Hong Kong Society of Humanistic Philosophy　http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/~hkshp Liberator or Reinforcer -- To what extent does Confucius's conception of Junzi reinforce social stratification Kwan Sui Chi(關瑞至) (PhD Student, Humanities, HKUST; Tutor, OUHK) 1 Introduction Confucius has been variably characterised, positively, as a Sage, the greatest teacher, the king without a throne (su-wang), and, negatively, as a condescended noble-bourgoeoise strenuously defending the landlords' vested interest. When a person is seen as a Sage in the context of Chinese culture, he is taken not only to be "a profoundly wise person", as the Webster Dictionary has it to mean, but most importantly, a perfectly moral person with the highest caliber humanly possible who spawns and proliferates a whole new set of beliefs and behavioral guidance for generations both contemporaneous with and subsequent to him. More often than not, he manages to achieve this by engendering a wholly novel system of thought or literally rejuvenating an archaic idea, giving it a new meaning or metaphorically, breathing into it a new life that is previously unimaginable which finally culminates in steering the course of a culture. This is how Confucius has been taken in Chinese history.[1] But in the 20th century, Confucius quickly lost his privileged status. He was first condemned, ever since the May-Fourth Movement, as the perpetuator of a feudalistic value that has greatly inhibited the progress of Chinese culture; then denounced by the Communist regime as a landlord and a descendent of the noble class engaging in preserving the preexisting social strata that was meant to be exploitative over the proletariats.[2] In the face of such ambivalent characterizations of Confucius, the question then is How should we take Confucius? It is the contention of this paper that Confucius has not so much strengthened a division, at most a gender one, in society as he has liberated the then rigid social stratification via an introduction of a revised concept of "Ren" as the most cherishable quality of human being. Thus, in one way, it is here meant to defend him against the charge of being an exploiter and, in another, to answer the question why Confucius is justifiably considered a Sage. Arguments will be put forth to show that what makes him a proper image of a Sage is what makes him a class liberator rather than a reinforcer. Before anything else, the concept of class has to be treated in order to make sense of the discussion to be conducted in this paper. Therefore, it will seek first to make a brief clarification of the concept of class or social stratification and then see whether it can be appropriately applied to the study of ancient China at around Confucius' time. Here we will be preoccupied with the questions of "What is class?" and "Is there really a class structure in ancient China?" Having done this, we will proceed to determine the extent to which Confucius should be seen as a class reinforcer or a liberator. Here we will take a closer look at the arguments proffered by many scholars, especially those from contemporary Mainland China, to the effect that Confucius, being a conservative in a specified and therefore restricted sense, had made significant moves to reinforce the class structure of his time. It will be seen that despite the concession it makes to such claims, this paper is more inclined to the position that Confucius had played a major role in tearing asunder the then rigid social class system by giving a new interpretation of the concept of junzi via the introduction of Ren. 2 The concept of class "Class" is a loose concept.[3] Different scholars offer different interpretations, definitions and analyses. The Collins Dictionary of Sociology cites 7 different understandings of it.[4] An Oxford Reader on Class has registered more than a dozen out of the 47 articles collected.[5] As Crompton says, "Class…is a word with multiple meanings."[6] To pin it down, therefore, is itself a task that demands the work of a whole book - to say the least. Most of the representative views, however, pivot around the idea that class involves a hierarchy of relation between individuals and / or groups with a specific structure of rules governing the distribution of social, political and economical resources. Consider, for example, Crompton's conception of class which identifies three different meanings of it: " 'Class' as prestige, status, culture or 'lifestyles'. 'Class' as structured inequality (related to the possession of economic and power resources). 'Classes' as actual or potential social and political actors."[7] Of these three, the second one concerns us directly. It point to the fact that class is always characterized by a sense of inequality. To characterize class in this way certainly may not get us too far for the very concept of inequality itself demands as much, if not more, examination as class does.[8] But it might offer a point of departure from which we can discuss the evolution of the concept of class from Karl Marx, Max Weber to Anthony Giddens. It also helps determine whether Confucius can be properly seen as a Sage as far as his contribution of liberating class is concerned. Another way to characterize class is to read it as more or less a twin concept of social stratification. Stratification is a metaphorical employment of that originated in geology where it is used to refer to the layering structuring or strata of different geological forms.[9] Retaining the basic meaning from its origin, the layers of social stratification consists of social groups hierarchicalized in terms of their associations with or alienation from power, prestige, access to and manipulation of resources and social status.[10] Here again it is not at all difficult to see the relation it bears with inequality. In sum, it seems to make sense to say that in order for a society to be socially stratified, several conditions have to be satisfied: 1. there exist a number of hierarchies consisting of people or groups of people, 2. these hierarchies are distinguishable and distinguished in terms of i. their lifestyles ii. the relative imbalance of power iii. the differences in their rights in accessing certain resources iv. a systematic monopolization of resources and channels by those in the upper hierarchy to prevent those in the lower hierarchy from moving upward in the social ladder, which results in, 3. a very low degree of social mobility in order for the vested interests of those in the upper hierarchy to be safeguarded. 4. 1-3 collectively entails, necessarily, inequality. Is there really a class structure in ancient China? Almost all works published in Mainland China concerning the social structure of ancient China take Marxian conception of the evolution of history as the point of departure. Without offering comprehensive empirical evidence nor conducting full-fledged rational arguments, they assume flatly that from the ancient to the pre-modern, Chinese society was predominated by two large classes: the ruling class and the ruled class. The ruling class, consisting of the minority, was in constant conflicts with the ruled class, which was composed of the majority. This resulted in overthrows of royal dynasties which gave force to the development of history. Take, for instance, a passage in a representative work done by two historians: The institution of social stratification is a product of a class society. Ever since human has entered the stage of class society, there followed the formation of stratification and hierarchy. The Xia,, established around the 21th century B.C., was the first state ever appeared in our land. From then on, there triggered off hierarchicalization and the opposition of classes which culminated, via the further development in Xia and Shang, in the Western Zhou to a fully stringent and comprehensive extent.[11] The authors continued with enumerating the alleged various classes and sub-classes, to each of which one chapter is devoted for fuller treatment. Throughout the whole book which consists of more than 500 pages, there is not a single attempt at laying bare the criteria in terms of which a society is seen as a classed one. Nor any arguments are provided to justify their view that there WAS really a highly stratified society in ancient China. The best, if it be considered an argument at all, shot is an appeal made to Marx as an authority drawing support from his Communist Manifesto to 'prove' that such a society did ever exist. In a sense, their view is echoed in one of Professor Hsu's renowned works in which he wrote: The social structure of the Ch'un Ch'iu Period (722-464 B.C.) was that of an orderly society in which heads of state, their ministers, and shih (officials, warriors, and stewards of the noble households) constituted the ruling group.[12] So far so good. Consensus among scholars seems to justify the view that there was really a highly stratified society in ancient time, in particular, in the Pre-Chin Period with different groups of people occupying their corresponding stratum each having their corresponding rights and obligations. The conditions 1 & 2 , laid down in the previous section, under which a society can be properly considered a classed one seem to have been satisfied. But wait, what about the third one, i.e. a stratified society has to be one in which there is a low degree of social mobility such that movement on the part of the members of different classes from one to another is highly prohibited. It is here that an apology to Professor Hsu would be in place should he be kept being misrepresented. For immediately after what is quoted above he continued, This stratification was not static, however, throughout these two and a half centuries. Changes over short periods of time may escape notice, but the long view discloses some remarkable transformations. Again and again we find the authority of nominal rulers usurped by ministers, rulers deposed by ministers in alliance wit noble families, and even palace revolutions climaxed by the division of the state among the victors, as happened at the end of the Ch'un Ch'iu to Chin, one of the greates states, which was split into three, each ruled by one powerful family.[13] This view that the stratification in that period was not static is justified by the Classic of Ch'un Ch'iu written by Confucius in a highly concise, if not encrypted, form. Believed to be the only work done by Confucius, the Classic of Ch'un Ch'iu can be characterized as a historical witness to the mobility between different interest groups. Notice here, however, that the kind of mobility then and there was not conducted between the classes of the ruling and the ruled no matter how drastic and violent sometimes the dethronement of heads of state could be. Therefore, the view that the stratification in that period was not static calls for a qualification, viz., that it was static only insofar as the ruling class is taken into account. If the whole picture in which the ruled is incorporated, we might, nevertheless, have to admit that social mobility was still very limited. In order for there to be a genuine social mobility, inter-class, apart from intra-class, movement have to be legitimized and operated in a much grander scale. 3 Confucius as a class liberator It is here that Confucius' contribution can be seen under a better light. It is widely recognized that Confucius was a descendent of the noble-class. It does not follow, however, that he give in to the vested interest of the nobles. On the contray, we have seen that both his words and deeds were directed to encompassing the well-beings of all men, regardless of what class they were from. But before we look into what he has done in liberating men from their class-bonds, we might consider whether he was a full-blown liberator or not. For this, we are inclined to say that as far as gender division is concerned, he is not. Confucius seemed to have a clear-cut view towards females, as this can be shown in one of his oft-quoted remarks, The Master said, "Of all people, girls and servants are the most difficult to behave to. If you are familiar with them, they lose their humility. If you maintain a reserve towards them, they are discontented." [14] The juxtaposition of women and xiao-ren[15] whom Confucius found repugnant is informative enough; the accusation of the two being nan-yang or 'difficult to behave to' is, however, more substantially serious. It is clear that his remark was not meant to direct to some particular individuals, but to women and xiao-ren as collections (or perhaps just one collection). But just as the formation of one's perceptions, views and understanding of things and persons around him are inextricably bound by the social values and culture of his time, Confucius seemed not to be less an exception with regard to women than Socrates was with regard to slaves. Insofar as gender perception is concerned, we may conclude that Confucius helped consolidate and reinforce gender division in his time. But it is in the reinterpretation of the notion of junzi that Confucius's contribution to class liberation can be fully appreciated. Junzi is variably defined as "a man of noble character"[16], "superior man"[17], "man of complete virtue"[18] or "gentleman"[19]. Hsu[20] and He Huai-hong[21] have pointed out, junzi was used to refer to the "children of noble" or "children of lords." Hsu has also identified the three meanings of the 189 occurrences of junzi contained in the Shih Ching, or the Classic of Poems: lord, sovereign son of a ruler, princely man, gentleman, nobleman, or officer host, husband.[22] Confucius himself was obviously aware of it and sometimes used the term in this old sense as in, "The men of former times in the matters of ceremonies and music were rustics, it is said, while the men of these latter times, in ceremonies and music, are accomplished gentlemen. If I have occasion to use those things, I follow the men of former times"[23] The contrast between ye-ren , or the rustics, which means common folks,[24] with junzi shows clearly that Confucius took the latter here as referring to the noble. This way of using the term, however, is of much less frequency and most importantly of much less significance. For what is so revolutionary about Confucius' use of it lies in the very fact that he had instilled in it a wholly novel meaning which had virtually little to do with what class a person originally belonged to. As Hsu has rightly pointed out, […] in the Chan Kuo period this term came primarily to mean a person possessing certain moral qualities. A chun tzu [junzi] was then an admirable person whose virtues entitled him to a high moral position no matter what is social status was.[25] When did the change of the meaning of junzi take place is no mystery to Chinese for it is justifiably believed that the Analects was the earliest work in which junzi was imbued with a strong moral color. Quotations from the Analects in which it was used in this sense are handy, Is he not a man of complete virtue, who feels no discomposure though men may take no note of him. [26] The superior man is catholic and not partisan. The mean man is partisan and not catholic.[27] If a superior man abandon virtue, how can he fulfill the requirements of that name? "The superior man does not, even for the space of a single meal, act contrary to virtue. In moments of haste, he cleaves to it. In seasons of danger, he cleaves to it.[28] The significance of such a renovation of the term does not lie in the mere change in the meaning of it. Rather, it signified a sabotage of the demarcation of the ruling and the ruled. Confucius, with his enormous impact on his counterparts and those after him, managed to pierce through the wall between the noble and the common folks by converting the sense of junzi from the traditional one of noble into a moral one that washed away the traces of nobleness.[29] To understand more about the change of meaning of the term, we must ask a further question, i.e. what made such a change possible? Or, what had Confucius done to the term that finally ended up in such a revolutionary renovation? It is to this that we now turn to investigating his introduction of the notion of Ren. 4 The notion of ren Of the 109 times of ren[30] that Confucius has discussed with friends and students in the Analects, the core meaning of it seems to have much to do with an inner quality of man that is moral in nature. It is an inner quality because it, according to Mencius, is not something imposed on us from the outside. As he said, "Benevolence, righteousness, ritual propriety and wisdom are not welded to us externally. We inherently have them."[31] It is a quality without which a human being cannot be considered a human being at all. Mencius's interpretation of ren seems to be playing the same tune as Confucius did. For Confucius started his enterprise by searching for a solution to the traumatically chaotic situation of the late Ch'un Ch'iu period.[32] The best candidate for such a solution, for Confucius, still lied in the institution of rites and music even though it was verging on the brink of bankruptcy and collapse. The question he set for himself was, What was it that made the institution of rites and music work in Chou Kung's time? Was it the set of piecemeal rules and canons laid down by it governing every move of people of all walks of life or was it something deeper, something that was intrinsic to humans that made it work? His answer lies in a very famous question he put to himself, If a man be without the virtues proper to humanity, what has he to do with the rites of propriety? If a man be without the virtues proper to humanity, what has he to do with music?[33] It is an inner quality capable of acting out virtues that, according to Confucius, explains why we could engage in activities pertaining to rites and music. He who could raise his awareness of this inner quality, which he called ren, and paid his utmost effort in enhancing it by living it out, could be rightfully regarded as a junzi, otherwise not, period. Confucius' conscious twist of the meaning of the term junzi such that it no longer referred to the noble class meant a heavy blow to the class structure in ancient China. As Liang Shou-ming has rightly remarked, "[The idea that] there is no difference with regard to being noble or being lowly when one was born opened up the avenue for the degeneration of Chinese feudalism……From then on, China was so deprived of class that it did not look like a state any longer."[34] To the extent that a class society locks up those in it in inequality, a person who triggers off a breakthrough of it is great. And to the extent that Confucius has done exactly that same job, it is justified to recognize him as a Sage. Glossary a su-wang 素王 b ren 仁 c junzi 君子 d Xia 夏 e Shang 商 f Western Zhou 西周 g Ch'un Ch'iu 春秋 h shih 士 i Pre-Chin 先秦 j xiao-ren 小人 k nan-yan 難養 l Shih Ching 詩經 m ye-ren 野人 n Chan Kuo 戰國 o Chou Kung 周公 ----------------------------------------------------------------- [1] See, for example, Hsu, Fu-kuan徐復觀, "Chapter 4", The History of the Chinese Philosoph of Human Nature, (Taipei: Commercial Press, 1982); or Wang, Pang-hsiong, An Exegesis of the Analects, (Taipei: E-hu, 1983), pp.273-6. [2] This view being an official one has predominated almost all literatures concerning Confucius. Representative works are many, for example, Li Ya-nong李亞 農, Chinese Feudalistic Landlordism, (Shanghai: Ren Min, 1961); Ge Cheng-yong葛 承雍, Class Society in Ancient China, (Shanxi: Ren Min, 1992); Pan Fu-en, Synopsis of Chinese Academic Writings, Philosophy, (Shanghai: Fu-dan University, 1992). [3] There are multiple meanings as well as uses of the concept of class. But by no means does it have anything to do, here in this paper, with the concept of class as it appears in the works of logic. So, thereafter, 'class' in this paper is construed as 'social class. [4] D. Jary & J. Jary (eds.), "Social stratification", Collins Dictionary of Sociology, (Glasgow: HarperCollins, 1995), pp77-79. [5] Patrick Joyce (ed), Class, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). [6] Rosemary Crompton, Class and Stratification, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998), p.10. [7] Ibid., p.11. [8] See for example, Amartya Sen, Inequality Reexamined, (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1992). [9] Cf. D. Jary & J. Jary (eds.), op. cit.., p.621. [10] Cf. Ibid., "Status", p.655. [11] Li, Zhi李治安-an and Sun, Li-qun孫立群, A Treatise on the Institution of Social Stratification, (Shanghai: Ren Min, 1998), p.6.. Translation mine. [12] Hsu, Cho-yun許倬雲, Ancient China in Transition, (Stanford : Stanford University Press, 1965), p.24. [13] Hsu, ibid., p.24. [14] The Analects: 17-25, (URL: http://uweb.superlink.net/~fsu/Analects1.html). The Chinese original is 「唯女子與小人為難養也，近之則不孫，遠之則怨。」 [15] xiao-ren is more often rendered with a pejorative sense, as sometimes it is translated as 'the mean man'. See, for example, Hsu, op. cit. p.163. [16] The Chinese-English Dictionary, (Beijing: Commercial Press, 1978), p.377. [17] See, for example, James Legge, The Analects. [18] URL: http://uweb.superlink.net/~fsu/Analects1.html [19] See, for example, Liang Ch'I-chao, A Selection of the Philosophical writings of Liang Ch'I-chao, (Beijing: Beijing University Press, 1984), p.235. [20] Hsu, op. cit., p.158. [21] He, Huai-hong 何懷宏, The Hereditary System and its Disintegration. (Beijing: San Lian, 1996), p.188. [22] Hsu, op. cit., p.159. [23] The Analects: 11-1, op. cit. The Chinese original is: 「先進於禮樂，野人也 ；後進於禮樂，君子也。如用之，則吾從先進。」 [24] He, op. cit. p.188. [25] Hsu, op. cit., p.159. [26]The Analects: 1-1 op. cit. The Chinese original is:人不知而不慍，不亦君子乎 ？ [27] The Analects: 2-14 op. cit. The Chinese original is: 君子周而不比；小人比而 不周 [28]The Analects: 4-5 op. cit. The Chinese original is:君子去仁，惡乎成名，君子 無終食之間違仁，造次必於是，顛沛必於是。 [29] See a similar view by Hsu Fu-kuan, op. cit. p.65. [30] Yang Bo-jun楊伯峻, An Exegesis of the Analects, (Hong Kong: Chung Wa, 1984), p.16. [31] D. C. Lau, Mencius, (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970) The Chinese original is: 仁義禮智，非由外鑠我也，我固有之也 [32] This has already become somewhat a standard understanding among 20th century Neo-confucianists of why Confucius began his work. See, for example, Mou Zhung-shan牟宗三, Nineteen Lectures on Chinese Philosophy, (Taipei: Xue Sheng, 1983). [33]The Analects: 3-3. The Chinese original is: 人而不仁，如禮何？人而不仁，如樂 何？ [34] Liang Shou-ming,梁漱溟, A Full Collection of Liang Shou-ming's works, Vol. 3 (Jinan: Shan-dong Ren Ming, 1990), p.176-179. Quoted from He, op. cit. p.205. Translation mine. Copyright (c) Hong Kong Society of Humanistic Philosophy. All Rights Reserved.