Page 73 - 2022(1) International Confusion Studies

66 J. Ren

However, the “ideal” narrative of “regulation of family affairs, good state
governance, and ensuring peace to all under heaven” also contains some less
satisfactory aspects, especially for the present situation. That is why some scholars
suggest that those unsatisfactory traditional implications be rejected while
emphasis should be put on a modern interpretation for the new order. This high-
lights a new family-state framework which aims, in a Chinese way, to resolve the
atomized individualism fueled by the “great disembodying” (大脱嵌) in modern
society. These scholars see the modern interpretations of “regulation of family
affairs, good state governance, and ensuring peace to all under heaven” as
providing a sense of belonging to the isolated individual. Their extended inter-
pretation is significantly different from that of the scholars in the previous para-
graph, however, both groups agree on the value of this concept for modern times.
Some scholars try to connect the modern narrative of “regulation of family
affairs, good state governance, and ensuring peace to all under heaven” with the
original expression in The Great Learning, and stress that this should be the
precondition for accurate modern interpretations of the original. Of course, they
acknowledge that “regulation of family affairs, good state governance, and
ensuring peace to all under heaven” has taken on a new meaning in the modern
age. However, they point out that this is an incomplete narrative, and should be
rounded off by adding “cultivating oneself.” (立身) Confucian thought teaches that
“cultivation of oneself is the root of everything,” (修身为本) that body and mind
are “the two sides of a coin” (一体之两面) and that through “self-cultivation” it is
possible to “control the body through the mind,” (以心控身) so the spirit can
govern desire, and body and heart become unified. This is the starting point for the
reasoning of “regulation of family affairs, good state governance, and ensuring
peace to all under heaven” in a progressive order.
Still other scholars particularly stress that “regulation of family affairs, good
state governance, and ensuring peace to all under heaven” is incomplete, and
should be amended to “self-family-state-all under heaven,” (身—家—国—天下)
and given a modern interpretation. They point out that the relation between self
and family differs in traditional and modern societies, specifically: in traditional
society, the self is an appendage of the family, whereas in modern society it is the
foundation. The collective nature of the original expression (family-state-all under
heaven) therefore now changes into an individual one. Moreover, in this new
discourse the family-state structure is not unchanging either: in the era of nations,
the self serves as the social subject rather than the family, while in the era of supra-
nations, the state is no longer a subject but the self continues to be.
All the above narratives are reasonable and well founded. Their proponents all
wish to discuss the original expression in terms of both traditional and modern
thinking, to find a place for modern values within the traditional principles and