Confucianism and Totalitarianism: An Arendtian Reconsideration of Mencius versus Xunzi

Using an Arendtian approach, this article considers how key concepts in the texts of the Mencius and the Xunzi might be appropriated for 'legitimizing' totalitarian regimes. Taking an unproblematized relation to a normative History and Nature to underlie the plausibility of such appropriation, it is argued that if any Confucianism would be totalitarian, it might well be Mencian instead of Xunzian.