What would Confucius say?

子曰、君子不器

1.

Maybe not so unlike European kings in the Renaissance, Japanese aristocrats in the 10th century gained power through advantageous marriages. And Michinaga’s father Kane’ie was a master at this. By placing his daughters as close to the court as possible— preferably as wives and consorts to the emperor—he scraped off more and more power for himself. For this reason, daughters were in many ways preferred over sons among the Heian period elite.

This kind of marriage politics led to great attention being paid to the education and cultural capital of women since the arts were so highly valued at court. And so it is probably no real surprise that much of the great literature of the age was created by women—something quite unique in the world for that time period.

But, of course, there was also a downside.

In the last episode of the taiga drama, when her elder brother comes to her to try to embroil her in yet another political gambit, Akiko (Fujiwara no senshi), who was still recovering from her disastrous time as the nyogo (a court title given to a consort of the Emperor) of Emperor Enyu, stopped her brother mid-speech. Holding up her hand she said she was tired of being used as a tool for her father’s ambitions:

政(まつりごと)の道具として扱われること

She was not the first of his children to complain like this in the drama so far—and the expression reminds me of something I’ve always loved from the Analects of Confucius:

The Master said, “The exemplary person is not a tool.”

子曰、君子不器

In the case of Akiko, she is saying that “I am more than one thing. My life is not just being a tool for my father’s plans.”

One of the hallmarks of the Confucian project is the relentless aim at self-improvement and the cultivation of one’s character. This is an endeavor that lasts a person’s entire life and demands much self-reflection, circumspection and yes, hard work. It goes without saying that in this, one is working for ALL human flourishing. Confucian self-cultivation necessarily includes the human flourishing of others. Especially one’s family, friends and neighbors. So, in treating his own daughter as a tool, despite the pain it causes her, not only is the father treating the daughter as a fool, but so is he treating his own person as a tool. Isn’t he fundamental more than just a power hungry aristocrat? Doesn’t he have more potential than that? And isn’t life so much bigger?

2.

I am a big fan of the ancient China specialist Roger Ames and am really enjoying his book, Human Becomings: Theorizing Persons for Confucian Role Ethics

Instead of human beings we are “human becomings”—don’t you love that?

For Ames, understanding what it means to be a person is the best place to begin in understanding Confucius. As Herbert Fingarette famously opined, “for Confucius, unless there are at least two human beings, there can be no human beings.” Ames explains it like this, Fingarette is suggesting that “person” in the singular as a discrete individual has little relevance for the relational and irreducibly social notion of persons at play in Confucian philosophy. This is the radical understanding of human interdependence seen in the Analects. This is also a concept held in Buddhism, in Japanese Buddhism called jita funi (自他不二), literally “self and other undivided.

Ames, in his book, is not only trying to uncover the worldview that informed ancient Chinese philosophy, but he is also challenging people from a European tradition to reconsider the limits of individualism. We find ourselves in a perfect storm, and it might not be a bad idea to think about things like the greater good and inter-dependance, not just in the human world but with all life. If I am following his argument, I think what he is calling for is also the paramount Chinese virtue of harmony, which Ames translates as “optimal harmony” (he 和) —this is also the first character used in my son’s name (pronounced Kazu) and is the character used to designate things Japanese (pronounced “wa”).

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1. In Japanese, Confucianism is not named after the man, as it is in English.
   Confucianism is 儒教 Jukyō. The second character means “teachings,” like Buddhism is 仏教 Bukkyō. The first character means a Buddha and the second, again means teaching.
   The man known in English as Confucius is 孔子 is Kōshi. So, as you can seem Confucianism is not named after Confucius but refers to “the teachings of 儒,” whereby 儒 means something like sorcerers, intellectuals, government officials, etc. It is a very old graph. But maybe it is safe-ish to say that it means, the teachings of scholars. Ames makes the point that when one considers the incredible cohesion of Chinese culture and language, the strong commitment to the passing down of cultural knowledge is noteworthy among world cultures.

2. Here is a wonderful short article about human excellence and the expression about tools 子曰、君子不器 by philosopher Chris Panza (a thinker I admire a lot) The Excellence of Junzi. I love this:

Confucius thinks that if you deny the excellence of other people by treating them as qì, in the end you wind up treating yourself as a qì – whether you know it or not. If you think about it, many people do just that.