Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 2

by Wm. Theodore de Bary

  2. Steadfastness. This is the notion of steadfastness in the Classic of Changes wherein there is “steadfastly acting without tiring.” The Changes says, “Heaven acts steadfastly, and the Noble Person, by his own strength, does not tire.” “Heaven acts steadfastly” is a statement of the manifestation of the Heavenly Will, “mysteriously without ceasing.” The Noble Person seeks the steadfast, endless action of Heaven-and-earth and understands that they also must emulate the steadfast, unceasing action of the Heavenly Way. This manifests our life-values as a responsive, penetrating sensitivity to demonstrate steadfastness, or in other words, to be one with Heaven, to manifest the creative nature, because the essential virtue of Heaven is the essence of creativity. The inclusive meaning of the word steadfast does not mean the persistence of muscular strength in physical cultivation, but rather is the pure spiritual strength of unceasing creativity.

  To extrapolate from the explanation of these two points, we can explain the true nature of “humaneness [ren]” stating that “humaneness takes feeling to be human nature and benefiting as its function.” Feeling as penetration is the greatly enhanced life-value (the spiritual side), and the process of this enlargement is without cessation, and therefore, this sensitive penetration must unite with all the other things in the cosmos. This is also to state that this is the ultimate extension of “[the great person] whose virtue is consonant with Heaven and earth, his brightness with the sun and moon, his consistency with the four seasons, and his prognostications of the auspicious and inauspicious with the workings of gods and spirits.” The process of benefiting things by sensitive penetration acts in favor of humaneness by means of a warm empathy that can encourage and elicit the life-values of other people. This enriching function is quite like the sweet dew that moistens the plants. The function of humaneness is this very profound deepening; we must say that humaneness represents real life; and this real life must then be our real substance and this real substance must then also be our real subject; and the real substance must be our real self. Therefore, the idea and value of humaneness are already proclaimed. Confucius established the connection of humaneness’s inner root to the Heavenly Way so that human nature and the Heavenly Way were not the subject of empty and idle chatter. If humaneness was empty and idle chatter without any internal content, the Heavenly Way would be high and far away, eternally unreachable by humankind. The humaneness of Confucius is really a verification of the Heavenly Will and the Heavenly Way.

  [From Mou Zongsan, Zhongguo zhexue de tezhi, pp. 34–36—JHB]

  FENG YOULAN: “CHINA—AN ANCIENT NATION WITH A NEW MISSION”

  Feng Youlan (Fung Yu-lan, 1895–1990), along with Hu Shi (see chapters 32 and 33) one of two leading students of John Dewey, became known as a dominant figure in the study of Chinese philosophy from the 1930s on. His two-volume History of Chinese Philosophy in both Chinese and English was long regarded in China and abroad as the standard work on the subject. In 1949, when many other intellectuals went into exile abroad, he chose to remain in Beijing and endure the same experience under communism as his fellow countrymen, hoping to develop his own philosophy in a synthesis with the new form of Chinese Marxism. Despite repeated efforts to adapt, as well as successive attempts at self-criticism, he found it difficult to resolve his problems and complete his own work, but he continued to believe that traditional Chinese thought would form the basis of a modernized China.

  Feng’s lifetime work, summed up in his posthumous Selected Philosophical Writings of 1991, included studies in English reiterating his earlier views with relatively little modification. The following excerpts are taken from the concluding essay in the volume, as he summed up a life of “conflict and contradiction” on the occasion of his receiving an honorary degree from Columbia University in 1982. The final note recalls a passage from the Classic of Odes [here called the Book of Poetry]: “Although Zhou is an old nation, it has a new mission”—which is Professor Feng’s understanding of the passage rendered in chapter 2: “Zhou is an old people, but its charge is new.”

  Although Feng’s philosophical stance and his role contrast with that of the authors’ of the manifesto reproduced above, who firmly rejected communism as un-Chinese, Feng’s own survival strategy and persistence in reasserting Chinese values as the basis of the new mission of modernization exemplify the same spirit of determination and endurance as is expressed in the manifesto. In the end, his rejection of Maoist class struggle and strong reaffirmation of Confucian humanism and harmonious relations were such that the final volume of his Collected Works had to be published in Taiwan and Hong Kong, not on the mainland.

  Speech of Response Delivered at the Convocation of September 10, 1982, at Columbia University

  I live in a period of conflict and contradiction between different cultures. My problem is how to understand the nature of this conflict and contradiction, how to deal with it, and how to adjust myself within this conflict and contradiction.

  I first came to America at the end of what is known as the May 4 Movement, which was a climax to the conflict and contradiction of different cultures at that time. I came with these problems and I began to deal with them seriously. As I did so, my thought developed in three stages. In the first stage, I interpreted the difference of cultures in terms of geographical areas—that is to say, the difference of cultures is the difference between the East and the West. In the second stage, I interpreted the difference of cultures in terms of historical epochs—that is to say, the difference of cultures is the difference between the ancient and the modern. In the third stage, I interpreted the difference of cultures in terms of social development—that is to say, the difference of cultures is the difference between types of society.

  In 1922 I presented a paper to the conference of the philosophy department, titled “Why China Has No Science.” Later it was published in the International Journal of Ethics. In this paper I maintained that the difference between cultures is the difference between the East and the West. This in fact was the prevailing opinion at that time. However, as I further studied the history of philosophy, I found this prevailing opinion to be incorrect. I discovered that what is considered to be the philosophy of the East has existed in the history of philosophy of the West as well, and vice versa. I discovered that mankind has the same essential nature with the same problems of life. . . . My thesis, published in 1924 under the title A Comparative Study of Life Ideals, denied the then current interpretation of the conflict and contradiction between different cultures, [but] it did not provide a new interpretation in its place. Such a new interpretation, however, appeared implicitly in my later work A History of Chinese Philosophy. The book asserted that, strictly speaking, there had been no modern philosophy in China, but as soon as China would become modernized there would be a modern Chinese philosophy. This assertion implicitly suggests that what is called the difference between the cultures of the East and the West is, in fact, the difference between the medieval and the modern.

  But what are the contents of these words medieval and modern? Later on I began to realize that the difference between the medieval and the modern is, in fact, a difference between types of society. In the Western countries, the transformation from one type of society into another took place one step earlier than in the Eastern countries. The key to the transformation has been the industrial revolution. Before the industrial revolution, the family was the basic unit of production. After the revolution, because of the introduction of machinery, production became enlarged in scope—that is, it was performed by large groups of people, not by separate families. In the forties, I wrote six books, one of them titled China’s Way to Freedom, in which I proposed that this way consists of modernization and that the main content of modernization is an industrial revolution.

  Then came the revolution in China, and with it the philosophy of Marxism. . . .

  The intellectuals, encouraged by the victory of the revolution, made efforts to help build a new socialist society. My own effort
was to revise my book A History of Chinese Philosophy. Only the first two volumes of the revised edition of this early work were published before I found the revision unsatisfactory to myself. I set out to revise the revision, but before it went to press I found that this newly revised edition needed to be done over again. . . . The source of my hesitation and vacillation is really a question of how to adjust to conflict and contradiction between different cultures. This question manifested itself in the further questions of how to inherit the spiritual heritage of the past. In the early fifties, I raised this question, the discussion of which was rather warm for a time.

  The simplest way to make the adjustment is just to declare that the philosophy of the past was all for the sake of the exploiting classes. Thus there is nothing worthy to be inherited. The present should disregard the past and consider it nonexistent. The present should start from zero and build everything anew. . . . People holding this view do not understand that the present is a continuation and development of the past. The higher type of society supersedes the lower just as a steamship supersedes a rowboat. The steamship replaces the rowboat, but it is built and operated on the same general principles that apply to all ships, including the rowboat. The experience and the experiment of the rowboat are the bases of the steamship. In this sense the steamship is the development of the rowboat, and this is the real meaning of the word development. The process of the development is a dialectical movement. To use Hegelian terms, there are affirmation, negation, and negation of negation. In other words, there are thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Such synthesis embraces all of the best in the thesis and antithesis. In this sense, the present should embrace all the best of the past. This is the natural way of adjustment of different cultures. . . .

  Throughout Chinese history, after a great dynasty had unified the country and established a strong central government and after people of different nationalities were living together harmoniously, there usually appeared a new and very comprehensive philosophy. Such a philosophy, with its interpretations of nature, society, and man, reflected the unity of the country and, at the same time, served as a theoretical foundation for the structure of the society of the time and its spiritual content. Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism were such philosophies, and China today needs such a comprehensive philosophy to embrace all aspects of the new civilization and to be her guide.

  Generally speaking, we in China today have Marxism and Mao Zedong Thought. Marxism will become Chinese Marxism, Mao Zedong Thought will further develop. . . . Mao Zedong Thought is defined as the unity of the universal principles of Marxism with the practice of the Chinese Revolution. . . . In the early stages of the revolution, the unity was well carried out. The theories by which the proletariat led the peasants in military insurrection and by which the village besieged the city are examples of this unity, and also of Chinese Marxism. Strategies based on these theories led the revolution to victory. In later stages, however, when the unity was not so well carried out and it was then further distorted by the intrigues of the “Gang of Four,” there appeared the extreme leftist policy known as the Cultural Revolution, the results of which are well known. . . .

  A system of philosophy is not a patchwork. Philosophy is a living thing. You can patch together ready-made parts to produce a machine but not a living thing, even such a living thing as a tiny insect or a blade of grass. You can only furnish nourishment to the living thing and let it absorb the nourishment itself. Under present circumstances, I feel I have a new task with the revised edition of my book A History of Chinese Philosophy. It should be not only a narration of the story of the past but also a nourishment for the philosophy of the future. . . .

  I always recall one line that appears in the Book of Poetry of the Confucian classics. It reads, “Although Zhou is an old nation, it has a new mission.” At the present time, China is an ancient nation that has a new mission, and that mission is modernization. My effort is to preserve the identity and individuality of the ancient nation, yet, at the same time, to promote the fulfillment of the new mission. People on the left appreciate my efforts to promote the fulfillment of the new mission but blame my effort to preserve the identity and individuality of the ancient nation. I understand their reasons and accept the applause as well as the blame. Applause and blame may cancel each other out. I shall go on according to my own judgment.

  [From Selected Philosophical Writings, pp. 658–663]

  THE CONTINUING CRITIQUE OF TRADITION

  In the 1980s debate over Chinese culture broke out once more in greater China. With the rise of the East Asian economies attributed to Confucian influences, and the widespread decline of morale and sense of anomie that followed the collapse of the Cultural Revolution, some intellectuals began to advocate the revival of Chinese culture. The first hints appeared in the works of such prominent fiction writers as Wang Anyi, Han Shaogong, and Ah Cheng. In what came to be known as “Chinese Culture Fever,” issues related to culture were debated in the prominent journal Reading (Dushu), as well as in other forums. However, many intellectuals, influenced by the sweeping attacks on Chinese culture that had been made in the May 4 Movement, still saw in Chinese culture the reasons why China, in their eyes, remained backward despite the massive changes of the twentieth century. Just as the failure of the early Chinese republic had contributed to the May 4 Movement, the perceived failure of the People’s Republic aroused further questioning as to the persistent debilitating effects of Chinese culture. Of the writers below, Bo Yang (Guo Yidong) is from Taiwan (though born and raised on the mainland), Sun Longji from Hong Kong, and Su Xiaokang and Wang Luxiang from the mainland. All try to show how tradition has stood in the way of new ideas from abroad.

  Both Sun Longji’s The Deep Structure of Chinese Culture and Bo Yang’s The Ugly Chinaman had become well known to mainland intellectuals by the mid-1980s. An edited mainland version of The Ugly Chinaman circulated briefly before it was banned. Su Xiaokang and Wang Luxiang’s “River Elegy” was not a book but a television documentary. By the summer of 1988, when the documentary was aired, about 90 percent of the Chinese people had access to television, and thus the documentary and the ideas contained in it reached an unprecedentedly large audience. Eventually, however, the documentary was criticized by powerful Chinese Communist Party figures like Wang Zhen and finally banned.

  Although this debate took place during a brief, relatively open period in the PRC, the CCP’S rejection of a critique of traditional Chinese culture is significant. By 1988 the Party, like the Nationalists in the late twenties, was already moving away from its earlier condemnation of Chinese culture and instead looking for traditional values that would be supportive of its rule. This had become especially vital in the wake of the collapse of Marxist values and a growing perception of a moral vacuum in Chinese society. Yet this attempted return to tradition did little to enhance the popularity of the existing regime among intellectuals already disenchanted with both it and tradition.

  BO YANG: “THE UGLY CHINAMAN”

  The sharply negative tone of the following essay reflects a sense of alienation and despair in the wake of the Cultural Revolution, as well as a feeling that age-old weaknesses have persisted through revolutionary change. Underlying this is the widespread presumption of the revolutionary ideology itself, much reinforced by Marxism, that traditional China had been marked by unrelieved stagnation and was ripe for total revolution. This expectation set the stage for later disillusionment over the failure of the revolution to fulfill its promises, followed in this case by a sense of resignation to more modest limited goals.

  [Concerning China] No other nation on earth has such a long history or such a well-preserved cultural tradition, a tradition that has in the past given rise to an extremely advanced civilization. Neither the Greeks nor the Egyptians of today bear any relationship to their ancient forebears, while the Chinese people of today are the direct descendants of the ancient Chinese. How is it possible for such a great people to have degenerated t
o such a state of ugliness? Not only have we been bullied around by foreigners; even worse, for centuries we’ve been bullied around by our own kind—from tyrannical emperors to despotic officials and ruthless mobs. . . .

  Chinese People Are the Same Everywhere

  . . . I’ve asked a number of people from the mainland why they ended up in prison. The answer was invariably “I spoke the truth.” And that’s the way it is. But why does speaking the truth lead to such unfortunate consequences? My answer is that this is not a problem of any particular individual but rather of Chinese culture as a whole.

  The Scourge of Infighting

  One of the qualities for which the Chinese people are notorious is a propensity for quarreling among themselves. . . . They squabble among themselves no matter where they are. Their bodies seem to lack those cells that enable most human beings to cooperate.

  The Inability to Admit Error

  The Chinese people’s inability to cooperate and their predilection for bickering among themselves are deep-rooted, harmful traits. These behavior patterns do not stem from an inherent weakness in the moral fiber of the Chinese people but rather from a “neurotic virus” that infects Chinese culture, making it impossible for us not to act in certain ways in given situations. We may be entirely aware of the fact that we quarrel among ourselves, yet it is beyond our control to stop it. “If the pot breaks, no one can have anything to eat; but if the sky falls there’ll always be someone tall enough to prevent it from falling on me.” This tendency toward internecine struggle is associated with a terrible reluctance to admit mistakes. . . .