I'd love to understand more about how he convinced leaders to go down the humanist route instead of continuing down self-serving paths. Could that part be more legend than history? Or was there enough social and political pressure (or personal buy-in) perhaps?
There was definitely social and political pressure. As Fraser mentions here, it helped A LOT that the Mohists had their own militia. If a small state was afraid of being conquered by a larger one, it was in their best interest to support the mohist movement and have access to their military in defense!
Also, needs were very much in common. For example: "We need a bridge that crosses over that river." Well the community could gather together, the engineers could design it, and they could collectively fund it.
Ah, ok, that makes sense. They made their impact with material leverage (like their militia) alongside having a worldview with mass appeal. Appreciate the clarification!
The Mohists remind me of the Shao Lin monks, or the fictional Jedi knights. We could sure use a group like that. But both the dim-ocrats and the greedpublicans would want to destroy it, as a threat to their power. far as I'm concerned today's rethulicans are utterly evil with no reedeeming values at all, and the dim-ocrats might mean well to some extent but are both authoritarian and inept. They let the Man of Lawlessness get by with 98 felonies including treason, then persecute people things for like objecting to men on women's teams or owning a type of gun they don't like.
Everything is so complex outside of Rome. During World War Two the two men that created 21st century Canada are forgotten in the discussion. Pierre Eliot Trudeau was a journalist in Mao's China and became Prime Minister of Canada. Rene Levesque, Quebec's Benjamin Franklin served as a journalist in Franklin Delano Roosevelt's European command and served as Prime Minister of Quebec after the "Quiet Revolution". Rene Levesque covered the "liberation" of Dachau. The Prime Minister of Quebec is far more important to the health education and welfare of my Nashville born University of Chicago educated partner and I than Justin Trudeau. Our children and grandchildren and greatgrandchild are Americans and we left America to retire in 2003 and we may never again visit Merica or see our grandchildren because after two decades in Amerika we are just no longer involved in saving democracy south of the border Amerika has rejected liberal democracy as defined in the dictionary in 1789. We live in Quebec Canada and I said 30 ago when I said I ain't going back to Chicago's Citizenship and Immigration near Chicago State "University", it isn't worth the abuse of being talked down to by people who never went to a real school in a real liberal democracy. Democracy requires in the words of Alfred Lord Tennyson said after the 600+ of Eton College committed suicide during Russia's retreat from Crimea. "Ours is not to reason why, ours but to do and die"; that is Russian and English Empire not the American dream.
Into the Valley death rode the six hundred. The Charge of the light Brigade.
Johnson was a conservative and believed in Kings and Emperors just like Musk, Thiel, Bannon, Miller, Guilliani, Vance and President Elect Peter Pan of Never Never Land.
In my opinion the economic system doesn't matter much, it's the general attitudes of the populace. Any system can be made to work for the people, any system can be subverted.
In my 69 years the popular will of the USA has changed 180 degrees. It's like a different country. Today Dwight Eisenhower would be a radical leftist excluded completely from popular discourse.
today's rethuglicans wold probably call Reagan a stinking liberal because he did not hate gay people. All he really hated was communism. But unfortunately he had some greedy and evil advisors who used his charisma to push a practically Fascist agenda.
Communism is the dominant ideology in China today. The humanist ideas of the European Enlightenment have not penetrated Chinese thought since most of the texts have never been translated and academics largely do not discuss the ideas. Humanism does not exist in any tangible way in China despite Mozi. Reform will be extremely difficult in Communist China.
Here’s what you don’t understand. When capitalist countries prosper everyone points out the income gap between the rich and the poor. Communism has got even greater disparities once some people prosper. This means that the Chinese economy is even more precarious. This is a revolutionary situation just like Mao seized power. You can’t deny prosperity to people and expect things to go well. China made a huge mistake in the real estate market.
I have been to China and in my opinion capitalism is at least as strong as socialism there. In Communism the people don't own their own residence or business. In today's China urban land is not privately owned -- it's leased from the state -- but residences and most businesses can be owned.
There are many new empty buildings there. The people don't trust banks so they buy these buildings. Many of them are shoddily built.
Although I'm sure this has some legend in it, as an ideal, Mozi's philosophy is great and worth considering.
But I'd like to bring up another aspect of this story, as you've laid it out: People taking action to better themselves and their communities at the local level.
Many of Mozi's ideas are humanistic ideas that can be found in Western society. You saw them — to varying degrees — in antiquity and then really flowering during the Renaissance and Enlightenment before coming into their own in the 19th century.
The missing piece, that was present in earlier eras of the US, was local action to solve local problems and support regional goals. Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville shows 19th-century America as the home of problem solvers pooling resources and joining groups to address their own problems. They built schools. They formed militias. They created culture in vacuums on the frontier.
Much like in Mozi's era, there was this "top" layer of government that had to be weathered and bettered. But it often did a crappy job of addressing real problems when it wasn't actively causing wars and harming people. So locals banded together to do what the government couldn't or wouldn't.
The really interesting question is: Why did these local problem-solving groups die off in the US? Why has civil society withered on the vine?
Part of it is a change in mindset. Earlier eras observed that the government was useless or underresourced. If something was going to be bettered, they had to do it themselves.
We don't have that mindset. We think that only the government can address problems, and at best we can nudge it in the right direction or vote for someone better to run the bureaucracy.
I'm not sure how you bring back the earlier system. In a sense, I think our learned helplessness is the result of government doing things pretty well and scaling up. But when it fails, we're stuck with our learned helplessness mindset.
I wonder if we can get back to taking action without a massive failure at the government level that would leave a clear void that would need to be filled and summon people from complacency.
Yep. People don't organize. They only complain then vote for one of two candidates selected by the oligarchy. 85% of the public have brand loyalty to one the two parties so deep it resembles zombiehood. They firmly believe that anything else would be throwing their vote away.
The Socialist party used to be strong but the movement was infiltrated and their leader imprisoned. In 2002 I met a real Socialist party member who organized workers. She said being imprisoned and then given an "elevator ride" was a common fate for such organizers.
Until the working people organize their lot will continue to deteriorate. I see no such movement at all.
"We think that only the government can address problems" <--I think this is one of the central problems today, which is why I told this story of Mozi! We need to remember that it is up to us to engage ourselves locally and that when we do that it can have a much more powerful effect on our lives than the government does.
Love that you are reading Mòzǐ!!! I gave a talk on some aspects of the philosophy and Chris Fraser's book just a couple weeks ago. Huge wealth of ideas here.
Thank you for this informative and compelling post.
"a humanist movement that acted for the benefit of all and sought a government that did the same was always incompatible with power-hungry individuals who sought their own interests."
—There is a third option, though. Individualism, if correctly applied, can produce similar results to the former, but without the risks of falling into collectivism.
The notion of acting for "the benefit of all" is fine, especially when part of the philosophy is that each person should be free to choose to act in that way, rather than being forced to do so. Unfortunately, these sorts of collectivist notions ultimately metastasize into leftist flavors of totalitarianism. Ultimately, individuals end up being forced to act in ways that (a small group of overlords tell us) are for the benefit of all.
IMO, we must evolve to the next level, in which individuals see each other as precious, sacred, sovereign, irreplaceable individuals, and act accordingly. That will produce roughly the same results/outcomes as Mohism, but without the risk of a slow drift into totalitarian collectivism.
This is exactly what Mozi did, he may have started the movement, but it was individuals who decided to work to help others however they saw fit that did so. I don't think Mohism would result in a slow drift toward totalitarian collectivism, Confucianism was always better suited to that in my opinion.
But what if the people who are being helped don't want the help? Do you force it on them?
Ronald Reagan famously said the "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'We're from the government and we're here to help'".
I've thought about the golden rule "Do unto others as you would have done unto you." Sounds great. But what if others don't want to be done unto the same as you do? What you consider to be a kindness might be considered by others to be an intrusion. So, "Do unto others as they would want, not as you would want."
Elle's essay spends not one moment contemplating what 'the people' want, instead contemplating only what the leaders want. It's great that the leaders think in terms of benevolence, but who put them in charge of anything? Why? How? How accepted are they? How much do 'the people' all want to come together and be socialists? I'm less concerned with the answers to any of those questions as I am with the fact that nobody ever asks them.
But Mohism isn't a top-down structure—it's bottom-up! Their various organizations did nothing that "leaders" wanted and did only what "they" wanted. In other words, it wasn't "We're from the government and we're here to help," it was a group of neighbors gathering and saying "there is a big problem here how can we solve it?"
Back then most of the problems were: "A neighboring country is going to attack us" or "we are insanely impoverished and need more money," or "we have no bridges to get across the river." People were able to agree upon the needs they had and then work together to solve them.
Mohism is the exact opposite of how you are understanding it.
I can't claim to be expert at the philosophy, and perhaps I was harsh.
But I am still left with the impression that Mohism leads away from family centered relationships and decision making, and goes toward socialism. Certainly, there is no 'red line in the sand' that separates the two. Both need to exist in a healthy culture. But today, as I see families willfully denigrated and devalued, while Nanny State socialism is promoted, I see an imbalance that needs to be corrected.
While your explanation speaks to the needs of a community, our reality is that we have huge, omnipresent central government dictating terms to all of us. Big Brother and the Nanny State are the problem, not the solution.
"Outside of government" is not proof of anything. George Soros works "outside of government". So do Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Those last two may work within government soon; we'll see.
Also "outside of government" are Hilary Clinton, Liz Cheney, Barak Obama, and Donald Trump. Trump will of course be "inside government" on Jan 20.
Arguably, the people who are "outside of government" have more control over government than the people who are "inside of government." And they can't be voted out of office. They don't answer to We the People.
Overall a fascinating overview of a forgotten leader and philosophy I wasn’t aware of (both overall and as a 1st gen Chinese American)
1) it’s interesting thinking about this what if independently and using a lens/framework Venkatesh Rao recently posited called contraptions theory that he is using to study history and rise and fall of idiosyncratic states, empires, and communities (my paraphrase) - ones that cannot be predicted easily in progress of history or replicated necessarily given unique conditions but that upon deeper analysis might still offer interesting design principles or insights. He’s starting a monthly async book club and they’re looking at Venice through a book City of Fortune: How Venice Ruled The Seas by Roger Crowley.
2) I also enjoyed the robust discussion/debate with Sharon in comments and some of the resources she shared on XJP Thought and current state of things/culture and intersection with political systems. My non expert take is that culture is of course in reality always intertwined with and connected with political systems, but it’s even more critical to understand that context and influence in an authoritarian state like China. I get Elle’s original point was to compare Confucian vs Mohist philosophy and impact today broadly generalized (one continues, one didn’t) but appreciate the push and nuance from Sharon which is how the current state uses history and invokes Confucianism to espouse cultural values and aspirations that help legitimize doctrines and norms that help its case (patriarchy, authoritarian), not unlike the first emperors. Even the continued use of this in media there could be seen as an underlying way to influence how people behave, both explicitly (support, incentives to create) and implicitly (non censorship).
3) I also really like Dan Wang’s analysis (although more from an economic and political lens, especially his annual letters). I’m far from an expert or following current events, but I have been gradually reading and learning Chinese history during various periods to create my own understanding of how its society, culture, people, etc have been shaped and understand the context in which my parents and ancestors lived, the lineage of my own sense of self which has been influenced by my time living in the US and South Africa (I’ve never lived in China or the longest period was a summer in uni, but visited multiple times and caught/felt the massive macro changes the last 30 years).
1) Thanks for this additional reference, very interesting!
2) There can be no doubt that there are a lot of influences on modern day China beyond just a 2500-year-old philosophy. Confucianism played an active role in getting to where we are today, but slowly, and along with many other ideologies.
3) I'm a big fan of Dan Wang! I actually reached out to him because my intent was to visit China this year, but he wasn't very hopeful on the places I was interested in studying. We wound up directing our travels toward Japan instead. I'm still curious to study and learn more though and that's incredible you've been able to visit and learn more yourself!
Re 3 awesome you got some frontlines insight from Dan, and yes alas,I think there are so many bright spots but the incentives and regime likely don’t align with those areas in China. Curious if there was anything explicit you can share about the themes you were looking to explore, and why Japan actually became where you redirected.
My thoughts re Japan
Also a fascinating story and alternative that had its imperial era, rise and fall and internal politics shogun era (closed off), WWII; economic growth then stagnation with childbirth rates plummeting and no compensating immigration like we have had in the US (but is even still finally slowing down to where the number of students going into K will drop significantly the next decade). I appreciate -
1) influence in mfg and rise of its auto industry to become a global dominant player,
2) the creation of globally culturally beloved media via manga and anime (I’m personally a huge fan and these things had formative and continue to have influences on me, with the original loose inspiration for Dragonball being Sun Wukong and a Chinese work of literature 西游记) and
3) so many places where they deeply honor culture, spirituality, and tradition including places or businesses that have been family held through generations (from the temple that gets rebuilt every 20 years to an aged soy sauce business to a spiritual tradition that’s very local to one particular community that may have inspired spirited away).
Curious what innovation or spaces for new ideas and how that gets fostered in a slowed economic growth context but one that seems to honor tradition/history without putting it as a curiosity in a museum (my cynical take on what we do in the US). Curious how both youth and elderly are treated, and youth perspectives on potential and life there.
I was interested in studying China's Special Economic Zones, specifically Shenzhen, and their plans to create an autonomous city. They also have several company models I'm interested in researching (especially Haier). Unfortunately, I was told that a lot of the innovation happening in China is being undercut by their economy at the moment, and a lot of the dreams I was interested in studying aren't becoming realities. Whereas, Japan has a lot of working models that are already in existence (waste-free cities, autonomous cities in development, I'm also going to the world fair which is being held in Osaka this year).
Of the beats you mention: Industry is definitely interesting, though I share a particular interest in Japanese pop-culture and entertainment. Actually I love Chinese fantasy as well so this is something I really want to research. And I'm similarly interested in ways the philosophy has passed town (how ancient Shinto became Marie Kond in the modern world, etc). I'll look into some of the other things you mention too to see if there's a story there (elder care etc.)
Thanks for the various plot points. There's so much here I want to explore!
Very cool, thanks again for context re China economic zones and Shenzhen and Haier vs Japan, super excited to follow along and see what you learn! Ah a modern day world fair sounds both exciting and makes me curious what presents and narratives are around it this year, and who’s sponsoring such :) - and against the backdrop of what you’re exploring and learning will be intriguing!
Elle, It’s encouraging you are studying China and its complex long history, but I would caution on romanticized invocation of China’s history. Also, Confucianism is not the “dominant” philosophy/religion today in the PRC (no matter what a Google search states) if that’s what you meant by “China.” Under the leadership of the CPC (as stated in the State and Party Constitutions, reinforced in laws, and in “education” study sessions), the guiding ideology today is Marxist-Leninist-Mao Zedong thought and now add on Xi Jinping Thought. In fact, any criticisms are censored and runs risk of prosecution under the comprehensive state, national and cybersecurity laws. There are excellent resources on XJP Thought, including summaries that present its complexity by the MERICS, China research group. You might also be interested in the Weekly Brief published at: https://hrichina.substack.com
Marx credits Benjamin Franklin and Voltaire as the founders of COMMUNISM. Ben Franklin was a Deist and struggled with English Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. Thomas Jefferson assembled his Jefferson Bible: The Life and morals of Jesus of Nazareth in 1820. Jefferson was an evolutionary botanist. The most important document in the founders libraries was John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Milton was Cromwell’s secretary and Cromwell began the English/American Civil Wars by a genocide of Roman Catholics in Scotland and Ireland before the Brothers wars got totally unCivil with brothers killing brothers and mothers killing father and father killing anything that moved. John Milton, John Locke and Isaac Newton founded English Unitarianism.
John the Baptist was Quebec’s) Patron Saint and now Francis of Rome is persona non grata in Quebec City. Jesus was not a hermit or a libertarian . He was a Socialist: He said render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, render unto God what is God’s.
Thank you for engaging my comment. Japan and the U.S. (at least not yet) are not authoritarian one Party states.
Ideology in China today under the CPC seeks to shape and define what is “ Chinese” culture, hence the forced “Sinocization” of Uyghurs and Tibetans and the “mainlandization” of people in HK (which had a distinctive HK/Chinese culture now being gutte). The CPC DOES invokes China’s long history to legitimize its present, but that’s historically problematic.
To make a distinction between a culture and a country, that’s also pretty tricky. If you say “China” you are referencing a country. But to say “Chinese culture” is even more problematic, especially in context of the battle to define it or claim some version of it for ourselves, e.g. as Chinese women, or as Hong Kongers. But to deduce what a culture is from TV dramas is risky. Can you imagine if non-English speaking (I apologize if you are Chinese language fluent) person understood “American culture” from U.S.TV dramas? In any case, if you haven’t watched it, you might watch the Three Body Problem (the Chinese series based upon Liu Cixin’s award winning sci-trilogy). It presents a very chilling portrait of Chinese culture in modern China.
Hmmm, I guess I do think that you can learn a lot about US culture from US TV.
No doubt there are plenty of problematic aspects of Chinese government, but that’s not what I’m discussing here. I’m discussing two early Chinese philosophies, one of which became more dominant and is still around today and one of which was forgotten. Are you saying that you don’t feel Confucianism is in any way part of Chinese culture? Or reflected in Chinese culture today?
I think Confucianism is shorthand for certain “traditional” Chinese/Asian values (patriarchy and hierarchy of authority, family, devaluation of girls) that I (like many Chinese women of my generation) had to struggle with. (I published a law review article decades ago on this). Just personal note-my maternal grandparents were Buddhists, sent my mother to Catholic schools and observed Taoist rituals. Hong Kong society is heavily influenced and shaped by Christianity.
I do understand you are looking at one of the key thinkers and philosophers from thousands of years ago, but you are also advancing an insight for China today. My main point is you can’t separate “cultural values and practices” so simply from legal, political systems and ideology, if you want to understand cultural influences and impact in context. To do so in the context of China is to erase the complexity of our culture, our history and the ongoing cultural negotiations that so many Chinese are engaged in, and paying the social costs for doing so.
But this is your journey and project, so wishing you Godspeed!
Oh no doubt. The sentence you are referring to in my piece was only meant to say “Confucianism is still around today, Mohism isn’t. And there are obvious reasons that happened (including how it emphasized respect toward authority).
How that ancient philosophy ultimately shaped modern patriarchy, authority, feminism, government etc is for sure complex and I could have written a whole other piece on that (though I am certainly not expert enough to do it!) My only argument here was that it did in fact influence those things much more than Mohism did (and it seems like you are agreeing with me there even if there are of course other influencing factors as well).
I don't understand your philosophy. Where is the context. Christianity is fourth century. It resembles Persian Manicheanism not first century Judaism. Jewish Messiahs like David and Saul were flawed humans not demigods. It was the 17th century when Henry VIII chopped the head off Thomas More saying the King of England is the leader of church and state. It is the meaning of conservative. All power flows from god and he commands both church and state. Philosophy must have a metaphysic.
China has as many languages and cultures as Europe. Where does culture become religion. "America First" was Benjamin Franklin's and Thomas Jefferson's greatest fear. Jefferson was a evolutionary botanist and Unitarian and Ben Franklin never went to school and was a commonist. Benjamin Franklin developed public institutions and became an abolitionist and railed against human bondage and said all men are created equal and freed his slaves. He was persona not grata in Boston after the revolution when Cotton was King. England wore wool. Did peasants in China wear silk in the fields? Louis Sullivan the architect said form follows function. The same can be said for politics and religion. Peasants never had the time and I am afraid Americans are more comfortable being sheep than naked apes.,
Yes, you are correct. I hold no romantic notions of Chinese history, and I am not speaking of the PRC specifically. When I say Confucianism is still a dominant philosophy in China, I don’t necessarily mean politically but philosophically/culturally. The same way Shinto still influences Japanese culture or Christianity influences U.S. culture even though the political systems of those countries are not ideologically based on them.
A good analog would be to think about pop-culture. I watch a lot of c-dramas and they feel very Confucian influenced. The same way watching Lord of the Rings feels very Christian influenced! It’s in the culture if not the government! Though I’m curious if you think differently?
A beautiful fact of history that more people should be aware of. Thank you for sharing. Also which books would you recommend to read regarding Mohism's history?
Chris Fraser is THE expert here. He’s a professor at the University of Hong Kong and I loved his book “The Philosophy of the Mozi” as well as his translation of the Mozi. I’m reading his work on Zhuangzi next!
I'd love to understand more about how he convinced leaders to go down the humanist route instead of continuing down self-serving paths. Could that part be more legend than history? Or was there enough social and political pressure (or personal buy-in) perhaps?
There was definitely social and political pressure. As Fraser mentions here, it helped A LOT that the Mohists had their own militia. If a small state was afraid of being conquered by a larger one, it was in their best interest to support the mohist movement and have access to their military in defense!
Also, needs were very much in common. For example: "We need a bridge that crosses over that river." Well the community could gather together, the engineers could design it, and they could collectively fund it.
Ah, ok, that makes sense. They made their impact with material leverage (like their militia) alongside having a worldview with mass appeal. Appreciate the clarification!
The Mohists remind me of the Shao Lin monks, or the fictional Jedi knights. We could sure use a group like that. But both the dim-ocrats and the greedpublicans would want to destroy it, as a threat to their power. far as I'm concerned today's rethulicans are utterly evil with no reedeeming values at all, and the dim-ocrats might mean well to some extent but are both authoritarian and inept. They let the Man of Lawlessness get by with 98 felonies including treason, then persecute people things for like objecting to men on women's teams or owning a type of gun they don't like.
Everything is so complex outside of Rome. During World War Two the two men that created 21st century Canada are forgotten in the discussion. Pierre Eliot Trudeau was a journalist in Mao's China and became Prime Minister of Canada. Rene Levesque, Quebec's Benjamin Franklin served as a journalist in Franklin Delano Roosevelt's European command and served as Prime Minister of Quebec after the "Quiet Revolution". Rene Levesque covered the "liberation" of Dachau. The Prime Minister of Quebec is far more important to the health education and welfare of my Nashville born University of Chicago educated partner and I than Justin Trudeau. Our children and grandchildren and greatgrandchild are Americans and we left America to retire in 2003 and we may never again visit Merica or see our grandchildren because after two decades in Amerika we are just no longer involved in saving democracy south of the border Amerika has rejected liberal democracy as defined in the dictionary in 1789. We live in Quebec Canada and I said 30 ago when I said I ain't going back to Chicago's Citizenship and Immigration near Chicago State "University", it isn't worth the abuse of being talked down to by people who never went to a real school in a real liberal democracy. Democracy requires in the words of Alfred Lord Tennyson said after the 600+ of Eton College committed suicide during Russia's retreat from Crimea. "Ours is not to reason why, ours but to do and die"; that is Russian and English Empire not the American dream.
Into the Valley death rode the six hundred. The Charge of the light Brigade.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45319/the-charge-of-the-light-brigade
https://poemanalysis.com/alfred-tennyson/the-charge-of-the-light-brigade/
https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/views/search.php?term=liberal
https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/views/search.php?term=democracy
Johnson was a conservative and believed in Kings and Emperors just like Musk, Thiel, Bannon, Miller, Guilliani, Vance and President Elect Peter Pan of Never Never Land.
https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/views/search.php?term=Conservative
https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/views/search.php?term=Religion
In my opinion the economic system doesn't matter much, it's the general attitudes of the populace. Any system can be made to work for the people, any system can be subverted.
In my 69 years the popular will of the USA has changed 180 degrees. It's like a different country. Today Dwight Eisenhower would be a radical leftist excluded completely from popular discourse.
today's rethuglicans wold probably call Reagan a stinking liberal because he did not hate gay people. All he really hated was communism. But unfortunately he had some greedy and evil advisors who used his charisma to push a practically Fascist agenda.
Gee, I see some thoughts here that sound like the original United Sates. Wa happened?
We've had similar movements in the US and all over the world. But time is long and movements live or die depending on the generations that come after.
Communism is the dominant ideology in China today. The humanist ideas of the European Enlightenment have not penetrated Chinese thought since most of the texts have never been translated and academics largely do not discuss the ideas. Humanism does not exist in any tangible way in China despite Mozi. Reform will be extremely difficult in Communist China.
Here’s what you don’t understand. When capitalist countries prosper everyone points out the income gap between the rich and the poor. Communism has got even greater disparities once some people prosper. This means that the Chinese economy is even more precarious. This is a revolutionary situation just like Mao seized power. You can’t deny prosperity to people and expect things to go well. China made a huge mistake in the real estate market.
I have been to China and in my opinion capitalism is at least as strong as socialism there. In Communism the people don't own their own residence or business. In today's China urban land is not privately owned -- it's leased from the state -- but residences and most businesses can be owned.
There are many new empty buildings there. The people don't trust banks so they buy these buildings. Many of them are shoddily built.
Although I'm sure this has some legend in it, as an ideal, Mozi's philosophy is great and worth considering.
But I'd like to bring up another aspect of this story, as you've laid it out: People taking action to better themselves and their communities at the local level.
Many of Mozi's ideas are humanistic ideas that can be found in Western society. You saw them — to varying degrees — in antiquity and then really flowering during the Renaissance and Enlightenment before coming into their own in the 19th century.
The missing piece, that was present in earlier eras of the US, was local action to solve local problems and support regional goals. Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville shows 19th-century America as the home of problem solvers pooling resources and joining groups to address their own problems. They built schools. They formed militias. They created culture in vacuums on the frontier.
Much like in Mozi's era, there was this "top" layer of government that had to be weathered and bettered. But it often did a crappy job of addressing real problems when it wasn't actively causing wars and harming people. So locals banded together to do what the government couldn't or wouldn't.
The really interesting question is: Why did these local problem-solving groups die off in the US? Why has civil society withered on the vine?
Part of it is a change in mindset. Earlier eras observed that the government was useless or underresourced. If something was going to be bettered, they had to do it themselves.
We don't have that mindset. We think that only the government can address problems, and at best we can nudge it in the right direction or vote for someone better to run the bureaucracy.
I'm not sure how you bring back the earlier system. In a sense, I think our learned helplessness is the result of government doing things pretty well and scaling up. But when it fails, we're stuck with our learned helplessness mindset.
I wonder if we can get back to taking action without a massive failure at the government level that would leave a clear void that would need to be filled and summon people from complacency.
Yep. People don't organize. They only complain then vote for one of two candidates selected by the oligarchy. 85% of the public have brand loyalty to one the two parties so deep it resembles zombiehood. They firmly believe that anything else would be throwing their vote away.
The Socialist party used to be strong but the movement was infiltrated and their leader imprisoned. In 2002 I met a real Socialist party member who organized workers. She said being imprisoned and then given an "elevator ride" was a common fate for such organizers.
Until the working people organize their lot will continue to deteriorate. I see no such movement at all.
"We think that only the government can address problems" <--I think this is one of the central problems today, which is why I told this story of Mozi! We need to remember that it is up to us to engage ourselves locally and that when we do that it can have a much more powerful effect on our lives than the government does.
Love that you are reading Mòzǐ!!! I gave a talk on some aspects of the philosophy and Chris Fraser's book just a couple weeks ago. Huge wealth of ideas here.
https://youtu.be/zolYjlAij5U
Thank you for this informative and compelling post.
"a humanist movement that acted for the benefit of all and sought a government that did the same was always incompatible with power-hungry individuals who sought their own interests."
—There is a third option, though. Individualism, if correctly applied, can produce similar results to the former, but without the risks of falling into collectivism.
The notion of acting for "the benefit of all" is fine, especially when part of the philosophy is that each person should be free to choose to act in that way, rather than being forced to do so. Unfortunately, these sorts of collectivist notions ultimately metastasize into leftist flavors of totalitarianism. Ultimately, individuals end up being forced to act in ways that (a small group of overlords tell us) are for the benefit of all.
IMO, we must evolve to the next level, in which individuals see each other as precious, sacred, sovereign, irreplaceable individuals, and act accordingly. That will produce roughly the same results/outcomes as Mohism, but without the risk of a slow drift into totalitarian collectivism.
This is exactly what Mozi did, he may have started the movement, but it was individuals who decided to work to help others however they saw fit that did so. I don't think Mohism would result in a slow drift toward totalitarian collectivism, Confucianism was always better suited to that in my opinion.
Perhaps so. I do not know much about either, really. And so long as we avoid collectivism, I'm happy!
But what if the people who are being helped don't want the help? Do you force it on them?
Ronald Reagan famously said the "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'We're from the government and we're here to help'".
I've thought about the golden rule "Do unto others as you would have done unto you." Sounds great. But what if others don't want to be done unto the same as you do? What you consider to be a kindness might be considered by others to be an intrusion. So, "Do unto others as they would want, not as you would want."
Elle's essay spends not one moment contemplating what 'the people' want, instead contemplating only what the leaders want. It's great that the leaders think in terms of benevolence, but who put them in charge of anything? Why? How? How accepted are they? How much do 'the people' all want to come together and be socialists? I'm less concerned with the answers to any of those questions as I am with the fact that nobody ever asks them.
But Mohism isn't a top-down structure—it's bottom-up! Their various organizations did nothing that "leaders" wanted and did only what "they" wanted. In other words, it wasn't "We're from the government and we're here to help," it was a group of neighbors gathering and saying "there is a big problem here how can we solve it?"
Back then most of the problems were: "A neighboring country is going to attack us" or "we are insanely impoverished and need more money," or "we have no bridges to get across the river." People were able to agree upon the needs they had and then work together to solve them.
Mohism is the exact opposite of how you are understanding it.
I can't claim to be expert at the philosophy, and perhaps I was harsh.
But I am still left with the impression that Mohism leads away from family centered relationships and decision making, and goes toward socialism. Certainly, there is no 'red line in the sand' that separates the two. Both need to exist in a healthy culture. But today, as I see families willfully denigrated and devalued, while Nanny State socialism is promoted, I see an imbalance that needs to be corrected.
While your explanation speaks to the needs of a community, our reality is that we have huge, omnipresent central government dictating terms to all of us. Big Brother and the Nanny State are the problem, not the solution.
I'm not sure where you are finding socialism in his work? He worked completely outside of government.
"Outside of government" is not proof of anything. George Soros works "outside of government". So do Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Those last two may work within government soon; we'll see.
Also "outside of government" are Hilary Clinton, Liz Cheney, Barak Obama, and Donald Trump. Trump will of course be "inside government" on Jan 20.
Arguably, the people who are "outside of government" have more control over government than the people who are "inside of government." And they can't be voted out of office. They don't answer to We the People.
Overall a fascinating overview of a forgotten leader and philosophy I wasn’t aware of (both overall and as a 1st gen Chinese American)
1) it’s interesting thinking about this what if independently and using a lens/framework Venkatesh Rao recently posited called contraptions theory that he is using to study history and rise and fall of idiosyncratic states, empires, and communities (my paraphrase) - ones that cannot be predicted easily in progress of history or replicated necessarily given unique conditions but that upon deeper analysis might still offer interesting design principles or insights. He’s starting a monthly async book club and they’re looking at Venice through a book City of Fortune: How Venice Ruled The Seas by Roger Crowley.
2) I also enjoyed the robust discussion/debate with Sharon in comments and some of the resources she shared on XJP Thought and current state of things/culture and intersection with political systems. My non expert take is that culture is of course in reality always intertwined with and connected with political systems, but it’s even more critical to understand that context and influence in an authoritarian state like China. I get Elle’s original point was to compare Confucian vs Mohist philosophy and impact today broadly generalized (one continues, one didn’t) but appreciate the push and nuance from Sharon which is how the current state uses history and invokes Confucianism to espouse cultural values and aspirations that help legitimize doctrines and norms that help its case (patriarchy, authoritarian), not unlike the first emperors. Even the continued use of this in media there could be seen as an underlying way to influence how people behave, both explicitly (support, incentives to create) and implicitly (non censorship).
3) I also really like Dan Wang’s analysis (although more from an economic and political lens, especially his annual letters). I’m far from an expert or following current events, but I have been gradually reading and learning Chinese history during various periods to create my own understanding of how its society, culture, people, etc have been shaped and understand the context in which my parents and ancestors lived, the lineage of my own sense of self which has been influenced by my time living in the US and South Africa (I’ve never lived in China or the longest period was a summer in uni, but visited multiple times and caught/felt the massive macro changes the last 30 years).
1) Thanks for this additional reference, very interesting!
2) There can be no doubt that there are a lot of influences on modern day China beyond just a 2500-year-old philosophy. Confucianism played an active role in getting to where we are today, but slowly, and along with many other ideologies.
3) I'm a big fan of Dan Wang! I actually reached out to him because my intent was to visit China this year, but he wasn't very hopeful on the places I was interested in studying. We wound up directing our travels toward Japan instead. I'm still curious to study and learn more though and that's incredible you've been able to visit and learn more yourself!
Re 3 awesome you got some frontlines insight from Dan, and yes alas,I think there are so many bright spots but the incentives and regime likely don’t align with those areas in China. Curious if there was anything explicit you can share about the themes you were looking to explore, and why Japan actually became where you redirected.
My thoughts re Japan
Also a fascinating story and alternative that had its imperial era, rise and fall and internal politics shogun era (closed off), WWII; economic growth then stagnation with childbirth rates plummeting and no compensating immigration like we have had in the US (but is even still finally slowing down to where the number of students going into K will drop significantly the next decade). I appreciate -
1) influence in mfg and rise of its auto industry to become a global dominant player,
2) the creation of globally culturally beloved media via manga and anime (I’m personally a huge fan and these things had formative and continue to have influences on me, with the original loose inspiration for Dragonball being Sun Wukong and a Chinese work of literature 西游记) and
3) so many places where they deeply honor culture, spirituality, and tradition including places or businesses that have been family held through generations (from the temple that gets rebuilt every 20 years to an aged soy sauce business to a spiritual tradition that’s very local to one particular community that may have inspired spirited away).
Curious what innovation or spaces for new ideas and how that gets fostered in a slowed economic growth context but one that seems to honor tradition/history without putting it as a curiosity in a museum (my cynical take on what we do in the US). Curious how both youth and elderly are treated, and youth perspectives on potential and life there.
I was interested in studying China's Special Economic Zones, specifically Shenzhen, and their plans to create an autonomous city. They also have several company models I'm interested in researching (especially Haier). Unfortunately, I was told that a lot of the innovation happening in China is being undercut by their economy at the moment, and a lot of the dreams I was interested in studying aren't becoming realities. Whereas, Japan has a lot of working models that are already in existence (waste-free cities, autonomous cities in development, I'm also going to the world fair which is being held in Osaka this year).
Of the beats you mention: Industry is definitely interesting, though I share a particular interest in Japanese pop-culture and entertainment. Actually I love Chinese fantasy as well so this is something I really want to research. And I'm similarly interested in ways the philosophy has passed town (how ancient Shinto became Marie Kond in the modern world, etc). I'll look into some of the other things you mention too to see if there's a story there (elder care etc.)
Thanks for the various plot points. There's so much here I want to explore!
Very cool, thanks again for context re China economic zones and Shenzhen and Haier vs Japan, super excited to follow along and see what you learn! Ah a modern day world fair sounds both exciting and makes me curious what presents and narratives are around it this year, and who’s sponsoring such :) - and against the backdrop of what you’re exploring and learning will be intriguing!
Elle, It’s encouraging you are studying China and its complex long history, but I would caution on romanticized invocation of China’s history. Also, Confucianism is not the “dominant” philosophy/religion today in the PRC (no matter what a Google search states) if that’s what you meant by “China.” Under the leadership of the CPC (as stated in the State and Party Constitutions, reinforced in laws, and in “education” study sessions), the guiding ideology today is Marxist-Leninist-Mao Zedong thought and now add on Xi Jinping Thought. In fact, any criticisms are censored and runs risk of prosecution under the comprehensive state, national and cybersecurity laws. There are excellent resources on XJP Thought, including summaries that present its complexity by the MERICS, China research group. You might also be interested in the Weekly Brief published at: https://hrichina.substack.com
Marx credits Benjamin Franklin and Voltaire as the founders of COMMUNISM. Ben Franklin was a Deist and struggled with English Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. Thomas Jefferson assembled his Jefferson Bible: The Life and morals of Jesus of Nazareth in 1820. Jefferson was an evolutionary botanist. The most important document in the founders libraries was John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Milton was Cromwell’s secretary and Cromwell began the English/American Civil Wars by a genocide of Roman Catholics in Scotland and Ireland before the Brothers wars got totally unCivil with brothers killing brothers and mothers killing father and father killing anything that moved. John Milton, John Locke and Isaac Newton founded English Unitarianism.
John the Baptist was Quebec’s) Patron Saint and now Francis of Rome is persona non grata in Quebec City. Jesus was not a hermit or a libertarian . He was a Socialist: He said render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, render unto God what is God’s.
Thank you for engaging my comment. Japan and the U.S. (at least not yet) are not authoritarian one Party states.
Ideology in China today under the CPC seeks to shape and define what is “ Chinese” culture, hence the forced “Sinocization” of Uyghurs and Tibetans and the “mainlandization” of people in HK (which had a distinctive HK/Chinese culture now being gutte). The CPC DOES invokes China’s long history to legitimize its present, but that’s historically problematic.
To make a distinction between a culture and a country, that’s also pretty tricky. If you say “China” you are referencing a country. But to say “Chinese culture” is even more problematic, especially in context of the battle to define it or claim some version of it for ourselves, e.g. as Chinese women, or as Hong Kongers. But to deduce what a culture is from TV dramas is risky. Can you imagine if non-English speaking (I apologize if you are Chinese language fluent) person understood “American culture” from U.S.TV dramas? In any case, if you haven’t watched it, you might watch the Three Body Problem (the Chinese series based upon Liu Cixin’s award winning sci-trilogy). It presents a very chilling portrait of Chinese culture in modern China.
But thanks for opportunity to share my response.
Hmmm, I guess I do think that you can learn a lot about US culture from US TV.
No doubt there are plenty of problematic aspects of Chinese government, but that’s not what I’m discussing here. I’m discussing two early Chinese philosophies, one of which became more dominant and is still around today and one of which was forgotten. Are you saying that you don’t feel Confucianism is in any way part of Chinese culture? Or reflected in Chinese culture today?
I think Confucianism is shorthand for certain “traditional” Chinese/Asian values (patriarchy and hierarchy of authority, family, devaluation of girls) that I (like many Chinese women of my generation) had to struggle with. (I published a law review article decades ago on this). Just personal note-my maternal grandparents were Buddhists, sent my mother to Catholic schools and observed Taoist rituals. Hong Kong society is heavily influenced and shaped by Christianity.
I do understand you are looking at one of the key thinkers and philosophers from thousands of years ago, but you are also advancing an insight for China today. My main point is you can’t separate “cultural values and practices” so simply from legal, political systems and ideology, if you want to understand cultural influences and impact in context. To do so in the context of China is to erase the complexity of our culture, our history and the ongoing cultural negotiations that so many Chinese are engaged in, and paying the social costs for doing so.
But this is your journey and project, so wishing you Godspeed!
Oh no doubt. The sentence you are referring to in my piece was only meant to say “Confucianism is still around today, Mohism isn’t. And there are obvious reasons that happened (including how it emphasized respect toward authority).
How that ancient philosophy ultimately shaped modern patriarchy, authority, feminism, government etc is for sure complex and I could have written a whole other piece on that (though I am certainly not expert enough to do it!) My only argument here was that it did in fact influence those things much more than Mohism did (and it seems like you are agreeing with me there even if there are of course other influencing factors as well).
It’s worth noting that I could stand to reword this sentence, let me do that now.
I don't understand your philosophy. Where is the context. Christianity is fourth century. It resembles Persian Manicheanism not first century Judaism. Jewish Messiahs like David and Saul were flawed humans not demigods. It was the 17th century when Henry VIII chopped the head off Thomas More saying the King of England is the leader of church and state. It is the meaning of conservative. All power flows from god and he commands both church and state. Philosophy must have a metaphysic.
China has as many languages and cultures as Europe. Where does culture become religion. "America First" was Benjamin Franklin's and Thomas Jefferson's greatest fear. Jefferson was a evolutionary botanist and Unitarian and Ben Franklin never went to school and was a commonist. Benjamin Franklin developed public institutions and became an abolitionist and railed against human bondage and said all men are created equal and freed his slaves. He was persona not grata in Boston after the revolution when Cotton was King. England wore wool. Did peasants in China wear silk in the fields? Louis Sullivan the architect said form follows function. The same can be said for politics and religion. Peasants never had the time and I am afraid Americans are more comfortable being sheep than naked apes.,
Yes, you are correct. I hold no romantic notions of Chinese history, and I am not speaking of the PRC specifically. When I say Confucianism is still a dominant philosophy in China, I don’t necessarily mean politically but philosophically/culturally. The same way Shinto still influences Japanese culture or Christianity influences U.S. culture even though the political systems of those countries are not ideologically based on them.
A good analog would be to think about pop-culture. I watch a lot of c-dramas and they feel very Confucian influenced. The same way watching Lord of the Rings feels very Christian influenced! It’s in the culture if not the government! Though I’m curious if you think differently?
A beautiful fact of history that more people should be aware of. Thank you for sharing.
A beautiful fact of history that more people should be aware of. Thank you for sharing. Also which books would you recommend to read regarding Mohism's history?
Chris Fraser is THE expert here. He’s a professor at the University of Hong Kong and I loved his book “The Philosophy of the Mozi” as well as his translation of the Mozi. I’m reading his work on Zhuangzi next!
Here’s his website with his complete work. I’m a big fan: http://cjfraser.net/