Summer has distracted me…  Nothing really big; just a series of small trips and activities: a couple of days at the beach in Rhode Island; a quick jaunt to New York; a new garden pond in the back yard… all combined to keep me away from blogging….  Maybe I'm back now – though maybe not, since the new semester is surprisingly close…

In any event, in the last few days I have seen a couple of pieces on the Confucian revival in China and I wanted to comment on them.

First up is a report (pdf) from the US – China Economic and Security Review Commission, an organization established and overseen by the US Congress: "The Confucian Revival in the Propaganda Narratives of the Chinese Government." As the title suggests, it takes a decidedly top-down approach, analyzing the resuscitation of Confucianism from the perspective of central power holders who seek to manipulate cultural currents to serve political ends.  It has a useful review of certain such manipulations: the infamous Olympic opening ceremony; the big movie block-buster; and, one of my all time favorites, the "eight honors and eight disgraces".

A rather different point of view is offered by Sébastien Billioud.  Steve Angle, over at Warp, Weft and Way, gives a shout out to one of Billioud's most recent articles, which, alas, does not appear to be available on line.  I have read some of his other work, and it is quite interesting – and, happily, here is an on-line sample from this past January (it was written before the Confucius statue was taken down, but the analysis is still quite good).  Billioud emphasizes the multiple expressions of the Confucian revival, especially at the level of society, not the state.  He does not deny the propagada uses of Confucianism, but would stress that the broad array of cultural resources that might be labeled "Confucian" are interpreted and employed in a wide variety of ways by many different sorts of social actors.

Billioud is  the more intellectually engaging and, while I agree that the Party certainly does try to direct and coopt the Confucian message, I find this point very well taken:

Even though Chinese authorities now largely refer to traditional culture in the context of their cultural policy or symbolically associate traditional culture with the image of China that they want to promote, there is no evidence of any important or precise function that they would intend to ascribe to Confucianism. Apart from their episodic support of a few specific activities – for example when the Ministry of culture supports a local project to celebrate one of the tutelary figures of Chinese civilization – the main contribution of the central authorities to the current “Confucian fever” mainly lies, so far, in its relative toleration vis-à-vis grassroots initiatives.

In other words, the Party leadership is not composed of Confucian gentlemen.  They really don't care all that much about Confucianism per se.  And the most important role they may play in whatever forms Confucianism may take in contemporary China, is to simply let things unfold at local levels. 

But a clash seems inevitable.  For if Billioud is right, and there are various local appropriations of Confucianism, then a clash with power is unavoidable.  Events like the Sichuan earthquake of 2008 and the recent Wenzhou train crash, when the state represses information and covers up, could easily motivate Confucian-esque demands for the truth, especially when parents seek basic information and justice for lost children.  At moments like these, which seem all too regular now, Confucianism stands on the side of citizens against the state; and we can assume that the state will repress Confucian-inspired social movements just like any other.

Power holders have always had trouble with Confucianism, which can authorize righteous protest and dissent; and that historical trouble is certainly a contemporary possibility.