What Can Americans Learn from Confucianism?

Jay McDaniel

November 8, 2015

Welcoming the Asian Renaissance

America's best hope is to adopt a more Confucian lifestyle: (1) more focused on education, (2) more respectful of old people, (3) better able to subordinate private needs to public goods, (4) more responsible to the needs of family, (5) more polite in our daily lives, and (6) more hardworking.

Of course, many Americans wouldn't call this adopting a Confucian lifestyle. They would call it becoming a good and responsible person. That's fine. Confucianism does not have a monopoly on hard work or care for families. But these are among the virtues that Americans come to admire, when they begin to learn about Confucian-influenced cultures. Confucianism is a window into these and other virtues.

Confucianism is a relevant window, too. The likelihood that Americans will be learning from Confucianism increases every day. This is because the Pacific Century has arrived. It is clear to all Americans that Asian nations are key players in global politics and key engines of the global economy. As Hillary Clinton observes in a recent article in Foreign Affairs: "It is becoming increasingly clear that the world's strategic and economic center of gravity will be the Asia-Pacific, from the Indian subcontinent to western shores of the Americas."

How can Americans respond? Clinton puts the point in terms of American foreign policy or, as she puts it, statecraft: "In the next 10 years, we need to be smart and systematic about where we invest time and energy, so that we put ourselves in the best position to sustain our leadership, secure our interests and advance our values. One of the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decades will be to lock in a substantially increased investment—diplomatic, economic, strategic and otherwise—in this [Asian-Pacific] region."

Cultural Diplomacy and Green Friendships

At JJB we agree with Hillary Clinton about the shift in global power. Moreover we believe that we—you and I—can be diplomats, too. We can assume this diplomatic role as teachers, artists, parents, homemakers, and regular people. Our commitment can be to green friendships and reciprocal democracy.

Green friendships happen when people from different cultures get together and create third spaces: that is, spaces where people from each culture listen to one another's hopes and dreams and learn from each other. Reciprocal diplomacy happens when people share and learn from their respective cultural treasures: food traditions, sports traditions, artistic traditions, musical traditions, philosophical traditions and, so we believe, religious traditions. These "treasures" need not simply be ancient. They can be contemporary, too.

When Americans take the time to learn about Confucianism, and to take its ideas and attitudes seriously, they are engaging in reciprocal diplomacy. They do the same when they take the time to learn about Asian culture: its food, its festivals, its music, its art, philosophy, and religion. Indeed, at JJB, we believe that such learning has a spiritual side. In ways that are quieter but maybe more important than statecraft, the world grows just a little brighter—and little more peaceful and creative—because we have opened our minds and hearts to something new. Green friendships are the very place where heaven finds a home on earth.

Finding the Sacred
In Harmonious Relationships

If you are an American and take time to study Confucianism, you quickly realize that it is not a "religion" in the same way that, for example, Christianity and Judaism and Islam are religions. Its focus is not on a creator God above the world, but rather on the world itself, as a place where ultimate meaning is found. If we equate ultimate meaning with what is truly sacred in life, then Confucianism finds the sacred in the secular, in the relationships of ordinary life.

The sacred is found in preparing and sharing meals with family and friends over a dinner table; in harmonious and respectful relations in the workplace; in being a gracious and hospitable host to guests who visit your home; in appreciating the gift of learning and taking "education" as one of life's greatest gifts; in having a sense of inner self-discipline and restraint, not needing to share every emotion or ventilate every emotion; in being polite and respectful of old people, knowing that they have a wisdom which comes from experience; in being willing to give yourself to the needs of your family even at the expense of personal sacrifice; in having the freedom to live simply and non-ostentatiously, in a humane and caring way, without needing to be famous.

Leaning toward Harmony
As Life's Ultimate Value

These are among the primary values of a living Confucianism: a Confucianism for ordinary life. But the values at issue are best realized, not be reading about them in books, but rather by seeing them in action, as exemplified in the humane grace of another person: a grandfather, a grandmother, an aunt, an uncle, a teacher, a cousin, a friend. In the Confucian tradition, we learn to become virtuous by seeing others who are virtuous and by being inspired by their example.

Underlying these values is an even more fundamental value that permeates every one of them: a sense that harmony (he xie) is the highest ideal in life. The harmony that is so important in East Asia has diverse expressions. It is a harmony that can be heard in music, that can be seen in the variety of foods on a dinner table; that can be felt in mutually respectful relations with other people and in the more general order of the natural world. This harmony is not sameness. It is not a collapse of everything into one thing. It is also not stagnant. It is not the harmony of a statue that seems fixed in one place. It is a moving harmony, a changing harmony, a dynamic harmony.

In other words, Confucianism is, above all things, a leaning toward harmony as life's highest ideal. The harmony at issue is dynamic not static, flexible not fixed, diversified not homogenized. It is a harmony that includes healthy disagreements and has a democratic spirit, respectful of the voices of individuals as well as groups.

Among Western philosophers, Alfred North Whitehead offers a similar vision. He sees harmonious intensity and intense harmony as the happiness—the satisfaction—which all living beings seek at every moment of their lives. All living beings seek to survive with satisfaction in their daily lives, and in so doing they are seeking harmony.

Even bodily survival is, for Whitehead, a form of harmony: namely harmony with one's own body. Once survival needs are met, living beings with a social side naturally seek satisfying social relationships as the source of their satisfaction. In human life these take the form of healthy and enjoyable relationships with friends and family and also, thinks Whitehead, an opening of the heart to strangers and those in need. Love, for Whitehead, is the ultimate form of harmony. In Confucianism this is called human-heartedness or Ren. The loving person is a person whose heart is attuned to harmony and who embodies harmony in his or her own life.

Living Confucianism:
A Lifestyle for Ordinary People

The kind of Confucianism described above is for ordinary people, not elite, and it is exemplary of we might call daily life Confucianism for the 21st century or, for short, living Confucianism.

Living Confucianism is related to what some scholars call Third Epoch Confucianism. The First Epoch of Confucianism, they say, came with the teachings of Confucius and Mencius. The Second Epoch came with the teachings of Zhu Xi as he sought to give those teachings a refinement, which we now call neo-Confucianism. Both of these ages were linked with imperial rule. Confucianism was a tool by which upper classes retained their power by forcing people to "memorize the Confucian classics" in order to pass state-designed exams which would enable them to work in the government.

The Third Epoch is more democratic and less elitist. It is emerging among people in East Asia as they seek to liberate Confucianism from its links with imperial rule, its patriarchy, its rigidity, and its excesses, while at the same time affirming values—such as those described above—which can help provide an alternative to the worst aspects of modernity: its greed, its neglect of community, its neglect of the earth, its arrogance.

Living Confucianism, then, is an attitude that a person takes in daily life, as lived in community with others: an approach to life which finds the sacred in community itself, when imbued with harmony. It is characterized by the very virtues identified above, and at its very heart lies a sense of respect or human-heartedness: ren. I have said that this attitude best emerges in a person when he or she is inspired by the example of others. We learn to live in a ren-like way by imitation. This is why it is so important for parents and grandparents and teachers to be models for students. If they lack humaneness, if they lack a sense of harmony, society falls apart.

But there is also another way that individuals learn ren, and in the Confucian tradition this is often called li. Often this word is translated into English as effective ritual or, as I prefer, sincere and life giving etiquette. In America we see examples of sincere and life-giving etiquette when people are polite to one another and are adept at ordinary rituals: greeting people with a smile, saying "thank you" when receiving a gift, opening doors for other people, writing thank you notes, letting people speak without interrupting them, etc. These simple rituals are the social glue which hold a society together, and when we are adept at them, they come naturally to us. Part of the wisdom of the Confucian tradition is to realize that a society falls apart when they are lost.

In some circles in the West, the word "ritual" suggests stiffness and unnaturalness. In Confucian circles, it suggests part of the very essence of harmonious living. We are minded of the importance that such rituals play in a slightly more formal way in the Abrahamic religions. Are these rituals—saying a blessing before meals, kneeling while praying, standing while singing, having potluck suppers after church—a form of li?

Another Way of Being Religious

Is living Confucianism a religion? Some might say "yes" and others "no." Certainly its appreciation of ritual has a religious feeling to it. However, if religion is defined by monotheism, it is not a religion. Its heart does not lie in service to a creator God but rather in sacred nature of family relationships and relationships the the vital energies of nature.

Nevertheless, if religion means finding a sense of the sacred in healthy relationships in this world, then it is a religion. Perhaps we best follow the lead of scholars who speak of it as another way of being religious. Hear the words of the authors of a well-known textbook in world religions called World Religions Today (Esposito, Fashing, Lewis: Oxford University Press, 2012).

"Confucianism and Daoism present a challenge to the Western monotheistic model of being religious, with some scholars claiming that these belief systems are not 'religious' at all. Of course in no manner is either monotheistic. Rather, their diverse aspects ... suggest another way for humans to be religious, not centering the sacred on a single God above but seeing as sacred this very world 'below', in which humans live together and within nature. Respect and reverence are the central religious emotions here. Confucianism and the diffuse religions of East Asia ... create in each society circles of reciprocal relationship, making social relations sacred, harmonizing human existence with vital energies of nature, and respecting the creative power of the universe."

Heaven as the Harmony of Harmonies

Perhaps living Confucianism is a religion in still another sense. Many who walk in the dao of Confucianism bring with them a belief in Heaven (tian) as reality which is complementary to earth and its peoples, but which may or many not be inhabited by deities and higher powers.

In the West the word Heaven is often used to name the place where God dwells. In East Asia, the word translated as Heaven—Tian—has many different meanings. Some East Asians speak of it as an arena where the spirits of deities and ancestors reside. The perspective I bring to this essay—Whitehead's philosophy—is open to that possibility. Whitehead believed in a multi-dimensional universe in which, in principle, invisible agents can reside; and his philosophy is also open to the possibility that there is a continuing journey after death for humans and other living beings. In short, departed ancestors may indeed be alive in some way, and the word "heaven" can be used as a name for the place where they live. Understood in this sense, "heaven" is not necessarily good or bad, it is simply a word for other dimensions of existence where spirits live. This means that we humans live in a multidimensional world and that interconnectedness of all things includes spirits and ancestors as well as visible, material objects.

But here we can bracket such considerations and use the word Heaven in another sense. Let the word name a Harmony of Harmonies somehow encompassing, but not reducible to, the physical world. This Harmony includes the worlds of the spirits, too, if they exist. It is the ultimate receptacle of the universe, filled with life, the very body of which is the universe itself.

The Mandate of Heaven

The phrase Harmony of Harmonies comes from Whitehead, whose organic philosophy bears remarkable resemblance to traditional Chinese ways of thinking, but which is also deeply consonant with modern science. He uses the phrase to name the living whole of the universe, the encompassing receptacle in which the earth and stars live and move and have their being. For Whitehead, this living whole is an ever-continuing harmonizing of the harmonies of the world into an ultimate, ongoing harmony: a music of the spheres. We feel the presence of this whole within ourselves as a call to goodness, to harmonious living.

Understood as the Harmony of Harmonies, Heaven is not a person, but it is a reality with which a person must be attuned. Postmodern Confucianism is open to the possibility that Heaven is real, but that Heaven needs the earth in order to be realized. Heaven is realized when we humans follow its guidance, its mandate, and actualize goodness in our own lives.

The idea of helping Heaven become realized is still another dimension of Confucianism which can be interesting to Americans. It is a Confucian version of what Jews, Christians, and Muslims might call "doing the will of God," except that the will of God is replaced by the mandate of heaven. Some scholars believe that this Confucian way of thinking has special relevance to postmodern sensibilities:

"Copernicus decentered the earth, Darwin relativized the godlike image of man, Marx exploded the ideology of social harmony, and Freud complicated our consious life. They have redefined humanity for the modern age. Yet they have also empowered us with communal, critical self-awareness, to renew our faith in the ancient Confucian wisdom that the globe is the center of our universe and the only home for us and that we are the guardians of the good earth, the trustees of the Mandate of Heaven that enjoins us to make our bodies healthy, our hearts sensitive, our minds alert, our souls refined, and our spirits brilliant.... We are Heaven's partners, indeed co-creators....Since we help Heaven to realize itself through our self-discovery and self-understanding in day-to-day living, the ultimate meaning of life is found in our ordinary human existence."^[1]

Is Confucianism Enough?

As I was writing this essay a friend from mainland China read it. She said to me that she found value in the dao of Confucianism, but that it was not enough for her. She is a Christian. She explained to me that what she found missing in Confucianism was a living relationship with a personal God. "For me," she said, "there is great meaning in ordinary human existence, but my own ordinary existence includes a sense of God's love and presence in my life. I need more than friends and family."

She added that, sometimes, relationships with friends and family can be suffocating. "I need a space within myself that is not so connected, that is more private, a space where I am with God, and not simply with others." I asked her if this internal space wasn't simply her conscience and her own sense of interiority, and she said "No, it's more than that. It's the sense that the Harmony of Harmonies—to use your phrase—is a loving person, everywhere at once, who cares about each of us, on our own terms and for her own sake."

As she spoke I knew what she meant. As a Christian, I, too, have a sense of a loving presence who cares about each of us. For me as for her, the Harmony of Harmonies is this presence. For me as for her, the Harmony of Harmonies was revealed beautifully, but by no means exclusively, in Jesus of Nazareth. I know Jews and Muslims and Buddhists who feel the same way. They do not find God in Jesus, but they do have a sense that the Harmony of Harmonies is a personal reality with whom they have a living relationship. They name this reality "Adonai" and "Allah" and "Kuan Yin." They conceive the reality in different ways, but to my mind it is the same reality. Let's call it God.

Beyond Scientism

Some people believe that "belief in God" is mere superstition. They have fallen into what seems to me, as a Whiteheadian, a naive scientism which seeks to reduce the whole of reality to what can be seen by the eye and measured by instruments. They assume that, if a person believes in a personal God, he or she is being un-scientific.

But this approach is, to my mind, very un-Chinese. Many and perhaps most Chinese believe in a multidimensional universe of which the visible world is but one dimension; many and perhaps most believe that the journey of life continues after death, even as a person's brain chemistry ceases; and many if not most find themselves at times needing to, wanting to, pray. Additionally they find themselves with a need to adore something: as evidence in the quasi-deification that occurred in the Maoist period. And more than a few believe in the paranormal.

We Whiteheadians side with this quieter and more interesting side of Chinese life. We think it can be very superstitious to glibly reject the idea that we humans are accountable to a higher power; to assume that reality is reducible to what is visible to the eye and measurable by instruments; to deny the paranormal without even taking the time to investigate. Process thought offers a more scientific but sympathetic way of appreciating paranormal experiences: out of body experiences, sensing what people are feeling who live far away, sharing in the experiences of people who lived long ago. And when it comes to belief in God, we believe that science and belief in God can be jointly affirmed and mutually reinforced. We think it makes more sense to believe in God than not to.

And yet, interestingly, we do not think of God as un-natural or non-natural. We do not divide the world into two realms, the natural and the non-natural, and then say that God resides in the latter. Instead we propose that God is ultra-natural: the womb of the universe, the adventure of the universe as one, the heart of each heart, the music of the spheres, the love in which we live and move and have our being. There is something very special, but also very ordinary, about God. In a spirit of Postmodern Confucianism we believe that the meaning of God is found in, not apart from, how we live our lives day-to-day.

The Future of Confucianism

Back, then, to the question. Is Confucianism enough? Can a person find its alternative way of being religious sufficient for a healthy and satisfying life? The simple answer is that it is enough for some people and not enough for others.

For my part, I sense that it is not enough for many Chinese. The numbers of Christians and Buddhists in mainland China are increasing exponentially, every day. There is a felt need for intimacy with the Harmony of Harmonies, understood not only as the music of the spheres but a loving companion to life's joys and sufferings. In mainland China, I predict that the other kind of religion—the kind that emphasizes a loving God or a caring Bodhisattva—will continue to grow, and that those who find themselves becoming Christian or Buddhist will simultaneously bring their living and life-giving Confucianism with them. They will combine living Confucianism with Christianity or Buddhism, and the marriage will be a good one.

In Western nations, on the other hand, my own hope is that self-identified Christians and Buddhists, Jews and Muslims, will gradually learn more and more about the wisdom of Confucianism, incorporating elements of it into their lives. The ideas enunciated above are all compatible with a walk with Christ, a practicing of the Dharma, a walk with Torah, a practicing of Islam. Living Confucianism can enrich the practice of these religions.

And then there are the large numbers of people in many parts of the world who are not identified with Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, or Judaism, or any other formal religion, but who do indeed want to be good people, who find themselves leaning toward harmony, and who find the various meanings of ordinary life—family, friendships, service—sufficient for a satisfying life. Some people speak of them as spiritual but not religious. For them something like Confucianism is indeed enough. It need not be called Confucianism. It can simply be called being a good person.

My suggestion, then, is that the living Confucianism of China and other East Asian nations can help people all over the world grow in the arts of becoming good people. It can help people with and without other kinds of religion. As Americans enter into the Pacific Century we can welcome, and indeed celebrate, the living Confucianism we find in East Asian friends. If we are Asian Americans this may come easily.

If we are non-Asians, it can come easily, too. Every time we find ourselves living with respect for others; every time we help Heaven by sharing goodness with the world; every time we choose to live simply and humbly, without needing to be the center of attention, we are Confucian in our way. And there is something beautiful in it.

^[1] Ian Reader, "The Rise of a Japanese 'New New Religion,'" Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 15, no. 4 (1988), p. 244.