The Re-Significance of Zhu Xi S Virtual Philosophy to the Governing Ideology of Contemporary
HIST 7520
CHINESE CULTURE IN TRANSFORMATION
The re-significance of Zhu Xi’s conscientious pursuits for the moralistic governance of contemporary Oriental rulers to desalinate the affection of American pluralism
Author: Lee Kwun Leung Vincent (李冠良)
BA (HKBU), MSSC (HKBU Cand.)
Date: 22 October 2009
CONTENTS
Preface:
‘Nourishment’ as a governing jewel for ensuring a family-liked submissiveness from all the compatriots
Benevolent rulers:
Willing to bear a greater extent of responsibilities to re-modify the social or global atmosphere, care for the dignity of humans and uphold the civic morality
Oriental rulers’ mission in this era of globalization:
To influence American pluralists for a respect to cultural and ecological equilibrium by a critical reflection on their bureaucratic and diplomatic ideology
Endeavor for an organic ‘sinicization’ of Western utilitarian culture with a faithful dedication of our innermost peculiarities
Preface:
‘Nourishment’ as a governing jewel for ensuring a family-liked submissiveness from all the compatriots
In accordance to the administrative re-centralization of Northern Song Regime as a tactic of undermining the threatening forces from the marginal provinces[1], Zhu Xi stressed the need to safeguard the “Heavenly-granted political authority” of the Emperor, with the co-existence between “empirical loyalty” and “civilian values” as an ideological supplement. To regard ‘compatriots’ as the prior asset of a family-based nation, Zhu Xi brought about four major Confucian principles for the ancestral rulers to admirably follow. They were, to nurture citizens’ livelihood (yang min養民), to enrich citizens’ wealth (fu min 富民), to bring wholesome affection to citizens after gaining wealth (xian fu hou jiao 先富後教) and to promote efficient governance after ensuring wealth (fu min yi zhi 富民而治)[2]. The reconstruction of family prototypes with harmony was a solid foundation for a modern Oriental society to ensure a widespread submissiveness from the civic; in which parental, brotherhood, couple, peer and entrepreneurial relationships were transcendentally regulated by the spiritual temperaments of ‘mercifulness’, ‘education’, ‘filial piety”, “friendliness”, “devotion” and “tenderness”, with an addition of every person’s willingness to fulfill their moral obligation and relevant duties from their hierarchical positions.
Nowadays, the Protestant civilization, mainly headed by the Americans, indoctrinated their senses of cultural superiority to either Confucian-Taoist civilization or Islamic civilization, as a tactic of forceful assimilation with other parts of the whole world. Based on their idea of ‘excludability’, the American pluralists, being reluctant to strive for mutual-exchanges and organic integrations within a tolerant framework of ideological variations, manipulated their super-structural advantages, such as democracy, individualism, technology, market-oriented competitiveness, utilitarianism, instrumental-rationalism and consumerism, to alienate their cultural opponents[3]. Such a series of aggressive temperaments is contaminating the mentality of our younger generation, for their unwillingness to repressively reflect the trustworthy virtues behind a pursuit on those ever-updating hedonistic trends, nor to be rationally clear with the ultimate purpose of upholding productivity and effectiveness. Zhu Xi, who opened his mind to a “thoughtful analysis on various universal substances” (ge wu zhi zhi格物致知), provided a Confucian methodology of “self-cultivation” for the rulers to encourage their people to uphold behavioral goodness. Apart from commoners’ self-initiatives, bureaucrats, specifically the CCP cadres or HKSAR civil servants nowadays, are reminded to reconsider the humanist and civilian-based values in certain conditional situations while persisting on their highly executive-led administrative manners. With rulers to take the lead of “personnel and ethical harmony” by stressing collaborative, compromising and hierarchical relationship, they could command the spiritual vitality of widespread compatriots with great morale for collective enhancement.
Benevolent rulers:
Willing to bear a greater extent of responsibilities to re-modify the social or global atmosphere, care for the dignity of humans and uphold the civic morality
A ruler, with an aspiration of succeeding benevolence and compassion, was supposed to be able to put his prior emphasis on people’s livelihood, popular wishes and universal interests. According to the view of Prof. Fu Lingling from Taiwan Catholic Furen University, such a managerial principle had to be proportionately facilitated by Emperors’ favor on the goodness of etiquette and creditability, in which a legitimate model of guardianship was set up to enable people for an appropriate imitation. Prof. Fu cited the Confucian phrase, “wholesome spiritual intention of the Emperor” (zheng jun xin 正君心)[4] to further justify her temperamental requests for those who were doing something accountable to the commoners’ expectations:
“If an Emperor found it difficult to pursue a wholesome spiritual intention, he had to re-approach the amiable officials and alienate the cunning persons. He could identify the origins of righteous virtues and obstruct the disordered paths towards self-ambitions. Then he was able to perceive the positive elements. In the ancient times, the amiable rulers appointed their masters to be prominent officials, enable their distant guests to take up essential positions, establish bureaus for the contribution of criticisms. They were in favor of others’ advices from those at his frontier or his backstage, with an unbiased alternation between two camps of opinions. What they worried the most was a possibility of their momentary instability to uphold their righteous ideals. Therefore, the amiable rulers held plebiscites to select people with courage to speak, with an addition of giving them an institutional platform to justify their arguments. This provided opportunity for the talented figures to participate in political discussions.” [5]
With regards to the tendency of civic demoralization and a declining predominance in Jesuit faith in American capitalist world, the contemporary rulers, specifically those from PRC, should take the lead of minimizing their individual supreme dignity, upholding their heartfelt sentiments for people’s happiness and introduce a wholesome continuity of people’s family-based prosperity by cherishing their moralistic contributions of courageous opinions. In a diplomatic aspect, a benevolent ruler, from any modernized nations with greater economic capacity, should effectively utilize his forbearing attitude to mediate international conflicts with mutually-beneficial wisdoms, eliminate imperialistic ambitions of particular invaders, maintain peaceful coexistence and endeavor for universal integrity based on a spirit of family unity.
Benevolence originated from the innermost beings of every mankind, in which it was a naturalist psychological reaction of oneself to devote their love on those with pragmatic needs with self-initiatives. Such Confucian idea correlated to the motivation of nurturing people’s livelihoods comprehensively without being dominated by either personnel biases or individual bribing attempts.
“As human-beings serve for their conscientious awareness, they have to bear in mind with the four principles of behavioral goodness, which are: “benevolence”, “righteousness”, “etiquette” and “intelligence”. The benevolent people tend to forebear all kinds of variations. Such kind of temperament was motivated by our love of devotion to every kind of universal substances, whereas the sense of ‘compassion’ was adoptable to all kinds of secular perspectives. Hence, to comment on the ‘heart’ of this universe, we could trace the nourishments from ‘heaven’ and ‘earth’. Thus, the four principles of behavioral goodness did not have to be singularized for observation. Concerning the ingenious feature of human hearts, we could realize that benevolence was the vital asset from it. Thus, the four principles were easily applied in daily affairs and they didn’t have to be intentionally popularized. Benevolence emerged to serve the existence of virtues, which correlated with the hearts of all the Creatures. Though a particular substance didn’t demonstrate its ‘passion’, the relevant sentiments had already existed concretely. Even the “passion” was demonstrated, the amount of sentiments would not be exhausted. The concrete substance had already preserved such type of sincere elements. In such sense, the origin of kind responses and the fundamental basis of voluntary actions came from the virtue of benevolence.” {Translated from Zhu Xi’s proclamation in “The Benevolent Discourses” (Ren Shuo仁說) }
Unlike the blind theological pursuit, faith cynicism and biblical regurgitation of American Protestants, Zhu Xi urged political aspirators to foster their philosophical rationale while ingeniously dealing with the complicated interpersonal issues and universal governance. As a ruler with comprehensive understanding on global issues and toughed situations in particular under-developed or developing countries, they should, both psychologically and administratively, strive for an intellectual separation between religious persistence and secular concerns, so as to prevent from short-sighted and superficial estimations. This could be found by rulers’ spiritual cultivation through a rediscovery of “broadened horizon” (bo xue 博學), “evaluation” (shen wen審問), “re-consideration” (shen shi 審視), “identification” (ming bian 明辨) and “succession” (du xing 篤行)[6]. What we could deny from George W Bush’s Middle East politics was that, he forcefully attached American perspectives onto the Muslims with a combinative expediency of religious liberation and military invasion, whereas the confrontation he raised was to serve for Americans’ own interests in exploiting petroleum resources in Middle East without caring for Muslims’ persistence in super-structural preservation. Therefore, by enhancing Americans’ ethical temperaments with Zhu Xi’s virtual philosophy, the United States would be alerted of her significance to uphold a global trend of diversification and promote equal status of communications without a resort of bullying tactic.
For the PRC Government nowadays, the Communist cadres remained intolerant with internal oppositional forces and continued with their uncompromising outlaw of intellectual liberalists after the Tiananmen Crackdown in 1989. Though the capitalist and free-market reforms were conducted with great success to prosper the socio-economic circumstances of coastal Chinese cities, lots of rural provinces remained the miserable and impoverished livelihood unresolved, as the peasants sought no legal channel to complain about the bureaucratic exploitations and irrational treatments. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, repressive and fragmented rural protests, together with bloody confrontation between unwaged workers and provincial cadres, occasionally occurred that sowed many hidden elements of unrests as an invisible threat to the authoritative control of Communist rule. In Southern Song Dynasty, Emperor Ningzhong (宋寧宗), being aware of the setbacks from his inferior governance due to a renovation project in Eastern Palace, dared to neglect his supreme dignity and publish an imperial edict to condemn him, with a reduction to the frequency of sedan visits and an implementation of strict disciplines within the bureaucratic strata. By re-approaching the miserable needs of people in famine regions, Emperor Ningzhong did not allow his intimate practitioners to intervene the political affairs and prevented the prominent officials from power monopolization for the sake of their self-interests[7]. By obeying Zhu Xi’s ideal of providing civilians with nourishments and comprehensively absorbing the constructive reminders instead of just favoring the flattering compliments[8], the contemporary PRC rulers could follow a framework for a methodological attempt to reconstruct the necessary ideological and moral restraints in order to better supervise the cunning power-holders, prohibit the corrupted bureaucrats, minimize the class hatred and transform the wholesome social habits into brilliant customs.
While stressing youngsters’ autonomy of enhancing their personal competencies and knowledgeable capacities as a facilitation to the progressive growth of national economy, the contemporary Chinese rulers should take the lead to fabricate the innermost integrity of adolescence in order to make them alerted of their in-born identity as an authentic ethical contributor. Lee Kuang Yew, Founding President of Singapore, set a referential example in the Oriental world, as he implemented a series of ‘etiquette education’ to halt the spiritual endangerments. Lee said, “If filial piety was not highly valued, the ecosystem of human survival would become very fragile and vulnerable. Our civilized society would tend to be full of wildness and roughness.” To counteract with the abnormal expansion of American materialism, eventual disintegration of family structures, ideological contamination of utilitarianism and interpersonal degradation due to instrumental-rationalism, Lee Kuang Yew organized the “Nationwide Civilized Behavior & Etiquette Months”, the “Elderly-Care Weeks” and the “Chinese Culture Fiestas”[9] to better promote the five human ethics of Confucianism, namely “rulers and officials”, “parents and children”, “husbands and wives”, “elderly and youngsters” and “peers”. The Singaporean government leaders also made an indeed participation to act as nationwide referential models. Through these series of activities, an atmosphere of elderly-care respects, politeness and civilized behavior is wholesomely upheld in Singaporean society.
Same as the Overseas Chinese in Pacific Asia, Europe, Canada or the United States, the Singaporeans successfully transformed their family coherences as a modern entrepreneurial ability[10]. They organized cross-nation incorporations. What they mainly relied on was not the shareholdings, but their mutual-agreements and compromising collaborations. There experienced an invulnerable trust from the mutual service of the family members. With family-based values as a psychological jewel, people would be more united to resist the intrusion of American ideologies and persist on their humanist lives with interpersonal harmony even surviving in a market-based economic environment.
In short, there’s a hierarchical correlation between a ruler with benevolence and the cultivation of civilians’ wholesome behavior. Rulers, who thoughtfully understand the need to be approachable with people’s necessities apart from stressing keen competitions in economic modernizations, would strategically and alternatively implement both developmental measures and educational politics. They won’t allow a flooding tendency of money-commanded and interest-oriented thoughts from American culture to severely disorder the moral integrity of their civic society, thus they would strengthen their investments on social welfare to help the orphans, divorced family, teenage criminals, neglected children and tortured women. Meanwhile, the rulers would endeavor to encourage lower-class people for a better initiative in intellectual enhancement and achieve an egalitarian mode of wealth redistribution by restraining the commercial sector from exploiting the labor interests, hoping that the poverty gap would be narrowed and social harmony could be fabricated with people’s gratification to the government unbiased considerations.
Oriental rulers’ mission in this era of globalization:
To influence American pluralists for a respect to cultural and ecological equilibrium by a critical reflection on their bureaucratic and diplomatic ideology
The American intruders regarded the Middle East countries as culturally inferior, thus they endeavored to uphold a forceful biblical mission of Gospel extension and transform the Muslims (specifically Iraqi, Palestinians and Afghans) into a new group of submissive civilization with Christian customs. However, this modification abnormally upset the ecological harmony; as a particular circus of substances, with a severe minimization of intra-variations, no longer demonstrated a sense of mutual-restraint and mutual-dependence among themselves. As Zhu Xi stated in his publication called “Categorization of Discourses” (Yue Lei 語類), “personalities” (xing 性) were a kind of underneath substances beyond the ecological circulation, whereas “virtues” (li 理) were the factional rationales scattered from personalities[11]. If an observer could foster a sense of appreciation, obedience and submissiveness upon the in-born (or Heavenly-granted) natures and established values possessed by particular substances, he/she could scatter an invisible series of ‘rational wisdoms and mental enlightenments’ from such a parallel methodology of factional harmony as his/her spiritual re-experience of ‘transcendental virtues’ throughout this universe. Because of the existence of “breath” (qi 氣) as an important sentimental asset of defining the respectful ideas from the specific features in different kinds of “personalities”, the initial phenomena from such contrasts could persist with equilibrium (zhong yong 中庸) that resulted in a normalization of super-structural exchanges, including a platform of mutual-communications for the ideological contribution to the maintenance of universal goodness. “Breath”, in such sense, had to be maintained without letting either one vigorous camp annex or overwhelm its opposing camp. Or to say, a specific kind of “extraordinary breath” has to be treated with flexibility, humanized manners and softly-approachable gestures, instead of being mechanically re-modified to suit the ever-updating crony and materialistic secularity. To achieve this, the pluralists had to abandon their prejudices and re-approach a thoughtful understanding upon the behind reasons of the encountered cultural or ideological variations, with an attempt of being sympathetic with their uniquely-exploited competencies for the sake of preserving a wholesome diversification in our humanist world.
What the Oriental rulers should do nowadays was to educate the American pluralists with the Confucian idea of “moderation” (zhong he 中和), in which it effectively healed their abnormal eagerness for teasing, bullying, comparison, jealousy, excludability and discrimination. Zhu Xi regarded the willingness of upholding ecological coexistence as a sentimental reflection from our ‘empathy’, thus there was no need for a rigid legal definition to reallocate different substances into a non-confrontational utopia with a strict checkmate on our philosophical minds. Zhu said, “Moderation came from our force, and no boundary existed between Heaven and humans. The allocation of Heaven and Earth, and the nurture of creatures, continuously persisted with our wholesome initiation. These two pairs of persistence was a representation of mutual-dependence, mutual-supplementation and mutual-assistance. If moderation could not be achieved, there would be a mutual-exhaustion between mountains and rivers, as well as instability of Heaven and Earth. The emergence of infant mortality was due to such kind of ruined harmony.” [12] Chinese philosophers were extraordinarily keen at mediating conflicts, as they resorted to a mind of parallel valuation. Premier Wen Jiaobao received widespread cherishment from both European and Asian communities due to his effort of international peace, as he was capable in enforcing the hostile pairs to separately preserve their unique characteristics as a mean of obtaining a normal platform of sustainable socio-economic and diplomatic development. By utilizing our sentimental thoughts to seek for bilateral or multi-lateral negotiations, the idea of “moderation” could effectively transform the “explosive and endangered contradictions” into a flourish of collaborative and compromising thoughts, in which the pluralistic camp were made to be alerted of their prior step in conducting an in-depth exploration upon the specific rediscoveries of differences for a better preservation of the given temperaments.