Our introduction to some of the key Confucian texts, including Mengzi (Mencius) continues to be useful as we examine the intellectual history of later thinkers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In my last posting I mentioned some of the passages in Mengzi that easily stretch across the centuries to resonate in any discussion about political reform. In our elective readings about the socialist and anarchist figure Kōtoku Shūsui (1871-1911) from Robert Tierney’s Monster of the Twentieth Century: Kōtoku Shūsui and Japan’s First Anti-Imperialist Movement we see that a selective reading of Mengzi could be deployed to politically radical ends.
Kōtoku claims in 1904 to have become a socialist thanks to Kōtoku, and is influenced by the creative reinterpretation of Mengzi found in the work of Nakae Chōmin (1847-1901), who saw him, among other things, as an example of an East Asian democratically-minded thinker.1 Kōtoku’s most interesting, and again selective, use of Mengzi comes in his arguments against patriotism (aikoku 愛国). Deploying a classic Chinese binary in an unorthodox way, he argues that patriotsim as an emotion is to show preference for the private (shi 私) over the public (ooyake 公), as here public would require a more global perspective.2 Kōtoku uses the famous example in Mengzi of the naturally caring nature of humanity to press his case for a level of undifferentiated caring that seems much closer to the Mohist followers of Mozi, than their Confucian opponents:
I agree with Mencius that any human being would, without hesitation, rush to rescue a child about to fall into a well…On second thought, however, a human being moved by such selfless love and charity does not pause to think whether the child is a family member or a close relative. When he rescues the child from danger, he does not even ask himself whether the child is his own or belongs to another. For the same reason, righteous and benevolent men in every nation in the world pray that the people of the Transvaal will win their freedom and that the people of the Philippines will gain their independence. There are many such men even in England and the United States, even though their countries are belligerents in these wars. How is it possible for a patriot to adopt such a stance?
…In America, patriots revile fellow citizens who hope for the independ- ence of the Philippines and condemn their hatred of their own country. But even if these people are lacking in love for their country, they are certainly filled with compassion, charity, and generosity. For this reason, we can conclude that patriotism is an emotion far removed from the profound feeling that leads a human being to rescue a child from impending danger.
I am saddened that patriotism has nothing to do with compassion and charity. In fact, the love a patriot feels for his country stops at national borders. He only cares about the human beings who live in his own country. A patriot who does not care for the people of other countries and only loves his fellow countrymen is like a man who only loves members of his own family and immediate relatives and is indifferent to everyone else…
This is a good example of how ancient Chinese thinkers are selectively embraced and deployed for new, sometimes radical, causes. Though I find myself nodding sympathetically with Kōtoku on this point, as suggested in the discussion of Mengzi vs. the Mohists here, it is unlikely that Mengzi himself would have approved of Kōtoku’s formulation of his cosmopolitan vision:
…[the Mohist] Yi Zhi said, “According to the Way of the Confucians, the ancients treated the people ‘like caring for a baby.’ What does this saying mean? I take it to mean that love is without differentiations, but it is bestowed beginning with one’s parents.”
Xu Bi told Mengzi this. Mengzi said, “Does Yi Zhi truly hold that one’s affection for one’s own nephew is like one’s affection for a neighbor’s baby? The passage from the [Classic of the] Documents is only using that as a metaphor. When a crawling baby is about to fall into a well, it is not the baby’s fault. Furthermore, Heaven, in giving birth to things, causes them to have one source, but Yi Zhi gives them two sources. 3
This passage follows a discussion about the Mohist criticism of Confucian practices of lavish funerals for parents that betray their preference for the care of family over strangers. It is difficult to parse, particularly at the end. Commentators on Mengzi that were included by Bryan van Norden in his translation of this section argue that the technical point Mengzi is trying to make here is that Yi Zhi is suggesting that there are two sources of compassion: the natural compassion we have for our parents, and a separate impartial love for all humanity, instead of the Confucian perspective that our strongest love for our family merely radiates outward, with naturally (and appropriately) decreasing intensity to those beyond. Mengzi might argue that it is the same love for parents which justifies the increased attention to their funeral, but also motivates us to save a child in need who we do not know. Kōtoku might respond that it still allows him to say we should care about desperate opressed peoples beyond the nation, but if he wanted to stay loyal to Mengzi, instead of Mozi, he would have to change his rhetoric of the pettiness of patriotic sentiment.