Historical contingencies of civilizational ideologies

Reading An Introduction to Confucianism, which is not the typical historically linear treatment (i.e., Confucius → Han dynasty State Confucianism → Song dynasty Neo-Confucianism, etc.), and is also more comprehensive than most introductions (it’s over 350 pages). In case, the author notes that before the Han dynasty Confucianism was simply one of many contesting schools. It was during the reign of Hanwudi that Confucianism was integrated into the administrative ideological apparatus of the unified Chinese state, resulting in State Confucianism. It is famously known that the Legalist school, which was brought to preeminence by the students of the Confucian sage with the most “tragic vision,” Xunzi, attempted to expunge Confucianism during the Chin dynasty. The Chin dynasty is reviled throughout most of Chinese history (with the Maoists being an interesting exception) for its espousal of Legalism and rejection of the humanistic ethos at the heart of Confucianism, but, it is also acknowledged by modern scholars to have set the foundations for the dynastic system which fostered a resurrection of a unified Chinese imperial state after every political collapse. The Chin united China in a manner which set the template for all of Chinese history; by comparison, the Zhou dynasty which the early Confucians idolized was a primitive and feudal polity.

Many modern scholars would argue that the practical structural scaffolding of the Chinese state between the Chin and the early 20th century, a span of over 2,000 years, owed much to Legalism, even if the symbolic ideological core of the state was generally Confucian. And yet I can not help but wonder if China would ever have been unified, and its local identities subordinated to the center, if not for the blitzkrieg which was the Chin Legalist state. Like Stalinist Russia or Maoist China it seems likely that the Legalist phase had a “sell-by” date, the Chin dynasty collapsed almost immediately after the death of the First Emperor. A China where Confucian ideology marginalized Legalism early enough may have been one where China, like India or Europe, developed into a civilization of states, instead of a state which was coterminous with the civilization. State Confucianism may never have developed, and become entrenched as the foundational ethos of the bureaucratically oriented literati. The Confucian Age in China may have been an ancient period before the rise of Buddhist monarchies.

Addendum: Also recommended, The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han.

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3 Responses to Historical contingencies of civilizational ideologies

  1. Pingback: DYSPEPSIA GENERATION » Blog Archive » Historical contingencies of civilizational ideologies

  2. Danny says:

    But China is not coterminous with Confucianism; Japan, Korea and Vietnam were also Confucian. Does this some create some sort of problem for Confucianism?

    And anyway, aren’t the philosophical underpinnings of the state secondary compared to more basic socio-economic and geographical realities? The Caliphate & the Holy Roman Empire are based on ideologies of universal empire, but in practice it didn’t work out this way for in either the Christian or Muslim worlds.

  3. David Hume says:

    But China is not coterminous with Confucianism; Japan, Korea and Vietnam were also Confucian. Does this some create some sort of problem for Confucianism?

    no. they’re getting civilized is all. what’s not to like about harmonizing society with the the way and promoting human virtues? also, the cases are somewhat different. japan and vietnam were relatively late in espousing confucianism, and in japan it was highly contextualized to local circumstances. korea during the joseon dynasty was a pretty good replica of china.

    aren’t the philosophical underpinnings of the state secondary compared to more basic socio-economic and geographical realities? The Caliphate & the Holy Roman Empire are based on ideologies of universal empire, but in practice it didn’t work out this way for in either the Christian or Muslim worlds.

    i’m sympathetic to that viewpoint. but i’m not convinced by geographic determinism either. the interregnums between dynasties kept shrinking over time, which suggests that the underlying social-political order was becoming more robust. so the institutions mattered. more specifically, the it seems that confucian scholarly ideology was actually not dependent on the state, as its persistence of state collapse or neglect (during the early tang) shows.

    less opaquely, it seems that advanced large polities which persist are preconditioned on some bureaucratic elite which has ideological loyalty to the state. islam and late antique christianity didn’t seem to produce that.

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