Protest and the Ch'ing Intellectual

-1PROTEST AND THE CH'ING INTELLECTUAL Jane Kate Leonard Kean College of Hew Jersey The following papers trace the changing political-intellectual landscape in china during the two and a half centuries of Ch'ing rule through the lives of the seventeenth-century scholar Li Yung, the k'ao-cheng scholars of High Ch'ing, ana the early nineteenth century poet-bureaucrat Kung Tzu-chen. They explore the various forms of political protest in the early Ch'ing, the significance of eccentricity as a form of protest, and the political overtones of classical scholarship and textual studies in the eighteenth century, all of which raise fundamental questions about the scholar-intellectual and the nature of his role in Chinese politics. Taken together, the three papers show the varied expressions of the scholar's political commitment born of the alienation of scholars from the politi cal process in the early Ch'ing, the emergence of the scholar-intellectual class connected with official life through the large literary mu-fu of High Ch'ing, and the gradual reorientation of the scholar-intellectual towards practical affairs or statecraft in the early nineteenth century during the early stages of dynastic decline. Anne Davison has painted a very intriguing picture of Li Yung, who, by her own account, was a rather middling fellow— undistinguished as a creative scholar, decidedly mainstream in his investigations of Sung and Ming Neo-Confucianism, and untouched by new trends in the scholarly and political thought of the times. Li was reacting to his times, not shaping them, and one suspects that he was much more representative of his class than the brilliant exceptions like Ku Yen-wu. It was not his scholarship, but his eremitism which brought Li Yung recognition and praise from his contemporaries. Li was confronted, as were so many of his contemporaries, with the political-moral dilemma of how to account for Ming decadence and Manchu rule and how to fulfill the scholar-official's political responsibilities while remaining loyal to the Ming. Li responded to this dilemma by withdrawing from official life and wearing the eremitic mantle of conspicuous obscurity. Li Yung's case adde an important dimension to our knowledge of seventeenth century political behavior, and one wonders how significant Li's brand of eremitism was as a form of protest in the early Ch'ing. How many of his contemporaries responded to the times in a similar manner, yet left no trace because of their purposeful destruction of their own writings! Li Yung's response to the seventeenth century dilemma forcefully illustrates that scholarship was indeed politics. Although one might withdraw from official life, this did not mean withdrawing from politics. On the contrary, the commit- ment to scholarship was a political act and was expressed in the search for the tao of the age. Scholarship was an important and legitimate reaffirmation of the political drives and responsibilities of the elite. The dichotomy between official life, on the one hand, and the scholarly non-official career, on the other, is dramatically drawn in the seventeenth century. However, this cleavage wa¡> not simply a seventeenth century phenomenon, but one that had it3 roots in the larger pattern of changée affecting the scholarofficial class since Ming times and earlier. First is the declining significance of the scholar-official class as a counterweight to imperial rule. The process began in the Sung period with the growth of imperial autocracy, was furthered by the political alienation of the elite during the Mongol Yuan dynasty, and was completed with the intimidation of scholar-offici als during the Ming and Ch'ing periods. The intimidations ranged from the bestial floggings of the Hung-wu reign to the more subtle institutional changée wrought by the Manchus, such as the personal memorial syetem. All took their toll. With the growth of imperial autocracy came the gradual érosion of the long-standing tradition of official remonstrance. Official remonstrance became less and less attractive or effective as a form of protest. It was replaced by officials withdrawing from the political process as they did in the late -4Ming and early Ch'ing periods. Although less frequently directed toward the court, remonstrance remained...