”和而不同“: coexisting with differences.
The phrase from Confucius’s Analects “He Er Bu Tong” has caused much ink to flow. It is used today to demonstrate that Chinese society can think of its own way of living together without immediately needing European concepts linked to their own history. Yes, we can think of the unity created by a desire for social harmony, without trying to make all the compromises with everyone. Otherwise, it is disorder and selfishness.
And yet, is it about living with our differences? How? Let’s start from the idea that the Chinese have long lived in communities that take precedence over individual claims.
But this is not to say that the individual must obey the group because
At the origin of the famous book of the great Chinese thinker, philosopher and educator Confucius Lunyu (discussions) is the following saying: “Junzi he er butong, xiaoren tong er buhe”. (The good man lives with differences, the poor man lives badly with similarities). Here, Confucius praises good people who can get along well despite differences, and despises low-level people who cannot get along even though they are of the same gender. Not just Confucius, Laozi also translated these ideas through his doctrine of “yin” and “yang”. According to Taoism, yin and yang are two totally different poles, but thus constitute an inseparable couple: to coexist in the same universe against each other and to complement each other. In addition, during the long Chinese history, the spirits of different schools, Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism and the law, despite differences, coexist exchanging and complementing each other until the present day and leave us a test by these very “junzi” of this “he er butong”.
Because it is not a question of seeing differences that collide because they are juxtaposed with difficulty but a movement in which these differences intermingle and communicate. It is a matter of a dynamic, of a “dialectic” as Hegel and Marx said.
So different people who help each other need each other, without confrontation or shock, to achieve this harmony?
Yes, this harmony does not pre-exist, ready-made. Like a form in which the differences will interact. Harmony is created and recreated as day becomes night which becomes day.
No stupid “clash of civilizations” as the Americans think between, for example, Christian countries and Muslim countries, as if they were ready-made, monolithic blocks. But endless relationships between “identities” that cannot really be defined without the other!
For example, economic relations with mutual respect, each bringing its different strength to the other, but no domination or “colonization” of one country over another.
For Confucius, he is the Junzi, the wise and superior man, who can live fully with the differences around him; the mediocre little man, Xiao ren, lives, conversely, badly because he respects only his fellows, only “similarities”.
To be a Junzi is to strive, to be smart and courageous. Creating the harmonization of differences is a daily work of construction.
But no compromise, we said above? Without facilities, shall we say now, facilities that would be regretted later, like failures to be paid later. It is about working for the common good, but each giving what he can in his own way.
Is that clear ? To compromise with the other is to remain oneself and to give up something to the other who remains himself. There is no such thing as building a new solution together.
Confucius also often speak of Rites to harmonize. Today, would it be international rules, rights and economics?
But they themselves are the object of construction and therefore of harmonization.
If you have ONE thing to remember, from “He Er Bu Tong”: everything is done in movement, in the construction of flexible identities; never in the confrontation of hard blocks, placed right across from each other.
