Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
Do you think that these ideas are really undercurrents in Chinese history that keep resurfacing, reflecting periods of unity and chaos in the Chinese state?
I think that’s right. The 1st Emperor, Qin Shi Huang Di, who unified China, buried the Confucians alive with their books. His slogan was "A rich country and a strong military”. The 20th century was similar, and Mao himself was inspired more by the first Emperor and the Legalists, than the Confucians. When China is in a period of chaos and when it is weak and bullied and at odds with itself then the Legalist ideas become more important. But when China is more stable and wealthy and doesn’t have to worry so much about being bullied then the soft power of Confucianism becomes more influential. That happened earlier and I think it might help to explain the slow revival of Confucianism now.
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Daniel Bell, Professor of philosophy at China’s Tsinghua University explains that Confucius himself was pretty much a political failure…His most influential interpreter was Mencius, one hundred years later. And he too was pretty much a failure in terms of political influence. It’s only in the Han dynasty, about five hundred years after Confucius’ time, that Confucianism became the official state ideology.
