Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. viii, 332 pp. (Figures.) US$29.95, paper. ISBN 978-0-19-025814-6.
Originally published in French in 2014 and based on eight years of fieldwork, this impressive book analyzes a variety of Confucianism-inspired rituals, practices, and activities that emerged during the 2000s in the People’s Republic of China. Focusing particularly on the upsurge of interest in Confucius and his teachings among non-elite ordinary people (minjian rujia), it joins a growing body of recent Western scholarship on mainland post-Mao Confucianism. Billioud and Thoraval consistently situate individual cases within larger social contexts and longer historical perspectives, as well as making comparisons with religious movements in Taiwan. Their multi-pronged approach offers the reader a nuanced and comprehensive understanding of rituals and other practices that otherwise have mainly drawn journalistic attention or narrower scholarly treatment.
The introduction stresses the novelty of contemporary popular Confucianism, which the authors distinguish from recent academic revivals or official reappropriations of Confucius for philosophical or ideological purposes. Moreover, unlike traditional institutions and practices revived or reconstructed after Maoist suppression, such as lineage organizations and ancestor worship, grassroots Confucian initiatives are new forms of association meant to engage ordinary people with the ancient sages and foster communitarian values, as an antidote to the post-Deng Xiaoping era’s amoral individualism. Operating outside the party-state apparatus, popular activists must maintain the acquiescence (or at least indifference) of local authorities, some of whom may privately become supporters. The government’s promotion of its own form of Confucian values has also created a space for popular initiatives perceived as compatible.
Billioud and Thoraval divide their main text into three sections organized around and titled by what they identify as three major “orientations” of popular Confucianism: its educative mission (jiaohua), religious functions (anshen liming), and ritual dimension (lijiao). Each section begins with a chapter that reviews relevant developments in the Republican period (1912–1949), which sometimes offers direct precedents for contemporary manifestations. Specific Confucian-related enterprises are examined in subsequent chapters, portions of which previously appeared in journal articles by one or both authors. The discussions draw upon recent scholarship in Chinese, English, and French to supplement field observations and interviews. More detailed background information about individual activists, groups, and schools sometimes appears in a sidebar, enabling the main text to focus on major themes. Methodological issues typically are treated in footnotes.
Part 1 surveys various forms of Confucian revival in education, ranging from state-run schools incorporating the study of classic texts to independent private academies, study halls, and extracurricular groups emphasizing Song-Ming Neo-Confucian modes of self-cultivation and master-disciple relationships. Within these otherwise diverse settings, the authors discern a common concern with promoting the attainment of wisdom (zhihui) and improving social morality, to counter standard education’s over-emphasis on mere accumulation of knowledge (zhishi) and exam preparation. In emphasizing “moral and behavioral rectitude” (93), contemporary Confucian education is paradoxically anti-intellectual, favouring embodied practices and eschewing scholarly theorizing. Elite academics accordingly have criticized the “vulgarization” of Confucianism, famously attacking Yu Dan’s popular 2006 lectures and subsequent book applying teachings from the Analects (Lunyu) to everyday life.
In part 2, the authors discuss religious elements within the popular Confucian revival, emphasizing that Western conceptions of “religion” (zongjiao) have created much confusion but also unique possibilities in the Chinese context. With considerable sophistication, they analyze attempts from the early 1900s onward to gain official institutional status for Confucianism, whether as the state religion, as an addition to the five recognized religions, as a kind of civil religion; or alternatively, to incorporate it within other syncretistic traditions. Reconstructing “the different phases of the confrontation between Confucian heritage and the new category of ‘religion’” (126), they trace the evolution of Confucian jiao (teaching) from an all-inclusive ritual, moral, and politico-cosmic system into a tradition of Chinese values, then its bifurcation into a “religion” imitating Protestantism and a “philosophy” of abstract ideas “disconnected from practices” (132). Observing that these attempts to modernize Confucianism were forgotten after 1949, the authors suggest that some of the same formulations and debates have reappeared in recent years. The socialist equation of “religion” with “superstition” leads some grassroots Confucian activists to deny that their rituals and practices are “religious.” Others support openly religious efforts, such as the Hong Kong Confucian Academy’s promotion of the Kongshengtang in Shenzhen as a Confucian “church.” Syncretic redemptive movements such as the (still underground) Way of Pervading Unity (Yiguan dao) blend Confucian self-cultivation with millennarian eschatology. A recurrent theme in the case studies is that Confucianism shares spiritual roots with Buddhism but differs in emphasizing the social here-and-now, rather than an individual’s future liberation.
Part 3 examines ritual, considering the political implications of the revived ceremonies and newly invented Confucian-inflected rites. Focusing on Qufu, the sage’s hometown, the authors review the evolution of his cult, traditionally the “theologico-political foundation of state power” (173). Originally a ceremony performed by officials, celebrating both “a vision of the universe permeating imperial ideology” and Confucius himself as representing “the mediating role of jiaohua” in its implementation, the ritual changed in the twentieth century into a school-based communal observance expressing “the cultural unity of the nation” (178). Variously called “sacrifice” (si) or “commemoration” (jinian), the ritual bolstered political authority but also stoked debates over religion. Abandoned under Mao, rites revived in the 2000s celebrate the state, but also the ancestral land (zuguo) and sacred realm (shenzhou), the latter to attract Taiwanese and overseas Chinese. The authors contrast official ceremonies “devoid of ritual spirit” (223) with rites that originate from ordinary peoples’ desires to experience Confucianism as a “living reality” (225). However, relations between party/state and unofficial groups can also be mutually supportive, given the shared cosmology of Confucianism. A chapter on state cults in Taiwan identifies alternative ways of connecting the religious and the political that are impossible in mainland China.
In view of ongoing developments and rapid changes, the authors end with an epilogue rather than a conclusion, reflecting on trends they observed over a decade and comparing conditions in the mainland and Taiwan. Their insightful book is an important contribution.
Julia K. Murray
University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA
pp. 126-129