Confucian piety and individualism in Han China.

• Author: Nylan, Michael

Not ideas, but material and ideal interests, directly govern men's conduct. Yet very frequently ... "ideas" have, like switchmen, determined the tracks along which action has been pushed by the dynamic of interest.

Max Weber, The Social Psychology of World Religions

When historians discuss the collapse of Eastern Han rule, they typically analyze it in negative terms that closely mirror the arguments found in the Chinese dynastic histories for the period. They speak of a "failure of Confucian ethics," arguing that the decline of Han occurred when too many political elites (specifically, the wai-ch'i, the eunuchs, and the military) came to have little or no interest in maintaining the Confucian form of government promoted by the scholar-officials. But when the historians (often the same historians) turn to the following Wei-Chin period (A.D. 220-420), a time of political disunion, they tend to characterize it in positive terms that imply a comparison with the early modern European and American experience. Writing of the "growth of individualism," they seem to envision a dramatic liberation from the most restrictive aspects of Confucian hierarchy and ritual prevailing in the Han.

Both historical assessments may well be flawed. First, the collapse of Eastern Han government may just as plausibly be ascribed to the overwhelming success of the Confucian ethic, rather than to its failure. Specifically, a steady expansion in the parameters of meaning for the two key virtue-words pertaining to political life (hsiao, 'filial piety' and jang 'abdication' or 'renunciation') had, by the middle of the Eastern Han period, so confused definitions of social duty as to threaten both social conventions and the bureaucratic machinery of state. While this confusion in social duties inevitably opened a greater variety of choices to individual members of the shih elite, the language of "individualism" is inappropriate to describe the situation, for community membership, political participation, and the experience of personal identity were mutually defining terms in early China.(1) Available evidence suggests that certain aspects of Wei-Chin behavior that seem to "ape" individualistic expression served, in fact, as extremely conventionalized class markers for an elite steeped in Confucian values. Furthermore, most of the behavioral "styles" associated with Wei-Chin "individualism" began long before the end of Eastern Han and continued through the succeeding period of disunion. An examination of patron-client relations for the period supports the foregoing observations.

The discussion of Han Confucianism, which occupies the bulk of this paper, addresses four principal topics: (1) the government promotion of the two Confucian political virtues of hsiao and jang; (2) the expanded definition of the term hsiao, by which the father-son relation became paradigm for a wide variety of superior-inferior relations, especially (but not exclusively) in bureaucratic circles; (3) the expanded definition of the term jang, which opened the door to all manner of excessive behavior (kuo-li), often of an exhibitionistic or eccentric type; and (4) the resultant confusion among members of the political elite. Proof of the negative consequences attending the remarkable success of the Confucian ethic, however, necessarily entails a brief sketch of pre-Han philosophy designed to establish the direct association of hsiao and jang with the legendary sage-kings Shun and Yao, who figured as the chief paragons for the "political way" of the Ju.(2)

Evidence for the Han and the pre-Han sections of this paper comes from many sources, but the best source for late Han elite values is the Feng-su t'ung-yi (FSTY) of Ying Shao (ca. A.D. 203). The received text of the FSTY, with ten chapters remaining out of an original thirty-one, devotes no fewer than four of the ten chapters (nos. 3, 4, 5, and 7) to a consideration of conflicting Confucian priorities as they pertain to the question of patronage. For the Wei-Ch'in period, the main primary source used is the Shih-shuo hsin-yu (SSHY) of Liu Yi-ch'ing (403-44), in part because that is the chief text usually cited as "proof" of Wei-Chin individualism. Passing reference, however, will also be made to Wei-Chin painting and poetry, though I claim no expertise in either of these areas.

1. PRE-HAN BACKGROUND TO THE CONFUCIAN VIRTUE HSIAO

   The inclusion of hsiao, a term originally associated with ancestor worship and later with duty to living parents, in the roster of key Chinese virtues long predates Confucius (551-479 B.C.), let alone institutional Confucianism. Many modern scholars (e.g., Schwartz) have identified family devotion as one of the main organizing principles of archaic and ancient Chinese society.(3)

   Still, the Analects clearly shows that Confucius regarded filial piety as the psychological basis for Goodness (jen), rather than the culmination of the long process of cultivating Goodness. Sometime after Confucius, possibly under the influence of Tseng-tzu (505-436 B.C.) and Mencius (372-289 B.C.),(4) hsiao took on an added importance among certain groups of Ju,(5) so that acts of filial piety became not only the basis for Goodness, but also its supreme expression. This shift in the function of hsiao, which took place sometime during the late Warring States period, inevitably produced a related shift in Confucian philosophizing about family and state: an increasing number of "Confucian" (i.e., Ju)(6) texts tried to make public service an integral component of filial piety.

   It is now all but impossible to retrace the separate steps by which the Ju, who had at first not only denied the identity of family and state, but also called for family duty to take precedence over patriotism, came to equate duty to family with duty to state. We may speculate that the Ju, in a calculated move that was both defensive and offensive in nature, borrowed certain key notions from rival contemporary thinkers to enhance their philosophical and political standing. In order to prove themselves worthy of government patronage as key defenders of the state's interest, the Ju, for example, had to demonstrate that the fierce quality of their loyalty to the family could be transferred to the state; they also needed to resolve any potential conflicts of interest between family and state.(7) In the extant Mencius, we see, then, the first halting step taken in the process whereby filial piety and patriotism are conflated, for Mencius uses the example of the sage-king Shun to illustrate the many benefits to family that accrue from office-holding: office-holding perpetuates the family name, it provides financial support for the family, it lends dignity to the family. Still, the Mencius reveals the discomfort that many Ju continued to feel when confronted with the potential for conflicts between family and state interests; their anxiety on this point was evident from the host of questions put to Mencius about different aspects of the Shun legend.(8)

   Meanwhile, this increased emphasis on hsiao caused the Ju to be attacked as unrepentant conservatives by thinkers who would later, in Han times, be associated with the Mohist, Legalist, and Taoist "schools." The attacks came from many different angles. The followers of Mo-tzu (?480-?390 B.C.) argued that the Ju expended far too much money and energy on lavish burials for their parents. Such vast outlays of cash not only impoverished society but also physically weakened the descendants in mourning.(9) Master Han Fei (?280-233 B.C.) levelled an equally harsh criticism against the Ju preoccupation with filial piety, which Han Fei identified as treasonous. All family interests are inherently "selfish" (szu), Han Fei reasoned, insofar as they tend to undermine the interests of the state, which by definition promotes the "public interest" (kung). To prove the justice of his charge, Han Fei employed the following apocryphal tale:

   There was a man of Lu who accompanied his ruler to war. Three times he went into battle and three times he ran away. When Confucius asked him the reason, he replied, "I have an aged father of whom I am the sole support." Confucius... recommended the man [for office].... Thus we see that a filial son may be a traitorous subject.(10)

   From the centralizing state's point of view, as Han Fei showed, the Ju surely exhibited one crucial flaw: the old Ju traditions required the filial son to ignore the state's claims on his person if those claims conflicted with his duty to his parents.(11) Han Fei described as a villainous plot concocted by Ju the attempt to construct a false analogy between the father-son and ruler-subject relations that would appear to "resolve" the very real conflict between family and state. Han Fei argued: "Now if ruler and subject must imitate the father-son relation before there can be order, then we must suppose that there are no such things as an unruly father or son."(12) In an unconscious reformulation of Han Fei's basic arguments, Nathan Sivin has written,

   The teachings of Confucius made faithful service to the ruler the highest career aim of the class who might qualify. But neither they nor the views of his successors could resolve the abiding tension between the obligations to serve the interest of the state, personified in its lord, and to preserve and enhance the status of one's own family and ancestral line.(13)

   Certainly many thinkers in Warring States and early Western Han were troubled by the conflicting claims of filial piety and patriotism, for the claims appeared to be not only of roughly equal weight (a fact that made them difficult to prioritize), but also irreconcilable in certain cases.(14) An entry in the Kuo yu (late 4th c. B.C.?) accordingly suggests both the widespread recognition of this conflict between family and state, and the urge to resolve it. In the anecdote, two noble brothers, Yun Hai and the Duke of Yun, quarrel over the...