Ritual propriety is key to a harmonious society

As mentioned in the Preface, humans created norms, institutions and practices to help realise some social objectives. What objectives did Confucius think society should seek? What kind of society did he wish people to have? The Analects does not give us a clear picture of his ideal state although we can gather from the scattered passages that he had one in mind. There is, however, a paragraph in Li-ji that described a utopia and its decline.11 It was written by his disciples but attributed to him and probably reflected some of his ideas. It is therefore added here in my translation: When the Great Way prevails, the world is for the public; the virtuous are elected and the talented given government responsibilities; sincerity is valued and harmony cultivated. People do not love only their own seniors and care for their own young; they make sure that the old have provision for their declining years, those in their prime have employment, the youth have means to grow up with, and the unfortunate – the widower, the widow, the orphan, the childless, the disabled and the sick – have maintenance. Men will have their work, women their homes. One hates to see goods being discarded but does not necessarily want to keep them for one’s own possession; one hates to see one’s strength not being put to good use but does not necessarily want it to be used for one’s own benefit. That is why plots against others do not arise; robbery and theft, violence and mayhem do not occur; and outer doors of buildings are left unclosed. This is called da-tong (大同 the Great Harmony, Grand Union). What a beautiful state! In it every person is apparently equal, entitled to have a share of the resources and a responsibility to use his ability in helping others. It is altruistic, compassionate, peaceful and harmonious. It is not made clear when this state existed but, anyway, at some later time it vanished. The paragraph continues: Now the Great Way is in hiding. Everyone in the world is for his family – loving only one’s own relatives, caring only for one’s own children and gathering goods and using strength only for one’s own benefit. Great lords turn it into a practice to transmit their posts to their descendants. People build walls and moats to secure cities and towns; adopt rites and laws to regulate relationships between ruler and subjects, father and son, elder and younger brothers, husband and wife; establish institutions and create landownership; value the clever and the brave; and make efforts only for their own advancements. Thus, plots and schemes take place and armed conflicts arise. Yu, Tang, Wen, Wu, King Cheng and Duke Zhou were the best from this situation. These six noble men were careful about the rites. They demonstrated their own righteousness, proved their own sincerity, exposed their own mistakes, used the benevolent as their models, and stressed their modesty and humility, all to show the people the constant, correct course. They dispatched anyone who deviated from it, even one in a position of power, and the masses would regard him as an evil. This situation is called xiao-kang (小康, small welfare, moderate prosperity) When did the Way go into hiding? A hint is in the sentence “Great lords turn it into a practice to transmit their posts to their descendants.” In Chinese history the first hereditary political dynasty was established by Yu. So perhaps the writer of this paragraph thought the Way disappeared after Yu? After that, the ideal state was lost. In its place came a world of self-centred souls. Among them, six rulers, including Yu, were the best. They tried hard to make themselves worthy models for the people and to keep the state in order. They did not quite succeed, so they made rules and punished those who deviated. As long as there were these good rulers, the situation was relatively tolerable but, of course, the other rulers were far less qualified and hence the miserable situation since Confucius’s time. The crucial difference between the two states are wei-gong (為公 for the public) or wei-jia (為家 for the family). But is the kind of altruism described here possible? The Ruists would argue that, because human nature is malleable, by proper education people can be made less solipsistic and the world more tolerable. It will be especially effective if those in power could be less greedy and more willing to share with the people what they have. As Confucius said, it is not scarcity but inequitable distribution that one should worry about and, if what the people need is adequately met, how can those in the government feel inadequate? To sum up, Confucius lived in a difficult time, faced a troublesome situation and took upon himself a Herculean task to try to change it. We have only scant record of his actual work and practical suggestions. The Analects shows mainly that he constructed a theory which could justify civilisation and, indeed, life itself. He was to find a new basis for social authority and norms. He shifted people’s focus of attention from Heaven to the real world, from gods and spirits to humanity, from the unknowable to the more comprehensible. He insisted that humans were, to certain extent, capable of influencing the outcome of the events in which they were involved and should try to do so. He was aware that the outcome was often unpredictable and he had to tell people how to understand and endure the failure of their efforts. His position was quite scientific but, for that very reason, not easy for people intuitively to grasp. His greatest contribution to jurisprudence was to make common human nature, experience and aspirations, instead of the will of a superbeing, the bases of social norms. He thus held ren – the right way for a human being to treat another human being – as the primary social norm. To make ren less general and abstract, he listed a set of more specific and concrete norms that were to implement this primary norm. According to their effectiveness for this purpose, these secondary norms formed a hierarchy with moral precepts at the top, followed by the rites and the law. He placed particular emphasis on the rites as rules of propriety because they were more concrete than morality and less rigid than law. More importantly, they could make people unconsciously form certain behaviour patterns that were in conformity with ren.