By Taru Taylor
Contrary to popular opinion, Confucianism is about authority, not authoritarianism. Caesarism, the Western byword of authoritarianism, is its diametric opposite. The Confucian leader, the Chun-tzu, starkly contrasts the Western leader whose role-model is Julius Caesar and whose archetype is Alexander the Great. The Confucian, in principle, disdains military accomplishment. His hero is the gentleman and scholar, not the military dictator.
It is well-known that the East understands the cosmos to be a circle; that the West thinks that it is a straight line. More specifically, the Confucian East sees government as a circle of dignified human beings. The Caesarian West, however, sees it as interlocking vertical lines of masters and slaves. ``Checks and balances'' means that the masters check and balance each other.
Because Westerners think that human relationships are vertical lines: always a master and always a slave, they almost always misunderstand Confucianism to be hierarchical. They see its five duties of universal obligation_ between sovereign and minister, father and son, husband and wife, elder brother and younger, and between friends_as vertical lines. But ``li,'' Chinese for ``propriety,'' the matrix of these relationships, is circular, not straight.
Each of these five relationships is a mutual balancing act, not top-down chain-of-command. That is, each is a balance of Yang and Yin, not master over slave. Thus, the sovereign, father, husband, elder brother, and elder friend, all personify Yang. Their counterparts personify Yin.
Usually Confucianism has the Chun-tzu play the archer, but let's observe him walk the tightrope, as ``The Doctrine of the Mean" Chapter 14 speaks to this balance of Yang and Yin. "In a high situation, he does not treat with contempt his inferiors. In a low situation, he does not court the favor of his superiors.'' In other words, he does not prefer yes-men who kiss his ass, nor does he kow-tow to authority.
But the authoritarian thinks that any question about any decision he makes insults his person. To him, respect means perfect obedience. Unlike the Chun-tzu, who leads by principle, indeed, by the precepts of li, the authoritarian rules by fiat. Let's now consider Caesar, perhaps the supreme role-model of authoritarianism.
Julius Caesar presumed to be a god. Thus, he vertically integrated Rome to his cult of personality. The same was true of his successor, Augustus Caesar, and to his succession of Popes to whom the Roman Catholic world is vertically integrated via ``papal infallibility.'' Augustus Caesar was the Pontifex Maximus of the ancient Roman religion; the Pope is the Pontiff of Roman Catholicism. Just as ``Pontifex Maximus'' and ``Pontiff'' are cognate, so are the roles of Caesar and Pope.
Contrariwise, Confucianism is not a hierarchy. For a hierarch is a ``sacred leader'' in contrast to the profane people; a ``priestly ruler'' as opposed to the vulgar masses. The Chun-tzu is much too humble for that. Consider ``The Doctrine of the Mean'' Chapter 33: ``Over her embroidered robe she puts a plain, single garment.'' Tsze-sze explains: ``It is the way of the superior man to prefer the concealment of his virtue, while it daily becomes more illustrious, and it is the way of the mean man to seek notoriety, while he daily goes more and more to ruin.'' Although Confucius does not speak directly to the same proverb, we might consider ``The Analects'' Book 4 Chapter 14 as further commentary: ``A man should say, I am not concerned that I have no place, I am concerned how I may fit myself for one. I am not concerned that I am not known, I seek to be worthy to be known.''
It is easy to see that ``her embroidered robe'' has to do with glamour, which is the illusion of beauty. Caesarism looks the part. Nor does the authoritarian have any idea of virtue, of its charming humility. He knows nothing of finesse. He forces himself upon his own people and upon other peoples, thinking that his conquests, domestic and foreign, denote his superiority and connote his divinity. His prestige gives him the illusion of power, that is to say, the illusion that the white race is the hierarch of humankind.
The Confucian, with circumspect simplicity, sees Caesar's ``embroidered robe'' as a sham. Adolf Hitler, a recent example of Caesarism, bragged about his so-called ``Third Reich'' lasting 1,000 years. It barely lasted 12, but even if it had endured, what is a millennium, to the Confucian, but 15 minutes of fame? A thousand years seems like a long time to the typical Westerner, but that's only because he lacks circumspection. 2933 is a terminus. But Yin and Yang are interminable. The Tao is forever.