1 - Gentlemen versus Petty Men

Summary

Chapter 1 examines the bipolarity of junzi 君子 (gentlemen) versus xiaoren 小人 (petty men) as a fundamental contrast of Song political discourse. Many historians of Song understand these terms in their original moral context from the Zhou-era Confucian classics and therefore dismiss this distinction as antiquated philosophical rhetoric. But the eleventh-century Confucian resurgence, led by Fan Zhongyan and Ouyang Xiu, brought these ancient constructs once again to the center of political theory and practice. The chapter explains how the junzi/xiaoren contrast quickly came to define the eleventh-century Confucians’ view of themselves as a self-identifying political group committed to governing through institutionalist principles, and how this junzi/xiaoren dichotomy became the center of a Confucian political rhetoric that defined its opposition as those who did not support this vision. Lastly, the duty of the emperor to govern by distinguishing between junzi and xiaoren among his officials became a fundament tenet of Confucian institutionalism.