A World Of Chaos

Imagine your world completely lacking in any sense of order, not just politically or socially, but morally and spiritually also. Consider what life would be like without a figurehead of state to command the nation in which you live, without a proper place in society, without a genuine sense of respect for your fellow man. Strip away all the conventions, manners, etiquette and honour that you take for granted in your life. Envisage a world without education, without learning, without original thought. That is the China that Confucius was born into in 551 BCE. Furthermore, the very things that China lacked were to become the things Confucius would devote his life to in order to bring about their birth, rebirth or resurrection. He would pit his wits against the establishment and show his people that there would be an end to the chaos, that by dedicating one's life to the philosophy he would advocate, a true and deep meaning could be obtained.

For the people of post-Chou China, there seemed little hope left for them. Their Emperor was as good as gone, and they were caught in the lethargic era of what became known as the Spring and Autumn period. Agriculture, the primary economic factor in China at the time, was falling into serious decline, since there was no Emperor to command the farming calendar. People searched desperately, not just for a hope, but also for a sense of value in their lives. Two great Chinese thinkers would emerge from this period in China's long and lavish history - and their views can be seen as both responses to this social and political crisis, and as morally enlightened philosophies in their own right - which is perhaps what has kept them in constant revision and preservation despite all the odds to this day.

The Tao

One such thinker was Lao Tzu. He is recognised as the author of the Tao Te Ching and the founder of a Chinese religion called Taoism. His reaction to the problems China was experiencing at that time was that they were an epitome of the world's problems as a whole. He believed that the world was a corrupted place, and that only by withdrawal and unlearning what had been learned could one possibly hope to divine any meaning in one's life. Lao Tzu promoted isolation from other human beings and a concentration on the inner power of nature. The Tao, or Way, was what one must follow - and it could only be appreciated by a complete rethink of what life was about. Such a radical answer to Chinese chaos was, naturally, appealing to a great many people. Indeed, in the Analects, Confucius' disciples encounter men who have been much influenced by the words of Lao Tzu:

Tsze-lu then inquired of Chieh-ni, who said to him, "Who are you, sir?" He answered, "I am Chung Yu." "Are you not the disciple of K'ung Ch'iu [Confucius] of Lu?" asked the other. "I am," replied he, and then Chieh-ni said to him, "Disorder, like a swelling flood, spreads over the whole empire, and who is he that will change its state for you? Rather than follow one who merely withdraws from this one and that one, had you not better follow those who have withdrawn from the world altogether?"
[The Analects 18:6]

Lao Tzu and Confucius were very much aware of one another, of course. It is recorded that as a young man, Confucius studied under Lao Tzu, from whom he learnt a number of religious rites, and to whom he referred as both wise and mysterious. As will be seen after looking into the key tenets of Confucianism, Taoism is quite opposed to Confucius' own response to China's ills. In simplistic terms, where Taoists find order by studying nature and refuting the 'artificial' order of mankind, Confucians actively pursue order in their own lives by following the philosophy of Confucius (and later his disciples). It is this order that helped restore rule and law to China, and simultaneously bring the literati into the Imperial Court. Yet, the China of Confucius' day was not as appreciative of its intelligentsia.

A New Social Class

China has always been a highly agrarian society, with farming playing a prominent rôle. As such, for a country with only two realistic mainstream classes, namely the upper and lower classes, the prospects for a child of aforementioned lower class status were severely limited. Dedication to learning was frowned upon by most families, education viewed by most as the preoccupation of the upper classes who had nothing better to amuse themselves with. For this reason alone, it is likely Confucius would have been regarded by a great many people as peculiar, unorthodox and perhaps for some, a trifle useless in the grand schema:

Tsze-lu, following the Master, happened to fall behind, when he met an old man, carrying across his shoulder on a staff a basket for weeds. Tsze-lu said to him, "Have you seen my master, sir?" The old man replied, "Your four limbs are unaccustomed to toil; you cannot distinguish the five kinds of grain - who is your master?"
[The Analects 18:7]

Yet Confucius always maintained that education was not about class: "In teaching there should be no distinction of classes." [The Analects 15:38] He believed that only through studying the Classics and becoming chun-tzu could a man ever call himself noble. Virtue, humaneness and familial respect were all things Confucius laid down as sacrosanct, and they would later have a huge effect on China as a whole.

Dynastic Decline And Fall

The Shang dynasty had ruled over portions of China for some time, but in circa 1066 BCE, the Chou kings overcame the Shang and established their own dynasty. The Chou were a very religious people, monotheistic in outlook, seeking divine inspiration from the deity they called Tian or 'Heaven.' They in turn saw themselves as the 'Sons of Heaven' and henceforth, all Emperors in China would be recognised as such. China became the 'Celestial Empire' and the transfer of power from one dynasty to another would be the ordinance or 'mandate' of Heaven (the tianming). Confucius and his disciples would later develop this idea in their own way.

However, the Chous were not able to command a unified China as their successors the Qin would later do under Emperor Shihuangdi. Historians view the Chou dynasty in two distinct sections, the Early or Western Chou and the Later or Eastern Chou. The Early Chou were the original founders of their dynasty, cultivating the gentlemanly arts and giving China much of its historical and traditional culture. Many of the religious practices and rites that Confucius would give special meaning originated with the Early Chou. Ancestral Worship - the respect and meditation in family temples using one's ancestors as a focus in order to preserve their memory - often misinterpreted in the West, developed much under the Early Chou. In 771 BCE, however, the militaristic people of the Northwest overcame the Early Chou and caused a schism between the nomadic and settled Chinese. The former were viewed as barbarians by the latter, and from this time on, China would become known as Zhong Wen, or 'Middle Kingdom' - the centre of the civilised world.

The Later Chou period was subdivided further into the Ch'un-Qiu (Spring and Autumn) and the Zhan-Guo (Warring States) periods. At this time, the principalities that made up China chose to rise against one another and no longer pay homage to the Chou king himself. They proclaimed their state as an individual nation, and their princes became kings. From 771-476 BCE, the states did not physically attack each other, and there were developments in the use of iron for tools and weapons, with more intense agricultural methods coming into play. The chaotic Spring and Autumn period broke out into the Warring States as the seven major land masses of China (Ch'in, Wei, han, Zhao, Chu, Yan and Qi) waged war with one another. The largest of these states was Ch'in, and later from whom the Western name 'China' would be derived.

Confucian Control

In the confusion of Ch'un-Qiu China, a new social class of educated men arose, of whom Confucius was one. They were referred to as shi or 'scholars' and they were the forerunners of the scholar-officials who would later hold power in the Imperial Court. Confucius' teachings, based upon the old Chinese tradition of ru, brought the light of order to an otherwise bewildered people. Confucius would not live to see his philosophy enacted, and he may have died disillusioned with the ruling elite who chose not to accept his teachings - but all was not lost. After the oppressive rule of the Qin, in which talk of Confucian, Taoist or Moist thought was prohibited, the more liberal Han assumed power in 206 BCE to become the dominant dynasty ruling over a united China. Confucianism became the state 'ideology' and teaching, and would remain as such until the age of Imperialism ended in 1911 CE with the establishment of the Chinese Republic.