Confucianism

Topics

❖ Status of "[romantic] love" within Confucian ideals and practices

About the topics of this session

Besides the below thoughts, please note the extended discussion on the Course Basics page.

Confucianism is often the most overt value system informing the cultural world of the premodern texts we read. There are various things we need to keep in mind.

Confucianism as it was practiced preserved a clear demarcation between men and women and the woman's compromised position within the system as practiced. When reading premodern texts, we cannot forget this basic assumption that was embraced by writers and readers and the narrative characters whose actions and reasoning they visualize. This doesn't create a great deal of difference in narratives among the three countries we study in their traditional forms, but is one of the clear measures of change in these countries.

We also discuss the Confucian commitment to orderliness (both as a cosmology and an ethics) including the necessity of submitting to hierarchies and embracing one's social role. This is huge in terms of the balance between the individual and society, obviously, but it is also part of what makes romantic love suspect, since it is inherently disorderly and not in service to the good of the community.

This lecture is primarily built around the basic ethical principles of Confucianism: the importance of ren (仁—benevolence, humaneness towards others; the highest Confucian virtue), xiao (孝—love within the family: love of parents for their children and of children for their parents), zhong (忠—loyalty), xin (信—honesty and trustworthiness, faithfulness), li (禮・礼—ritual, propriety) and yi (義—duty, righteousness) as frameworks for thinking about "love" within the Confucian framework. I note that marriage without love in a strict Christian position is not considered a full marriage but that in Confucianism, while love is welcome between husband and wife, in theory if they fulfill their roles properly there can be a functioning family unit without it. I argue that xiao is seen as more essential and powerful than romantic love between a man and a woman but that there is, in fact, some xiao in the structure of romantic love itself.

Required or suggested to be completed for today's session

Daoism is in many ways in the most deeply embedded into East Asian cultures of the systems we consider. Since it works almost invisibly we need to remind ourselves to keep it in mind. In contrast, Confucianism is "in our face" — it is always relevant to our romantic narratives, whether premodern or modern, because among Daoism, Buddhism and Confucianism it is Confucianism that is most active in "values" (what should be done, what can be rightly expected of others, social norms) and this context is crucial for judging the depth, quality, reliability, and so forth of the love one is being offered or the love one wants to show to another. I suggest you spend some time with this system, thinking about its components and what they mean to the goals, themes and topics of this course.

✓ REQUIRED: Course page sidebar tab: "Course Basics > Confucianism", including the extended comments on the term "loyalty".

✓ REQUIRED (short and illustrated a lecture point well): Qing legal code excerpts (punishments for sex offenses) (bSpace, PDF) *The Qing dynasty places this text around the time of our Story of the Stone (17th c. or later)

✓ SUGGESTED (because "the state" is very often strongly present in Chinese narratives, and to a somewhat less degree Korean narratives): Ren is not really the most relevant term to us, except for two things: It is usually placed as the primary virtue of the Confucian virtues (permeating the others) and this sort of humanness / magnanimous love sometimes is the "grounded" or "good" or "wise" or "reliable / hoped for" love in our narratives. I selected the below article for its discussion of ren and how it links ren to "love of state (government)" which we do see over and over in Chinese narratives. It can be read for its basic ides. I've listed the segments to be read. You can find them as bookmarks.

Love and the State in Plato and Confucius (bSpace, PDF), these segments —

• The Moral Function of Love (for the weight it places on "the state")
• Love in Ancient China and Confucian Love (for a discussion of ren, BUT beware the running fallacy of this article that has as a formula ren (Chinese) = eros (Greek) = love (English). This blurs the distinctions horribly.
• The Common Good as the Goal of Morality (again, the importance of the state)

✓ STRONGLY SUGGESTED (short and to the point): As review, or another way of consolidating your knowledge of Confucian values — This one page PDF compares the four values of Aristotle we covered (eros, philia, agape, nomos) with Confucian values. It was made by a student and was the best of the submissions for that exercise. Aristotle-Confucius by ST Spring 2012 (bSpace, PDF)

✓ SUGGESTED (just randomly interesting): A Student's note on Xiao in Singapore (bSpace, rtf)

*UNDER CONSTRUCTION: If this red font phrase underneath the session title has not been erased it means something on this page is incomplete. Perhaps I want to recheck information or perhaps I haven't converted the page from the version of the previous class. It is available but should be taken dubiously.

*ABOUT THIS SESSION: My hope is that you look at this portion BEFORE a session. If there is content here it might help you focus on the main points of the day. However, I add various things here at various times. When I feel I haven't succeeded in class stating something clearly, I might restate it here. Of if it is a difficult concept in might be given in written form here. I will assume that you have read and rechecked for changes this session in preparation for any midterm or test.