The Art of Social Relations in China

ALL LIFE, said Henry James, comes back to the question of our relations with each other.' Perhaps no people in the world were throughout their history more conscious of this fact than the Chinese. They thought more persistently on it and wrote more voluminously about it than any others. Yet, it does not follow that they said the last word on the matter or that, more than others, they lived up to their ideals. But, since the art of making life livable by lending dignity and self-respect to fellow human beings, whatever their position in life, was for the Chinese a clearly acknowledged goal, it is worth while considering how they set about to achieve it. This long-time pre-occupation, it may be assumed, is still alive in China and is not likely to be entirely eradicated by any political or economic system. To live at all, the Chinese say, is to live in relations. We are all of us inexorably caught up in relations, and any attempt to evade them only makes us less human than we ought to be. Though Chinese moralists knew very well how complex our relations are, they brought them into focus by conceiving them as five in number: the relation of subject and sovereign, of father and son, of elder and younger brothers, of husband and wife, and friend and friend.2 These five include all the others one can think of. In each of these relations one has obligations to consider. At the same time, one has rights and privileges which are granted by others. In a society where persons are always conscious of relations, no one grows up imagining that he has rights alone. Rights and obligations go hand in hand; there is no such thing as having one without the other. To grow up is to learn the delicate art of balancing the two. The very fact of our coming into the world imposes upon us obligations which we cannot evade. One such obligation is respect for the parents who gave us birth. But this is more than an obligation. Performance of it is the

Archaeology · China · Geography · Sociology · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance

• Arthur W. Hummel (1884–1975)

  Open Access•Edwin G Beal, Janet F Beal•The Journal of Asian Studies•1976

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