on the meaning of ritual

introduction to ritual in the xunzi, and a digression on neo-xunism

The Book of Rites, also known as the Classic of Ritual.

The Way of the former kings consists in exalting ren. One must cleave to what is central in carrying it out. What do I mean by "what is central"? I say: it is ritual and yi (8.99).

The Confucian moral order is grounded in ren (仁), yi (義), and ritual (禮, li).

Ren is humaneness, empathy, and magnanimous compassion. Yi is righteousness, firmness of will, and principles-based justice.

Ren is the duty to care and provide for those in your charge. Yi is the duty to protect them from outside threats, from each other, and even from themselves.

Ren is nurturing, and yi is rectifying. These are the two qualities necessary in a virtuous ruling class.¹

"Ritual" is one of the most conceptually rich words in Xunzi's philosophy and the keystone that holds everything together. The Xunist cosmology defines the constraints and challenges all efforts are subject to: the natures of Heaven, Earth, and man. Ritual, then, is the collection of techniques, developed by sages, tested and refined over time, that solve problems which arise from those natures.

Ritual is a nebulous term for all practices that guide the expression of ren and yi, that guide the people toward proper conduct, that guide the gentleman toward sagehood, and that guide the state toward stability and abundance. "Guide" is an important quality: ritual affects the emotions and the senses to draw people toward proper conduct, and it organizes the social fabric so people influence each other through their personal relationships. Ritual by definition lacks the objective, formal, mechanical, and coercive nature of law (法, fa). It is situational, intuitive, fluid, and cooperative.

In his essay "Discourse on Ritual," Xunzi explains broadly why we need ritual and what its goals and purposes are. He also describes in detail some specific ritual practices, both their forms and motivations. From this, we can extrapolate design principles which may guide the development and refinement of new ritual suited for present circumstances.²

The goal of this essay is to prepare for a commentary on "Discourse on Ritual" by describing the nature of "ritual." Most quotes come from "The Grand Digest," a chapter of Xunzi's sayings structured similar to the Analects.

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Human desires are many, and the resources to satisfy them are few. Left to their own devices, people will contend with each other, and the destruction and chaos leaves everyone worse off. The ruler replaces the chaos with order by establishing the state and elevating the worthy to positions of controlling authority.

He protects the people from harm and provides for them in times of scarcity. He enforces stability, sets fair standards in the markets, and lightens the people's burdens. He oversees state ceremonies and codifies rites that gladden the people's hearts. He rules virtuously, promotes the worthy, and punishes the wicked, setting a standard of behavior for all those below him to emulate.

These are all accomplished through ritual.

"Ritual" includes the rites for marriages, funerals, sacrifices to ancestors, Heaven, and Earth. It includes rules of formal dress, courtly and diplomatic etiquette, and state ceremonies displaying majesty and grace. "Ritual" also covers the comportment of people in their individual relationships, particularly unequal ones such as parent/child and lord/minister, where each side has their own particular obligation to the other.

But "ritual" also covers the process a ruler follows in establishing rank and allocating resources to foster an abundant and harmonious society. "Ritual" is everything that nourishes the heart, satisfies the senses, regulates desires, and establishes standards of good conduct which encourage, rather than force, the people to behave rightly. It is not the letter of policy itself, but it is the spirit that guides policy, the standard against which policy is evaluated.

Ritual is the keystone to Xunism because it is non-axiomatic but crucially load-bearing. "Ritual" is the repository of practices that reflect yi, cultivate ren, provide proper channels for human emotions, and organize society to prevent chaos and allow for abundance. Ritual is the structure of society which allows ren and yi to operate without being overpowered by more base human desire and contention. This is what makes ritual "central."

The gentleman dwells in ren by means of yi, and only then is it ren. He carries out yi by means of ritual, and only then is it yi. In implementing ritual, he returns to the roots and completes the branches, and only then is it ritual. When all three are thoroughly mastered, only then is it the Way (27.128).

Ritual are those practices which have been designed and proven to work. This is a peculiarly Xunist view, and it is the key point that motivates a Neo-Xunism: without depending on antiquity, we can establish ritual de novo. It may take generations, it will be imperfect and require constant experimentation. But by holding fast to yi, cultivating ren, learning continuously, and responding to conditions as they exist, ritual can be created.

Confucius believed that Heaven has an inherent moral order for humans to emulate that the ancients captured through their rituals. Xunzi does not see Heaven this way: the human moral order is quintessentially human and must be created through human effort.

Xunzi believes deeply in the Confucian principles—humaneness, righteousness, self-cultivation, and meritocracy—and defines a social order that takes them as its root. He then buttresses Confucius on both flanks, appropriating Legalist innovations in statecraft and mechanism design, along with Daoist ideas of a naturalistic universe and fluid action. Xunzi is a technologist, and anything that can be harnessed as a technology to bring society closer to the ideal is a valid tool to employ.

This also describes Xunzi's relationship with ritual. Ritual is not perfect, not sacred, and not eternal. Ritual is a tool, made by man, to overcome negative aspects of human nature and conditions of the times which harm human flourishing. Ritual is more malleable for Xunzi because it is a means rather than an end in itself:

Those who cross waters mark out the deep places, to make it so that people will not fall in. Those who order the people mark out what is chaotic, to make it so that people will not err. The rituals are their markers (27.58).

Rituals reflect the experiences specific people went through and serve as warnings to others. Wisdom was lost when these rituals eroded, but new rituals can be made, following new experiences:

The former kings used rituals to mark out what would make the whole world chaotic. Now if one discards the rituals, this is getting rid of the markers. And so, the people become lost and confused and fall into disasters and troubles. This is why punishments and penalties become profuse (27.61).

Humans are inherently imperfect, and so are the rituals; if there is any transcendence to be found, it is in self-cultivation. The goal of the rituals is good outcomes:

Shun said, "It is the case that I follow my desires yet attain order." Thus, the genesis of rituals is for the sake of worthies on down to the common people, not for the sake of the perfected sage (27.66).

Yet it is the study of ritual, an iterative process of development and adjustment, that enables that cultivation:

Nevertheless, they are also the means by which one achieves sagehood. If one does not study them, one will not achieve it (27.68).

The rituals do not reflect any immutable Way of Heaven, only the principles of yi and the mundane constraints of material reality and human desires. Ritual is not a fixed schema, but a repository of forms and heuristics that be be reasoned from and adapted:

In cases for which there is a model, act according to the model. In cases for which there is no model, handle them according to their proper category. By means of the root, know the branches. By means of the left, know the right (27.324).

Antiquity matters for ritual only in that past rituals represent accumulated wisdom from past experience. The crucial aspect of ritual is the outcome, not the pedigree:

Ritual has making people's hearts agreeable as its root. And so, those things that are not in the Classic of Rituals yet make people's hearts agreeable are still things that carry ritual propriety (27.97).

Ritual is a type of adornment. It gives good form to important human affairs and allows the emotions associated with them to be fully expressed and come to completion:

The major, overall works of ritual are to ornament happiness when serving the living, to ornament sorrow when sending off the dead, and to ornament awe-inspiring power when engaged in military affairs (27.100).

Ritual establishes guidelines and expectations for behavior in formal relationships, with the broad pattern that those above should be honored and those below should be cherished:

As for "proper conduct," it means conducting ritual. As for ritual, through it those who are noble are treated with respect. Through it those who are elderly are treated with filiality. Through it those who are senior are treated with deference. Through it those who are young are treated with kindness. Through it those who are lowly are treated with generosity (27.83).

Ritual is not empty form: "good form" is an expression of deep feeling, and without that depth it is meaningless:

As for the ruler of men, when a heart that is ren is set up within him, then understanding is its servant, and ritual is its completion. And so, a true king puts ren first and puts ritual behind, because the Heavenly given order of implementation is thus (27.45).

Ritual is not the only way to order a society, but it is the highest way:

If the lord of men exalts ritual and honors the worthy, he will become a true king. If he relies heavily on law and has concern for the people, he will become a hegemon. If he cares only for profit and frequently engages in deception, he will be endangered (27.1).

Ritual is not law. It guides rather than forces; it corrects rather than punishes. Xunzi still believes in the necessity of law, but as a backstop to eliminate aggravated criminality rather than a first-line response to any mistake or transgression. Law is meant to be feared, and to be feared it must be used sparingly; personal responsibility, interpersonal obligation, civic duty, and higher ideals are the levers of ritual.

Xunism is grounded in virtue, and ritual is the accumulated wisdom of past virtue. Ritual is a safe path to walk for those who need the rigidity: "if you exalt ritual, then even if you are not brilliant, you will still be a man of the proper model" (1.182).

Ritual is tradition, but a flexible tradition: one of the key markers of a man of the highest virtue is his adaptability, for "the sage is one who makes himself a measure" (5.148). Yet "the gentleman's approach to ritual is that he respects and finds comfort in it" (12.115).

Ritual, in total, is a mix of literal ceremonial rites, formalized social conventions, and instructive models for statecraft and governance. Ritual is a toolkit for solving coordination problems, a repository of social technologies and institutional knowledge, a bootstrapping operating system for creating social trust. And ritual ornaments the practical systems it instantiates with image and music, movement and form, so that they can be appreciated through the five senses and the aesthetic part of the mind, even by common people who can't understand the intricacies and purposes of the systems themselves.

One of Xunzi's most basic assumptions, living in a time of enormous and rapid change, is that the one constant, across time and between cultures, is human nature. And the broadest sense of "ritual" is a framework for understanding and constructing political, cultural, and religious practices which accord with that nature. Ritual is a design language for human systems that satisfy the full range of human experience.

Among the features of Heaven, none are more dazzling than the sun and moon. Among the features of Earth, none are more dazzling than water and fire. Among things, none are more dazzling than pearls and jade. Among human beings, nothing is more dazzling than ritual and yi (17.187).

1. Another key, although subordinate, quality in a ruling class is xin (信), usually translated as "trustworthiness" but which covers emotional sincerity as well as reliability and predictability. That is, do the rulers actually believe what they espouse, and can they be expected to uphold agreements and follow through on policies. Emotional sincerity is necessary for ritual to be more than empty form, and reliability is necessary for law to have coercive force.

2. Xunzi is useful for us because he defines a ruling ideology that aligns with basic intuitions we have from contemporary economics and sociology. He is also useful because he responds to similar philosophical problems we encounter today, but he answers with a structured framework, rather than flashes of insight on websites and blogs held together only by cultural memory and a shared social milieu.

Xunism was a reaction to the alien utilitarianism of Legalism and Mohism, Daoist attacks on the bureaucratic state and the nature of meaning, and the violent collapse of the Zhou social order forcing a reassessment of society from first principles. In a similar manner, 2010s internet postrationalism was a reaction to the alien utilitarianism of internet rationalism and to the meaning crisis often root-caused back to postmodernism or the world wars. It also responded to a sense, well-justified now, that society was beginning to fracture and no one in the ruling class really knew what to do about it, if they cared at all. Thus Xunzi comes from an intellectual environment similar to the present, and from a social reality far in the future, assuming we are living in a time similar to the Spring and Autumn that preceded him.

Most modern political ideologies are missing something essential that leads them to unpleasant places, though any new system with all the right pieces could be acceptable, if the whole structure was pleasing and harmonious. Libertarianism lacks care for the people and only thinks in terms of freedom vs harm. Today's liberalisms tend to be overly material and frame care in terms of material needs without the spiritual or sensorial. The conservatism Trump killed didn't care much for the people and could not adapt to change, and virtually all new strains of thought on the right are gleefully malicious or proudly bellicose, to countersignal leftisms which are either childishly vindictive or care-obsessed to the point of stupidity.

Neo-Xunism means starting with the Xunist values system as the root, taking the Xunzi's structured philosophy as the trunk, and treating all the tools we have from contemporary academic disciplines and policy discourse as the branches.

The Xunzi provides a system that:

1. Is benevolent without being maudlin, righteous without being fanatical.

2. Accounts for the heart and spirit in addition to just the stomach and the mind.

3. Is flexible and pragmatic enough to not get lost in the morass of universal meaning.

4. Is organized and sophisticated enough to operate a complex techno-industrial society.

5. Espouses practical values and policy preferences in line with cosmopolitan technical meritocracy while correcting for some of its notable flaws.

The first four points are essential to any 21st century ruling ideology that aims to be both moral and effective. The fifth point is my own personal political alignment and a matter of taste.