On Being Chinese: The Early Years (Part One)
- andrewsingerchina
- 6 hours ago
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“‘The tendency of human nature to do good is like that of water to flow downward.’”1
This 2,300-year-old statement by Mencius, second only to Confucius in the Confucian pantheon, would have been relatable, yet not, to Daoists Laozi and Zhuangzi who believed that the Way of nature is balanced. This distinction is representative of the freewheeling philosophical “Hundred Schools of Thought” discourse for hearts and minds that blossomed in the Chinese heartland during the half millennium preceding Jesus Christ’s birth.
This was a time seething with violence, instability, and a desperate longing for harmony and meaning in China. A cauldron of rival kingdoms continually battled for control of real estate and more throughout both the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods (770-476 BCE and 476-221 BCE).
While Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were debating virtue, happiness, character, wisdom, and humanity in ancient Greece, luminaries such as Confucius, Mencius, Xunzi, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Han Feizi, and Mozi were themselves engaged in a roving, vigorous conversation about the nature of man, virtue, ethics, morality, and governance some 8,000 kilometers to the east.
Over the course of this lengthy run-up to China becoming united by the short-lived Qin Dynasty (221-206 BCE), these citizen philosophers roamed the land, the disparate Warring States, offering their thoughts and guidance to any leaders who would listen. Nothing was as yet settled on being Chinese. Anything was possible.
A vast, liberating discussion ensued on the interplay of Morality, Ethics, and Virtue; on the place of Righteousness, Benevolence, and Humanity; on engaging in Ritual and Education and developing Wisdom; on the Way. This period of questioning and answering and searching was ultimately norm setting in defining what it meant to be Chinese and in launching China on its long journey to today.
Chinese philosophers wanted the same thing. In the face of a disintegrating feudal society, they yearned for a more stable, harmonious China. They were looking to establish the foundation of a well-governed society.
They did not agree on how best to get there. They offered their own, occasionally overlapping, methods for moving forward. The differences were not just between various schools of thought, but often within the same school of thought. China was struggling to become China.
Is man’s nature good or evil? Are men equal in standing or innately divided? Are humans meant to operate up individually and collectively within social or natural frameworks or must they be directed from above? The answers to these questions shaped the beliefs among the Hundred Schools of Thought.
At their most basic, we can say that early
Confucianism (Confucius, Mencius, Xunzi) emphasized the measured primacy of benevolence and righteousness for achieving an ethical order guided by following regulating ritual and defined hierarchies.
Daoism (Laozi and Zhuangzi) promoted a more mystical following of the Way of nature, seeking individual accord and harmony with the natural patterns of the world as the basis of living.
Legalism (Han Feizi) counted man as evil and advocated a rigid, law-and-order society governed by an absolute leader enforcing strict and expansive laws.
Mohism (Mozi) was the most Woodstockian of the beliefs arguing for universal love and to live for today with neither gimmick nor war.
The debates of the era were fluid. Confucius followed the Way, albeit within his framework of social order based on ritual that generally did not accord with the Daoist view. Other Confucian adherents espoused beliefs at odds with each other that affected how they would implement Confucianism.
Mencius believed in the goodness of people; Xunzi (similar to Han Feizi in the Legalist School) saw man as evil. Xunzi was more of a realist than Mencius. He viewed man’s emotions and nature as being in inevitable conflict with the Confucian ideals of his predecessors. Though Buddhism had not yet found its way to China, Xunzi’s reflections on the intersection of man’s desires and the creation of conflict and suffering have a distinctly Buddhist-feel to them.
Mencius noted that “the governor existed for the sake of the governed.”2 Rulers had an ethical and moral responsibility towards their subjects. Han Feizi argued for the hammer of law to control our base tendencies. Xunzi, on the other hand, proposed strict education in etiquette and ritual to train ourselves to overcome those same base tendencies. Mozi was also pragmatic, though nonetheless likely aghast at both Han and Xunzi.
How did effective governance finally come to a united China? Did one School win?
The Legalist School emerged triumphant when the Qin Kingdom defeated its six rivals and ended the Warring States Period in 221 BCE. The new Qin Dynasty, however, fell quickly after its charismatic leader died a decade later.
A melding of Schools then took hold in the subsequent Han Dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE). The Han is today seen as the most formative Dynasty in China’s Imperial Era. It was then that a de facto combination of a more centralized, authoritarian rule (Legalist-like yet Confucian too), with a hierarchal and ritual-based social compact (Confucian), and a fondness (at least in theory) with nature (Daoism) developed. Buddhism played a significant role later on as well. Mozi was the big loser.
The early pre-Qin Confucian philosophy adopted in Han downplayed coercive governance and instead endorsed governing by being a role model, by setting examples of virtuous, ethical, and thus moral leadership for the people of China.
One ancient text on bamboo strips relates that “‘By honouring virtue and propriety (zun deyi) and having a clear understanding of human relations (min lun), one may serve as ruler.’”3
In a governance dispute between two Han Kings, brothers of the sixth emperor of the Dynasty, the elder retorted to his brother that “‘The King of Chung-shan [his younger brother Prince Liu Sheng] fritters away his days in sensual gratification instead of assisting the Son of Heaven [the Emperor] to bring order to the common people. How can someone like that be called a ‘bastion of the throne’?’”4
As his mortality became more apparent, the great Han Wudi, seventh emperor of Han, wrote a letter to his son and heir: “Crown Prince, you should be a benevolent ruler, paying attention to the needs of ordinary people, reducing their burden of taxation, protecting talented people, staying close to the great thinkers, being a model for all to follow, respecting your ancestors…striving to uphold the mandate of heaven you will inherit….”5
The message was clear: Be the type of leader you would want if you were being led.
The Hundred Schools of Thought were wide-ranging, and the above cannot but scratch the surface. It is, for example, silent on the central acceptance of the vital connection between Heaven and Earth (Man), as well as on the importance of music in manifesting the philosophical ideas championed herein.
Part Two will discuss how the philosophical debates of these early years have translated to the China of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Notes
1 Edmund Capon and William MacQuitty, Princes of Jade, 1973, Page 49
2 Princes of Jade, Page 50
3 Dao Companion to the Excavated Guodian Bamboo Strips, Shirley Chan, Editor, Springer, 2019, Chapter 15, Page 293
4 Princes of Jade, Page 13
5 William Lindesay, The Great Wall in 50 Objects, 2021, Page 87
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