Internal Diversity but No External Dissent

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ontological reality is apprehensible only through a single, privileged system of re-presentation: the truth language of Church Latin, Qur'anic Arabic, or Examination Chinese. And, as truth-languages, imbued with an… impulse towards conversion.

By conversion, I mean not so much the acceptance of particular religious tenets, but alchemic absorption. The barbarian becomes 'Middle Kingdom'… The whole nature of man's being is sacrally malleable … It was, after all, this possibility of conversion through the sacred language that made it possible for an 'Englishman' to become Pope and a 'Manchu' Son of Heaven. (Anderson 2006, 14-15)

All this meant that the literati saw their role as defending the order that existed. The work that needed to be done was preservation, not radical change. The best of all possible worlds was this one, with its specific socio-political configuration, and it needed to be defended.

This theological system was not just to be defended, but expanded where possible. The history of China also sees the control of the bureaucracy slowly spread, turning neighbours and rivals into vassals and tributary states. (Weber 1968, 33-34) It is not normally presented in these terms, but as with any society built on monotheism and immanentism China was a colonial force in the region. And this drive was based on its demand for a universal ordering of social reality. China was the middle kingdom and anybody who disagreed or disrupted the order that it maintained, was to be removed. This is most obviously true when looking at Taiwan, Tibet, Mongolia, and Xinjiang. However, more interesting and often overlooked here is the difference between Northern China, the home of this theological system, and Southern China, which can be seen as the first place that was colonised by this system. Consequently, sib/clan associations are a stronger pull on people's loyalties and a place where nominally Daoist traditions and temples are better preserved. (Weber 1968, 86-87, 192) It remains as no surprise that the South of China has forever been the breeding ground for rebellions against Northern Imperial rule.

China’s cultural diversity is a product of its theological diversity. This is the topic of our next subsection.

4.1.2 Internal Diversity but No External Dissent

For the literati priesthood, the monotheism, which imagined the civilisation that they were the custodians of as the sum of human civilisation; i.e. the geographic, political and most importantly theological centre of humanity, was non-negotiable. This sinocentrism was learned

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through studying and passing on the knowledge contained in the literary tradition that they were part of. In this way secessionism and theological heterodoxy were tied together an ‘almost every rebellion was intimately connected with a heresy.’ (Weber 1968, 214)

The fact that Chinese literature was at the centre of this theological system meant that polytheistic practices were accepted as a part of tradition. The Literati were concerned with the conservation of order, this meant tolerating the presence of traditional rituals. This is the basis of the Confucian belief that we should take part in rituals ‘as if’ they were true’. The danger of was the preservation of rituals that directly contradicted the monotheism at the heart of the Literati theology, as it allowed for families (through ancestor worship) to forge their own connections with their own conceptions of divinity without recourse to the Literati or the imperial bureaucracy. This will be explored in more detail in the following sub-section. In Confucianism we see attempts to remedy this in the attempts to control social relations and outlining the ‘proper’ way of doing everything, based upon what Confucius did, ‘it wasn’t emulation so much as standardisation, the bureaucratisation of social relations.’ (Yang 1964, xxxii)

While monotheism vs polytheism is primarily a question of the size and scope of society, transcendentalism vs immanentism is a question of societal control. We see here the immanentism that drove schools of the Literati to extend their control over society in any way they could. Transcendentalism is more fluid, less hierarchical, more respect for the desire to 'opt-out'. Immanentism holds less room for people to 'opt-out' and holds people in very specific and rigid social positions or classes. We see this in the difference between different schools in China's literati priesthood. The literati were tolerant of all the transcendental musings and theological abstractions, so long as they didn't serve to benefit polytheistic elements in the society that would seek to rebel or separate themselves from the universal empire. The example of Daoism is key to understanding this:

Like Confucianism, Taoism assumed a “cosmos of internally harmonic order of nature and society.” There was a total absence of tension toward the world which was assumed to harbor no intrinsic ethical deficiency or evil. To the religious Taoist, the world seemed to be a wonderful place for enjoying life, not an object for struggle and transformation. (Yang 1964, xxxv)

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Taoism has the same concept of adjusting to the Tao, but the active cultivation of character that is required for such an adjustment is not interpreted as the control and repression of emotion. Daoism is much more passive, adjustment can mean letting go of control, just as much as cultivating it. It is a much broader theology than Confucianism. Daoism became much more confused as it willingly lent itself to any socio-political order. This transcendentalist stance simultaneously saved it as a legitimate school and brought it into conflict with mainstream literati as ‘the leading heterodoxy existed in heretic status under the official dominance of the Confucian orthodoxy.’ (Yang 1964, xxxiv)

Yang points out that Weber did not consistently differentiate between Daoism as a

‘philosophy’ and Daoism as a ‘religion’, but yang agrees with Weber’s overall point that Daoism’s ‘otherworldly orientation and its traditionalist qualities led to the same social consequences as that which stemmed from Confucianism.’ (Yang 1964, xxxiv) Putting the complications surrounding the word 'religion' for a moment, we can say that the difference in question was with whom the more transcendental elements of the Chinese literati associated, and at what level they operated, including even if they can be described as part of the literati at all. Daoism as a 'philosophy' can be seen as a term used to describe the elements of the mainstream literati with more transcendentalist leanings. This is exemplified by works such as the Dao De Qing, which can be rightfully interpreted as a work of political theory. On the fringes of the mainstream, however, the literati blurred together with localised theological leaders, priests that operated in isolation (Weber would call them magicians). They worked alongside sib networks and helped see to the needs of the general population. This is what is often referred to when talking about Daoism as a 'religion'. In truth, the difference between these two is whether they more closely associated with the monotheistic imperial bureaucracy as a normal member of the literati, or if they associated with the local, polytheistic, clan/sib and temple networks.

We see here that diversity of thought is accepted but if it ever goes over into separating into a rival system, it was fought tooth and nail. This is especially true in the fighting for offices and therefore income through pre-bends. Anthony Yu's book (Yu 2005) includes a great exploration of the conflict and competition between these different schools. However, this leads our focus back to an earlier point that the literati were not in firm control of the imagination of the people. In fact, any control they did win was won through a compromise

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with what we have called ‘sib theology’. It is important to now to look in more detail at the exact nature of this compromise.