“It is not entirely fanciful to surmise that the Chinese Communist Party will be relabeled the Chinese Confucian Party in the next couple of decades.”
That is possible although not probable within the stated time frame, said with a hearty chuckle. Sima Qian had already mentioned during his time that when the Chinese are wealthy, they have the leisure to think about culture.
“I would not want the current Confucian revival in China to produce a “Mao as Confucian Gentleman” narrative.”
If Mao is heralded as a Junzi, it also possible that both Confucius and Mencius would turn in their graves!
“Think of all those Chinese women who would ask if a “Chinese Confucian Party” was going to return to the historical subordination of women?”
If a Chinese Confucian Party is really formed, the wealthy and the learned of which quite a number now are women will be invited to be members. Times have changed for the better, no?

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Hi Sam,
First off, great blog. I’ve only started to read it and am enjoying it immensely. It’s great to see some discussion of ancient Chinese philosophy and its application to the modern world.
But in reading your most recent posts, I’m dismayed by your constant bashing of the ancient Legalists. The final straw has to be your comment about pegging Mao as a Legalist. Chairman Mao was an arch-Marxist-Leninist, an adherent of a foreign western religion and political tradition that is completely alien to China. Just because Mao admired the First Emperor and his works, doesn’t make him a Legalist, besides the First Emperor himself was a never a true Legalist (if he was, his empire would not have fallen and his dynasty exstinguished).
Also, the School of Law was never one ideology, political movement, or philosophy. It didn’t have a body of followers like the Confucians and Mohists and no dogma or set of precepts that had to be followed like Marxists, Christians, Muslims. Indeed, both Han Fei and Li Ssu were educated by Hsun Tsu, a hard-right Confucian.
In fact, I’d dispute whether Legalism in the state of Qin was all that more totalitarian than your average first world country today, and maybe a good deal less so. Your average prosperous country today has taxation bureaus, a national army, courts, police, vast databases holding income, health, education information. An in countries like the UK, there are cameras on every street corner.
Another non-totalitarian aspect of Qin could be the famous ‘mutual responsibility’ units of 5 and 10 set up by Lord Shang in Qin. It was actually of copy of similiar organizations from his native state of Wei. These units were a good way to reduce the need for a constabulary or police force, if everyone denounced criminals within there midst, there wouldn’t be a need for a ‘police state’.
Also, one of the highest goals of Legalism was to end all punishment. Contradictory? Not at all if you’re a Taoist. ‘Use punishment to end punishment’ is the highest Legalist goal. If everyone obeyed the law, there would never be a need for punishment. “Dont’ want to do the time, don’t do the crime” as the saying goes.
And finally, another example of your Legalist bashing comes from a previous post. Sorry I didn’t do it earlier, but your equating the Burmese junta to the Legalists is simply outlandish. Legalists would never tolerate such incompetence, the whole lot of these generals and their families would simply be liquidated as punishment and encouragement to do better !!!

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Simon:
There are some points in you posts I could not agree even more:
1. The so-called Totalitarianism and Oriential despotism are in itself western concepts justifying Western colonial and imperialistic expansion, first against Middle Eastern countries ( crusade complex ) and then against East Asians ( Christian Missionary Complex ). Actually, Marx himself could arguably a apologist for the British imperialism. ( Read his commentary about the Opium War, of course, he and his associates indirectly benefit from the opium trad ). It is a historical irony that China adopted his ideology as a tool of mobilization agaisnt imperialism. My guess is that once China get stronger and feel more secure, We Chinese could afford to gradually disvest this imported idology without causing a disruptacny of the sovereign state, unlike these Russians did to their regime and country;
2. Sam’s equating the Burmese junta to the Legalists is not “simply outlandish”, it is just simply an honest Western intellectual biaes. ( Burma junta is oriental, isn’t it, therefore, totalitarian. Legalist is oriental and totalitarian, therefore they are, too, totalitarian.) Forget there that Burma is not even a completely unified country, with ethnic tribal drug lords are still running their turfs. I don’t have a CIA reports stating that these generals and their families have ever studied in Beijing majoring in Pre-Qin philosophy. If they did, they should get a resounding F minus by their tutors.
There are some points I could not agree with you:
3. “Yi xing qu xing” ( the so-called “high goals of legalism to end all punishment”) is nothing but a utopic slogan. Actually, according the time honored tradition of Chinese empires, it is the synergy of Ru and Fa that could run a country. Usually the first emperor uses hash rule to unified the country, then the second and third generations relax the rules to make the country prosper vie Confucianism but unfortuately, corruption would be the side effect of Confucianism and some of restoration must ensure.
4. Mao picked up the china pieces and he can’t be that bad according to whatever yardsticks. He is of course a much blamed vallian by the western standards for understandable reasons. How the 500 nations of native Americans, the Africans, the Middle Easterners are envying China for her good luck for having Mao. At least Chinese should know better.

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That is actually why I would hope that they would adopt it as a national narrative, despite my misgivings about handling it as such. Say what you will about Confucianism on the outside and legalism on the inside, the old government was very progressive for its time. The problem is that it hit the same sort of wall that the US Constitution is hitting now, in that what constituted “awesome” back in the day (whenever that was) ain’t gonna cut it now (whenever that is). As a sociologist, I would hope that you would feel the same (though I would more than gladly revise my position if you didn’t).
Under Legalism, a ruler can execute many people to get his jubblies and make it seem like all is well. Under Confucianism, a ruler is forced to correct themselves. Whether or not one adopts a democratic/populist or non-democratic/leadership-for-the-people model (where we do and will disagree, and I have yet to be convinced as to the virtue of your side though I’d love to be) Legalism leads towards base abuse of the system whereas Confucianism leads towards conformity within the system.
Sure, both can screw the average Zhou over. But at least the Confucian system does it reliably. It doesn’t matter what the local laws are — if I can’t pee in public without getting caned, so be it. At least I know that if I am peeing in public, chances are I’ll feel the rod. That is distinct from leaving your house on Tuesday morning at 9:32 AM and getting arrested, jailed, and executed because that particular minute on that particular day was illegal due to the whims of the rulers.
Clearly a middle ground exists. I think the PRC has been OK at finding that, and I think if they adopt Confucianism as a means of nationalistic rhetoric, they will become even better. Mencius will certainly roll in his grave, but Confucius? I’ve always suspected that Xunzi had a better hold on the Master than Mencius.
I like Mencius better m’self, but living in the west, who am I to judge?

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