Yusheng
(Revised July 2011; the original manuscript was written by the author in February for “Xue Deng” and will be published soon)

Abstract: This paper discusses the scientific basis of Confucius’s idea of ​​aestheticizing human social life from a sociological perspective. After dividing all human societies into genetically encoded primitive societies and artificial secondary societies, it finds that pre-Warring States period Chinese society closely resembled primitive societies. The leisurely and amateurish mentality characteristic of primitive societies aligns with an aesthetic appreciation that transcends everyday life. This paper analyzes in detail the possibility that animal play and the secondary human society transformed early human play into social reality. The two levels of society belong to different hierarchical levels, similar to the relationship between cells, tissues, and organs. The author speculates that the left and right hemispheres of the human brain and their connections provide the neurological basis for the construction of secondary societies. Rational thinking and aesthetic appreciation utilize different parts of the left and right hemispheres. If a set of rational principles guides a secondary society, the principles of primitive society are aesthetic and cannot be expressed in language. The conclusion is that modern people find it difficult to understand the landscape of primitive social life, which may be the underlying reason why Confucius, as a master bridging the past and the future, aestheticized human social life.

Keywords: aesthetics, primitive society, secondary society, social hierarchy, play and games

I. Explanation of the Topic “Aestheticization of Human Social Life”

Reading a book, such as “Dream of the Red Chamber,” leaves you with an overall impression, much like getting to know a person—a unique overall feeling. Modern brain science research shows a similar consistency: the brain also possesses a corresponding, unique neural network system. That is, whether from a subjective perspective or from the objective perspective of brain science, the overall feeling a book evokes is unique, singular, and unrepeatable in the universe.

In recent years, I’ve had the opportunity to read many pre-Qin texts. Reading the *I Ching*, *Tao Te Ching*, and *Analects*, compared to reading works from the Warring States period such as those by Mencius, Xunzi, Zhuangzi, and Han Fei, has given me a completely different experience. The plain, gentle style of the writings of the *I Ching*, Laozi, and Confucius, and the simple, natural beauty revealed by their boundless faith and love for life, resonate with the rhythm of ordinary people’s lives, touching the heart of an ordinary person two thousand years later. I feel they are quite different from later thinkers like Mencius and Zhuangzi, who have begun to be tainted by the anxieties of modern people, because they are now facing equally matched opponents. The atmosphere created by the *I Ching*, *Tao Te Ching*, and *Analects*, the colors they imbue, and the melody of their writing, strictly speaking, are neither later Confucianism nor later Taoism, but rather belong to the beauty of ordinary life. It is precisely for this reason that Laozi’s suggestion to celebrate a military victory with a funeral has become a timeless classic, yet it still echoes across the earth, resonating deep within the hearts of six billion ordinary people.

Faced with global challenges and the danger of destruction, scholars began to study the preciousness of primitive tribal life, with some even calling the six thousand years of human civilization a history of escalating wars and a history of human degeneration. [1, 2] In my spare time, I also began to follow this trend, using various techniques to pursue a state similar to that of a Taoist immortal, the so-called artistic life. Thus, I wrote: “The Tao follows nature, which contains a deep aesthetic meaning. The harsh cold and scorching heat, the joys and sorrows of life, when viewed from the perspective of the natural universe, all reveal a beautiful rhythm.” This is the contrived nature of modern people, like the noble spirit of Mencius and the soaring wings of Zhuangzi, which are not found in the Book of Changes, Laozi, and Confucius. The Book of Changes, Laozi, and Confucius are life itself, and beauty itself.

Yu Dan said, “The true meaning of the Analects is to tell everyone how to live the kind of happy life that our hearts need. To put it bluntly, the Analects teaches us how to obtain spiritual happiness in modern life, adapt to the daily order, and find our personal coordinates.” Yu Dan said that what she did was not an explanation and analysis of the Analects, but a personal experience, so she called it her insights. [3] In fact, true reading is first and foremost an experience. So Yu Dan’s insights are a unique interpretation of the Analects. Similar to Yu Dan, Li Zehou called Chinese culture represented by Confucianism a culture of joy, and used joy to explain Confucius’s benevolence. [4] Modern religions such as Christianity are called opium that poisons the people by Marxism. They also pursue spiritual happiness, while Confucius did not mean to help the ruling class poison the people. The term “joy” is also difficult to distinguish from bourgeois hedonism. Other words, such as leisure, entertainment and the art of life, also have similar limitations.

The author here uses a higher-level concept—a broader aesthetic encompassing morality—to describe this tendency in Confucianism: a natural beauty rooted in a lack of utilitarian motives, where human nature and social life itself are beautiful. This natural beauty is free from pleasure built on the suffering of others, from labor for utilitarian purposes, and from self-sacrifice for the sake of moral justification. It is a natural beauty of the individual soul, simultaneously a beauty of harmony with the surrounding society. True beauty transcends utilitarianism and worldly realities.

II. The Concept of a Two-Tier Society and the Beauty of Natural Life

The author once divided human society into genetically encoded primitive society and artificial secondary society, and found that Chinese society before the Warring States period was basically primitive society, while Western civilization began with a typical secondary society. The main differences between primitive society and secondary society are: the former is based on human nature as its operating mechanism, and psychological and emotional communication makes primitive society a unified entity at the subconscious level. This psychological and emotional communication can also occur between people and objects, that is, the occurrence of aesthetics, and also the basis of animism; the latter has direction and purpose, and is driven by rewards, punishments and violence. Its unity depends on the unity of goals and rational understanding. Readers can refer to the previous text. [5, 6]

The author discusses the aesthetic mindset and perspective of leisure and contentment. Using dogs as an example, the author discusses the influence of three mindsets—quiet inaction, goal-chasing, and mutual struggle—on human worldviews and philosophies of life. [7, pp. 253-56] Anthropologists believe that humans began to work after the agricultural revolution ten thousand years ago as an investment in the future; five or six thousand years ago, after entering civilization, a leisure class emerged and was used for overseeing work, thus developing the current habit of working longer hours than leisure time. This does not even include housework. Anthropologists have conducted extensive research, confirming the above conclusion: overall, primitive and backward peoples are leisurely and content, while people in advanced and developed regions are busy all day long.

The different mindsets of primitive society and secondary society in perceiving the surrounding world, especially the human world, lead to different cognitive paths and results. Primitive society does not have goals and utilitarianism at the secondary social level. People do not regard the rabbits they chase as the surrounding world. They observe the world in their leisure time, combining their own feelings and past memories as their understanding of the world. Therefore, what they see is the whole world, including themselves. Secondary society has its purpose and forms an ideology that is compatible with this purpose. The individual’s cognitive subject is influenced by the social ideology. The cognitive process guided by the purpose depends on the interaction between the subject and the object, which leads to the object harming the subject, that is, the betrayal and transformation of human nature itself. This makes modern people work like ants all day without thinking it is wrong. Ancient Chinese traditional visual art depicts landscapes, flowers and birds, and also includes figures. However, Western visual art, starting from ancient Greece, has long only used figures as its subject matter. It was not until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that landscape paintings appeared in two coastal countries: the Netherlands and England. [8] The only explanation for this is that the diverse tradition of secondary society leads to war and conflict between people, forcing human attention to focus on the people they are fighting with. The development of modern navigation enabled the Netherlands and England to expand outwards, come into contact with other traditional cultures, and potentially escape the military threat from the European continent by sea. This allowed them to return to a more leisurely, prehistoric mindset and broaden their horizons. In this light, people in these early societies viewed the world with a relaxed and contented attitude, much like animals. This is the concept of aesthetics proposed in this article: a perspective, a mindset, a way of life, and a prehistoric social life close to nature.

This leads to a key conclusion of this paper: the worldview of a secondary society revolves around social and individual goals, the so-called meaning of life, which is utilitarian; the worldview of a primordial society focuses on leisure and entertainment, with no other goals or utilitarian considerations. Life itself is beautiful, requiring no embellishment from the goals and meanings of a secondary society. The author believes that this is precisely the attitude towards life expressed in the *I Ching*, *Tao Te Ching*, and *Analects*.

The meaning of life and utilitarianism discussed here refer to attitudes towards life in relation to society and the individual. They cannot be analyzed in isolation like analytical philosophy or semiotics, which would suggest that every human word and action is purposeful and meaningful.

When we use aesthetics and utilitarianism to represent primitive society and secondary society respectively, we find that aesthetics can encompass the surrounding world. Only a leisurely and entertaining mindset free from utilitarianism can allow one to truly connect with the natural world, achieving a unity of humanity and nature. Only when free from utilitarian motives can this state of mind, this unity of humanity and nature, influence a person’s behavior. Modern people can also experience this unity: a person completely forgets themselves while appreciating the beauty of nature, as if they have completely melted into the scenery—a fusion of human emotion and natural landscape. As for the extent to which this influence, from the natural environment to the human mindset, and from the human mindset to human behavior, determines human behavior, it is difficult to determine here. This article also does not intend to echo the popular notion that humans in a state of unity with nature will not damage the ecological environment. If Confucius’s system of rites and music emphasized aesthetic significance, this aesthetic mindset would not have much influence on human behavior in a utilitarian secondary society.

The culture of a man-made secondary society first influences those civilized and advanced regions, and thus first affects cities and men. In human life, women are less susceptible to the corruption of civilization than men, children are less susceptible than adults, and those with artistic inclinations are less susceptible than those in the business world. Laozi and Zhuangzi constantly emphasize women, infants, animals, and a detached aesthetic perspective in their writings. When encountering a hermit, Confucius sighed, “I cannot associate with birds and beasts; if I do not associate with these people, with whom shall I associate? If the world were governed by the Way, I would not change my ways.” These words suggest that Confucius focused on human society, but his ideal society was not the empires of the Qin and Han dynasties, but rather the primordial superpower of the Western Zhou and the *I Ching* era. Therefore, the Way that Confucius speaks of here is not fundamentally different from the Daoist Way, only their perspectives differ. Laozi and Confucius idealized and aestheticized primordial social life from different angles.

III. Culture originates from leisure and entertainment: permeating the play and games of both animals and humans.

The author once defined culture as how to use leisure time, which is the time remaining after basic physiological needs such as food and safety have been met. The author noted that, like animals, pre-civilization humans used their leisure time to relax and enjoy immediate pleasure. The author once wrote extensively that leisure time and the leisurely mindset during leisure time are the cornerstone of human culture and civilization. [9]

As mentioned above, Laozi and Zhuangzi took nature and animals as their models. Young mammals spend a large part of their leisure time playing. Humans retain this habit of play throughout their lives, including sports competitions, board games, and various artistic activities. Let’s take the familiar game of dogs as an example to illustrate the characteristics of this type of play, including human artistic activities:

1) At the beginning, adopt a special mindset, which is called the aesthetic mindset, that is, a mindset that transcends utilitarianism and reality.

2) Play is primarily a collective activity. A puppy might play alone with its own tail or a ball of yarn, assuming it’s playing with a hypothetical companion. Similarly, individual artistic creation is meant to be seen by others. Artworks serve as a medium for psychological and emotional exchange; as seen in the paintings of chimpanzees and other animals mentioned below, this exchange transcends animal species.

3) Playing games has a fixed format, meaning each member must restrain themselves to follow the rules and even obey a temporary leader; at the same time, each member has a certain degree of freedom to be creative. An individual’s creation can be noticed and imitated by other members. In addition to the psychological and emotional exchanges mentioned below, their communication also includes physical images such as gestures and movements, as well as sounds, which are not fundamentally different from human language and symbols.

4) The content of games includes elements of life and memory, and like human dreams and works of art, it is a reflection of reality.

5) Playing games has a pleasurable effect on participants, providing an aesthetic experience; games also strengthen the emotional and psychological connections between members, i.e., the socio-psychological function of games. With the introduction of human language, a game itself can possess a purposeful meaning that can be expressed in linguistic form, and this purposeful meaning does not transcend the game itself. For example, in basketball, the goal is to score baskets and win against the opponent.

Zoologists generally believe that adult mammals have lost the habit of playing. However, there are a few exceptions, such as chimpanzees and elephants, which have been shown to have the habit of painting on paper with different colored dyes. If humans interrupt their focused painting, they will become very angry. Therefore, we have reason to say that these animals possess an aesthetic sense. This is also the author’s main consideration in describing animals and early human societies from an aesthetic perspective. Gibbons have a habit of collective long calls, which could easily be called a grand chorus. Apes have a habit of grooming each other, clearly using grooming to strengthen their social bonds. Anthropologists believe that naked humans use chatting instead of ape grooming. Humans chatting and gossiping when idle is undoubtedly a form of play, different from serious discussions. Thus, it seems that adult mammals have retained the habit of playing to some extent.

The author emphasizes here that the differences between humans and animals are minimal. Whether in terms of body, brain, or genetic material (DNA), humans and chimpanzees are very similar. The vast differences in their lives stem from human-alienated cultural traditions. Like humans, animals often blur the lines between play and imagination, applying innovations from the former to the latter. In the forests of Africa, scientists observed chimpanzees collectively hunting monkeys: five or six chimpanzees divided into two groups, two or three chasing a monkey from a tree, forcing it to jump from a fixed location where two or three other chimpanzees were already waiting to catch it. We can conclude that these chimpanzees initially had the same imagined scenario in mind: they clearly knew the future course of the event. How do chimpanzees achieve such consensus and complex cooperation? They don’t work like humans today, where a genius works day and night to devise a perfect plan and then convince others. Their cooperation is the long-term accumulation of countless small innovations. These incremental innovations occur either during relaxation and play or during hunting-like actions. Even in the latter scenario, innovative ideas don’t originate from those focused on pursuing goals, but rather from those leisurely waiting; in other words, innovation stems from a relaxed, playful mindset. As for how chimpanzees communicate individual innovations to all members of society to achieve consensus and cooperation, they are more likely to do so through visual memory and association, and the actual actions and situations that stimulate these memories and associations, rather than linguistic symbols. The author argues that their basic units of communication may be few in number and vaguely defined, but even so, these units of communication are not fundamentally different from what humans call concepts.

Although the academic community may still believe that culture originates from the accumulation of labor and production experience, from the unique perspective of the Taoist leisure and leisure in this article, a more accurate and closer description of the facts should be: culture comes from the accumulation of small creations, and most of these creations come from the leisurely state of mind during leisure time. Under the ever-increasing pressure of war in the history of human civilization, it is only those creations related to production and labor that have been accumulated.

IV. Play and Games Become Reality: Life and Culture in Secondary Human Societies

Although human play has the same five characteristics as animal play, the introduction of language has greatly increased the scope for free creation. Jennis believes that human subjectivity is a cultural construction based on language. [10] This view is being accepted by more and more people. The gibbons that were abundant in ancient my country had the habit of calling out collectively after waking up in the morning, which is why Li Bai wrote the line “The gibbons on both banks keep calling out”. From this point of view, it is difficult to determine whether human chat or language came first. Early humans may have chatted in a similar way with gestures, postures and vocalizations, just like the gibbons calling out collectively. At least this was an important driving force for the emergence of language. Like culture, language creation may have originated from a leisurely and playful mentality.

Two- or three-year-old children might place their small pillow next to their large pillow and say, “The pillow wants to find its mother!” They see the large pillow as the mother of their small pillow. This is how children infer the world around them from their own experiences, and understand themselves through observing the world around them. In a child’s mind, the world is always a warm and imaginative world. Children, at least to a large extent, view life through the lens of play and games. Many facts suggest that people in ancient, primitive societies also lived in such a warm and imaginative world, which is the original meaning behind this article’s use of the word “aesthetics” to summarize their social life.

After a certain number of words were invented, the language expression in virtual scenes, human chat and play games underwent a qualitative leap. Today, our children’s games even incorporate stories of the Three Kingdoms and Journey to the West. Based on information transmission, Gerhard Lenski divided the evolution of human social culture into four stages: gene, experience, symbol/logic, and language/writing. [11] Animals should have information transmission of genes and experience, which is the culture formed by the creation and accumulation of chimpanzees mentioned above. A true symbol/logic system requires the introduction of language. Language-guided chat and play games have a vast space for evolution that ape fur trimming does not have.

Once virtual scenarios are introduced into real life—that is, the blurring of the lines between play and reality, turning play into reality—it leads to a qualitative leap in human life. This process of choosing from various virtual possibilities is fundamentally different from the animalistic accumulation of experience. The author speculates that the invention of language and the emergence of subjective consciousness presented humanity with many possibilities, leading to different choices and ideas among individuals. However, this was insufficient to foster the idea of ​​an individual controlling a vast society, thus propelling humanity into a secondary society. The original society could stably accommodate the diverse ideas of different people, like Confucius, using aesthetics as a foundation to harmonize these differences. War may be the only factor in human history that forced humanity to tolerate authoritarianism to improve efficiency, although other possible factors are difficult to exclude in the short term. The eventual establishment of a secondary society led to what Marx called human alienation; humanity became slaves to its own creation, the secondary society.

Because of the effective control of local wars by ancient China’s superpowers, China remained at the primitive social level for a long time. This allowed ancient Chinese thinkers to consider problems from the perspective of primitive society, resulting in the unique perspective of Daoism’s leisure and leisure, as well as Confucius’s aestheticization of society and life. It also contributed to Li Zehou’s theory of ancient Chinese music culture.

Here, I’d like to briefly mention the issue of labor. The author still remembers the sudden increase in collective labor when agricultural cooperatives were first established in the 1950s. People worked and laughed, their voices filled with song and chatter, and the constant calling and urging made it more of a rare form of entertainment than actual labor. I often think that the collective farming practices of the Western Zhou Dynasty were similar. Modern labor, facing machines, requires endurance when one person repeats the same actions all day. Some studies indicate that work environments where several or more people chat while working can improve efficiency because they possess the playful nature mentioned above. The boundary between labor and entertainment is difficult to define. The author believes that in the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties, lacking a secondary social structure, labor did not stray too far from entertainment and remained within the framework of aesthetics. Only a powerful state apparatus could lock up thousands of slaves and force them to work day and night; only the mechanisms of modern economic operation could divide a population with nearly twenty years of education into individual cubicles performing repetitive labor while being monitored on television screens.

In short, a specific culture and religion at the second-level social stratum represents only one form of play in the primordial society. The diversity of the second-level society is comparable to the diversity of play in the primordial society. Lao Tzu and Confucius still viewed life through the lens of the traditions of play in the primordial society’s leisure time—that is, an aesthetic view of life.

In modern history, the expansion of the West on a global scale has enabled anthropologists to study relatively backward peoples and compare them with Western culture. Their observations also support the conclusion of this article: compared with modern Westerners, they have a lot of leisure time; they are peaceful and show amazing tolerance and patience towards different people, resulting in a peaceful life with little violence. Because their mentality is closer to nature, they show amazing patience. A person can wait for several hours in an unfamiliar hospital clinic without any displeasure, while the Westerners next to them would have been furious and pounding their chests. [1] Anthropologists have found in their study of the world’s existing primitive peoples that, compared with modern people, they are more likely to enter a religious illusion mentality and are less likely to distinguish between reality and dreams. Modern people need to go through years of cultivation and complicated religious rituals to have a chance to obtain similar religious experiences, that is, the so-called paradise. Studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have found that humans use the same brain regions to recall past experiences and fantasize about the future. The brain activity of people actually seeing a scene and fantasizing about the same scene is roughly the same. The author has specifically discussed fantasy and reality, concluding that: “Brain activity is so complex that a fantasy and a reality cannot be exactly the same, but this does not negate the conclusion that fantasy and reality can be largely the same at higher levels of the brain.” [7, pp. 189-194] Those who have experienced religious bliss believe that no pleasure in the real world can compare to it. Modern religious pursuits also include tranquility, and the presence or absence of so-called thoughtless awareness is precisely the contrast with the hospital waiting room mentioned above: modern people have lost this ability that their ancestors once possessed.

V. Confucius’s Aesthetic and Social Life Thoughts from the Perspective of the Multi-Level Evolution of the Universe and the Formation of Subjective Consciousness

Cosmic Evolution Table

Physical World

life

culture

consciousness

1. None

2. Yes

3. Elementary particles

4. Atom

5. Molecules

DNA

6. Objects

cell

7. Planet

organize

8. Galaxy

organ

9. Universe

personal

10

primitive society

culture

subconscious

11

Secondary society

civilization

consciousness

12

Rational cognitive system

13

Spiritual and Aesthetic Pursuits

Only by placing human society within the grand context of cosmic evolution can we understand the essential difference between primordial society and secondary society, and grasp the true meaning of Confucius’s aestheticization of primordial social life. As can be seen from the cosmic evolution chart above, the universe, along with the human biological world, is a multi-layered, multi-functional system. Different layers are insurmountable; they are fundamentally different. The progression from the individual to a secondary society is like the progression from molecules to planets, from cells to organs, and is also similar to the relationship between Chinese characters, sentences, and articles.

The human brain is divided into left and right hemispheres. People who have half of their brain removed in childhood due to illness can have normal intelligence. Because the connection between the two hemispheres is limited, impressions and feelings obtained by the right brain may need to be encoded before they can be transmitted to the left brain. The language center is located in the left brain, and rational thinking is also a function of the left brain. The right brain function is closer to aesthetics. The author speculates that the division of labor and connection between the left and right hemispheres of the human brain may be the neurological basis for the construction of a two-tier society by humans, in order to explain the differences between different levels of the two-tier society. [2] The division of labor between the left and right brains mentioned here refers to most people. The division of labor between the two has a certain degree of relativity and variability. Just as language and rational thinking may also evoke a person’s aesthetic feelings and experiences.

People in primitive societies possessed culture and consciousness, but the force maintaining social harmony and stability was the subconscious, the emotional connections between individuals; the structure and stability of secondary societies primarily relied on rational understanding at the conscious level. This is the main reason why the subconscious and conscious aspects are listed separately in the rows for primitive and secondary societies in the table above.

The author here adopts Johnny’s definition of subjective consciousness: the ability to reflect on and recall personal memories and thoughts, forming a continuous stream of self-talk and thoughts in the brain. This subjective consciousness requires the concept and structure of language, as well as the concept of linear time and three-dimensional space, to make it possible for the self-talk of “how I am” in the mind to happen. The author has argued that this subjective consciousness has an insurmountable obstacle in understanding the existence of death. As a cultural construct, subjective consciousness does not die, but the body does. This is like computer software having no lifespan, but hardware having a lifespan. If one day computers are advanced enough to transcribe human subjective consciousness and all memories onto a computer before death, then human subjective consciousness can continue to live in the computer. [7; 9] This leads to an important conclusion: the funerary rituals of humankind 50,000 years ago are direct evidence of the existence of subjective consciousness. The ancestor worship of the Chinese people is for the same reason, which is essentially different from general religions, but can be classified as a kind of animism.

The emergence of subjective consciousness is insufficient to cause humanity to abandon its original natural and social life, similar to that of other animals. Under the unique social circumstances of the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties, this natural and social life could develop to a highly civilized level, yet its essence remained natural life, which this article collectively refers to as aesthetics. While the complementary Confucian and Daoist schools before the Warring States period can be seen as a philosophical elevation and summary of early social life, this, like summarizing a work of art in words, may not fully and accurately reflect the reality of early society. Furthermore, the ancients were far more sensitive to art and language than modern people because they had far fewer opportunities to engage with them. In other words, the ancients’ perception of the words of Lao Tzu and Confucius may have been fundamentally different from that of modern people, and closer to an aesthetic experience.

Different perspectives from which subjective consciousness perceives the world and understands social life form different systems of rational cognition. Western philosophy, from Socrates and Plato to Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, can all be seen as different systems of rational cognition within a secondary society, reflecting the multifaceted and diverse realities of such societies. The guiding ideologies of social life in ancient Greece, medieval Europe, and modern Europe differed significantly, demonstrating the existence of these different systems of rational cognition within secondary societies through their varying social experiences. The Confucian and Taoist schools of thought, from the Warring States period to the Qin and Han dynasties onward, also represent different systems of cognition within a secondary society. They perceive and understand the realities of life in a secondary society from different angles and offer individuals different coping strategies. The fact that both Confucianism and Taoism share the ideal of a primordial society implies the multiple possibilities of a secondary society, as a primordial society lacks an inherent need for self-promotion.

Steve Taylor argues that the constant self-talk that modern people do when they are awake is based on a linear concept of time, and that this self-reflective consciousness began with the establishment and expansion of patriarchal society six thousand years ago. [10, 1] Taylor compares the consciousness of civilized and advanced peoples with that of primitive peoples that still exist today, and argues that there is a huge difference between the two. The former have a subjective consciousness, while the latter are close to a state of no subjective consciousness, such as the amazing patience mentioned in Section 4 above. [1]

The pursuit of spirituality and aesthetics in the secondary society listed in the table above is a return to the original society and a remedy for the deficiencies of the secondary society.

VI. Confucius’s Aesthetic and Social Thoughts

This article uses aesthetics to summarize the primitive social life, which Confucius idealized. He opposed the secondary social life organized by rewards, punishments, and material interests, and devoted his life to restoring this ideal human life, which was in danger of disappearing. Here, a cosmological evolution chart is used to illustrate the essential differences between these two types of life: 1) Primitive society: aesthetics, pleasure, instinct, intuition, harmony, unity of man and nature, the original world of humanity; 2) Secondary society: utilitarianism, struggle, rationality, directionality, contradictions and conflicts, the separation of man and nature, the world of gods not yet understood by humans.

The core of Confucianism is “benevolence” (仁). Mencius said, “Benevolence is humanity.” Humans are social animals, and the character “benevolence” (仁) is composed of the number two and the radical for “person” (人), signifying a social being, that is, human social life. Confucius viewed human social life as a kind of beauty and used this original beauty to organize and plan life and society. Confucius’s teachings on rites (礼) are based on benevolence; he said, “If a person is not benevolent, what use are rites?” On the other hand, when his disciples asked about benevolence, Confucius gave various seemingly contradictory explanations, ranging from loving others to self-discipline and returning to propriety. This shows that Confucius’s concept of humanity refers to natural beings in a primitive society, rather than a particular type of person in a secondary society.

Confucius dedicated his life to restoring the ritual and musical order of the Western Zhou Dynasty. While this may seem utilitarian on the surface, Confucius clearly viewed ritual and musical order as an integral part of life itself. He said, “One is inspired by poetry, established by ritual, and perfected by music,” and “Music regulates ritual,” and “Without music, what is ritual?” (Analects 8:8, 16:5). In Confucius’s mind, the ritual and musical order itself was a kind of beauty in life. This is like the process of resolving family conflicts—it is life itself, devoid of utilitarian value. Benevolence, or humanity, is the foundation of Confucius’s rituals.

Confucius said, “Only when one is refined in both manners and substance can one be a gentleman,” meaning he placed formal beauty before inner beauty, not the other way around. Formal beauty is universally acknowledged and timeless, though with slight variations; everyone finds flowers beautiful. However, social ideals such as morality, justice, and fairness, which represent inner beauty, are easily influenced by class interests and veer in different directions. This further illustrates that Confucianism takes the beauty of basic human nature as its starting point, neither the lofty spirit of Mencius nor the self-righteousness of Qu Yuan. The *Analects*, in the chapter “Xiangdang,” records Confucius’s behavior in different life situations, usually interpreted as Confucius adhering to etiquette at all times. Here, it can also be interpreted as: life itself is beautiful, primarily a formal beauty, a natural beauty.

Confucius’s aesthetic philosophy inevitably led to the following result: he valued “moderation,” “the golden mean,” and “gentleness and kindness,” avoiding extremism and stubbornness. In other words, he opposed ideas that diverged in different directions, preventing the emergence of a two-tiered society. Confucius was content with poverty and found joy in simplicity, saying, “To eat coarse food, drink water, and use one’s arm as a pillow—even in this there is joy” (Analects, 7:15). Confucius clearly opposed the emerging trend of organizing a two-tiered society based on material rewards. The author here also attributes the Analects’ saying, “The wise find joy in water, the benevolent find joy in mountains,” to this philosophy of moderation: the wise do not seek to stand out, but aspire to the gentleness and downward flow of water; the benevolent are not satisfied with the gratitude of others and seek to be different, but aspire to the sublimity and grandeur of mountains, possessing a tolerant and inclusive heart.

Aesthetic levels have good and bad, but no right or wrong. This aligns with the perspective of primitive society and amateur play. Secondary societies, with their direction and purpose, then have right and wrong. This is the essence of Confucius’s holistic and inclusive philosophy, embracing those who oppose him and together forming a harmonious beauty of unity. Confucius advocated for a state of neither absolute nor absolute, opposing the class differentiation of secondary societies and the corresponding rational principles. Confucius’s own words and actions serve as evidence of his advocacy: He was extremely indignant about the Ji family’s unconventional dance and music performances, saying, “Is this tolerable, or is it intolerable?” When a high-ranking official’s retainers rebelled and invited Confucius to participate, he was eager to accept, which displeased Zilu. (Analects, 3:1; 17:5-7) Similarly, when subordinates rebelled, Confucius, while traveling through various states, agreed to the conditions of the rebels in Pu of Wei but did not abide by them, instead deliberately returning to urge the ruler of Wei to send troops to suppress them. Zigong asked, “Can an oath be broken?” Confucius replied, “If one tries to swear an oath, the gods will not listen.” (Records of the Grand Historian: The Hereditary House of Confucius) In fact, the rebels in Pu did not threaten Confucius; it was the result of bargaining. Confucius’s invocation of the gods to defend himself contradicts his principle of not speaking of strange phenomena, physical prowess, disorder, or spirits. This shows that, aside from practicality, Confucius lacked objective moral standards. His practicality was guided by aesthetics; in early society, there were no moral or legal frameworks above human beings. This attitude of Confucius stands in stark contrast to later Confucian scholars such as Mencius.

VII. Conclusion

The Daoist school, which idealized and philosophicalized primordial social life, was based on a leisurely and entertaining view of life, devoid of any utilitarian thought. Confucius, who studied under Laozi, strived to curb social chaos and disorder, dedicating his life to restoring the Zhou rites and the ideal social order of the Western Zhou Dynasty. However, Confucius’s focus remained on spiritual happiness, not the utilitarianism of a secondary society. The so-called rites established by the Duke of Zhou, which Confucius vigorously promoted, were merely a set of rules for entertainment conducive to social stability and harmony, not far removed from the playful games of animals. Judging from the saying “A gentleman is refined in both manners and substance” and many details of daily life in the *Analects*, Confucius used the beauty of form to promote the aestheticization of social life, aiming to restore primordial social life. Laozi’s achievement lies in elevating the essence of ancient primordial society to a philosophical level; Confucius’s achievement lies in simultaneously artisticizing the forms of life and elevating the primordial way of human society to a new aesthetic height.

literature

[1] Steve Taylor (2005): The Fall: The Evidence for a Golden Age, 6000 years of Insanity, and the Dawning of a New Era. Winchester UK: O Books.

[2] You-Sheng Li (2010): The Ancient Chinese Super State of Primary Societies: Taoist Philosophy for the 21st Century. Bloomington, USA: Author House.

[3] Yu Dan (2006): Yu Dan’s Insights on the Analects. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company.

[4] Li Zehou (2008): New Edition of Chinese Ancient Intellectual History. Tianjin: Tianjin Academy of Social Sciences Press.

[5] Yu Sheng (2008): A New Perspective on Examining the Differences Between Eastern and Western Cultures. (Xue Deng, Issue 6) From: http://www.confucius2000.com.　

[6] You Sheng (2011): On the Primitive Nature of Chinese Religious Culture from the Perspective of Confucius’s Attitude Towards Ghosts and Gods. (Xue Deng, Issue 18) From: http://confucius2000.com.

[7] Li Yousheng (2009): Looking at life and the world from a different perspective: Chinese Taoism in the 21st century. Beijing: Thread-bound Book Bureau. pp. 253-56; 189-194.

[8] Chi Ke (1983): A Brief History of Western Art. Beijing: China Youth Press. pp. 341, 156.

[9] You-Sheng Li (2005): A New Interpretation of Chinese Taoist Philosophy. London, Canada: Taoist Recovery Centre.

[10] Julian Jaynes (1976): The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.

[11] Wikipedia (3 March 2011): Sociocultural evolution. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociocultural_evolution)

author By Dr. You-Sheng Li

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