New Left Review runs a piece on an intellectual battle between two French sinologists, Jean-François Billeter and François Jullien.  I have not read any of the many books cited; obviously both men are accomplished scholars.  One of the central issues, according to the NLR, is the issue of politicization.  Jullien, at least to his critic Billeter, does not place his understanding of Chinese philosophy in a sufficiently political context (i.e. recognizing the ways in which Confucianism was used as an ideology of state power, etc.).  I am not, because I cannot (not having read their various books) going to weigh in on the particulars of this debate, but I do want to pick up on a couple of points brought up in the NLR article.

     In commenting on early twentieth century reconstructions of Confucianism, Billeter apparently identifies four distinct schools of thought, which crystallize into two overarching political positions: Chinese philosophical superiority (i.e. better than the West) or Chinese philosophical inferiority (i.e. less than the West):

The four factions can actually be divided into two camps: the critics
and the apologists. Among the latter, both the comparatists and the
purists, though differing in approach, arrive at the same conclusion:
Chinese superiority. Jullien, according to Billeter, is a typical
comparatist and, like his Chinese counterparts, unfailingly concludes
that Chinese philosophy far surpasses all other varieties. Both critics
and apologists have successors among younger generations of scholars in
modern China, and the confrontation, instead of petering out over the
years, has become even more heated, especially after China’s economic
take-off. Billeter cites the examples of two younger scholars. Mou
Zhongjian is today’s purist; writing in archaic Chinese in his 2005
essay, ‘The Grand Chinese Way’, he declares that Western civilization
has passed its peak, culturally as well as economically, and the
twenty-first century will be China’s. Li Dongjun, at Nankai University,
represents the new iconoclasts. In her 2004 book, The Canonization of Confucius and the Confucianist Revolution,
she argues that Confucianism as a system of representation still has a
tenacious grip on the Chinese mentality and, despite the demise of the
Empire a century ago, still leads its subjects to fulfil a ‘duty of
abnegation in favour of totality’.

 I do not believe such a stark opposition is inevitable.  It obviously exists, but a third way is also possible: respecting elements of Chinese tradition without ascending to a universalizing judgment of total superiority or inferiority v. the West.  For one, I reject the notion of a unified and coherent "West."  What West are we talking about?  British liberalism or Catholic organic collectivism?  Marx?  Nietzsche?   Secondly, the various forms of Confucianism and Taoism – and Mohism and Legalism and Yangism, etc. – do not neatly sum together to form a singular "Chinese" world view.  It is rather hard to square Han Fei Tzu and Mencius.  To be fair, the French authors seem to be focusing on Confucianism, which would not allow for a universalizing judgment about the "superiority" of either "China" or the "West."  There is more to Chinese thought than that.

    In short, while I recognize the political possibilities of philosophical study, both historically and contemporaneously, I also believe that we do not have to engage in a sort of nationalist ultimate intellectual fight to determine which side is better.  Both have their goods and bads.

    Which brings me, self-reflectively, to the politics of my own project.  I am writing a book (isn’t everyone?) on ancient Chinese thought in modern American life.  Does this project inevitably make me an apologist for Chinese despotism?  After all, I will say nice things about Confucianism and Confucianism was used to rationalize imperial state power, so….some will say that any attempt to say nice things about Confucianism now effectively rationalizes Chinese state power, ancient and contemporary. 

    Excuse me, but I just don’t buy it.  I am acutely aware of the possibilities of political cooptation.  I will not allow those possibilities to distract me from my own analysis.  Some of what I have to say might well coincide with the interests of the Chinese state; some of what I say will not.  I will write it as I see it, and let the politics work themselves out.  If some bureaucrat or politician, Chinese or American, attempts to claim my arguments for their own interests, I will press back and demonstrate where, precisely, I part company with them.

    If we were to reject any possibility of politicization of our work, then writers would write nothing.  Rather, we must write and, when confronted with political misuses of our writing, we must write more.