CHINA: Slandering the Sage

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One of the most baffling features of China's latest cultural revolution is the concerted ideological attack on the sayings and teachings of Confucius. Last week the posthumous drubbing of the ancient sage, whose name is frequently linked with that of the dead, disgraced former Defense Minister Lin Piao, continued unabated. New meetings of the masses denounced Confucius "and his like" as "buffoons who had a place only in the garbage of history." Lin was again condemned for "preaching the rubbish of Confucianism as part of his attempt to restore capitalism in China." It is almost as if the gentle philosopher were still alive and well and leading a counterrevolutionary cabal.

In many ways he is. And that late "bourgeois careerist, renegade and traitor" Lin Piao is far from being the only one to fall under his influence. As the mounting ideological attacks on the "four olds" (old thought, old culture, old customs and old habits) indicate, the traditional Confucian values have died hard in China and remain an obstacle to the success of Mao's revolution.

Confucius, whose name is a Latinized version of King Fu-tzu or Master Rung, would likely be amused at all the attention he is getting. His own life was singularly lacking in worldly success. Born in 551 B.C. of an impoverished noble family in what is now Shantung province, he spent his life as an itinerant office seeker, wandering throughout the feudal kingdoms into which China was then divided, looking for a ruler who would put his ideas about government into practice. Except for a few months as a minister in his native state of Lu, he remained unemployed until his death in 479 B.C. But, like Socrates, he ensured that his teachings would live on after him by imparting them to a devoted group of disciples.

Confucius' ambition was to restore order to a chaotic society. The China of his tune, 300 years before the founding of the first dynasty, was torn by constant warfare among the country's greedy feudal princes, who were described by Confucius as "stuffing themselves with food all day while never using their minds at all." He envisioned an ideal ruler of benevolence, moderation and humanity, a type that he believed had existed in a halcyon era long past. While the bad ruler relied on terror and force, the Confucian prince would restore order simply by the strength of his moral example. "If a ruler himself is upright," Confucius taught, "then all will go well without commands."

It was an ethical rather than a religious doctrine. The cultivation of virtue was the key to political tranquillity. Confucius rejected the concept of life after death as a spiritual reward and felt that the desire for wealth was found only in the "small man." Although theoretically anyone could become a cultured man, Confucius stressed a hierarchical ordering of society in which each accepted his position. Personal satisfaction lay in cultivating the virtues of obedience, filial piety and benevolence toward others: summed up as "the Way." "Having heard the Way in the morning," Confucius taught, "one may die content in the evening."