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In the Name of God the most Merciful and the most Compassionate
Unknown Ku Hung-Ming: Rediscovering the Confucian Intellectual Tradition
By: Seyed Javad Meynagh
Copyright: LONDON ACADEMY OF IRANIAN STUDIES Until lions have their historians,
tales of the hunt shall always
glorify the hunters.
Contents
Abstract Ku Hung-Ming was a distinguished poet-philosopher of contemporary China. In many ways he was a very extraordinary thinker who spoke German, French, English, Russian and Spanish along with Chinese and traveled around the world between 1870 to 1900 and was born in 1854. Unlike many Eastern thinkers who either embraced Westernism wholeheartedly or rejected it before even knowing it he, on the other hand, spoke of a Confucian/Chinese rationality which, in his view, could constitute our intellectual foundations in critiquing American, English, German, and French rationalities which have brought the globe into destruction. He was very much disliked in China as he was considered as a reactionary but since the outset of China's open door policy the Chinese intellectuals have come to realize that progress without worldview is nothing but a Juggernaut, which, in Giddens' words, would lead nowhere but destruction of the very premises of progress. This work is an attempt to assess his contribution to social theory as well as to encourage Muslim thinkers to get more deeply and directly involved with China.
1. Introduction to the Confucian Intellectual Tradition
Confucianism is an intellectual tradition of political and social thought that predates Kongzi (Confucius, 551-479 B.C.), the scholar for whom it is named, and continues today as a vibrant field in ethical, theological, social, legal, and political thought. Although Confucian ethical thought entails notions that post-Maoist China considers detrimental for the progress of the nation but this is partially correct if the progress is only defined along myopic economic lines without considering the ethical tradition. Throughout its long history, key elements of Confucianism have been subjects of debate and interpretation and these key elements which constitute what may be called the Confucian path have been reemerging throughout its history, and are recurring subjects of debate within the tradition. Thus, the Confucian path as an intellectual tradition is profoundly dynamic despite the temporary decline which it faced after the collapse of Imperial dynasty in China in early 20th century.
Kongzi was born into the low aristocracy and briefly held an administrative government post. As a public administrator and throughout his life as a teacher of future political advisors, Kongzi was a political and social critic. He taught that the “way” meant living according to traditional virtues: humaneness (ren), ritual modesty (li), righteousness (yi), and wisdom (zhi).
According to Kongzi, these virtues—the value of ren principle among them—were the keys to the social and political stability of the period of the three sage kings and therefore should be valued in the present. In this sense Confucianism predates Kongzi himself. Ren means at once a kind of being (human), away of being (humane), and a reason for being (other humans). The meaning of ren—“the overarching virtue of being a perfected human being”—varies according to translation and context and cannot be captured by a single word in English. (Slingerland, 2003. p 238) Everyone is capable of ren, but only the gentleman properly cultivated and educated in ritual propriety (li), righteousness (yi), right action (xin), and reverence (jing) will be a superior man and rule in a manner consistent with ren. Early criticism of the Confucian interpretation of ren came from Mozi (470-391 B.C.) and his followers (Mohists), who argued that ren was a universal concept that required each to be morally obligated to the rest of humanity in the same way. Mohists emphasized the strength of rational argument over ritual in cultivating humane behavior toward all of mankind without distinction or attention to particular relationships.
Mengzi (Mencius 372-289 B.C.), perhaps the most famous Confucians next to Kongzi himself, argues against the Mohists that we are connected to people in different ways based on our relationships with them. According to Mengzi, our duty to fellow humans depends not merely on their being human, but rather on the character of one’s relationship to each other as humans. According to Mengzi, the way requires behavior toward others that is prefigured by relationships. Importantly, these “five relationships” (wu lun) and the duties they require are consistent with, in fact definitive of, ren and not an ethical invitation for the first in each pair to exploit politically the second. The good ruler does not exploit his rule but uses it to provide for his people. Good rule means making sure that your people are fed and protected, that they are not subjected to famine or war. In a year of low productivity, Mengzi advises, open your grain stores. Not to do so is the equivalent of killing the people yourself.
The concept of ‘hierarchy’ is of significance within this tradition but this needs to be understood within the overall constellation of Confucian cosmology and not independent from it as it may cause grave misunderstanding for those who may approach the question from a modernist egalitarian point of departure. In the very establishment of the hierarchy is, in other words, the prohibition against exploiting it. Part of appreciating ren as a first step on a just path requires reinterpreting the duties of each relationship so that, consistent with the intended meaning of ren, they are not sources of exploitation. Despite Confucian teachings, during the early Confucian period, relationships were exploited in practice, leading Xunzi (340-245 B.C.) to refute Mengzi’s claim that “human nature is good” (xingshan). Both Mengzi and Xunzi argued that humans would act rightly only through proper education and cultivation in the way, but Mengzi saw that the undeveloped sprouts of human nature—exhibited through impulsive acts to save a drowning child, for example—demonstrated that the essence of human nature was good. (Ivanhoe, 2000)
The resurgence of Confucianism during the Han dynasty (206 B.C.–A.D. 220) was preceded by a period in which the Legalist perspective informed political practice (221-207 B.C.). According to Legalists, human nature is essentially bad and best kept in check through the formal structures of government which should ensure impartiality. (Shun, 1997) In the Han synthesis of Legalism and Confucianism, Confucian virtues of government became government values, instituted through the civil service and its exam system. Fascinatingly for those who associate Confucianism with the abuse of hierarchy, the Han dynasty did away with some of the more harsh aspects of the first Empire (Qin dynasty, 221-206 B.C.). A large and growing empire covering a huge geography and a range of economic bases and ethnic communities, the central government required administrative bureaucrats who would be loyal to the central government, even as they carried out their duties in the provinces. Confucianism became the foundation of the educational curriculum. Those who succeeded in the exams were guaranteed posts (and commensurate status). During the Tang dynasty (A.D. 618-907), the Confucian civil service system was further developed. Non-local Confucian-trained and –examined Bureaucrats would have local status, but not be subject to pressures from family and local elites. The civil service exam required memorization of Confucian texts and interpretation of those texts. The skill of interpretation was valued in a bureaucrat who had to interpret imperial dictates for a local context.
During the Song dynasty (A.D. 960-1279), civil servants replaced regional military leaders and the Confucian-trained bureaucrats gained more political power at the same time that political power became more centralized with the emperor. In the hands of the Neo-Confucians of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the period of Chinese thought in which Confucianism experienced its first substantial renaissance Confucian thought is rearticulated in part in response to Islam, Buddhism and, to a lesser extent, Taoism and Legalism. This response took the form of both critique and reconciliation. Neo-Confucian thinkers grounded their cosmology in the reality of the present world (rather than contemplating another world as the Buddhists did). Partly in critique of the Buddhist renunciation of human relations, Neo-Confucians construct an alternative cosmology in which ren is foundational. It should, however, be mentioned that a great dialogue between Muslim scholars and Neo-Confucians took place which needs to be reconstructed as the debates between these scholars are of great intercivilizational import both historically and contemporarily.
Neo-Confucian scholars, like many other sacral-traditional-transcendental-religious thinkers (and this is the point which Muslim thinkers need to attend to and find avenues of dialogue and engagement with all traditions that don’t regulate self and society in accordance to the ‘Social’ but the ‘Cosmos’, ‘Shariat’ ‘Tao’ and so on), believed that human being could and should act in accordance with the universe and that he has the potential for knowledge and morality essential to do so. To the traditional virtues recognized by Confucian scholars—humaneness (ren), righteousness (yi), propriety (li), and wisdom (zhi)—the Neo-Confucians added sincerity (cheng) and reverence (jing). These moral values serve ren. According to Zhang Zai (1020-1077), humanity not only pertains to family relations but also has universal meaning. Likewise, as Cheng Hao (1032-1085) argues, other values, “[r]ighteousness (yi), propriety (li), wisdom (zhi), and good faith (xin) [,] are all [expressions] of humanity.” (Ackerly, 2005. p 556) Early Confucians draw from the Five Classics of Chinese philosophy—The Book of Changes, The Book of History, The Book of Odes, The Book of Rites, and The Spring and Autumn Annals. Under the Neo-Confucians, Kongzi’s Analects, Great Learning, and Doctrine of the Mean, and Mengzi’s Mencius or The Four Books, became the canon of Neo-Confucian thought. Ren is an indispensable value in all Four Books. One’s humanity means that as a moral person, one can recognize the humanity of others, act humanely toward them, and identify common goals.
As ren is asserted as the foundational virtue, the debate about human nature recurs. The brothers Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi (1033-1107) rekindled the debate between Mengzi and Xunzi. Neo-Confucianism splits into two schools of thought—the school of mind/heart and the school of principle. The former emphasizes Mengzi’s interpretation of human nature. The latter emphasizes Xunzi’s concern about human nature. It could be argued briefly that Xunzi’s view promotes deference to a moral authority that defines right and wrong and administrates public life accordingly, but that Mengzi’s view does not require such deference to hierarchy. The later allows and encourages a critical deference to moral authority as part of moral education, enabling the developing person to carry out moral action because he understands their propriety, not just because he was told they were right. During the Song and Ming dynasties, Confucianism was once more the state ideology. However, over time in the civil service exams, certain interpretations were required to pass the exam. State Confucianism became the practice of deference to authority by bureaucrats rather than the practice of advising authority by ministers. In this sense Confucianism was institutionalized in authoritarian rule.
From this specific political history, Confucianism earned its reputation as the handmaiden of authoritarianism. During this rule, texts were abridged to delete references critical of absolute monarchy, (Huang, 2001) works were banned, and critics were imprisoned or exiled and some escaped to Iran or what is considered today as Russia (which was under non-Rus dynasties then). With the collapse of the Chinese empire, due to its political association with failed empire, Confucianism was somewhat discredited. Yet, because it knits together strands of thought that have been part of Chinese intellectual and common thought for thousands of years, it maintains its appeal and is used by intellectuals who are interested in an integral reform based on Chinese rationality. (Ackerly, 2005. p 557) Contemporary Confucians discuss the meaning of ren, human nature and the possibilities for rearticulating Confucianism without undermining its core which is based on an integral vision of reality that is gazed upon Transcendence rather than the social based on contractual consensus. One key question for the rearticulation of Confucianism today is the importance and role of Transcendence. The challenge for contemporary scholars of Confucianism is to reveal Confucianism’s dynamism as part of sacral tradition that goes beyond political concerns by being a frame of addressing universal issues within a particular tradition without turning into parochial localism.
2. Ku Hung-Ming’s Biography Ku Hung-Ming (Gu Hongming, 1854-1928); his pen-name, Dongxi Nanbei, means East-West-South-North. His career is most curious. Ku was born in the South, on the Malaysian island of Penang as an oversea Chinese of Fujian ancestry. He went to the West at the age of twelve, together with a Scottish missionary returning home. He studied in Edinburgh and other European countries until the age of 23, mastering many languages. He married a Japanese woman Yoshida Sadako, and served for two decades under the Chinese Reformer Zhang Zhidong (1837-1909), Governor of Hunan Province, who propagated the idea of zhongtl xiyong ("Chinese substance, Western application") through his book Quanxue-pian (Encouragement of Learning, 1898). Ku later resided in the North, in Beijing, as the first Chinese professor of English at Peking University after the Revolution of 1911. He obtained a deep knowledge of Western civilization matched by few Chinese of his generation. However, his return to native traditions was more than remarkable.
Ku, as abovementioned, studied in Western countries of Europe and on his return to China Ku started his intellectual campaign of combating modernism in China and abroad based on his unshakable belief in Eastern civilization or the spirit of sacredness that he found within Confucianism. Taking advantage of his cross-cultural experiences and gift for languages, he worked actively to disseminate foundational Eastern texts (such as the Oriental gospels) to Westerners. He rendered into English several Confucian classics, notably The Discourses and Sayings of Confucius (1898; i.e. The Analects) and The Universal Order, or Conduct of Life (1906). Able to write in English, German, and Chinese, he published The Spirit of the Chinese People, his most important English work, in 1915. In the aftermath of World War I, when many Europeans questioned Western culture and turned to the East, Ku, like the Indian poet-philosophers Iqbal and Tagore, was widely read and warmly received in postwar Europe as an Oriental cultural saint. Georg Brandes wrote about him; Leo Tolstoy wrote to him; and W. Somerset Maugham paid a special visit to him in Peiping. (Hao, 2005. p 94)
Ku used his knowledge of English not for the Westernization of China but for the Sinofication of the West. Ku translated the Analects and other works of Confucius into English and most of his works were written in English. He tried hard to defend as well as explicate the traditional ways of the Chinese tradition. His defensiveness came from his profound understanding of the hazards which were looming large upon humanity based on distorted mentality which divorced man from cosmos and the latter from the social. Researchers who misunderstood him thought of his defensiveness as having to do with racial issues and argued that it could have been due to the fact that he may have been too much exposed to all sorts of contempt from Europeans, as he was obliged to negotiate with high-handed foreigners as Governor Zhang's secretary for 17 years. But those who argue along these petty lines have not been able to appreciate him as an intellectual who deeply attempted to view the fundamental questions of human existence from a Confucian point of departure without resorting to secular rationalities of French, German, British or American kinds. He defended Confucianism or what he termed as the spirit of Chinese civility, not as a race but as an integral kind of philosophy. He wrote in English, among other works the Spirit of the Chinese People (1915), which was translated into many languages. When, after Xinhai Revolution of 1911, Ku came to Peking University to chair the department of English, he was not at all sympathetic toward the young Chinese students enthusiastic for reforms. His contemporary viewed Ku as a reactionary but could not realize the essentialist philosophy that he stood for which was deeply at odds with modernism that was about to envelop China too. He did, for instance, not cut his pig-tail hair. His old hair-style became his trademark. He was well known among the writers around the world. The Japanese writer Akutagawa Ryunosuke was, for instance, told before going to China in March 1921: "If you go to Peking, you may skip a visit to the old Imperial Palace, but you must not miss a chance to see Ku Hung-Ming." When the two men met, Ku complimented Akutagawa on his Chinese dress, and said jokingly that it was a pity that Akutagawa's hair was not plaited in a pig-tail. Ku constantly spoke English, while ceaselessly writing Chinese characters on straw papers. (Hirakawa, 2005) Heinrich Nelson, a noted German scholar also wrote of Ku as following:
Wir stehen hier einem ganz ungowöhnlichen Phänomen gegenüber, das bei weitem noch nicht genug beachtet worden ist: einem Manne, der die westliche Kultur in umfassendster Weise in sich aufgenommen und verarbeitet hat, der Goethe wie nur ein Deutscher, Carlyle, Emerson und andere angelsächsische Schriftsteller wie nur ein Angelsachse kennt, der in der Bibel zu Hause ist wie der beste Christ, dessen selbständiger, klarer Geist aber die Kraft besessen hat, sich nicht nur selbst in seiner Eigenart zu erhalten, sondern auch zu erkennen, daß es für die Völker des Ostens zu ihrer Selbsterhaltung notwendig ist, fest auf dem Boden der eigenen uralten bewährten Kultur stehen zu bleiben und sich nicht die auf ganz andere Verhaltnisse zugeschnittene westliche Kultur aufdrängen zu lassen, deren moderne materialistische Zivilisation auf sie nur als ein zersetzendes und tötendes Gift wirken müßte.t (1920. pp 3–4)
Ku swore loyalty to the demolished Manchu dynasty, and criticized republicanism and things Western in general. Students called him 'crazy' and Ku became very unpopular among the new generation of Chinese intellectuals. When he came to Japan in 1924, he met the young Chinese writer Tian Han in a Western suit. Ku shook his own pig-tail, saying in English, "This is my tie." As a guest scholar, Ku gave a series of lectures in English, which, however, were welcomed by Japanese conservative intellectuals, faithful to Confucian traditions. Ku declared that the essence of Eastern culture was now preserved better in Japan than in China, as the Confucian cardinal virtues of loyalty to the sovereign and filial piety to parents were better preserved in monarchical Japan. Japanese Confucianists were pleased upon hearing such a compliment. (Hirakawa, 2005) Ku's lectures were translated into Japanese and his The Spirit of the Chinese People was well-known to conservative intellectuals in Japan. (Hirakawa, 2005) After the defeat of Japan in 1945 and the Communist take-over of mainland China in 1949, Ku Hung-Ming's name was forgotten. However Ku has recently been rehabilitated not surprisingly as thinkers in China have started to realize that progress without solid foundation is not only detrimental but not sustainable either. In April 1998, Peking University celebrated its centenary, and Ku Hung-Ming was counted among the famous professors of the past. His selected writings were translated from English into Chinese and were published in two volumes in 1996. This resurrection seems to reflect the psychological state of some Chinese intellectuals in recent times who do not want to be dictated by outsiders how to view the global world. They would like to be self-assertive. In this psychological context, persons like Ku Hung-Ming who argued in foreign languages in defense of Chinese culture, are favorably remembered as patriots too. However this is not why Ku Hung-Ming is of significance for religious thinkers in general and Muslim intellectuals in particular. On the contrary, his importance lies in the fact, which has been forgotten among Chinese or even non-Chinese intellectuals both then and now, that sacred rationality is possible and religious critique is feasible as well as engagement with secular rationalities based on a transcendental stance is highly desirable and the need of our time as religious intellectual traditions do provide the thinking scholar with sufficient intellectual ammunitions to launch credible as well as intelligible critiques. This is the very base we have chosen him as an important intellectual who, despite his various oddities, could shed light upon grand intellectual complexities that religious rationality should face up vis-à-vis secular rationalities mainly represented by French, German, English and American intellectual traditions respectively as it was rightly spotted by Ku Hung-Ming a century ago.
3. Ku and Modern Rationalities
Modernity is a form of civilization for Ku but he does not view it as a monolithic reality but he considers it in terms of its impulses which could be divided generally into four different streams. However in order to make his point stronger Ku, firstly, reviews generally the common views on civilization and what the fundamental elements of the civilization are within contemporary discourses. Then he argues that there are some who consider the emergence of great cities as the most significant aspect of a civilization; splendid architecture and magnificent houses; the building of fine roads and comfortable furniture; technology; science; or even great institutions as foundational signs of a civilization. But Ku repudiates all the aforementioned elements as constitutive elements of a civilization by arguing that the important question that should be asked, in order to estimate the value of a civilization is
… what type of humanity, what kind of men and women, - the type of human beings- which a civilization produces, it is this which shows the essence, the personality, so to speak, the soul of that civilization. (Ku, 1915. p 5)
Secondly he shows a deep understanding about modern rationality by approaching sinological studies which operationalize ‘occidental rationality’ vis-à-vis oriental or restern cultures by arguing that
… I have tried to show how and why men, foreigners who are looked upon as authorities on [Chinese Civilization] … do not really understand the real Chinaman and the Chinese language. The Rev. Arthur Smith, who wrote the Chinese Characteristics, … does not understand the real Chinaman, because being an American, - he is not deep enough to understand [Chinese Mentality]. Dr. Giles again, who is considered a great Sinologue, …. does not really understand the Chinese language, because being an Englishman, he is not broad enough, - he has not the philosophic insight and the broadness which that insight gives, … I have tried to show that … J. B. Bland and backhouse do not and cannot understand the real Chinese woman, - the highest type of woman produced by the Chinese civilization viz. the late Empress Dowager, because [they] are not simple, - have not the simplicity of mind, being too clever and having, like all modern men, a distorted intellect. (Ku, 1915. p 6)
In other words, in order to understand the Chinese civilization and the fundamental elements of Chinese civic philosophy, Ku argues, one should be deep, broad and simple, for the three characteristics of the Chinese character and the Chinese civilization are: depth, broadness and simplicity. (Ku, 1915. p 6)
Ku has a religious/perennial/metaphysical view of human perception by referring to modern rationality as a ‘distorted intellect’ through his reliance on Menciusian paradigm which rests upon a hierarchical view of reality. (Ku, 1915. p 6)
Chinese philosophy is like its language composed of four aspects: depth, broadness, simplicity and delicacy. Having typologized the essence of Chinese philosophy based on four broad heuristic concepts Ku turns to occidental mindset and assesses them through a Chinese perspective through their respective dealings with Chinese culture. He proposes his typology of West by distinguishing between four major streams within occidental rationality. In other words, he does not think Western rationality is a monolithic entity without any inner contradictions. On the contrary, he discerns within the broad frame of occidental rationality a collection of four diverse forms of rationalities which could be characterized as American rationality, English rationality, German rationality and French rationality.
Keeping in mind that Chinese Weltanschauung is a composition of four general aspects of depth, broadness, simplicity and delicacy then Ku turns to analyze the four overriding occidental rationalities as following:
American rationality is broad and simple but not deep; English rationality is deep and simple but not broad; German rationality is deep and broad but not simple; and finally the French rationality which is not either deep as German rationality or broad as American mind and not even simple as the English mindset. However in French rationality Ku discerns a quality that is what makes the other emblematic Chinese qualities complete, namely the ‘delicacy’ which is a mental quality and one can find it among French people.
Now one may ask what can West gain from an intellectual interaction with China? They will gain differently as each lacks something that could be appropriated from the Chinese tradition:
… the American … will get depth; the English broadness; and the Germans by the study of the Chinese civilization, of Chinese books and literature, will get a quality of mind which, [Ku takes the] liberty of saying here that it seems to [him], they all, as a rile, have not to a preeminent degree, namely, delicacy. The French people finally, by the study of Chinese civilization, will get all, - depth, broadness, simplicity and a still finer delicacy than the delicacy which they now have. (1915. p 7)
In other words, an intercivilizational dialogue would increase the inner dynamics of each of these western rationalities which, in Ku’s view, lack essential integral coherency that is of inevitable significance for the emergence of distinctive/religious intellect vis-à-vis distorted/secular intellect so prevalent within occidental forms of rationality.
One may wonder if there are any practical or sociopolitical results of such an intercivilizational engagement. Ku thinks that there are great many benefits and in order to prove his claims he ventures in finding the main reasons behind the World War I and how the Chinese perspective could rectify what he calls the ills of the Worship of the Mob and the Worship of the Might in Europe. By, for instance, talking about the ‘war and the way out’ Ku presents a novel view on the causes of WWI (and some may even extend it to the Second World War too) and how the global community could benefit from a Chinese perspective:
… the moral causes which have brought on this war … are the worship of the mob in Great Britain and the worship of might in Germany [are the true moral causes of this war] and [I would like to emphasize that] the worship of the mob in Great Britain, than the worship of might in Germany … seems to [be] … responsible for the worship of might in Germany; in fact, the worship of the mob in all European countries and especially in Great Britain … has created the enormous German Militarism which everybody now hates and denounces. (Ku, 1915. p 8)
In other words, the real causes of contemporary conflicts are of ideological nature and they reside within the very bosom of rationalities of Western episteme and these conflicts should not be treated as exceptions but the sine qua non of the very system of modern rationalities which are based on ‘distorted intellect’.
Ku explicates the theoretical bases of ‘distinctive intellect’ by connecting it to what he terms as ‘Religion of Good Citizenship’ which is composed of two fundamental elements, namely ‘Right’ or das Recht and ‘Tact’ or die Schiklichkeit. What is the history of this religion and who is the founder of this religion? This religion is given to Chinese by Confucius and it is the essence of Chinese civilization, which has produced a particular kind of humanity. (Ku, 1915. p 17)
4. History of Religion and Social Theory
Ku has very original ideas on the history of religion and social theory through his novel reading of history of humankind in general and European history in particular based on his Chinese perspective. He thinks the Hebrew mentality which constitutes one of the essential aspects of European mindset has given the people of Europe the knowledge or epistemology of Right but it did not provide them with an accurate aesthetic of Tact. (1915. p 17)
A. Civilizational observations and Philosophy of Civilizations
Ku argues that civilizations have different characters as they produce different kinds of humanities and human personalities. Thus when you compare the Greek civilization with modernity you will discern that the
… civilization of Greece taught the people of Europe the knowledge of Tact but it did not teach Right. (1915. p 17)
What are the essential differences between Chinese Rationality and Western Rationality? Ku views the source of all rationalities within religion and argues that the sources of contemporary rationalities of East and West are to be found in the classical religions such as Judaism/Christianity and Confucianism. He argues that
… the Religion in the civilization of China teaches … Chinese both Right and Tact, - das Recht unde die Schicklichkeit. The Hebrew Bible, the plan of civilization according to which the people of Europe have built their present modern civilization, teaches the people of Europe to love righteousness, to be righteous men, to do right. But the Chinese Bible- the Five Canons and Four Books in China, the plan of civilization which Confucius saved for … the Chinese nation, teaches … Chinese also to love righteousness; to be righteous men; to do right, but it adds: ‘Love righteousness, be righteous men, do right – but with good taste.’ (1915. p 17) In short, Religion which is, in Ku’s view, the fons et origo of rationality
… in Europe says: ‘Be a good man.’ But the Religion in China says: ‘Be a good man with good taste.’ Christianity says: ‘Love Mankind.’ But Confucius says: ‘Love Mankind with good taste.’ (1915. p 17)
But it should be added that these subtle differences would certainly impact our global consciousness by, in Kus’ view, freeing it from one-dimensional Western rationality through the emerging Chinese tactfulness at the world-stage which was described a century ago by this Confucian sage-like intellectual.
What does Ku mean by ‘taste’? Within Muslim intellectual tradition ‘Dhuq’ is of significance along with other faculties in perceiving the nature of Reality and the reality of Truth. However it is of importance to find out what Ku means by this term as he emphasizes that what in essence distinguishes between Western and Chinese rationality is the very idea of ‘taste’ which should be coached with a good approach. It seems this is another way to state that Man needs to have a character and his character needs to be founded upon solid foundation which bears resemblance to the ideal-type (in Ku’s case, the Chinese man and woman that represent the Chinese types of humanity who are nurtured by the Chinese sacred tradition: the Five Canons and Four Books).
B. Social Theory of Religions and Comparative Theologies
Christianity has an idea about the human nature and how it should become as one can discern in the religious tradition of Europe which Ku thinks is best captured in the following dictum: Be a good human. But Ku compares this with the Confucian religious tradition and argues that in this tradition there is a definite idea about 1) Man, 2) Human Nature, and 3) Character, which has to do with the social space, namely the clause that Ku expresses by the concept of ‘good taste’ or ‘polite behavior’. In other words, the relation between people should not be only governed by formal rationality but with cordial affinities too.
5. The Decline of the West and the Chinese Civilization
The decline of the West could be rectified if Europe learns how to combine the metaphysics of sacred with the individual spirituality which Ku thinks the Chinese civilization has already embodied in what he terms as the ‘Religion of Good Citizenship’. Where can Europe find this living combination? In China, Ku thinks the people of Europe can discover the moral causes of their decline by realizing the inhumane nature of modern rationality that caused a useless and monstrous war that world has ever seen. (1915. p 18) But why China would be a perfect place to look for civilizational redemption? Because by turning to Chinese rationality which stems from the sacred spring of Confucius Europe and all serious thinkers of the world will find out that the lack of harmony and absence of coexistence we find ourselves in is of a ‘moral’ nature; i.e. the absence of the ‘Religion of Good Citizenship’. (Ku, 1915. p 18) What is the ‘Religion of Good Citizenship’? The presence of sacred within the public square is what Ku means by the ‘Religion of Good Citizenship’. But one may turn and pose this question to Ku that Europe had such a ‘square’ and modernity was an attempt to get ride of this tyrannous yoke of the ‘Sacred Canopy’ as he himself gives an account of the rise and fall of Christianity in the Occidental context. To this Ku would reply by saying what he said about the differences of religiosities which in Christianity or Judaism, for instance, it says: Love mankind but it, in Ku’s view, lacks the personal-social dimension which he displays by this dictum:
Love mankind with good taste. (1915. p 17)
But this does not solve any problem as it only resorts to a rhetorical statement which lacks any explanatory significance within the parameters of philosophy of history that Ku is attempting to maneuver based on his Confucian perspective. Now let’s find out what does this distinction based on ‘good taste’ mean within Ku’s social theory?
Essentially man needs to acquire knowledge for his survival. But the knowledge should serve us as a light in life too and not just as a means to an end. It should also illumine us. The community should be based on Right but the knowledge of Right alone is not enough for having a peaceful society or a righteous community. The Tact is as essential as the knowledge of Right as its lack which we, as Ku says, could discern among Hebrew people (and by Extension Europeans) led to narrow, hard, rigid, excess, hatred of unrighteousness which would destroy emotional life within society which without life is devoid of any taste. (1915. pp 15-17)
6. Types of Mentality: Gentleman and Cad
Ku argues that there are, broadly speaking, two mindsets, namely the Gentleman and the Cad. The gentleman thinks of what is right and the cad will think of interests, expediency of what will pay. One leads to the Religion of Good Citizenship which understands, as both Confucius and Goethe state, Right and the cad-mentality will lead to the Religion of the Mob which focuses on what will pay. (1915. p 18)
What are the fundamentals of the Religion of the Mob? Selfishness and Cowardice are the elementary aspects of the Religion of the Mob. When these two are combined in us psychologically and displayed as a social fact then it could be expressed as a political ideology which Ku calls Commercialism. The spirit of Commercialism has enveloped us globally and America and England are the most advanced embodiments of this spirit, namely utilitarianism and individualism. (1915. p 19)
How to overcome Commercialism which is the economical expression of the ideology of Mobcracy? To think of Right and not interest and the courage to live accordingly is what Ku would argue for. One may, however, ask according to what or what are the bases of such philosophy of life? According to the Religion of Good Citizenship which means to think of Right and act in accordance to the Right but behave rightfully with a good taste and act properly. This is the essence of Chinese religion and the latent dimension of Chinese rationality which lies beneath the mentality of gentlemanliness and the only way out for Europe is to adopt this rationality of Chinese civilization. (1915. p 19)
7. Intercivilizational Dialogue
Although Ku is critical of Classical Europe and denounces modernity nevertheless he discerns a positive stream in ‘Forgotten’ modernity namely what has come to be known misleadingly as the ‘Romanticism’ represented particularly by Goethe. Ku has a dialogical tendency in his civilizational thinking and earnestly presents his program by providing a model for the intercivilizational dialogue as following:
…in short, … to think of Good Taste and, in thinking of that, to behave with tact and good taste. This is the essence of the Religion of good citizenship; this is the secret of the Chinese civilization. This is also the secret of the new civilization of Europe which the German Goethe gave to the people of Europe and the secret of this civilization is: to put down force, not by force, but by right and tact; in fact to put down force and everything that is evil in this world, not by force, but by ordering our conversation aright and behaving ourselves properly; and ordering our conversation aright and behaving properly means to do right to and behave with tact and good taste. (1915. pp 19-20)
This is the model Ku foresees for intercivilizational dialogue between China and Europe by alluding to European thinkers two issues: one is the fact that lies within European context, namely the idea of Religion of Good Citizenship which Goethe and Romantic thinkers constructed within European frame of rationality (and Ku wishes European people get back to these roots by living them) and the second is the transcendental affinity which Ku attempts to establish between Chinese cosmology and European (based on a Goetheian reading of European culture) and this latter point is evident in what Ku says about the secret of Chinese civilization which coincided with Goethe’s approach to art of living based on good and schicklichkeit. The Religion of good citizenship, Ku says, means to do right and to behave with tact and good taste and this is
… the secret, the soul of the Chinese civilization, the essence of the spirit of the Chinese people, which [Goethe too gave to the people of Europe and its essence is constituted on the same fundamentals] …and [Ku has] tried to interpret and explain [as the Religion of Good Citizenship, which could prove intercivilizationally constructive too]. (Ku, 1915. p 20)
If it is agreed that the end of intercivilizational dialogue is to reach peace and/or peaceful coexistence then Ku provides a clue to such a gigantic task which starts from a seemingly little existential step. Ku anchors this dialogue within the soil of the sacred by founding the ground of his arguments within the frame of Confucian rationality:
The moral man, the gentleman by living a life of simple truth and earnestness can bring peace to the world. (1915. p 20)
8. Nature and Nurture: The Emergence of Human Civilizations
How does a civilization begin? This is a question that Ku turns to and attempts to tackle within his frame of thought. The conquest of Nature is the beginning of civilization but Nature should not be confined to the physical realms alone. On the contrary, Ku stands for a more complex understanding of Nature and Nurture and the interactions between them:
All civilization begins … by subduing and controlling the terrific physical forces in Nature so that they can do no harm to men. The modern civilization of Europe today has succeeded in the conquest of Nature with a success, it must be admitted, hitherto not attained by any other civilization. But there is in this world a force more terrible even than the terrific physical forces in Nature and that is the passions in the heart of man. (1915. Introduction, p 1)
If it is agreed that the birth of a civilization is concomitant and dependent upon a sense of regulation and control then this consciousness should not be only understood externally in regard to the physical but the social (intersubjective) and the psychological (subjective) too. In Ku’s words, the regulation of human passions gives birth to spiritual/moral/ethical human person which is the sine qua non of any civic community, namely
… there is in this world a force more terrible even than the terrific physical forces in Nature and that is the passions in the heart of man. The harm which the physical forces of Nature can do to mankind, is nothing compared with the harm which human passions can do. Until therefore this terrible force, - the human passions- is properly regulated and controlled, there can be, it is evident, not only no civilization, but even no life possible for human beings. (1915. Introduction, p 1)
In other words, the nickname of civility is morality for Ku and that, for him, results from the soil of sacred which, in relation to Chinese type of humanity, is dependent upon Confucian Religion of Good Citizenship. It would not be an exaggeration to call him an architect of Confucian Tradition in 19th and early 20th century.
The human history demonstrates an evolution of consciousness from savage community, where sheer physical force was employed to subdue the unruliness of the people, to higher stages of consciousness where men are not ruled by physical force but the ‘moral force’. Note that in this evolutionary paradigm we don’t end up with Europe at the top and others at the bottom, as this is the case when socio-economic indices are employed to assess the stage of developments. On the contrary, KU adheres to dual indices of physical subjugation of Nature and moral controlling of Passions. When these two prevail in a system, society, community, nation or civilization then we can hope for a human existence. Ku, furthermore, discerns in Man the existence of a ‘moral fiber’ which is more potent and more effective for controlling human passions than any other force available to us. But the point is how to turn such a budding fiber into a strong stream which could nurture human personality and turn him/her into a moderate human being capable of living a life worthy of human existence. This is a question that Ku turns to and attempts to find an adequate answer for within the paradigm of Confucian Tradition.
9. Europology: A Confucian Perspective
Ku is deeply confident that Confucian Tradition provides Chinese thinkers and all those who are serious about finding a functional paradigm in dealing with the ills of contemporary life with a robust perspective that could enable one to analyze the subtle issues which rationalities of England, Germany, America and France have brought upon humankind recently. Based on this conviction Ku offers his Europology by arguing that the
… moral force which in the past has been effective in subduing and controlling the human passions in the population of Europe, is Christianity. (1915. Introduction, p 2) But Ku thinks that Christianity has lost its potency as a civilizational moral force within Europe and this is evident in Europe’s employment of physical force to keep civil order during the WWI (and I haste to add WWII and the current so-called global war on terror which is again launched by Europe in alliance with America).
In other words, the loss of morality and even more serious the loss of the foundations of what constitute the very fibers of morality in Europe and America have left the West vulnerable to all kinds of declining forces which cause any serious thinker, in Ku’s view, to look at Confucian Tradition for moral rejuvenation based on the Religion of Good Citizenship (RGC). What is the Religion of Good Citizenship which time and again Ku refers to and finds the solutions of all ills in resorting to it?
RGC is to recognize ‘right’ and ‘justice’ as necessary fundamentals of ‘moral force’ which lies above ‘physical force’ and should be identified as such by everyone as well as obeyed. Ku argues that if
… you can get all mankind to agree to recognize right and justice, as a force higher than physical force, and moral obligation as something which must be obeyed, then the use of physical force will become unnecessary; then there will be no militarism [no war on terror by resorting to a greater terror such as the ones employed by England and America today] in the world. But of course there will be in every country a few people, criminals, and in the world, a few savages who will not or are not able to recognize right and justice as a force higher than physical force and moral obligation as something which must be obeyed. Thus against criminals and savages a certain amount of physical force or police force and militarism will always be necessary in every country and in the world. (1915. Introduction, p 4)
Now that we have learned about the fundaments of Ku’s Confucian RGC it is appropriate to as what is the basic axiom (s) of the Religion of Good Citizenship? It is based on one elementary principle, namely the goodness of human nature. Ku argues that we need to convince people that right and justice are essentially virtuous and desirably good and everyone should aspire to there ideals. How should we achieve this? Ku argues that people may say
… to me how are you to make mankind recognize right and justice as a force higher than physical force. I answer the first thing you will have to do is to convince … them of the power of goodness. But then again how are you to do this? Well, in order to do this, the Religion of Good Citizenship in China teaches every child as soon as he is able to understand the meaning of words, that the Nature of man is good. (1915. Introduction, p 4)
In other words, education is the key but the key of education is not any conception of ‘education’, namely it should be based on a traditional authority which has a sacred metaphysics and distinguishes between right and wrong, justice and injustice by resorting to the sound intellect and avoiding the pitfalls of ‘distorted intellect’ that
… seems to me … the fundamental unsoundness of the civilization of Europe today lies … [on] … . (ibid)
What Ku is trying to demonstrate is related to anthropology in its generic sense and not what one understands of this term in a disciplinary sense, namely the fundamentals of occidental anthropology, which in Ku’s view is based on wrong conception. He argues that the occidental anthropology is based on an erroneous conception as it rests upon the evilness of human nature which needs to be checked by either law/religion or fear of law/fear of religion. The whole social structure of Europe, Ku contends, is based upon this enormous fear of the inherent evilness of human nature, which, in turn, should be, as aforementioned, controlled by fear of Law and fear of Religion. To counter the sense of insecurity which Fear may cause it implies the use of force. Therefore
… in order to keep up the fear of God, the people of Europe had at first to maintain a large number of expensive idle persons called priests. That, to speak of nothing else, meant so much expense, that it at last became unbearable burden upon the people. In fact in the thirty years war of the reformation, the people of Europe tried to get rid of the priest. After having got rid of the priests who kept the population in order by the fear of God, the people of Europe tried to maintain civil order by the fear of Law. But to keep up the fear of the Law, the people of Europe have had to maintain another class of still more expensive idle persons called policemen and soldiers. Now the people of Europe are beginning to find out that the maintenance of policemen and soldiers to keep civil order, is still more ruinously expensive than even the maintenance of priests. In fact, … what … the people of Europe, … in this present war … really want, is to get rid of the soldier. But the alternatives before the people of Europe if they want to get rid of the policeman and soldier, is either to call back the priest to keep up the fear of God or to find something else which, like the fear of God and the fear of Law, will help them to maintain civil order. (1915. Introduction, p 5)
That, to put the question broadly in Ku’s terms, is the great problem of civilization before the people of Europe and America as long as they desire to stick to the ‘distorted intellect’ which underpins the dynamics of modernity today. In other words, Ku anticipated the loss of meaning in west and found its sources based on his unique Confucian perspective and attempted to offer a solution too.
The way Ku reads the political history of Europe seems to be suggesting that Europe has been trying for the past 2000 years to find a way to maintain the ‘civil order’ in society whether within the Empire based on Law and Religion (or one without the other) or the nation-state. But either the law or the religion has not been successful and the loss of both has created disorientation in Europe. The way forward is what Ku calls the adoption of the Religion of Good Citizenship. This RGC in China is
… which can keep the population of a country in order without priest and without policeman or soldier. In fact with this Religion of good citizenship, the population of China …. are actually and practically kept in peace and order without priest and without policeman or soldier. In China … the priest and the policeman or soldier, play a very subordinate … part in helping to maintain public order. Only the most ignorant class in China requires the policeman or soldier to keep them in order. Thus … if Europe really wants to get rid of Religion and Militarism, of the priest and soldier which have caused them so much trouble and bloodshed, they will have to [resort] to the Religion of Good Citizenship. (1915. Introduction, p 6)
How does Ku read the history of Europe? He thinks that Europe tried the theocratic system and it failed. Its failure led to the emergence of Militarism that destructed the world through global war which compelled Europeans to resort to the power of what Ku calls the mob and they have not yet realized that this is even more destructive than the other pervious ones which were only confined to Europe as the new system may prove globally destructive in long terms. Ku sums up the problem of civilization in Europe as following:
The people of Europe … at first tried to maintain civil order by the help of the priest … then … sent away the priest and called in the policeman and soldier to maintain civil order. But they … are causing more expense and trouble even than the priests. Now what are the people of Europe to do? (1915. Introduction, p 7)
To answer this question Ku turns to philosophers of Europe and America and inquires their views on this question and finds out that some thinkers such as Lowes Dickinson of Cambridge urge Europe to change the political discourse of Europe by resorting to
… the mob … [as] the way out. (ibid)
But Ku does not agree with this approach by arguing that
I am afraid the mob when once called in to take the place of priest and the soldier, will give more trouble than even the priest and the soldier. (ibid)
Ku thinks that the ‘Mob’ will destabilize the political landscape of Europe through anarchy and revolution. The reasons for Ku’s disagreement, in other words, are as following:
The priests and soldiers in Europe have caused wars, but the mob will bring revolution and anarchy and then the state of Europe will be worse than before. (1915. Introduction, pp 7-8)
If this is the way he reads the history of Europe and if these are the ills which Ku discerns within the European civilization then what does he suggest to be done in order to rectify these problems? Ku says, my advice to the people of Europe is: Do not call back the priest, and for goodness sake don’t call in the mob, but call in the Chinaman; call in the real Chinaman with his Religion of good citizenship and his experience of 2,500 years how to live in peace without priest and without soldier. (1915. Introduction, p 8)
When one reads these lines after a century one may wonder what does Ku really mean by keeping at bay the ‘Mob’ while calling in the Real Chinaman with his Religion of Good Citizenship? What is the Real Chinaman? What is Ku trying to purport here?
10. The Spirit of Confucian Ethos
It does not seem that Ku is calling for a Sinofication of the globe instead of Europeanization or Westernization. He is not addressing global problems and philosophical riddles from a nationalistic point of departure. In other words, his heuristic concept of ‘Real Chinaman’ needs to be deconstructed and explained in a contemporary sense before passing any final verdict about its functionality or impracticality. By this concept Ku means a type of humanity which recognizes the validity of ‘moral force’ above other forces in all circumstances, as it is a reflection of an inner ‘moral fiber’ within the texture of personality of any man or woman. It further refers to a type of personality which adheres to the Religion of Good Citizenship, i.e. a man or a woman who believes in the goodness of human nature and learns how to control his/her passions as the absence of moral regulation is equal to destruction even worse than the natural disasters which have been successfully achieved in the realms of the physical, for the first time, by Europe. This is what Ku means by Real Chinaman or Chinawoman, who embodies the spirit of Confucian ethos that is, metaphysically speaking, disconnected from the modern ‘distorted intellect’.
11. The Spirit of the Chinese Ethnos
By reading the Chinese language, religion, history and other major aspects of Chinese life and comparing them with other nations Ku arrives at a metatheoretical conviction in relation to the Chinese anthropology, i.e. what the life of a Chinese is really constituted of. He assumes that one can discern an inner being for human person in general and the texture of this inner being could vary culturally as there are various factors which could shape the landscape of culture X or Y. If this assumption is conceded then Ku argues that one is able to speak of the ‘inner being of the Chinaman’. Now the next question could be what is it consisted of? Is Ku trying to explain what Chinese people live by? Or what are the fundamentals of the Chinese culture?
Ku is not blind to sociological differences which one may discover between Northerners and Southerners in China as he is aware that there are great many differences between them as there are between various parts of Europe such as the differences between a German and an Italian. He himself argues that the
… character of the Northern Chinese … is as different from that of the Southern Chinese as the character of the Germans is different from that of the Italians. (1915. p 9)
In other words, Ku is aware of sociological complexities which are expressed in the anthropologies of Chinese distinct ethnicities and are discernible to anyone who is familiar with sociological reflection. Although taking into account these sociological insights would probably make Ku’s heuristic concept of ‘inner being’ somewhat problematic nevertheless he attempts to lay out his view on the spirit of the Chinese ethnos as following:
… what I mean by the spirit of the Chinese people, is the spirit by which the Chinese people live, something constitutionally distinctive in the mind, temper ad sentiment of the Chinese people which distinguishes them from all other people, especially from those of modern Europe and America. Perhaps [it could be] … best [expressed] … [as] … the Chinese type of humanity, … . (1915. p 9)
Why is so significant to learn about this type of humanity which, in Ku’s view, is in danger of extinction before the onslaught of modernity? We have learnt that the Chinese type of humanity is what the Real Chinaman stands for but the question remains why was Ku 100 years ago worried about this type of humanity not as a nationalist but as a philosopher of history and an intellectual concerned with civilizational changes at a planetary level? I am sure, Ku holds, you will all agree with me that an accurate knowledge of the constitution of the real Chinaman is of significant
… especially at the present moment, when from what we see going on around us in China today, it would seem that the Chinese type of humanity- the real Chinaman – is going to disappear and, in his place, we are going to have a new type of humanity- the progressive or modern Chinaman. In fact … before the real Chinaman, the old Chinese type of humanity, disappears altogether from the world we should take a good last look at him and see if we can find anything organically distinctive in him which makes him so different from all other people and from the new type of humanity which we see rising up in China today. (1915. pp 9-10)
Here we see an intellectual in the middle of Asia who so perceptively looks at metaphysical questions while not negligent about sociological changes which have been brought about by political transformations and at the same time not indifferent about global consequences of leveling of various types of humanities into one single humanity which could be the result of modernization but at the same time his existence as an intellectual been so strangely absent from academic disciplines of sociology, philosophy, anthropology and psychology today. His absence from contemporary discourses of human sciences, cultural sciences, social sciences and religious studies does not make any intellectually defensible sense unless we agree that what are called modern disciplines of human sciences are extremely prejudiced against restern intellectuals or anybody who approaches human issues from an essentially distinct perspective or opposite what Ku terms as ‘distorted intellect’ paradigm.
We mentioned earlier Ku’s concept of ‘inner being’ without any further elaborations. Now let’s get back to it and dwell upon it in some details by asking what are the main constitutive elements of this ‘inner being’ which is the salient feature of the Chinese type of humanity? This type of humanity consists of two components: 1) Sympathy and 2) Intelligence. (Ku, 1915. p 11) Ku compares the Chinese type of humanity to a domesticated animal. He asks what is that which makes a domesticated animal so different from a wild animal? It is something
… in the domesticated animal which we recognize as distinctively human. But what is distinctively human as distinguished from what is animal … is intelligence. But the intelligence of a domesticated animal is not a thinking intelligence. It is not an intelligence which comes to him from reasoning. Neither does it come to him from instinct, such as the intelligence of the fox, - the vulpine intelligence which knows where eatable chickens are to be found. This intelligence which comes from instinct, of the fox, all, - even wild, animals have. But this, what may be called human intelligence of a domesticated animal is something quite different from the vulpine or animal intelligence. This intelligence of a domesticated animal is an intelligence which comes not from reasoning nor from instinct, but from sympathy, from a feeling of love and attachment. (Ku, 1915. p 11)
As one may easily discern Ku’s view on intelligence is quite novel and extremely rare within contemporary studies on ‘intelligence’, ‘reason’, ‘mind’, ‘brain’ and ‘conscience’ in human sciences as he holds that we have three different kinds of ‘intelligence’ and each displays a different kind of world and results in a distinct worldview, namely: 1) an intelligence that emerges through reasoning; 2) an intelligence that is the result of instinct; and 3) an intelligence which is dependent for its emergence on sympathy or what is called heart within Confucian Tradition. To approach contemporary intellectual traditions worldwide through the prism of Ku would surely prove revolutionary when one is reminded that he has already proposed a model for approaching four different kinds of rationalities existent within Occidental Paradigm. In other words, a full-fledged system of analysis of global civilizations would emerge based on Kuian philosophy which so far has not been utilized within human sciences in general and intercivilizational studies in particular that is in dire need of originally religious models. His is a great Asian model which could prove constructively engaging for all thinkers of Third World and all of those intellectuals who, in the First World, are looking for non-Occidental Rationalities. However, what Ku is trying to demonstrate through his comparison on various kinds of intelligences in relation to sympathy as a feeling of love and attachment is better displayed in the following example:
A thorough-bred Arab horse understands his English master not because he has studied English grammar or because he has an instinct for the English language, but because he loves and is attached to his master. (1915. p 11)
This is what Ku calls human intelligence and distinguishes from both ‘vulpine intelligence’ and ‘instinctive intelligence’. In his view, it is the possession of this human quality which distinguishes domesticated from wild animals. In the same manner, Ku argues, it is the possession of this sympathetic and true human intelligence, which gives the Chinese type of humanity, to the real Chinaman, his inexpressible gentleness. (1915. p 12)
What is the character of this gentleness? It is the product of what Ku calls sympathetic or true human intelligence. As aforementioned Ku thinks of three different kinds of intelligences:
1. The discursive/modern/secular/disciplinary intelligence which only emphasizes the importance of reasoning or rationality over against all other forms 2. The instinctive intelligence 3. The Sympathetic intelligence
In his view the real essence of Chinese civilization springs from the last fountain. How does Ku explain the ‘Sympathetic Intelligence’ which distinguishes the Chinese type of humanity (and almost to vanish in the face of Westernization then) from other kinds? Ku argues that the Chinese civilization displays a powerful sympathetic energy which is embodied by the Chinese people
… because they live wholly, or almost wholly, a life of heart. The whole life of Chinaman is a life of feeling – not feeling in the sense of sensation which comes from the bodily organs, nor feeling in the sense of passions which flow, as you would say, from the nervous system, but feeling in the sense of emotion or human affection which comes from the deepest part of our nature- the heart or soul. Indeed … the real Chinaman lives so much a life of emotion or human affection, a life of the soul, that he may be said sometimes to neglect more than he ought to do, even the necessary requirements of the life of the senses of a man living in this world composed of body and soul. That is the true explanation of the insensibility of the Chinese to the physical discomforts of unclean surroundings and want of refinement. But that is neither here nor there. (1915. pp 12-13)
Is it possible to illustrate what Ku means by a cordially designed whole life? What does such a life mean in details? In order to explain this point Ku offers two examples which hopefully may shed some lights on what he means by living a life of the heart. The first example is related to an
… old friend and colleague … in Wuchang- … Minister of the Foreign Office here in Peking- Mr. Liang Tun-yen, Mr. Liang told …, when he first received the appointment of the Customs Taotai of Hankow, that what made him wish and strive to become a great mandarin, to wear the red button, and what gave him pleasure then in receiving this appointment, was not because he cared for the red button, not because he would henceforth be rich and independent … but because he wanted to rejoice, because this promotion and advancement of his would gladden the heart of his old mother in Canton. (1915. p 13)
The second illustration is as following:
A Scotch friend … told me he once had a Chinese servant who was a perfect scamp, who lied, who ‘’squeezed,’’ and who was always gambling, but when [he] … fell ill with typhoid fever … where he had no foreign friend to attend to him, this awful scamp of a Chinese servant nursed him with a care and devotion which he could not have expected from an intimate friend of near relation. (1915. pp 13-14)
This is what Ku has been trying to illustrate through these two examples and additionally this is what he means by ‘sympathetic intelligence’ which the Chinese people live by, namely a life of emotion and human affection.
Now one may wonder if it is possible to infer general anthropological character of the Chinese type of humanity through these two psychologically ideographic cases. Ku is more complex than giving in into self-congratulatory conclusions, namely he would not leave a point unless he puts on test his hypotheses on the importance of ‘sympathetic intelligence’ as a supreme characteristic of Confucian Ethos empirically. In accomplishing this task Ku turns to simple facts that are connected to the sociology of Chinese civilizations, namely Language, Memory, Politeness and Want of Exactness. (Ku, 1915. pp 14-16) These are four facts that Ku analyze it in regard to the significance of ‘sympathetic intelligence’ within Confucian Ethos.
12. Modalities of Civilization: Decline, Stagnancy, Conflict and Renewal
Ku assumes (1915. p 14) that we could have two broad approaches to education: 1. The Confucian/Sacred model which is based on the centrality of the ‘heart’ 2. The modern/secular/disciplinary European model which is founded upon the centrality of the ‘head’ or ‘rationality’
Ku suggests that the Chinese civilization displays a harmonious dialectics of ‘soul’ and ‘intellect’ or ‘heart and mind’. This dialectical interplay is what, in essence, constitutes the very texture of the real Chinaman. The real Chinaman, Ku argues, is
… a man who lives the life of a man of adult reason with the heart of a child. (1915. p 18)
In short, the Chinese type of humanity displays a dialectical harmony between rationality and spirituality which Ku expresses as following:
… the real Chinaman is a person with the head of a grown-up man and the heart of a Child. (1915. p 18) The significance of Confucian educational model and harmonic dialectics of Confucian ethos is not analyzed as disparate important facts for their own sakes. On the contrary, they are significant as the dialectics of heart and mind have great bearings upon the very spirit of Chinese Civilization. As a matter of fact Ku arrives at an interesting conclusion about, not only the spirit of the Chinese civilization but the general features of human civilization. He discerns very perceptively in the history of civilizations four grand modalities: 1. Decline 2. Stagnancy 3. Conflict 4. Renewal
Ku argues that the Chinese Civilizational Spirit is
… a spirit of perpetual youth, the spirit of national immortality. (1915. p 18)
But the secret of this incessant aspiration for renewal which keeps the Chinese Spirit alive despite of all the hazards is not based on chauvinistic reading of Chinese history within modernity. On the contrary, it is
… the product of a combination of two things, sympathy and intelligence. It is a working together in harmony of the heart and head … a happy union of soul with intellect. (1915. p 18) In other words, the dialectics of soul and intellect within the Chinese spirit of the spirit of Confucian Ethos is what, in Kus’ view, keeps this civilization perpetually youthful as it is based on immutable principles: the harmonic union of soul with intellect.
13. Chinese Confucian Ethos versus European Modern Ethos
What does Ku think of the Chinese ethos in comparison to modern European ethos? One great fundamental difference Ku discern between these two paradigms is the question of harmony and how these two respectively approach this aspect within their overall schemes. In order to highlight this point Ku borrows the remark of Bernard Berenson on European and Oriental arts and the difference between them:
Our European art has the fatal tendency to become science and we hardly possess a masterpiece which does not bear the marks of having been a battlefield for divided interests. (1915. p 19)
Now what Ku wants to say of the European Ethos is that it is, as Berenson says of European art namely
…it is … a battlefield for divided interests; a continuous warfare for the divided interests of science and art on the one hand, and of religion and philosophy on the other; in fact a terrible battlefield where the head and the heart- the soul and the intellect- come into constant conflict. (1915. p 19)
On the other hand, within the Chinese civilizational context one can find a harmonic dialectics where there is no
… at least for the last 2,400 years, … such conflict. (1915. p 19)
This is a great fundamental difference between the Chinese civilization and that of secular ethos which emerged initially in Europe. In other words, what Ku wants to state is that
… in modern Europe, the people have a religion which satisfies their heart, but not their head, and a philosophy which satisfies their head but not their heart. (1915. p 19)
14. Religion in China: Religious Studies in the Prism of Confucian Perspective
Some sinologists, orientalists and students of religions say that in China people have not any religions. But Ku thinks one should elaborate this point further in order to get a more accurate picture about the Chinese civilization. To accomplish this task, he makes a distinction between religion as recreation and religion as edification. Ku thinks that the concept of ‘religion’ as it is employed within the frame of Occidental rationalities is to purport a particular phenomenon which does not bear any essential resemblance to what exists in China. But what does he mean by the conceptual distinction between ‘recreation’ and ‘edification’ and how do these forms differ essentially?
If one considers the external aspects of religions such as temples (a congregational locus), rites and ceremonies which are part of Buddhism and Taoism as ample indices of religions generally and in China particularly then Ku argues that
… they touch the aesthetic sense, so to speak, of the Chinese people rather than their moral or religious sense; in fact, they appeal more to their imagination that to their heart or soul. (1915. p 19)
Ku discerns a widely popular axiom among many sinologists, orientalists, historians of religions and social theorists in general who claim that ‘the Chinese have no religion’ and consequently they base their arguments, in Ku’s view, on erroneous axiom which result in wrong conclusions as well as mistaken anthropological classifications about civilizational evolutions. He makes a psychological distinction between the ‘need for’ and ‘possession of’ religion in China. In other words, Ku contends that
… instead of saying that the Chinese have no religion, it is perhaps more correct to say that the Chinese do not want- do not feel the need of religion. (1915. pp 19-20) Whatever the significance of this psychological attitude the fact on the ground remains unchanged and that is there is no religion in China. Now Ku realizes that this fact needs to be explained apart from explicating psychologically the inner dynamism of the Chinese spirit. The question could be reformulated as this: why don’t the Chinese people feel the need of religion?
As always Ku is in dialogue with four major discourses in West and on this question he does not proceed otherwise either. He, firstly, turns to contemporary modern accounts on this question by analyzing them and then puts forward his own Confucian view which seems more well-rounded (i.e. based on integral view of life) than modern accounts which suffers from disciplinary myopicism. The explanation of this fact (the absence of the need of religion) is accounted by Sir Robert K. Douglas thus:
Upwards of forty generations of Chinaman have been absolutely subjected to the dicta of one man. Being a Chinaman of Chinamen the teachings of Confucius were specially suited to the nature of those he taught. The Mongolian mind being eminently phlegmatic and unspeculative, naturally rebels against the idea of investigating matters beyond its experiences. With the idea of a future life still unawakened, a plain, matter-of-fact system of morality, such as that enunciated by Confucius, was sufficient for all wants of the Chinese. (1915. p 20)
Ku thinks Douglas is perfectly right when he says that
… the Chinese people do not feel the need of religion, because they have the teachings of Confucius … . (1915. p 20)
But he disputes that Douglas did not understand the Chinese spirit when he explained the lack of the need of religion due to phlegmatic and unspeculative nature of the Chinese ethnos. (Ku, 1915. p 20) For countering Douglas’ claim who was thinking of religion within the received paradigm of ‘disenchantment/rationalization theories (of Enlightenment Tradition, where there is no place for soul as an intellectual category) Ku argues that
… religion is not a matter of speculation. Religion is a matter of feeling, of emotion; it is something which has to do with the human soul. (1915. p 20)
After clearing this ontological-existential-metaphysical point about the significance as well as locus of religion Ku contends over two more issues: the first argument is related to the universality of religion, i.e. he thinks as religion has to do with human soul (rather than being a discursive matter alone) so wherever one discovers a community of souls there is certainly a sign of religion. In this sense, the Chinese cannot be any different than other races and nations on this planet. Thus the reasons given by Douglas are simply wrong because
… the Mongolian Chinaman … also has a soul, and, having a soul, [he] … must feel the need of religion [too] … . (Ku, 1915. p 20) If, secondly, the ontological reasoning drives us towards this conclusion but the sociological context poses an empirically distinct problematique the simplest solution is what Douglas proposes namely resorting to ‘racial indices’ rather than solving the dialectics between ontology and sociology or permanence versus contingency. This is where Ku attempts to pinch Douglas by arguing that although religious yearning is a universal need for human soul however the apparent absence of this fact within the Chinese context calls for an explanation rather than ‘academic gymnastics’ or ‘ideological pronouncements’.
Ku assumes that the Chinaman qua man has a soul, and having a soul he must feel the need of religion then the absence of it within this particular context leads us to a very important sociological fact, namely in China there could be something which may have taken for the Chinaman the ‘place of religion’. (1915. p 20) Ku elaborates this point as following:
The truth of the matter is, - the reason why the Chinese people do not feel the need of religion is because they have in Confucianism a system of philosophy and ethics, a synthesis of human society and civilization which can take the place of religion. People say that Confucianism is not a religion. It is perfectly true that Confucianism is not a religion in the ordinary European sense of the word. But then [the importance of this is that] … the greatness of Confucianism lies even in this, that it is not a religion. In fact, the greatness of Confucianism is that, without being a religion, it can take the place of religion; it can make men do without religion. (1915. pp 20-21)
15. Religion as a Human Need: A Confucian Perspective
Due to the impact of secular philosophies and sociological theories modern minds have grown accustomed to view religion as a premodern residue; an irrational relic from bygone times; a system of magical incantations (based on fear of natural disaster or desire of mastery over natural phenomena) and so on and so forth. (Kafkazli, 2003. pp 1-14) In other words, the whole edifice of modernity in its metatheoretical dimension is based on a denial of religion as the true call of inner voice, a roadmap on how to embark upon the path of becoming, or a project to turn an extremely infinite finitude into an immensely infinite ever-becoming. Ku is aware of these issues within secular philosophies dominant in Europe and America but he does not approach this question through modern occidental rationalities which, in his view, lack the integrally harmonizing (soul and i |