Knowledge / Power in China

         In other words, however great the value of analyzing the political and economic Imperial thrust of Empires since 1492 may be, and surely it is valuable, the cultural element must also be examined if there is to be any understanding of the Conquest and the fact that "the conquest continues" today, in Chomsky's phrase.  Said says elsewhere in the same book that the relation of  European and American culture to imperialism is probably fundamental, and he  considers this a "cultural fact of extraordinary political as well as interpretive importance".[1] I think he is probably right about this. Americans often have a surprisingly unconscious view of the harmful effects of their culture upon other peoples, and even less awareness of how manipulated the cultural media within America are.

           Because of this, it is perhaps easier to understand Said's point in another cultural context.  A standard history of China states clearly the relation of power to knowledge.  

The  literate  elite  [of China] had entered into an alliance with monarchy. The monarch provided the symbols and the sinews of power: throne police, army, and the organs of social control. The literati in turn provided the knowledge of precedent and the statecraft that could legitimize power and make the state work. Both the monarch and the literati were committed to a two class society that could make the state work. [2] 

      The author hardly mentions the invisible class of perhaps 90% of the Chinese who are not part of this system, though they support it. Nor does he explain how the symbols operate to support this enormous injustice. The role of religion was considerable. Both Taoism and Confucianism justify important aspects of the centralized Chinese state. One author observes that the Tao Te Ching " is a very political book, otherwise, why so much attention to gaining all under heaven".  The notion of the Tao, which means 'power' as well as transcendent truth,  is a totalistic concept, much like the god concept or the concept of scientific truth, to which it has often been compared. The seeming neutrality of the concept of Tao justified the state, both for those who profited from it and those who sought to reform it.  As one writer on Taoism puts it, "the Perfect Man cannot really be perfect unless he stands at the head of an empire as the Supreme ruler of his people". [3] The Perfect Man is the  Platonist Philosopher-King, the sage, the prophet, the unique Incarnation or some other superlative, abstract and idealistic glorification of historical purpose, ideology or will to power through knowledge. "Because he occupies the highest place in the spiritual world he must necessarily occupy the highest place in the world of reality".  [4]

          The aim of the  Tao te Ching , as well as the Confucian Analects, was to show the way to "hegemony over the Empire".[5]The religions and the state fostered classical scholarship, the "school system, the examinations, the cult of Confucius and state ritual, as well...historiography and secular literature"[6] The state controlled what was viewed as knowledge and as history. The state was history and history was the state. For the Chinese who participated in this system of knowledge and power it was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Those who did not accept this were severely treated or punished.

         The brilliance of the Chinese system of theocratic government, was that it  pictured itself, in the Tao te Ching and elsewhere, as the weakest of vessels, and its very weakness was supposed to be the origin of its virtue and strength. Christianity did this also, by picturing the crucified Christ as the image of greatest power and knowledge. The Platonic notion of the ideal of divine ignorance is virtually identical, and has the same purpose of generating an all powerful state that hides behind the image of a humble beneficence.  Paradox is an extremely useful political strategy. Science adopts the same strategy. Scientific knowledge is supposed to be humbly gathered by disinterested researchers. But beginning with 'divine ignorance', science ends up supporting ultimate powers. Yet the scientists regularly claim ignorance or disinterestedness, if they are accused of complicity with unjust powers. Science serves power, but almost never admits it, and powers use science and can hide behind the supposed disinterest of scientists. No one admits responsibility, neither the scientists, the corporate sector or the politicians. Talking with a forked tongue, in paradoxes, deflects responsibility on the one hand, allowing one to plead ignorance, while, on the other hand, it allows for the pursuit of goals that lead to knowledge and power.[7]

            It might be objected that Taoism also served resistance movements when the Chinese state become decadent. But in this case Taoism is till serving the state, just not the current state which it viewed as in need of reform, or in violation of the hegemony of knowledge that the Chinese state traditionally is supposed to represent.  The Dragon- Emperor is supposed to be the Universal Standard, the ultimate identity from which all others draw their identity. Taoist resistance is essentially a return to these conservative values, not a petition for human rights. Taoism, like modern science, to which it is sometimes compared, primarily served the ideal of the state and the principle powers that supported the state. The antinomial aspect of Taoism, like the revolution seeking pursuits of scientific research might foster momentary oppositions, but these oppositions ultimately serve power interests. New scientific developments appear revolutionary, but only within their field, in the larger social context, they serve conservative, corporate and propertied powers. Taoist resistance movements had a similar function.

            In any case, much the same pattern of generating empires of knowledge/power occurs in the East as in the West, so much so that the notions of East and West, like the notions of traditional and modern, are probably meaningless, at least in any fundamental sense. The distinction between traditional and modern appears to merely preserve two separate imperial cultures from any deeper recognition of the similarity by which they justify knowledge and social control.  The traditionalists, like the modernists, both seek to maintain a system of knowledge that upholds and justifies their legitimacy in using and manipulating power.  If one does not accept either the traditionalist or modernist explanations of their own righteousness, but looks instead at the patterns whereby each group justifies their claims,  then some measure can be taken of the injustices caused by both systems.

             In any case, economic and cultural control are probably, at bottom, one and the same phenomena, both in China and England. England evolved from a medieval, virtually theocratic society to a capitalist society. China evolved from a theocratic state to a Maoist state. The formation of a system of knowledge and power generates atrocities in the process of distributing hierarchical benefits and deprivations on the standard of the reigning knowledge system. But also changes from one system of knowledge to another, or conflicts between knowledge systems create enormous atrocities.      

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