Propaganda Of Confucianism

The Propaganda of the Enlightenment: Confucianism in 18th Century European Theater

“Opinion governs the world, and in the end the philosophies govern men’s opinions.”–Voltaire

It was from the Jesuits that Europe first learned of the philosophy of Confucius. What is most important about understanding how European knowledge of this great philosopher had come to be understood, is to recognize how western missionaries arrived at their celebrated conclusions: they used translations of Chinese traditions to invent the figure of Confucius, who was afterward celebrated by the West as a philosopher, prophet and saint. If one examines the history of the Jesuits’ invention of Confucius and his teaching, it is easy to reconstruct the cultural consequences of the encounter between the West and China; these accounts of Chinese culture were absorbed by European thinkers, who simplified and adjusted Confucian ideals to suit the Western desire for a reformed government—one unbound by the vision of the Catholic church. European philosophers reconstructed social order and in doing so, fashioned China’s moral and ethical beliefs into a form of chinoiserie. As connoted by the term ‘chinoiserie’ these ideas are deeply imbued in the art and literature of the time.

These thoughts are reflected during a time known as the Enlightenment, an age categorized largely by the many European deists who saw the teachings of Confucius as aligned with their own. This contrived alignment of values questions to what extent chinoiserie modeled real Chinese models and to what extent it was a European creation. Mental constructs Confucianism were particularly portrayed through the theater, which served as a forum for political expression and debate. As a result, the w...

... middle of paper ...

...question the customs and traditions of their own culture and looked towards Chinese morals and virtues for clarity. Part of their struggle for politics to be separated from the church was a desire to rid themselves of the practices and regulations of the Christianity, on which Europeans had become politically stifled. Europeans at this time had the knowledge and resources supposedly from this foreign example of a perfect and morally righteous society and used these resources to create a revolution in favor of their viewpoints. Voltaire attempted to create his own chinoiserie product, through the manipulation and reconstruction of Chinese texts, to reflect the revolutionary sentiments of the day, thereby reflecting the Enlightenment and revolutionary spirit of the time, and revealing a complex worldview filled with trans-oceanic dialogues and cross-cultural currents.