China and the West

Weber, Max. Konfuzianismus und Taoismus : Sekundärliteratur (3)
Yu, David C. Confucianism, maoism, and Max Weber [ID D18851].
David C. Yu schreibt : Weber's concept of transcendence can be stated as follows : a monotheistic, personal God of creation who is the anchorage of man’s actions and thought, who speaks through prophets for readical and moral actions capable of social transformations, and whose ultimate character, on which human salvation depends, is 'irrational'. According to Weber, heaven (tian) is 'not a supra-mundane lord creator, but a supra-divine, impersonal, forever idetnical and eternal existence'. Also, 'the impersonal power of heaven did not speak to man', it only manifests itself through ntaure, society, and man. Heaven or dao was not a 'cause' but, as Weber said, 'simply the embodiment of the binding, traditional ritual, and its command was not action but emptiness'. Thus in confucianism 'all transcendental cnchroage of ethics, all tension between the imperatives of a supra-mundane God and a creatural world, all orientation toward a goal in the beyond, and all conceptions of radical evil, were abent'. These quotes and his many other references to the confucianism concept of heaven clearly show that for him confucianism lacks a conception of transcendence. This resulted in confucians’ emphasis upon adjustment to the world. By contrast, the puritans were compelled by their God of irrationality to change the world by mastering it. Weber's proposition that confucianism lacks transcendence is valis only if it is taken to mean that there is a lack of a theological concept of a creator-personal God. But to say that there is no such theological concept does not exclude the experience of sensing the deity in practice. Weber seems to have confused the absence of this concept of a personal God with the inability to sense him.

Thus by giving exclusive attention to the imperonal character of heaven, Weber neglected to look into the real significance of sacrifice and rituals in confucianism, where transcendence is to be found. On the other hand, Weber’s delineation of the impersonal character of heaven is for him methodologically valid. It is largely through such an understanding that he was able to construct a confucian world view that emphasizes adjustment to the world, living in harmony with man and nature, adherence to the attitude of rational resignation, and enjoyment of an ideal life of honor and scholarly cultivation. But and large, this does represent the confucian way of life for the literati.
Weber made many references to the Chinese patrimonialist administration, its patrimonialist bureaucrac ies or patrimonialist administrative staff. Although Weber recognized the confucian type of rationality, he also noted that the confucian scholars tolerated magic, which was contrary to prophetic religion. It should be noted that in Weber’s comparison of confucian and puritan rationalism, he was using these two empirical phenomena to elucidate the differences between prophetic religion and contemplative religion as two ideal types.
Weber is right in his observation that the confucian scholar-officials tolerated magic in the form of rites and ceremonies. But at this point his comparison between confucian and puritan rationalism becomes both revealing and problematic. Revealing, because Weber saw that magical rites were a major obstacle to the development of a rational economy in China. Thus, despite the fact that China did have the material potential to develop a capitalist system of her own, she never even reached certain aspects of development comparable to late-Medieval Western Europe. By contrast, because of the puritans’ intolerance of magic, they resorted to ethical rationality and a ‘matter-of-fact’ attitude toward economic enterprises which contributed to the rise of Western capitalism. Problematic, because according to Weber's constructed models, magic and ethical prophecy are antithetic. But post-Weber research has offered new insights into the meaning of rituals which were not available to him. In essence, rituals provide a sacred mode of existence that compensates and transcends the profane or daily life in the community.

Perhaps Weber's view that there was never 'an ethical prophecy of a supra-mundane God' in confucian China should be understood to mean that ethical prophecy was never a dominant Chinese religious phenomenon. It can be anticipated that as we know more about neo-confuianism and daoism, we sahll be on a firmer ground to delineate the prophetic role in Chinese religion. Although Weber toot the view that prophecy is essentially anti-magical, he also said that prophets at times used magic to authenticat their charisma. He even went so far as to say that the legitimacy of Jesus' special relation to God is based upon the 'magical charaisma he felt within himselfs. He certainly was aware that magical attitudes persist even in the secularized society of the modern West. In light of these observations by Weber, there may be room in his thought for a reinterpretation of the concept of magic as a complement to prophetic rationality.

Weber's notion of morality implies his concepts of transcendence and prophecy. He was thinking about the prophetic morality which disregards the differences between the 'insiders' and the 'outsiders' ; it is universal and has no respect for particular persons or groups. According to Weber, confucianist morality is natural, not based upon some agent beyond this world ; it is a harmony by emphasizing adjustment ; it is formalistic, external, and personal, not derived from one’s convictions but merely conforming to social prescriptions and is tied to 'blood and soil'. This type of morality, perpetuating a false sense of security and order, as manifested in the Chinese patrimonialist society, simply dies not have the potential for radical social and economic changes. Weber’s observations of the confucianist morality were based primarily upon his understanding of the concept of 'li'. 'Li', whether as ceremonial words, acts, mores, or acts and words of propriety, was mainly understood by Weber as something that is 'ascribed' to the confucian rather than someting that is 'achieved' by him. Weber probably had the lower-rank bureaucrats of Chinese traders in mind in his interpretation of the concept of 'li'. He neglected to study 'li' in relation to the religious virtuosi, the confucians who were committed to confucianism as a matter of life and death. He was certainly near the truth in perceiving 'li' as the central factor which caused the confucian morality to emphasize harmony. This whole issue is also closely related to his thesis that confucians lacked tensions between deity and nature. The outcome of Weber's analysis, that the confucians did not have moral tensions, was in part due to his treatment of 'li' in isolation from the neo-confucian concept of 'dao' or the confucian concept of 'tian'.
It has been pointed out that rationality in Weber’s sociology is both a pervasive and an ambiguous concept. For the purpose of relating Weber's notion of rationality to confucianism, his two concerns are relevant : one ist that Occidental rationality based upon scientific-technological calculation has resulted in the total disenchantment of the Western world. Another is Weber's analysis of the relation between bureaucratic routinization and personal charisma.

Weber's evalution of confucian rationality can be summarized as follows :
a) Although rationality can be observed in such confucian institutions as humanistic education, the civil service examination, and bureaucracy, it was greatly handicapped by the domination of the clan system, which emphasized personalism and familialism in human relations. The clan system conditioned the Chinese formal law and moral principles and caused Chinese bureaucracy to be patrimonialist.
b) Because the formal lasw and the rules of administration governing the bureaucracy in China contained particularism and personalism, they created protectionism and favoritism in economic matters. This hindered the Chinese from developing a free-market labor selection, which is essential for the development of a rational type of economic capitalism. c) Confucian bureaucrats acquired their income primarily through the prebendary system, according to whicvh their actual income depended upon the balance between the total collected revenues and waht was left after the required amounts were delivered to the state. d) Confucianism promoted humanistic education as the qualification for office. Consequently, the scholar-officials were essentially geneeralists, gentlemen who loathed specializations. Confucianism, like islam and catholicism, historically had a low estimation of merchants. The Confucians’ self-conception as gentlemen together with their low opinion of the merchants could not have generated the kind of incentives required for the development of the Western type of capitalism.

Weber's judgment that personal relations prevailed in confucian bureaucracy and that the clan system dominated Chinese society was more applicable to and characteristic of the local bureaucracy than the national scene. This also implies that national bureaucracy in China was more rational, in the Western sense, than the local organizations.
Weber recognized that there was formal law governing the Chinese officials, although it contained particularism and personalism. Weber’s position that the Chinese formal law was not pure. He seemed to define formal law strictly in the Western legal-rational sense. It was on this model that he judged the confucian formal law as deficient in rationality. But there is no reason why 'formal law’ which contained moral norms can also be considered as formal : it can be called 'traditional formal law' in contrast to the 'juridic formal law' of the West. When Weber was deliberating about the deficiency in rationality in Chinese law, he was unaware that here was a fertile filed to explore the possibility of moral tensions in confucianism : the confrontation between the demand of the formal law and the demand of moral norms in decision-making by the confucian officials. Such tension must have been experienced by the conscientious confucian bureaucrats with religious virtuosity.