, sincerely devoted to the common good and possessed of the kind of character that compels respect. Real te, therefore, is the power of moral example. In the final analysis, goodness becomes embodied in society neither through might nor through law, but through the impress of persons we admire. Everything turns on the head of state. If he or she is crafty or worthless, there is no hope for society. But if the leader is a true King of Consent whose sanction springs from inherent righteousness, such a person will gather a cabinet of “unpurchaseable allies.” Their complete devotion to the public welfare will quicken in turn the public conscience of local leaders and seep down from there to inspire citizens at large. For the process to work, however, rulers must have no personal ambitions, which accounts for the Confucian saying, “only those are worthy to govern who would rather be excused.”
Real te is the power of moral example set by the rulers. In the final analysis, goodness becomes embodied in society neither through might nor through law, but through the impress of persons we admire.
The following statements epitomize Confucius’ idea of te:
He who exercises government by means of his virtue [te] may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn toward it.
Asked by the Baron of Lu how to rule, Confucius replied: “To govern is to keep straight. If you, Sir, lead the people straight, which of your subjects will venture to fall out of line?”
When on another occasion the same ruler asked him whether the lawless should be executed, Confucius answered: “What need is there of the death penalty in government? If you showed a sincere desire to be good, your people would likewise be good. The virtue of the prince is like the wind; the virtue of the people like grass. It is the nature of grass to bend when the wind blows upon it.”
Justice Holmes used to say that he liked to pay taxes because he felt he was buying civilization. Where this positive attitude exists, things will go well politically. But how is the positive attitude to be elicited? Among Western theorists, Confucius would have found his spokesman in Plato:
Then tell me, Critias, how will a man choose the ruler that shall rule over him? Will he not choose a man who has first established order in himself, knowing that any decision that has its spring from anger or pride or vanity can be multiplied a thousandfold in its effects upon the citizens?
Confucius would also have seconded Thomas Jefferson, who thought that “the whole art of government consists in the art of being honest.”
To govern is to keep straight.If you showed a sincere desire to be good, your people would likewise be good.
5. Wen. The final concept in the Confucian gestalt is wen. This refers to “the arts of peace” as contrasted to “the arts of war”; to music, art, poetry, the sum of culture in its aesthetic and spiritual mode.
Wen refers to the sum of culture in its aesthetic and spiritual mode.
Confucius valued the arts tremendously. A simple refrain once cast such a spell over him that for three months he became indifferent to what he ate. He considered people who are indifferent to art only half human. Still, it was not art for art’s sake that drew his regard. It was art’s power to transform human nature in the direction of virtue that impressed him—its power to make easy (by ennobling the heart) a regard for others that would otherwise be difficult.
By poetry the mind is aroused; from music the finish is received. The odes stimulate the mind. They induce self-contemplation. They teach the art of sensibility. They help to restrain resentment. They bring home the duty of serving one’s parents and one’s prince.
Confucius was impressed by the power of art to transform human nature in the direction of virtue.
There is an added, political dimension to Confucius’ notion of wen. What succeeds in international relations? Here again the Realists answered in terms of physical might; it was the answer Stalin echoed in our century when, asked how the Pope figured in a move he was contemplating against Poland, asked in return, “How many battalions does he have?” Confucius’ thrust was characteristically different. Ultimately, the victory goes to the state that develops the highest wen, the most exalted culture—the state that has the finest art, the noblest philosophy, the grandest poetry, and gives evidence of realizing that “it is the moral character of a neighborhood that constitutes its excellence.” For in the end it is these things that elicit the spontaneous admiration of women and men everywhere. The Gauls were fierce fighters, and so crude of culture that they were considered barbarians; but once they experienced what Roman civilization meant, its superiority was so evident that they never, after Caesar’s conquest, had any general uprising against Roman rule. Confucius would not have been surprised.
Ultimately, the victory goes to the state that develops the highest wen, the most exalted culture—the state that has the finest art, the noblest philosophy, the grandest poetry, and gives evidence of realizing that “it is the moral character of a neighborhood that constitutes its excellence.”
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