Talk:Legalism (Chinese philosophy)
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It much easier to read now...I am currently studying Chinese philosphies. As for this neutrality thing, it seems fine to me. The philosophy is Hobbesian in nature, nothing wrong with saying or implying that. There is no anti-chinese sentiment, but the philosphy is harsh and must be presented as so. There are much nicer schools of though out there (Daoism anyone). I have removed the POV tags. The few sections that there are problems with, edit the langugage so it not as offensive. POV tagging the entire article and every section is not a good idea. This has not been followed up on and is a distraction. Most of the offensive language is gone anyway. Ed-it 23:52, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
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[edit] Read Me!
I just edited the first paragraph to make some kind of grammatical sense. It had read "It is actually rather a pragmatic political philosophy, with maxims like "when the epoch changed, the ways changed" as its essential principle, than a jurisprudence."
It now reads: It is actually rather a pragmatic political philosophy, with maxims like "when the epoch changed, the ways changed," and its essential principle is one of jurisprudence.
I hope this was the original intent. It seems to make sense from the three other sources I'm currently reading about the subject, but I've never heard of this philosophy before today. Once someone can confirm this is OK, please delete these paragraphs.
[edit] Everything else
For some reason, 8th grade social studies left me with the impression that Legalism was based on the assumption that humanity was basically evil, and could be manipulated by the "two handles", greed and fear (think Skinner).
- OK, so this is verified by S.E Finer, pg 467 "In bold terms, the Legalists viewed the mass of humanity as irrevocably stupid and base, and suceptible only to the carrot and the stick." - Finer, S.E. "The History of Government from the Earliest Times I: Ancient Monarchies and Empires" Pg 442-72. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999 David Manheim 07:40, 4 Oct 2006 (EST)
[edit] Split into three?
[edit] Current Status
This was done.
[edit] Past discussion
the idea of open public laws and equality under the law, is that not similar to the united states principles?
- Well, yes and no. The United States operates under common law, so many of the laws are not specifically written down, or at least they do not need to be. Equality under the law is a principle in US law, but it does not appear to be a principle in legalism, which places the king above and outside the law. - Nat Krause 07:04, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)
It makes little sense, I think, to put the Western legal philosophy on the same page as the Chinese political one. If however this is done, one should at least make two equal paragraphs. Certainly it is nonesense to treat Chinese legalism as one form of Western legalism.
I'd agree there should be a separation, because these are unrelated philosophies that happen to use the same name. There should be a 'disambiguation page', as there is for 'Republican'. --GwydionM 15:57, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
The article does not fully clarify the difference between the eastern and western versions of Legalism. To me, legalism, the rule of law, seems like a strong judicial-like government, not unlike our own (e.g. western government).
--Enerjen 3 February 2006 (UTC)
I am new to this -- but the article on "legalism" is confusing, as is the article on "rule of law" which brought me here. "Chinese legalism" ought to be a separate page, linked from this. At a minimum, if hierarchy must be avoided, the page could link to "chinese" and "western" legalism separately. "Legalism" in the western tradition needs a page to itself. The key text is Judith Shklar's 1964 "Legalism" (Harvard University Press) -- a classic of political thought.
I agree with the suggestion for a split. I'd suggest that 'legalism' in the Western sense should have its own small article, and so should Korean Legalism. Both would be open to expansion in future.
I'd also say that the Chinese school called 'Legalists' should really have been translated as 'Regulators'. They were concerned with power, not about harmony with any overall principle beyond strenght. This would be worth explaining, though clearly we are stuck with the familiar term.
--GwydionM 09:18, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
- While Western legalism would seem to be an unrelated subject that happens to share the same English term, the text of the article implies that Korean Legalism is an intellectual descendant of the Chinese school. Should Korean Legalism be retained as a subsection of this article? --XL7-Z 14:14, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Capitalization
I am currently under the impression that Legalism in the Chinese context should be capitalized as a proper noun, and have revised the article accordingly. --XL7-Z 14:28, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Conflicting statements in the introductory paragraph
This sort of sprung out at me: the first paragraph states that legalism was a one of four leading political ideologies of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period. Although I cannot personally confirm this, it seems to be correct since I'm pretty sure 商鞅 (Shang Yang, high-ranking official of the kingdom of Qin under Xiaogong before the unification of China, I believe) is classified as a legalist. But then the next paragraph states that 韩非 (Han Fei, political thinker the kingdom of Han, pupil of Xunzi and Li Si's old schoolmate) was the founder of the school of thought. Since Han Fei was died in jail during the Qin dynasty, these two statement are in direct contradiction unless Mr. Han founded the school of thought, did nothing for four hundred years and then suddenly began his ultimately frustrated political career.
Does this sound right to anyone? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mrmyway (talk • contribs).
- It sounds fine to me. Han Fei started the whole ball of wax before the Warring States period, and it grew in prominence until it was one of the big ones, big enough to be singled out from the "Hundred Schools" disputing philosophic matters at that time. --maru (talk) contribs 13:43, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] NPOV
This article includes a lot of POV arguments like "legalism was meant to keep people poor and uneducated. Obviously written by someone biased against communism and Chinese government. One of many examples: "...sought to devalue the importance of the charismatic ruler. Thus, subjects were compelled to obey even the most vile, ruthless, and/or incompetent rulers."
Indeed, this is FAR from neutral; nevertheless I cannot see a certain anti-communist bias in such a statement, but strong anti-Chinese sentiment. This form of sentiment has existed due to the cr*p Hegel has written about the "East" (so-called Oriental despotism). The language is truely too harsh, emotional and far from encyclopedic (especially for someone who admires Qin Shi Huang, Machiavelli and Bismarck).
