Confucian Reflections

Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times

Philip J Ivanhoe

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135012366
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Confucian Reflections: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times is about the early Chinese Confucian classic the "Analects" Lunyu, attributed to the founder of the Confucian tradition, Kongzi (551-479 bce) and who is more commonly referred to as "Confucius" in the West. Philip J. Ivanhoe argues that the Analects is as relevant and important today as it has proven to be over the course of its more than 2000 year history, not only for the people who live in East Asian societies but for all human beings. The fact that this text has inspired so many talented people for so long, across a range of complex, creative, rich, and fascinating cultures offers a strong prima facie reason for thinking that the insights the Analects contains are not bound by either the particular time or cultural context in which the text took shape.

1

BEING IN AND LEARNING FROM TRADITION

For thousands of years, scholars from different cultures and times have offered a wide range of competing views, conflicting interpretations, opinions, and judgments about Confucianism, but they agree on at least one thing: it is a complex and venerable tradition, a collection of beliefs, texts, norms, habits, and practices handed down from one generation to the next. Kongzi made no attempt to disguise this feature of his Way; as noted in the Introduction, he once described himself as “one who transmits rather than creates; one who trusts in and loves the ancients” (Analects 7.1). Today, however, fidelity to tradition is not widely regarded as a virtue. Many people in modern, industrialized societies harbor and express the view that tradition, in whatever form it might take, is a remnant of past ages, a world well lost, a drag or constraint on freedom and creativity and an obstacle to living a satisfying and happy life. Some who believe this to be true may provide reasons for holding such beliefs, but we might and should ask if they have good reasons to do so¹

No one can deny that there are cases in which traditions cramp, hamstring, or even smother our attempts to live well. Not every tradition is worthy of support or worth defending; traditions can regress or devolve as well as improve over time; they can ossify into traditionalism, which, as we shall discuss below, is both unappealing and unworthy of support. Even when traditions go wrong, though, this can and in most cases should be viewed as a challenge to correct, strengthen, and enhance the given tradition rather than a reason to abandon it altogether. As noted in the Introduction, even though traditions have proven to have flaws and have been misused to support bad ends, this does not come close to offering good reasons to ignore or abandon them. This is especially clear when we come to appreciate the fact that, as human beings, we cannot avoid living in and through traditions; we begin, pass through, and end our lives connected to traditions of various kinds² Rather than a constraint upon freedom and creativity, traditions offer the only chance we have for creative and original lives; in addition, they can be unique sources for deep and important senses of identity, connection, and satisfaction.

There is a significant difference between living through a tradition and embracing traditionalism. The former arguably is an unavoidable feature of human life; the latter is a retreat from a fully human life. We live through our traditions when we carry them forward in a reverent but critical attitude, reforming, improving, and refining them as the need arises. We suffer under traditionalism when because of coercion, fear, or a lack of imagination we mindlessly accept and perpetuate the beliefs and practices of the past. Jaroslav Pelikan captured these ideas perfectly and beautifully when he wrote that “tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. And, I suppose I should add, it is traditionalism that gives tradition such a bad name.”³

I will argue that traditions are much more pervasive in our lives than we realize and in doing so foreshadow a similar argument I will make in regard to rituals. In making this case, I rely upon a distinction between implicit, or latent, traditions and explicit, or manifest, traditions. Just as there is a difference between regular and important shared practices that we at least sometimes call “rituals” and the formal rituals of established religions, there are more loosely organized, historically extended movements or practices that can and at times are thought of as traditions that differ from explicit traditions such as Roman Catholicism or Confucianism. For example, we don't think it unusual to talk about traditions of scientific inquiry, peaceful protest, or musical performance even though these usually lack the social recognition and institutionalized forms of celebration that we find in established religious traditions. This suggests there is a set of related phenomena forming a spectrum between more latent and more explicit traditions. I believe that this is correct and moreover will argue that we should not only recognize this fact about our lives but in some cases we should work to transform more latent traditions into more explicit ones.

We cannot live good human lives without participating in traditions any more than we can live good human lives without learning and using a language⁴ A human language itself is an example of a latent tradition and a critical feature of every culture. Like other traditions, human languages are products of long processes of accretion and accumulation, not the result of any single episode of creation or the reflection of a particular theory about what a language should be. We all are shaped by the linguistic and larger cultural traditions in which we are raised and to some extent we are constrained by them. They are, however, the very media through which we understand ourselves, each other, and the world around us; they also are the source of tremendous security, satisfaction, meaning, and joy. They are not prisons—unless we make or allow them to be so; they offer us a place to stand, a vantage point upon the world where we begin our reflections and dialogues with others about the shape, significance, and tempo of human lives. The question is not whether to live within traditions; the question is how best to do so.

Traditions of various kinds are not parts of the natural world; they are human constructs, but they are nonetheless real; the same can be said of human language or culture in general, and these offer many of the most meaningful, pleasing, and satisfying experiences human beings can have⁵ Why is it then that so many modern people acquire at least a mild and often strong antagonism toward tradition while often being only dimly aware of the sources of such animosity and the degree to which such an attitude can needlessly complicate and often diminish the quality of their lives? Perhaps the first thing to say on this topic has been noted above in Pelikan's revealing distinction between tradition and traditionalism; the latter is the source of much contemporary animosity. The second thing might be that a negative attitude toward tradition is largely a contingent and distinctive feature of our place in history. Rather than representing a long and widely held view expressing some deep insight into the human condition or the key to happiness, the failure to appreciate tradition is a highly anomalous and an almost certainly temporary feature of modern liberal societies—one that might well be on the wane even within these cultures but even today is by no means a uniform or universal view. Vital and vibrant traditions are the norm in most of the world's civilizations even in contemporary times, and traditions of various kinds are central to some extent in many people's lives, even within the most liberal modern societies. Future generations surely will be perplexed by some of our most passionately held beliefs and practices, such as the widespread acceptance among contemporary intellectuals of “economic man,” Homo Economicus —the idea that by nature human beings most regularly seek to maximize their individual material welfar⁶ —and the related general antagonism people in our time tend to show toward tradition. I venture to suggest—and hope—that both these features of modernity will come to be seen as expression of the zeitgeist of an anomalous, overly self-centered and inadequately reflective period in human history.

The case of the Confucian tradition is not wholly unlike the case of Christianity in that both traditions came under considerable criticism, some of it clearly justified, with the rise of the modern world⁷ The twentieth century marked an age of magnificent advancement in many important areas of human life. In particular the wicked and appalling nature of discrimination based on race, sex, and class was revealed, challenged, and to varying degrees overturned, at least across a range of modern cultures⁸ These achievements did not come without great struggle and sacrifice and constitute a legacy we all should appreciate, guard, celebrate, and carry forward. Many of these movements are latent traditions and offer some of the best candidates for elevation to explicit traditions. Recognizing that these great social movements have founding figures, defining moments, characteristic themes, and a discernible historical trajectory is the first step toward embracing them as explicit traditions.

Two important facts must not escape our attention. First, as long as we continue to learn more about ourselves and our world, it is inevitable that parts of our current as well as past beliefs, practices, and norms—including those that are parts of our traditions—shall come to be seen as ill-founded. Second, as long as we remain on earth and continue to live as intelligent, inquisitive, and creative creatures, we will be able to improve the traditions that define our various modes of life. On the other hand, we will always face the possibility of falling into future dark ages if we fail to live up to the best features and employ the most noble capacities of our species, if we forsake our traditions and retreat into traditionalism or disperse into chaos.

Our progress and advancements do not simply emerge out of the void—progress without history is a modern conceit and delusion; they are developments and improvements that, in almost every case, arise from and in one way or another continue ongoing traditions, both latent and explicit. Even in instances where there is a sudden and dramatic break with the past, the form a protest or revolution takes is largely defined in terms of what it responds to and in this respect the former tradition informs and shapes the new beliefs, norms, and practices that emerge and often lives on in various other ways in people's memories, attitudes, and behaviors. In these various ways, the past always shapes our present and influences the trajectory of the future. Many modern people have a tendency to suffer from an illusion we might call temporal provincialism, the belief that our present understanding of the world is somehow definitive and exceedingly superior to anything that has or will ever be known. History provides us ample illustrations of the folly of such a conceit; consider what happened to Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire. The great Confucian philosopher Zhang Xuecheng (

) (1738–1801), warned against such temporal provincialism saying⁹ “a hundred years from now, we too will be ‘someone from the past.’ Put yourself in the place of posterity and consider how we will fare?” (

).

The case of women's liberation in the West, which has grown into a global though by no means universal phenomenon, offers a splendid example of a latent tradition that should be embraced as an explicit tradition. The great movement that identified, challenged, and overturned the massively unjust, deeply misguided, and thoroughly odious constellation of attitudes, beliefs, practices and norms that oppressed and exploited women, harmed them profoundly, and indirectly made everyone's lives much less noble and fulfilling was and remains a prolonged struggle; while revolutionary in its implications and effects, it was not a revolution in terms of its process, if we conceive of revolution as an abrupt overthrow and break with the past. It was inspired and sustained by beliefs that already were widely held within a range of societies, beliefs about the fundamental freedom, dignity, and equality of all human beings. What it sought and insisted upon was that these deep truths be extended fully to women. The same is true of the magnificent struggles collectively known as the civil rights movement; is this not another prime candidate for elevation to the status of explicit tradition? These profound social transformations were and continue to be movements forged in trenchant insight, careful planning, and sustained courageous action. They succeeded only through great effort, time, and sacrifice, and like most good things are not wholly complete, perfect, or secure.

The women's liberation movement is constituted by the commitment of many people, some well-known, many mostly unknown, a series of events, some great and some small, and a set of institutions, both local and global, which together form a tradition: an organized, reflective, and intentional collection of ideas and activities that is handed down and extends through time. Seeing that the movement is at least a latent tradition is important for a number of distinctive reasons, which lie at the heart of the concerns of this chapter. First, such a conception explains the remarkable devotion, pride, and satisfaction that so many people feel, to varying degrees, toward the achievements and aims of women's liberation. Second seeing this movement as a tradition can help us to keep in our hearts and minds those with great insight and imagination who worked and sacrificed to make our lives and societies better. We must not forget the founding figures of this tradition—women like Mary Wollstonecraft and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (the latter, a major figure in the abolitionist movement as well)—all that they sacrificed and all that they achieved. Their images do and should appear in our books, but they should also be displayed on our currency and in our parks and public places, and their memories should remain forever etched upon our hearts. We should publicly recognize and collectively celebrate them and their work in regular shared ceremonies. We should embrace them and their work as an important tradition. This is only fitting; it is also terribly important as a source of inspiration for contemporary and future members of this and every proud tradition. Kongzi always sought to keep in mind the sages and other exemplary figures of his tradition and all that they achieved. He was disconcerted whenever he felt he was losing a vivid sense and connection to the great figures of the past; one day he exclaimed, “Too long has it been, since I dreamed of seeing the Duke of Zhou!” (

) (Analects 7.5)¹⁰

Understanding women's liberation as a tradition helps us focus our attention on the need to remain vigilant, to guard the progress that has been made and seek to carry it forward: we should revere and feel the need to prove worthy of our inheritance. When we study the tradition we will be impressed not only with the insight and courage of those who forged it, but also by the arc of its trajectory, which continues into the present day and will pass beyond it. The early insights of this tradition are clearly the achievements of “someone from the past,” and, as Zhang Xuecheng so trenchantly observed, it is easy to criticize the views and actions of earlier figures from the privileged perspective of later history. We should remember, though, that this later, more enlightened perspective is not the final word and is something they bequeathed unto us. A fair assessment of their achievements in light of this historical fact will impress any reflective and reasonable person and can motivate us both to carry the struggle forward and recognize our own and others' limitations. We should learn from and improve upon Goethe's advice, “Take what you have inherited from your fathers and work to mak...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Conventions
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Being in and Learning from Tradition
• 2 Conceptions of Self, Society, and World
• 3 Social Practices Great and Small
• 4 Music in and of Our Lives
• 5 The Values of Families
• 6 Awareness, Attentiveness, and Care in and of the Everyday
• 7 Conclusion
• Notes
• Works Cited
• Suggested Further Readings
• Index