BOOK
REVIEW The
'real' story is the less
obvious Three Ways of
Thought in Ancient China by Arthur
Waley
Reviewed by Dmitry Shlapentokh
The reviewer's task could be manifold. One
aspect could be the attraction of the reader's
attention to that part of the book that he might
gloss over without understanding its centrality,
or at least importance, for the narrative. And
this would be the case with Three Ways of
Thought in Ancient China on several ancient
classical Chinese philosophers: Chuang Tzu and
Mencius and those who in the book are called "the
realists".
Chuang Tzu, one of the leading
proponents of Taoism, would most likely be
appreciated by Western readers; this would
especially be the case in the 1960s during what
could be called the hippie
era. The reason is
clear: Taoism is a sort of existential philosophy,
or religion if you wish. It is absolutely asocial
and, in a way, relativistic.
The
proponents assume that a person has no social
obligations and should accept life as it is with a
major focus on internal tranquility. In this
content stage - calmly acceptive of all
vicissitudes of life - the person should wait for
death, with no promise of the afterlife. Death is
lapsing into nothingness; but this is the great
consolation for the dead, who have no troubles.
While the premises of Taoism could well be
accepted by the Western reader, one might remember
Zen Buddhism with its quite similar philosophy so
popular in the 1960s and much blended with Taoism
in Chinese thought; the case would be more
complicated with Mencius, the leading
Confucianist.
Indeed, while Westerners,
especially the hippies of the 1960s, could well be
interested in Taoism, others, those who look for
"eternal" China, the template for thousands of
years of the country's existence, would look at
the work of Mencius.
Indeed, for the
majority of those foreigners who have just a
superficial knowledge of China or even the Chinese
themselves, Confucianism is the very embodiment of
China, its "external" spiritual framework
regardless of all influences of imported creeds,
from Marxism to Western liberalism. Confucianism
emphasizes the hierarchy and mutual
responsibilities between rulers and rulers and the
proponents of the creed visualized the state as a
big, well-organized, family. In Arthur Waley's
view, it was a fig leaf of the regime at best and
the unworkability of the creed was actually
acknowledged by Confucius himself.
Both
Taoism and Confucianism are among the most, if not
the most, popular philosophies coming from China.
Still, as the author of Three Ways of Thought
in Ancient China notes, they, paradoxically
enough, had never played a substantial role in
shaping Chinese political culture and Chinese
history. Waley notes that there was no Chinese
dynasty, were no Chinese rulers, who actually
ruled according to not just Taoist principles -
Taoism was, in fact, an asocial teaching - but
even Confucianism, which, formerly had been a
state ideology and the basis for civil-service
exams until the end of imperial rule.
The
story presented in Waley's book provides a good
example of the unworkability of Confucianism with
its noble calling. According to the story,
Confucius was informed about a certain bandit who
defied all the major values that Confucius
believed and are the very foundation of any
society; and he believed that he could easily
persuade the bandit to abandon this way of life.
Despite the warning, Confucius indeed
approached the bandit and tried to convince him
that he would live a much happier life if he would
abandon his amoralism and criminality. The bandit
was hardly convinced, and the sage barely escaped
with his life. One might note that the same story
was true of Plato, who barely escaped from a
despot whom he tried to convince that following
the virtuous life would be in his best interests.
Confucianism was unworkable, the author states,
regardless of the fact that Confucianism with its
moral underpinning had been a fig leaf for Chinese
monarchs for millennia.
It was not
Confucianism but "realism" that was the driving
force of the Chinese authoritarian/totalitarian
states. It had been really a functional
philosophy, at least from the author's point of
view. The "realists" were unquestionably the
ideologists of the totalitarian regime, at least
from Waley's perspective. Indeed, the author notes
that many of the ideas of the "realists" look like
quotations from current newspapers. One should
remember that the first edition of Waley's book
emerged in 1939, the year of the beginning of
World War II, a time when most of Eurasia, from
the Atlantic to the Pacific, was controlled by
totalitarian regimes.
"Realists" discarded
any supreme moral guidance of individual life.
Similar to Taoists, "realists" were relativists,
or, to be precise, immoralists, at least at first
glance. In the context of their views, everything
that was ordered by the state should be done and
those who believed in eternal moral guidance - as
was the case, for example, with Confucianism -
should be exterminated. The state, in their view,
had no other goal but itself. Economic vitality
was essential for the survival of the state, and
this required that the majority of the people
engage in agriculture.
The state's other
major function was endless expansion. So those who
were not engaged in food production should be
engaged in war. And the realists provided advice
to the ruler on how to push the people to engage
in these activities. One could assume that
"realism" was the philosophy of self-seeking
Machiavellians who, similar to the author of
The Prince, provided advice to the ruler on
how to keep power, mostly for the sake of power.
There is a clear temptation to look at
"realism" from this perspective. One should
remember that some realists provided detailed
advice to the courtiers/advisers of the ruler as
to how to keep the ruler's confidence and save
their job and life. Still, if one would look
closer at the realists' program, it is not
Machiavellianism, as it is usually understood. The
realists' program actually implied concern with
public interest. Their emphasis on agricultural
activity is related to the basic necessities of
any ancient state, actually any state - the
provision of the food supply for the people. It
was especially important in a society where the
food supply was unreliable.
The other
emphasis on the state's expansion is actually
related to the other basic need of the ancient
states: a strong sense of security, both external
and internal. Both attributes were essential for
the survival of the people, not just the state.
The actual concern with public good was
also seen in other advice of the "realists".
According to this advice, the ruler should
actually be withdrawn from exercising power, at
least should play no role in making decisions in
concrete matters. The realists pointed out that
the ruler should not engage in the direct rule of
the realm, for he could not make decisions that
would benefit the state.
The reason for
this is simple enough: The ruler is a person who
is subject to whims, influence and emotion. The
law, created under the direct influence of the
ruler, should be independent from him, ensuring
that the state's actions are the most beneficial
to the ruler and the state and actually the
majority. But if these actions are beneficial for
the majority, why should society be ruled by a
despot formally not bound by anything?
The
point here is that as the "realists" noted,
average people, the masses in general, hardly
understand their long-term common interests and
would never sacrifice their personal or group
interests to those of the society/state as a
whole, especially if results are not observable
early on. In the realists' view, the state should
be focused on two major functions: war and food
production. While war and related expansion are
related with security, both internal and external,
agriculture is essential for the food supply for
the country. All of this is essential not just for
the survival of the state but for the survival of
the people.
Moreover, despite external
similarities between the ideas of the "realists"
and totalitarian thinkers/practitioners of the
19th and 20th centuries, rightfully admitted by
Waley, they are actually a different species from
one important perspective. While totalitarian
rulers of modernity had some grand, preconceived
goals - the triumph of the "master race" as a
manifestation of millenarian eugenics, the
creation of an ideal worldwide society - communism
or the worldwide khalifat - "realists" had
no such abstract goal. Their drive was very
practical - the basic survival of both the state
and the people and the assumption that people
could not survive without the state and
state-imposed duties upon the majority.
People could well understand this, but it
led to no practical action. One of the leading
"realists" noted with an air of irony that one
could not find in any house many books on
agriculture, but actually quite a few on the rice
paddies were seen. Each house had a copy of Sun
Tzu's Art of War; still no one wanted to
fight. It was only terror, fear of the most
ferocious punishment that could prompt the people
to follow the demands of the state. Only brutal
power and fear of the most serious punishment
would compel the people to follow the rules. Thus,
as one could assume, the "realists" despite their
external immoralism became in essence great
moralists, for they actually called upon the ruler
to save the people from themselves.
What
was the implication of the works of the "realists"
for China? One might note that despite the fact
that they were the ideologists of China's
unification by Qin Shi Huang, the role of realists
- not often discussed either inside or outside
China - could not be compared to the influence of
Confucianism. Yet "realism", actually the
totalitarian regimes of the Oriental type, where
everything belonged to the empire/state, not only
has profound implications for China but,
paradoxically enough, has quite positive
implications.
The despotic design of the
"realists", the foundation of Oriental despotism,
was discarded in the 19th and early 20th centuries
when Westerners pointed to the Orientalist
political/economic culture as the reason for China
falling behind the West. This led Chinese
intellectuals and politicians to search for
Western templates that could elevate China to the
level of Western power. Some picked up Western
democracy and the market.
Others - Marxism
allegedly - also planned for the future in the
context of a democratic regime. Still, Marxists
asserted that true grassroots democracy could be
achieved only by the socialization of private
property. When these principles were applied to
real life in China - and of course elsewhere - the
results were quite different from the Marxist
dream of the 19th century. Instead of a democratic
regime, a system quite similar to that designed by
the "realists" emerged. And the leaders of Red
China - Mao Zedong first of all - immediately
reinterpreted the realists'
political/philosophical dictums.
What was
seen as a backward philosophy was reinterpreted as
a leap to the future. It was thus assumed that a
peculiar "Qin Shi Huangism" of a sort, with
absolute power of the state over economic and
sociopolitical life, is a peculiar form of
modernity. And this was not just an intellectual
ploy. Indeed, centralized power, state control
over the high command of the economy and the
emphasis on stability regardless of what it takes,
made it possible for China to make tremendous
economic progress and navigate through economic
crises much better than most of the countries of
the West.
Still, despite this fact,
"realism" - the tradition of Oriental despotism,
which is at the core of China's prosperity and
should be the basic framework of the country in
the foreseeable future - was rejected, possibly
with disgust, not just by the majority of
Westerners but even most likely by the majority of
Chinese. For this reason, most readers of the book
would pay attention to Taoists and Confucianists
but not to "realists", regardless of the
reviewer's assumption that they should pay much
more attention to them than to the noble calls of
Mencius and Chuang Tzu.
Three Ways of
Thought in Ancient China, by Arthur Waley.
Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2011.
Dmitry
Shlapentokh, PhD, is associate professor of
history, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences,
Indiana University South Bend. He is author of
East Against West: The First Encounter - The
Life of Themistocles (2005).
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