Good Confucianism book (pdf) - Department of Physics

110 XunziThe sage - kings realized the horror of human life in its natural state of“ war of all against all. ” They wisely set up limits and rules to govern humanbehavior. They saw the social chaos that following our natures produced. Inorder to control it, they instituted ritual and moral rules, much like trafficlaws. This is the foundation of civilization.One of Xunzi ’ s arguments against Mencius has to do with the sage - kings.Why would we have needed sage - kings, Xunzi asks, if human nature wasgood? Why would we need ritual and morality? Why we would need tolearn anything? It can only be that human nature is evil. That is why wehad to invent ritual and morality.Now this is an unfair reading of Mencius who argued only that humannature contains sprouts of goodness that need to be cultivated, but Xunziis convinced that civilized values are necessary only because human natureis evil. Xunzi had read the Daoists and agreed with them that civilization isartificial and unnatural. But, for Xunzi, the great achievement of civilizationis precisely its artificiality.Learning an artificially imposed morality will dramatically change us.Xunzi likens us to a warped piece of wood that has to be steamed, put ina press, and forced to bend its shape before it can be straight. Teachersmust be obeyed and models must be studied:So it is that a warped piece of wood must first be pressed in a frame and thensteamed in order to soften it. This allows its shape to be bent before it canbecome straight. A dull piece of metal must first be whetted on a grindstonebefore it can be made sharp.Now, human nature is evil. It must receive the instructions of a teacherand follow models and only then can it be put right. We must learn ritualsand rightness before we can be orderly. These days, men have no teachers ormodels, so they are biased, wicked, and not properly behaved. Because theydo not have rituals and rightness, they are wicked, rebellious, and disorderly. 15Teachers are absolutely essential and the Xunzi says that formal educationunder a master is a necessity. Education is the enormous task of controllingthe desires of our nature and this can be done only by taking on board allof the culture of the past. Like all Confucians, Xunzi sees the process ofbecoming a better person as a process of self - cultivation that is possibleonly through education.RitualFor Xunzi, we live in a world of scarcity – there is just not enough togo around. Whether it is food or fame or power, there is not enough for