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.On Simplicity The typical Chinaman, in the point of view of Gu Hongming, is a man of mind of adult and of heart of child. This viewpoint,which I read about decades ago, is exposited elaborately in his work the Spirit of Chinese People with witty English and firm belief. If you are interested in the Chinese traditional culture, this book is not to be missed. Never have I seen a man who preached the Chinese traditional culture with so much enthusiasm. Gu is a Confucian and strongly believes that Chinese civilization is much better than the European civilization, and he maintains that the Second World War would not have broken out had the Europeans been cultivated by Chinese civilization. His biggest reason it that the Chinese people are more simple than the Europeans. The simplicity, he says, in heart is the best weapon to deal with conflicts and disputes. I don’t agree with a word he says because the history of China brims with violence and massacre even if Confucianism has prevailed over any other isms. But his idea that Chinese people are simple was not based on his observation but on the doctrine of Confucianism. Yan Hui led a simple life, as the Analects describes, on a bamboo basket of food and a ladle of water,which most men would find unbearable, but he is content with it and joyful. According to Cheng Yi, founder of School of Laws(理学)， there is nothing to be enjoyed in eating coarse rice and drinking water. What the passage mean is simply that Yan Hui, like his master Confucius, remained happy, despite the fact that they had only the meager fare. In the point of view of Gu Hongming, it’s the simplicity that makes Confucius and YanHui happy, which reminds us of another story about Confucius that he has led a life of there being no meat to ear for three months but he didn’t change his ideas about how to live a worthwhile life. Apparently , he was leading a lifewith reflection( cf. a life without reflection is not worth living ____Socrates). Being simple sometimes refers to leading a life without much tact. Laozi holds the view that we should discard the idea of being a sage with much tact, as he maintains that what’s so called wisdom and tact will defile the hearts and will make the world full of strife and controversies. This way, Laozi emphasizes, is the best way to preserve life and avoid harm and danger in the human world. “When knowledge and intelligence appeared, Gross Artifice began(智慧出，有大伪——《道德经·十八章》)” “Banish wisdom, discard knowledge and the people will be benefited a hundredfold Banish human-heartedness, discard righteousness and the people will be dutiful and compassionate. Banish skill, discard profit, and thieves and robbers will disappear. (絶圣弃智，民利百倍；绝仁弃义，民复孝慈；绝巧弃利，盗贼无有《道德经·十九章》)” to live by the nature of human beings is to live in simplicity, as he maintains. Unluckily,some modern people misapprehend his doctrine and hold the view that a man should live like a beast. They act on impulse, which doesn’t mean that they act on the doctrine held by Mencius that all men have a mind which cannot bear to see the suffering of others, but on the decayed and depraved nature of human beings. They ask for unconditional love from anyone else including even strangers but dedicate nothing to others. If asked to give a hand to somebody else ,they would ask for a condition. They regard it as being simple in nature and human-heartedness. it’s really ridiculous that they regard themselves to be simple in nature and think it’s their virtue. How funny it is! They misunderstand the idea of living naturally without tact. But it doesn’t mean that people should ask for more but try to give less. Rousseau,when he says conscience is in all circumstances an infallible guide to right action, expresses the same idea as Mencius’, at least in a sense when Mencius says that he who has completely developed his mind, knows his nature, he who knows his nature, knows Heaven.(尽其心者，知其性也。知其性，则知天矣——《孟子·尽心章句第一节》); and when he says that we can be men without being learned; dispensed from wasting our life in the study of morals; our natural feelings lead us to serve the common interest while our reason urges selfishness, he is roughly similar to Laozi. But you will be confounded if you conceived his being simple is being a savage. The concept of savage in Rousseau philosophy is not a man of no civilization but a good husband or wife and a kind father or mother; a man destitute of greed and have a religion of natural kindliness. Voltaire doesn’t agree with him: No one has ever been so witty as you are in trying to turn us into brutes; to read your book makes one long to go on all fours. Voltaire was convinced that all this denunciation of civilization was boyish nonsense; that man was incomparably better off under civilization than undersavagery; he informs Rousseau that man is by nature a beast of prey, and that civilized society means a chaining of this beast, a mitigation of his brutality, and the possibility of the development, through social order, of the intellect and its joys. We can take Voltaire’s response to Rousseau as the western philosophy to Chinese philosophy since we by analysis come to realize that Rousseau is in a sense Laozi and Mencius of western version. Of course,being simple, in my opinion, is to live abiding by the precepts of Providence. But it’s another story. |
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