Amnesia and memory: Does classical ideology matter?

Abstract

In China’s quest for modernity since the early Republican era, classical ideology such as Confucianism has either been seen as the spectre of a reactionary and repressive past whose memory ought to be erased, or the quintessence of an ageless ancient wisdom whose remembrance ought to be restored. Today, revitalisation of Confucianism as a political ideology and social ethic is called upon by not only the government, but also by social scientists and educators. This calls for a critical and nuanced examination of relevance of Confucianism to current day political thinking in China. This paper offers a three-layered reading of classical Confucianism as a political ideology and examines its relevance to the suzhi discourse in post-Mao China. The three layers are (1) the Utopian perspective, (2) the approach to realising the utopian ideal – combing politics and education into one and (3) the psychological foundation of Confucianism – the sense of shame (chigan). It argues that the three-layered framework forms the basis of the paradigm of suzhi. Based on the case of suzhi, this paper further argues that contemporary China’s focus on enlisting civilising programs such as suzhi in the quest for modernisation and national development echoes millennium-old Confucian governance principles. This paper draws particular attention to the psychological foundation of Confucian governance principles and argues that when advocating for reviving Confucian values, it is important to take into account the psychology of Confucianism.