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In a rightly-celebrated but not-yet-widely-enough-known passage in the classical Chinese Analects of Confucius (13.3), Master Kung is asked by a certain Tzu-lu what he would do if he were given control of the government of the state of Wei. These are the kinds of hypotheticals which philosophers of all times and places lay awake fantasizing about when they would prefer that others believe they are hearkening unto the call of Being and shepherding it across the hilly pastures of the Black Forest or something, so it is little wonder that the Master had a ready answer.
The Master said, it would certainly be to correct language.
Tzu-lu said, Can I have heard you aright? Surely what you say has nothing to do with the matter. Why should language be corrected? The Master said, Yu! How boorish you are! A gentleman, when things he does not understand are mentioned, should maintain an attitude of reserve. (Cited in the 1938 translation of Arthur Waley.)
The key two-character Chinese term here is 正名, zhèngmíng, which in the influential older translation of James Legge (1861), is rendered as “rectification of names”; it could just as well be translated as “correcting terminology”, or even “clarifying the names of things.”
Straight away, we here at ClassicalEd Review would be proud to claim this Master Kung fellow as one of our own. This ancient Chinese sage sounds like he would be just as repulsed by the foul linguistic flatulence of Educationists as we are, and for all of the right reasons. We have reason to suspect that he would, as we do, see in one misused semicolon or misplaced modifier in some administrative document signs of the Apocalypse. A kindred spirit, a predecessor, a patron. (Of course, the bit about being reserved when we aren’t sure what we are talking about gives us pause. Perhaps it was a later interpolation into the text by a copyist?)
The Master continues:
If language is incorrect, then what is said does not concord with what was meant; and if what is said does not concord with what was meant, what is to be done cannot be effected; if what is to be done cannot be effected, then rites and music will not flourish. If rites and music do not flourish, then mutilations and lesser punishments will go astray, and if mutilations and lesser punishments go astray, then the people have nowhere to put hand or foot. Therefore the gentleman uses only such language as is proper for speech, and only speaks of what it would be proper to carry into effect. The gentleman, in what he says, leaves nothing to mere chance.
We at ClassicalEd Review share the Master’s concerns about the incorrect administration of mutilations, though the “lesser punishments” seem to us not as urgent of a matter to attend to. We also note the refreshing clarity of the Master pointing out that, in certain very concrete cases of maladministered mutilations, the people will indeed “have nowhere to put hand or foot,” or, to state with more technical accuracy, will have neither hand nor foot to put anywhere. Preventing this seems to us to accord with good government.
The standard interpretation of this key passage is twofold: yes, the Master is calling for language to be used carefully, sparingly, and precisely in all things but especially in governmental affairs; at the same time, he is also calling for persons to properly fulfill the duties which attend the technical names for their social and political roles. Therefore, since a “king” and a “father” are by definition things that exercise a certain benevolent authority over others, a real king and a real father must actually live up to their titles; one who fails to do so ceases to be a king or a father.
“The gentleman leaves nothing to mere chance”—this is an excellent way of looking at the necessity of carefully aligning words to thought. When we get in the business of poorly saying what we mean, and especially when we crystalize such poorly-expressed thoughts in writing, then we are introducing a dangerous element of chance into the communicative act. If we botch a written administrative order, garble up a legal argument, or misplace modifiers, we then have to gamble upon the likelihood of our readers understanding what we meant in spite of our words. Attentive and thoughtful readers and auditors who will make us make sense where we ourselves have failed to do so are a rare thing; to bank upon them doing our jobs for us is risking disaster.
(I cite as a microcosmic example of the disorder and confusion that ensue when what is said is not what is meant, particularly relevant in Classical schools: the often-yawning gap between what is WRITTEN in a school’s uniform dress code and what is actually enforced. When the uniform code says girls’ skirts should be no more than two inches above the knee, and yet half of the student body goes about anywhere between four and six inches with zero apparent correction; when the rules proscribe socks without athletic logos but most ignore this; when shirt-tucking is written as required but widely ignored—students, parents, and staff alike will have no place to put hand or foot. Enforcing a written uniform code in a school is apparently at once both the easiest and the hardest thing to do.)
Refined speech, good government, correct observance of religious rituals, good manners and social morals, the flourishing of fine music, no unnecessary mutilations—this is a harmonious vision of civic order that truly deserves the world “classical”; the bit about even music makes it downright Platonic.
Now when we Classical educators lie awake at night fantasizing about power, most of us are not thinking about taking the reins of state outright. No, we imagine ourselves being installed as benevolent autocrats over schools, school districts, or perhaps even entire state systems of learning. The administration of the state of Wei is at once too grand and not important enough a task for us.
Wang-ho asked the Master: if you were given authority over a school, what is the first thing you would do?
The first thing I would do, said the Master, is to correct the teaching of literature.
Can I have heard you aright? asked Wang-ho. Surely that is wide of the mark! There are much more important things to do in a school than to correct the teaching of literature, such as drafting philosophical statements of principle about the nature and aims of liberal education, followed by subordinate statements about the several academic disciplines, immediately requiring the teaching of Latin across every grade level, hanging the Ten Commandments in every classroom, developing a core virtue list, or reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of the school day?
You blockheaded donkey, Wang-ho! You think like the many in supposing that a dying farm’s poor soil can be enriched simply by planting delicate flowers in it, or that by changing the name of the farm to something like “Paideia Acres” and hanging up some motivational banners crops will flourish. No—the gentleman starts with the soil, weeding it, tilling it and fertilizing it before attempting anything else. And if something is poisoning the water, he must remove the source.
The teaching of literature is the single most influential, imagination-enriching, soul-shaping thing that goes on in a school. It is so because it works in the realm of words, which everyone uses at all times, and in the realm of story, and humans are all storytellers. No offense to the philomaths, but the realm of number is not as universal nor natural to the human person. Language and story are where it’s at, Wang-brother.
And in my experience, the subject of “literature” or “English” is the origin of much that is foolish in schools, folly that overflows and taints everything. Here is bred the folly of training students to “see themselves” in stories, in exhorting them to make themselves the measure of all things. Here we find the error of “reader-response”, that is, a mode of “interpretation” according to which literally anything the reader thinks about a text is “valid” and cannot be judged according to anything objective. Here we find the doltish construction of “Plot Mountain” that stupid schema that has done more to train stupid readers to stupidly reduce every work of narrative into the same stupid constituent elements. Here we find the distortions of all forms of “theory”, and projecting topics into texts that are of relative interest to us rather than intrinsic pertinence to the story, from critical theory’s destructive obsessions with genderraceclass to the Classical educator’s own praiseworthy care for moral virtue, both of which breed inattentiveness to anything outside of them.
The subject of literature is where the most absurd trivialities pass for “discussion”, where students are encouraged to share personal anecdotes, pet theories, confused references to the entertainments of mass culture, and the most jumbled and unpolished forms of speech are practiced and reinforced daily. Here we have the Wuhan Lab where the deadly educational supervirus of “MAKE STUFF UP” was bred and released, unleashing the pedagogical pandemic of “Write your own ending to the story!”, “Create your own new character to introduce into the plot!”, “Draw what you think the characters look like!”, “Make a poster of your own cover for the book!”, “Think of your own sequel to the story and imagine what happens next!”, the vapidity of which is expressed in the exclamation points that so often accompany the promulgation of such instructions.
Good heavens, answered Wang-ho. Is there anything bad that doesn’t come out of the incorrect study of literature?
Wrongful mutilations, Wang-ho, answered the Master. At least not as far as I have seen.
That is consoling, said Wang-ho. Do you really think I am a blockheaded donkey?
When the teaching of literature is corrected, answered the Master, dodging Wang-ho’s fair question, then the students’ minds will be ordered. When the students’ minds are ordered, they can see beyond themselves. When they see beyond themselves, their imaginations are enriched. When their imaginations are enriched, their hearts come to love good things. When their hearts love good things, they will want what is right. When they want what is right, ritual and music will flourish, what is needed will be done, the state will prosper, and also everyone will have the correct number of hands and feet.
This seems to me to hit the mark, said Wang-ho.
Damn straight, replied the Master.
Andrew Ellison has been a leader in the classical liberal education movement since 1997, having served as a high school teacher, headmaster, and charter school administrator for 26 years in two states before moving into higher education. He is a Senior Writer for Cana Academy and posts regularly about classical education and other topics on LinkedIn. Ellison is currently Vice President of Enrollment Management at the University of Dallas. He writes from Irving, Texas.