The Chinese Aesthetic Tradition

Chapter 3 The Daoist-Confucian Synthesis

76 C ha P T e R 3 The Daoist-Confucian Synthesis Heaven and earth have great beauty but do not speak of it. —Zhuangzi “Free and easy wandering”:1 Zhuangzi’s aesthetic View of Life In The Path of Beauty, I put forward the concept of the mutual complementarity of Confucianism and Daoism. After coming under some degree of criticism, it seems this idea has become widely accepted. Actually, numerous commentators have recognized this fact over the years. It is possible for Confucianism and Daoism to be mutually complementary because, fundamentally, both arose out of the same ancient non-Dionysian cultural tradition. Although Daoists opposed the rites and music, theirs was certainly not a spirit of sensuous indulgence or revelry. From the perspective of the history of thought, the primary representative of Daoism, Zhuangzi, is but a developer and extender of certain Confucian ideas. This is why my discussion of Daoism in The Path of Beauty began with Confucianism. To summarize the argument I presented in that work,2 what we refer to as Confucianism and Daoism in fact constitute two streams of development of the same foundational ideas. In one historical stream, the skeptical and positivist Confucian worldview (characterized by such statements as “Reverence the spirits while keeping them at a distance, for this is called knowledge”) develops into the optimistic atheism of Xunzi and the Commentaries on the Book of Changes (“Master the will of Heaven and make use of it” and “As heaven proceeds vigorously , so the gentleman must strive to improve himself unremittingly”). In the other historical stream, it becomes the pantheism of Zhuangzi. Similarly, Confucius’ respect for the personalities of individual clan members (“You can capture the commander of three armies, but you cannot capture The Daoist-Confucian Synthesis 77 the will of an ordinary person”) in one stream develops into Mencius’ ideal of the great personality (“Not corrupted by wealth, not moved by poverty, not subjugated by military might”), while in the other stream, it becomes Zhuangzi ’s ideal of the independent, iconoclastic personality that abandons the world (“They carelessly loiter beyond the dust and dirt, and wander free and easy in the realm of non-action”). On the surface, Confucianism and Daoism seem to be diametrically opposed. One embraces the world, the other forsakes it; one is optimistic and progressive, the other negative and retiring. But in reality, the two form a mutually complementary and harmonious whole. This is true not only in the sense that later scholar-officials would regard the Confucian imperative to “aid all under heaven” and the Daoist imperative to “do what is best for one’s own body” as complementary ways of life. It is also true in the sense that the opposition between compassionate, generous public service and a spirit of enmity toward the world would become a normal element of the Chinese intellectual psyche as well as a common artistic convention. But this is not to deny that, when it comes down to it, Confucianism and Daoism are really quite different in their aesthetic consequences. With Xunzi, Confucians stressed the idea that “without artifice, nature could not beautify itself,” while Zhuangzi argued that “Heaven and earth have great beauty but do not speak of it” (22.60.25).3 The former emphasizes the importance of human creation and external effort in art, while the latter emphasizes nature, or, in other words, the independence of beauty and art. Because of their narrow, utilitarian framework, Confucians often imposed strictures on artistic creation, sometimes hampering or even destroying it. Daoists, on the other hand, mounted an all-out attack on that framework and its strictures, dismantling and disrupting them. With the unwavering romanticism of their visual imagination, the intensity of their emotional expression, and their quest to express the unique human personality, Daoists have continually brought a fresh impetus for development to Chinese art, both in form and content. For although Zhuangzi rejected the world, he by no means denied natural life, but rather cherished and valued it. For this reason, his pantheistic philosophy and his aesthetic attitude toward life fairly radiate with emotion, in a manner that both complements and deepens Confucianism, and in fact is Confucian. That is why it is correct to say that Daoists like Laozi and Zhuangzi at once oppose and complement Confucianism. How does this “opposition and complementarity” look in practice? I would suggest that the notion of “the naturalization of humans” put forward by the Daoists and Zhuangzi is at once...