Furthermore, Li argues, Confucianism shared a fundamental stress on “asceticism” and frugality with the outlook of Mohism, which emphasized limited consumption and egalitarian distribution. In this respect, Mao’s vision of the New Society accorded with traditional egalitarian ideals about the simple life in the unspoiled ancestral village. Moreover, Mao’s call for the intense pursuit of moral and ideological purity as a precondition for the realization of the ideal society had a certain resemblance to Confucian ideas of how the sage can draw as if on cosmic power to transform the whole of reality immediately, by the pure strength of his moral will.
The thought of the young Mao, Li argues, still moved within the orbit of a traditional Chinese holism, although the moving force of the cosmos, in Mao’s view, was not the harmonious complementarity of opposites but “motion” and “conflict,” accomplished by means of convulsive mobilizational campaigns aimed at changing people’s ideology (by molding the strength and direction of their willpower) rather than by science, technology, democracy, and the rule of law. This was combined with ideas current in Wang Yangming’s school of Neo-Confucianism, according to which both knowledge of external reality and action aimed at changing external reality were spontaneous and unmediated: since man can know the essential principles of the universe merely by introspection, knowledge is a matter of intuition, unmediated by practice, and action that is inspired by the good force of the cosmos does not need technology, as its effect is instantaneous. In Li’s view, Chinese holism contributed to an exaggerated belief in the divine powers of the sage ruler to control the universe solely by means of moral willpower. Thus Mao himself succeeded in taking the place in popular imagination traditionally occupied by the shaman and his reincarnations (the Chinese emperor and the moral hero), who are able to summon the good power of the cosmos by the force of their purified moral will, spreading its blessings over the entire community.
Through his teacher and later father-in-law Yang Changji, Mao was introduced to the philosophy of Wang Yangming, and Mao’s early writings, according to Li, are clearly influenced by Wang’s subjectivism and voluntarism.
Wang Yangming and Mao
Characteristic of the school of Wang Yangming is the great stress on the dynamic nature of subjective practice (moral behavior), i.e., the unity of knowledge and action. “Knowledge that is true and genuine is action, action that is conscious and discriminating is knowledge.” This means that ethics is entirely reduced to the self-conscious action of the individual. “Knowledge” is necessarily “action"; “innate knowledge” automatically becomes action, and conscious action is identical to knowledge. That is to say, man’s true existence lies in the “innate knowledge” [expressed in] activity and only in this activity can man achieve his noumenal existence. . . . [48]
In Wang Yangming’s doctrine of the unity of knowledge and action, there is not much place left for epistemology; in a certain sense, it can even be said that epistemological questions have been eliminated. The so-called extension of knowledge is not about knowledge at all but is about moral feeling.
From the beginning, starting with Lu Xiangshan, there had been a strong emphasis on “being one’s own master,” “self-reliance and self-respect,” the doubting of canonical authority and the opposition to blind obedience . . . and this characteristic became even more important and significant with Wang Yangming and his followers. . . .
[This] emphasis on subjectivity and willpower influenced, to a greater or lesser extent, many men of strong purpose and lofty ideals in later generations, such as Kang Youwei, Tan Sitong, the young Mao Zedong, and Guo Moruo, who used it as a spiritual weapon or support in their battle against the old society, the old order, and the old customs. The . . . aspect of individual moral cultivation, the steeling of the will, and the spirit of militancy . . . became a factor of real significance. [48]
Although Liu Shaoqi’s How to Be a Good Communist and Neo-Confucianism are diametrically opposed to each other, are they really dissimilar in the way in which they establish the subjective will and a sense of moral responsibility? . . . Is there really no continuity here in regard to national tradition? . . . Is it unrelated to the Chinese nation’s establishment of a subjective volitional structure in terms of a high regard for moral courage and character, the desire to control the feelings by means of principle, self-restraint, and firm determination? . . . In his youth, Mao Zedong earnestly studied Neo-Confucianism with his teacher Yang Changji and even spoke approvingly of Zeng Guofan. . . . He paid attention to self-improvement, the steeling of the will, and attached great importance to ideals, spiritual values, and moral achievements. Could all this have had no influence upon his later activities and ideology? [51–52]
[Li, Sixiangshi, pp. 48, 51–52—WLC]
GU MU: CONFUCIANISM AS THE ESSENCE OF CHINESE TRADITION
In October 1989, not long after the crackdown at Tiananmen Square earlier in June, an elaborate celebration of the 2540th anniversary of Confucius’s birthday was held in Beijing by the Confucius Foundation, which had been set up in 1983 with the support of the Deng regime. Among the dignitaries present was the president of the People’s Republic and general secretary of the Communist Party, Jiang Zemin, who spent two hours recollecting his own Confucian upbringing at home and giving his blessing to what was said by Gu Mu, a prime architect of Deng’s economic modernization program who served as the honorary chairman of the foundation and of this event.
In his keynote speech Gu Mu claimed the time-honored Confucius as China’s own and characterized Chinese culture as quintessentially Confucian (skipping over the Party’s earlier anti-Confucian stance and the virulent attacks on Confucius during the Cultural Revolution). By relying on the Confucian values of harmony and social discipline as the criteria for excluding decadent libertarian influences from the West, Gu would have China screen out the spiritual pollution that was responsible for the alleged unbridled disorders of Tiananmen Square. Understood as a call for compliance with direction from above, such harmony and discipline would yield the stability needed for economic progress. Nothing was said about the “harmony without conformity” spoken of by Confucius, much less the kind of political remonstrance advocated by Mencius.
By this time an established regime, Deng’s government no longer invoked Marxist revolutionary morality and class struggle (as in the Cultural Revolution) to guard the gates against Western liberal decadence, but instead leaned toward a conservative brand of Confucianism to buttress the status quo—yet not without a bow to such progressive trends from the West as environmentalism and ecology!
Subsequently an International Confucius Foundation was set up, which has joined in sponsoring meetings both in China and abroad (Singapore) along the lines proposed in this speech, usually participated in by officials and businessmen along with scholars.
The following excerpts are taken from the official English text of Gu’s speech:
The Chinese nation has had a long history and brilliant ancient culture. For a long period of time in human history, the Chinese culture, with the Confucian school of thought as the mainstream, glittered with colorful splendor. . . .
Culture serves both as the emblem of the level of civilization of a nation or a country and the guidance for its political and economic life. To promote prosperity and peace for a nation and for mankind in general, it is necessary to develop a compatible culture. In this regard, a proper attitude toward the traditional national culture is very important. It is inadvisable either to be complacent about the past or to discard the past and the tradition. The correct attitude is to inherit the essence and discard the dross.
The Chinese people are working hard to build socialist modernization and a prosperous and strong socialist country. In order to reach this goal, we must develop and improve our new culture, which, we believe, should be national, patriotic, scientific, and democratic. This calls for inheriting and reforming the traditional culture of our nation and parallel efforts to courageously and yet selectiv
ely assimilate the advanced cultures of the outside world, merging the two into an integral whole.
As for the attitude toward the traditional culture and foreign cultures, there is no doubt that the traditional culture should be kept as the mainstay. . . .
As is known to all, the idea of harmony is an important component of the Chinese traditional culture. As early as the last years of the West Zhou dynasty three thousand years ago, ancient scholars elucidated the brilliant idea of “harmony making for prosperity.” Later Confucius and the Confucian school put forward the proposition of “harmony above all” and established theories on the coordination of interpersonal relations, the protection of the natural environment, and the maintenance of ecological balance. These thoughts not only made positive contributions to the prosperity of ancient Chinese society but also have profound practical significance for the survival and development of mankind today.
[Keynote speech, 2540th Anniversary of Confucius’s Birthday, Beijing, October 1989]
1. Current estimates date Yin (Shang) from the mid-sixteenth century to the mid-eleventh century, and Xia prior to the mid-sixteenth century. See vol. 1, ch. 1.
2. See Lynn, The Classic of Changes, p. 138.
3. Yang Kuan, A New Approach to Ancient Chinese History, p. 297.
4. Li Dazhao, Selected Works (Beijing, 1959), p. 80.
5. See Lu Xun, Selected Works, 1: 102–154.
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