Confucianism Paper

Beau Hilton

RELC630

Dr. Keller

Hsiao:

The Root of Virtue, and that from which Civilization Derives[1]

            Among the virtues espoused by the great Kong Fu Tzu, filial responsibility and love within the family reign supreme. The family is the central unit in the Confucian paradigm, and the course of Chinese history shows the weight of hsiao upon individual persons and the people as a whole, for good and for bad. Though there is no doubt that concepts of filial duty untempered by jen lent themselves to much corruption and a negative stratification of society,[2] hsiao is a concept that has been, sadly, lost to too great of a degree in the backswing. Hsiao, coupled with jen, would save society at large from many of its ills, especially in America where “kill your parents” is the spoken and unspoken attitude of far too many. We will examine three areas that would benefit from greater implementation of the concept of filial responsibility: interpersonal relationships, healthcare, and maintenance of proper action within society.

            It is disheartening and, frankly, frightening to watch the quick, almost immediate degradation of the parent-child relationship that occurs when a child reaches a certain degree of autonomy. Whereas a three- or five-year-old emits a constant stream of “I love you, Daddy,” or “I love you, Mommy,” a common pre-teen stream of speech is rife with “I hate you” and disrespect. Similarly, most of us had no problem with, even great love for, our friends’ parents, until that friend became a spouse and those parents became in-laws. Too often there is an immediate separation that takes place, and the family unit becomes fractured. Both of these situations are natural and to be expected, and it is not reasonable to expect any philosophical or religious system to immediately remedy the age-old problems, but the healing of rifts within families, and the preventing of new ones, would be made much more likely through the institution of hsiao. “When your parents are alive, serve them according to propriety; when they die, bury them according to propriety; sacrifice to them according to propriety.”[3] One of the greatest lessons I ever learned came in a Priests’ Quorum lesson, from my advisor. “If you want to love someone, especially someone you don’t particularly care for now, the best way to build that love is by serving them.” I have found this to be true in every case. The natural way of things is for closeness to breed frustration at times, and the natural way out of this frustration is service tailored properly to the situation. It is easy to only look downward and forward in finding those for whom service is needed: my parents served me, and I will serve my children, and they will serve theirs.  But reciprocity and gratitude requires looking back up the chain and serving those who served us first. From commentary on an ancient Chinese mural of crows, “when their mothers are old and too weak to scavenge, crow offspring bring food, chew it up, and place it in the beaks of their mothers. By doing so, they repay their mothers for nourishing them when they were young and feeble.”[4] Service for family, including parents and siblings, can do naught but improve all the relationships a person has. By placing hsiao at the apex of one’s value system, love and gratitude will surely grow, and, on a world- and country-wide level, peace and harmony will increase.

            In conversations with friends of Chinese descent, I found an interesting attitude prevail with regards to how healthcare should work. The general feeling is that the social system that places the care of the elderly into state-funded institutions is, at its lightest, an insult. Families care for families, and that is the end of it. Only in extreme cases should an outside organization take primary care responsibility (no living family, etc.). Healthcare is a family affair, and families should be in charge of the decisions. This is not only relevant in geriatric care; as Western medicine and medical practices have made their way into China, and as the Chinese have made their way to the West, differences of opinion in general bioethics have come to the front of the line for consideration. Fierce Western individualism and autonomy clash with Chinese consanguinity and collective, and the argument is about who gets to decide what. In Confucian thought, families balance yin and yang in decision making, partly (perhaps largely) through balancing yin and yang in the decision makers.[5] Mothers and father in particular, but also brothers and sisters, assist in bringing the family to a decision that is best for all. Confucian bioethics recognizes what Western bioethics only hints at: there are situations in which the individual afflicted is not able to make the best decision, for his or herself or loved ones.[6] Hsiao shares responsibility horizontally and vertically, and, in typical Confucian fashion, ideally resists dogmatism or egoism and remains flexible.  A person imbued with hsiao recognizes the wisdom his or her elders possess and sacrifices some independence, trusting in a greater overall outcome. In every case the interest of the individual becomes the interest of the family, hasty medical decisions are avoided, and perpetual care is given without any extra cost to the medical organizations or taxpayers. One can imagine Medicare and Social Security being completely rewritten in the wake of hsiao. Many modern social ills relative to healthcare would, in the course of a few generations, be greatly reduced.

            In 1530 the Jiajing Emperor said, “The sage reveres heaven the same way he reveres his kin.”[7] Propriety and positive action in society can only be maintained by those with an active reverence for what is right. In Confucian thought, one cannot care properly for higher moral ideals without subscribing to the highest moral ideal, that of hsiao. “When a man’s father is alive, look at the bent of his will; when his father is dead, look at his conduct. If for three years he does not change from his father’s way, he may be called filial.”[8] In order to protect the family name and the feelings of one’s parents, one should guard one’s actions. Remaining close to parents, at least in heart, is similar in principle to the Jain injunction to never stray too far from home. A person alone is free to make all manner of mistakes and then slip away into anonymity, but a person within a family unit has an identity that must be maintained and improved upon. It is instructive that hsiao extends even beyond the mortal life of one’s parents – as before noted, one should “sacrifice to them according to propriety,” sustaining their memory and accounting to them for one’s actions. Continuing in the way of one’s parents for the obligatory three years would be a fascinating study indeed – the wisdom or folly of the parent would become more fully known, and in either case the child would become acquainted with the parent in a way that would be difficult to replicate in any other method. Three years of mourning become three years of introspection, affording the opportunity to examine one’s own actions in the light of one’s parents’ actions. Fast-paced society, so eager to throw off the accoutrements of yesteryear as one would so many shackles, would slow. Some may say a slow society is a bad thing, but what benefit has blind haste? To paraphrase Thoreau[9], the human’s grand possessions and grandiose actions have far outstripped the human’s humanity. Slowing to observe the lives of one’s parents in the spirit of filiality could perhaps prevent people from rushing headlong into mistakes that were already made and already corrected by the previous generation. Hsiao, properly implemented, would produce thoughtful, careful, respectful individuals, who would then form a thoughtful, careful, respectful society.

            Indulge, if you will, a moment of personal reflection. I recently left the care of my mother and father to cleave unto my wife and start a new family. Home is no longer the stucco house I grew up in; home is now four blocks south of campus. It is my wife who asks me how my day was, not my mother or father. I am here, this is new – they are there, that is old. It is easy to forget, in all of this change, to be filial. In truth, that two-story cookie-cutter house was never home in the first place – home was, and is, where family is. I call my little basement apartment “home” now, and when I refer to “going home” I see a small red Ikea couch instead of the orange tree in front of 12775 N. 58^th Ave, but the reality is that I still have a home in Glendale – in fact, I have two now. The wings of both sets of my parents cover me. There is still much love to be shared, advice to be had, and lessons to be learned from the wonderful people I call parents. Hsiao is real and alive in Latter-day Saint doctrine, though the West Wind sometimes obscures it. The areas I outlined that would be improved by hsiao were selected because they are areas that I wish to have hsiao improve in my life. In interpersonal relationships, let me remember that family is first and all are family. In my future medical practice, let me remember that I will treat not just individuals, but individuals within families. In my public life, let me act in a way that speaks highly of my upbringing; let me consider the ways of my parents and learn from their conduct. In short, let me aspire to the status of a Chun Tzu, and let me do it through aspiring to Confucius’ highest virtue – hsiao.

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[1] Hsiao Ching, 3rd Century BCE. P. 195. Rites vs rights: maintaining social order in China and the West. Ken Baskin. Source: Chinese Management Studies Vol. 3 No. 3, 2009 pp. 187-199 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1750-614X DOI 10.1108/17506140910984050. Life Design Partners, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. www.emeraldinsight.com/1750-614X.htm

[2] See the writings of Lu Xun for examples and commentary, especially the collection Diary of a Madman and Other Stories, trans. William A. Lyell.

[3] Analects 2:5. P. 237 Filiality versus Sociality and Individuality: On Confucianism as “Consanguinitism.” Qingping Liu. Source: Philosophy East and West Vol. 53, Number 2 (April 2003), pp 234-250. Published by University of Hawai’i Press.

[4] P. 150. Sons and Mothers in Warring States and Han China, 453 BCE - 220 CE.  Miranda Brown

 (University of Michigan). Source: NAN NÜ 5.2. Published by: Brill, Leiden. 2003.

[5] P. 577. The Family and Harmonious Medical Decision Making: Cherishing an Appropriate Confucian Moral Balance. Xiaoyang Chen & Ruiping Fan. Source: Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 35: 573–586, 2010 doi:10.1093/jmp/jhq046 Advance Access publication on September 20, 2010. Published by: Oxford University Press, on behalf of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy Inc.

[6] Cf. Ibid. P. 579.

[7] P. 569. The Ritual Formation of Confucian Orthodoxy and the Descendants of the Sage. Thomas A. Wilson. Source: The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 55, No. 3 (Aug., 1996), pp. 559-584. Published by: Association for Asian Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2646446

[8] Analects 1:11. P. 238 Filiality versus…

[9] Especially Walden

HUM 201 Journal Entry 3

The Sage:

A Comparison of Wisdom and the Wise As Found in The Apology and Tao Te Ching

Only faulting faults is faultless,

The Sage is faultless

By faulting faults,

And so is without fault.

-        Tao Te Ching 71

            When comparing 6^th century Chinese and 5^th century Greek thought, BCE, the hundred years of separation is the smallest gap to bridge. Thousands of miles of rough terrain and layers of political boundary kept either society from doing much more than imagining what lay far to the east or west. Philosophy, too, took widely variegated stances in both cultures, producing Confucianism, Taoism, Moism, etc. in the Orient, and Sophism, Socratic Method, Platonism, etc. in the Occident. Growing up as a student in a largely Occidental educational system, I have always been drawn to the “other,” wondering what folks on the opposite side of the planet were ruminating on when peripatetic dominated the Greek side of things. Here I will compare and contrast two influential schools and persons of philosophy, and by pitting Lao-Tzu and Socrates in the same arena I hope to gain a rounder understanding of the universal human condition. Two areas of thought will be examined: the nature of sagacity and the way of the sage.

            On the nature of sagacity, Lao-Tzu and Socrates find surprising agreement. “[The] one among you is wisest, mortals, who, like Socrates, has recognized that he’s truly worthless where wisdom’s concerned” (NA 763). “Know not-knowing: supreme. Not know knowing: faulty” (TTC 71). Socrates was found to be wisest because he understood and embraced his own lack of wisdom. In understanding his own worthlessness and nothingness, he became worth more than nothing. In a vein of over-puffed self-importance, men of science and men of politics began to think they had the mastery over earth and the self. The god’s mission for Socrates was to understand the faultiness of this thinking and correct it by retreating to a humbler and more accurate picture of self. Taoism has long, perhaps always, seen itself as the balancing antidote to the other emergent 6^th century BCE Chinese philosophical school, Confucianism. While Confucianism emphasized order, knowledge of world matters, and arduous righteous action, Taoism focused on a realization similar, in part, to what Socrates was given – the human mind is much healthier when it knows its limitations and accepts them. Though different methods were used to arrive at this realization, as will be addressed shortly, both schools of thought sought to chip or wear away at pride until it was gone. Sagacity, then, is found in not-knowing, or in other words, coming to an awareness of one’s own lack of wisdom.

            The way of the sage consists of two main parts. First, “the way” describes the path that is taken to sagacity. Second, “the way” also describes the method(s) by which the sage imparts knowledge. Socratic method is decidedly and admittedly brash, abrasive, and to use the Eastern conception of gender, male. “It’s as just such a gadfly, it seems to me, that the god has attached me to the city – one that awakens, cajoles, and reproaches each and every one of you…” (NA 770). Socrates, having his own wisdom awakened by the god and confirmed by experimentation, seeks to impart wisdom by chipping away at the “wisdom” of his contemporaries through intense questioning and the occasional well-placed insult. Socrates’ invective against Meletus shows this style of teaching forcefully, as Socrates berates Meletus out of love for him and the audience in an attempt to help them experience humiliation and transform it into humility. Taoism takes a very different approach, one that is slower, without conflict, and, again in Eastern conception, female. “Nothing in the world is soft and weak as water. But when attacking the hard and strong nothing can conquer so easily. Weak overcomes strong, soft overcomes hard” (TTC 78) and “Pursue knowledge, gain daily. Pursue Tao, lose daily. Lose and again lose, arrive at non-doing. Non-doing – and nothing not done.” (48) Instead of chipping away at it, the Tao erases pride through the slow wear of erosion. To use a Taoist analogy, natural and patient methods get the Taoist to the other side of the river.[1] In imparting wisdom of the Tao to others, rhetoric and debate are not permitted by Lao-Tzu.[2] As stated at the outset, the Taoist sage is faultless through the faulting of faults, but the method of faulting faults is not through direct debate. “Good people do not quarrel. Quarrelsome people are not good… The Sage’s Tao acts and does not contend” (81). Direct Socratic confrontation is unthinkable in philosophical Taoism. How might a Taoist sage impart wisdom, then? “I do nothing/And people transform themselves” (57). The sage faults faults occasionally through writing or speech, but mostly does it through living without those faults. Taoism is the ultimate laissez-faire, trusting in people to make their own changes, while the Socratic method is a high form of hands-on teaching. In summary, Socratic wisdom comes and is further propagated through skilful abrasion, while Taoist wisdom is gained through natural erosion and shared through quiet example.

            Taoism and Socrates’ philosophy, as examined, have some very similar goals and some very similar effects, yet they have been shown to approach their ideals through very different methods. Other similarities that stand open for exploration include the philosophical reasons for fearlessness, the non-tragedy of death, compassion as the ruling standard, and the use and abuse of the founders’ teachings by later propagates.[3] Other dissimilarities include action vs. non-action, emphasis on ontology in Taoism vs. emphasis on epistemology in Socratic philosophy, and Taoist roots in nature vs. Socratic roots in thought. I find both philosophies to be engaging, inspirational, and worth further contemplation and emulation. In the spirit of Yin and Yang, it is not evident that either is necessarily superior, but it is sure that they both have their special uses when the situation demands.

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[1] The Taoist story goes something like this: the Taoist and the Confucian both want to cross a river (even a Taoist has goals to accomplish). The Confucian swims hard in a straight line, battling the current with every stroke. The Taoist is leisurely in the swim, allowing the current to take him or her downstream. The Confucian reaches the other side first and flops down on the shore, exhausted and sucking air. The Taoist reaches the other side a little while later, though displaced downstream. The Taoist is not winded, but refreshed by the cool swim as he or she exits the river and begins walking to the final destination. The Confucian is still trying to catch breath when the Taoist reaches the goal.

[2] The later Taoist tradition, however, employed these methods extensively.

[3] Just as it is difficult to determine which of the words attributed to Socrates were actually his, Lao-Tzu’s writings and teachings are obscured by time and revisionist history.