Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age
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Here we have one of several versions of the golden rule to be found in the Analects. It follows and amplifies the admonition to treat others in one’s private and public life with the greatest dignity, and it is given as an explanation of ren.
However, there is another key term that also turns up in golden rule sayings, one we haven’t mentioned before but adds to the richness of the Confucian vocabulary:
Zigong asked, “Is there something which consists of a single word and which, because of its nature, can be practiced for all one’s life?” The Master said, “I should say this is shu: What you do not want for yourself, do not do unto others.” (15:24, trans. Roetz)53
Roetz leaves shu untranslated as he wants to question the usual translation of “reciprocity” as potentially implying utilitarian calculation, a lower level of moral reasoning than he thinks is involved here. He points out that the term shu is more usually translated “forgiveness” or “indulgence,” and he suggests the best translation would be “fairness,” emphasizing its universality as a norm. Shu turns up in another key passage, 4:15, which Roetz translates:
The Master said, “Shen! My way (dao) is pervaded by one.” “Yes!” said Zengzi. When the Master had gone, the disciples asked, “What does he mean?” Zengzi said, “The way of our teacher is benevolence and fairness (zhongshu), and that’s all.“54
Here is shu again, paired with zhong, usually translated as loyalty, but having a range of meanings such that here “benevolence” seems more apt. Roetz’s point is that the golden rule is a formal procedure, not a virtue, and as such is universalizable and not contextdependent.ss Yet it still needs the background assumption of a universal ethical concept governing what it is that one does or does not want done to one. It is just this that ren, shu, and zhong (humaneness, fairness, benevolence) are providing.
Fingarette has emphasized the place of li in the Analects, and argued that Confucius interpreted li as a sense of life as ceremonial, within which and only within which human beings can become human. It is in this vision that he sees “the secular as sacred,” the subtitle to his book. Yet we don’t want to let this idea simply reinforce the notion of Confucianism as a secular philosophy and not a religion. It is probably right to see something that only modern Westerners have called an “ism” as not to be called, as again only modern Westerners have called it, “a religion.“56 But we cannot deny the adjective “religious” to Confucianism. Many of its key terms-Tian, Dao, de, ren, li (after all, li never loses its basic meaning as religious ritual)-point beyond the mundane world, have an aura of the sacred about them that they never lose, and that will be reaffirmed much later by neo-Confucianism.
There is one unmistakably religious term that does not appear often in the Analects, but that is nonetheless present at certain key moments, and that is Tian, Heaven. Even here there is an effort to argue for the secularity of Confucianism by holding that Tian no longer has any religious meaning, but is simply a term for “nature.” “Nature,” however, in all premodern cultures is normally a religious term-even physis, Greek for “nature,” meant something alive, growing, and worthy of respect. But the specific appearances of Heaven in the Analects imply something clearly other than any meaning we can normally give to “nature.” For example:
When the Master was trapped in Kuang, he said, When King Wen perished, did that mean that culture (wen) ceased to exist? If Heaven had really intended that such culture as his should disappear, a latterday mortal would never have been able to link himself to it as I have done. And if Heaven does not intend to destroy such culture, what have I to fear from the people of Kuang? (9:5, trans. Waley)
What made Confucius not simply one more teacher of the Six Arts, was his mission-his “mandate” we could say, thinking of later ideas that Confucius was the uncrowned king, the real holder of the Mandate of Heaven-to transmit and, we must add, to reanimate, the tradition of the ancients, with all that that implied. Elsewhere we find Confucius claiming what we can only call a “personal” relation with Heaven:
The Master said, “There is no one, is there, who recognizes me.” Zigong said, “Why is it that no one recognizes you?” The Master said, “I neither resent Heaven nor blame man; in learning about the lower, I have fathomed the higher. The one who recognizes me, wouldn’t it be Heaven?” (14:35, trans. Graham)57
And when his favorite disciple died he grieved with such abandon that he startled the other disciples (11:10) and turned to Heaven:
When Yan Hui died, the Master said, “Alas, Heaven has abandoned me, Heaven has abandoned me.” (11:9, trans. Graham)58
Because Heaven is concerned with the human moral order, and in this sense Confucius’s thought is continuous with that of Western Zhou, there is a relationship between Heaven and the Way, Tian and Dao. Yet Confucius never uses the term “Way of Heaven” (Tiandao).59 Graham argues that this is perhaps because diviners and others who used it to refer to the course of the heavenly bodies had at that time preempted the Confucius had little interest in cosmology; for him both Tian and Dao were concerned above all with the human moral order.
In spite of the agreement of many scholars that Chinese thought is basically “optimistic,” Confucius, though relying on Heaven and the Dao, is, if not pessimistic, at least in doubt. He can feel, as we just saw, abandoned by Heaven. And his concern with the Dao is very much with its absence: “The Way does not prevail” (5:7, trans. Leys). “The world had lost the Way” (16:2, trans. Leys). As with other axial thinkers, Confucius believes the world is out of joint, that it is his task to do what he can to set it right, but that, win or lose, above all he must hold on to his principles, he must behave in accordance with ren and li.
So what are we to make of this extraordinary man, and of the book attributed to him? Was he a political activist, attempting to revive a just political order that had fallen into decay? Was he the founder of a new sect, seeking the moral purity of its members, but basically withdrawing from society? Or was he, like Socrates, a critic of the social and political practices of his time, a seeker of truth rather than office, who through his example drew to himself disciples who would in various ways carry on the tradition that he established? Robert Eno considers that Confucius’s achievement was to establish a new understanding of education, one that through the knowledge and practice of Ii would lead to the transformation of his students into “ethical and wise beings,“61 what I have called “formation.” Probably there is some truth in all these possibilities. Certainly we can find in the Analects the beginning of the Confucian tradition of self-cultivation, so central in later Chinese history.62
What is significant from the point of view of our concern with the understanding of the axial transformation in its several cases is how far Confucius went, or how far he and those disciples who continued his tradition went, as recounted in the Analects, in carrying through the essentials of that transition. It is true that in the Analects we don’t find much “second-order” thinking-that is, thinking about thinking. Formal logic never became central in Chinese thought, though as we will see, it was developed with considerable sophistication later in the Warring States period. Nevertheless, Chinese science, based on careful observation and close attention to what works and what doesn’t, made striking advances-through much of history being equal to or, often, in advance of Western science, as the great work of Joseph Needham has extensively Confucius, however, like Socrates, was interested primarily in human society, not the natural cosmos, and his contributions and those of his followers were primarily in that realm. These contributions were nonetheless major.
Critical reasoning, even though in aphoristic or dialogical form, provided explanations of why things went wrong in society and in human conduct, and suggested alternatives that might set them right. Although not all Sinologists agree, I have argued, following Heiner Roetz, that the Analects does contain an ethics based in part on universal values. I should be clear that I do not think “universal” values exist in any culture in absolute f
orm. They are always phrased in a particular language in a particular time and place. If we translate them as “justice,” “benevolence,” or the like, we are using terms inevitably situated in a different cultural milieu and therefore approximations at best to the Chinese terms being translated. What I mean by “universal” is an aspiration toward universality. Confucian ethics are intended to be human ethics, not Chinese ethics. Roetz has shown the remarkable lack of ethnocentrism in early Chinese ethical thought. Although there are terms we can adequately translate as “barbarians,” these non-Chinese people are not treated as ethically different-they may even provide instructive examples for the
Although Confucius and his followers lived in a situation that they believed exhibited moral decay, and of which they were sharply critical, we now know that axial China, not unlike the other axial civilizations, was in a period of rapid growth, demographically, economically, and in terms of political/military power. The ethical consequences of this “growth” stimulated Confucian criticism. As Benjamin Schwartz has pointed out, this links China to the other axial cases:
I should like to say a word about Confucius’ image of moral evil. In fact the description of these evil tendencies which impede the achievement of the good is strikingly similar to the diagnoses made by prophets, wise men, and philosophers in all the high civilizations of this period. The unbridled pursuit of wealth, power, fame, sensual passion, arrogance, and pride-these themes figure centrally as the source of “the difficulty.” The language of the vices lends itself comparatively easily to translation into the vocabulary of Gautama Buddha, Plato and the Hebrew prophets. The material development of all the high civilizations had enormously increased the opportunities-at least for certain strata-for aggrandizement of power, increase of luxury, and pursuit of status and prestige … It is precisely in the moral orientations of the creative minorities of the first millennium that we find a resounding no to certain characteristic modes of human self-affirmation, which had emerged with the progress of civilization. For them the divine no longer dwelt in the manifestations of power, wealth, and external glory.65
In trying to make sense of the response of Confucius and his followers to these conditions, we can again turn to Schwartz when he affirms that Confucius’s thought is “both sociopolitical and ethicoritual,” and he finds the two dimensions to be “inextricably intertwined.” Although not uncritical of much of Fingarette’s argument, Schwartz turns to him for help in summing up his own position: “In the end, however, there is truth in Fingarette’s assertion that Confucius’ vision `is certainly not merely a political vision.’ On its most exalted level we have the vision of a society which not only enjoys harmony and welfare but a society transfigured by a life of sacred and beautiful ritual in which all classes would participate.“66
We will see that the social conditions to which Confucius was responding, the subversion of the inherited norms of ethical and political behavior, and the rise of ever more militarized and ruthless states contending for supremacy, would only become more widespread as the Warring States period unfolded. It was to these conditions that Confucians, but also their critics, would have to continue to respond.
Mozi
Mo Di (personal name) or Mozi (Master Mo) probably was born after the death of Confucius in 479 BCE, flourished in the second half of the fifth century, perhaps surviving into the early fourth century, probably was educated by Confucians but later turned bitterly against them, and was the founder of a “school” that arose during the Warring States period and contested the dominance of Confucian teachings. Before describing his teachings and the organization of his followers, it would be well to look a bit more closely at the changes that were going on in society. Mark Lewis gives a condensed picture of changes that had begun incipiently even in the seventh and sixth centuries BCE and reached their culmination in the fourth and third centuries:
The constant wars of the Zhou noble lineages gradually led to the creation of ever larger territorial units through the conquest of alien states and the extension of central government control into the countryside. These were called “warring states” because they devoted themselves to warfare, they were created through the progressive extension of military service, and the registration and mobilization of their populations for battle remained fundamental to their existence as states … Whereas under the nobility the actual performance of ritually sanctioned violence had been the hallmark of authority, in the Warring States all men engaged in licit violence, while authority was associated with its manipulation and control. Instead of being a means of defending honor, sanctioned violence served to establish or reinforce the authoritarian, hierarchic bonds that constituted the new social structure. In place of the lineage as the primary unit of both politics and elite kinship, the state secured control of military force, while the kin groups were reduced to the individual households that provided both taxes and labor service … The ultimate sanction of segmentary, aristocratic rule in the ancestral cults was replaced by forms of sanctioned violence and authority that were justified through the imitation of the “patterns of Heaven” by a single, cosmically potent ruler. Finally, the new organization and interpretation of violence allowed the Warring States Chinese to develop a new understanding of human society and the natural world.67
Whereas in Western Zhou and early Spring and Autumn China, participation in military action was limited to the aristocracy, it gradually came to include nonaristocratic inhabitants of capital cities, but eventually the peasantry as well, so that in the mature Warring States there was something close to universal manhood conscription. As a result the old chariot armies of the nobility were replaced by mass infantry recruited from the lower strata of society, eliminating the social power of the great ministerial lineages and of the aristocracy generally. Mass infantry required far less complex skills and was much less expensive to equip than the chariot armies of the aristocracy. The brave aristocratic warrior engaging in single combat was replaced by the skilled general who knew how to deploy multiple divisions of armies numbering in the thousands. As in other spheres, warfare became an art and leadership was based on proven merit, not birth. Technological inventions helped drive these changes in the form of warfare: the increasing use of iron weapons, of the recently invented (or imported) crossbow, of more effective armor, and of more effective and widely available swords. New forms of warfare, as has been true in many times and places, drove changes throughout society, including the state, the economy, and the family.68
Peasant land was now “private property,” in the sense that peasants were no longer serfs bonded to noble lords, but were, as individuals and nuclear families, subject to taxation, corvee, and conscription by centralized states. Instead of being organized geographically into villages belonging to a noble lineage, peasants were now organized into administrative districts under bureaucrats appointed by the head of state. These districts combined civil and military functions. Peasants were organized into units of five family heads, providing the lowest level infantry unit, and, in civil as well as military life, were jointly responsible for each other’s behavior.69
All this sounds very authoritarian, verging on totalitarian, and, in the theory that will later be called “Legalist,” that was the intention. Nonetheless, the Warring States period was much more fluid, even disorganized, than the above picture suggests. The constant warfare, the fall of states, the loss of status by the old aristocratic lineages, the rise of new groups of prosperous artisans and landholders, produced a society very much in flux. Members of the old elite, including its lowest level, the shi, were often displaced and had to seek protection and employment from rulers outside their place of birth. Even peasants were not infrequently displaced. One result of the turbulence of Warring States society was the presence of large numbers of men with various skills and abilities who had lost their ancestral roots and were available for hire by whomever wanted them. Many of these were fighters and provided troops for ambitious rulers. Others were
administrators, advisors, and diplomats, some of whom developed teachings that were handed down by their disciples, but only in the Han dynasty came to be called “Legalists.”
Among this large group of people who had lost their traditional places in society were itinerant scholars, often descended, as the Confucians were, from teachers of the Six Arts of the aristocratic tradition, still fashionable among the new elites. Toward the middle of the Warring States period it became a status symbol for rulers or high administrators of the larger states to attract a number of scholars of diverse backgrounds to give a kind of cultural luster to the state. We don’t know much about these developments, but it does appear that the state of Qi was the first to gather such a group of scholars. Both Mencius and Xunzi may have been associated with it, though the scholars themselves were of eclectic background, as is represented by the Guanzi, a collective work that may consist largely of contributions of the Qi The Qin state that would eventually unite the whole of China, not to be outdone by Qi, gathered a large group of scholars under the patronage of its chief minister, Lii Buwei, from which the collective work Liishi chunqiu emerged7’ Although several of the prominent Warring States thinkers, Xunzi for one, argued that their and only their views should be officially recognized, partly because they claimed to have included all that was good from the other traditions while eliminating the bad, there was no effective thought control until the Qin First Emperor tried to enforce one. A thinker who became unpopular in one place, or had annoyed a ruler of one state, could always move to another, and would often be welcomed as an addition to the local cultural capital.
Lewis sums up the situation as follows: “Apart from those that emerged from Confucius’s disciples, the only full-blown school attested to in the records is the Mohist tradition. Otherwise, each intellectual tradition is identified by the name of its putative founder and is defined entirely by a book or books that bore his name.“72 We should note that such books were handed down by disciples-we might call them scholarly lineages if we don’t want to use the term “school”-who undoubtedly added to the “original” text, often difficult to distinguish from such later additions. Brooks calls this pattern “growth by accretion” and finds it present in the Analects, as we have noted, but in other Confucian and non-Confucian texts as The Mozi, the primary text of the Mohist movement, is clearly a text of this sort. We may not know exactly how much of it goes back to Mozi himself, but it is clear that the early parts of the text are quite different from the later parts, attributed to the “Later Mohists.“74