Confucianism and Traditionalism

This post was originally written for an assignment under a different name.

In Confucius’ view, thinking outside the context of study might be compared to randomly banging on a piano in ignorance of the conventions of music: a million monkeys given a million years might produce something, but it is better to start with the classics.

—Edward Slingerland, History of Chinese Philosophy

For Confucius, an understanding of and adherence to ritual is essential to living well. The above passage refers specifically to his attitude about learning—that individuals must think in the context of study, internalizing and living out the wisdom of the ancients. This view of the past is closely connected to all of Confucius’s traditionalist views as described by Slingerland. For Confucius, ritual is analogous to language: fluency is necessary to living one’s life meaningfully and occupying one’s proper place in the world. Ritual enables us to achieve and effectively express virtuous internal and external spiritual states throughout our lives. To author one’s life without attention to tradition, like thinking without the context of study properly understood, is to bang on the keys of a piano.

But the language that Confucius advocates isn’t strictly expressive. It’s restrictive by design. For Confucius, an important part of understanding tradition is to understand one’s proper role in society and to live according to and within that role. Though in some cases ritual may be amended by the gentleman who understands and is in harmony with the ritual—as Confucius does when he wears a ceremonial cap of silk rather than a ceremonial cap of linen—the rituals must not be amended in such a way that changes their meaning or disrupts the proper hierarchy and order of things.

Confucius makes this limitation clear when he discusses rectifying names as they label appropriate social roles. He says, “Let the lord be a true lord, the ministers true ministers, the fathers true fathers, and the sons true sons” (12.11). Each of these roles mandates certain kinds of attitudes and behaviors. For the individual, mastering ritual enables one to live sensibly and to appropriately express from within his role, but it does not enable one to deeply change his role or to move beyond it. Tradition isn’t merely restrictive in order to enable real meaning in life. Its restrictions place a strong limitation on personal expressiveness and liberty.

It’s here that I worry that Confucius’s conservatism goes too far. I value the kind of cultural language that uses social restriction to enable people to live more meaningfully and to influence people into living well. But these restrictions can become elitist when they are so rigid as to limit real expressiveness, as Confucius’s does. When someone is aimlessly banging a piano, it’s wise to teach her music theory. It’s not so wise to demand that she only play classical.