74 Henry Rasemzont, J1:

role of reciprocity in early Confucianism, we might want to change the de-

scriptive terms of the relationships as holding between benefhctors and bene-
ficiaries. And if vye keep eyually in mind &at ail of us arc some of cbe time
benefactors and sonle of the time beneficiaries in our relations, then much of
the sting of the accusation of hierarchy or elitism goes away. Again, I would
maintain that this account is a fairly realistic one: I am yirr or ydng depending
on who I am interacting with, and when: I am largely a beneficiary of my
parents, benefactor to my children; the same holds as between my teachers
and my srndents; and 1wutllcl also argue that upon close fnspecl-ion, even Che
relationships between friends, neighbors, and colleagues can be cogently an-
alyzed in this way. And is there not a deep satisfaction that comes from hav-
ing the opporfunity to be a bencfacmr to one who has b e m a benefactor to
you! Again from the Lttn Yg: "The Master said, In dealing with the elderly,
comfort them; in dealing with friends, be sincere; in dealing with the young,
cherish &cmm (5:25), The point deserves further consideration, because any
defense of hierarchy will almost surely conrinue to be seen, especially by
rights theorists, as an argument against equality. But to raise the issue of
equality in this way begs the question against thc Confucian perspccl-ive, in
which the person is to be seen less as a matter of strict self-identity through
time than as the locus of a series of overlapping relationships that change
aver time,
As Nathan Sivin has obsemed:

Scientific thought began, in China as elsewhere, with atrempts to comprehend

h w it is that aXthough individual things are constantly changing, always corn-
ing to be and perishing, nature as a coherent order not only endures but remains
conformable to itself. In ehc West elie earliest such attempts identified clie un-
changing reality with some basic stuff out of whicll all the things around us, Je-
spire their apparent diversity, arc formed.
In China the earliest md in the long run the most influential scientific expla-
nations wcrc in tcrrns of time. They made scnsc of elie morncntary evcnt by fit-
ting it; into the cyclical rhythms of natural pro~ss.18

I would extcpld Sivin's observation to include not only scientific but Chi-
nese ethical explanations (and evaluations) as well. The "basic stuff" of the
scientific W s t resembles the enduring self, or soul (""strict self-identity")), of
&c moral W s t , whereas the Chinese made sense of personal self-identity
"by fitting it inro the cyclical rhythms of natural process." Many factors
enter into the analysis of benefactor-beneficiary roles, but time is essential. A
common lamcnt among the elderly in the West, esycctally mcn, is chat 'cI'm
not the person I used to be." For the Chinese, the statement is quite literally
true.
Much more, of course, needs to be said about all of these matters, but for
now they can be somewhat clarified if we focus attention on what is often