"How can you evaluate Confucian studies if you haven't studied them?"

(translated from my Chinese blog)

This is my new project, “Nietzschean Philology”. In each installment, I’ll read a passage from Nietzsche’s original writings. By practicing text analysis, we can enhance our ability to understand the world.

The reading of "We Philologists" continues. In sections 27-28, Nietzsche asks why we ascribe a lofty status to classical studies that transcends specialized disciplines, and why we believe classical studies have an educational significance for the whole of life? Because philology controls our educational institutions, and education is the infiltration of habits into the subconscious realm, and philology itself carries its own "subconscious," it is these ancient prejudices that make us unconsciously revere the life wisdom of the ancients, calling it "classics."

27. If a man approves of the investigation of the past he will also approve and even praise the fact--and will above all easily understand it--that there are scholars who are exclusively occupied with the investigation of Greek and Roman antiquity: but that these scholars are at the same time the teachers of the children of the nobility and gentry is not equally easy of comprehension--here lies a problem.

Why philologists precisely? This is not altogether such a matter of course as the case of a professor of medicine, who is also a practical physician and surgeon. For, if the cases were identical, preoccupation with Greek and Roman antiquity would be identical with the "science of education." In short, the relationship between theory and practice in the philologist cannot be so quickly conceived. Whence comes his pretension to be a teacher in the higher sense, not only of all scientific men, but more especially of all cultured men? This educational power must be taken by the philologist from antiquity; and in such a case people will ask with astonishment: how does it come that we attach such value to a far-off past that we can only become cultured men with the aid of its knowledge?

These questions, however, are not asked as a rule: The sway of philology over our means of instruction remains practically unquestioned; and antiquity has the importance assigned to it. To this extent the position of the philologist is more favourable than that of any other follower of science. True, he has not at his disposal that great mass of men who stand in need of him--the doctor, for example, has far more than the philologist. But he can influence picked men, or youths, to be more accurate, at a time when all their mental faculties are beginning to blossom forth--people who can afford to devote both time and money to their higher development. In all those places where European culture has found its way, people have accepted secondary schools based upon a foundation of Latin and Greek as the first and highest means of instruction. In this way philology has found its best opportunity of transmitting itself, and commanding respect: no other science has been so well favoured. As a general rule all those who have passed through such institutions have afterwards borne testimony to the excellence of their organisation and curriculum, and such people are, of course, unconscious witnesses in favour of philology. If any who have not passed through these institutions should happen to utter a word in disparagement of this education, an unanimous and yet calm repudiation of the statement at once follows, as if classical education were a kind of witchcraft, blessing its followers, and demonstrating itself to them by this blessing. There is no attempt at polemics · "We have been through it all." "We know it has done us good."

Now there are so many things to which men have become so accustomed that they look upon them as quite appropriate and suitable, for habit intermixes all things with sweetness; and men as a rule judge the value of a thing in accordance with their own desires. The desire for classical antiquity as it is now felt should be tested, and, as it were, taken to pieces and analysed with a view to seeing how much of this desire is due to habit, and how much to mere love of adventure--I refer to that inward and active desire, new and strange, which gives rise to a productive conviction from day to day, the desire for a higher goal, and also the means thereto · as the result of which people advance step by step from one unfamiliar thing to another, like an Alpine climber.

What is the foundation on which the high value attached to antiquity at the present time is based, to such an extent indeed that our whole modern culture is founded on it? Where must we look for the origin of this delight in antiquity, and the preference shown for it?

I think I have recognised in my examination of the question that all our philology--that is, all its present existence and power--is based on the same foundation as that on which our view of antiquity as the most important of all means of training is based. Philology as a means of instruction is the clear expression of a predominating conception regarding the value of antiquity, and the best methods of education. Two propositions are contained in this statement. In the first place all higher education must be a historical one, and secondly, Greek and Roman history differs from all others in that it is classical. Thus the scholar who knows this history becomes a teacher. We are not here going into the question as to whether higher education ought to be historical or not; but we may examine the second and ask: in how far is it classic?

On this point there are many widespread prejudices. In the first place there is the prejudice expressed in the synonymous concept, "The study of the humanities": antiquity is classic because it is the school of the humane.

Secondly: "Antiquity is classic because it is enlightened----"

28. It is the task of all education to change certain conscious actions and habits into more or less unconscious ones; and the history of mankind is in this sense its education. The philologist now practises unconsciously a number of such occupations and habits. It is my object to ascertain how his power, that is, his instinctive methods of work, is the result of activities which were formerly conscious, but which he has gradually come to feel as such no longer: _but that consciousness consisted of prejudices_. The present power of philologists is based upon these prejudices, for example the value attached to the ratio as in the cases of Bentley and Hermann. Prejudices are, as Lichtenberg says, the art impulses of men.

"We Philologists", Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by J. M. Kennedy 

This is a follow-up of the previous section, i.e. the writing plan, and it clearly initiates the topic of the first chapter (i.e., "modern philology has achieved disproportionate resources and influence by computing and exploiting biases"). Nietzsche chooses a seemingly less obvious question as an introduction: why do people assume that classical learning is a more advanced, cultured education?

The fracture: on the one hand, we can fully accept that a discipline has value within its own field, but this value is confined solely to the field and does not possess a broader value. For instance, we can all acknowledge the value of materials science, nutrition, or theoretical physics, but if someone were to claim that these disciplines have the value to guide the overall course of one's life, it would be going too far.

On the other hand, however, we truly view classical learning in this way (for Europeans, it is ancient Greek and Roman studies, and for the Chinese, it is the Four Books and Five Classics, the pre-Qin philosophers, or more broadly, "national learning"[国学]). Why do we not see classical learning as similar to clinical medicine or civil engineering, but instead single it out and consider it to have an overall life meaning that transcends all disciplines?

This is what is known as the distinction between "elementary"[小学] and "university"[大学] education. In the context of traditional China, 小学 refers to the basic skills necessary to master 大学, including textual criticism, etiquette norms, basic morality, etc. It is about external behavioral skills, the "hows"; 大学, on the other hand, refers to the "three guidelines"[三纲领] (clarifying the virtuous nature, loving the people, and stopping at the highest good) and the "eight items"[八条目] (investigating things to gain knowledge, sincerity in intention, rectifying the heart-mind, cultivating the self, regulating the family, governing the state, and bringing peace to the world), which is about shaping the surrounding values from within, the "whys." In other words, 小学 is about technical and professional issues, while 大学 is about the meaning of life. Therefore, Nietzsche's question can also be translated into: In a modern world deeply shaped by technology and specialization, why can classical learning still serve as 大学 rather than just being one of the many 小学?

Nietzsche believed that the special status of classical scholarship stems from its relationship with history, being "taken from antiquity." So the question becomes: why do we attribute such lofty value to antiquity?

In a modern world that prides itself on science and progress, this kind of nostalgia for the past is quite strange. Nisbet uses the example of the "medical professor" to make readers aware of the modern context in which we live. Modern medicine clearly has no debt to ancient medicine. Modern chemistry has only superficial similarities to ancient atomism, and modern medicine is far removed from the ancient theory of humours. (If the example of medicine is not strong enough for the Chinese, perhaps we could use cosmology or computer science instead. Surely no one would argue that modern computer science needs to learn from the ancients right?) If we truly consider ourselves "modern," believing in technology and striving for progress, why do so many people advocate learning the wisdom of life from the ancients? Isn't the modern world a hundred times better than the ancient one? The time-travel dramas that modern people enjoy are essentially showing off their superiority in front of ancient people, no?

The issue here is not just our attitude towards ancient texts, but how we incorporate this attitude into our educational methods. Many believe that ancient texts are worth studying extensively, driven by the belief that modern parents are actually inferior to ancient people in terms of "how to be a person." Therefore, instead of teaching their children how to behave themselves, parents prefer to entrust this task to the ancients, having their children memorize texts like the Three Character Classic, hoping that the wisdom of their ancestors will produce well-mannered, knowledgeable, and reasonable children. If you ask a modern parent how to behave, their answers often do not go beyond ancient cliches, indicating that modern parents do not truly understand how to teach their children how to behave.

It is the insight into the method of education that enables Nietzsche to find the answer to the problem: habit. Education is the cultivation of habits to the point where one does not need to think. As a self-education process for the species, human history is about how people in history have designed and cultivated habits for themselves, to the point where they can act without thinking about certain things. Since philology controls the entire educational domain, it also controls the process of habit formation for a society, a nation, and all of humanity. As long as philology itself lacks reflection, it will incessantly instill its own unconscious habits (various prejudices passed down from ancient times) into society, making society to "get accustomed to" these prejudices and thus to hold ancient times in high regard.

This habit has a magical quality. "How can you judge Confucianism if you haven't studied it?" "I have studied it, and I believe it has had a very positive impact on my life." – Nietzsche was right, at this point, refuting is meaningless. People tend to affirm their own experiences because they have invested money, time, and effort, and no one wants to admit that their efforts have been in vain. Therefore, the inertia of society will cause many cultural facilities to become entrenched once they are established, as long as enough people pay for them, they can be deemed legitimate, regardless of whether the original endeavor was good or bad.

It is important to note that the word "prejudice" can lead people to think that there is a "truth" position from which prejudices can be eliminated. Nietzsche explicitly rejects this possibility at the end of Section 28. Ultimately, all is prejudice, i.e. the "symbolic world" that humans create for themselves. There is no such thing as "achieving complete enlightenment by overcoming prejudices" (this is also a prejudice that has been passed down from ancient times). Prejudice is artistic creation; it is storytelling, and nothing but storytelling, to the extent that an entire era believes it to be true. Stories give human life meaning. The existence that is completely disenchanted, that is, completely free from stories, is a completely meaningless existence. Those who believe they have completely disenchanted are actually still weaving a lie about "disenchantment" and "awakening" for themselves, it is a cave within a cave. This is the greatest danger of the Enlightenment, as revealed in the conversation between Fukuyama and Damon Linker:

[……]Modern liberal political communities have a special problem when it comes to philosophy in that they actively teach within their cave that the people within the cave have already left the cave. Because they teach that we, unlike people in the benighted past, recognize that there are equal rights, that everyone is fundamentally equal. Basically, the teachings of the Declaration of Independence, to summarize it. And while Strauss was not a severe critic of these things, he believed with, I think, Plato that it was a version of our cave. 

The values declared by enlightenment can, once they become unthinkingly and self-evidently "truths," become a new kind of cave, and quite possibly the deepest and darkest one of all. If a person has not yet been enlightened, there is always the potential for him to be enlightened. But if a person has already been enlightened, in other words, has been "brainwashed" by enlightenment values, has loaded himself with all the prejudices related to enlightenment, how can you enlighten him again? Can a person who has awakened be awakened again? Wouldn't that make his previous awakening seem like a joke? And how would he know that this awakening is real? Once people believe that they have left the cave, how can you make them leave the cave again?

But the issue that Nietzsche is concerned with here is not the issue of the modern Enlightenment cave. Nietzsche's question is: is it really possible to invent a narrative at will and have people buy into it? No. Prejudice is prejudice, but not all rhetoric can become a prejudice of the entire society. There seems to be a kind of natural necessity, an objective limitation. The magic of classical scholarship must have its roots, must have played a practical role in people's lives, otherwise there would not have been "early adopters," and it would not have taken root and sprouted in history. All habits must provide something for people and must satisfy certain desires of people. Nietzsche's question is: What was the "original intention" of classical scholarship, and what practical value did it bring to human societies in history?

There are countless cultural creations in every era, with only a few succeeding and the vast majority making no ripples at all. A success must be able to break the existing cultural paradigm and prove its practical value to the times. Once successful, it will form cultural facilities around it, that is, human society begins to adopt it as a new habit. The introduction of the habit mechanism will make the new culture form positive feedback. The stronger the new culture, the deeper the habit, and the higher the "moat". However, this will also lead to a rigid stage in history, because the once new culture gradually becomes a habit. People follow it not because of its practical value, but simply because "habit intermixes all things with sweetness", even if this culture has caused harm to life, people will still enjoy it. Based on this, we can dissect and analyze the various cultures of an era to see how much of their survival is due to habit and how much is due to practical value. If the survival of a culture is 100% due to habit and has no practical value, we can confidently say that it is false and harmful.

The sin of modern philology lies not in its admiration for the ancients—Nietzsche believed that the ancients were indeed worthy of admiration—but rather in its unquestioning adherence to them. Philology's lack of self-reflection has allowed it to effectively exploit the various prejudices that people share, which are the unthinking habits that people have always had. In other words, the sin of modern philology is that it exists entirely dependent on people's habits, providing no practical value to the world. People support philology only because they are accustomed to the values behind it, not because philology actually helps people's lives in any significant way.

Lastly, a few more words on the concept of "classics." By "classics," we mean something that never goes out of style, the belief in certain immutable truths or laws, especially those concerning human nature. It is based on this belief that we consider classical studies to be truly human studies and to have cross-temporal applicability (in other words, we do not really trust modern technology, especially when it comes to matters of humanity). This belief is also linked to the belief in "enlightenment" or "awakening," that is, we believe that there are certain "enlightened individuals" who have seen through various prejudices and illusions to reach the truth, and we find it more reliable to believe in an ancient person who has been tested by history than in a contemporary "prophet" or futurologist.

But this would be equivalent to saying that we believe human life in all ages is more or less the same, with at least a part of it remaining unchanged since ancient times. Otherwise, if, as Ortega y Gasset put it, "I am I and my circumstances," if human existence is always circumstantial, dependent on its surroundings, and circumstances, especially historical ones, are constantly changing, how can we consider human nature to be stable and unchanging? The only way out is the old method: the "metaphysical scheme" of religion, which in the West is called "the soul," in China is called "nature"[性] or "reason,"[理] in short, defining humans as the creation of some objective transcendent force, objectifying humans, and then shifting the responsibility of being human—not responsibility to anyone else, but responsibility to oneself, the responsibility "to exist for one's own sake"—onto this objective transcendent force. Thus, everything is taken for granted, and one can always get by.