Rokugan and Chinese Philosophy

So, in my previous mini-article? I talked about the History of Japan.  The key element I wanted to emphasize is that the courtly culture, the culture of the upper class in that society, and from which the samurai sprang, came from China.  (Note: Prior to 1995, scholarship in English in Shinto was pretty sparse, so more in-depth scholarship into historic Shinto was not necessarily available even if the RPG writers had wanted it.  The RPG market as a whole was pretty small and niche, especially compared to today.) 

Chinese philosophy is a great synthesis of four competing schools of thought, each of which, if you look for it, can be traced all the way into the culture of Rokugan.  They all evolved in China around the same time (around 550 to 250 BC during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States period).  This is important:  At the same time that Japan was a hunter/gatherer, stone-tool using people, China had been debating high scholarship between Mohism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Legalism for a couple of hundred years.
It should be noted: I am speaking of these as philosophies, not religions…at least the scholars originating them did not consider them to be religions, though the principles were followed religiously by different people at different people at different times. They are more beliefs and principles of thought, like those of the Stoics in the West.  Taoism /is/ considered a religion with roots in the more animistic faiths prior to its encoding, but here I am speaking of the philosophic aspects and how it is applied to culture.

Prior to Confucianism, the spiritual practices of China were mainly animistic, and heavily aligned with the state and the support of the Imperial Lines. But the key work of study, predating Confucius the later philosophies, was the I-Ching.  The I-Ching was a book of divination from before 1000BC, was considered a ‘manual’ to describing how the universe worked. It introduced concepts such as yin and yang, the importance of the family, of structure and roles, and the inevitability of change. People did not need to believe in its properties of divination, but it was unquestioned as a description for how the universe was set up.  Confucius and the other great philosophers arose from the scholarly tradition of interpreters and advisors, based on the I-Ching, and  many of their works were addressing its concepts.

Confucius, himself, lived about from 551-479BC, and was the oldest of these Philosophers. Obviously there’s a lot to write about his life, and his philosophies, and I could not hope to capture all of it.  However, if you want to remember one thing about Confucius, other than that he was a brilliant scholar, was that he was a musician.  As a musician, he understood the world, and human society as a great web of musical notes in relationship with each other.  And the goal of all people is to create harmony.  Suffering comes from discord, which comes from ignorance or lack of virtue or vice, or from those behaving out of accord or out of harmony with and with respect to others in their relationships. 

Distilling Confucianism down to a very threadbare definition, then, is this:

• It is not the actions of gods and other powers or objects that control happiness on earth, but the actions of human beings.
• Humans are basically good, teachable, and improvable, especially through self-improvement and the development of virtue, and the development of virtue is the purpose of life.
• Each person fulfills one or more roles in their life. If everyone fills their role to the best of their ability according to that role's expectations, the community will be harmonious and virtuous.

Note: Some things come out of this interpretation.  Confucianism is moralistic, not legalistic: it’s not about following a defined set of rules, but is about evolving a morality that puts the harmony of the community above the needs of the individual (see Collectivism!).  It believes in light sentences, rather than harsh punishments, and embraces education. The definition of being human is Compassion, and to act with virtue and harmony, both as an individual and a collective, is to align yourself with the workings of Heaven.  Rulers, then, should be those wise and virtuous people (well, let’s face it,  it was men) whose purpose is to support and create the best environment for the development of virtue among the people with a goal of universal harmony.

The other three major philosophies, then are, in some ways, discussions with or against, Confucianism.  The next of these, Legalism, tended to be an approach that was an attempt to encode the moralistic Confucianism with the legal enforcement of the state.  It was not created by any one philosopher, but grew out of the various bureaucratic institutions.  It arose around 400BC by reformist-minded administrators like Shen Buhai.

Legalism, unlike Confucianism, was pragmatic and cynical:  human beings maybe ought to pursue virtue, but they do not.  Evil exists, and ministers and rulers will pursue their own ends to the detriment of others. Therefore, rules need to be put in place to prevent evil.  It presupposed that each role could be condensed into a series of rules, and if those rules were followed strictly and enforced, society may be peaceful and avoid evil.  This would have the side effect of decreasing suffering, but that was not the goal.  Enforcement of the structure of leadership was the goal.  Clear structure, rather than societal harmony, was the best that could be hoped for.  To that end, Legalists advocated clear definitions of roles and duties, civil service exams and encoded meritocracy, strong punishments and rewards, and models and standards.

The next major philosophy debating for control of the Chinese world at the time was Mohism. The scholar Mozi lived from 470-391BC, was a brilliant civil engineer and siege tactician.  Mohism believed in pragmatism, merit, austerity, and the obligation the superior human being has to protect the less gifted. They despised music and aesthetics as extraneous, and believed that all people should be treated with impartiality. They believed that some people were divinely talented, and that, as such, they had a duty cultivate their powers, including supernatural gifts granted from heaven, in order to protect those weaker than them.  Society often killed those with the greatest talents as threats, but instead, society should elevate them. They should rule with austere discipline so the people will do the same. If ruler and people act as one organism in accord, then society will be peaceful.

The final school of Chinese Philosophy introduced during this period was Taoism.  The founding of Taoism is attributed primarily to Lao Tzu, who is a (potentially legendary) contemporary of Confucius, but Taoism did not really spread until the late 300’s BC.  Taoism eschews the artificial structures, focusing on naturalness, simplicity, and, most importantly, the concept of ‘wu wei’.  Wu wei is the idea of non-action, that nature will and should progress as it should. The universe will unfold harmoniously without human intervention, and when human beings enforce their will against that action, it will disrupt the harmony and cause unintended consequences that may well be worse than what would have happened without human intervention.  It looks to the older texts, such as the I-Ching, for guidance on the natural patterns of the universe.  Leaders, per Taoism, have great powers, and as such, it is even more important that they do /less/.

Obviously, all of these brief descriptions are only scratching the surface of each of these major philosophies. But each of these philosophies were supported by their adherents, and all were well in place by the time China came into contact with Japan.  And the primary way each of these philosophies was shared and spread, from the time of their founding and throughout history, even to the present day, is through stories. 

If you look to the folklore, then, of Japan, the stories of their heroes, and the moral lessons that are encoded into their artwork, then, and divide it all into groups, you are going to find this underlying structure of four competing philosophies.  If you then take those categories of story and group them together, and stick labels on them to make them different ‘clans’ of people who embrace the principle behind those philosophies…Confucianism. Legalism. Mohism. Taoism.
​
Crane.
Scorpion.
Crab.
Dragon.

Funny how that works out.