The Legalists not only asserted that humans were by nature evil but they expanded their notion of evil to include those activities which were not deemed socially productive, such as reading and scholarship. The Legalists believed that the only productive occupations were farming and weaving. This meant that reading was simply a waste of the labor resources of the society. So all books other than those on farming, weaving and divination were burned, and those scholars who refused to heed the administrators edicts against pursuing useless activities were punished and some were even buried alive. The dictum of Han Fei Tzu was: In the state of an intelligent ruler there are no books, instead the laws serve as lessons. The Legalists sanctioned military activities as essential to the survival and expansion of the political sector. The feudal nobility were individually required to demonstrate military prowess in order to be accepted as members of that class. However the Legalists destroyed the political power of that feudal class. Administrative control was removed from the feudal nobles and put into the hands of a professional bureaucracy. The bureaucrats could come from any class and entry was to be based upon ability rather than birth. The heyday of Legalism was in the Kingdom of Qin just before the creation of the Chinese Empire. The Legalists hammered Qin into a strong state with a strong military. That enabled its armies to defeat the other kingdoms and create the Chinese Empire. But the Qin dynasty survived only a few years after the death of the first emperor. The Han dynasty that took over control of the empire adopted the Qin innovation of a professional bureaucracy to run the empire. The official philosophy of the Han empire was Confucianism. However, some the administrators appeared to have adopted the philosophy of Legalism without publically espousing it. So even after the fall of the Qin Empire and the rise of the Han Empire there were ministers who were ostensibly Confucian but who governed according to Legalist principles. Thus Legalisms influence continued long after its demise as school of thought. -Thayer Watkins, Legalism and the Legalists of Ancient China
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 02:04:01 +0000
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