Outline Lecture Nine: Harmonizing with Others: Mencius and Banzhao

I) How to Assure Social Harmony through Wisdom

a) Within a family, neighborhood, workplace, society, or world
b) How were these challenges addressed in ancient China?
Addressing challenges of promoting unity in communities

II) Harmony in the State—Mencius and Xunzi (Hsun-tzu)

Two strands – ren: benevolence, cohumanity – rationalism: potential of reason, what is practical
to decide on the choices that we can make
a) Strands within Confucian teachings: humanism (potential of ren) and rationalism
(potential of reason)
i) Mencius (Meng-tzu) lived in the 4th century B.C.E.
(1) Century after Confucius – promotes humanistic aspects of Confucius
(2) His teachings canonized as one of the 4 important books
ii) Xunxi (Hsun-tzu) lived in 3rd century B.C.E.
(1) Pin’in (first one), wade jiles (new one)
(2) Two centuries after Confucius
(3) Espoused more rational side – became basis for his later tradition of legalism
(4) Taoism, Confucianism, Legalism – core structures in China
b) Views on government
i) Mencius—Attracting the body politic
Not instilling fear in people but as a ruler having a stance of benevolence – people
will always flow to good rulers like water flows downstream
(1) Governing through benevolence not greed
(a) People will flow to it
(b) If bribery: it never works and will always fall to ruin because people’s greed is
always insatiable
(c) If rule by benevolence, people will ‘crane their necks to even look at him’
(2) Justification for Gemin or “revoking the mandate”
(a) Mandate of Heaven: suggests heaven bestows on the ruler the mandate to rule
if they take care of their people
(b) Gist of his view
(c) Gemin: Revolution – literally revoking the mandate
(i) If a ruler governs through greed and cruelty heaven can revote the
mandate
(ii) Signs of revoke: Famine, natural disasters, etc (message of heaven being
displeased)
(iii) People have the right to overthrow the ruler if the ruler is not
being responsible
(3) How did Mencius reconcile this with the logic of the Five Relations?
(a) Hierarchy of lord/minister etc
(b) Reconciled that yes subjects must obey ruler but if ruler doesn’t do his part he
is already undermining the expectations of the five relations
(i) Revolution is legitimate because of this
ii) Xunzi—Shaping the body politic
 (1) Impose order through educating and indoctrinating the people
(a) Relying on harsh laws and punishment to keep people in line
(b) Fav metaphor is metal (some metal you can mold to your needs)
(c) Basis of legalism
c) Views on human nature
i) Mencius
Assumes humans are essentially good
Evil is a human product, not exactly who we are
(1) Goodness is human nature; evil is a human product
If not:
(a) Someone is not tapping into their well of goodness
(b) Because of material conditions (impoverished, constant hunger) in these
situations people will deny their goodness
(i) This is why it is important for a ruler to provide for essential needs
(ii) If they don’t: all the evil in the world comes out
(2) Four germs of goodness
All born with an inherent sense of shame and that is why we act in righteousness
All born with a sympathetic heart; capacity for pity
All born with a sense of courtesy and because of this we abide by rituals
All born with a natural sense of right and wrong
Because of these seeds we promote justice
(a) E.g. Saving a baby about to fall into a well – anyone will instinctively run up
to save the child
ii) Xunzi
(1) Human nature is corrupt and selfish; whatever good exists is a human product
(a) All born selfish
(b) Whatever good there is in society is a human product
(c) Exact opposite of Mencius
(d) Moral conduct is contrary to our nature
(e) Only capable of making righteous choice if we consider it beneficial to ourself
(i) Only pick up the baby if something is to be gained for us
(2) The Legalist adoption of Xunzi
Legalists have a very iconoclastic view of the past
No reverence for the past
Whatever is most rational is what we do
(a) Iconoclastic view of the past
(i) Han Feizhi’s parable of the farmer and rabbit
1. Allegory of farmer and rabbit: farmer on his way home sees a rabbit
dashed right into the trunk of a tree and is unconscious – takes it home
and eats it
2. Repeats every day but the rabbit is never there again
3. Confucians are like the dumb farmer, they’re just waiting for the next
sage (rabbit) instead of focusing on the practical
(b) Good government about strict laws, not “winning the heart of people”
(i) Always rules, laws, teach them through harsh law and strict punishment
(c) Discourage people from committing more serious crimes?
 (i) Laws so extreme that it deters anyone from ever doing it
(ii) Ash dumped in the wrong place: hand chopped off; tax evasion: nose
chopped off
(iii) Punishments of mutilation of the body and tattoos on the body –
sign of being a criminal and any mutilation or alteration of the body is
dishonorable or shameful
iii) For all Confucians, breakdown of filial piety implied the demise of the state
(1) For both strands of Confucian
(2) Health of all societies begins with the health of the family
(a) Behind every great man is the support of a great woman

III) Harmony in the Family—Banzhao (Pan Chao)

a) The Role of Women in Traditional Chinese Society
i) Re-interpretation of the Five Relations for the husband/wife relationship
Confucius believed the husband above but the husband also had responsibilities to his
wife – ideas of woman to husband became even more hierarchical
(1) “Three submissions”
(a) When the girl is young she submits to father
(b) When married she submits to her husband
(c) When she is older she submits to her son(s)
(2) A woman’s life is defined by submission
ii) Women expected to support a man’s cultivation of character and reputation
(1) Mencius: As a child everything fell to his mother to make sure he turned out the
way he did
(2) Cemetery (only played in cemetery and mother moves them); market; school
b) The Lessons from Ban Zhao (45 C.E. to 120 C.E.?)
Records of her in history
Belonged to family of profound historians
i) Her brother died so she assumed and Completed the corpus, History of the Han
(1) Not sure how much she wrote but she finished it at least
(2) Even male scholars and historians acknowledged this
ii) Herself a great scholar, poet, teacher in the imperial court
(1) Teacher to palace women: teaching classics, mathematics, astronomy
(2) Males recognized that she did this
iii) Long family tradition of reputable scholars
(1) Why so scholarly?
(2) Relative by the name of Lady Ben who was a reknowned poet
(3) Uncle did a favor for the emperor and the emperor gave him an incredible library
as a thank you – most impressive library of books second only to the emperor’s
own library
(4) She received same education as her brothers
iv) Married life at age 14
(1) Arranged marriage (common for them to have many concubines and consorts)
(2) Married to a man of another noble family in the outskirts of the family
(3) Husband dies early
(a) Afterwards she had to stay with her in-laws
 (b) In thirties she moved back to the capital - probably after her in-laws died
(c) She had experience with in-laws and speaks about her experience
(d) Now she can resume her pursuits academically, musically, scholarly
v) Ban Zhao’s “Admonitions for Women” Nu-Jie
Preserved generation after generation
Why? Because everything she had to say about women was submissive, patriarchal,
all for males
(1) Female advocate for patriarchy?
(a) Males don’t even have to make things up when there’s already a woman
saying and teaching all of these things
(b) On the surface she seems another mouthpiece for patriarchy
(i) Humble, respectful towards husband’s ancestors, perform rituals when a
daughter is born that highlight supportive roles, must submit and yield to
husband
(2) Reading Ban Zhao “against the grain” (Dorothy Ko – history professor UCSD
taught him to read this in a different way)
(a) What is the “subtext” in each admonition she presents?
With a text like this look at the subtext:
(i) She says “if a husband is unworthy he cannot gain a wife’s respect and
cannot control her” – “Subtext: It also points out to the husband that if he
is moral he risks upsetting the marriage
1. It is also directed at the man: don’t behave righteously and honestly?
You lose stability of family
(ii) Husband and wife should not always follow each other in close quarters
because it breeds lust, bad language and improper conduct
1. By saying this she is trying to assure a separate space for the women
(not entitled to this traditionally)
2. Physical intimacy often came at the expense of the women and could
come to male physical abuse of the wife
(iii) Husbands must rely on their wife to serve them but to serve him
well the wife must be his equal in cultural sophistication and in learning,
as such how can we argue that society can only educate boys and not girls
1. To be a worthy companion she has to be educated
2. Advocating for female education
3. If not equals husband cannot count on his wife to serve him well or be
a worthy companion
(3) A woman’s relationship with her in-laws
(a) Why she says a daughter-in-law must submit to her in-laws unconditionally
(i) Put aside feelings and opinions. Acceptable to us? NO
1. If husband is there? Shield. If dies? You’re open game
2. Her husband died very early with just her in-laws
3. Probably a terrible experience
(ii) In her subtext and context: mostly what she went through
(b) Who was Ban Zhao’s audience?
(i) She is writing this to her own daughters and her closest female students
(ii) If constant fighting and conflict? Who wins? The in-laws
(iii) This is probably because she cares about her females and it is her
advice on how to survive in a very hostile environment
(iv) Brave courageous voice trying to change but she also may have bought
into some of these patriarchal ideas