How should we use the Chinese past? Contemporary Confucianism, the ‘reorganization of the national heritage’ and non-Western histories of thought in a global age
| Author | Leigh Jenco |
| DOI | 10.1177/1474885117703768 |
| Published date | 01 October 2017 |
| Date | 01 October 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue Articles |
European Journal of Political Theory
2017, Vol. 16(4) 450–469
!The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1474885117703768
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EJPT
Article
How should we use the
Chinese past? Contemporary
Confucianism, the
‘reorganization of the
national heritage’ and
non-Western histories of
thought in a global age
Leigh Jenco
London School of Economics and Political Science, UK
Abstract
In this essay I argue that recent philosophical attempts to ‘modernise’ Confucianism
rehearse problematic relationships to the past that – far from broadening
Confucianism’s appeal beyond its typical borders – end up narrowing its scope as a
source of scholarly knowledge. This is because the very attempt to modernise assumes
a rupture with a past in which Confucianism was once alive and relevant, fixing its
identity to a static historical place disconnected from the present. I go on to explore
alternative means of situating past thought to present inquiry, by examining a debate
among early 20th-century Chinese intellectuals over the value of their past heritage in a
modern age. Their diverse responses undermine the certainty of a singular or persistent
Chinese past, enabling a creative presentism that encourages deliberate filiation with
alternative ‘tracks’ of past practice and thought.
Keywords
History of political thought, Chinese political thought, May Fourth movement,
Confucianism, modernisation, national heritage, comparative political theory, compara-
tive philosophy
Recent work in contemporary Confucian philosophy, particularly that written in
English for a global academic audience, promises the holy grail of comparative
philosophy: the elaboration of a globally compelling thought system whose terms
and practitioners are generally found outside of the Euro-American historical
Corresponding author:
Leigh Jenco, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK.
Email: L.K.Jenco@lse.ac.uk
experiences that currently dominate global terms of knowledge production. I argue,
however, that in styling their Confucianism as adapted ‘for the modern world’
many of these attempts rehearse problematic relationships to the past that – far
from broadening Confucianism’s appeal beyond its typical borders – end up enfor-
cing its irrelevance and dramatically narrow its scope as a source of scholarly
knowledge. The very attempt to revitalise, modernise or reconstruct
Confucianism assumes a rupture with a past in which Confucianism was once
alive and relevant, fixing its identity (if not its practice or values) to a static his-
torical place disconnected from the present. As a result, these reconstructions often
turn on evocations of an ‘essence’ or ‘spirit’ of Confucianism that can be adapted
to contemporary institutions and norms (most prominently those of liberal dem-
ocracy) that go largely uninterrogated, rather than on Confucian precedents for
knowledge that continue to discipline contemporary enquiry. The problem is thus
not that these recent reconstructions are somehow ‘inauthentic’, but rather that
they rest on a largely unacknowledged historical relationship which both narrows
and constrains their engagement with Confucianism – ironically securing not the
vitality of Confucianism in the modern age, but its ‘death’, as heralded half a
century ago by the American sinologist Joseph Levenson (1958). To Levenson,
Confucianism died when its terms became subservient to those of post-
Enlightenment Western modernity, rendering its past heritage unable to ground
contributions to new knowledge or to structure judgements of value.
As someone who shares the contemporary Confucian commitment to develop a
globally relevant non-Western philosophy, I ask if there are alternative means of
situating past thought to present inquiry that might enable Confucianism – and, by
extension, other forms of culturally marked, ‘non-Western’ philosophy – to over-
come these problematic relationships to the past while maintaining contemporary
relevance. True to this commitment to embody the relevance of past Chinese
thought, I do so by examining some of the first discussions by Chinese intellectuals
about how their past heritage might be identified and situated in the modern age.
The particular discussions I examine here were carried on by a group of students
and professors at Beijing University around the time of the May Fourth movement
in 1919. They responded to a dilemma very similar to that articulated by Confucian
modernisers: the dominant Chinese tradition, however understood, was widely
agreed to be out of joint with the needs of the times, even as it was also recognised
as a component of an enduring Chinese cultural and national distinctiveness
worthy of preservation.
These debates, erupting in response to the profound mistreatment and dispar-
agement of China by foreign powers, show that the methodological question of
how to use the past is at the same time always a political issue about which part of
which pasts are seen as meaningful and for whom. Their diverse responses identify
the constraints – but also illuminate new possibilities – of learning from pasts with
seemingly no direct connection to the social or intellectual problems of the present.
I show that the two major responses to this dilemma – one a more radical response,
associated with journals such as New Youth and New Tide, and the other a more
moderate one, articulated by writers for the National Heritage journal – suggest
Jenco 451
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