The Trouble with Confucianism (The Tanner Lectures on Human Values) by Wm. Theodore de Bary

The Tanner Lectures on Human Values

by William Theodore de Bary

In Singapore, Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and other parts of East and Southeast Asia, as well as China, people are asking, "What does Confucianism have to offer today?" For some, Confucius is still the symbol of a reactionary and repressive past; for others, he is the humanist admired by generations of scholars and thinkers, East and West, for his ethical system and discipline. In the face of such complications, only a scholar of Theodore de Bary's stature could venture broad answers to the question of the significance of Confucianism in today's world.

Genres: China, Philosophy

Hardcover

First published December 3, 1991

About the author

William Theodore de Bary was an East Asian studies expert at Columbia University, with the title John Mitchell Mason Professor of the University and Provost Emeritus.

De Bary graduated from Columbia College in 1941, where he was a student in the first iteration of Columbia's famed Literature Humanities course. He then briefly took up graduate studies at Harvard before the US entered the Second World War. De Bary left the academy to serve in American military intelligence in the Pacific Theatre. Upon his return, he resumed his studies at Columbia, where he earned his PhD.

He has edited numerous books of original source material relating to East Asian (primarily Japanese and Chinese) literature, history, and culture, as well as making the case, in his book Nobility and Civility, for the universality of Asian values. He is recognized as essentially creating the field of Neo-Confucian studies.

Additionally, DeBary was active in faculty intervention during the Columbia University protests of 1968 and served as the university's provost from 1971 to 1978. He has attempted to reshape the Core Curriculum of Columbia College to include Great Books classes devoted to non-Western civilizations. DeBary is additionally famous for rarely missing a Columbia Lions football game since he began teaching at the university in 1953. A recognized educator, he won Columbia's Great Teacher Award in 1969, its Lionel Trilling Book Award in 1983 and its Mark Van Doren Award for Great Teaching in 1987.

Now the director of the Heyman Center for the Humanities and still teaching, De Bary lives in Rockland County, New York.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_de_Bary

Reviews

[Riku Sayuj · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Middle Class To the Rescue

For De Bary, the “trouble” with Confucianism has been there from the start — the ideal of liberal and humanist governance, set against the reality of conservative imperial rule. The root of all these troubles is that Confucianism envisages a sage-king advised by liberal scholars, very close to the structure of a Plato’s Republic, but history shows us that imperial rule can turn authoritarian very easily. Confucianism does not seem to have a way to cope with it. This leads to constant tension between these two tendencies.

He traces this conflict over history to show us why Confucianism has developed a reputation for being both liberal and also extremely conservative. It is the inevitable result when a core liberal humanist teaching that is often appropriated to serve the interests of conservative regimes, and there is no constitutional mechanism to protect the original core of the ideal. This tension between the liberal and the conservative potentials has meant that the tradition has remained, but only by being twisted out of proportion by contending forces, though it seems to be elastic enough to spring back to recognizable forms. More on that Here. But in spite of these “troubles” De Bary remains hopeful that with the right sort of institutional support the liberal core of Confucianism might still one day be able to flower. Presumably once the imperial structure is replaced by the democratic ambitions of a more politically engaged middle class. As always, the salvation of the world rests on the the broad shoulders of the emerging middle class!

[Colin Hoad · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this unassuming volume, de Bary attempts to outline what he believes to be a central contradiction inherent in Confucian philosophy. In essence, he argues that the very nature of Confucian ethics dictates that those who adhere to them are prohibited, by the nature of their beliefs, from actively carrying them out to their fullest extent. The argument is clear, concise and well grounded. It draws comparisons between Confucian scholars on the one hand and Old Testament prophets on the other. Far from undermining Confucianism as a philosophy, de Bary succeeds in explaining why such a positive system of ethics failed to truly take hold in the manner in which it was espoused by the likes of Confucius and Mencius. A fascinating piece of scholarship.