Win One For Confucians
Last column I talked about how Taoists irritated with detail-obsessed Confucians reminded me of how people got annoyed with conspiracy theorists. It was a strange revelation, and one I’ll probably analyze for awhile to understand underlying human behavior. But let’s talk about something I learned from my (limited) reading of Confucian thought.
First, I want to be open about my opinions – and limits on my knowledge – of Confucianism. I took an interest in it due to A) Taoists arguing with them and B) an interest Chinese history, usually communications. I’ve read a few texts, a few historical documents, and a larger amount of Taoist mockery or fellow-feeling depending on when said texts were written. I’m no expert.
I would sum it up as “anal-retentive humanism about cultivating morality.” Confucius himself seems to have been a thoughtful, witty, pleasant, but at times anxious or neurotic person who didn’t seem to really intend to found a religion. In practice it has often served power and patriarchal culture, but through it run elements of counter-culturalism and principle. My limited experience have been more “WTF” than I expected.
But in my limited readings, a story stood out – one that, years later, taught me a lesson. So let’s give the Confucians a win.
In my readings there are often stories about the importance of mourning one’s parents when they pass. It’s important to recognize their sacrifice, the duration of mourning, and so on. There’s enough dead parents in a casual reading Confucian literature to make you worry you stepped into a Disney film. Yes I get filial piety and all that, but still.
Once or twice I’d encounter a story of an king who’s father (who had stepped down) passed away. This meant big public ceremonies and so on because, hey, dead king. What stood out to me is people being impressed at how sad the living king was, how he wept and mourned so aggressively. At first I thought the stories were annoying, performative – I mean, you know, let’s not make a show of it, be honest.
Years later, as I contemplated politics in America in the 2020s I thought about all the transgressive politicians. The ones that were basically online Influencers, the ones acting like they were Shock Jocks. The ones who were supposedly both the best of us and hideous assholes and in no way role models.
They were being performatively against what we supposedly valued.
. . . and suddenly I got the king and his Big Mourning.
I don’t want leaders who violate our principles, I want them to embody them. I want the continuity and stability of society, not its fracturing. Wanting leaders that violate everything you say you care about means you’re both an asshole and destructive – and stupid. Even if a leader is, dare I say it, a bit performative, it’s saying there’s an agreement on what matters, even if things might get a tad fuzzy around things in the “best face forward” way.
Moral performances of certain kinds – what people might call “virtue signaling” – are ways of communicating and reinforcing values. They are reflections of the agreement that hold society together. It may be a janky agreement, it may have edge cases that aren’t on the edge, but unless a society is totally screwed, it matters.
Then I got it. These kings were virtue signaling, but about stuff important to the community, the love of parents, the proper activities. King and peasant were bonded together in “when we lose our parents, we respect those that created us.” A weeping king was, at that moment no different than a farmer who lost his mother and father.
So know what? Chalk one up for the early Confucian writers. Some moral and ethical continuity, via ritual, is important. Yeah it might not be 100% true or honest all the time, but if it’s enough for society to grow and function, then it’s important. It might not seem like a ritual, but there is a time to say “we are on the same side” and act on it.
Because we’ve damn well seen what happens when destroying everything is lauded, and violating what actually works is worshiped.
-Xenofact