Confucianism and China: Past and Present

Peter K. Bol
Vice provost for Advances in Learning, Harvard University
Chinese nationalism appears to have an intimate connection with Confucianism. Bol expands on this relationship (or possible lack thereof).
03/11/2015

[@stephenyang2844]

I'm impressed by Mr. Bol's ability to read and speak Chinese and understanding of Confucianism; including the nuance associated with rituals--‘禮’。

[@stevenjob6240]

Confuciusism believed that every individual in the society should bring the greatest benefit to his own social group with least friction and the society working in an organism which every different class should do the best in its position for achieving a harmonious society.

[@annacronk8872]

Wonderful speaker! Amazing topic! Living in immigration in Canada for the last 25 years I always have been wondering: what are the common moral base for such a multicultural society? Didn't find the strong one except of: We are democracy, we are building an American dream. Easier said than done. As the society Canada doesn't have a common moral base and it's really good for people who lead as who knows where. At the moment it's still bearable. What about the future? On the other hand, China, which also has many nationalities and more than one religion is united by common philosophy. It's what each country need to be a state. And not just to have it, but to follow it. Money can't be an ideology! But first step is, certainly, is education!

[@vincentsun9575]

Good speaker on Confucianism! Peter Bol has touched on great details in Chinese politics and gave a general guideline of the future of China in terms of political and social structure.

[@mchparity]

Said spoke so much truth.

[@079605076]

Amazing Lecture! Thank you.

[@cookq]

Brilliant lecture

[@marilynmesange1610]

I enjoyed this lecture

[@commonsense6550]

Good point on how we are all raised following a set of philosophy through rituals. Confucianism (although not a religion) or Christianity, are all philosophies our society created to help organize and manage the mass for peace and harmony. As for the Chinese government, they are regarded as the guardiance of the Chinese civilizational culture and philosophies, therefore, it's good to see they are reviving Confucianism by teaching it to the younger generations. I can't think of a better way to preserve the treasures of the past.

[@srinidhi5592]

This taught me more than what my WHAP class did

[@sleepvark1]

Is ritual possibly analogous to the American notion of Due Process? I ask out of a profound sense of ignorance. In other words, is the 14th Amendment Confucianist in nature?

[@HungNguyen-qq3hi]

confucianism is one philosophy not really a religion... when we look about the good thing, positive thing... it's the best philosophy teaching how to be a good person... the best ever education!

[@zhengyangwu8289]

Professor Bol understands Confucianism better than the absolute most Chinese do, including the Chinese professors at Chinese universities. Respect!

[@commonsense6550]

There are several others who can go even deeper on Confucianism. Weiming Tu and TongDong Bai. They also have talks on youtube. It's great to see Confucianism is gaining more interest.

[@kokbenggan4795]

Very accurate understanding of Chinese culture. We were all raised following the Confucian philosophy through rituals. Worshipping our ancestors was one very important aspect of it. It's almost like a pyramid system where the lower rung must respect the level above. This applies to families and government authorities. The present government of China is not Communist but Confucian. With authority, comes responsibility. Throughout history, emperors were removed for not performing their duties. This also applies to Xi. If he fails to perform his duties of managing the country well, he'll be removed.

[@commonsense6550]

It's great to see Xi is reviving a national treasure - Confucian philosophy - by teaching it to the next generation. Chinese culture is wonderfully rich and deserves preservation. Young people today know more about Kpop than their fascinating history.

[@georgesiew2758]

I don't think that is a very accurate understanding of Confucianism. Rituals change over time and there are many Confucians who reject them as being necessary at all. In fact modern day Confucians pretty much all reject the necessity of maintaining rituals. The Confucian social hierarchy is not just some caste system written in stone. It is based on a set of principles. These principles are never stated explicitly but one can find the pattern of how these principles are applied to find what the implicit principles are. For instance the focus is on the family because that is the most basic social unit. Anything less than the family is not considered a viable social unit and hence is ignored. Above family there are levels of communities that get broader and broader. Each higher level is considered more important and a higher degree of virtue is require to recognize higher levels of community. Hence it is ethical to betray ones family to serve one's community and it is ethical to betray one's community to serve all humankind. The hierarchy is nothing more than a practical realization of this principle. Some nobility may capture this to claim that they are the highest representation of community but this is just make opportunistic use of these principles. Confucians consider the family a good and relatable starting point to teach people about the principle that the community is more important than the individual. Most people are not expected to have the level of virtue to recognize the higher levels of community that they should serve but every person no matter how petty or small is expected to understand that at the very least you needs to serve the family over the self. The government's of China can no more choose to be Confucian as a bird chooses to fly or a fish chooses to swim. Confucian Ethics is in the basic essence of how most Chinese people think and so even subconsciously it will guide every thing they do and the governments they form. So saying that the government of China is Confucian is like saying that the government of China is Chinese. However, I understand why you feel the need to clarify the label. Westerners can be easily fooled by these labels.

[@JoachimderZweite]

I found this to be a wonderful lecture and I love the idea of living according to moral principles. I can see that blacks and Mexicans would not like this lecture and I recognize it is un-Confucian of me to say that. I was never intelligent enough to go to a great institution like Harvard, also I could never afford it. Luckily for me I live in the age of YuTube so I attend in spirit.

[@truthbearer888]

So much of his point of view is from a Western intellectual perspective and having lived briefly in Taiwan, which skews his view of what Confucianism really is. Consequently, there were a number of incorrect views based on personal beliefs and false assumptions. If he truly wants to represent himself as an "expert" of Confucius teachings, I would suggest that he spend at least 20 years living amongst the people in China to gain credible experience and proper perspective.

[@carolsfoodadventures3894]

This man is wrong when he says Buddhism has the sutras to point to to determine right and wrong 12:00 . In Buddhism, at the most basic, there is not right and wrong, but beyond the idea of right and right. No right, no wrong. There is wisdom and compassion in Buddhism which you can point to in the sutras.

[@AltesBuddha]

I agree with you, Buddhism tends to use gray scale when morality is brought up. However, I believe that he was saying if you didn't know right from wrong or even how to start solving the problem of morality, Buddhism definitely has a few great places where you can start.

[@uncleanunicorn4571]

I've come to the conclusion that Confucianism indirectly contributed to the palace intrigues that confounded several later dynasties. The problem appears to be the palace eunuchs. My understanding is that they were essentially volunteers, under the assumption that - without the ability to start families they would be selfless administrators, yet clearly this was not the case. Scheming eunuchs have been at the heart of corrupt intrigues, the An-Lushan rebellion comes to mind, as an example - dooming the Tang dynasty. The very fact that the highest positions in the palace required a man to be a eunuch ensured they would embody the ruthless ambition they were supposed to eschew. If a man would go through that... for power in the palace... yikes. The problem of scheming eunuchs could have been 'neutered' if a selection of older, responsible women could have been trained as palace administrators, less likely to have the same degree of ambition, and no threat to the Emperor's harem. But this was apparently unthinkable, because classical Confucianism would relegate these women to home life exclusively.

[@georgesiew2758]

Peter Bol's take on Confucianism and China shows a large degree of misunderstanding of Confucianism and a lack of understanding of its relationship to traditional and modern Chinese socio-political thought. Below is a non-exhaustive list of some of these misunderstandings. 1) Confucianism is only one half of traditional Chinese socio-political thought. The missing Yin to Confucianism's Yang is Legalism, the other dominant traditional of Chinese thinking that is diametrically opposed to Confucianism. It is quite a feat in ignorance to give a serious talk about Chinese socio-political thought without mentioning Legalism even once. To learn Confucianism without learning anything about its diametrically opposed partner is like learn about an organism without learning anything about its environment. This will lead to having basically no understanding of how the organism actually functions. Confucianism and Legalism serve as the left and right foundation of Chinese political thought just like Conservatism and Liberalism serve as the left and the right foundations of Western thought. Just like it is impossible to understand western thought without both its halves it is similarly impossible to understand Chinese thought without both its halves. 2) Confucianism at its core is a set of social and ethical values. It is not to any significant degree an embodiment of particular rituals or symbolic practices. The fact that many manifestations of Confucianism have particular rituals tied to them is more a reflection of Chinese folk culture and its obsession with rituals and superstitious practices than any real connection of Confucianism with the specific cultural practices of the day. If one looks at Confucianism over history there have been many cataclysmic shifts in rituals or symbols and over time. None of the so called rites and rituals of Confucianism have keep from one dynastic age to another. Even the total rejection of Confucian rites and rituals during the cultural revolution is not unique in Chinese history. Such attempts to wipe away old traditions have happened many times in Chinese history. The only thing that remains of Confucianism through all the different ages of China and still remains today are the broad set of ethical and social values that are the real substance and content of Confucianism. The real reason that these things remain is not that they are a part of anyone's conscious judgement but that they are simply manifestations of how Chinese people tend to think. 3) When we look through the set of Confucian values a person without thorough experience of being brought up in the culture can miss the important persistent values that are always there in the social consciousness through the ages and the unimportant transient values that come and go with time. Each age has it's own particular ritualistic fetishes that don't translate to other ages. Peter Bol mistakes many transient fetishes with the persistent values represented by Confucianism. The Confucian Ethic is most importantly an ethic of Collectivism and Communalism. It is secondarily a learned experience about what types of social organization are most effective at maximizing communal welfare. In this way it actually doesn't have many conflicts or tensions with Communism, Socialism or Marxism. The proper understanding of how Communism took hold of China is to understand it as the most Confucian compatible western that once properly tweaked to match Chinese sensibilities won overwhelmingly the hearts and minds of the common Chinese. 4) Alternative foreign ideas such as Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Liberalism and etc... do not have significant cultural standing in Chinese socio-political thought. China even has many ideas to a similar effect internally such as Daoism and various folk religions. If you examine Chinese Buddhism or Chinese Islam which are ideas that have had a much longer history in China they have been thoroughly Sinicized to the point that no significant values contradictions exist in these ideas and the dominant Chinese culture they have adapted to. Christianity has essentially taken up the same role of rural folk superstition in China where the practitioners usually know nothing of actual Christian culture or Judeo Christian values. It has become a particularly virulent form of folk superstition because of its highly aggressive, supremacist and superstitious nature. The fact that you can pray for anything to come true appeals greatly to uneducated rural people who have been worshiping to this mountain sprite or that river deity for personal fortunes for thousands of years. Liberalism is the saddest of all with even fewer people influenced than bush folk religions. No one except those with extreme anti-social axes to grind with Chinese society at large or those with large inferiority complexes that fall in with white supremacist ideas turns to Liberalism as its ideas are so contrary to the common sense and lived experience of most Chinese. In Conclusion Peter Bol doesn't really know what he is talking about when he talks about Chinese culture or Chinese socio-political thought. He may know some historical facts but his interpretation of these facts into a philosophical framework to understand Chinese thought is deeply flawed and only serves to create misunderstanding and confusion on the subject.

[@fannybirot2362]

I agree greatly with you. Are you a Chinese? Because I have never encountered any western people who can really understand Chinese culture or Chinese anything.😅😅

[@huijunwu6646]

It's pity that even our Chinese people still misunderstand what the Confucian is today for over thousand years ,and we keep feeding the wrong material to the foreign people who study Confucian. 我們至今連《論語》都沒讀懂。

[@dgib1694]

Prof Bol displays great knowledge but little understanding

[@user-bo9ku2ch3p]

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[@algung2522]

...what a sham! A psudo-scholar on CHINESE Confucianism.

[@user-mr3cz5vt6n]

Cannot lump Confucianism with Christianity or Buddhism because lacking belief in one, all-powerful, authoritarian God, or in any mystical after- life exploration. Christianity preaches Do unto others as you would others do unto you. Confucius says Do not do to others what you don't want others do to you. Two sayings with totally different implications. Taoism is the only proven complement to Confuciusnism. Even Mao is supposed to embody both, to some degree. Communism though is a relatively recent social reaction to the spread of Christianity and no doubt will disappear when Christianity disappears. (R.I.P. Thomas Paine)

[@rosiepsong]

sigh. cheap digs at xi jinping

[@user-th8nl3ie1i]

70年代台湾，在家讲国学的应该是南怀瑾吧。

[@user-bo9ku2ch3p]

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