Confucianism and Daoism

Learning from the young rice plants

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Exam preparation

• 1) Lecture Notes: all overheads for semester• 2) My History Lab test exams: pre-tests, post-tests, and

chapter exams• 3) Final Exam Essay Outline– Go through all civilizations– Primary source readings apply here

• 4) Bring enough paper for essay, #2 pencils, and good erasers

• 5) One “cheat sheet” allowed: one side 8 ½ by 11 inch, 6 pt. font minimum

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Contemporary problems of Li

• “Dear Miss Manners:• If a woman offers you her hand in greeting, should

you shake it only or should you grasp it, squeeze it gently, and at the same time pull her toward you and peck her on the cheek?

• “It would appear to me most appropriate to kiss a woman on the cheek, but if she offers you her lips instead, what should you do – kiss her on the lips or go round to a cheek?

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Kissing, continued

• “Once you have kissed a woman as a greeting, are you expected to continue with the practice in all future greetings involving that person? If you don’t is that person likely to be offended?” (79)

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Miss Manners Replies• Gentle Reader: • A gentleman must, in these circumstances, take what he is

offered. If it is a hand, shake it. If it is a cheek, kiss it. If it is a pair of lips, kiss it. If it keeps reappearing, it must be rekissed.

• Remember that we are talking about a formal, public gesture, and the fact that parts of the body and ways they are used may duplicate private expressions of emotion is irrelevant.

• Just because gentlemen no longer have the exclusive right to initiate private kissing does not mean that they may now share in the ladies’ privilege of initiating—or withholding —public kissing.

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Absolute and Relative in Morality

• Inner spirit (jen): respect for other people is absolute– Learn this in your family– Begin with your parents

• External expression (li): relative to situation, culture– In India: greet someone by placing hands in prayer

position and bowing; handshake contaminates

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Doctrine of the Mean:

• Balance between opposites: Jen and Li– Inner spirit of love; appropriate external behavior

• Compare with Daoism: Yin and Yang• NB ambiguity in translation of the Doctrine of the

Mean (balance)– Followed by the “superior” man– Not followed by the “mean” (common, inferior) man

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Contradiction in Confucius?

• (1) Overflow with love for all humanity• (2) Should you treat injury with kindness?• “What do you say concerning the principle that

injury should be recompensed with kindness?” The Master said, “With what then will you recompense kindness? Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness.”

• Compare Jesus: “Turn the other cheek.”

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Solution to contradiction

• Inner respect: jen: – Therefore love everyone.

• External behavior: li– But do not behave the same way to everyone.

• Apply to misbehaving child– Love the child– But “punish” the behavior

• Lesson: all actions have consequences

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Mencius (372 – 289 BCE) on how to unite the Empire

• Mencius saw King Hsiang of Liang. Coming away, he said to someone, ‘When I saw him at a distance he did not look like a ruler of men and when I went close to him I did not see anything that commanded respect. Abruptly he asked me, ‘Through what can the Empire be settled?’

• --Compare to the behavior of the Sage King Shun

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• ‘ “Through unity,” I said.• ‘ “Who can unite it?”• ‘ “One who is not fond of killing can unite it,” I

said. • ‘ “Who can give it [the Empire] to him?”

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Look at the rice plants

• ‘ “No one in the Empire will refuse to give it to him. Does your Majesty not know about young rice plants? Should there be a drought in the seventh or eighth month, these plants will wilt. If clouds begin to gather in the sky and rain comes pouring down, then the plants will spring up again. This being the case, who can stop it?

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• “Now in the Empire amongst the shepherds of men there is not one who is not fond of killing. If there is one who is not, then the people of the Empire will crane their necks to watch for his coming. This being truly the case, the people will turn to him like water flowing downwards with a tremendous force. Who can stop it?” (Mencius, Book I; Part A, 6.)

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To understand China: Look to the Rice Plants

• Main rule for ruling well: do not kill– Recall Confucius on how Shun rules w/o acting

• This attracts people to you• Reliance on force = legalism: repels others and

creates opposition– What you resist, persists– If you push on something, it pushes back at you.

(Isaac Newton’s third law of physics.)• =>Rule by magnetic attraction, not by force

overcoming resistance.

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Yin-Yang

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How the many things are created

• Tao begets One• One begets Two• Two begets Three• Three begets all things• All things carry the female and embrace the

male• And by breathing together, they live in

harmony

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What is the Way?

• It can’t be named – – because names refer to “things.” – And one thing is named in relation to other things.

“Up” is named in relation to “down”

• It is in the one before the two– Unity of yin and yang, female and male, non-being

and being, easy and hard, low and high, borrower and lender . . .

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No-thingness

• It is not a thing– The spokes of the wheel require empty space

between them to work– The hollowness of the vase makes it a vase– Empty space allows things to exist– Silence allows sound to be

• The no-thingness of the Dao is the inner Source of all things

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The Sage

Aware of the no-thingness of the Dao:• While the common people are so bright,• I alone am so dull!• While the common people know how to

differentiate,• I alone cannot see the difference.• All the people have their purpose,• But I alone am stubborn and despicable. . .• And value getting nourishment from the Mother.

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Value the feminine side of things

• Recall Antigone: Mother Earth, the eldest of the gods versis “man” with his plow and horse

• The Daoist Sage returns to the Mother Source of all things.

• Rejects primacy of masculine learning/ labeling, calculation, arrogance, aggression, competition.

• =>Return to early kinship egalitarianism– Before Class hierarchy, the State and male

domination

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How the good ruler rules – like a woman

• I do not act and the people reform themselves• I love serenity and the people rectify

themselves . . . • A large state is like the low land;• It is the focus point of the world• And the female of the world.

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• The female always conquers the male by serenity.

• In serenity, she puts herself low.• Therefore, the large state puts itself beneath

the small state,• And thereby absorbs the small state.• (Contrast method of Qin emperor.)

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Philosophy of No-Mind

• Knowledge involves intellectual distinctions, labels, separations.

• But truth, the Way, cannot be grasped by such knowledge.

• The Tao of no-thingness cannot be grasped by “the mind.”

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Awareness, not knowledge

• Be aware of the space between things, which allows the things to be

• Be aware of the silence between the sounds, that allows the sounds to be

• Still your mind by being in the present moment

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Philosophy of Love

• The Sage does not store things for himself• The more one does for others• The more he has for himself• The more one gives to others,• The more he keeps for himself.

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Confucian Mencius has Daoist Ideas

• Confucius: – Learning, propriety (li) is needed, – but it should be linked to jen – to inner feeling of love, first

learned in family relationships• Mencius:

– For good rule, imitate the rice plants– For good rule: don’t kill the peasants– Government is needed, but it should not rule by force, but by

peaceful example and by serving• Putting itself low, like a woman

– Morality is a natural response of the human heart.• Who would let a crawling infant fall into a well?

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Land problem of China

• Only 12% of land in China is arable• Problem: how best use the land – Need to respect nature

• Solution: rice has higher yield in calories per acre than wheat and other grains

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Labor problem

• Rice is more labor intensive. – Surplus per laborer is much less than in wheat

production.

• =>more laborers per acre in China• =>high population density of China

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Management problem: Small margin of survival

• Labor intensive farming: large family on small plot

• Small surplus per individual• But large numbers of individuals• > Rich state, but • > Small margin of survival for individuals

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Competition for surplus

• Division of pie– State, Emperor’s family– Large feudal landlords –Bureaucracy

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Need an ethical bureaucracy

• Bureaucracy cannot be greedy for itself• Bureaucracy must defend peasant against

greedy state, landlord• Confucius: primacy of family unit for health of

state• Need balanced government: the Mean– 1) Government depends on peasant surpluses– 2) too much pressure on the peasants destroys

the balance

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Solution to management problem

• Mencius on taxation: no more than 1/9• If State/bureaucracy and aristocratic

landowners are too greedy • > famine and revolution

• Hence, need for ethically trained bureaucracy: – Confucian ethical bureaucracy, – Not faceless bureaucracy of centralized states of

the Middle East and West (e.g., Rome)• Reason for failure of Qin Emperor?

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East v. WestRice v. Wheat

• 1) Irrigation v. rain-watered– Centralized state serves v. dominates

• 2) Labor intensive v. technology intensive– Transfer young plants by hand v plow and animal

power

• 3) Low surplus per laborer v high surplus• 4) High yield per acre in calories v low yield• 5) Respect for nature v. pride in human

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Dark side of iron

• Why did China outlast Rome? • Iron > Slavery as well as freedom– History of Rome: from free citizen to slave state– Slavery destroys Roman peasantry

• Slavery presupposes high labor productivity– Slaves are not naturally careful– Slaves require external supervision

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Implications of rice re Slavery

• Labor intensive rice cultivation: Low productivity per worker

• Special care needed to manage irrigation• > No slave agriculture for rice production• > Selfless Confucian bureaucracy (ideally)• > Long duration of Chinese society

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Daoism and Rice Production

• Peasant is close to land, to nature• Works with hands, feet in mud• Daoism: – let nature take its course without human

interference (i.e., without interfering high technology)

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Rivals or Complementary?

• Revolutionary rivalry– Important differences in doctrine– Confucian focus on society v. Daoist focus on

nature– Daoist revolutionaries fight corrupted Confucians

• But Confucianism is a philosophy of neo-kinship, and so also emphasizes the natural in society

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Dual sources of two philosophies

• 1) China must respect limitations of nature (12% arable land)

• 2) But China is also dependent on a complex, state-organized artificial irrigation system

• > two indigenous Chinese philosophies– Daoism reflects closeness to nature– Confucianism reflects state-based social

organization

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Unity of two philosophies

• But both reflect closer-to-nature, neo-kinship society

• Chinese Syncretism: – A “gentleman” can be a Confucian in his public

life, – and a Daoist in private life.

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