Religion

The Worlds

Religions

HUSTON SMITH

.... .. HarperS. nFraneiseo

A OnJU>01t 0{ H.lrpcrCollinU\tbiubcon

UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON ROESCH LIBRARY

TilE WOfU.l)'S RELIG IONS: A Completely Revised and Updated Edition of The Religions of Man. Copyright @ 1991 by Huston Smith . Origi- nal copyright © 1958 by Huston Smith; copyright renewed in 1986 by Huston Smith . All rights reserved. Prilltt!d in tJm Un ited Sbtes of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced ill any mannerwhat:soever without written perm ission excepl in the case of brief quotations embodied in c ritical articles and reviews. For info r- mation address Jl arperColl ins Publishers, JO East 53rd Street. New York, NY 10022.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Smith, Huston. The world's religions I I lustoll Smith.

p. cm. Rev. and updated ed. of : The religions of man. 1958. Includes bibliographical refcrcncetO and index. I. Be ligions. I. Smith, Huston. Bcligions of man .

81.80.2.5645 1991 291- dc20

IS8N 0-06-250799-0 ISBN 0-06-2508U-3 (pbk.)

1I . 1itJc.

90-56449 e l P

91 92 93 9,) 95 M-V JO 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

This edition is printed 0 11 acid-free pape r thai meets the American National Standards Institute 2.39.48 Standard.

IV. Canfucianism

The First Teacher

If there is one Ilame with which Chincsecu lture has been as ' t I 'I' cr' socia C{ I IS olUucius'- Kung Fu-tzu or Kung Ihe Master. Chinese rever. enlly speak of him as Ule First Teacher- not thai there were no tea~hers before him , but because he stands first in rank. No one c1rums that he craned Chinese c liliure siJlglehandedly. and he him- self played down his originality by claiming to be no more than Na 10000r of tJle ancients."1 This desip'natiol1 how .... ~, ";'_ h' I

• "0 , "' .... , 0. 0-..00 1m ess than hiS due; it Shulds as an example orlhe modesty and reticence he ad~at~. For though Confucius did not author Chinese cllilure, he ~dS Its supre~eedi~or. Winnowing the past. undersCOring here, play- IIlg down or discarcllllg the re, reordering and annotating throughout ~e brought his culture to a focus that has remained remarkably dis: tmct for twenty. fi ve centuries.

The reader who supposes that such an achievement could come on ly from a dramatic life will be disappointed. Confucius was bom arou~d 551 e.c. in the Il.rincipality o.f Lu in what is now Shantung provmce. ~e know Ilothlllg for certnm about his ancestors, hut it is cleM tbat IllS early home life was modest. "WIlen young, I w.as with. out. rank and in humble c ircumstances. ~ His father died before Con. fuclUs ~ three,leaYing his upbringing to a loving bUI impm.'erished mother. Fmancially; therefore, he Wd.S forced 10 m-'- I ' fi . ' ilKe liS own way, at Irst through meDIal tasks. The hardship and paverty of tllese early

years gav~ him a tie with the common people, which was to be reflected III the democratic tenor of his entire philosophy.

IS.

CONFUCIANISM 155

Though reminiscences of his boyhood contain nostalgic refer· cures to hunting, fishing, and archery, thereby suggesting that he Wd.S anything but a bookwonn, he took early to his studies and did well in them . "On reaching the age offifleen , I bent mymind to learning.- In his early twenties, having held sever,,", insignificant goyernment posts and contracted a not too successful marriage, he established himself as a tulor. This was obviously his vocation. The reputation of his per· sonal qualities and practical wisdom spread rapidly, attracting a ci r· cle of ardent disciples.

Despite these disciples' CQlwictiOIl that "since the beginning of the human race there has never been a man like our Maste r," Confucius' career was, in tenns of his own ambilions, a failure. Ilis goal was pub-- lic office. for he believed - how wrongly we shall see- that lIis tbt.'Ories would not take hold unless he showed that they worked. I-Ie had supreme confidence in his ability to reorder society if given a chance. Being told of the growth of population in the stale of Wei and asked what should be dout:. he ans\\-'Crt.."<i, "Enrich them ." And after that? "Educate them; was his famous reply, adding with a sigh , "Were a prince to employ me, in a year sometlling could be done, and in three years the work cou ld be completedl" Ooti ug biographers., unable to conceive that a man so gifted could remain permanently hlocked in his life's ambition. credit him with five years of brilliant administration in his early fifti es, years in which he is pictured as advancing rapidly from Minister of Public Works through Ministe r of Jus tice to Prime Minister, duriug which Lu became a model state. Dissoluteness and dishonesty hid their heads.. the romanticized account conlinues. "A thing dropped in the streets ,",,'US not picked up." and loyalty and good faith became the order of the day. 11le truth is that contemporary rulers were mucll too afraid of Confucius' C~U1dor and integrity to appoinl him to any position involYing power. When his reputalion rose to the point where the rule r of his own stale, who had gained his poy,'Cr through usurpation, felt obliged to ask him jJCrfullctori ly for advice on how to rule, ConfUCius replied, tartly, that he had better leam lo gavern him- selfbcfore trying togovem others. The ruler did not have him cut into pieces, as he might have done save for Confucius' reputation, hut nei- ther did he appoint him prime minister. Instead he tossed him an honOrific l>OSt with an exalted title but 00 authority, hoping thus to keep him quiet. Needless to say, once Confucius discovered the ploy he resigned in disgust.

ISft TilE WORLD'S RELIGIONS

Prompted as if by cal i_MAt fifty J perceived the divine missionM_ he gave his next thirteen years, with many a backward look and resis t- ing footstep. to "the long trek," in which he wandered from state to sta te proffering unsolicited advice to rulers on how to improve their ~OYerning and seeking a real opportunity to pu t his ideas into prac- bce. 111eopportu nity never came; a bystander'S prediction as he set ou~ that MHeaven is going to use the Master as a beU to rouse the peo_ ple turned to mockery as tile yeat'S slipped by. Once he was offered an official positioll in tile state of C hen. but fi nding that the official who iss ued the invitation was in rebellion against his chief. he rerused to become a party to the intrigue. The dignity and saving humor with which he carried himself during these difficult years ~oes great credit to his person. Tau nted once by a bystander. "Creat mdeed is Confuciusl I-Ie knows abou t everything and has made no name in anytJling," Con ruciw; responded to his disciples ill mock dis- may: "Now what shaJl J take up? C harioteerillg? Archery?- As state after stnte disregarded his counsels of peace and cOllcen! for the peo_ ple, recluses and IIt:rmits sneered at his e fforts to reform society and advist.'C! him to join the ir quest for a self-mastery sufficien l loofrset the ills of a society beyond redemption. Even peasants c riticized him as "a man who knows lie cannot succeed but keeps 0 11 trying." Only a small band or faithrul disciples stood by him through rebuff. dis- couragement, and near starvation. Once the records give us a pichlre or them togetller, Confucius' heart swell ing with happiness and pride as he looked at them -Minglzu so calm in reserved-strength. 'Pw Lu so full of energy. Jan Ch'ill and Thu Kung so frank and fearless.

In lime. with a cbal1ge or admin istration in his own state. he was invited to return. There, recogniz.ing that he was now too old for office anyway, hcspen t his last five years quietly teaching and editing the classics of C hina·s»as!. In 479 B.C .• at the age of 5eVenty.three, he died .

A. failure as a poli tician, Confucius was undoubtedly oue of the ~'Orlds greatest .teachers. Prep~ to instruct in history, poetry, gov- ern~enl. propnct'Y, mathematics, music, divination, and sports, he was, 111 the manner or Socrates, a one-man university. liis method or teaching was likewise Socmtic. Always infonnal , he seems 1I0t to have lectured but instead to have conversed on problems his students ~sed, citing readings and asking questions. He was particularly skilled at the latter: MTIle Master's way or asking- how different it is

GONt-"UClANISM ."

from that of o thers\MThe openness with whicb he interacted with his students was likewise striking. Not for a moment assuming that he "~dS II sage himself. sngehood being ror him not a stock of knowledge but quality in comportme nt, he presented himself to his students as their re llow trdVeler. committed 10 the task oflJeComing rully human but modest in how fa r he had gotten with that task.

There a.refour ti,ing! in the Way of tile profound person, 1I0ne of w/lidl I have been able to do. 7bseroe myfather tu I would expect my.so'l to serne me. Toserue my mlertu I would exrJeCt my minis· ten to serve me. To serne my elder I,rother tu I would e%}JeCt Illy younger brothers to serve me. To be the first to tn:at friends tu I wmJd exrJeCt them to treat me. These 111ace not been a.bJe to do. t

At the same time. on tile importance of tile task on which he was embarked. he was uncompromising. 111is led him to expect much rrom his students, for he saw the cause in which he was e nrolling them as nothing less 1I1wl the redressing or the entire social order. This conviction made him a zealot, bllt humor and a sense ofpropor- lion preserved him from being a fanati c. When the skeptic 'Thai Wo proposed de riSively, Mlf someone said there is a man in the ",'CII , the altru ist I suppose. \VOuld go after him,w Confucius remarked thai "cvcn an altruist would first make certain tllere really was a man down the ~'CIII" When someone was recommended to him as .. think· ing thrice be rore he look action," Confuci us replied dryly, "'TWice is sufficient." Confident as he was., he was always ready to admit tha t he might be wrollg, and, when it was the case, thai he had been mistaken.

There was noth ing otller-worldly about him . He loved to be with people, to dine out, tojoin in the chorus of a good song. and to drink. though not in excess. His disciples reported that "When at le is ure the Master's manner was inronnal and cheerful. li e was affable. yet firm; dign ified yet pleasant." lIis democratic a ltitudes have already been remarked upon. Nol only was he always ready to chaml>ion the cause of common people against the oppressive nobilltyofhis day; in his personaJ relations he cut "scandalously" across class lines and ncvcr slighted his poorer students e\'Cll when they could pay hi m nothing. He was ki nd, though capable of sarcasm when he thought it deserved. or one who had taken to c riticizing his companions, Confucius observed, "Obviously 'TZu Kung must have become quite

158 TilE \VOIU.O'S RELIGIONS

perfect himself to have time for this sort of thing. , do nol have this much leisu re"

II was true, for he remained to Ihe end more exacti ng of himself than he was of others. MHow dare ' allow myself to be taken as sage and humane!" he said. "' II may rnther be said of me that I strive to become such without salie ly."3 He remained faithfuJ to the quest. Power and wealth could have been his for the asking if he had been willing 10 compromise wilh those in authority. He preferred, instead, his integrity. He never regTctled the choice "With coarse focxl to eat, wdter to drink, and Illy !>ended arm for a pillow, I still ha\'cjoy in the midst of these tllings. niches and honors acquired by unrighteous- ness mean no more to me than the floaling clouds."

With his death began his glorification. Among h.is disciples the move was immediate Said 'P.r.u Kung. "'lie is the sun, the moon, which there is no way of climbingO\'er. The impossibility of e<lualling our Master is like the impossibility of reaching the sky by scaling a ladder." Others came to agree Within a fCY., generdtions he was reb'Urd(.-d tlu"Oughout C hina as Mthe mentor and model of le n thou- sruld generntions." What would have pleased him more \\. .. .15 the atten- tion given to his ideas. Until this century. every C hinese school child for two thousand years raised his clasped hands each moming toward a table in the schoolroom that bore a plaque bearing Confucius' name Virtually every C hinese student has pored over his sayings for hours, with the result that they have become a part of the Chinese mind and trickled down to the ilJiternh: in spokc n proverbs. Chinesc govenlment. too. has bcell iu£luenced by him, more deeply than by any other figure. Sillce the start of the Christian ern a large number ofgovernmeutal offices. including some of lhe highest. have required of their occupants a knowledge of the Confucian classics. There have been a number of attempts, some or them quasi-official . to elevate him to the stature of divinity.

What produced this influence?-so b'l'eat that until the Com- munist takeover observers ~'Cre still regarding Confucianism as "the greatest Single intellectual force" among olle-quarter of tile world's population. It could hardly have been his personality. Exemplary as this was, it was too undramatic to explain his his torical impact. If we tum instead to his teachings, our puzzle only deepens. As edifyin8 anecdotes and moral maxims, tJley are thoroughly commendable But how a collection of sayings so patently didactic, so pedestrian

CONFUCIANISM IS'

that tlley often appear commonplace. cou~d ha~'e m?lded a civiliza- tion , appears at first glance to be one of hlstorys emgma.s. Here are some samples:

Is rwl lie a tnU! pllilosoplierwlio. IllouWI/~ be unrecognized, cller- isl~ rw resfmhmml? what !IOU do not wi.sh done to younelJ, do not do to others. I will not grieve tllat otller6 do not know me.. I will grieve that I do not krU)W ot/len Do rwl wis/l for quick ru u/t$, nor lookfor small adoorltages. If you seek quick results. you will riot ottllinl/~ ultimate goo/. If you are fed astray by small adoontages. you will never accompllS/l great things. Nobler persoM first prnctice wlwt they preach anJ a!tCfW(Jrds preach actxmJing to tlaeir l,rnctice. If, wllerl ~' look lIlto your own lieart , you find nodling wrong there. ",/16t l& there to worTy about. What is there to fear? wilCti you know a tllirlg. to recognize that you knouJ itj fwd wllerl you do not, to know tlUlt you do not I....,ww- daat is I....,wwlellge.

1b go too far is lUI bad as to fall sllorl . when you see someone of wort/l, think of llOW you may emulate. W/lerl you see someone unworthy, eramir~ your own cllOracter. Wealth and nwk are what IH!01,le desire, Iml Iwless they be obtained in the "WIt way the y may rIOt be possessell. Feel kinJly toward everyone. IWI be inljnwte only with tlte virtUQu&' ~

TIlcre is certa.inly nothing to take exception to in such observa-

lions. But where is their ~'Cr?

Tile Problem Confucius Faced For the clue to Confucius' ~'er and influence, we must see both his life and his teaching agai.nst the background of the problem he faced. This was the problem of social a.narchy.

Early China had been neithcr more nor less turbulent ~han other lands. The eighth to the third centuries B.C •• however, wItnessed a

160 TilE \,,'ORLD'S R.:LlCl0~S

collapse of the Chou Dynasty's ordering power. Rival baronies were len to their own devices, creating a precise parallel to conditiolls in Pulestine in the period of the Judges : ~ln those days there was no king in lsnlcl: every mall did what was right in his own eyeS.k

The almost continuous warfare of tlle age began in the paUcnl of chivalry. The chariot .... 'as its wcapon, coortesy its code. and acts of generosity were accorded high honor. Confronted with illvASion, a baron wou ld send in bravado a convoy of provisions to the in .... dding army. Or to prove that his men were beyond fear and intimidation, he wou ld send, as messengers to his invdder, soldiers who would slil their throats in his presence. As in the Il omeric age. warriors of opposing nrmies, recognizing each other, wou ld exchange haughty compliments from their chariots, drink togetller, and even trade weapons before doing baltle.

Oy ConfuCius' time. however, the interminable warfare had degcncrat'ed from chivalry toward the unrestrained horror of the Period of the Warring Stales. TIl e horror reached its height in the centu ry followi ng Confucius' death . Con tests between charioteers gave way to cavalry, with its surprise attacks and suddcn raids. Instead of nobly holding their prisoners for rdnsom, conquerors put them to death in mass executions. Whole populations unlucky enough to be captured "'-'ere beheaded, including women, children, and the aged . \\~ read of mass slauglltcrs of60,000, 80.000, and even 400,000. The re are accounts of the conquered being t.hrown intu boi ling cauldrons and the ir relatives forced to drink the human soup.

In such an age the question that eclipsed al l others W'dS: I low can we keep from destroying ourselves? Answers differed, but the ques- tion was always the same. With the invention and proliferation of weapons of ever-increasi ng destructivcness, it is a question that in tile twe ntie th century has come to haunt the en tire world .

As the clue to the power of Confucianism lies in its answer to this problem of sociaJ cohesion, we need to see that problem in historical perspective. Confucius lived at a time when social cohesion had deteriorated to a critical point. The glue was no longer holding. What had held SOCiety togetller up to then?

Before life reached the human level. the answer was obvious. 11le glue thai holds the pack, the herd, the hive togetller is insti nct. The cooperation it produces among ants and bees is legcndary, bUI th roughout the subhuman world generally it can be coonted 0 11 to

CONFUCIANISM 161

ensure reasonable cooperation. There is plenty of violence in nature, but on the whole it is between species. not within them. Within the species an inbuilt gregariousness, the ~herd instinct ," keeps life stable.

With the emergence of the human species, this automatic source of social cohesion disappears. Man being "the animal witllout instincts," no inbuih mechanislll can be counted on to keep life intacl_ What is now to hold anarchy in check? [n the infancy of the species the answer was spontrulcou5 tradition, or as the anthropolo- giSts sometimes say, ~the cake of custom." Through generations of trial and error, certain ways of behaving prove to contribute 1'0 the tribe's well-being. Councils do not sit down 1'0 decide what the tribe W',UltS and what behavior patterns will secure those wdnts; patterns simply take shape over centuries, during which generations fumble tlle ir way toward satisfying mores and away from destructive ones. Once the patterns becomes established-societies that fail to evolve viable ones presumably read themselves out of existence. for none have remained for anthropologists to study- they are tnlllsmiued from generation to gener.ation unthinkingly. As the Romans would say, tlley are passed on to tile young cum lacte, "wi th the mother's milk.~

Modem life has moved so far from the tradition-bound life of tribal societies as to make it difficult for us to realize how complete.ly it is possible for mores to be in control. There are not many areas in which custom continues to reach into our lives to dic ta.te our behavior, but dress and attire remains olle of them. Guidelines are weakening even here, but it is still pretty much the case that if a cor- poration executive were to forget his necktie, he '"''Quid have trouble getting through the day. Indecent exposure would not be the prob- lem; he would simply have transgressed convention- his profession's assumed (but for the most part not explicitly stated) dress code. This would immediately target him 11.5 an outsider; he would be suspected of aberrant, if not subve rsive, p roclivities. His associates would regard him out of the corners of the ir eyes as-well, different. And this is not a comfortable way to be seen , which is what gives custom its power. Someone has vcntured that in a woman's certitude that she is wearing precisely the right thing for the occasion, tJlere is a peace that religion can neithe r give nor take away.

If we generalize to all areas of!ife this power of tradition, which we now seldom feel outside matters of attire. we shall have a picture

162 THE wonw's RELIGIONS

or the tradition-oriented lire ortriba) societies. Two things about this lire are or particular interest here. The first is its phenomenal capac. ity to keep asocial acls in check. There are tribes among the Eskimos and the Australian aborigines that do not e\'ell have \'lOrds ror disobe. dienee. The second impressive thjng is the spontaneous, unthinking way socialization by this mcans proceeds. No laws are ronnulated with penalties attached: no plans ror the moral education or children intentionally devised. Croup expectat.ions are so strong and ullcom· promising that thc young internali7.c them without question or deliberation. TIle Creenlanders have no conscious program or edu- cation, nevertheless anthropologists report tJlat their children are impressively obedient, good-natured, and ready to help. American Indians are still living who remember a time when in their regions' social con trols were entirely internal. -l1)ere were no laws then. Everybody did what was right."'S

In early China. custom and tradition probably likewise provided sufficient cohesion to keep tJu: community intact. Vivid evidence or its power has come down to LIS. Thcre is, for example, the recorded case or a 1I0ble lady who WolS burned to death in a palace fire because she rerused to violateconvclltion and leave the house without a chap- eron. The historian -a contempor-.lJ)' or Conrucius -who reported the incident glosses it in a way that shows that convention had lost some of it" rorce in his tJ li nking but was still very much intact. li e suggests that ir the lady had been unmarried. her conducl would have been beyond question . But as she was nol only a married woman bUI an elderly one at that, it might not have been "altogethe r unfitting Wider the circumstances" ror her to have len the burning mansion unaccompanied.'

TIle historian's sensi tivity to the past is stronger tJlan most; not everyone in Con rucius' day gave a'en as much ear to tradition as did the reporter just cited . Chi na had reached a new point in its social evolution, a point marked by tJlC emergence oflarge numbers ofindj- viduals in the rull sense or that word . Selr-conscious mtJler than group--conscious, these individurus had ceased to think or themselves primarily in the first person pluro1l and were thinking in the first per- son singular. l\cason was replacing social conventions, and self. interest outdistancing the expectations of the group. 11le ract tJl3t others were bclUlving in a given way or that their ancestors had done so rrom time immemorial could no longer be relied on as sufficient

CON ~'UCIANt SM 163

reason ror individuals to follow suit. Proposals ror action had nQl,\l to race peoples' question, "What's in it ror me?"

The old mortar that had held society together was chipping and flaking. In working their way out of the "cake or custom," individuals had crdcked that cake beyond repair. The rupture did not occu r over· night; ill history nothing begins or ends 011 time's knire--edge, least of all cultural change. The fi rst individualists were probably wild mutants, lonely eccentrics who raised strange questions and resisted group identification not out of caprice bllt rrom tJ)e simple inability to feel themselves comple tely one witJl tJle gang. But individualism and selr-consciousness are contagiOUs. Once they appear, they spread like epidemic and wildfire. Unreflective solidarity is a thing or the past.

Rival Answers

When tradition is nO longer ade(luate to hold society together, hUlllan lire races tJle gravest crisis i! has encountered. It is a crisis the modem world should have no difficult y in understanding, ror in recent years it has returned to haunt humanity in nn acu te form . The United States provides the clearest example. A genius for absorhing peoples or varying national and e thnic backgrounds has earned ror her the reputation of beillg a melti ng pol'; but in weakening the tradi- tions that immigrant groups brought with tJlcm, the United States has not prOVided them with a compelling replacement. This leaves ule nation perhaps the most traditionless society history has known. As tJle alternative to trnrution, the United States has proposed rea· SOli. Educate citi7,cns and inform tJlem, and they can be coun ted on to behave sensibly-tJlis is the Jeffersonian-En lightenment raith on which the Un ited States was rounded. II has not been rulfilled . Until recentJy the world's leader in education, the United States leads like-- wise in crime. delimluency, and divorce

With the Enlightenment's answer to tJ)e t>roblem or human coherence having still to vindicate itselr, it is or more than an tiquar- ian interest to look at the options Utat ancient China proposed. One or thc~ WolS put rorward by the Healists.7 What do you do when peo- ple don't behave? Hit them. It is (l c1a.~s ic answe r to a classic <Iuestioll . What people understand best is force. Once individuals emerge rrom the chrysalis or tradition and start to steer their lives by reason, lhe

IIU TilE wO RUYS REUCIONS

pull of passion and self-interest is so strong that only the threat of heavy reprisal will keep tJlem in line. Prate as you please of reason and moral- ity, in the last analysis it is brute force that carries tJ1C day. nlC only Woly to avoid universal violence in a socie ty composed of self-seeking individuals is to maintain an effective militia that stands ready to bat people back in line when tJley tnuugrcss. nlere must be laws that stal'e clearly wbat is and is not permitted, and penalties for violation mllst be such that no one will dare to incur tJlem. In short. the ncalists' answer to the problem of social orde r was: laws with teeth in them. It w.u essentiall y the answer Hobbes was to propose in the West. Left to the devices of individuals. with no absolute hand to restrain their self-seeking, lifc is "nasty, brutish. and above aU. short."

The application of the Realists' philosophy of social order proceeded by W'dy of an elaborate mechanism of "penalties and rewards." Those who did what the state commanded were to be rewurckod; tJlose who did not were to be punished. C iven this approach. the list of laws obviously had to be long and detailed - pious generalities, whicll could be bent out of shape by self-seeking interpretations, would not do. "If a law is too concise," said Han Fei Tzu, the leading spokesman for tJle Realists. "the commOn people d isl)ute its int-en tions, An enlightened ruler. when he makes his lav.'S, sees to it that every contingency is provided for in detai l.' Not only must the requirements ofl aw be spelled out; pe nalties for illfrnctions should likewise be clearly specified. And tiley should be heavy. "Ideali sts, ~ Han Fe i 1'1.U cUlltinues, "are always telling us lliat punish- IllCll ts should be light. This is tJle way to bring about confus ion and ruin . The object of rt..-wards is to encour.Jge; thai of punishments, to prevent. If rewards are high. then what the ruler wants will be qu ickly effected; if punishments are heavy, what he does not want will be swiftly prevented."

The estimate of human nature from which this political phil oso- phy proceeded was obviously low. It was low in two WdYS. First, it assumed that base impulses pred ominate over noble ones. People are naturally lustful, greedy, and jealous. Coodl1ess, if it is to emerge. must be bujit into them as " uod is straighte ned in a press. "Ordinary people are lazYi it is natural to the m to shirk hard work and to delight i ll idleness.' Many will feign moral attitudes when tJley tJlink tJlese will enable them to get ahead; indeed, II count ry may ret!k with sham

CONFUCIANISM 165

morality and faked altruism. But when push comes to shove, self-

inte rest will out. The second way the Realists' view of human nature was low was

injudbring people to be short-Sighted . Ru lers ~ust envision the long- term good, but subjects are not capable of thiS. ConsC<luently, they will not voluntarily accept presellt sacrifices as necessary for future gains. Suppose a baby has a scalp disease. " if the baby's he~d i~ not shaved. tJlere is a return onts malady; if a boil is nul lanced, It WlII go on growing. Bllt while such tJlings are ~ing done to iI. tho~gh some- one holds it close and SOOtJles it and Its own mother lovUlgly per- forms these operations, tile child will nevertheless scream and howl the whole while. not understanding at aJlthat the small pain to which it is being subjected will result in a great gain."1G Similarl:, ~e masses "want security. but hate the means that produce secunty. If they are allowed 1.0 follow the promptings of immediate pleasu":, tJ1Cy will soon be victims of the pains tJley most dr~a~ ; whereas.if they are made to accept some things they currentl y d islike, they WIll be brought in the e nd to the pleasures they want.

This low estimate of human nature in genera1 did not lead tJJe Realists to deny that nobler sentiments exist. They simply doubted tJmt these were in sufficient supply to keep the state i ll orde r. Occa- sional geniuses appear who are able to draw perfect circles freehand. but can wheel-making wait on these? One person in a thollsand may be scrupulously honest. but of whatu5e are these few when milliol.1S are involved? For the millions, audits are indispensable. One ruler til a thousand might be able to inspire a pt.-ople to live cooperatively without sanctions; but to tell tJle C hinese people, caught as they were in tile Period of tile Warring States, to wait for another model ruler of tile orde r of tile legendary heroes of the past , is like telling a man who is drowning in Mjddle China to hope th at a skilled swim- mc r frOUl the borde r provinces will materialize to save him.

Life is hard. We may wish that it were not, but wishing does nol

change realities.

No lake $0 still but that it lua its wove; No circle 80 perfect but Owt it IItU iLl blur. I would cllOnge tMng; jOf' you if I cOIlId; As I co,,·t. yOIl must take tllem as they are.

164i TilE WOIlLD'S RELIGIONS

The harsh facts of existence call for unwavering realism, for compro- mises annul action by trying to move two ways at once. ~Ice and embers cannot lie in the same bowl ."

Actually, a social philosophy as different from the Realists' as fire from ice did exist alongside it in ConfuCiUS' C hina_ Known as Mohism after its principal spokesman, Mo lZu or Mo n , it proposed as the solution to C hina's social problem nol force bUI love- universal love (chum UI/ _1I One should Mfeelloward all people under heaven exactly as one feels toward one's own people. and regard other states exactJy as one regards one's own state.-

Mutunl ntinch among states, mutual usurpation among houses, mutual injurWs among irulioiduai.s, these a.f"e [among} tile lIlajor calamities ill O'l! world.

But whence do these calamities arise? They (I rise out of WilIIt of IIIlduallove. At IJn?Stmt,feudallords

Iwve leamed ouly to love tlleir own state and /lOt those of othen. Therefore they tlo IIOt scruIJle about altacki,lg other statea. 11/.8 Ileads of houses "noe /e(Jrned only to love tlleir own hou.ses and not tllOse of others. Therefore tI,ey do not SCtUIJie about US1H1Jing other I,ouses. Arid individua/.y Iwve learned mlly to love them- selves and not others. Therefore t/ley do riot senlple about injuring others. Therefore all O,e calamities, strifes, complaints, and Iwtred ill tile world Iwve arisen out of wont of lIIutual love. . ..

How con we hove tlte condition altered? It is to be altered by lite way of universal love and mutual aid. But wllUt is the way af ,,"iversall~ and mutual aid? It iJ to regard the state of otlter'S as OMS OW". die houses of

otlters as Orle6 own, Ole pencr13 of others as DrieS self Wi,en all tile peopll! in the world love Drle another; then the strong will not over- power the weak, tlJe many will not oppress the few, tire weall/lY will 'lot mock the poor; the hOllOred will oot disdain tIle l!Umble, and tire cunning will no t deceive tl.e simple. And it is all due tQ mutual love that calamities. strifes. complaints, and hatred are IJrevertted from arising. II

Mo 17.u simply disagreed witJI charges that his emphasis on love was sentimental and imprdcticai. Mlfit were not useful , cvcn I would disapprove of it. But how can there be anything tJlat is good but not useful?- Il may have been the raclicalness of Mo Thu's position that

CON FUCIANlSM 167

led him to believe that it was backed by Shang Ti, the Sovereign on lligh, a personal god who -loves people dearly; ordered the sun, the moon, and the stars; sellt down snow, frost, rain, and dew; established the hills and rivers, r.willes and valleys; appointed dukes and lords to J'(,.'\\'lU'd the virtuous and punish the wicked. HeaVt!n loves the whole ..... ,orld universally. Everything is prepared for the good of human bei llgS."1l

As IO'IIC is obviously good, and the Cod who orders the .... ,orld is good as well , it is inconceivable that we have a ..... 'Orld in which love does not pay. For Mwhoever loves others is loved by others; whoever benefits others is benefited by othe rs; whoever injures otJlers is injured by otJlers. "1 4

Confucius' Answer

NeitJler of these rivaJ answers to tJ,C problem of social cohesion impressed COllfucius.~ He rejected the Realists' answer of force because iI was clumsy ancl external. Force regulated by law can sct limits to peoples' dealings, bUI it is too crude to inspire their day-to- day, face-to-face exchanges. With regard to tJ,C famil y, for example, it can stipulate conditions of marriage and di \lOrce, but it cannot gener- ate Ioye and companionship. This holds generally. Coyernmenis need what they cannot themselves provide: meaning and motivation.

As for tJ,e Moilists' reliance 0 11 !oye, Confuci us agreed with tJle !\ealists in dismissing it as utopian . A. C. eraham testifies to the deci- siveness of Confucius' victory on this point when he observes that in retrospect MMohism has the appearance of being foreign, not merely to Confucian thinking, but to the whole of Chinese civilization. No olle e lse finds it tole rable to iJlsi.~ t tJlat you should be as concerned for the otJler man's family as for your OVo'TI . -1ft TIlat love has an im)>ortant place in lire. we shall be hearing Confucius insis t; but it must be sup- ported by social structures and a collective e thos. To hal'p excl usively on love is to preach e nds without means. Putting ilthis W'dy helps us to appreciate Confucius' conviction that the Realists and Mohists were equal ly mistaken , but in opposite \W)'S. The Realists thought that goyem mcllts could establish peace and harmony through the laws arid force that are their domain . Mohists we nl to tJIC ot>posite extreme; tJu~y assu med tJlat personal com mitment could do the job. This overlooks tJle fac t that diffe re nt circumstances and relationships

168 Till-: WORLD'S RELIGIONS

prompt different senti ments and legitimizc d ifferent responses. When asked, ~Should one love one's enemy, those who do us harm?~ Confucius replied, "-By no means. Answer hatred with justice. and love with benevolence Otherwise you would waste your benevo- lence. ~ Con fucius' fo remost disciple. Menclus, used this samc logic to reject Mo Tw's can ~ to love 0.11 equall y.- In ignoring the spe~ial affection members of one's own family inspire, Mo T.lU showed hun- self to be unrealistic

The West's current app roach to the social problem - through lhe cultivation of reason-probably did not occur to Confucius. Ifit had he would have dismissed it as nOlthought through. Those who hold an evolutionary view of intelligence. seei ng it as increasing over the centuries, may argue tbat this was because he was dealing with soci- ely in its immaturity-when, like an adolescent. it .... 'llS too .old to span k but too young to reason with. It is more probable that Insofar as this issue ente red his consciousness at all. Confucius assumed that the mind operates in a context of attitudes and emotions thai are con- ditioned by the individual's grou p relationships. Unless experiences in this latter area dispose one to cooperate. upgraded reason is likely to do nothing but aid self-i nterest. Confuci us was no child of the Enlightenme nt. He was closer to philosophers and psychologists who recognize that altru ism is not much engendered byexhorlution.

Taking this for gl1lllted. Confucius was all but obsessed with tra- dition, fo r lie saw it as the chief shaper of inclinations and attitudes. He loved tradition because he saw it as a potential conduit-one thnt could funnel inio the present behavior patterns that had been per- fected during a golden age in China's past, the Age of the C rand Har- mony. Because mores were then compelling. people confonned to them; because they were fi nely wrought , the conformation brought peace and happiness. Confuci us may have idealized, even ron~anli­ cized. this period when China was passing from the second millen- nium into the first and the Chou Dynasty was at its zenith . Unquestionably. he envied it and wished to replicate it as fWllIfully as he could. Tradition appeared to him to be the device for approprial- ing from this gloriOUS past prescriptions that could scrve his own troubled times.

Current social theorists would commend his li ne of thought. Socialization, they tell us.

CONfUCIANISM ". has to be transmittedfrom the old to the young. and tile ~lObit.s and the idea.! IIIl1st be maintained as a searnle." web of memory among the bearers of tile trodititm. generatio,1 after generation . ... When the continuity oj t ~'e traditions of civility i.J ruptured, the commu- nity l.t t /.,.eohmed. Unless tl16 n,pture La r-qXJ ired, tile cornmunity will break down Into factional , .. 100,.,. Fo,. when tl16 continuity is itlterT1lIJted. ti,e cultural heritage i.t not being tran81nitletl. TIle nL'W generation i.t faced witll the task of redi.tc01Jering and rein- venting and relea rning by trial arid error most of what lit] ,leeds to know. ... No one generation can do this. n

Confucius spoke a different language. but he was working on this exact theme

lIis regard. even revere nce, for the past did not make him an antiquarian. He knew that changes had occurred that precluded Ole possibility of returning literally to the past. The year 500 B.c. ''''''.is separated from the year 1000 (to use round num bers) by the Chinese having become indiViduals. They YlCre now self-conscious and refl ec- tive. This being the case, spontaneous tradition - tradition that had emerged without conscious intent and had ruled vi llages without dissent -could no longer be counted on. Its o.1 tem ative was deliber- ate tradition. When tradition is 110 longer spontaneous and unques- tioned. it must be shored up and re inforced through conscious attention.

111e solution, simple to the ear but in substance profound. embod ied the appositeness of social genius. In times of transition an effective proposal must meet two conditions. It must be continuous with the past. for only by tying in wilh what people ha\le known and are accustomed to can it be gene rally accepted.-:-Ol ink not that I came to destroy; I came not to destroy but to fuLfiW (Matthew S:l l). At the same Lime the answer must take clear-eyed account of develop- ments that render Ole old ansv."Cr un ..... orkable Confucius' proposal met both requirements brillirUltly. Continuity WolS preserved by keeping tra- dition stage center. Don't rush, he seemed to be sayi ng; let's see how it was done in the past -we have heard his claiIn to being ~simply a lover of the ancients." With Ole perspicacity of a politician taki ng his stand 0 11 the Constit ution, he appealed to the Classics as establishing the guidelines for his platfonn. Yet all the while he was interpreti ng,

170 TilE WOKI.0'5 RELIGIONS

m()(lifying. refonnulating. Unknown to his people. we can feel con- fident, he was effecting a momentous reorientation by shifting tradi- tion from an unconscious to a conscious foundation.

Unknown to his people. and for the mosl part unknown to him- self. we should add. for it .... ,ould 00 a mislake to suppose thai Confucius was full y aware of what he was doing. 8uI genius does nol depend upon fuji , self-conscious understanding of its creations. It. poet may have less than a critic's knOlNlcdge of why certain wonb .... 'Cre chosen; the lack in no way precludes the words from being right. Probably a1l excep- tional c reativity proceeds more by inhlitive fed than by explic it dis- cernment. Clearly. this was so with Confuc illS. )-Ie would not. he could nol, havejuslified or even described his answer in tJle lenns we have used . He merely conceived tJle auswcr in the first place. leaving to poslerity die secondary task of trying to understand what he had done and why it proved 10 be efrective.

The shift from spontaneous to deliberate tradition requires that lhe powers of critical inte lligence be turned both to keeping the force of tmdition intact, and to de te rmining which ends tmdilion shall henceforth serve.. A people must fif5t decide what values ace iml>or- tanl to their collective well-being; this is wilY Mamong the ConfUCians the study of the correct attitudes was a matler of prime importance. -18 lllen every device of education - fonnal and infonnal, womb to tomb - should be turned to seeing thai these values are universally inle rnalized. As one Chinese has described the process: "MoreL! ideas were driven into the people by every possible means - temples, thea- ters, homes, Ioys, proverbs, schools, history, and stories - until they became habits in daily life. ... Even festivals and parades ..... ere [in Ihis senseJ religious in charac ter."Ji By sud. means even a socie ty con· stituted of individuals can (if it puts itself to the task) spin an envelop- ing trndilion. a power of suggestion, that can prompt its members to behave socially even when the law is nOllooking.

The technique pivots around whal sociologists call "patterns of prestige. ~ Every group has such patte rns. In teenage gangs they may include toughness and OULrdgeous floutings or con\lt!ntion; ill monaste r- ies. holiness and humility are valued. Whatever its (.'Onlcnt a patte rn- of-prestige cmbodies the vJ.lues the leaders of the group admire. Fol- lowers, taking their cues from leade rs whom tlaey admire. come to respect their values and arc disposed to enact them - partly because !.hey, too, have come to admire them, and partJy to win peer approval.

CONFUCIANISM 171

It · a pO\\'erful routine. perhaps tile only one by which distinc- . I ~~mun values ever pemleate large groups. For nearly ~·wo ~ou­llvcl the 6rst sentcnce a Chinese child, livi ng ill the direct hght :;'1~I~iUS, was taught to read was not, "Look, look; look ?nd see,- but rather Mllumnn be ings are by nat~re g~;~ ~;.;na~s~~ ;~~:

d .s uised mor.lHring but every nation n~ It. Ie III ~: \~ story of Ceorg~ Wa. .. hington and the che,rry tree and ~~

ralisms of the McCuffey Ri!ader: The Romans renown for dls_ ~ol _ d bed-ence r~.1 on the ir legend of the father who con CIP me un 0 I 1\....... d D' I dcmned his son to dealh for winning a victory again~t. o~ e; D;~ Nelson ac tually say. "England expects every Ulan to do I,S IIty

_ all I' . MAli is lost save honor'1 11 doesn I much mat- FranCIS Ire. yetc Ulm. les to thc ir le r The stories express national ideals. and shape peo~ f Co hn~e. Similarl y, the intenninable anecdotes and mUllIl~s ~ l tJn. fucius' Analects were designed to creale the I)rototype 0 w 13 Ie Chinese hoped the Chinese chamcler would become.

I , . J . ~'I'lle tn •• tUmtleman is rrlendiy hut. not jtAmi/iar; 'f Ie A aster saue ."..... J'

the iliferiOr mall is familiar but not friendly. _

Tsu King asked; ~\VllUt would you say oftJie~or~ who ~ liked 7Y U I "fiellow rownsmen.?" '''I1I6t i.t lIot suffictent , was t Ie rep.y. o 1 h- fi ll townsmen like "What is better is lllat the good among LY e ow

"illl , and tile ')lJd 'illIe llim.- Tile Master " aili: -Tile wefl.-bred are dign ifaed bill nol pompOUS. TIJ(~ ill-bred are poml)Qus, but 1101. dignified." Ottee wilen Fan C/l i h was rambling along willi tile Master lind".,. tile tll.'eS at tile Rain Altars, lie remarked: "May ' verl~"re to (lsk,

. I I ' r: corrcct ones lJerSOlIll how one mlly illlllrvve ones c wrac e , I ·· ,.l'r faults and d iscriminate in w ltd 1$ IrTO 10110.

-All excellent questioll ," rejoined tile Master,. "If one 'III~ duty fint and success after, will rIOt tllat improve ones cllllra~ter. If oue attacks olles Owrl fiJilings instead of tllose of ot/len, Will tlu;t rIOt remedy personal faults? For a flwntiligS a~l~r to!orge~"olles oum safety and I/lat of Olles rela/iou, is rIOt tins IrTOIIl)llai.

Confucius was creating for his countrymen the ir second nature which locomple te the statement of the social analyst that was begun severni paragr.1phs back, is what people receive whcn they become

civilized.

111 TilE WORLD'S RELICIONS

1'1118 second nature is made in the image of what /lH!Ople are! livi,lg for and should becoma ... Full allegiance to tJ~ community can be given only hI} a mans S«Ond natllre, mling over 'lis /1I'3t arid primitive nature, and treating it as not finally himself Then the discilJ/ines and the neces8itiea and the CO'l$tmirlts 0/ a civilized/ife JlO oe ceased to be alien to 'lim, and imposed from without. TIII!Ij have becmne his own inner impertttive.r.

The Content of Deliberate Tradition

Deliberate tradmon diffe rs from spontaneous tradition in requiring attention, It re<luires attention first to maintain its force in the face of the increased individualism that threatens to erode it. This Con- fucius regarded as the main responsibility of education ill its broadest sense. Bul , second, it requ.ires thai atteution be given to the conteut of that education. What is the characte r of the social life it should engender? The main out lines of ConfuCius' answer can be gathered under fi ve key tenns.

I. Jen. Jen, e tymologically a combina tion of the charac ter for "human be ing'" and for 8two, - names the ideal relationship that should pertain ootv.'Cen people. Variously translated as goodness, man-to-man-ness, bencvolence. and love, it is perhaps best rendered as human-heartedness. l en was the virtue of virtues in Confucius' view of life. It was a sublime, even transcendental, perfection that he confessed he had never seen full y incarnatl.-c:i. Involvingas it does the display of human capacities at the ir best, it is a virtue so cxalted that one -cannot but be chary in speaking of il. ~to To the noble it is dearer than life itself. -The determined scholar and the man of jen ... will even sacrilice tlleir lives to preserve their jen comple te. ~

len invo lves 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 ofjen lies the perfection of everything that \.IIOuld make one supremely human . In public life it prompts untiring diligence. In private life it is expressed in courtesy, unselfislmes.s, and empathy, the capacity to "measure the feelings of others by one's own.- Stated neb'3tively, tllis empathy leads to what has been called the Silver Rule-"Do not do unto others what

CONFUCIANISM 173

you would not .want ot!lers to d.o unto YOU,~11 .bul tllcre is n? reaso~1 10 slOp with thiS neb'3tlVe wordmg for ConfUCIUS put the pomt POSI- tively as well. "The person of )en, desiring self-affinnation, seeks to affirm as well .~ Such largeness of heart knows no national boundaries for those who are jeu-endowed knOW" that "within the four seas all men are brothers and sisters."

2, Chu n tzu. The second concept is clum t;:u. Ifjen is tile ideal relationship between human beings, dum tzu refers to the ideal term in such re lations. It has been translated the Superior Person and Humanity-al-its- Besl. Perhaps the Mature Person is as faithful a ren- deri ng of the term as any.

111C chull 1;:11 is the opposite of a petty person, a mean person, a smal l-spirited person . Fully adecluate, poised, the chllu t;:u has toward life as a whole tlle approach of an ideal hostess who is so at home in hcr surroundings tllat she is comple te ly relaxed, and, being so, can tunl full attention to puLting others at their ease. Or to swi tch genders, having come to the poillt where he is at home in the uni- verse at large. the cJum t:.u carries these qualities of the ideal host with him through lire generally. Anned 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?"

With the hostess's adequacy go a pleasant air and good grace. Poised, conlident, and compe tent, she is a person of perfect address. Ile r movements are free ofbmsqucness and violence; her expression is open, her speech free of coarseness and vu lgarity. Or to switch genders again, the gentleman does not talk too much. li e does not boast, push himself forward , or in any wny display his superiority, ~except perhaps at sports." Holding a1 .... '3}'S to his own standards, how- e\'er otllers may forget thei rs, he is never a t a loss as to how to behave and call keep a gracious initiative where others resort to coll\'entions. Schooled to meet any contingency 8witlwut fret or fear,8 his head is not tumed by success nor his temper soured by adversity.

It is onlytllc person who is entirely real, Con fucius thought, who can establish the great foundations of civilized society. Only as tllOse who make up society are transformed into clum t:'IIS call the world move toward peace.

17. TilE WORLD'S RELICIONS

If t/.ere is righteousness in the hean, tl!ere will be beauty ill the character;

If there is beauty ill the charocter; there will be hanlllmy ill the home.

If there is Iwnllony ill tile IlOme, tl!ere will be order in the nalion.

If there is order in the lIation. there will be ,JeaCl! ir. tile world.

J. Li. TIle third concept, ii, lias two meanings. Its first meaning is proprie ty, the way things should he done.

Confucius thought iI unrealistic to think that people could wisely dctennille on their own what those W'dYS shouJd be. l11ey needed models, and Confucius wanted to direct the ir attention to the finest models their social history offered, so all could ga.;-.e, 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 severnl idioms that capture this idea so well that they have made their way into the Western vocabu- lary; saooi,. faire. th e knowlt.-dge of how to comport oneself with grace and urb.'lIlity whatcvcr the circumstance; comme il faut , tlle wny things shou ld be done; apro,JOS, 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 MConfucius say .. . J. anec- dotes (TIle Analecu arc full of them). and his own example rCon- fucius, in his village, looked simple and sincere; when in court Ile spoke circulllspectly"), he soughlto order an entire wny of life, so t!lat no one who was properly raised " '(mid ever be in doubt as to how to behave. "Manners maketh man ,M a medieval bishop observed. Con- fucius anticipated that insight.

Propriety covers a wide rdllge, but " 'e can get the gist of what Confucius was concemcd with if we look at his teachings on tlle Rectification or Names, the Five Constant Relationships, tllC Family. and Age.

Mif temu be not correct," Confucius pointed out.

language is rIOt in acconla'ice with Ole troth of things. If llmguagp is rIOt in ocean/Ilnce wilh the troll. of things, affairs cannot be

CONFUCLANIS~ 175

carried out to success. ... Tllerefore a superio,. m(.lll considers it necessary tliat t~ names lie uses be spoken appro,Jriately. and aLw that wlwl lie speaks may be carried out ap"roIJriateiy. lVllOt tlte su,Jerior "lOn J1?quires is that in h" wonh tllere be nothing dlOt is incot'nCt.

This may sound commonsensical. but Confucius was grappling here witll a problem thai in our time has spawned a whole new dis- cipline: semantics - the inquiry into the relation between words, thought, and objective reality. All human thought proceeds through words. so if words are askew, tllought cannot proceed aright. When Confucius says tllat nothing is more important than that£- father be a father, that a ruler be a ruler, he is saying that we lIlust know what we mean when we use those words. But e<lually important. the words must mean the right things. Rectification of Names is tlle call for a 1I0mlative semantics-the creation of a language in which key nouns carry th e meanings they should carry if life is to be well ordered .

So important was the Doctrine of the Mean ill Confucius' vision that a book by that title is centmlto the Confucian canon. The two Chinese words for mean are clum yllrlg. lite rdlly "middle" and "con- stant. M The Mean. therefore. is the wny that is "constantly In the mid- dle" hctwecn unworkable extremes. With "noth ing in excess

M as its

guiding principle, its closest Western counterpart is the Colden Mean of Aristotle. The Mean balances a sensitive temperament against O'Ierdose and indulgence. and in so doing checks dc~ravity in the bud. "Pride, " the Book of Li admonishes, "should not he IIldu lged. The will should not be gratified to the full. Pleasure should not be carried to excess." Respect for the Mean brings harmony and bal- am.'e. It ellcourages compromise, and fosters a becoming reserve. Wary of excess. toward pure values Me<lua.lly removed from entJmsi- asm as from indifference." China's regard for the Mean has typically, but not universally, protected he r from fanaticism.

The Five Constant Re1ationships that constitute the wnrp and woof of social life are, in the Confucian scheme, those between par- ent and child, husband and wife. e lde r sibling and junior sibling, elder friend and junior fri end, and mler and subjecl.u It is vital to the health of society that tllese key relationships be rightly con- sti tuted . None of them are tmnsitive; in each, differen t responses are appropriate to the tW'O tenns. Parents should be lovi ng, children

171 TilE WORLD'S REUCIONS

reverential: cider siblings gentJe. }'Ounger siblings respectfu l: hus- b~nds good, wi:es "listening"; elder friends considerate, }'Ounger fnends deferential; rulers benevolent. subjects loyal In effect Con- fucius is saying that }'OU are never alone when you act. Every action affec,ts son~eone else. Here, in these five relationships, is a frame withm Willcli you may achieve the maximum selOlood withou t damaging the web of life 011 which )'Our life depends. . . Th~tthree of . the Five He lationships pertain within the family is IIldlcatlVu of how Importan t Confucius considered this institution to ~ In this he was not inventing but contiuuing the C hinese assump- tIOn t~lltt the fami ly is tJle basic unit of SOCiety. T bis assumption is grnphlcaJly embedded in Chi nese legend, which credits the hero who ~invented~ tJle family with elevating the Chinese from wlimal to hu~an level. Widlin the fami ly, in tu m , it is the children's respect for thclr parents that holds tJle key; hence the concept of fili al picty. ~len the meanings ofthe parents are 110 longer meaningful to their c1l1ldre'.I, someone has recen tly written , civilization is ill danger, ConfucIUS cou ld not have agreed more. -Thedutyof children to their parents is ~he fountain from which all virtues spring." Accounts of devoted children pepper Confucian literature. TIley are outlandisl. stories, I~any of tlle~, ~ for example that of tile woman whose aged mother-Ill-law was pmmg for fis h in the depth of winter. The young woman prostrated herself on the ice of a pond WId bared her bosom to melt the ice so she might catch the fish that surfaced in the hole. . !his. regard for on~'s elders was not to stop with one's parents; it

tied III WIth ConfUCius Respect for Age gcner.a..lly. Two pOints locked toge~ler ~lere.?n purely utilitarian grounds it would be good to have a socie ty III wh1ch (after a certain age) the young would lend the old for soon el10ugh tIle young ",ould be old themselves and would need to draw on their investment. But more tJl3n this utilitarian argu ment ~'aS at work. Confucius clearly thought that the young should honor and serve. the old not. simply to repay a con lrdcluaJ debt. He saw age as deservmg venerdtlon by reason of its intrinsic worth. For on baJ- an~ h~ beli~, years bring not only experience and seasoning. but a n pemng of WIsdom and melJowing of spirit; on coun ts tllat matter mO~1 the old are ahead of us. This view is so contrary to the West's. willcl~ venerates youth, that it is almost impossible for us to imagine how life would feel if one could look forwurd to bei ng served IlJld respeCl'ed more with each passing year. After childhood, in each

CONFUCIAN ISM 177

suceessive year proportionately more people would jump up from the tn.ble to fillihe teapot instead of expecting you to do SO, and you would be listened to with increasing attention and respect. T hree of tJle Five Creat l\elations focus on looking up to one"s e lders.

In the Rectification of Names, the Doctrine of the Mean, the Five Great He lationships, and Regard for Age and the Family we have sketched important particulars of Ii in its first meaning, which is propriety or what's right. The other meaning of the word ~s rit~aI , which changes right -in the sense of whal it is right to do-mto nte. Or mther, it infuses the 61'St meaning with tJle second; for when right behavior is detailed to Confucian lengths, the individual's entire life becomes styliu.od in a sacred dance. Social life has been choreo- gruphed. Its basic steps have been worked ou t, leaving little n~ for improvisation. There is a pattern fo r every act , frum tJle way thnce- yearly tJle Emperor renders to Heaven all account of rus mandate. right down to the way you entertain the humblest guest in}'OUT home and bring out the tea, Alfred North Whitehead's wife reported u Cambridge vicar who concluded his sermon by saying, "Finally, my brethren , for well-conducted people life presents no problems.

M Li

~-.lS Confucius' blueprint for the well-conducted life.

4, Th. The fo urth pivotaJ concept Con fucius sought to devise for his countrymen was te..

Liternlly this word meant power, specificaJly the power by which men are ruled. But this is only the beginning of its definition . What is this pov.'er? We have noted Confucius" rejection of the Realists" claim tJlal the only effective rule is by physical might. How right he was in his judgment, history dcmonstmles through the one dynasty, tJle Ch'i n, thai fashioned its policy on Realist lincs. Stunningly suc- cessful at the start, it united China for the first time and be(IUeatJled to it its name as MCh'in" became "China.- But it collapsed in less than a generation-vivid witness to TalJeyrand's dictum that "You can do everything with bayonets except sil on them." One of the best known of all Confucian stories is of how on the lonely side of Mount Tai 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 fute."

"Then why do you dwell in such a dreadful place?'" Confuci us

asked.

178 TilE WORI.D'S RELICIONS

M6ecause here there is no oppressive ruler: the womall replied. -Never rorget, scholars," said Conrucius to his disciples, "tilat an

oppressive rule is more cruel thWl a tiger." No state, Conruci us was convinced, can constrain all its citizens

all the time. nor even any large rraction or the m a large part or the time. It must rely on an acceptance or its will, an appreciable con- 6dence in what it is doing. Noting that the til ree essentials or gavenl- ment were economic sufficiency, military sufficie ncy, and the confidence onts people, Conrucius added that popular trust is by rar the most importan t. ror "if the people have no confidence in the ir gavemme nl. it can not stand."

TIlis spontruleous conscnt £rom its citizens, this morale withou t whicll nations caunot survive. arises only when people sense their leaders to be people or capacity. sincerely devoted to the com mon good and possessed or the ki nd or characte r that compels respect. Real te, thererore, is t.he power or moral example. J n the final analysis. goodness becomes embodied in socie ty neither through might nor tJuough law. bUI through the impress or persons we admire. Every_ tJling tUniS 011 the head or slate. Ir he or she is crafty or worthless, there is no hope ror SOCie ty. But ir the leader is a true K.illg or Collsent whose sanction springs rrom inh erent righteousness, such a person will gatJlcr a cabinet or Munpurchaseable allies." Tileir complete devotion to tile public welrare will quicken in tum the public con- science orIocal leaders and seep down rrom there to inspire citizens at large. For tile process to ..vork. however, rulers must have no per- sonal ambitions. which accounts ror the Conrucian saying, "only those are ..vorthy to govem who YIOuld rather be excused."

The rollowing statements epitomize ConfuCius' idea or te:

He wll() e:rercises ~unent by means of his virtue (te) may be compart!d to the lIOrl-h polar .!Wr, which keeps its place ant! all the stan tum towarrl it.

Asked by tilt! Baron of l..u how to role, CtmfuciWJ f'eJ,Iied: "To gmr enl is to keep straight. If you, Sir, lead Ole people struiglit, which of your st~bject8 will UCl'ltll rt! to fall out of liner

\VIJerI 0 11 anotller occasion tile same nJer asked him whether the lawless should be executed. Cmifuciu.$ tAnswered: "What 'Ieed is thert! of the death penalty ill government? If you showed a sincere desire to be. good. your lJe01)/e would likewise be good. Tile virl- lle

CONFUCIANISM 119

0/ the prince i$like the wind; tile oirtlle of the lJeOph like gra.u. It is tile lIature of gra.u to bend when tile wind bi0W8 ulJOr1 it . ..

Justice Holmes used to say that he liked to pay taxes because he relt he was buying civiIi7.ation. Where this positive attitude exists, tllings will go well poli tically. But how is the positive attitude to be elicited? Among Westem theorists. Conrucius YIOuld have round his spokesman in Plato:

Tiut1l tell me, Critios, how will a man choose tile ruler dlDt sllDlI nde over him? W'Ul11e not choose a marl who has first establislled order hI himself, knowing that any decisum that lias its sprillg from anger or pride or va,lity CDII be. muitilJlied a thousandfold in its effects IIpOli the citizens?

Conrucius would also have seconded TIlOnHts Jefferson, who thought that -the whole art or governme nt consists in the art orbeing honest."

5. Wen, The final concepl in the Conrucian gestalt is wen. This rerers to Mtlle arts or peace" as contrasted to Mthe arts or war"; to music, art , poetry, the sum or culture ill its aeslhetic and spiritual mode.

Conrucius valued the arts tremendously. A simple rerrain once cast such a spe ll over him that ror three months he became indiffcr. ent to what he ate. lie considered people who are indifrerent to art only halrhuman. Still, it WolS not art rorart 's sake that drew his regard. II WolS art's power to trnnsronn humW1 nature in the direction or vir- tue that impressed him -its pov.>er to make easy (by ennobling the heart) a regard ror others that would otherwise be difficult.

By 1JOdry ,he mind is aroused;from music the finis ll is received. Tlleodes stirlllJate tile mind. They illduce self-COllteJII"lation . Tiley teac/I tile urt of sensibility. Tiley IIeI,) to restraill tl!sentment. TIleY brillg IlCrlle tile dllty of serving ones IXJrents alld olles 1Jrince. J3

There is an added, political dime nsioll 10 Confucius' notion or wen. What succeeds in international relations? JJ ere agai n tile Realists answered in tenus or physical might ; it was the answe r Stalin echoed in ou r century when, asked how the Pope figured in a move he was contemplating against Poland, asked in re turn . "Jlow many battalions does he have?" Conrucius' thrust was characteristically

180 T il E WORLD'S REJ.JCIONS

d~fferent. Ultimately, Ule victory goes to Ule state thai develops Ule highest wen, Ule most exalted culture- the state that has the finest art, th~ .noblest ph~ losophy, the grandest poetry. and gives evidence of realizing Uml Il ls the moral charncterof a neighborhood tha t . . II COli · sututes Its exce euce. - For in the e nd it is these things that eBcit the spontaneous admimtion of women and men everywhere. The Cauls were fierce .fighters. and so crude of culture that they were consid. e red ba~banans; but once they experienced what Homan civili7.ation meant. Its superiority WdS so evident that tlley never, after Caesar's conquest, l.ad auy general uprising against Roman rule. Confucius ",uuld not have been surprised,

The Confucian Project

,Lei us ru:sume that the deliberate tr..ldition Confucius sought to fas h. 10 11 was III place. Il ow would life appear to a Chinese. set withi n it?

It wou ld beckon as a never-tlnding Ilroject of self.cultivation toward ~he end of becoming more fully human, The good mall or woman III the Confucian scheme is the one who is always trying to become better.

. The proj~t is not att~mpted in a vacuum - this is 1I0t yogis relir- IIlg to mo.untam ~ves to dl.scover Ule Cod within, Quite Ule contrary; a ConfUCian who IS bent on self-cultivation positiolls himself or her. self squarely in the cen ter of ever-shifting, never·ending cross. c~~nts. of .huma~1 r.el ati~nships and .. muld not wish Ihings other. wl~e, ,sallltlllless m Isolation had 110 meaning for Confucius. The ~"lt IS ~Iot merely that human re lationsh ips are fulfilling; the Confu- cian .cla lm, n ills det!pcr than that. It is rather that apart from human reialions ilips there is no selr. The self l.t a center of re lationships, It is constructed through its interactions with others and is de6ned by the sum of its social roles.

This notion of the self is so differe nt from Western individualism Ulat " 'e need to c ircle it for a paragraph. Confuci us saw Ule human self as a node, not all entity; it is a meeling place where lives COII - verge. In this it resembles a sea anemone, which is lillie more than a ne ~ through. which tides and currents wa.~h , leaVing deposits that bUild wh~t httle substance the plant itse lf possesses. !lUI though it is accurute III ways.. this image is too passive; we do better 10 swilch from sea currents 10 air currents thai assail an eagle in fJ ight. Those

CON FUCIANISM t81

currents assault Ule eagle. but the eagle uses Ulem to control its a1ti. tude by adjusting the tilt of its wings. Like an eagle in flighl . our human life too is in motion. but in its case human relationships are the atmosphere through which it plows. The Confucian project is to master the art of adjusting one's wings in order 10 ascend toward the elusive but approachable goal of human perfection . Or as Confucius ",'(,)lIld have said, toward the goal of becoming more comple te ly human.

In th is analogy Confucius' Five COllstant l\elalionships present Ulemselves as relatively stable currents in atmospheric conditions that in other respects CM fJuctuate wildl y. We have seen that all fi ve relationships are asymme trical in that behavior thai is appropriate to one person in each pair is 1I0t identical with what is appropriate for tJle other person. This asymmetry presupposes role different ialion and details its speci fi cs.

The crucial questiolJ he re is whether tJle specifi cs Confucius proposed tilt the re lationships. positioning one l>erson in each I)air above Ule other person. In one sense they definitely do, It seemed alloge ther natural to Confucius tJlat children should look up to thei r parenls. wives to husbands. subjects to rulers, and YOllnger friends and siblings to their older counterparts, for the latter.general lyolder, are more experienced and provide natural role models. But this is where wingslants must be adjusted precisely. for a hair's-breadth diffe rence puis Ule Confucian project into a nose dive. The danger is greatest for the ~top- partner in each pair, who could be tempted to assumc that the position carries built-in perquisites rather than ones that must be merited. Unquestionably, human nature being what it is. the Chinese succumbed 10 this temptation - to whnt extent de fi es calcu lation, but enough to make this the sinister side of the Confu- cian scheme. But Confucius himself tried to forestall abuse by insist- ing that authority-due authority-is not automatic; it must be earned. The loyalty Ut a! is due Ute husband from Ule wifc is contin- gent on the husband's being Ule kind of husband who warrants- instinc tively inspires-such loyalty, and comparably with Ule other four re lationships, although the nuances ofloyalt y diffe r in each case. In the rule r-subject relationship, for example, the ruler retains the Mandate ofl-Ieaven-his right to his subjects' loyalty-only insofar as their welfare is in truth his chief concern aud he possesses the talents needed to promote it. More tJlaIl t ...... u thousand years before the

IS! TIl E WORLD'S REU C IONS

Magna Carta and the Rights of Man, IWO millennia before the West separated divine right from the office of kingship, the Chinese (th rough Confucius and hi s di sciples) built the Right of Revolution solidly into tlleir political philosophy: "1·leaven sees as the people see; Heaven wills as the people will . ~ Far from being enjoined, com· plicity in the face of unwananted authOrity is, in the Confucian project, a human fai ling.

As a metaphor for the Confucian projt:Ct. we inlroduced the image of an eagle adjusting its wings to mane uver the atmosphe re - analogue for the Five Constant Relationships-in ways that enllble it to ascend. If we round off this me taphor by asking whal ascent means here, we find thatlhe answer was begun in tlle preceding section. It means becoming a d IU,. tzu, a fully rcali7.ed human being, th rough expanding one's sympathy and empathy indefinitely. The Chinese character for this empatlIY/sympathy is ' lain. Pictorially. }lSili is a sty- 1i7.ed drawing of the human heart , but in meaning it denotcs both mind and heart , for in Confucian learning the two go togethcr - sundered from each other, thought runs dry, feeling is rudderless, and the Confucian project ge ts grouuded. As for the increase of tllis heart·mind that is It,nll, it expands in concentric circles that begin with oneself and spread from there to include successively one's fam- ily. one's face-to--face community, one's naUon, and finally all human· it y. In shifting the center of one's empathic COllcern from oneself to one's family one transcends selfishness. The move from family to community transcends nepotism. The move from community to nation overcomes parochialism. and the move to all humanity COUDt· ers chauvinistic nationalism.

This broadening process is accompanied by ODe that is deepen· ing; for when it was suggested above that Confucius saw the self as the sum of its social roles. that overstates the case if it suggests that he denied that the self has an inlemal , subjective center, His repeated calls to self-examination and introspection generally show that he not only recogni7.ed an interior side to the self but conside red it important. ConfuciaJllearning pivots on the self and is for the sake of the self, though (to be sure) as the self expands. its separation from others attenuates. Interior life grO'NS richer as empatllY increases. for it is the breadth and deptll of one's 'ISin that sbapes the contours of subjectivity and provides it witll its primary food for tl101Ighi.

CONfUCIAN ISM 183

So inside and outside work together in the Confucian scheme. The inner world deepens and grows more satisfyi ng and ~fined as jeri and IIsin expand and the possibilities of Ii are progr~ss1Vely real· .zed. The projcct is n(..'Ver attempted alone. It proceeds III the sea of ;\Umanity, alongside others who likewise (with varyi ng dcgrees. of

·ousness) are Irying to become fully hum an. Always tlle practice sen II> r ' , " fi eld is the Five Constant Relationships. In e course 0 one~ ralD- " g one finds that mastering a role in one of the five sheds light on III , . I I h L" Ule other roles. To impTO\'e as a parent th rows ig It on w at I,Xl lllg a good child (of one's own parents) entails. The nuances of the other roles likewise ill uminate one another,

Ethics Of" Religion? Is Confucianism a religion. or is iI an ethic? The answer depends on how one defines rcligion. With its close attention to personal con· duct and Ule moral order, Confucianism approaches life from. a different angle than do other religions. but thai does not llece5sanly disqualify it religiously. If religion is taken in its widest sense, ~ a ~y of life ~'OVell around a peOple's ultimate concerns, ConfUCianism clearly qualifies. Even if religion is taken in a narrower sen~e. as. a concern 10 align humanity with tll6 trnnscelldelltal ground of Its eXls, tence. Confucianism is still a religion, albeit' a muted one. For though we have thus far spoken only of Confucius' social concerns. these, while definitely the focus, did nol exhaust his outlook.

To see the transcendent dimension of Confucianism in perspec- tive, we need to sel it against tlle religious background of the ancient China in which Confucius lived. Until tl\e first millennium B.c. , the unquestioned outlook was a compound of three related ingredients:

First I-leaven and Earth were considered a continuum. The lenns ref~rred not primarily to places but to the peo(>le who dv.'Cit in ulose places. as the 1·louse of Lords refers to the people who sit in tllat ,·Iouse. 111e people who comprised ll ea\'C1i were tlle ancestors (Ii) who ~'Cre ruled over by a supreme ancestor (Shang TI). They .... 'Cre the forefathers who had gone ahead and soon would be joined by the present retinue of Earth - the whole was one unbroken pro-- cession in which death spelled 110 more than promotion to a more

184 TilE WOI1LO'S RELIGIONS

honomble estate. nle two realms were mutually implicated and in constant touch . Heaven held control of Earth's welfare - the weather for example was "Heaven's mo(xr-while depending on the current inhabitants of Earth to supply some of her needs through sacrifice. Of the two realms I leaven was by far the more important. Iler inhabi- tants were more venemble and august and thei r au thorit y was greater. Consequently, they commanded Earth's reverence and dom- inated her imaginings.

Being mutually dependent , Heaven and Earth wou ld have needed to communicate for reasons of need even if not affection. The most concrete way by which Earth spoke to Ileaven was through sacrifices. Earth's residen ts thought it both wise and natur.tl to share their goods wi th their departed ancestors. and the eSSences of their earthly goods were carried to I leaven on the ascending smoke of the sacrificial fire. A mound for such ofrerings was the focus of every ancient village. When the Chinese nation arose, its ru ler, the Son of I leaven, affirmed his rigllt to that proud title by oversccing the nation's sacrifices to its ancestors. Even as late as Confucius' day, an ad ministration that lapsed in its worship of the ancestors was consid. e red to have lost its right to rule.

If sacri fi ce .... '3.5 the principal way Earth spoke to Heaven, augury was the chan nel tltrough which Il eaven responded. As the ancestors knew the entire past oftheir people, they were equipped to calcu late its future. Augury was the device by wh ich the present generation might tap into that knowledge. Being pleasan tly disposed toward their descendants, the ancestors would naturally want to share with them tlleir knowledge of things to come. They no longer possesst.>tI vocal cords, hov.'ever, and therefore needed to resort to signs. It fol- lowed thut everything that happened on Earth fell into two classes. Things people did intentionally were ordinary, bu t things that "hap- pened of themselves-- we shou ld rend that phrase with a tinge of apprehe nsion -were to be noticed with care. They were ominous, for one never knew whe n they might constitute the ancestors' efforts to get peoples' atten tion, most urgently 10 warn them of impending danger. Some of tllese omens occurred witllin or to the body: itch- ings. sneezings. Iwitchings, stumblings. buzzings ill tlte ears, trem- blings of the eyelids. OtJlers we re extenllll: th under, lightning, the courses of the stars, the doings of insects. birds. and animals. It w.ts also poss ible for people to take the in itiative and actively seek out

CONFUCIANISM 185

II aven's prescience. They could throw yarrow stalks on the ground alJ~ observe their pattern; they could apply a hot iron to a tortoise shell and examine the craeks that ap~ared. Whateve r .tlle occasion _ a trip, a war, a birtlt, a marriage -II was prudent to look f~r heavenly tips, An ancient record tells of a ,viSitor who WdS ask~ by hIS host to prolong his stay into the cvcmng, He an~wercd, I hav~ divined about the day, I have not divined about th~ Illght. I ~l~re no~ .

In each of these great features of early Chinese religIOn- Its sense of continuity wiUI the ancestors. its sacrifice, and its augury- there w.tS a com mon emphasis. The emphasis was on Heaven instead of Earth , To understand the total dimension of Confucianism as a religion it is important to see Confucius shining his people's att~n. tion from lI eaven to Earth without droPlling Heaven from the pIC.

ture entirely. The first of these twin aspects of Con fucianism can be docu·

mellt'cd easily. On a much debated issue of his day-whi~h. should come first , the claims of earthly people or those of the Splnt world through slicrificcs?- he ansv.-ered that though the s~iritS should n~t be neglected, people shou ld come first. The worldlilless and practi- cal concenl by which tile Chjnese were later to be known was com- ing to the fore. and Confucius did much to Crystalli7.e their this-world orientation,

"I do not say that the sociaJ as we know it is the whole,- wrot~ John Dcv.oey, -but I do emphatically suggest that it Is the wi~est .. and nch?st man ifestation of the whole accessible to our observation. ConfucIUS ..... ,ould have agreed . His philosophy was a blend of co~mon SCIIse and pract.ical wisdom. It contailled no depth of metnph:s,~al thought, 110 flights of speculation , no soul -stirring calls to cosmic piety. Normally, I -dod ot talk about spirits. --l\ecogni7.t: that }'Uti know what you know, Ie In k " ' "dl+811 and that you arc ignorant of what you do not now, Ie ~I . ear much leave to onc side that which is doubtful, and speak Wlth due cau- tion c'oncerni ng the remainder. See much, leave to,one side that of which the meaning is not clear, and act carefully Wlth regard to the rest." Consequently, whenC\'er he .... ~.tS questioned about other-worldly matters, Confucius drew the focus back to human beings. Asked about serving the spirits of the dead, he answered, "You are not even a~le to serve p( .. -'Ople. I low can you serve Ute spirits?" Asked about deatll Itself, he replied, -You do not understand even life. How can you understand death?"25 I n short: one ,,"urId at a time.

186 T il E WORLI)'S RELI GIONS

One specific illustration of the way ill which Confuci us shined the focus from I-Ieaven to Earth is seen in his change of e mphasis from ancestor worship to fili al pie ty. in ancient China tlle dead were actually worshiJ>ed. True to the com;ervative compone nt in his nature, Confucius did nothing to interrupt the ancestral rites them- selves. I-Ie did not deny that the spirits of the dead exist; on the COIl - trary he advised treating the m "as if they ~Iere present. - At the same time his O'#n emphasis was directed toward the living fa miJy. lie stressed that the most sacred tie is the tie among blood rela tives. For Ilim the obligations of presen t members of a family 10 one anotller were more important than their duties to the departed.

nle extenl to which Confuci us shifted emphasis fro m Heaven to Earth should nol lead us to Ihink that he sundered Earth from Heaven e ntirely. J-Ie did not repudiate the main outlines of the "-mld- view of his time, composed of Heaven and Earth, the divine creative pair, half physical and half more-than-physical, ruled ove r by the supreme Shang Ti . lleserved as he was about the supernatural, he was nol without it; somewhere in the universe there W.lS a power that was 0 11 the side of right. The spread of righteousness wa.'I, there- fore. a cosmic demand, and "the Will ofHeaven~ the first thing acllwi tzu would respect. Confuci us believed that he had a malldate to spread his teachings. When during the "long trek- he was attacked in the town of Kwang, he reassured his followe rs by saying, "H eaven has appointed me to teach til is doctrine, and until I have done so, ",:hat can the people of Kw.lng do to me?"20 Feeljng neglecled by hiS people. he consoled himself with the thought': "The re is l-Ieave~l- that knows mel" Olle of the most quoted religious sayings of all limes came from his pen. "He who offends the gods has no one to pray to. w:n

nlis restrained and somewhat a ttenuated theism enables us to understand why a contemporary Confucian scholar can write that Wtlle ~Iighest Con~ucia ll ideal is the ullity ofMan and Heaven," adding th.at. In ~e Doctnne of the Mean this is described as "man fonning a 1~llIty With I-leaven and Earth ."u With this unity or trinity estab- lished as the consummating goal of tile Confucian project, we call pick up on its successive steps, which in our earlier enumeration ~IOPped short of the final goal . The project of becoming fuUy human Involves tra~scending, sequentially. egoism. nepotism. parocilialism, e lhnocentnslll , and chauvinistic nationalism, and (we should now

GON,,'UCIANISM .81

add) isolating, self·sufficient humanism. To continue with the words of the ConfucialJ scholar just quoted:

10 make oooovea de.seroillg partners ofJleaoen, we trIust. be con- stantly in totlCh with lllOt silent illumination tllOt nlOkes tile right- ness and principle in oor heart-minds shine f orth brillu11Itly. If we callnot fP beycmd tlie COllstm ints of oor own $pi!Cie8, die most we call hope for is an exclusive. secularllUlI'lOnism advocating man iU the m€asure of all things. By contrast, Confucian hurllall isl'1l is incllaioej it is lJredicated on UII -antllro,JOOOS1l1ic" vision. I-IlmlOlI- ily in its all-embrocing fullness 10nru one body witll I-Ieaven, Earlll , alld lhe myriad tliings" and enaMa us to embody the cosmos in our sensitivity. t!iI

Impact on China III his book Ti,e Next Million Years. C harles Calton Darwin notes that anyone who wishes to make a sizable impact 0 11 human history has the choice of three levels at which to work. The agent may choose direct political action , or create a creed. or attempt to change the genetic composition of the human species. 111C fi rst method is tll.e weakest because the effects of political action seldom outlast their agent. The tllird is not feasible, fo r even if we had the knowledge and technique, a gene tic policy would be difficult to enforce for even a short period and would almost certainl y be dropped before any per- l:eptible effects were achieved .• hat is why.~ Darwin concludes, -a creed gives the best practical hope that man can have for really COII - trolling his future fate."30

lIistory affords no clearer support for this conte ntion than the work of Confucius. For over two thousand years his teachings have profoundly affected a quarter of the population of this globe. Their advance reads like a success story. for the unbe lievable upshot of Confucius' outward ly undistinguished career was the fo unding of a class of scholars who were to become China's mling elite and the elllergence of Confucius himself as the most ilTlportant figu re i,n Chinu's hi story. in 130 D.G. the Confucian texts were made the basiC discipline for the training of government onicials, a pattern thai continued (with interruption during the political fragme ntation of A.D. 200- 600) until the Empire collapsed in 1905. In that same Han

188 TilE WOIlLD'S RELIGIONS

Dynasty Co~fllcianisrn became, in effect. China's state re ligion; in .... . 0. ~9 sacnfices were or~ered for Con fucius ill all urban schools, and III the seventh and eighth cen turies temples were ereded in e:ery prcf~t~rc oftheernpire asshrilles to him and his principal dis- ~~ples. Ch.lIlas famous civil service examinations, which democra- II~ public office centuries before tJle resl of the world dreamed of dOlllg so. had the Confucian corpus altheir heart. 11le Sung Dynasty (Iat~ te nth ~,rou~h late thirteentJl centuries) perfected that system, wluch rel~aJned III pl?oo into the opening years of our own century.

. Dal'Wl~ follows. Ills ge~l~~ p?illt about tIle ~'er of NcreedN by saymg thai tJle ~hll1ese CIVIJ.:t.atlon [which ConfuCius' creed did so mudl to shape} IS 10 be accepted as tJle model type to a greater deg~ than any of tJIC othe r civilizations of the world. N We shall nol go ~IS f~r. As there is no measu re bywhich 10 rank-ordercivili)l'.atiolls quahtatlVely, we s ~lall . content ourselves with quantity, where num- bers do tell an objechve story. Unlike Europe Or l:."\.'Cn India, China held together. forging a political structure which at its height embraced a tJlird of the human r.tl.'e, The Chinese Empire lasled ulI~er a succession of dyuasties for over Iwo thousand years. a stretch of time lhat makes tJle empires of Alexander, Caesar. and Nal>oleon I~k ephemeral . If we multiply the number of years that empire lasted by tJle n~m?er of people it embraced in an avemge year, it emerges ~uanbtatlvely as the most impressive social institution Imman bemgs have devised.

. It is not easy to say what COllfucius contributed to this institu- lion, because. in time Confucian V".lIues merged with the generic vru- uesof the Chmese people to the pOint wllere it is difficult to separate the two. What we shall do bere, therefore, is take note of some fea- ~ures of the Chinese ~haracler that ConfUCius and his disciples rein- orc~1 where they did nol originate them. The features we shall

IIItJ:llliOIl pretty much blanket East Asia as a whole. for Japan Ko rul~ much of Southeast Asia delibero.l tely imported the CO;lfIlC~~; ethic.

We. can begin wilh East Asin's emphatic social emphasis, which Confucms helped to fix in place. VirtualJy every sinoiogisl has rel~arked 0 1.1 this emphasis, b .. t two verdicts will su ffi ce here. "All C.IIII~ese philosophy is ~reeminentJy social philosophy," Etienne Balazs observed" and Wing-lsi I Chan concurs: "Chinese philoso- phers have been IIlterest'ed primarily in e thical , social, and political

CONFUCIANISM "9

problems." To catch an immediate glimpse of how this social empha- sis lr.lIlslates Into practice, we can note that tJlOugh China is as large as the continental United States, it has a single time 7.one. Appar- ently, the Chinese feel that il is more important tJ13t they be syn- chronized among themselves in their time sense than that their clocks conform to impersonal nature

This is a small point, to be sure, but small signs can reflect deep- lying attitudes. and in any case larger evidence is at hand. Confucius' social emphasis produced, in the Chinese, a conspicuous social effectiveness - a capacity to get things done 011 a large scale when need arose. Historians have speculated that the social emphasis we are looking at may have goUen its start in China's early need for mas- sive irrigation projects on the one hand, and titanic dikes to contain her unruly rivers on the other, and we shouJd nol overlook the fact tlnl.1 social effectiveness (as we are calling it here) can be wrongly applied: there has been a lot of despostism in Chi na. Bul, for good or for ill, effecti veness seems to be a fact. Facing up to its population problem in the third quarter oftJli s century, China halved her birth- rate in a single decade. And in the thirty years from 1949 to 1979, she put famine, flood. and epidemic disease behind a quarter of the world's population, seemingly forever. As the ScientifIC American pointed out in its September 1980 issue, Nthis is a great event in history.-:ll

DirectJy related to tJle subject of tJlis book is the way, unique amollg the \\.'Orld·s civilizations, that China syncretized her religions. In India and the West religions are exclusive, if 1I0t competitive- it makes no sense to tJlink of someone as being simultaJleously a Chris- tian, a Muslim, and a Jew. or even a Buddhist and a Hindu si multa- neously. China arranged tJlings differelltJy. Traditionally, every Chinese was Confucian in ethics and public life, Thoist in private life and hygiene, and Buddhjst at the time of deatJl. with a healthy dash of shamanistic folk religion thrown in along the .... oay. As someone has put tJlC point : Eve ry Chinese wears a Confucian hat. Thoist robes, and Buddhist sandals. In Japan Shinto was added to the mix.

The importance of the family in Chilla - three ofConfucius' Five Constant Relationships pertain to it-scarcely requires COmment. Some sinologists argue that when ancestor worship and filial piety are included, the family emerges as the real religion of the Chinese people. The family surname comes first in China; only tJle reafie r are

190 TilE WOHLO"S RELIGIONS

given names added. The Chinese extended ramily survived well in to the twentieth century, as the rollowi ng report attests; MA single ram ily may embrace e ight generations. including brothers. uncles. great- uncles. sons, nephews and nephews' sons. As many as thirty male par- ents with their offspring, each with their ancestors and uffspring even unto grandpare nts and gr.mdchildren, may live in a single joint ram- ily home comprising but one single rnmily.-.u 'nle Chinese vocabulrtry ror ramily relationships is equally com plex. A single word ror brother is too clumsy; there must be two words to designate whether he is older or younger than the sibling who speaks. Likewise with sister, and with aunt, uncle. and grandparent , where d ifferent words are requ ired to indicate whether these relations are on the rather's or the mother's side. In all , there are ti tles ror one hundred fifteen different relationsh ips in the Chinese extended ramily.31 Strong ramily bonds can smother, bUlthey also bring benefits, and these work ror East Asians righl down to tile present. One thinks or low cri me at home- the burglary rate in Japan is 1 percent ortha! in the United States-and the impressive record or East Asian immigrants to other landsi tlleir delinquency rate is low, and achievement and upward mobility are high. Relatives regu_ larly pitch in to rurther the education or even dista.nt kin.

The upward tilt toward the e lder partner in three orConrucius' Five Constant Relationships helped to elevate East Asia's respect ror agc to an attitude thai borders on veneration. In the West wilen someone confesses to bei ng SAy, the response is likely to be, "You don't look a year over forty." In traditional China (:o urtcsy would have reached ror a response more like, "You look every bit or sixty. - In the mid-19S0s an elderly visitor to Japan was asked by a Japanese friend hOON wise he was. TLe confusion tile question generated caused t.he Japanese to realize that he had made a mistake. Apol~rjzing ror his raulty English, tile Japanese explained that he had intended to ask how old his rriend was. When we compare this with tile Westem atti- tude toward age-"You're over the hill at rorty, and over the hill )IOu pick up speed-- lhe contrast is glaring, Facing up to the inevitability ortJle body's decline, China creat,cd social structures thai buoyed the spirit . With ea.ch passing year one could COWlt on more solicitude rrom one's ramil y and associates, and (as we have noted) morc atten- tive, listening respect.

Conrucius' Doctrine or the Mean continues to this day in the Chinese prererence ror negotiation , mediation, and tile "middle

CON FUCIANISM '" [llan" as against resorting to rigid. impersonal statutes. Until recently, legal action has been regarded as something or ~ disgr.lce, a conres- 'on orhuman railure in the inability to work things out by compro-

Sl 'ses that typically involve ramily and associates. Figures are not :V:Ulable ror Chi na, but in the mid-1980s Japan in m~o to its l)Op~la­ tion had one lawyer ror every twenly-rour In the Ull1tcd States. 1 he . ue or negotiation ties in with the peculiar oriental phenomcllon or ~~:ce." ror In tile winllose con text or a legal verdict the.party tile ju~­ ment goes agai nst loses face. This is. serious.I>CCa~lse Ir)lOU are ~OI ng to have to live on intimate tenns WIth your associates. no long tenn good can come rrom mashing them psychologically. .

And there is wen: Confucius' conviction that lea.mmg and Ihe arts are not mere veneer but are powers that transronn societies and the human heart . China honored his conviction here: She placed the scholar-bureaucrat at the tOI) or her social scale and soldiers at the bottom. One wonders whether anywhere otller than Tibet, and dur- ing the brier early years or Islam tl lCre has heen such an attempt to effect Pinto's ideal of the philosopher king. I t was only an attempt, yet here and there. nov.' and again, it bore rruit. There have been,golde,n ages in China when the arts have .flourished. as nowhere else 111 their time and deep learning was acilleved; calligraphy. Sung landscape painting, and the lire-giving dance or tai chi chfJ(Jn come quickly to mind. Pal:.er was invented. Four centuries berore Cutenberg, mova- ble type WolS discovered. A fifi'ecntJl-century euC)'Clopedia. climax or the research or two thousand scholars, reached a total or 11,095 vol- umes. There has been great poetry. magnificent scroll painting, and ceramics, which Mbecause ohlle fineness or their mate rial and d~o­ rntion and because or the elegance or their shapes, may be conSId- ered ~le best pottery or all countries and or all times.H34

Blending with the Conrucian art or lire itselr. these objects of wen produced a culture with a flavor all its~ . A compound o~ sub- tlety, brilliance, and restrained good taste. It end~ the Cllln~e with a pav.<er or assimilation that at its peak was unnw1ed. Ha~mg tile most open rrontier of all the great civilizations, China was subject to wave after wave of invasions by cavalried barbarians who were a1Wd)'S ready to rail on the Earthbound agriculturalists. To their gates came the l1:trtars, whose one long-range raid inmcted a mortal wound on the Roman Empire. But what the Chinese could not fend off. they absorbed. Each wave of invaders tended to lose its ide ntit y through

lin TilE WORLO'S RELIGIONS

voluntary assimilation; they adm ired what they saw. Time after time an illiterate invader, en teri llg solely for plunder, succumbs, Within a few years his foremost hope is to write a copy of Chinese verse that his teacher. who is likewise his conquered slave, might acknowledge as not altogether ulI",'Orihy of a gentleman, aud his highest hope is to bt: mistaken for Chinese. Kublai Khan is the most striking example. li e conquered C hina but was himself conquered by Ch inese civiliza- tion, for his victory enabled him to reali'l.c his lasting ambition, which was to become an auth entic Son of Heaven.

The magic did not last. In the fifteenth century C hinese civil- ization was sti ll unrivaled throughout the world, but stagnation the ll set in and the last two centuries must be di scounted because the West, armed with superior military technology. snatched China's fate from her own hands. There is littJe point in discussing Confucianism in the context of a Western-instigated war th at forced opium on the Chinese and the subsequen t division of C hina into European spheres of illnuence. Even the twentieth-century importation of Marxism must be seen as an act of desperation to regain a lost autonomy.

For tJle enduring constructive Confucian influence we must look not to China's twe ntieth-century politics but to the East AsiUlI economic miracle of the last forty years. Taken together, JapUll. Korea, Taiwan, and Sin!,rnpore. all shaped by tJle Confucian elhic, constitute the dynamic cCll terof economic growth inlhe latte r twen- tieth centu ry-i mpressive witness to whal can happen when scien- tific teclmology links up witJl what might here be referred to as the social technology of East Asians. A single statistic, followed by a reporter's account of a rou tine episode. provide clues to what makes that social technology work. In 1982 Japanese workers took an aver- age of only 5.1 of the 12 vacation days they .... 'Cre entitled to, for (by their own accounts) Mlonger vacations \\'Ould have imposed burdens on their colleagu~. " 33 As for the report, it reads as foUOWli :

Six o'clock on a £}Jring monling. In frollt of the Kyoto Central Sta- tion aix mt'I'l {.Ire standing in a circle ainging. Tiley are (Ill druaed in w/lite a/lim . block tiel., black pants, and ailing black a/tOe&. One of them r-eada a pledge ill wllid. tlleY alfinn t/leir interltioll to.ferne f/lmr cuatorlll:r"S. tlleir coml}(lllg. the city of Kyoto. jalm,. , (Jnt! the world. They are taxi drl f)et'$ begi,ming tllei,- work day ru IIsual.:M

CON"-UClANlS~ 193

It does not relate to the issue of productivity, but another report from Kyoto poillts up the cou rtesy for which orientals have been famous: "In tJle cyt:lonic mess of Kyoto traffic, t\\'O cars scrape hump- ers. Both drivers leap ouL. Each bows. apologizi ng profusely for his carc l~sness. M

These are lingering echoes of the Confucian spirit, but one must wonder if they are not fading OIlCS. In a Westemi:tiug world. whitt is tJle future of tJlis religion?

No one knows the answer. It may be tJlat we are looking at a reli- gion that is dying. If so. it .... 'Quld be appropriate to close this chapter with the ", .. ords Confucius applied to himsclf when on his deathbed his eyes rested for the last lime on the majestic dome of rai Shan, China's sacred mOLlntain:

Tlae Sacred MOfmtain is falling. Tlae beam is breaJ";ng. Tlae wise man is witllering away.

011 tJ.e other hand. prophets have a way of outlasting politicians. Candhi has outlasted Nehru, and it appears tha t Confucius will out- last Mao Tse-tung.

Suggestions for Further Reading

Laurence C.l1lOllIpson's Chinese Religion (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Inc., 1989) provides a good overview of the religious dimension of Chinll gene rally.

For translalions of tJle most important Confucian texts. Arthur Waley's Tile Analects of earifueills (New York: Random House, 1989). and D. C. Lau's I\Jencius(Ncw York: Penguin Books. 1970) CUll be rec- ommended. For the philosophically inclined. A. C. Craham's Dif- JJuten of the Tao (La SaJle. IL: Open Court, 1989) offers tJle best gene l1ll history of Chinese thought during its fonnative period.

The section 011 MThe Confucian Projec l~ in this chapter was prompted largely by the writings of the contemporary Confucian scholar Tu Wei-ming, especia1ly his eonflleum l'hought: SelfllOod as CrTative Transfonnation (Albany: State University of New York Press, (985). and I1wlIlmity (Ind SelfCuitivation: UatlYS in Confudan '1'1IOfI,glt (Fre mont. CA.: Jain Publishing, 1980).

,II< TilE WOItLD'S RELI GIONS

I did not si ngle out Neo-Confucianism for separate treatment in my presentation. As 3n important movement that recast Confucian. ism in the light of Taoist and Buddhist influences. it began in the e ighth century. flourished vigorously in the e leventh and twelrth cen- turies, and has produced notable interpreters right down to the pres- ent. Specifical ly. tJle Nco-Confucian scholars worked oul a world view that paralle led the Buddhist cosmology, and a system of moral philosophy to explain Confucian e thics in metaphysical te rms. Their story is presented in overview in Carsun Chang. The Deue/opment of Neo-Confudan T'lOught (Albany: State University or New York Press, 1957).

ConfilCill$-The Secular lU Socred by Herbert Fillgarette (New York: Harper & Row, 1972) is exceptional in being written by Ii rank- ing contemporary philosopher who discusses Confucius' ideas 1I0t for reasons of their historicaJ importance, but because (in Fin- garctte's own words) he is "0 thinker with all imaginative vision or man equal in its grandeur to any I know."

Notes

I. The ArJ(l/~ 0/ Con/lIdlU. VII:!. 2. The Doctrine 0/ tile Mel"' , chapter 13. A state ment comparable in spirit is

found In The .... "alecu. XIV:28. 3. The .... nalects. VII:33. 4. TM A"a~ p4Srim. 5 . As reported by Rutl. Benedici. 6. Arthur Waley, The "~y and Itl ~ 1934_ Reprint. (Lo"don: Allen &:

Unwin. 1958), 32.

7. The posllion of tlie fltoaIists I shall present comes 10 us primarily through the ~ or orthodo~ ConrUcill" hislorillns. Scholars ~'Onder irthe lr ehar.ac- le ri7.ation slips illio earlell ture at times. bul the general Ihrust or their depiction Is 1101 disputed_

8 . Quoted ill Arthur WIley. Thm Way. o/Thou/!/lt in A.,ICiD., ChinD. 1939. Rellrint . (London: Allen &: Unwin. 1963). 199.

9. Ilan Fei 1'.Ul. as quoted in WaJey. The Wily. 74. 10. Waley, 1'he \\~y. 162. II . 11lough love 15 the literal meaning or al. A. C. Graham uses "mulual con-

cern ." or "concern ror everyone. " 10 tnnslate the Ilhrase, arguing that Ihls fits better with Mohlsm', prugmatic. utilitarian bent .

12. Yi-pan Me l, MoIse. the NegleclM Riool of Carl/util", L929. Reprint . (West- port. en Hype-rion Press, 1973). 8Of'.

CON Jo'UCIANISM '" 13. ¥I-pao Mel, Motu. 89,145. 14 . Yl-pao Mci. Moue. 83. 15. 1 am LTcating these answers schematically rathe r th;w chronologically. O nly

after Conrucius' death ~re the answers Iilal he rejected put rorward syste- matically. It remained ror his disciples. roJlO'Ning Iheir InllSter', guidelines,

to ugue explicitly against them. 16. A. C. Graham. DUpu~af'he 7lro (La Salle, IL.: Opel! Court. 1989). po 43. 17. Waller Lipplilann, The pub/it: PhilowphlJ (Boslon; Uttle. Brown &: Co.,

1955). 18. Walt.,),. TM Way. 161. 19 . Chi;wg Molin. Tlda from 1M Writ (New lIaven, cr yale University Press.

1947),9. 19. 20. Confucius, 115 quoted by Arthur Waley. The .... 1Ill/«1I of Corl/ucilU, 1938.

l\cprint. (London: Allen &: Uuwin. 1956).28. 2 1. T/~AlIlllects, XJI:2:XV:24 . 22. I have broadened Conrucius ' "ralhe r/son." "eldcr-hrotherljunior-brothe r"

wording 10 make it fit beller with modern seusibiliues. I do nol think Ihis violates Confucius' actual intent.

23. Tile .... 00{« 1s, XVll:9. 24 . TI.e Alw/eels, 11:17. 25. TII6 A"u/ecls, XI:U. 26. TM .... nulectl, IX:5. 27. 11ltl AIIlJI«14, 111:13. 28. Th Wei.ming, The Ubrld und J (August 1989): 484. 29. Til Wei·ming. The \\brId tmd t, 485. 30. Charles Galton Darwin. The Nesl Million leol'J (Gardcll City, NY: Double-

day. 1953). 3 1 Ding CI,c n. "The Economic Developmenl or China," Scientific AmericDn

(September 1980): 152. 32. F. C. S. Northrup. The 'lbming o/ Ihe I\'alioru (NLow York: Macmillan, 1953),

"7. 33. Maxine Hong Kingston, The Utmum \\~rrior (New York: Random lIouse,

1989). 12. 34. The opiuion or a knowledgeable coJlLoclor as fl/loted in Renc Croussel, ~

Ri# and Spleru.lOtJro/ the Chi_ Em,tl re, 1953. Reprint , (Berkeley: Uuh-er- si ty or Caliromia Press. 1965). 207.

35. Newspaper columnist Georgie Anne Geyer; rrom Tokyo, August 13. 1983. 36, Etut UU IJOtlrnaJ (Oecemoor 1979).