Ritual Propriety Research Articles

Debts of Gratitude in Cross‐Cultural Perspective: Confucian and Western Ethics

ABSTRACTThis article examines the contrasting conceptions of gratitude in Early Confucian and Western philosophy. It focuses on a key difference: the presence of the notion of ‘debts of gratitude’ in Western thought and its absence in Confucianism. We explore how this difference is rooted in contrasting ethical outlooks and values. Western philosophy often conceives of gratitude as a duty of reciprocation, furthering the values of social equality and individual autonomy. By contrast, Early Confucians viewed gratitude as proper acknowledgement that strengthens social relationships that are part of an ongoing collective project, spanning generations. This view reflects the importance of values such as community, harmony, and ritual propriety in Confucianism. Unlike the Western context, in the Early Confucian social world, there was no role for ‘debts of gratitude’ to play. There were no Confucian values that ‘debts of gratitude’ would help to realize, or would be responsive to, in the way that debts of gratitude further the values of equality and independence in the West. We conclude by noting that some Western philosophers express ideas about gratitude in collaborative contexts that align with Confucian ideas, suggesting some shared elements between Confucian and Western ethical outlooks.

The Way to Achieve “This Culture of Ours”: An Investigation Based on the Viewpoints of Pre-Qin Confucianism and Song Confucianism

The concept of wen 文 has multiple meanings, but it plays an exceptionally important role in the development of Confucianism and Chinese philosophical terms. Pre-Qin Confucianism 先秦儒学 and Song Confucianism (Song dynasty Neo-Confucians 宋代儒学/宋代新儒家) are two important representatives in the history of Confucianism. Confucius has insisted that although the heaven is not going to destroy wen, wen must exist in everyone’s xing 性, and only when placed within a community can it develop. In Pre-Qin Confucianism, wen completed the transformation from the long established social political structure of the Zhou dynasty and its corresponding moral principles to the consciousness of consummate conduct and ritual propriety based on human instinct and humanistic rationality. Song dynasty Neo-Confucians inherited this Confucian mission and developed the spirit of wen in their period. They emphasized the necessity of learning classics and then writing articles to get closer to the heart-mind of sages and then to build a cultural community together. Both Pre-Qin Confucianism and Song Confucianism have been applying their viewpoints to achieve a community, which is “this culture of ours” 斯文.

Confucius’ Ontological Ethics

Confucius associates the good and the beautiful. Li (translated variously as “ritual propriety,” “ritual,” “etiquette,” or “propriety”) embodies the entire spectrum of interaction with humans, nature, and even material objects. I argue that Confucius attempts to introduce an ethical ontology, not of “what,” but of “the way.” The “way” of reality becomes known with the deliberate participation to the Dao. In other words, through interaction. The way people co-exist demonstrates the rationality of the associations of living and functioning together. Li, as an aesthetic-moral principle, embodies the entire spectrum of one’s interaction with humans, nature, and even material objects. Li is a constitutive element of Confucian ethics and politics, highlighting the importance of beauty, and not only goodness, in human action. The worthiness of human action is judged both aesthetically and morally. Moreover, I hold that Confucius’ ethical ontology is not an ontology of “whatness” but of “howness,” according to the Dao, since Confucius primary concern was not to define the Dao, but to restore the Dao of the ancient sage-kings. The morality of the action is dependent on the way it is performed, according to the mandates of the Dao.

Confucius’ conception of the political being and its significance for building the political being in present-day Vietnam

The aim of the present article is to clarify Confucius’ views on the political being with typical qualities such as benevolence, ritual propriety, and rectification of names; this is to show the effort of the Communist Party of Vietnam in building the political being by drawing upon dialectical materialism and the methods of comparison, analysis and synthesis, logic, and history. In the history of human thought, Confucius’ thought, in particular, and Confucianism, in general, became the ideology of the feudal class during the development of feudal dynasties in China and many other Asian countries, including Vietnam. With a system of world views and especially human views expressed in socio-political, moral and ethical theories, Confucius was the one who laid the foundation for the development of Confucianism in the history of Chinese thought. The view of humans in general and political beings in particular is one of the main contents of Confucius’ conception of socio-politics, morals, and ethics. Therefore, in order to successfully build a new socialist man, as well as successfully carry out the socio-economic innovation, it requires us to promote education about the right political ideals, education about the moral qualities of benevolence, propriety, and rectification of names according to Confucius’ viewpoint.

The multifaceted perspective: Confucius’ political philosophy as manifested in his perception and engagement with Ji Shi 季氏 (the Ji family)

ABSTRACT Three main themes emerge in Confucius’ response to the Ji family, reflecting the core tenets of his zeitgeist philosophy. Firstly, by criticizing the usurpation of Ji Shi 季氏 (the Ji family), he emphasized the moral principle of ‘overcoming oneself to return to ritual propriety’. Secondly, as a political philosopher, he stressed the importance of utility, emphasizing the concept of quandao 權道 (the way of the changeable), which implies that deviating from established principles can be valid in certain circumstances. Lastly, as an educator and reformer running the Confucian private school, he emphasized the importance of political realism. This educational goal stems from the specificity of the feudal era, and Confucius believed that governing the state and bringing peace to the world can only be achieved and advanced through public affairs.

MASS LINE METHOD AND GRAMSCI’S PHILOSOPHY OF PRAXIS TO RITUAL PROPRIETY: AN OVERVIEW

Jaspers, in 1949, coined the term ‘Axial Age’, as an age in which humans apparently became more analytical and reflective. Despite this great age, humanity is arguably still balanced in continuing regression against the former axial age. The overall research objective of this paper is therefore to examine critically the contemporary socialist attempt at combatting this regression. Chinese politics is a process of image creation, that, in turn generates new knowledge in the people, while ‘politics in command’ infers the same precept that Gramsci had called the ‘philosophy of praxis’. The mass line was a systematic and enduring set of programs and policies, prescribing the optimal form of propriety between the masses and the Party’s leadership. Xunzi had written a full account of the origin of ritual propriety and its relationship to these problematic facets of human nature. The research question asks how putting politics in command could inform party leadership by means of the philosophy of praxis. The argument sets out to bring proof for the proposition that deployment of the mass line would allow the gleaning of an epistemology of ritual propriety between the superstructure and the masses. The research paradigm is a cumulative synthesis made into new knowledge, built on top of well-established research. Thus, the manuscript’s research methodology is the construction of an argument constrained within a legal narrative concerning the various facets of Gramsci’s exegeses on folklore. Without the philosophy of praxis, governments would want to eradicate any folklore that challenged the ruling party’s worldview and legitimacy, charging such challengers as having been derelict in their externally imposed duties. This kind of contradiction is thus managed in the sole interests of a ruling class, and its unintended artifact is a truncation of creativity both within and by hegemonic groups. Gramsci conceived of the resultant subaltern groupings as being deliberately created by linguistic irradiation, so creating a war of position of self-developed identities against externally imposed identities. Combatting this, the mass line establishes the dialectical position of political activity as differentiation in the superstructures, inferring that to improve quality of life, the political activity must take control of the superstructure.

Confucian Virtue Ethics and Ethical Leadership in Modern China

Research on ethical leadership in organizations has been largely based on Western philosophical traditions and has tended to focus on Western corporate experiences. Insights gained from such studies may however not be universally applicable in other cultural contexts. This paper examines the normative grounds for an alternative Confucian virtue-based ethics of leadership in China. As with Western corporations, organizational practices in China are profoundly shaped by their own cultural history and philosophical outlook. The ethical norms guiding both the practice and theory of leadership in China are underpinned by indigenous Chinese wisdoms imbued in their own traditions and China’s collective psyche. Focusing on three fundamental aspects of Confucian virtue ethics: ren (仁 benevolence), yi (义 righteousness) and li(礼 ritual propriety), this paper proposes that an ideal Confucian leader regards self-cultivation as a first priority; status and material gain, whilst important, are not the foremost concern. S/he exemplifies the virtuous role model, exudes moral charisma and influences others by shaping an organization’s ethical culture through the process of ritualization. The paper concludes by claiming that amplifying the explicit discourse around Confucian virtue ethics will help contribute to the development of better ethical leadership in China.

Existence, Emptiness, and Qi: Leah Kalmanson's Cross-Cultural Existentialism

Existence, Emptiness, and Qi:Leah Kalmanson's Cross-Cultural Existentialism Eric S. Nelson (bio) I. Introduction: Whose Culture? Which Existentialism? Leah Kalmanson's Cross-Cultural Existentialism offers an original and provocative interpretation of existentialist themes and threads running through classical and modern East Asian Buddhist (fojiao 佛教) and Ruist (Rujia 儒家) philosophical sources. The book takes its point of departure in existential questions concerning meaningfulness and meaning-formative practices, as articulated in European existentialism and postexistentialism, and traces how these questions are and can be addressed in their own terms in dharmic and Song dynasty Ruist discourses of karma (ye 業), vital force (qi 氣), and ritual propriety (li 禮). The book elucidates existential techniques and practices encompassing case studies of Buddhist merit-making ceremonies (pp. 42–62), Confucian/Ruist self-cultivation methods (pp. 86–89), ritual memorization and recitation of texts (pp. 73–77, 98–101), and Yijing divination (pp. 81–90). As I am highly sympathetic with the argument and analysis of this work, I will describe and extend its insights and pose a few questions for clarification and further discussion and contextualization, beginning with the concepts of existentialism and the speculative that are positioned to initially frame the issues at stake in this volume and concluding with questions of emptiness and qi. The introduction and first chapter provide an initial overview of the problematic of meaninglessness and the creation of meaningfulness in European existentialism—and Nietzsche in particular (Kalmanson 2020, pp. 30–34). Here it becomes clear that paradigmatic existentialist philosophies, with their unique interpretive strategies and stakes concerning freedom, guilt, death, and anxiety, should be differentiated from the existential thematics that play a significant role in the East Asian philosophies under discussion.1 Still, existentialism signifies something more specific than shared or overlapping thematics in Cross-Cultural Existentialism. It means in this context a certain style of philosophizing concerning existence rather than a commitment to particular conception of existence as without determining essence and radically free (Sartre 1956, p. 775). In chapter 1, Kalmanson draws in particular on Nietzsche's thinking of the creation and formation of meaning and achieving a "great health." This [End Page 278] is interpreted in relation to practices of the balanced nourishment of life through the enactment of "daily renewal" (rixin 日新) and "ceaseless vitality" (shengsheng bu xi 生生不息). She also introduces Foucault's later writings on the Hellenistic and Christian practical formation of subjects through disciplines and techniques to examine East Asian philosophies in terms of their own practices of the cultivation of meaning, subjectivity, and interiority (Kalmanson 2020, pp. 14–15, 131–142). Subjectivity and interiority have been associated with a particular understanding of the Occident, as in the still influential discourse that opposes "Occidental freedom" and "Oriental despotism," and the present work radically reinterprets their significance in Ruist and dharmic discourses and practices. The concept of "existentialism" employed here operates accordingly with reference to, yet reverses and reframes, exemplary forms of existentialism and their notion of existence. This includes the radical doubt and individuation that characterized existence in relation to the absurd, the infinite, and God in Søren Kierkegaard, and the radical freedom, choice, and seemingly infinite social-political responsibility of existing in Jean-Paul Sartre's Being and Nothingness and his 1945 paradigmatic lecture "Existentialism is a Humanism," which popularized the very idea of existentialism: "Freedom is existence, and in it existence precedes essence" (Sartre 1956, p. 775). In contrast to existence as thrownness demanding radical freedom and individuation in Kierkegaard and Sartre, and an ethos of authenticity, in Kalmanson's proposed reorientation existentialism concerns "solicitude (you 憂) instead of anxiety, seriousness (jing 敬) instead of absurdity, stillness (jing 靜) instead of alienation, and sincerity (cheng 誠) and spontaneity (ziran 自然) in place of authenticity and freedom."2 This shift entails an alteration in the notion of existence itself and a distinctive ontology or metaphysics that Kalmanson designates speculative. II. Old and New Mirrors of the Speculative A second key notion deployed and explicated throughout the work, particularly in chapter 1 and the conclusion, is that of the speculative. Existentialism is interpreted, perhaps contrary to the anti-Hegelian and antimetaphysical impulses of classical European existentialism, as metaphysical and speculative such that the concept can embrace the cosmological and...

The Way of the Barbarians: Redrawing Ethnic Boundaries in Tang and Song China by Shao-yun Yang

Reviewed by: The Way of the Barbarians: Redrawing Ethnic Boundaries in Tang and Song China by Shao-yun Yang Jonathan Karam Skaff Shao-yun Yang. The Way of the Barbarians: Redrawing Ethnic Boundaries in Tang and Song China. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019. Pp. 242. $30 (paper); $99 (hardcover). ISBN 978-0295746036 Shao-yun Yang investigates intellectual shifts in "premodern Chinese attitudes regarding ethnocultural identity and difference" that occurred in the late Tang and Northern Song periods (3). He believes that previous studies of this topic have been influenced by the modern nationalistic assumption that foreign threats naturally encourage "a stronger emphasis on ethnic solidarity and greater hostility toward ethnocultural others" (4). Yang's goal is to explain attitudes of late Tang and Northern Song scholars toward foreigners in terms that more closely correspond to premodern Chinese conceptions. The introduction and the first two chapters explore the thought of the influential Tang scholar-official, Han Yu 韓愈 (768–824) who famously was the leader of the Guwen 古文 (Ancient-Style Prose) literary movement that reacted against the florid parallel prose of the Six Dynasties and early Tang. Philosophically, Han Yu's well-known essay, "Tracing the Way to Its Source" (Yuandao 原道), advocated for a Confucian/Classicist (Ru 儒) revival of "The Way of the Sages" (Shengren zhi Dao 聖人之道), which he believed to have been declining since the time of Mencius. One putative cause of degeneration was the "barbaric" foreign religion of Buddhism. Yang agrees with other scholars, such as Charles Hartman, that Han Yu's ideas about religion and identity should not be described as xenophobic or nativistic because Han opposed not only Buddhism, but also Daoism. Han Yu's attack on the religions radically challenged Tang imperial ideology that drew upon Classicism, Daoism, and Buddhism for legitimacy. However, in contrast to Hartman and others who interpret "Tracing the Way to Its Source" as advocating to restore Confucian "cultural orthodoxy," Yang has coined a neologism, "ethnicized orthodoxy," to describe Han's views. The book's introduction argues that the term "ethnicized" is better suited than "cultural" to describe Han Yu's proposed orthodoxy because premodern Chinese (Hua 華 or Xia 夏) lacked a concept analogous to "culture" defined as "shared values, beliefs, and practices" (11). In addition, "ethnicized" better conveys the radicalism of Han Yu's rhetorical strategy to depict "alternative philosophical and religious traditions as un-Chinese and barbaric. … According to such rhetoric there was fundamentally no such thing as a Chinese Buddhist or even a Chinese Daoist" (16). This was "an ideology-centered [End Page 354] interpretation of Chineseness" (4–5) that "ethnicized … the boundaries of Classicist orthodoxy" (15). Ethnicized orthodoxy was not an identity, but rather was a rhetorical device meant to shame opponents in intellectual debates by "denying their Chineseness" (56). However, in Chapter 2, Yang seemingly contradicts his own argument by disagreeing with scholars, such as Peter Bol, who "see Han Yu as imputing a barbaric essence to Daoism" (53). Yang contends that Han Yu's language is ambiguous about whether Daoism is as barbaric as Buddhism or merely inferior to Classicism. Instead, Chapter 4 credits the Northern Song "Guwen radical," Liu Kai 柳開 (947–1000)—who considered Han Yu and himself to be the final two sages transmitting the true Way—as the first to impute barbarism unequivocally to both Daoism and Buddhism. If Han Yu was only Liu Kai's inspiration to ethnicize the Way of the Sages, then perhaps another label Yang uses to characterize Han's thought, "ideological exclusivity," more aptly represents the ideas of both scholars (43, 222). Yang argues that late Tang scholars developed another discourse of "ethnocentric moralism" that eventually superseded ethnicized orthodoxy and became mainstream during the Northern Song. In coining this second neologism, Yang selects the modern concept of "ethnocentrism"—defined as the "subjective belief that one's (sic) own people and their ways are superior to all others" (14)—because of its close correspondence to premodern Chinese attitudes. "Moralism" more conventionally refers to the propensity of Classicists to judge people according adherence to ritual propriety (li 禮) and moral duty (yi 義). Yang locates the origins of this discourse in late Tang essays, including Cheng Yan's 程晏 (fl. 895–904) "Call to...

Sungmoon Kim’s Democracy After Virtue

Sungmoon Kim’s <i>Democracy After Virtue</i>

Chinese Folklore for the English Public: Herbert A. Giles’s 1880 Translation of Pu Songling’s Classical Tales

Chinese Folklore for the English Public: Herbert A. Giles’s 1880 Translation of Pu Songling’s Classical Tales

Relational autonomy: where Confucius and Mencius stand on freedom

ABSTRACT I approach the person in the context of ren (being-humane) and li (ritual propriety) in dialogue with role ethics and the issue of autonomy. The hypotheses are as follows: first, even if the person is committed to dao, the person is to enjoy uncoerced freedom of choice, or at least some measure of it in the case of early Confucianism; second, the sentimental and rational dimensions are unified and make up a judgment as a whole in the Chinese context, whereas the functioning of reason is more elevated in the West; third, ren and li are mutually constitutive, requiring and complementing one another as internal awareness and external practice respectively. Even though ren and li both share an orientation to social order, they differ with respect to internalized recognition and simply following norms. If relationships are constitutive of persons and the focus of relational autonomy is on cultivation, then there is no conflict between self-completion and autonomy.

Comments on Aaron Stalnaker’s Mastery, Dependence, and the Ethics of Authority

Comments on Aaron Stalnaker’s Mastery, Dependence, and the Ethics of Authority Nancy E. Snow (bio) Mastery, Dependence, and the Ethics of Authority. By Aaron Stalnaker. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. Introduction Aaron Stalnaker's Mastery, Dependence, and the Ethics of Authority is a significant achievement. The aim of this book is to mine the insights of the early Confucians, or Ru, for enriching Western ethical and political thought on the ethics of authority and dependence. Stalnaker does this through a meticulous and in-depth study that highlights, but is not limited to, the early Confucian thinkers Kongzi, Mengzi, and Xunzu. His focus is on the ways in which their approach to ritual and certain forms of authority/dependence relationships, such as master/student and father/son, have the potential to inform contemporary Western political structures and governance. The Ru thought that by learning certain virtues and skills, such as benevolence, righteousness, filial piety, and propriety—primarily through ritual—junzi (gentlemen), could be educated to become wise and virtuous. Having been educated in virtue, junzi could then become shengren (sages)—a higher stage on the path to wisdom and virtue. Degrees of expertise are envisioned in this process, but the point is that acquiring significant learning and virtue qualifies one either to rule or to advise rulers. The Ru approach to ethics and politics is significantly different from the Western perspectives that Stalnaker discusses, which are in the liberal political tradition. In that tradition, individualism and autonomy are the key points of departure for theorizing structures of governance. By contrast, the Confucian tradition highlights wisdom and virtue acquired through training in the performance of ritual, undertaken under the guidance of an accomplished master. Individuals are ineluctably enmeshed in relationships of authority and dependence, and this network of relationships forms the basis for Confucian thought about governance. Individual liberty and, in [End Page 497] some versions of liberalism, equality are the guiding values that government should embody and seek to promote. Confucian government, by contrast, should embody and promote the Dao, or way, which is the path we should follow to achieve virtue and righteousness. I am only peripherally familiar with the early Confucian tradition, and have learned much from reading this book. My familiarity is with the liberalism of the West, and perhaps that explains why I have more questions about Confucianism than about Stalnaker's treatment of liberalism. Since I am no expert in Confucian philosophy, I present my comments as questions for clarification or edification. They fall into three areas: persons and rituals, deference and remonstration, and gender subordination and the perils of meritocracy. Persons and Rituals The performance of ritual, for Confucians, is the path by means of which virtue is cultivated. All three of the early Confucians—Kongzi, Mengzi, and Xunzi—thought this. To the best of my knowledge, Kongzi does not clearly articulate a set of assumptions about human nature (xing), but seems to assume that persons have capacities for goodness as well as for evil. Mengzi, by contrast, apparently assumes that we are basically good, contending that we have four 'sprouts', or, as I read them, basic tendencies or orientations, toward various types of goodness: benevolence, righteousness, ritual propriety, and wisdom (Stalnaker 2020, p. 94). Xunzi, according to my (imperfect) understanding, has a darker view of human nature, believing, in terms reminiscent of Hobbes, that we are basically prone to evil, and that our natural tendencies need to be curbed and reshaped in ways more consistent with goodness, so that we may truly follow the Dao. Stalnaker acknowledges that there are differences between Mengzi and Xunzi, but sets these aside, stating: "In brief, I think analysts have been overly credulous regarding Xunzi's critique of Mengzi's ideas about "human nature" (xing…) and self-cultivation, and thus missed some aspects of what these two texts nevertheless share regarding teaching, learning, and the economic and social order necessary for personal formation to succeed more than occasionally" (p. 57). I want to push back a bit on this. Surely, assumptions about human nature would shape the kinds of rituals that each Confucian theorist would prescribe for self-cultivation, as well as for the governance of...

Good Dances Make Good Guests: Dance, Animation and Sovereign Assertion in ‘Amis Country, Taiwan

Within the context of official multiculturalism and the promotion of tourism to improve the economic prospects of Taiwanese Indigenous people, ritual dances of ‘Amis/Pangcah people, known as malikoda, have become sites of conflict concerning ritual propriety and performance. Although as participatory practices, malikoda can never be performed for an audience, they have served to mediate outside power, including but not limited to ancestral spirits and political figures. However, whether and how those outside ‘Amis communities can malikoda remains subject to debate. Malikoda animates a model of Indigenous sovereignty, which can flexibly incorporate external forces that impinge on ‘Amis communities. Yet, the felicity conditions for malikoda are unstable. To resolve this, ‘Amis people have relied upon a combination of heritage and local discourses that define the dance as an act of hospitality. Both types require the alignment of various actors, media and interpretations at multiple scales, often obviating interpretation. Thus, attention to malikoda highlights how Indigenous people engage with indigeneity as a cultural resource under multiculturalism and raises broader questions about the role of animation in sovereign assertion.

Beyond Respecting Mencius and Criticizing Xunzi: A Return to Equal Status for the Two Sages

Abstract Mencius 孟子 took Confucius’ idea of benevolence and, based on it, developed his theory that human nature is good. Xunzi 荀子 emphasized Confucius’ idea of ritual propriety and developed his theory that human nature is bad. This juxtaposition largely came to define their philosophies and their place in the history of Confucianism. Reconciling the two has been a point of contention ever since the Han dynasty. By the end of the Han dynasty, the scales had tipped in favor of Mencius, and this favoritism continued through the Six Dynasties era, the Tang and Song dynasties and beyond. As the Mencius became canonized, the Xunzi fell further out of favor with academics. Through all this, there have still been attempts to directly reconcile and even combine the two branches of Confucianism. This is an important cultural enterprise, which has gained new force in recent years. This article threads out some of the more important arguments in this continuing discussion and advocates for viewing the two branches with equal import and authority in the Confucian tradition.

Targeted values: The relevance of classical Chinese philosophy for illegal wildlife demand reduction campaigns

Abstract The illegal wildlife trade is a global conservation priority, prompting a rise in interventions aimed at reducing the demand for wildlife products. Research shows that designing campaigns to target the values held by a specific audience is an effective way to alter their behaviour. However, many demand reduction campaigns are grounded in the perspective of Western morality. This is problematic when the recipients of these campaigns frequently reside in East Asia, where they are exposed to the historical and cultural praxis of Confucianism and Daoism. This paper examines some of the central concepts of classical Chinese philosophy to see how they could be used by practitioners to design effective behaviour change campaigns in the future. Acknowledging that the East Asian cultural sphere has a long history of consumptive wildlife use, reflecting an instrumentalist and anthropocentric approach to wildlife, we still find potential for appealing to a relational ethic. There is a fundamental metaphysics that all of nature is unified, interconnected and interpenetrating. Qi is the vital force of the universe that links inorganic, organic and human life‐forms, creating the basis for a profound reciprocity between humans and the natural world. We also consider some of the key virtues in Chinese philosophy, and how they could be interpreted through the lens of demand reduction for illegal wildlife products. This includes li, ritual propriety, and ren, the inner moral force which keeps us in balance. Finally, we cover influential scriptures, identifying many historical verses that are relevant to modern conservationists. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

The Ethnic-Religious Minority of Cham in Cambodia: Reflections from an Ethno-Historical Account

‘Cham’, as an ethnic identity group emerged under the Kingdom of Champa that was spread across parts of present day central Cambodia and southern Vietnam. With a loss of its sovereign identity due to centuries of historical invasions- marked with colonial conquests and civil unrests, most surviving members of the Cham community now reside in scattered provincial regions across Cambodia and Vietnam. The community’s presence in Cambodia, as an ethnic religious minority, saw itself becoming vulnerable to extreme acts of religious persecution and genocidal killings under the Khmer State both, before and during the Khmer Rouge. This ethno-historical account seeks to focus on providing a brief history of the Cham presence in Cambodia; its cultural profile, the intra-identity classifications that the Cham identify with, and capture how do members within the Cham community perceive (and explain) their own identity, and the socio-cultural differences that define them. The study incorporates a narrative-based ethnographic approach- involving interpersonal oral conversations with members of the Cham community residing in Phnom Penh, that are documented in detail here. Each narrative helps one understand the nature of complexities involved in the sub-cultural classification (and in the self-imagination) of those ‘categorized’ as Cham (or often called ‘Khmer Islam’). Long conversations with identified interviewees further allowed the interviewers (the authors) to expand the existing literature available on the ethnic minority’s cultural history and the intra-identity groups existing within it, which actually appear to be more entwined with one another as against the literary perception created (often seeing them as binaries to one another). Based on our observations, we suggest that while the religious identity of Islam predominantly defines (and distinguishes) the Cham from the Khmer majority, still, a peek into their cultural (say, on religious ritual propriety) brings out a more hybrid relationship between the Cham and the Khmer culture, that merits a more intensive evaluation through primary observations.

Respect and the Confucian concept of Li (ritual propriety)

ABSTRACTThis paper specifically deals with the relation between respect and li禮in the Confucian context. Li has both negative and positive sources. On the positive level, ritual propriety enables one to express internal moral and religious feelings, especially respect, reverence and humility. Furthermore, this work investigates into the relevant feelings and acts of respect and ritual propriety, as well as meaningful critiques of ritual, in an attempt to clarify the genuine expression of ritual propriety that helps to actualize human inner moral and religious approaches.

Lead Them with Virtue: A Confucian Alternative to War by Kurtis Hagen (review)

Reviewed by: Lead Them with Virtue: A Confucian Alternative to War by Kurtis Hagen Don J. Wyatt (bio) Kurtis Hagen. Lead Them with Virtue: A Confucian Alternative to War. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2021. xiv, 166 pp. E-book $45.00, isbn 978-17936-39714. Hardback $95.00, isbn 978-1793639707. Opining in the introduction of the now-classic edited volume Chinese Ways of Warfare, John King Fairbank (1907–1991) observes that a "disesteem of physical coercion was deeply embedded in the Confucian teaching" and that doing "the right thing in the right way and at the proper time not only maintained the web of civilized relationships; it also confirmed one's position within it."1 By "the right thing," in this instance, Fairbank here means to refer essentially to the basic Confucian predisposition of ordinarily abstaining from confrontational violence as much as possible and, to date, no secondary study as yet has pursued this premise more purposefully or exhaustively than Kurtis Hagen's Lead Them with Virtue: A Confucian Alternative to War. As Hagen himself asserts in his own introduction, "This book argues that Confucius's most influential early followers, Mencius and Xunzi, who spoke more directly about warfare than did Confucius, would support the strategy of leading with virtue as an alternative to military interventions" (p. x). Hagen's introduction also provides a summary of the structure of the book, revealing it to consist of eight chapters and a conclusion. Immediately thereafter, via chapter 1 ("A Brief Overview of Confucianism"), Hagen mainly introduces us to the principal classical Confucian philosophers recognized as advocating the anti-violence stance, who happen to be none other than the most familiar successors to the tradition after its namesake, Mencius (ca. 372–ca. 289 B.C.E.) and Xunzi (ca. 325–ca. 235). Hagen also employs this chapter to explicate what prevailed as the "Confucianized" interpretations of seven key classical terms, with those being: junzi 君子 (exemplary persons); de 德 (influential virtue); ren 仁 (benevolence); li 禮 (ritual propriety); yi 義 (appropriateness); tian 天 ("Heaven"); and dao 道 (way). For the most part, interpreting these terms quite conventionally, Hagen regards the first five as more closely associated with "the idea of moral leadership" (p. 3) than the latter two, which he identifies with "a religious, or at least quasi-religious aspect" (p. 7) of Confucianism. Chapter 2 ("Western and Chinese Attitudes Regarding Warfare") is of unquestionably high significance because it is herein that Hagen unveils his principal argument in the form of a purported "Confucian solution" that is expounded in the next four chapters in succession. However, any solution first necessitates a problem, which, in this case, Hagen discerns in what he regards as the two most prevalent and mutually discrete Western attitudes toward warfare, which is either to romanticize it or to moralize it. In Hagen's view, the [End Page 201] implications of either of these approaches to war are as misguided as they are deadly because it distorts the grim realities of contestation by combat. Relying chiefly on the representative examples of the first of these attitudes posed by Niccoló Machiavelli (1469–1527) and Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831), Hagen posits that romanticization, on the one hand, basically conflates gallantry with virtue, thus encouraging, even more, an overindulgence in war. On the other hand, the moralization of war imposes unrealistic expectations for conflict, wherein rules of engagement, based on a logic that moral constraints must be maintained even during wartime, are presumed to apply in situations in which they are neither applicable nor enforceable. For Hagen, the solution to be found in the Chinese tradition, and articulated in a variety of classical texts, ranging from the ostensibly militarist Sunzi and Sun Bing to the Mozi to the Daoist Laozi (though much less so Zhuangzi) to the Confucian Mencius and Xunzi, is a stark and no-nonsense apperception of war that is unclouded by either romanticization or moralization. Once seen for what it really is, the truly virtuous will seek to avoid war at all costs and, accordingly, even wars with humanitarian rationales could be deemed to be unworthy of support. Chapter 3 ("Anticipating Confucian Just War Theory") is an essential table-setting chapter for the next three...

Decoding the Ambiguous Narrative Voice in the “Tale of Yingying”: Ritual Propriety as Key

Abstract Yuan Zhen’s “Tale of Yingying” has long been known for its ambiguous narrative voice. This article argues that what we perceive as a conflict in the narrative voice, did not exist for readers of the Tang dynasty (618-907). The tale was composed to emphasize the essential nature of ritual propriety for both men and women; both the male protagonist Zhang and the female character Yingying are targets of criticism. Unearthing the resonances and allusions of the discourse, and analyzing the social and political background of the mid-Tang, this study proposes that the tale may be read at two levels, using ritual propriety as key. From the literary point of view, this tale presents a regrettable love story, one that does not yield its fruit, due to the tide of passion – passion is the crucial element in romance, but in the end, it is also passion that drives the two lovers apart. From the didactic point of view, the author condemns Yingying not in self-justification, as those who support the autobiographical reading often presume, but because she is a fallen woman and a potentially dangerous femme fatale. Zhang is ridiculed for initiating the ritual transgression, and in failing to behave as a junzi (gentleman). This tale is an educational inquiry into self-cultivation and politics. By incorporating two points of view, that of Zhang and that of Yingying, the tale provokes reflection on the nature of romance and its possible effects on men and women, and ultimately, the indispensability of propriety.