Plum returned to read the "Meritorious Qualifications" - punching card for four hundred years

"Meritorious Character: Social Change and Moral Order in the Ming and Qing Dynasties", by Bao Junya, translated by Du Zhengzhen and Zhang Lin, published by Shanghai People's Publishing House in July 2021, 318 pages, 75.00 yuan

Meritorious qualities, as the name suggests, is a traditional pamphlet used to reflect on the "merits" and "deeds" of individuals. The history of gongju can be traced back to at least the Song Dynasty, and its various variants are still popular in many regions today. Nowadays, you can search for recent pictures of merits on the Internet, and some of them are indeed designed into small grids, expanding like an Excel table. Over the years, the user can standardize his thoughts and deeds according to the standard of points provided by the merits, and then he can summarize a book of accounts according to which the user can further expect his image, wealth, fortune, or, more traditionally, to receive blessings. In layman's terms, merit is like a "self-discipline punch card" system. This system alleviates to some extent a certain anxiety of the user about his own situation or state of life, and the reward it proposes and promises also reflects the eternal tension between impermanent fate and personal effort. This tension gives the gong and the personality a kind of vitality that travels through time and space.

Professor Cynthia Joanne Brokaw has long noticed the merits of Ming and Qing society and has used this kind of publication to understand traditional Ming and Qing Chinese society. The Ledgers of Merit and Demerit, Social Change and Moral Order in Late Imperial China builds on the author's doctoral dissertation more than thirty years ago. In 1984, Bao Junya graduated from Harvard University with a doctorate, in 1991 a doctoral dissertation on the merits of the Ming and Qing dynasties was published, in 1999 this book was translated by Two scholars, Du Zhengzhen and Zhang Lin, Chinese introduced to China, and in front of us is a new chinese translation version launched by the Shanghai People's Publishing House in 2021 after being revised by the translator. From manuscript brewing to publication, from the English edition to the new Chinese translation, the author has grown from a fledgling scholar of Chinese history to a professor of history at Brown University and the head of the Department of East Asian Studies. Her research interests, academic approaches, and even the research paradigm and core issues of overseas Sinology in an era have changed, but the book still receives the attention of Chinese readers, which seems to reflect that it also has a vitality that transcends time and space like the merits. What kind of moral ideals and expectations do people who have used merit in different eras have for their fate and the social environment around them? Why is meritocracy popular, and does its popularity reflect deeper social change? I hope to be able to give a brief introduction to the new edition of the Chinese translation from the content of this book, the academic concern it reflects in the times, and the new development of the history of the book after its publication.

The author of this book roughly refers to more than twenty kinds of meritorious qualities since the middle and late Ming Dynasties, supplemented by a large number of works by the people of the time, aiming to explain the widespread popularity of such good books as meritorious deeds in the Ming and Qing dynasties. In the interlocking examination and interpretation, the author sees meritocracy as a unique tool for understanding the response of elites to major social changes. This kind of change includes both the political corruption and incompetence of the late Ming court, the transformation of the Ming and Qing dynasties, but also the commercial development of the economy, the increasing mobility and competitiveness of social classes, and the debate and thinking of different schools of culture on what is true and good and how to cultivate oneself.

The book is divided into four chapters. The first chapter, "The Early Traditions of JiGong," sorts out the concepts of "induction" and "meritocracy" in the traditional Chinese belief and political picture, and points out the un-Confucian orthodox elements of the mixed medieval religious thought. The prototype of the Meritorious Character can be traced back to two landmark passages of the late twelfth century: the Taishang Induction (c. 1164, with about 1,280 crosses in existence) and the Tai wei Xian Jun Gong Ge (1171), the former "a concise and comprehensive overview of the accumulation of merit and the operation of supernatural retribution"; the latter "by assigning a score to the performance of behavior, allowing the logic of merit accumulation to lead to natural results". The moral order constructed by these two texts is inconsistent with orthodox Confucian ideas. Confucianism opposes doing good for the sake of gain, arguing that moral order is beyond the reach of human knowledge or control, but believers in merit-defying systems believe that order is knowable and that man is subject to a vast bureaucratic system of gods, just as the bureaucracy of the world is. As a result, people are forced to pursue rewards and avoid punishment for good. Orthodox Confucianism believes that the result of doing good is to attain the qualities of goodness, while a moral system of merit offers people some way to control their fate by promising this worldly reward. Therefore, this kind of good book naturally contains some kind of unorthodox ideas and practices.

This system of merit calculation really became popular at the end of the Ming Dynasty and reached its climax in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Jiashan County Jinshi Yuan Huang (1533-1606) played an important role in promoting the popularity of meritorious character and related good books, and the second chapter introduces Yuan Huang's unique family background, as well as his personal experience and the influence of his era on the popularity of meritorious character. Yuan Huang's great-grandfather loyally opposed Zhu Di when he usurped the throne, and was retaliated against after Zhu Di ascended the throne. The Huang family not only lost most of their property in exile, but also were punished by three generations of not being allowed to engage in the imperial examination, so the Yuan family chose to practice medicine. Practicing medicine not only enabled the Yuan family to gain economic security and social status, but also enabled them to freely borrow non-Confucian ideological resources. Yuan Huang, as the first descendant of the family to regain the qualification of the imperial examination, after years of hard work, he wished to enter the high school. Yuan Huang recounted his story of his use of merit in an article first published in 1601 and later titled "Li Feng". He claims to have been inspired by the Zen master Yungu to practice the merit system. The system of accumulation of merits advocated by Yungu in Yuan Huang's mouth has been very different from the system of the twelfth century, and the goal of accumulating merit is no longer a religious reward in the next life, but has become a real reward for the present life, specifically the imperial examination to obtain meritorious fame and give birth to a son. The altered merit system not only fulfills Yuan Huang's personal experience, but also promises people more direct control over their own destiny, so it has extraordinary appeal.

Can man control his own moral and material destiny? Around such a problem, different schools in the late Ming Dynasty have extensively discussed the merits and related accumulation systems, and there are also many voices of criticism and opposition. It shows the profound efforts of intellectual historians to expound historical materials. The author points out that the Yangming School, especially the Taizhou School, is a supporter of Yuan Huanggong's system of excesses, of which Wang Geng, He Xinyin, Zhou Rudeng, Tao Wangling, and others are all users of meritorious qualities, although they are inconsistent about whether they should abide by certain moral norms when doing good, or whether they should have a purpose, but they all believe that people have the ability to grasp their own lives, and Wang Geng even radically advocates "creating life", that is, to fight against Heavenly Destiny for moral achievement. (p. 128) Many more, however, are critics of Yuan's system of transgressions, who defend purity in Confucianism from contamination and criticize the practice of gonggong arithmetic, which threatens to "commodify" morality. Liu Zongzhou even wrote the Genealogy of People in 1634 as an alternative system of meritocracy in opposition to Yuan Huang. His system only remembers, not merit, in order to purify the moral danger of potential utilitarianism in Yuan Huanggong's excesses. In addition, the Scholars of the Donglin School had a "revised, Confucian version of the supernatural retribution or induction theory" about wealth status and accumulation of good deeds (p. 169). According to this conception of induction, man is not dependent on the care of capricious gods, nor is he subject to the karma of past lives, but is responsible for his own moral actions. More importantly, take responsibility for the well-being of your own township. Here, the belief in ji shan is not to expect private rewards, but to obtain some kind of public benefit for the family and the township. Therefore, the Donglin School, represented by Gu Xiancheng, Gao Panlong, Chen Longzheng, and Zhang Luxiang, is more interested in taking the concept of retribution as "the reason for social reform and the factor that stimulates social reform." This ideological basis also became a rationalized explanation for the late Ming central government of the local elite to serve the interests of the community, participate in local administration, and even fight corruption. Here, although the author of this book does not explicitly state, the seventeenth-century scholars' discussion of fate and good deeds has a certain enlightenment, especially the transformation between self-interest and public welfare, reminiscent of the eighteenth-century Mendeville's Fable of the Bee, and the capitalist economic ethics contained in it are even more ready to be revealed.

However, in the early Qing Dynasty, this bud returned to silence. In the fourth chapter, the author points out that the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries meritorious authors once again changed the social goals of the merit system, which became a moral persuasion to maintain social class stability and make people feel at ease. While the writers of this period also guaranteed that individuals could improve their status through merit, they were more concerned with "ensuring social stability by adjusting and even controlling social mobility" (p. 186). In addition, the non-Confucian orthodox, utilitarian elements of the period were reconciled. The writers of merit not only worked harder to guarantee the legitimacy of meritocracy with Confucianism, but also diluted the traces of profit in the concept of merit, and interpreted it as a technical means of incentivizing the middle class and inferiors. Another shift in the merits of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was that the lengths became longer, the content of the accumulation of goodness covered all aspects of daily life, and different rules for people of various identities and professions appeared. The author pays particular attention to the content of the status of slavery in the merits and demerits, which reflects the reality that the increased social mobility has strained the master-servant relationship. Distant lords alienated from rural society, slaves usurped their masters in power and wealth, which was feared by the gentry, slaves were exhorted to keep to themselves, and the elite were encouraged to care for the common good. Thus, through the persuasion of each other, the Book of Virtues promotes a morality of "service", without resolving the contradiction between the reality of the low status of the slave and the elevation of class promised by his moral character. In terms of economic ethics, meritocracy does not openly encourage the accumulation of capital for commercial investment, but because some examples of accumulating merit require a lot of money, which indirectly justifies the accumulation of wealth, but the pure accumulation of capital, that is, "wealth for the sake of wealth", is still regarded as a sin. In the ideal order of meritorious authors, the contradiction between accumulation of wealth and good deeds is still evident.

At the end of this chapter, the author also briefly explores the possible circulation channels of meritocracy. Some local associations may be an important occasion for the dissemination of merit system and related practices, such as Yan Maoyou, the author of "Di jilu", who founded the Yunqi Association in Pinghe County, Zhangzhou Prefecture, Fujian Province, to promote the practice of recording meritorious deeds. It is said that only by submitting a meritorious deed of 100,000 good deeds can one become a member. (p. 256) This type of organization was quite common in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, for example, in the third chapter of this book, the author also mentions the Wuxi Tongshan Society and the Jiashan Tongshan Society, which Gao Panlong and Chen Longzheng participated in; Liu Zongzhou, the author of "Genealogy", also established a "witness meeting" to guide members to cultivate themselves with meritorious and meritorious books. (p. 145) Here, the author's vision is no longer limited to merit or related merit systems, but to the general civil morality indoctrination and preaching, which includes the good books of the merit system, which has a clear sense of the elite class to persuade the public, and the author believes that this change of merit and merit reflects the sensitivity of the elite to the threat of the identity hierarchy. In the early Qing Dynasty, status promotion was the bait for doing good, while the specific regulations reflected the suppression and prohibition of class mobility. In the process of the Ming and Qing dynasties, the meritorious character achieved a conservative transformation from a "guide to promotion" to a "moral and social guidance manual". (275 pages)

From the germination of a idea that undermines the hierarchy to a system of indoctrination that supports social stability, the authors of each period justify themselves through the traditional teachings of Confucianism, which reflects the absorption and flexibility of the Confucian tradition. At the end of the book, the author rejects the idea of linking a certain ideology and belief to a certain class. Noting that the merits of the often labeled "popular" and "ordinary people" are also accepted by the elite, the author proposes to understand the problem in terms of the concept of cultural "appropriation", and points out that "attention should be paid to the same kind of thinking ... different interpretations and different exploitations, without trying to rigidly associate this idea itself with any one social group" (p. 278). The author's study of merit is precisely this kind of exploration.

If we look at this book more than thirty years ago, it is easy to find its inexhaustible points when we look at the results of decades of traditional Chinese book social history, a field of study pioneered by a group of Chinese and foreign scholars, including Professor Bao Junya. But what I think is more worthy of understanding for contemporary readers is that when the author wrote this book, he reflected on the inheritance of the issues and thinking paradigms of his contemporaries at that time, and tried to open up new paths from it. Many people are familiar with the public case of the rebellion of the academic tradition of Chinese studies at Harvard University from the "stagnant China" and "shock-response" model to the "China-centric view" pioneered by Professor Fairbank. In the 1970s and 1980s, when the author of this book was studying at Harvard, the academic trend of discovering the power of change from China's own history and traditions was on the rise, and the global influence of Marxism also caused the young generation of scholars in Europe and the United States to shift from the political and diplomatic history of the grand narrative to the social, cultural, and daily lives of the people. It is in this context that the focus on the popular folk book of "meritorious qualities" and the attempt to discover the intellectual transformation that may be implied by texts other than orthodoxy are a new step in this context.

The texts of the Good Books that the author had access to at that time also depended on the collection, collation and research of Japanese scholars since the beginning of the twentieth century. The author of this book visited the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University for a long time from 1979 to 1982, and read the Ming and Qing dynasty books extensively, so the attention of japanese academic circles to the issue of Chinese squires in the Ming and Qing dynasties during this period is also reflected in some paragraphs of this book. The main compilers and explicit users of the Ming and Qing dynasties can be said to include the local elite known as the gentry, so for example, the moral and ethical contradictions between slavery and the elevation of the economic status of slaves in the Jiangnan region, the rise of the scholar class and the rise of popular power reflected in the popularity of meritorious books such as Gong guoge (Sakai Tadao, 1960), and the search for ideological transformation and intellectual flow in it has also become one of the cares of this book.

In a hindsight, the greater influence on the author of this book is the academic approach of histoire du livre (History of Books of the French Almanac School) since the 1950s. This approach stems from the efforts of Western scholars to explore the intellectual origin of the French Revolution through popular publications of the eighteenth century. In the part of this book that discusses the history of the circulation, reading, and acceptance of merits, it can already be seen that the author's academic interest has been further broadened from the history of ideas to the social history of books. However, with the merits preserved in the tradition of bibliography and rare books, this kind of historical material itself cannot provide enough links in the "communication cycle" (Communication Circuit, which is a model proposed by Darnton to link all the factors related to the circulation of books, including the complex cycle of authors, editors, publishers, publishers, booksellers, readers, and ideological, political, legal, etc.) to support the complete chain. So what we see in this book is still a discussion that focuses on the level of intellectual history. In the 2005 book Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China, co-authored by the author and Professor Zhou Qirong, Professor Bao has a more detailed review of the history of books in traditional Chinese society ("On the history of the book in China" is a huge and detailed review of any traditional Chinese society for printing, publishing, An entry guide not to be missed by readers interested in book culture. From this guide, we can once again see the vigilance and restraint of a generation of Chinese studies scholars for the Eurocentric view, which does not advocate the imposition of any theory or research paradigm popular in Western Europe on Chinese society without discussion, but goes deep into various areas of Local Chinese Society, combines detailed historical materials with fieldwork, understands the unique context of Chinese books and publishing culture from the technical and institutional basis of publication production and circulation, and then uses this as a basis to make reciprocal comparisons between different cultures. This is also reflected in her later study of the Four Forts of Fujian Province, "Cultural Trade: The Book Trade of the Four Forts from the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China".

On the one hand, the subtitle was changed from the original "Moral Order of Ming and Qing Society" to "Social Change and Moral Order in the Ming and Qing Dynasties", highlighting the theme of Social Change in the original text. Moreover, the changes in the new translation make the language more fluent, in line with the grammar and reading habits of the Chinese, and more accurately convey the essence of the original work, and there is an experience of translation when reading it, which also reflects Professor Du Zhengzhen's profound skills in the field of Chinese social research in the Ming and Qing dynasties for many years. All in all, this book is worth reading for all readers interested in the ancient punch card activities, Yuan Huang's anxiety about picking up male treasures, the tangled hearts of the Ming and Qing dynasties in social change, and the history of Chinese books.