The third type of a moral or civilizational
strategy I call the Confucian model. This Confucian model is not a dual model,
as is the Brahman model. The Confucian model calls for only one elite, and an
informal one at that. This elite is one of gentlemen, and what makes a gentleman
is a state of mind, a noble state of mind. In the Brahmanic model, people who
have clean hands absolve and guide those who have dirtier hands. A Confucian
model places both ruler and ruled in civilized roles.
Confucius
tried to improve society by developing and codifying civilized roles and role
patterns. The main role is that of the gentleman, Khun-Tzu, the noble man, at home in the world, although he knows
that the world is quite barbaric. He is a good host to his fellow humans. His
main virtue is Jen: gentleness, humanity. A ‘nobleman’ is someone who cares,
someone of ‘good will’, someone who thinks that trying to lead a good life
makes a difference. A ‘common man’ in this sense is someone who lacks this conviction
or this feeling, even without being of ill will. A ‘common man’ regards all
this attention to gentleness and humanity as unimportant or even an illusion.
Confucius
suggests to us how we may become noble. He gives precepts for how to behave
like a noble person. Some precepts, such as the principle of the golden mean,
are similar to the precepts of Aristotle. A noble person is neither cowardly
nor rash, neither avaricious nor wasteful. A noble person strikes a balance
between two extremes. A Confucian strategy gives responsible people a feasible
model that fosters the ennoblement of the community and its citizens.
An
excellent introduction to Confucianism is in Huston Smith’s The Religions of Man. One quotation:
‘Goodness, the gentleman,
propriety, government by virtue, and the arts of peace - such were the values
to which Confucius had given his heart. His entire life was lived under their
spell. They then, together, were to comprise the content of deliberate
tradition. Held before the individual from birth to death, they would furnish
that ‘habitual vision of greatness’ which Whitehead has called the essence of
all true education.’
Confucius formulated doctrines about
right relationships between people, e.g., the right relationship between man
and woman. His ideas on this subject are nearer to those of St. Paul than to
those of modern feminists, but of course the content of such precepts is bound
by time and culture. When Mohammed prescribed four wives as the maximum, he was
only improving dramatically on existing conditions. For us here, the content of
Confucius’ precepts is not important. Today he might have formulated the right
behavior for people ‘living apart together’, the right relations between a
homosexual minority and a heterosexual majority, the right approach to illegal
immigrants, and so on.
Confucius
showed the possibility of practical and efficient social systems and
government, systems not based on egotism and exploitation, and being neither
crude nor cruel. Aristotle held similar ideas. He compared a statesman who
produces an orderly society to a potter who produces a good pot.
A
basic consideration of Confucius, again as with Aristotle, is the relationship
between rights and duties, between privileged positions and social responsibilities.
Here too, Confucius believed that a balance should exist. Confucius strove for
a society that would exist somewhere between tyrannical order and anarchistic
chaos or, in Schiller’s terms, between Barbarei
and Wildheit. Confucius wanted order, but he wanted it to be a human order.
His is the saying: ‘A tyrannical regime is worse than a devouring tiger’.
Charles Darwin wrote that the Chinese civilization is more of a model than any
of the other world civilizations.
A
Confucian strategy designs a social architecture of institutions and role
patterns and gives these institutions and role patterns cultural or even spiritual
significance. It humanizes by making roles and institutions more humane, and
making them vessels of self-respect. The traditional sectors of our own society
are already familiar with such ideas as ‘good government’, ‘a good housefather’,
‘good seamanship’ and ‘good business practice’. These ideas are part of the
Confucian world of responsible, prudent people who consider one another not as
individuals, but as good citizens who care about quality and civilization.
Confucian
models imply stable relationships. Predictability is both a benefit and a cost
in systems that strive for structural harmony. Because the Chinese state became
strongly bureaucratic over the centuries, Confucianism became associated with
bureaucracy. But the Confucian model is not bureaucratic.
Dutch
sailing regulations include the statement that the captain of a ship has to do
everything according to good seamanship, even in unregulated situations, even
if good seamanship were to contradict these regulations. In the same sense, it
is legitimate in war to do some illegitimate things. According to some, the
same holds in love - hardly a Confucian activity since the eighteenth century.
The
Confucian approach to good government is also relevant for large organizations:
a good employee policy, a good organizational structure, systematic attention
to quality, and the fostering of self-respect and mutual respect. We find
satisfaction in making things go well, in getting things done well. Everyone is
saturated with norms and values. The street cleaner, the film director, and the
attendant in the ticket window, all have their codes of honor and self-respect.
For small organizations and temporary work settings the Confucian approach is
less relevant, because particular circumstances, personal peculiarities and
personal relations play a larger role.
A
Confucian approach to civilization, of course, is not limited to Confucius. I
have already mentioned Aristotle. The classic Romans knew humanitas:
tenderness, tact, openness for people and for circumstances, a sense of joy and
festivity. The Middle Ages maintained the idea of chivalry. In all these cases
male values were tempered by female values, without abandoning the male values.
The Provençal troubadours were the priests of this new doctrine of knights:
strong, reliable, noble men, ‘leaders of men in war and peace’, courting noble
women.
Interestingly, medieval lore acknowledges,
be it reluctantly, that even base people and scoundrels may be loftily disposed.
So we may include Robin Hood and - never forget - Maid Marian, as our role
models.
If
ever we forget history, future psychologists will explain Richard Lionheart and
Eleanor of Aquitania and their ilk as archetypes within the human soul. These
psychologists would be only half wrong. Maybe all that would remain of this
lore would then be Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, possibly in the guise of Roger
Moore.
The
humanists of the early sixteenth century rediscovered not only dusty books, but
also the spirit within those books - the classical civilization. From the
French humanists came the idea of the honnête homme, the honest man, and then
the gentilhomme, the gentleman. This man was strong, decisive, not to be fooled
around with, robust, able to stand the barbarians around him, while correct, reasonable,
caring, and cultured.
In
each case, the essence boils down to the same: a friendly, caring, civilized
but strong and competent host to others, in an unfriendly, barbaric and
dangerous world. Still, the gentleman feels at home in the world, and makes others
feel at home as well. In this sense the Confucian world, with all its deference
to religion, is more humanistic than religious. It judges religion for what
religion does here, how it makes people at home here. Machiavelli would say
that a good religion entails good institutions, good institutions entail good
habits, and good habits lead to prosperity and success in all things.
From: The Ten Global Challenges: How People Make the World. An Essay on Politics, Civilization and Humanity. Ordering the book
