Han Fei Tzu: Basic Writings
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Book Summary Information
Translator: Burton WatsonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1964
ISBN: 0231086091
Number of pages: 134
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Book Reviews of Han Fei Tzu: Basic Writings
Book Review: A chilling classic
Summary: 5 Stars
Han Fei's "Legalist" writings on government may be the most brutal and amoral in China's long written history. I can't even call it vicious - his grasping, avaricious view of human nature displays the same bizarre innocence as a snake crushing a rat.
The Legalist school built itself around laws or duties that defined every part of life. Enforcement was rigid, both in punishment and in reward. This, oddly, was where the Legalists diverged from the duty-bound Confucians. Han Fei stopped short of openly criticizing Confucius, but would have reversed every Confucian decision based on compassion or familial bonds. (Han Fei's "everyone vs. the world" view accepted even wives, parents, and children as potential enemies.)
Although Legalist punishments were permanent and severe - mutilation or death - rewards were intentionally small. No farmer should ever have a reward that let him stop farming, no under-lord should ever have wealth that could support his own power base. A happy populace was important to Han Fei's government, but only because a satisfied peasantry was harder to stir to revolt. Han Fei also argued against a large educated class. That argument helped me understand (but not justify) purges in more recent history.
There is a lot more to say about this book, but I have to rein myself in. However repulsive I find Han Fei's philosophy, though, this book has given me plenty to think about. It's a slim book, Burton Watson's extracts from Han Fei's ouvre, but well chosen. Also, it is another sample of Watson's outstanding translations. I've read a number of Watson's works, and I find his translations uniformly well written. His scholarship appears impeccable, and he has done the English language a wonderful service by making these classics available.
I have to recommend this book to anyone who's read Macchiavelli. I don't expect any sane person with a trace of compassion to follow this way. I do hope that readers will let Han Fei teach them the signs of tyrrany. I take this book as a warning light that has shined for over 2000 years, and still illuminates current dangers.
//wiredweird
PS: This material appears to be repeated in Watson's "Han Feizi" (ISBN 0231129696). The only difference seems that the two are Romanized, given English spellings, according to different conventions.
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