According to Alasdair MacIntyre, one of the marks of a great tradition is its ability to grow: when systems of thought and practice do not successfully respond to epistemological challenges, they die. The recent work of Michael Nylan and Thomas Wilson reminds us that political and social developments test the viability of cultural institutions as well. In particular, the adaptability of Confucianism is on persuasive display in their Lives of Confucius: Civilization's Greatest Sage through the Ages. This book presents the ever-changing face of Confucius, or Kongzi. It proceeds from the earliest accounts of his life down to the contemporary era, in which we debate questions that the Sage would find surprising, if not incomprehensible, including, how should Confucianism promote itself on the global market, if at all? Can Confucians be feminists?
The authors begin with the historical Confucius: the probably illegitimate child of a minor government official in the state of Lu, born in 551 bce. In the first chapter, doing much to dispel pious myths about Kongzi's angelic temperament, the authors cite Sima Qian's thesis that “until he was in his mid-sixties, Kongzi was a sanctimonious and arrogant know-it-all” (p. 3). In Sima Qian's account, we find a Kongzi who is all too human, and who has to be humbled through adversity before he can become a sage, or a “man whose eagerness to learn exceeded his eagerness to teach” (p. 3).
The fallible, vulnerable side of Kongzi continues to be emphasized in chapter 2, in which the authors explain that “the face of Kongzi emerging in the Han and pre-Han sources is defined by the swift strokes aimed at the Master by his many detractors” (p. 29). Eventually, of course, the long-departed Confucius prevails against the opposition, attaining superhuman status first as the uncrowned king of the Han (described in chapter 3), and then as the canonical Sage from the collapse of the Han through the Song (discussed in chapter 4).
Chapter 5 surveys the political and doctrinal developments of the Confucius cult from its earliest beginnings to its flourishing throughout much of the second millennium ce, while chapter 6 very helpfully reconstructs two liturgies performed by Kongzi's seventy-first-generation descendant, illustrating the type of ritual that was for centuries among the most important and characteristic element of the Confucian tradition. Finally, in the excellently titled seventh chapter, “A Confusion of Confuciuses,” the authors take us through the dizzying array of Kongzis in the postimperial period, from the fusty old man who impeded scientific and democratic progress to the eclectic personality promoted by China's “home-grown Oprah” and “self-help queen” Yu Dan, who variously presents Kongzi as a “dynamic go-getting pragmatist in the John Dewey mold,” a “dreamy recluse in the style of Tao Yuanming,” and a “Zhuangzi-clone who regards the world with cool detachment” (p. 220).
Each chapter shows that Kongzi's legacy is remarkably capable of evolving in response to changing circumstances; by the book's end, the authors are able to leave the East Asian context behind to review the limited success of Kongzi in the West, where he has been embraced by academics who view him, among other things, as a communitarian figure useful in combating the excesses of individualism (pp. 227–39). Indeed, Confucius is demonstrated to be so malleable that, rather than consigning him to the dustbin of history or confining his relevance to the Asian continent, readers are likely to ask to what uses Kongzi may not be put, or which Confucian values must not be compromised in negotiation with changing times and places. Nylan and Wilson answer the latter question when they identify ritual decorum and integrity as the two threads holding Confucian culture together throughout history (p. 241). Similar unifying themes arguably include valuation of the family (both as locus of self-cultivation and model for the state), reverence for what we might call “book learning,” and the ubiquitous, this-worldly emphasis on achieving such goals as peace, prosperity, and posterity. Keeping these concerns in mind helps provide a sense of the very real borders of the Confucian tradition, which are effectively closed, for example, to untutored self-expression and deliberate childlessness. Moreover, awareness of the terrain helps us locate the distinctive contributions that Confucius can make to discourse on human rights, education reform, and globalization.
The Lives of Confucius is a significant contribution to the perennial project of defining Confucianism precisely because it does not hold all Kongzis to be created equal; rather, it strongly suggests that some Confuciuses are more Confucian than others. Just as importantly, however, the book also reminds us that the central threads of the tradition can be woven into a dazzling diversity of patterns. The impressive historical work that the authors have done should inspire further exploration of how creative, and relevant, an authentic Confucianism can be today.
