For most Indian scholars the Chinese culture in general revolve around “Confucianism “ and as such, there is a serious lack of appreciation of diversity and dynamism in Chinese ideology.
For over 8000nd years the fundamental spiritual belief in China was in form of Shamanism (Lee and Wang, 2007, Xu 1991,Yuan,1988) which was to connect inner world with the outer world, body with the soul. Out of this Confucianism and Daoism developed, which affected China for over 1000nds of years (Hsu, 1981) during the disintegration of Zhou dynasty (841-256 B.C.) chaotic political and social changes have risen to “Hundred Schools of Thought”.
1. Confucianism (551-479 BC)
Confucius and Mencius believed in Human goodness, Mencius pointed to human beings natural, instinctive compassion shown to other sufferings and their ability to know right and wrong , follow the moral and social norms and benefit society. This school advocated the ideal Kingship and governance to be Benevolent towards common people and stressed that leaders should rely on education to reinforce, extend and further develop human goodness.
Confucians value hierarchy, obedience and conformity and hence Mutual interests of ruling class and the common people. This explains its existence for 2000nd years.
Although Confucianism was suppressed and abolished by the first emperor of Qin when he unified China (221 BC), it becomes a dominant doctrine during Han dynasty till the fall of Qing dynasty (1911CE).
. Xunzi (313- 238BC)
Xunzi incorporated thoughts from Daoism and Legalism. He represented a period when different schools of thoughts emerge, one believing people‟s inherent inclination to esteem order and comply with rule while another believed in reconstruction of social order on the basis of observed evilness of human nature.
He believed in sedge – Kingship and explicated social and administrative rule to supplement core and soul of Chinese traditional and socio – political ideology (Chao-Chuan Chen, Yueh-Ting Lee, 2008) it is in this sense that Tan Si – Toing concludes that, “Theoretical thinking in the past 2000nd years has been dominated by Xunzi.”
. Daoism
Lao Tse-is a complex, comprehensive, integrated system of beliefs of role of universe in general human existence.
“There are those who have been living in unity with Tao since ancient times. Thanks to them, the sky is pure and earth is stable, nature is gentle and rivers are full of water, valleys are covered with flowers, all living beings multiply, and the heroes of the spiritual path are paragons of virtue. All this is provided by those who have achieved the unity!
“There are those who have been living in unity with Tao since ancient times. Thanks to them, the sky is pure and earth is stable, nature is gentle and rivers are full of water, valleys are covered with flowers, all living beings multiply, and the heroes of the spiritual path are paragons of virtue. All this is provided by those who have achieved the unity!
If they did not help, then the sky would cease to be pure and the earth would crack all over nature would cease giving its beauty to all the living, valleys would stop blooming and turn into desert, all living beings would stop multiplying and disappear, and the heroes of the spiritual path would not be paragons of virtue and would be ridiculed and banished...
People are a base for their rulers. Therefore, those earthy rulers who elevate themselves do not have a strong base. This happens because they do not consider people as their base. It is their mistake.
If you disassemble the chariot which you ride, what would you be left with?
Do not regard yourself as precious jasper! Be simple, as common stone!”
. (Vladimir Antonov,2007)
There is Clear hierarchy among humans Earth, heaven, nature and the Dao. Thus developing the concept of dialectic Yin and Yan, Daoism believes in developing harmonious relationships between leader and follower or conflict resolution this challenges people to go beyond “Either – or”, thinking to achieve “Both – and”.
. Legalism: Hanfei(280-233BC)
Leadership is constructed around 3 core concepts – Power, Law and Management Technic to manipulate the subordinates. He believed in punishments and enforceability Fault lines:
1. Struggle between Confucianism and Legalism
While Confucianism believes in compassion and benevolence, Legalism believes in Authoritism culture (Kwang – Kuo Hwang 2007) In order to elucidate the essential nature of the struggle between Confucianism and Legalism, a conceptual scheme to compare five crucial aspects of these two schools of thoughts (Hwang, 1995): value orientations, norms for regulating social behavior, rules for distributing resources, input factors determining the distribution of resources and the authority who makes decisions(as in table). Confucianism advocates a kind of status ethics. It has differing expectations of scholars and ordinary people. For ordinary people, it is enough to practice the ren-yi-li ethical system within the domain of one‟s family and acquaintances. The guiding principle of their social organization is familism, the social norm for regulating social behavior is Li (politeness), and decision-maker who holds the power of distributing resources within the family is the paterfamilias. When allocating resources to others, the first thing to consider is the blood relation with the recipient. Resources are frequently allocated according to the need rule.
Confucianism sets a completely different expectation for scholars. It expects scholars to benefit the world with the Dao, and requires them to extend the domain for practicing rendao from the individual and family to the greater society; the bigger one‟s domain for practicing rendao, the greater the moral achievement. While the ideal goal of Confucianism is to attain a peaceful, harmonious world, what a scholar can really do is to actualize rendao in a community or social organization larger than family. Therefore the value orientation of scholarly social behavior can be termed collectivism. According to the Confucian ethics for scholars, the norm for social group should be allocated according to the equality rule by morally educated scholars, and every member of the group is entitled to an equal share.
When a Legalist leader is assessing how to allocate rewards and punishments to subordinates, contributions to the accomplishment of organizational goals, rather than blood relationships or groups memberships should be considered. Therefore the guiding rule for their social acts comprises both individualism and collectivism. By recognizing the legitimacy of individual interests and by advocating the universality of legal applications, legalists are individualists.
However, legalists are collectivistic in the sense that they give priority to organizational and national goals rather than to familism and factionism. A delicate combination of parts of both the Confucian and Legalist traditions was created and maintained in the feudalistic society of imperial China for hundreds of years.
1. Dominant culture Ching – Chou, Farh 2000 constructed a 42 item paternalistic leadership scale (PLS) based on Chinese cultural nuances. It did not find a consistent positive correlation between Authoritium leadership and subordinate psychological response. Compliance was uncorrelated with authoritium leadership but significantly correlated with moral leadership. This may prove to be a major fault line.
. Other observations:
. The paternalistic leadership culture although is based on traditional authoritarism is undergoing revision to address negative responses to over emphasis on hierarchy where tradition may conflict with practice.
. While paternalistic culture is classic Confucianism the socialist philosophy appears to be anti-Confucian, leading to pro- retaliate leadership.
. Mao appealed to Legalism and Marxism against Confucianism Deng appealed to collectivism rather than Familism, Hu has drawn from Confucianism and proposed his theory of social harmony to address the problems of growing inequality.
Will Lao Tse take care of the environmental issues? It is in this light that we need to look at the Chinese soft power through the propagation of Confucius school.
