Hundred Schools of Thought.pdf

The “Hundred
Schools of
Thought”
Teaching Slides for
CHN 375W - Chinese Political
Thought & Propaganda
Keren Wang 2023 all rights reserved. Photograph of Lee Shau Kee Humanities Buildings, Peking University
by Keren Wang 2018

Reading
Yang, CK - Religion in Chinese Society: read pages 104-110 only
● Key concepts:
○ Tsung miao (zong miao 宗庙); she chi (she ji 社稷); I Ching (Book of Changes 易經): 107-108 [Qian, Tangyi]
○ Mandate of Heaven; Yin-Yang and the Five Elements (陰陽五行): 108-110 [Audry]
❏ Clear definition of ritual
❏ Pyromancy?
❏ Explicit connection with Chinese propaganda
❏ Comparative scholarship?
❏ Logographic writing system for govt?
❏ Propaganda methods change over time?

Clear definition of ritual
Ritual:
❏ Symbolic acts of repetition which
automatically imply a continuity with shared
memory, value, and identity
Ritual Sacrifice:
❏ Acts of taking
❏ Things of value
❏ Audience-adaptation strategy to regularize
taboo acts or acts of transgression.

❏ Explicit connection with Chinese propaganda

Tsung miao (zong miao 宗庙); she chi (she ji 社稷); I Ching (Book of Changes 易經): 107-108 [Qian, Tangyi]

Mandate of Heaven; Yin-Yang and the Five Elements
(陰陽五行): 108-110 [Audry]
Mencius: “The people are the most important element in a
nation; she ji are the next; the sovereign is the lightest. 民
為貴，社稷次之，君為輕

CONFUCIANISM
Key Figures:
● Confucius
● Mencius (Mengzi)
● Xun Kuang (Xunzi)
Purpose of rhetoric
● promote virtue
● Dispel falsehood
● Zheng ming
● Maintaining propriety and harmony
Human beliefs & behaviors shaped by?
● Heaven
● Family upbringing & education
● Role models & peer influence
● Xìng shàn
● Sense of shame
Best ways to persuade and influence others?
● Rén
● Ritual observance
● Kèjǐ-fùlǐ
● Zhōng yōng
● Maintaining propriety

DAOISM 道
Key Figures:
● Laozi
● Zhuang Zhou (Zhuangzi)
● Yang Zhu
Purpose of rhetoric
● Establish trustworthiness
● Bu zheng (avoid conflict)
● Xiao yao (enjoyment of untroubled
freedom)
● Qi wu (alignment of substance)
● Xìng (Natural drives)
● Habits and repetitions
● Being in the World, Associated with others
● Spontaneity
● Rén
● Wu wei
● Ruo shui
● Zi ran

LEGALISM 法
Key Figures:
● Guan Zhong (Guanzi)
● Shang Yang
● Han Fei (Hanfeizi)
Purpose of rhetoric
● Yang quan (power projection)
● Geng fa (reform the law)
● Huà cè (policy planning)
● Wèn-biàn (inquisition & judgement)
● Shì xié (whitewash shortcomings)
● Fear and the need for security
● Self-interest
● Yínyì (insatiable desire and greed)
● Harsh punishments and light rewards
● Strict orders
● Governance by numerical knowledge
● Yi yan (unification of words)
● Jìn-shǐ (incentives & disincentives)
● Zōng-héng (verticality & horizontality)

MOHISM 墨
Key Figures:
● Mo Di (Mozi)
Purpose of rhetoric
● Qin shi (promote learned society)
● Fa yi (establish necessary standards)
● Economy of expenditures
● Collective defense
● Jian ai (universal values)
● Gui ju (measurement and observation)
● Renyi-yi (individuation)
● Practical utility
● Suǒ rǎn (Doctrine of Dyeing, social
influence)
● Qiǎo gōng (display of skill and precision)
● Shàng xián (exaltation of the virtuous)
● Shang tong (Identification with the
Superior)

Match quotes to schools - part 1
❏ “Don't look at what is improper, don't listen to what is improper, don't say what is improper, and
don't do what is improper.” [source]
❏ “Those who do not exert themselves are without voice and shape, and those without voice and
shape can see without being seen, hear without being heard. How splendid!” [source]
❏ “If rules and laws are clear, the officials will commit no depravity; if the duties of the government
are dealt with uniformly, the people will be available for use; [source]
❏ “If every one in the world will love universally; states not attacking one another; houses not
disturbing one another; thieves and robbers becoming extinct.” [source]

Match quotes to schools - part 1
❏ “Those who do not dwell in themselves, the forms of things show as they are. Their movement is
like water, stillness like a mirror, response like that of echo. So faint as if perished, so tenuous as
if transparent, harmonious in their associations with others [source]”
❏ “The people are the most important element in a nation; the altars of the land and grain are the
next; the sovereign is the lightest.” [source]
❏
❏ “If capable, even a farmer or an artisan would be employed - commissioned with high rank,
remunerated with liberal emoluments, trusted with important charges, and empowered to issue
final orders.” [Source]
❏ “A sage examines the weights, in order to control the handle of the scales; he examines the
statistical method in order to direct the people. Statistics is the true method of ministers and rulers
and the essential of a state.” [source] [National Bureau of Statistics website]

Quiz #2
How did these particular schools historically prevail over other schools of
thought?
Confucianism's main idea being li (ritual / propriety)? Keji Fuli?
How classical schools of thought used in modern day propaganda?

What does Confucianism actually believes?
Its belief manifest in everyday deeds rather than creed
➔ E.g. Classroom etiquette, dining etiquette, workplace etiquette,
honorifics, wedding & funeral traditions…
Keji fuli (self control and return to rituals)
➔ 仁 Ren - fundamental concern of being a human is our relations
with other humans
Cardinal virtues:
➔ Li 禮 ritual propriety; Zhong 忠 loyalty; Xiao 孝 filial piety; Ti 悌
camaraderie; Xin 信 trustworthiness; Yi 義 righteousness; Lian 廉
honor; Chi 恥 humility
五倫 Five cardinal relations:
➔ Parent-child; superior-subordinate; b/w spouses; b/w siblings; b/w
friends

子曰：克己復禮為仁
The Master said, "To subdue one's self and return to
propriety is Ren”

How classical schools of thought manifest in
modern day political propaganda in China?
● Paternalistic, moralistic roles of government
● Lack of clear public/private distinctions
● Telos of state: live long and prosper collectively
● Emphasis of formal appearance
● Avoidance of public disagreement and reliance
on closed-door consultations
● Avoidance of public conflict
● Meritocracy and civil examination
● Bureaucratic & technocratic

Case study of Institutions of Involuntary Labor
“The Imperial Academy is rectified, and schools
and studies are thriving. So grand are the rituals
and court hymns, so elegant and proper are the
ceremonial robes and official processions. The
well-field system and the rule of law are restored,
slavery is abolished. Such is a return to the
ancient ideal!”
Quote by Yang Xiong in 8 CE (English translation from Classical Chinese by
Keren Wang) [1]

Written Imperial Rites
Maintained by the Literati
(scholar-officials)
Emperor’s edict
Confucian Classics:
● I Chin (Book of Changes)
● Book of Documents and Spring
and Autumn Annals (lessons
from historical records)
● Rites of Zhou (constitution of the
Zhou court)
Imperial Code
Unwritten Confucian
norms
Ancestral worship
Traditional Confucian virtue:
● Zhong (loyalty)
● Xiao (filial piety)
● Ren (humanity)
● Li (ritual propriety)
● Zhi (wisdom)
● Xin (integrity)
● Lian Chi (honor and
humility)
Constitution of
Imperial China

Case study of Institutions of Involuntary Labor
Zheng ming: legitimacy via appeals to Confucian ethics
● Imperial Constitution based on Confucian classics
● Comparative example of narratives of American
Independence found in U.S. history textbooks.
Bureaucratic rhetoric
● Scholar-bureaucrat’s power to deﬁne and interpret the law
Shixie 飾邪：Decorating the Iniquitous
● Rhetoric of “labor tax” and “penal labor”
Shang-xing 賞刑 & Jin-shi 禁使： Reward-punishment;
Incentives-disincentives

Zhèng míng
Rectification
of Name
The Analect:
If: “Names are not rectified,” then 名不正
➔ Language cannot be persuasive, then 則言不順
➔ Affairs cannot succeed, then 則事不成
➔ Rituals and hymns cannot flourish, then 則禮樂不興
➔ Punishments cannot be properly carried out, then 則刑罰不中
➔ People do not know how to properly behave 則民無所措手足
Else if: “a virtuous person considers it necessary that the names be
spoken appropriately,” then 故君子名之必可言也
➔ What this person speaks may be carried out appropriately 言之
必可行也

Nitobe’s Bushido
“‘No religion! How do you impart moral education?’”
“The direct inception of this little book is due to the
frequent queries put by my wife as to the reasons why
such and such ideas and customs prevail in Japan. ”
Keren Wang CAS 420 Lecture Slides

Inazo Nitobe (rightmost) at 1924 International Committee on
Intellectual Cooperation session, with Albert Einstein (center) and
Hendrik Lorentz (leftmost)

新渡戸稲造
● Oversaw sugar
plantations for the
Japanese colonial
government in Taiwan
● Important figure in
the development of
modern Japanese
education system and
industrial agriculture

Sources of Japanese Moral Education
(Bushido) according to Dr. Nitobe Inazo
Zen Buddhism:
● “[A] sense of calm trust in Fate, a quiet submission to the inevitable, that stoic composure in
sight of danger or calamity, that disdain of life and friendliness with death.” (3)
Shintoism:
● “Loyalty to the sovereign, reverence for ancestral memory, and ﬁlial piety” (4)
Confucianism:
● “Writings of Confucius and Mencius formed the principal textbooks for youths and the highest
authority in discussion among the old.” (5)
● “Five moral relations between master and servant (the governing and the governed), father and
son, husband and wife, older and younger brother, and between friend and friend.” (5)
● “Knowledge was conceived as identical with its practical application in life; and this Socratic
doctrine found its greatest exponent in the Chinese philosopher, Wang Yang Ming, who never
wearies of repeating, ‘To know and to act are one and the same.’ (5)

Confucianism as civil religion?
Confucianism in the national education and
ideological construction of modern Japan.
As a world religion? A philosophy? Ethics &
values?
Historical context
Paramore - Civil
Religion and
Confucianism:
Japan’s Past,
China's Present

Hundred Schools of Thought.pdf

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