Confucianism

(儒家 - 5th_century_BC by Confucius and followed by people in China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam and other Asian countries for more than two thousand years. (''See also'' Hundred_Schools_of_Thought.)

Origins and effects

The belief system is named after its founder, who lived in the late 6th and early 5th centuries BC. Confucius was born into a middle class family, although the family was actually in the superior class of the current dynasty. His Chinese name was later latinised to Confucius by Jesuit missionaries. As an adult, Confucius went from state to state teaching their rulers. He is credited with a number of books, the best-known of which is the ''Analects'', a collection of his sayings that was compiled and edited to its modern form during the Han_dynasty. It is debatable whether the system he founded should be called a religion. While it prescribes a great deal of ritual, little of it could be construed as worship or meditation in a formal sense. Confucius occasionally made statements about the existence of other-worldly beings that sound distinctly agnostic and humanistic to western ears. Thus it is usually considered an ethical_tradition without being considered a religion. However, its effect on Chinese society and culture has been very deep and parallels the effects of religious movements seen in other cultures. Those who follow the teachings of Confucius are comforted by it; it makes their lives more complete and their sufferings bearable. Moreover, religions in Chinese culture are not mutually exclusive entities — each tradition is free to find its specific niche, its field of specialisation. One can be a Taoist, Christian, Muslim, Shintoist or Buddhist and still profess Confucianist beliefs. Confucianism specialises in ethics, in the orderly arrangement of society and correct relationships between people. Confucius himself lived in an era (The Eastern_Zhou dynasty) when China was divided into a number of small states each ruled by a warlord or nobleman who paid little more than lip service to the emperor who in theory still ruled the ''Middle Kingdom'' (China) from the capital, Luoyang. The frequent wars between these states disrupted the structure of society. As a result, there was a deeply felt need for a theory of society that would act as a cohesive factor and could reunite the Chinese nation. A number of philosophies (''e.g.'' Mohism and Legalism) arose to fulfil this need. That of Confucius was eventually the most successful, due largely to the supremacy it achieved during the Han_Dynasty.

Some key concepts in Confucian thought

A simple way to appreciate Confucian thought is to consider it as based on varying levels of honesty. The biography of Confucius deals with the origins of this view. In practice, rituals of Confucianism accrued over time and matured into the following form:

''Lǐ'' (禮) — ritual. This originally meant "to sacrifice." From this initial religious ceremonial meaning, the term was soon extended to include secular ceremonial behaviour, and then took on an even more diffuse meaning, that of the propriety or politeness which colours everyday life. Rites were codified and treated as an all-embracing system of norms. Confucius himself tried to revive the etiquette of earlier dynasties, but in later Confucian tradition, he himself was regarded as the great authority on ritual behaviour.

''Xiào''(孝) — filial piety. This was considered among the greatest of virtues, and had to be shown towards both the living and the dead. The term "filial", meaning "of a son", denotes the respect and obedience that a son should show to his parents and, traditionally, especially to his father. This relationship was extended by analogy to a series of five relationships: those between father and son, ruler and subject, husband and wife, elder brother and younger brother, and that between friends. Specific duties were prescribed between each of the participants in these sets of relationships. Such duties were also extended to the dead, and this led to the veneration of ancestors, to which the living stood as sons to their fathers. At this point we can see xiào almost imperceptibly fading into lǐ, ''e.g.'' the precise regulations on the length and manner of mourning on the death of a family member. In time, filial piety was also built into the Chinese legal system: a criminal would be punished more harshly if the culprit had committed the crime against a parent, while fathers exercised enormous power over their children. Much the same was true of the other unequal relationships. The main source of our knowledge of the importance of filial piety is ''The Book of Filial Piety'', a work which is attributed to Confucius, but was almost certainly written only in the third century B.C. Nevertheless, filial piety has continued to play a central role in Confucian thinking to the present day.

''Zhōng''(忠) — loyalty. This was the equivalent of filial piety on a different plane, that of the relationship between ruler and minister. It was particularly relevant for the social class to which most of Confucius's students belonged, because the only way for an ambitious young scholar to make his way in the world was to enter the civil service of a ruler. Like filial piety, loyalty was often subverted by the autocratic regimes of China. Confucius had advocated a sensitivity to the " (see below) should be obeyed because of his moral rectitude. But this was soon reinterpreted and became a doctrine which demanded blind, unquestioning obedience to the ruler from the ruled. It is generally held that Confucius would not have supported this — he was far too subtle a thinker for that.

''Rén''(仁) — humaneness. Confucius was concerned with people's individual development, but he maintained that this is realized within the context of human relationships. Ritual and filial piety are the ways in which one should act towards these others, but the underlying attitude is one of humaneness. Unlike ritual, it is not the kind of thing that can be easily defined or identified in a particular person. It is perhaps best expressed in the Confucian version of the (孟子 — Meng Tzu) did state on one occasion that the people's opinion on certain weighty matters should be polled.

''Jūnzǐ''(君子) — the gentleman. The gentleman is the ideal towards which all Confucians strive. (In modern times, the masculine bias in Confucianism has weakened, but the same term is still used.) The term literally means "son of a ruler," and there was a hereditary elitism inherent in the gentleman concept, but besides this, gentlemen were also expected to act as moral guides to the rest of society. Gentlemen are those who cultivate themselves morally, who participate in the correct performance of the rites, who show filial piety and loyalty where these are due and who have cultivated humaneness. The great exemplar of the gentleman is Confucius himself. It is indeed one of the great tragedies of his life that he was never awarded the high official position which he desired, and from which he wished to demonstrate the general well-being that would ensue if humane persons ruled and administered the state. The opposite of the ''Jūnzǐ'' was the ''Xiǎorén'' (小人), literally 'small person.'

Later developments in Confucianism

Between the gentlemen and the "small people" was an intermediate class called the ''shih'' (仕), commonly translated as "knights," who filled minor administrative posts and served as junior officers in the army. To these, too, Confucius and his disciples recommended the same virtues prescribed for the gentlemen. In time, the shih were transformed into a class of scholars and bureaucrats who owed their positions to the official civil service examinations. Because these examinations were entirely based on verbatim knowledge of Confucius's books, these people became the staunchest supporters of Confucian orthodoxy. Confucius considered himself to be little more than a aspirant gentleman; he refused to be addressed as a sage. Confucianism also had a remarkable influence on neighbouring countries such as Korea, Japan and Vietnam.

Historical development of Confucianism

Was there a Confucianism?

One of the problems in discussing the history of Confucianism is the question of what Confucianism is. In his book ''Manufacturing Confucianism'', David Jensen claims that our modern image of Confucius and Confucianism, which is that of a wise symbol of learning and a state-sponsored quasi-religion, did not exist in China from time immemorial, but was manufactured by European Jesuits in order to portray Chinese society to Europeans. The notion of Confucianism was then borrowed back by Chinese who used it for their own purposes. To simplify this discussion, we shall simply define Confucianism as any system of thinking that has at its basis the works that are regarded as the "Confucian classics," but even this definition runs into problems as it is not clear what are the "Confucian classics."

The Script Controversy

The origin of this problem lies with the attempt of Qin_Shi_Huang_Di to burn all of the books. After the Qin_dynasty was overthrown by the Han, there was the monumental task of recreating all of the knowledge that was destroyed. The method that was undertaken was to find all of the remaining scholars and have them reconstruct from memory the texts that were lost. This produced the "New Script" texts. Afterwards, people began finding fragments of books that had escaped the burning. Piecing those together produced the "Old Script" texts. One problem that has plagued Confucianism through the ages the question of which set of texts is the more authentic; the "Old Script" texts tend to have greater acceptance.

Confucianism in the Han_Dynasty

Eclipse by Buddhism

Neo-Confucianism

Another development was Neo-Confucianism, which developed in the 11th century AD as an attempt by Confucian scholars to address questions raised by Taoist and Buddhist metaphysics. The most important of those scholars was Chu_Hsi.

Confucianism in the Ming Dynasty

Confucianism in the Qing Dynasty

With the fall of the Ming Dynasty, Confucianism become an important part of the attempt by the Qing dynasty to portray themselves as legitimate rulers of China rather than alien invaders. By invoking the ideal of the Confucian sage, the Manchus were able to gain the support of the Chinese gentry and thereby maintain themselves in power for almost 300 years.

=The Evidentiary School

= The Evidentiary school was a movement in the early Qing dynasty whose goal was to reform society by finding the authentic texts that Confucius wrote. The belief of this movement was that in the distant past, there had been a golden age, of which there were only fragmentary records existent in the writings of Confucius. This fragmentary record was complicated by the fact that the writings were contaminated by Buddhist concepts and ideas. The Evidentiary school believed that by scientifically analyzing the Confucian texts, they could remove what they regarded as Buddhist distortion and find the authentic texts which would lead them to the golden age.

=The New/Old Script Controversy

=The Fall of the Imperial China

= As Imperial China began to fall and China was put under pressure by the Europeans, there came into being several trends in Confucianism. The first was the increasing identification of Confucianism with the Imperial state, in part to counter the argument by Chinese nationalists that the Qing was an alien state. The second was the attempt to recreate Confucianism as a native substitute for Christianity. These pressures increased to the point where he was eventually acknowledged to be a god, and was accordingly worshipped in the state cult.

=Kang You Wei

The New Confucian Movement

In the 1960s, it was commonly perceived by Western scholars such as Joseph Levinson that Confucianism was a dead movement forever consigned to the dustbin of history. However, over the next decades, Confucianism underwent a somewhat unexpected resurgence. The various forms of Confucianism that attempt to reconcile it with modernity are known as New_Confucianism (not to be confused with the Neo-Confucianism of the Song dynasty). One of the advocates of New Confucianism is Tu_Wei-ming, who is a member of the Boston_Confucians. This group attempts to develop the humanistic elements of Confucianism as a philosophy that is allied with religious morality, but yet maintains a secular focus. The novel ''The_Diamond_Age'' by Neal_Stephenson, features a judge with a form of New Confucian training who comes slowly to return to his roots. It is interesting due to its future setting, and contrast with those of another group, the New Victorians, representing Western philosophy. The novel sparked some interest in Confucian ideas in some circles.

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