About ten days ago we got a new dog.  Larry (he came with that name) is a seven-month old hound-mutt.  He’s energetic and smart, and not aggressive toward our other dog, a four-year old beagle-mutt, Rudy (who also came with that name).  Our cat, a large male black cat (appropriately named Blackie) who rules the animal hierarchy of the house, has already set Larry straight.  It is a wonder what one claw to the face can accomplish when done with such dexterity and clarity.

     I am, then, in dog-training mode.  As Larry moves through the house, we have to set down some very clear limits – no dogs in the bed or on the couch – and offer inducements for good behavior – dog treats when obeying the command "sit."  I have done this before, most notably with my Labrador, Carly, fifteen years ago, but I need to sharpen my focus and pay attention to consistency in order to instill manners into Larry.

      And that is where the ancient Chinese philosophy of Legalism comes in.

      I am reading and discussing Han Fei Tzu with my Chinese philosophy tutorial this week; so, the assumptions and techniques of Legalism are fresh in my mind.  And the thing that strikes me at present is this: Legalism treats people like dogs.

      Han Fei Tzu focuses on preserving the power of the ruler.  He is obsessed with the possibility that ministers, those who have risen up to the highest offices, just below that of the supreme ruler, usurping the power of the throne.  The central message is: don’t trust any one.  Han demands that the ruler detach himself from virtually all of his human and emotional attachments.  To reveal any preferences or desires is to create an opening for ministers to use those against you. 

     To control ministers, and society at large, Han urges the usual Legalist prescription of clearly defined laws, harsh punishments for those who do not live up to the laws, and modest rewards for those who stay within the law.  Basically, it is a rule by fear formula: people will do as the law states because they know a swift and terrible punishment will come down on them if they don’t. 

     Han obviously believes in the efficacy of rule by fear, and thus has no sense of the human capacities for resentment and resistance.  Or, maybe he does understand these possibilities, but believes that they can simply be overwhelmed by draconian rule.  Of course, he is wrong.  Although Legalist practices went on to be a key part of the imperial system that persisted for so long in Chinese history (and is even discernible in contemporary PRC governing strategies), it had to be leavened with Confucianism.  When it existed in its purest form, the Qin Dynasty, it inspired its own destruction.   Qin power unified "China" in 221 BCE but the harshness of its rule could not be sustained and it fell a mere 15 years later, in 206 BCE.  The morale of that story, for Chinese rulers who came afterward, was that Legalism, in and of itself, was insufficient for regime survival.

     And that insufficiency rests, I believe, in its impoverished understanding of humankind.  We are not merely atomized, selfish agents responding only to immediate rewards and punishments.  We are thinking, feeling, social beings who find meaning and identity in our love for others.  We (many of us, much of the time) will sacrifice our own interests for higher purposes and we do not want to alienate ourselves from our loved ones, even if we possess positions of great power. 

     Han Fei Tzu and the Legalists, in other words, were fundamentally wrong on a very basic point: people are not dogs.  And, as Larry’s playfulness now daily reminds me, they don’t get dogs right either.