In the Analects and the Readings, both Confucius and Mozi present substantial arguments for and against music and musical performances. Confucius believes that music is important while Mozi feels differently. In this paper, I will argue that Confucius is right that music is important and disagree with Mozi that musical performances should not be condemned. The first section will focus on why Confucius views music as important. The second component will present Mozi’s argument as to why he condemns music fervently. The last part will focus on evaluating who is right, considering also music of today’s context.
Confucius’ view on Music
Confucius displays his strong affection for music when he “for three months after did (Confucius) not even notice the taste of meat” (Analects 7.14) upon hearing the music of Shao, for it “is completely beautiful and completely good”. (Analects 3.25) However, Confucius was also against certain kinds of music such as the music of Zheng (Analects 15.11)
Music is important to Confucius because he strongly believes that music helps in self-cultivation. (Analects 13.3) Listening to the right kind of music can elevate a person’s level of maturity by instilling in subtle ethical principles. Acquiring the right ethical values through music is associated with perfection and as a method to cultivate yourself into a better person. (Analects 7.6) In contrast, Confucius is against music of the wrong sort, which would encourage vice and troubled volitions. He associates music with goodness (Analects 3.3) and was convinced that the right kind of music is an important tool that could educate and develop ethical human beings. (Analects 1.6) Hence, music to Confucius can be seen as a powerful tool to develop a person’s maturity or corrupt someone.
For Confucius, music also complements rituals as he taught his students in the “six arts” (ceremonies, music, shooting, driving, writing and mathematics), all of which cater to becoming better person. Confucius highlights music and ritual are placed at the top two in order to achieve the status of a “complete person” (Analects 14.12). In addition, Confucius also emphasized the importance of grand ritual ceremonies (Higgins, p. 311), which normally involved the entire community. Music was an essential component for these rituals and it aids in advocating harmony and unity amongst the audience. Confucius utilized rituals aided by music as a tool to restore order to society at a time where corruption and dishonesty was in excess, and considered ritualistic events as a means of promoting social cohesion. Playing music at rituals also encourages cooperation and communication, thus an important function in ritualistic events.
Another important segment that highlights Confucius view on music would be from Xunzi, a contemporary of Confucius, where one of the main positive influence that music instils would be the emotion of joy (Keping, 2009). Xunzi argues that music is an expression for joy, that pleases and appeal to the senses as well as the soul. (Readings, p. 285) It keeps evil sentiments from taking root, brings about unity and harmony, shunning excess (Keping, 2009). All these pivots towards Confucius’ belief in becoming the “complete person” (Analects 14.12), and through music one can further better themselves as a person.
Mozi’s view on Music
Mozi’s fervent condemnation of music is seen in chapter thirty-two of the Readings – “A Condemnation of Musical Performances”, which the concludes that music performances are wrong and not beneficial for the state. Mozi’s consequentialist stance is founded upon three objectives: that it accords with practices of the sage-kings; it benefits the people and community (Readings, p. 105); supported by the testimony and evidence of people. In my opinion, Mozi simply believed that having musical performances was akin to wasting time, as well as human and material resources, all of which correlates in accordance with the three objectives he held. Objectively, I believe Mozi’s initial attitude towards music was ambivalent because he was not against music per say (Readings, p. 105) but became critical of it because of its prevalence in extravagant aristocratic events (Higgins, 2017). These huge events often led to undesirable influences and consequences which Mozi deems it as unnecessary and hence the denouncement that “Musical performances are wrong!” (Readings, p. 105) The chapter then deviates towards how it affects commoners and the general family household.
It would surmise to say that Mozi’s negative view towards music performances would be how it perpetuates undesirable behaviors which brings about negative consequences for the state and people. To simply put, he feels that musical performances are a waste time and resources.
1. Anything that deprives a person of productive work (for the benefit of food and clothing) is a waste of time and resources.
2. Musical performances proliferate idleness and redundancy, resulting in wasting both time and precious resources.
3. Therefore, musical performances should be condemned.
When one listens to music and their performances, they inherently have to devote their time and attention to it. Mozi believes that the time devoted into listening into these performances can be put to better use, namely officials can use it to complete their “official duties at court and collecting taxes and levies out in the passes…”, farmers can use the time to “go out to the fields at dawn” to do “ploughing, planting, cultivating and reaping great harvests of grain and other produce” (Readings, p. 109), women can spend that time to taking care of the household “spinning and weaving to produce hemp, silk, linen and other types of cloth” (Readings, p. 107). As such, Mozi views this time as a waste of human resource, which could be used for more productive work, which brings about better welfare to their families and community.
In addition, Mozi argues that having these music performances require “young people in their prime, whose eyes and ears are keen and whose arms are so strong that they can make the sound harmonious and to see the bells front and back.” (Readings, p. 109) Mozi believes these young people can be used to work to produce food and clothing instead, time devoted to these music performances are a waste of human resource.
Evaluating Mozi’s argument
Mozi’s main argument lies in premise 2, which essentially concerns the utility and essence of time. I argue that this premise is not sound because musical performances does benefit a person and can enhance productivity. It may not be a direct tool of utility such as “boats and carts” (Readings, p. 106) but it is definitely a tool that complements work productivity and self-cultivation. Just like Confucius’ belief, music has the ability to instill innate ethical values that promotes a human’s well-being (Analects 7.6) and it is also provide respite, just like painting, dancing or reading. Mozi’s core belief in condemning music is wrong because music itself is not the root cause of the negative consequences in which he perceives it has. It has not been established a direct causation between music and wasting time and resources. In fact, music has also been proven to train a person’s concentration and stir up different states of emotions in people. Musical performances also trains musicians to cooperate and work in unison to produce the best music that they can for the audience listening. Hence if musical performances are a direct causation of idleness and unproductive behavior, then it ought to be abolished, but this is not the case. For a person to be idle and lazy is a personal choice, to indulge in lust and undesirable behavior is not related to listening to musical performances. Therefore, Mozi’s argument that musical performances are a waste of time is false. Confucius is right because music is essential to our everyday life, and the right kind of music can help in self-cultivation, instilling right ethical values and a means of establishing harmony.