Losing the Mandate of Heaven

A Philosophical Discussion About the Loss of Faith in the Qing, Confucianism, Daoism and the Boxer Rebellion

This is a transcript of my discussion with Anthony Vernon about Chinese thought near the end of the Qing Dynasty.

Paul: We're reaching the point where the Qing dynasty is fast losing support and calls for dramatic reforms or revolution is growing in China and among the Chinese migrants outside of China.

I wanted to do an episode on the ideas circulating among the Chinese around this time.  To better do so, I'm joined by a guest.

Anthony Vernon is a master's student in the department of Philosophy at the University of New Mexico, and his interests include Daoism. He also graduated with a history degree from university in Florida. He's also a regularly published literary writer.

Welcome Anthony. Thanks for joining the podcast.

Anthony: Thanks.

Paul: What can you tell us about Chinese thought near the end of the Qing Dynasty?

Anthony: I wanted to start with the thought at the end of the Qing Dynasty and just a little hint of the thought at the beginning of the Qing Dynasty. Like all periods of Chinese history, you had these dramatic shifts in dynasties, and the prior Ming Dynasty was highly Daoist in nature.

And when the Manchus came in and invaded in large part, they inveighed the Daoism of the Ming for their downfall. They adopted their exact opposite ideology, but with reforms. Under the Qing Dynasty, you have the formation of what is called Neo Confucianism. It's a restoration mostly of the ideas of Confucius, but with some alterations around the civil service exam.

And there's more of an emphasis on state craft and politics rather than family ritual.

Paul: Interesting. Thank you.

Confucianism is a philosophy and set of values attributed to Confucius, includes notions like the state as a family with an emperor, like a father who has obligations to his nation, like children, and is owed loyalty by his people, like their father. Confucianism also includes ideas like the mandate of heaven, which means that if an emperor loses the mandate, he and his dynasty can be replaced by a new dynasty which might earn a new mandate from heaven.

As this is near the end of the Chinese dynasty and the start of something else, can you describe more about the mandate of heaven? What does it mean to have it? What does it mean to lose it?

Anthony: It's important to realize that the mandate doesn't just belong to Confucianism as a philosophy.

And this is true for a lot of major terms in the Chinese philosophical lexicon, right? Dao means something in Confucianism, while it means something in Daoism, and the same goes for heaven. But that being said, heaven is sort of a foundational term, right? When we think of heaven without thinking of some metaphysical exterior realm, and we are sort of thinking of the sky, but that's not quite right. So, the heavens are sort of a ground that hold the world together. Now you might think. Oh, wouldn't just the ground be the ground, but the heavens are ground for something else. The heavens are what allow for the order of everything below it, right?

You have to think of it almost as the container, right? Think of your Tupperware. That's kind of how the heavens work. They're the Tupperware that allows you to hold the contents within, and so when there's disunity under heaven, right. That means that you cannot hold the contents within. So, losing that mandate of heaven means to lose the blessing of that which holds all the content and allows you to keep the order of the world.

So, the idea amongst the emperor of China, right? The Chinese had this idea that they were basically the center of the world. And so, the mandate of heaven was a sort of creed, I guess in a weird way, but not as solid as a written law, but a unspoken rule that the emperors were deemed by that, which allows for the organization of the world to be the organizers of the world.

When you lose the mandate of heaven, you lose that ability to be the steward of the world.

Paul: And then you're to be replaced by a new organizer who can better organize the world?

Anthony: Yes. Or organize the world under the credentials that heaven dictates. Right? Better organizing again, comes down to, of course, relative opinion.

The Daoists are of the opinion that the world should organize itself while the Confucians have the view that the world needs to be organized by individuals who best follow the practices of heaven and the practices of heaven truly, for the Confucians, go back to following the ways of the Yellow Emperor. A very strict conservative code is their idea of how to best have a Dao that follows heaven.

Paul: And the Yellow Emperor, this is almost a mythological creature. And if I'm not mistaken, all Han Chinese consider themselves to be descendant of this Yellow Emperor. Is that right?

Anthony: Yes. And that is, right, a non mythical creature, but a mythical person. Yeah, basically all Confucian ideas stem in large part from this idea that there was indeed a Yellow Emperor and that this Yellow Emperor had a glorious reign, which isn't universally agreed upon because you have the Daoists refute the notion that the Yellow Emperor was even great in me first place.

But during this time, I think relevantly, there are some large changes in the focus of history amongst Confucians, cause typically Confucians were not focused on history. Of course, there were Confucian historians, but for the most part, their main interest was in highlighting those individuals they viewed as pious, so figures such as Yellow Emperor, Confucius himself, and some of Confucius' main disciples.

In this time, you start to really get the idea of people noticing these changes in dynasties. They're noticing after the shift from the Ming to the Qing, they are noticing that this is a common tendency in Chinese history. So, Huang Zongxi, which my Chinese pronunciation's not perfect, but I will try my best. Already in the mid 1600s, while he's coming up with this understanding of Chinese history that was in the air, but really solidified through Huang, he's already thinking that the Qing's time is already coming to a close.  End. So, there's already this prophetic happening. I mean, he's shooting the gun by a law.

He's very early, but nonetheless, it's already this idea.

Paul: It's in the 1600s. That's when the Qing started.

Anthony: Right? Exactly. So, amongst the Neo Confucian historians, there's already this concern of collapse. At its very beginning, they're already viewing that the end is an inevitability for the Qing.

Paul: Let's jump ahead closer to the end. Kang Youwei was a reformer during the late Qing Empire. It was discussed in episode 22, including in the context of the plan to assassinate the Empress Dowager Cixi. I understand Kang gains support for his reforms by interpreting the classics in a way that supported his reforms.

What can you tell us about his use of Confucianism or reinterpretation of Confucianism to support the reforms he was proposing?

Anthony: Well, it's certainly a reinterpretation through Western sources. Now, most of his Western sources are not what we would traditionally view as academic. Most of them were through global newspapers.

It's not like he was reading the works of Emmanuel Kant or Rousseau or anything. This wasn't something Youwei was doing. Rather, the Western influence was more the general understandings given through global news, these very vague notions of global republics and global invention and global progress.

And he saw these sorts of things and he thought that there was room in Confucianism to incorporate these matters. Including the industrial progress and the republics. Now, this might sound very strange coming from a Confucian. After all, it's a very patriarchal monarchal system. How was he able to do this?

And I am really having trouble figuring out how he was able to do this, at least his own mind, except for one line from the analects. I don't have the exact citation on me, unfortunately, and I pick different translations. But there is a line very briefly that is said by Confucius that take what is good and leave out the rest.

Mm-hmm. And that sounds very un-Confucian when you really get down to it. I mean, that sounds very much like a Daoist sort of line, but I think ultimately Youwei was able to justify a sort of republic of elitism, right? So, in Youwei’s republican system, it wouldn't be as open-ended as we have now. It would've been much closer to how the American Republic was initially instantiated in the United States, so that you only have elite members able to vote for the highest offices and so on and so forth. I think he was still able to justify it this way and it would be a republic with a very dominant singular figurehead. I think what his line of thinking was, is that you want to craft a state to its best degree possible in the model of Confucius, right?

Confucius went around state to state to state, state trying to fix up these states. And I think he realized that these elements are working, these elements are beating. So let us take what is good from these other systems and fuse it together with Confucianism to the best possible degree, while at least preserving the Confucian elements.

Even though Youwei had a relatively progressive view when it came to at least for his time in his era towards sexes, right? Like in equality amongst sexes. Of course, he still held some conservative aspects. I mean, he'd also wants to get rid of social class. Not influenced by Marx. There's no evidence of that. And he wanted to focus land on particular zoning.

He had a lot of very interesting political ideas that were very progressive. I don't want to also be like, he was just this like conservative republican, not in the American political sense, but he wanted to create a conservatism that had the political system of republicanism while simultaneously having very, very progressive idea.

So, the conservatism was the elitism of Youwei’s understanding, but the progressivism was through his liberalism.

Paul: I would say that Kang is more associated, not with republicanism, but with Restore the Emperor. He was perhaps believing in a reformed monarchy. Maybe more of a constitutional monarchy.  And that might square the circle a little bit more of his Confucian values, his conservatism. Because he still believes in some role for the monarch. But obviously also these reforms and these updates that you were talking about, including more equal gender roles and so on.

Anthony: I would say constitutional monarchy is arguably a republic. But that I think is the more accurate way to put it, although I don't know necessarily, there seems to be some evidence that Youwei was okay with a strict and monarchy dying in favor of a system that would work better. But yeah, certainly Youwei definitely was highly in support of a progressive constitutional monarchy.

Even his vision of a constitutional monarchy, while not as progressive as some states of the era, would've certainly been a lot more progressive than a lot of the last remaining kingdoms and empires of the era. And, of course, when we're talking about the era, we're talking the mid to late 1800s.

Paul: For sure.  Yeah. His ideas were definitely more advanced than the absolutist monarchies that we had seen in, in the Qing Dynasty. Yeah. What were some of the other main ideas circulating towards the end of the Qing Empire and beginning of the Republic of China? What about Daoism? What about Buddhism?

What impact did they have at this time?

Anthony: Well, at this time, Daoism is very, very much on the decline in a imperialistic sense, right? I said recently, at the beginning the Ming Dynasty, which was very Daoist influenced, had fallen and their being conquered was blamed in large part on their Daoism.

So, amongst the elite, it declines. That doesn't mean there was zero elite study of the Daoist texts. There wasn't an absolute zero amount of Daoists within the governmental systems, however, it was basically next to none. At this point in time, Daoism is more a religion of the folk. It has large folk elements. Meaning in the sense of that not only is it practiced by just the everyday people, it also really has now taken on its neo-Daoist idealistic elements away from what a lot of scholars misunderstand as Daojia. Now, there is this misunderstanding amongst Westerners that Daoism is just a philosophy and the head of thought, but truly there is a lot of ritual practice within Daoism, a lot of worship of gods and various past figures of Daoism.

But it, it took some time for it to really evolve properly because a religion like Daoism, which prescribes each to their own, live the simple farmer peasant life. Just try to follow your own path on your own. It's very hard for these things to synchronize together, but by this point you do have a systematized Daoism that is influential privately amongst the people. And these people are often the ones who are influenced to rise up in rebellions because their understandings and their notions of what the state should be and how the state should be conducting itself are very, very, very different from the organization's understandings of the Neo Confucian ruling class. So, a lot of the participants of the major movements, including the Boxer movement were Daoist individuals.

And of course, I mean, there were individuals who had different philosophies. The Boxers were able to pull in a lot of different individuals together. Nonetheless, the Daoists were very influential in the sense they had understanding of what it meant to be Chinese. They're very, the simple left alone.

Let me as you would say, let me play in my mud, sort of thing. Right. So, they had these, the strongest notions of any of the philosophical understandings of home rootedness to being Chinese and that Chineseness should be preserved.

Paul: So, the Boxer Rebellion just to say that a different way, has Daoism in it and that many of these Boxers are Daoists.   They wanted to be left to play in their own mud, to be in their own place, and therefore could be anti westerner because they wanted to be left alone from these outside influences.

Anthony: Yes. That that would actually be perfect way to put it, right.

That they viewed the influences of the West coming in as an intrusion on their own ability to be left alone. I mean, it's very weird. There's a strange irony to a lot of liberal philosophy. And I think Max Sterner is the one who highlights it the most in the sense that liberalism creates a union of egoists, right?

A union of selves where, in the Chinese notion, it took a long time to even get to the word I. But nonetheless, in an odd way, it's still in large part had a lot of philosophies that very much encouraged small units and disunity amongst units. Not in the sense that there were no communities, but in terms of its focus, right?

The liberal focus is often on larger state craft, and that even includes individual family units because in liberalism when you have general republican systems and participation family units are also voices upon state craft. Whereas in monarchical systems and especially absolute monarchical systems, family units have no sway on state craft.

That's not something they're concerned with. They're affected by the larger state, but they're not concerned by it. And for Daoists, when he says that I want to be left alone in the mud, it comes with him rejecting, taking on a position within the larger states.

He was asked to be an advisor to a Duke. Nonetheless, the Daoists viewing that this simple way of life was also simultaneously being ruined by Western influences of industrialism. The Daoists aren't complete anarcho-primitivists, but they definitely want to be simple peasant farmers. They view this as the most ideal way of life, and as the way of life most in tune with the Dao itself.

Paul: Interesting. So maybe the Boxers are saying, leave me alone. Let me farm and slow down or leave please, Western industrialism, etc.

Anthony: Yeah. And then the other, of course, main hostility is towards Chinese Christianity. And more so than Christian missionaries, of course, they didn't take a kindness to them.

Either party. I mean, in 1869 you have the murder of Western missionaries in Western Shandong and before the movement proper even starts. So, you can accredit 1869 as the movement really starting for the Boxers. But of course these sentiments exist beforehand.

In large part, there seems to be obviously a hostility towards the people importing Christianity, but there was just as much violence and resentment towards the Chinese Christians themselves as yes, traitors to the Chinese state as yes traitors to what it meant to be, Chinese. Yes as having differences in a religious understanding, but mostly as deconstructing the Chinese way of life.

Because in the view of Daoists, they saw often with the exception of Buddhism, sometimes it just depends on where in history. But they saw other philosophies as being infectious. And as steering people away from the way, and when you steer people away from the way they're going to want to impose.

So, there's a lot of stories, especially in the Zuangzi of mocking Confucius for their over-emphasis on trying to order the world instead of going along with the world. And in the Daoist understanding, the Christians certainly wanted to order the Chinese world in a very particular manner.

Paul: And the Daoists, were resisting that reordering of China in the Christian manner.

Anthony: Yeah, I mean, it's really hard to say and the Boxers aren't just the Daoist movement, so I don't want to make that conflation. But amongst it's more Daoist membership. It's hard to say if they really had a strong understanding of what Christianity was and how it worked.

But it really didn't seem like it mattered to the individuals because the associations with Christianity were of course, not just, purely religious, but it's associations with the conquest of China in large sections of it, or, well, I shouldn't say large sections, but many sections of it in terms of just the sheer number of ports and the control of Hong Kong and of course it's industrial sort of associations. These things came as a package for the Boxers.

The packages of liberalism, industrialism, and Christianity came as a package together. They weren't seen as separate entities for the Daoists because the conflict here in large part, is the understanding of what religion and philosophy mean to both parties. To westerner, there is a difference between religion and philosophy for Daoists, Confucians, there is no such thing. That just does not occur.

And in large part, and I mean to this day, in large part, now with the influence of Western philosophy versus Western religion, there is more of a distinction now. But at this time, the distinction is still not being made. There is no separate word for philosophy and religion at the time.

Your philosophy is your religion. Your religion is your philosophy. They're one and the same. The way you understand your conception of the gods or larger metaphysical questions is also going to lean and shape your direction towards how you understand political philosophy. They are entirely intertwined.

There is not a situation where the metaphysics is not going to shape the state craft as it is for Christianity by this time for Christians of the era. Okay?

Paul: Communism isn't really circulating yet in China. The Chinese Communist Party hasn't been founded yet. Was materialism circulating as an idea?

Anthony: In terms of materialism circulating as an idea, it's very strange to think about how the Confucians thought of the world because they viewed other planes as having a materialisness and even ghosts as having a materialness. There is a material assumption within Confucianism. That's already there.

So, when telling someone this thing is material, like, everything's material. It wasn't so far out of the question for a Confucians. And the same goes for a Daoists. The philosophy that actually struggled the most with pure materialism is Buddhism, and that's because it would very much sound like an atman to a Buddhist as opposed to their notion of anatman where there's no inherent easily formulated self. You tell a Buddhist that everything is material and they would be highly skeptical of a claim. But, in regards to Daoists and Confucians there are, I wouldn't call them materialists by any means, but it wouldn't be a shocking notion to either camp.

So, it was easily adopted by individuals in China, not because the Daoists or Confucians themselves became materialist, but just because it didn't sound out of the question.

Paul: It wasn't a foreign concept.

Anthony: Eh, it was a foreign concept. But not so surprising in a sense. They didn't come up with it on their own, but there was no need to cause there was just these assumptions that things in reality exist and have an effect and they can be graspable in a sense.

Paul: Thank you Anthony Vernon for joining the Chinese Revolution podcast today.

Thanks for sharing some of the ideas circulating in China near the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. All the best with your further studies.

Anthony: Thank you so much and yeah, I am happy to be on and this is an awesome show.

I'm excited to see where everything goes. And I hope that I was helpful for the audience in understanding the more philosophical history of the era because I think it's important to understand that a lot of the history in this time is being shaped by the philosophy of the time. And I wish there's so many other things that we could go into if we have more time, such as Islam in the area.

But I definitely wanted to hit the main important beats for the transition.

Paul: Sure. And in Western China, Islam is a major influence. But we can't talk about everything today.

Thank you, Anthony. Appreciate you being here.

Anthony: Thank you.