CORE VALUES IN CONFUCIAN THOUGHT

Tu Wei-ming

Mr. Ho Kah Leong:  Good evening, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. This is the fourth public lecture organized by the Singapore government in connection with the proposed teaching of Confucian ethics in our schools. You will recall that the Honourable Minister of Education, Dr Goh Keng Swee, announced in the press in February that Confucian ethics would be offered as one of the six optional subjects under Religious Knowledge for Secondary 3 and Secondary 4 students.  Although there are many books on Confucianism, there is no single volume suitable for use as a textbook.  Therefore, we are relying on the expertise of Confucian scholars at home and abroad.  These scholars will help us to draw up a conceptual framework from which a relevant syllabus will be developed and from which textbooks will eventually be produced.

Our guest speaker this evening is one of the Confucian scholars from the United States, Professor Tu Wei-ming.  Professor Tu was born in 1940.  He attended Tunghai University in Taiwan, where he received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Chinese Studies in 1961.  He then went to Harvard University, where he received his Ph.D. in History and East Asian Languages. 

Dr Tu is Professor of Chinese History and Philosophy at Harvard University, a post he has held since 1981. Prior to this, he was Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Professor of History at the University of California at Berkeley. He attained the rank of full professor in a matter of nine years. Before this, he was an assistant professor at Princeton University. It is clear that Professor Tu has been associated with some of the best institutions of higher learning in the United States. For a young scholar (Professor Tu is now forty- two), his list of publications, books and journal articles is very impressive, although too long for me to read out here. He is also recognized as one of the foremost authorities on Neo-Confucianism, especially on the life and thought of the Ming dynasty scholar and thinker, Wang Yang-ming.

We note that Profesor Tu's choice of political belief is humanistic socialism; his choice of religion, Confucianism. Like the typical traditional Chinese scholar, he is Confucian all the way through in his political choice and religious beliefs. He has said of himself, "To me, the study of the Confucian tradition in East Asia is not only the academic commitment of a professional intellectual historian, but also the personal quest of a reflective human being. " This is a noble endeavour .

Tu Wei-ming:  Friends, I am greatly honoured to be here, to share with you some of my still quite tentative ideas about Confucian values.  Professor Yu has already given you a comprehensive presentation of Confucius' life and times and some of the major issues in Confucian philosophy.  My task is to take his observations as a point of departure and to focus on what I believe to be the core values of the Confucian tradition throughout the ages.

A main concern of Confucianism is how we learn to be human. Confucian thought takes a humanistic orientation and advocates a humanistic way of life.  We are, of course, all human beings, but even so, we must still consciously learn to be human. This is a highly complex process which involves commitment, continuous effort and a holistic approach. I will briefly discuss each of these three areas.

To begin, Confucian teaching holds that learning to be human does not simply happen by itself. It involves a personal decision and commitment. Without such conscious effort, we are human beings in a limited sense only, for we are unable to realize our full human potential.  Therefore, we must commit ourselves to the moral and spiritual process of learning to be human in order to begin the lifelong task of becoming fully human.

Secondly, this learning process is continuous. It cannot be conceived of as a project or program that can be completed in a limited time frame. In fact, many Confucians contend that the process of learning to be human is unceasing.

Thirdly, the process is holistic. Learning to be human is not simply learning the skills of a particular profession or becoming proficient in one specific task. We know well that becoming a musician or an artist involves more than the acquisition of good technique. The cultivation of musical talent or artistic sense entails the refinement of personality as well. By analogy, learning to be fully human requires a total transformation of the personality in the ethical and religious sense.

In the original formulation of this central concern in classical Confucian philosophy, Confucius defined authentic learning as "learning for the sake of the self."  What do we mean by learning for the self?  On the surface, it sounds like subjective idealism or radical individualism, but in actuality the Confucian emphasis on community is diametrically opposed to individualism as we often understand the term. Confucianism conceives of the self neither as an isolated atom nor as a single, separate individuality, but as a being in relationship.   (Indeed, it could be said that a self lacking any interaction with others is unimaginable.)  Each relationship contributes to the development and overall constitution of the self. The self, in this sense, is the sum of its relationships.   At the same time, it is conceived of as a center of relationships, which is not reducible to the relationships themselves.

As a center of relationships, the self develops continuously. It is not a closed system.  Instead, it is always open to other dimensions of human experience and human-relatedness.  In this sense, the self as a centre of relationships involves an ever-expanding process in an ever-growing network of human-relatedness.  Therefore, we must distinguish self-centredness or selfishness from the true process of self-realization. To truly realize ourselves, we must go beyond our selfishness and self-centredness.

To become fully human, the self must enter into continuous dialogue with others within the structures of human relationships.  Overcoming self-centredness requires that we continuously interact with the members of our family:  our father, mother, brothers and sisters.  The family is seen as an enriching and nourishing support system, a vehicle for the true realization of the self in its centre.  The self, in turn, must develop in its various roles as son or daughter, parent or sibling. To do so, in each case, deepens that facet of our humanity.

However, familial relationships can also degenerate into nepotism.   If we are committed to our family to the exclusion of a larger structure of human relationships, such commitment may become a closed system and turn into a form of nepotism.  If this happens, we will associate meaningfully only with members of our own family, and not with others.  Therefore, true realization of the self, which begins in the context of the family, requires that one also extend one's relationships beyond the familial structure, and so beyond nepotism, in order to be able to relate meaningfully to a larger community.  By inference, to truly find one's roots, to find inspiration in one’s ethnicity and cultural tradition, one must go beyond a closed ethnocentrism or a narrowly conceived culturalism. To truly realize one’s commitment to one's own culture and to one’s own nation, one must go beyond simple-minded cultural or national chauvinism.  If we follow this line of reasoning, we have to transcend even anthropocentrism.  This is the meaning of the Confucian idea that the cultivation of the self as a centre of relationships represents a continuous development, a total commitment, and a holistic approach.  It is, in this sense, a process of education for the creation of an open-minded character which can relate meaningfully to an ever-enlarging network of human relationships.

This relates to another important notion in the Confucian tradition.  Confucius characterized himself as a transmitter, not a creator of culture.  What does it mean to say, "I am a man among men -- I am a cultural transmitter," as he did?  The development of the self is not one-dimensional.  To be meaningful, it must involve experience with and reflection upon many areas of human concern.  As a self-defined cultural transmitter, Confucius identified at least five such areas of human experience and human concern in the culture he had inherited. These he saw as being crucial to the process of learning to become human. Each of these five areas is articulated in one of the classic texts of the Confucian tradition.

The first is poetry, and, by inference, art and music. A human being is not simply a go-getter who chases the immediate and the practical.  A human being is also involved in the much larger context of culture.  This dimension of experience is expressed in the Book of Poetry, one of the classics in the Confucian tradition.  Poetry, through artistic expression, appeals to the person's internal resonance -- a kind of vibration -- between the person and the larger world. Moreover, poetry refines human feelings and sentiments into artistic expressions of humanity.  To understand poetry is to have access to these feelings. Therefore, the ability to respond to the world in a poetic sense is considered essential for the development of the person.

Most of us, especially we parents, know how difficult it is to teach a child to act properly -- to walk, to sit, to use the hands, to move limbs in the proper way.  This kind of training is called the ritualization of the body.  As an art of Confucian education, it finds expression in the Book of Rites.  Ritual, in this sense, is not an empty, meaningless pattern of gestures superimposed upon a young individual to maintain dogmatic control over that person's behaviour.  Nor is it stuffy concern with correct behaviour merely for the sake of form.  Ritual is a shared, mutually understood system of non-verbal as well as verbal communication.  As a socially recognized form, it both preserves and transmits the most authentic human ways of interacting.  How does one become acquainted with another person, how does one greet others, how does one smile, how does one show deference?  These are all simple human acts.  A child must be taught these ritual acts properly to communicate meaningfully to other members of society.  Furthermore, there are different forms of ritual and different ways of relating to others. We have to teach the child the ritual corresponding to the proper time and to the proper context.  Doing so facilitates non-verbal communication to the benefit of human relationships.  This is why ritual is important in the oldest Confucian philosophical tradition.

The third area is history.  This is collective memory, a knowing from whence we come.  To have a sense of history is to know and to care about the major values and ideas that have shaped the larger community of which we are a part.  To have no history is like being without memory.  History -- be it short or long -- becomes significant as we become capable of relating to it, as we come to see in it our own past and enter into personal dialogue with those generations who contributed to the culture that shapes us today.  Confucius found such a vision represented in the Spring and Autumn Annals.

Human beings should also be thought of as participants in society.  One is expected to participate in the polity of which one is a part.  Thus, the fourth area of Confucian teachings is political vision.  One is not only an artistic being, a social being and a historical being; one is also a political being who should be a responsive and responsible participant in the political community.  This vision of political participation is articulated in the Book of History , or the Book of Documents.

Finally, the fifth area essential to learning to be human is symbolized by one of the most difficult books in the classical tradition, the Book of Changes (I Ching).  One way of understanding it is to say that in addition to the poetic vision of the Book of Poetry, the social vision of the Book of Rites, the historical vision of the Spring and Autumn Annals, and the political vision of the Book of Documents, there is also a cosmic vision.  Using modern terminology, the Book of Changes represents an ecological concern, both in an environmental and in a spiritual sense.  A human being does not exist only in the anthropological world of other human beings.  Beyond this human world is a larger universe. Therefore, one needs an ecologically sound cosmic vision.

We see, then, that the classical tradition which Confucius, as a culture transmitter, wants to pass on is richly textured indeed.  It has its own form, its own content, and, therefore, its own inner logic and spirituality.  Moreover, it involves large areas of human concern.  We have seen that the self, as a centre of relationships, must relate to members of the family, the neighbourhood, the community at large, and the nation.  The deepening and broadening of these relationships occur as one deepens and broadens one's relationships to the poetic tradition, to nature, to history, and to other areas of human concern.  These deepening and broadening dimensions of relatedness nurture each other.  Being human, therefore, is defined to encompass these wide ranging areas of human thought and activity.

In the Analects, the gentleman, or profound person, is not simply a tool or a vessel for the performance of some task.  A person is an end in himself or in herself.  The process of learning to be human, then, involves at least self-cultivation, self-mastery, and self-understanding.  Without these, we are often controlled by and restricted to a sense of egoism.  This prevents us from being able to relate meaningfully to other human beings.  Self-realization requires that one go beyond one’s limitations.  One establishes oneself through helping others to establish themselves.  Relationships with others, as an integral process of self-cultivation, must go beyond bare tolerance of other people’s existence.  The ability to comprehend the existence of another person is crucial to establishing the self.  This establishment involves the kind of ongoing, dynamic commitment discussed earlier.  It can be accomplished only insofar as one assists others in their efforts to do the same.

But what "self” carries out this endeavour? Two notions of self are clearly differentiated in the Confucian tradition: the small self and the great self.  The small self is the limited self.  It operates as a force of inertia that resists further development.  It is neither dynamic nor transformative.  The great self, on the other hand, goes beyond self-centeredness.  It relates to the family, the society, the state, and beyond to the world at large.  It establishes these relationships as part of its own sensitivity and concern.

Many scholars have noted that a distinctive feature of Confucian thought is its emphasis on the commonality rather than on the differences between human beings.  Commonality can be understood in terms of human sensitivity:  the human need for communication, for self-expression and for self-development which does not infringe on the self-development of others.  Commonality entails shareability -- the points of convergence between human beings that go beyond the divisive influences of limited resources, competition, and the conflicts and tensions of the world. What are these points of convergence?   Between different ethnic groups, different cultural traditions, different philosophical visions, and different religious organizations, there are areas that can be shared.  The further one explores human sensitivity and shareable areas among human beings, the more one is able to translate intellectual and philosophical ideas of commonality into practice.

This exploration requires communication.  Therefore, communication is also a crucial concept in the Confucian tradition, which is sometimes characterized as a philosophy of mutuality.  This may come as a surprise because the Confucian ethical tradition has often been accused of promoting authoritarianism:  the father exercises arbitrary authority, to which the son must render total obedience.

When practiced as a highly politicized ideology Confucianism may exhibit this particular feature.  But the fact that the classical formulation of the core values of Confucian thought has not only survived but has continued to be important in East Asia points to an entirely different reality.  Mutuality is a basic motif in Confucian ethic.  The father should be loving.  This enables the son to become filial.  The son should be filial so that the father will be further encouraged to be loving.  In Confucian thought, then, relationships are not based on the one-dimensional imposition of ideas and power upon others but on the concepts of mutuality and reciprocity...

The ideas just presented have been part of the Confucian core value system that has been transmitted throughout the ages.  These teachings have shaped great personalities not only in China but also in other parts of East Asia.  Some people believe that Confucianism is identified only with Chinese culture.  Historically, this is untrue; it is a misconception.  Confucianism, for example, featured prominently in Korea, especially in the Yi dynasty.  Indeed, from roughly the end of the 14th century to as recently as the 20th century, Korean culture has been greatly shaped by Confucian thought. Confucianism has also been important in Japan, especially in the Tokugawa period, and Japanese social interaction is still governed by Confucian norms.  And before colonial times, Confucianism played a significant role in Vietnamese political culture.

I have, to be sure, characterized Confucian ideas in a highly idealized fashion.  But as a way of thought, it has tremendously influenced life in East Asia and has contributed to the rise of its great civilizations.  As I noted much earlier, I am critically aware of the dark side of Confucian culture.  I am also critically aware of the reasons behind the series of anti-Confucian campaigns in China.  But let us put the Confucian value system in perspective by trying to understand what its spiritual orientation really suggests.  Only then can we raise critical issues and put Confucian ethics in proper context...

Undoubtedly, from the good to the spiritual, there are numerous degrees of refinement.  Moral self-development or self-cultivation in this connection is tantamount to an unceasing process of learning to be human. 

Thank you.