Transcendence in Molefi Kete Asante’s Afrocentricity and Tu Wei-ming’s Embodied Confucianism from the Perspective of Cultural Community

Abstract

The concept of cultural community has been firstly or more obviously embodied in the works of the minority/minoritized literature or writers from marginalized countries and approached from different perspectives, such as small and enduring spiritual bonds, aspiration and an ideal, or self-deconstruction due to heterogeneity, conflict, and difference. However, most researchers explore the cultural community in the works of merely one racial group, such as American Indian, Chinese, Korean, or African. There has been comparatively little research on the construction of a cultural community across races. Focusing on Molefi Kete Asante’s Afrocentricity and Tu Wei-ming’s embodied Confucianism, two cultural movements that fully embody a “new cosmopolitanism” and have the potential to dialog and complement each other, this study compares the views of transcendence of these two philosophies in terms of sense, the ultimate goal, orientation of time, vehicle for realization, and thinking pattern in the hope of the construction of a Sino-African cultural community, which reflects mutual understanding, coexistence, harmony without uniformity, and the contact, conflict, and intermingling of heterogeneous cultures.

1. Introduction

Globalization is widely recognized for sometimes leading to the marginalization of certain cultural groups on political, economic, and intellectual levels. However, this process is met with a formidable and persistent counterforce: the drive towards localization, which is particularly evident in the realms of social sciences and humanities. Within the spheres of culture and literature, there exists a dynamic interplay between two opposing trends: the tendency towards cultural uniformity or monoculturalism, defined as “policy or process of supporting, advocating, or allowing the expression of the culture of a single social or ethnic group” and the promotion of cultural diversity or multiculturalism, referring to “a society that contains several cultural or ethnic groups in which cultural groups do not necessarily engage with each other” (Tam 2023, pp. 28–29). For example, Confucian multiculturalism does not necessarily “assume a relationship between dominant and non-dominant cultures”. Nor does it “actively pursue transforming every nation according to Confucian ethics” (Tam 2023, p. 43). In today’s world, the latter is becoming increasingly prominent (Wang 2010). Echoing these tendencies, a wide spectrum of recent concepts of cultural community has been developed by theorists from similar or incompatible perspectives. Williams (1983), one of the founders of the idea of community, in his book Keywords (pp. 75–76), argued that a true community should be a small and harmonious “body of direct relationships” with a “sense of immediacy or locality” or “a sense of common identity and characteristics”. According to the German sociologist Tönnies (2001), in an “organic” community, often referred to as a Gemeinschaft, individuals are united by familial bonds, a sense of camaraderie, shared traditions, a common history, and collective possession of essential resources.

By contrast to Williams and Tönnies’s community which prizes shared experience, Heidegger emphasized the importance of embracing solitude to claim one’s own existence, known as Dasein, instead of existing in a state of conformity to the societal norm, often referred to as “the they”. Derrida, on the other hand, argued that community has a suicidal tendency in the form of “autoimmunity”: no society can exist without fostering its own self-regulation, a mechanism of self-sacrifice that undermines the principle of self-preservation (Miller 2004). In line with the different views about community, Lee (2009, pp. 1–2) further proposed the “paradox of community”. The concept of community serves as a beacon of aspiration and an ideal state where individuals are united by common bonds of shared values, a sense of belonging, and interconnectedness. However, the notion of a dissenting community provides a contrasting perspective to the traditional paradox of community by asserting that it is impossible to have a monolithic group of people, as the pursuit of such uniformity overlooks the essential truth that diversity, discord, distinction, and the unique, indivisible essence of individuality are fundamental components of any collective identity (Lee 2009).

Compared with Western theories on community, Chinese scholars, such as Fei (2005), Yue (2021), and Zhu and Li (2022), opposed the “centrism” of any country or region, and advocated to explain cultural community in the construction of a globally diversified civilization and world consciousness from the perspective of “mutual understanding” and “integration among different cultures and civilizations”, “symbiosis and coexistence”, “harmony without uniformity”, as well as “the construction of a common concept across human civilization”(Sheng 2023, p. 85). These distinct Chinese views reflect the global significance of the common values of all humankind (Wang and Sun 2023).

When applying the concept of community to promoting the integration of diverse civilizations, the Sino-African humanistic exchanges in mutual visits of political parties, scientific research cooperation, academic exchanges, cultural exhibitions, artistic performances, tourism and investment, media diplomacy, and sports events under the call of the Belt and Road Initiative play a particularly important role in opening up a new way of thinking about the postmodern and postcolonial situation in the age of globalization (Sheng 2023). This form of thinking is underlined by a Sino-African cultural community, which exists in both Chinese and African philosophical traditions that share a common ontological ground. Therefore, this paper seeks to explore how Molefi Kete Asante’s Afrocentricity and Tu Wei-ming’s embodied Confucianism, two cultural trends that fully embody a “new cosmopolitanism” combining both global and local forms of identity, have the potential to dialog and complement each other in the form of a Sino-African cultural community.

2. The Development of Afro-Asian and Sino-African Cultural Communities

When it comes to cultural community in literary texts, most researchers explore its manifestations in the works of merely one racial group, such as American Indian, Chinese, Korean, or African. There has been comparatively little research to construct cultural communities across races, especially the marginalized racial or cultural groups. Take the Sino-African cultural community for example; its prototype could be first traced to the Afro-Asian community in the American literature and culture. African American authors have acknowledged the influence of Asian and Asian American political and cultural elements, which serve as a catalyst for their own vibrant, progressive, and inventive literary endeavors. The origins of the Afro-Asian cultural community can be traced back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when African American authors were at the forefront of exploring ideas that fostered unity. These writers were in search of alliances on a national, international, and even global scale. Their aim was to mitigate the challenges posed by racial and economic segregation within the United States. They turned to ancient Asiatic civilizations to find a way to reconstruct a racial identity that transcended the confines of the traditional Western paradigm (Raphael-Hernandez and Steen 2006). It is these characteristics that constitute the positive connotations of the Sino-African community: a sense of belonging, understanding, caring, cooperation, and equality.

Based on them, most of the current studies in China on the Sino-African community are focused on the construction of the community of destiny, such as the theoretical connotation, historical status, exemplary role, practical path, and world significance of the Sino-African community of destiny. The concept of the Sino-African community is considered as an aspiration that includes commonality, sharing, belonging, connection, and attachment featured by a static, ideal, and theoretical macro-framework and, therefore, lacks a dialectic, specific, and in-depth research perspective.

Focused on Molefi Kete Asante’s Afrocentricity and Tu Wei-ming’s embodied Confucianism, this paper is aimed to explore how the features of the Sino-African cultural community are manifest in a philosophical sense, and the ultimate goal, orientation of time, vehicle for realization, and thinking pattern of transcendence in these two philosophies, which reflect mutual understanding, coexistence, and harmony without unity as well as the contact, conflict, and intermingling of heterogeneous cultures.

3. Molefi Kete Asante’s Afrocentricity and Tu Wei-ming’s Embodied Confucianism

With both global and local forms of identity, Molefi Kete Asante (Professor in the Department of Africology at Temple University) and Tu Wei-ming (Professor, Department of East Asian Studies at Harvard University) have proposed two cultural theories that have the potential to dialog and complement each other. The great efforts made by them have proved their insightful endeavor to “globalize” Afocentricity and Neo-Confucianism and the attempt to give full play to their universal significance.

Afrocentricity, a late twentieth-century cultural movement, encompasses a wide range of philosophical, political, and artistic concepts that serve as the foundation for the musical, fashion, and esthetic aspects of the African identity. It is a theoretical framework that seeks to explore the historical, literary, architectural, ethical, philosophical, economic, and political dimensions of African existence, emphasizing the agency and centrality of African perspectives in these various fields (Asante [2000] 2007). The perspective that African individuals should be recognized and recognize themselves as active participants in historical transformations rather than mere observers is crucial. However, Afrocentricity’s approach does not aim to universalize its own cultural specifics as Europe has historically done. Instead, it seeks to amplify the distinct voices of African cultures, embracing their full spectrum, as a means to foster a more balanced society and to propose a model for a more compassionate global community (Asante 2003). Consequently, a novel form of human discourse, characterized by a cosmopolitanism that is sensitive to context, can emerge. This dialog is facilitated by the Afrocentric paradigm, which is open to other paradigms that are not dominant or hegemonic. It also highlights the importance of individual and collective agency, the significance of geographical and cultural positioning, and contributions that are deeply rooted in cultural contexts. Importantly, this approach avoids the assertions of superiority or the pursuit of hegemonic interests, instead fostering a genuine exchange of ideas and perspectives (Karenga 2018).

Tu Wei-ming, an important embodied Confucianism reformulator, has focused on how to open up the theoretical and practical space for the development of Confucianism against the backdrop of multiculturalism and glocalization. According to him, the development of Neo-Confucianism in its contemporary stage, or the so-called “third wave” of Neo-Confucianism, rather than the “Song and Ming Neo-Confucianism” lies in its close dialog with the other civilizations. For example, Andrew Ka Pok Tam (2023) reformulated a “Confucian Multiculturalism” through a Kantian reinterpretation of the Classics of Rites to oppose the prevailing monoculturalism. Sungmoon Kim (2016) revised Joseph Chan’s famous Confucian perfectionism to embrace multiculturalism by examining Xunzi’s and Mengzi’s embedded “constitutionalism” and arguing that Confucianism acknowledges the cultural rights of every individual, which aligns with Kymlicka’s multiculturalism. However, Tu suggested that our research should not be limited to “capitalism and socialism”. Nor should we only talk about “North America, European Union and East Asia” (Tu 2012, p. 82). Facing the 21st century, Tu criticizes the discourse hegemony of the West; actively participates in the dialog between Confucianism and religion, ecology, neo-Marxism, feminism, and humanistic spirit; advocates the positive role of the Confucian spirit in contemporary academic, business, enterprise, media, civil society, social movement, political system, and ideology; and puts it into practice, which later develops into his “embodied Confucianism” (Guo and Zheng 2016). Wang (2010) would call his theory “glocalization” in Chinese characteristics because globalization is not just about Westernization or Americanization. It is a multifaceted process that extends beyond the confines of Western contexts and is not unidirectional. Instead, it involves a reciprocal exchange between the West and China, and subsequently, the entire world. This dynamic has two significant implications: first, it fosters the widespread adoption of the Chinese language; second, it promotes the spread of Neo-Confucianism, a central philosophy in China that, despite being somewhat overlooked in global civilization, has the potential to transform China from a consumer of theories to a producer of them in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Generally speaking, both Afrocentricity and embodied Confucianism reflect the concept of cosmopolitanism which evokes “a tolerance, an understanding and compassion towards all people, regardless of their nationalities, races, religions and classes” (Sheng 2018, p. 88), or cultural community, which is not only an ideal living condition for the whole humanity characterized by perfect harmony and satisfaction of all people and transcends all boundaries, but also an integration of diversity, divergence, and insurmountable uniqueness (Lee 2009). To explore these inextricable ingredients of the Sino-African cultural community, a good starting point is the transcendence of Afrocentricity and embodied Confucianism.

4. Why Transcendence of the Two Theories?

Most philosophical thoughts come from human’s longing for a better and happy life, from the unremitting pursuit of transcending their own limitations to the eternal realm, and from the constant inquiry into the meaning of life (Zhang 2008) or the solution of abstract problems. The characteristics of Chinese and African societies are fundamentally based on a sense of community guided by philosophical premises in the form of Afrocentric native religion or the national “religion” of Confucianism. In this sense, both religions are also ethno-philosophies because they can be found “in written works of some scholar claiming to offer an objective description of the culture philosophy of a people” (Oruka 1990, p. xxiii).

According to Tu’s embodied Confucianism, the transcendence of Confucianism lies in how to make people deeply reflect on all levels of body, mind, spirit, and deity, and in promoting the endless development of personality from personal cultivation to becoming holy and virtuous. Influenced by Mou Zong-san and Tang Jung-yi, Tu maintained that the significance of Confucianism is not limited to the scope of moral practice, but has a quite profound religious connotation. As the highest ideal that embodies its transcendence, the sage personality can inspire people to carry on long-term struggles and become an inner dynamic source that embodies the life value of the people in the real world. This pursuit of ideal personality and ideal state does not exclude religion, but has profound religious sense and ultimate belief. It can also be concretely implemented into daily ethics and self-cultivation in the real world. This is the “philosophy of human” of Confucianism. Confucian humanism is not incompatible with religious spirit. Different from the understanding of “transcendental breakthrough” as an external transcendent entity—unitary God, a popular belief in the Western academic circle, Tu Wei-ming proposed a revision, believing that the object of reflection can be transcendent God, or human and nature. The religious connotation of Confucianism reflects “its sanctity in the earthly world and transforms its restrictions into the source of the transcendence of individuals and even groups” (Guo and Zheng 2016, pp. 345–46).

Like the role that Confucianism has played in Chinese culture, Afrocentric philosophy and religion form the cornerstone of African cultural heritage and significantly shape the mindset and lifestyle of the African people. To ignore these traditional beliefs, attitudes, and practices can only lead to a lack of understanding of African behavior and problems (Mbiti 1970). Mali scholar Amadou Ampatba, a famous African cultural celebrity, even saw traditional religions as the key to the African heart, and argued that African ways of thinking and norms of behavior are incomprehensible to a person who does not see things from a religious point of view (Zhang 2022). However, the current studies on Africa and the African diaspora literature and culture are mainly focused on Christianity and Islam from the Western-centered perspective, and rarely involve African native religions from the Afrocentric perspective (Asante 1998). This concept that excludes African traditional religion from the world religious family has been so deeply rooted and widespread in Western academia that for more than three centuries, when people talked about the history of African religion, they tended to refer to Christianity and Islam imported from outside the region (Zhang 2021). Free of the Eurocentric philosophy featured by “critical, abstract, independent and objective thought, the African mind is but an extension of the body as a whole” (Oruka 1990, p. 10). The traditional African religion or philosophy is entailed in sage philosophy, which consists of the “expressed thoughts of wise men and women in any given community and is a way of thinking and explaining the world that fluctuates between popular wisdom and didactic wisdom” (Oruka 1990, p. 28). Like the moral practice of Confucianism, the African sage’s thinking process is also grounded in “fundamental ethical and empirical issues relevant to the society” (Oruka 1990, p. xviii), which transcends the individual level to a larger context of information (Asante and Nwadiora 2007; Mazama 2003).

Echoing the comparison of the two philosophies above, Tu Wei-ming actively expounded “the value and significance of Confucianism and took the initiative to have dialogues with Christianity, Catholicism, Islam, Judaism to develop global ethics “(Guo and Zheng 2016, p. 372; Hu 2004, p. 256). He called for our particular attention to “African valuable cultural diversity” (Tu 2012, p. 82). Meanwhile, African American authors have acknowledged the influence of Asian and Asian American political and cultural movements, which have inspired their own creative and evolving literary endeavors (Raphael-Hernandez and Steen 2006). For example, the teachings of Amenemope are similar to the Analects, not only because of the humanism they contain, but also because of their style (Asante 2000).

Therefore, the AfroAsian solidarity or Sino-African cultural community calls for an in-depth intercultural dialog between Chinese and African religious philosophies. In the following part, the authors will compare the two views of transcendence from the perspective of the cultural community in a more systematic and synthetic way.

5. Sino-African Cultural Community on Transcendence

5.1. Philosophical Sense

Transcendence embodies three distinct senses: the metaphysically absolute, the divine realm, and a quality that surpasses a certain threshold, with the latter being the most commonly understood sense. The concept of transcendence in Confucianism pertains to the broadest and most encompassing interpretation (Zhang 2008), which can be understood as an ability of self-reflection or self-realization, namely, to separate oneself from the current environment. During self-reflection, there are four dimensions that need to be noted in the conceptualization of the Confucian style of moral reasoning. One is the question of the self. The second is the question of community understood in a very sophisticated way. In other words, the community is not only the nation, but also the society, our family, university, dormitory, and small working group. It is a much more concrete idea of a series of concentric circles.

The third one is nature and the fourth one is heaven, which is not God, Brahman, or Buddha, but a transcendent referent. Heaven is a category which cannot be reduced to nature. Put simply, the self is always an essential relationship. The community is ideally a community of trust. Nature is our home, and heaven is the ultimate source of the meaning of life (Tu 1996). “It is through preserving one’s mind and nourishing one’s nature that one may serve Heaven” (Bloom 2009, p. 144). The initial motivation of Confucianism to transcend or learn is not for parents, society, or state, but for cultivating and improving one’s own personality. Inward cultivation is to study objects, gain knowledge, upright the mind, and accumulate sincerity. Outward cultivation is to cultivate the self, regulate family, govern the state, and then lead the world to peace (Tu 2012). Confucianism attaches great importance to the subjectivity of the individual and morality, centering around “the self”. It holds that an individual is by no means an isolated self, but the center of a radiating relationship network. According to Mencius, there are five human relations: “that between parents and children there is affection; between ruler and minister, rightness; between husband and wife, separate functions; between older and younger, proper order; and between friends, faithfulness” (Bloom 2009, p. 57). The notion of radiating circles is also consonant with Hume’s concentric circles of reducing loyalties, which posit that “human beings love and are loyal to their families first, and then their loyalty diminishes as they move from the center to the periphery” (Calloway-Thomas 2010, p. 4). Only by extending the love of oneself to others can we make long-term meaningful work for the country and the world, as shown in the following radiating figure (Tu 2012, p. 98):

The Confucian Style of Moral Reasoning.

The view of transcendence from the perspective of Afrocentricity also refers to a quality that transcends ordinary experience and appears in the harmonious relationship between man and nature or individual and group (Asante 2003). The harmony between man and nature is basically anthropocentric: man is the core of existence, with all the other elements in the natural world being perceived in relation to this pivotal human position. As the explanation of humans’ origin and sustenance, God seems to exist for the sake of individuals. Animals, plants, land, rain, and other natural objects and phenomena are seen as components of the human environment, deeply integrated into the African people’s profound understanding of the cosmos (Mbiti 1970).

Corresponding to the four dimensions of self-reflection in embodied Confucianism, Africans also have their own ontology, which is divided into five dimensions (Mbiti 1970, p. 20):

• God as the ultimate explanation of the genesis and sustenance of both man and all things.
• Spirits being made up of superhuman beings and the spirits of men who died a long time ago.
• Man including human beings who are alive and those about to be born.
• Animals and plants, or the remainder of biological life.
• Phenomena and objects without biological life.

With man as the center, the Afrocentric transcendence is also embodied in the harmony between individual and group in the form of horizontal and vertical kinship systems. The horizontal system can be described as an expansive, all-encompassing network that extends in all lateral directions, aiming to include every member of a local community. This implies that each person is interconnected with every other person, and there is a rich vocabulary of kinship terms available to express the precise kind of relationship pertaining between two individuals (Mbiti 1970). The individual’s awareness of their own identity, the duties they are bound by, and the rights and responsibilities they have towards themselves and others is only fully realized in the context of their relationships with others (Mbiti 1970). The vertical system includes the departed and those yet to be born. The genealogy gives a profound sense of historical continuity, a feeling of being deeply connected to one’s roots, and a profound sense of duty and engagement to perpetuate the lineage (Mbiti 1970).

In Africans’ view, the two kinds of life are interdependent and inseparable. They believe that human society is a continuous family of the dead, the living, and the coming (those yet to be born) (Zhang 2021).

From the perspective of the cultural community, the philosophical senses of transcendence in embodied Confucianism and Afrocentric religion both value man’s important role in the universe. The difference lies in the fact that transcendence in embodied Confucianism is anthropocosmic, which means a continuous interchange of vital energy between the human body (anthropo-) and Heaven, Earth, and the myriad things (cosmic). With man as the starting point of an ever-expanding network of relationships, Confucian transcendence includes inward cultivation and outward cultivation by way of our bodies being experientially in communication with every conceivable modality of being (Tu 1992). Afrocentric transcendence is anthropocentric by holding that everything is in relation to the central position of man, who especially transcends the simple experiential life with a sense of obligation and deep rootedness in the form of the horizontal and vertical kinship systems.

5.2. The Ultimate Goal

In the Confucian tradition, the concept of benevolence in the form of “the unity of heaven and earth” is the highest embodiment of self-transcendence, which means benefiting both self and others (Tu 2012, p. 105), and is manifest in the following quotations:

“Heaven is my father and Earth is my mother, and even such a small being as I finds an intimate place in their midst. Therefore, that which fills the universe I regard as my body and that which directs the universe I regard as my nature. All people are my brothers and sisters, and all things are my companions.”

(Zhang 1963, pp. 497–98)

“When the Mean, the great root of all-under-heaven and Harmony, the penetration of the Way through all-under-heaven are actualized, Heaven and Earth are in their proper positions, and the myriad things are nourished.”

(Muller 1991)

Dong Zhongshu, the most famous Confucian scholar of the Han Dynasty, greatly reinforced the metaphysical concept of benevolence. He elevated it to a theological level (he named it after the archaic “way of heaven”), claiming that it was the source of the existence of the whole universe and the ultimate external moral core. He also put forward the thought of “unity of nature and man”, which was regarded as the perfect theory of Confucianism by the Song Dynasty, Ming theory, and even contemporary Confucianism, and was constantly inherited and expounded. Therefore, as a transcendent being, Heavenly Way also exists in the heart of human beings. “Heaven, human nature, and nature are intrinsically integrated with each other. This is the basic feature of Chinese classical thought” (Zhang 2008, p. 120). This concept finds its expression in many Confucius sayings like “extending the respect of the aged in one’s family to that of other families and extending the love of the young ones in one’s family to that of other families” and “If you want to establish yourself, help others establish themselves”, which reflect a win–win concept.

The ultimate goal of Afrocentric religion can be illustrated with a diagram. The apex of the triangle symbolizes the supreme god in heaven, and the man is at the bottom of the line, which symbolizes the land. The ancestors and countless spirits are on slanting edges separately (Zhang 2022).

In this diagram, God is the creator and the force that maintains human life; the spirits interpret the fate of humanity. Humans are at the core of this existential framework. The animal, plants, and all natural phenomena and objects form the backdrop of human existence, offering sustenance and, if necessary, a spiritual connection. This human-centered view of existence is an indivisible whole, a unity that cannot be disrupted or annihilated. To undermine or eliminate any part of this framework would be to jeopardize the entire reality, including the divine being, which is an impossibility. Each form of existence is contingent upon all the others, necessitating a delicate equilibrium to prevent these elements from becoming too distant or overly intertwined (Mbiti 1970).

Therefore, according to Afrocentric religion, transcendence is, in the end, “the regulation of a harmonious power”, which guides us to seek the “type of connections, interactions, and meetings that lead to harmony”. “I am most healthy when I am harmonized with others. I am most in touch with transcendence when I am moving in time to others” (Asante 1998, pp. 201–4). The secret of African American spirituality is that the individuality of the responsibility cannot be carried out without others. Our own transcendence can only be reached with the help of others. It can be represented by the philosophical and religious concept of Maat, which essentially means “truth, justice, balance, harmony, righteousness, and reciprocity” (Asante [2000] 2007, p. 186).

In the context of the Sino-African cultural community, the ultimate goal is to foster a solidarity that embodies the harmonious and reciprocal principles found in Afrocentric religions and embodied Confucianism. But with the goal comes along different human propensities. Afrocentric religion attaches greater importance to individual responsibility while embodied Confucian thinkers believe that the goal of transcendence entails sympathetic and empathic identification, indicating a common experience of “forming one body with all” (Tu 1992, p. 97).

5.3. Vehicle for Transcendence

When talking about the vehicle for transcendence in embodied Confucianism, Tu (2012, p. 98) maintains that it is necessary to “learn to be human or build character”, rather than “simply acquire knowledge”. It should be a broadening process of learning for the sake of the self as a central relationship, which is a ceaseless process. One way of looking at this endless process is to imagine our life in terms of a series of concentric circles from the person to the family, to neighborhood, to society, to nation, to the world, and beyond. Anything that a person does is meaningful not in a very limited, private sense, but politically, socially, and even cosmologically. To say the self is the central relationship is to suggest the idea of the self as a stream that flows, rather than a static structure, which is always in a ceaseless process of transformation full of unpredictabilities, new possibilities, experiences, and new kinds of danger. Each human being is a concrete living being situated in a particular time, space, and all kinds of social forces (Tu 1996).

Confucianism believes that the primordial ties are so much a part of us. Not only do they need to be recognized as constraints, but also they should be recognized as resources for self-realization or transcendence. Therefore, the answer is that a person can become what he or she ought to be not by transcending his or her ethnicity, gender, or language, but by realizing himself or herself through his or her ethnicity, work, and gender. In this way, those constraints will become a way of trying to free oneself. To transform the constraints into instruments of self-realization becomes an important aspect of the Confucian quest for transcendence. Each community that is meaningful to our personal self-realization is both a condition as well as a constraint and an instrument of self-realization. If we cannot go beyond our self-centeredness, we suffer from egoism and selfishness. We can only care for the things that are immediately relevant to us, not even our close family members. But if we can only relate meaningfully to our family members, rather than anyone else, then Confucian ethics becomes a kind of mafia ethic. Internally there is a great deal of sense of affection and concern, but very brutal, sometimes extremely insensitive to the area that is outside the family circle. If we do not go beyond our neighborhood, we suffer from parochialism. If we do not go beyond our ethnic group, we suffer from our ethnocentrism. If we cannot go beyond our country, we suffer from nationalistic chauvinism. If we cannot go beyond our own gender group, we suffer from either exclusive male orientation or exclusive female orientation. If we cannot go beyond the human species, we believe that anything that is good for the human species is good for everything. Man is the measure of all things. Then, we suffer from a human disease—anthropocentrism (Tu 1996).

Then, what is the best way to broaden this process of learning? Tu (1996) suggests transcendence or self-realization should be realized in ordinary human existence, which implies another deepening process and takes our body absolutely seriously. Confucian learning is body learning. The body is not something we own, but a place where we are in. We learn to become our bodies. All learning is to allow the experience of learning to be inscribed in our body, which is transformed as a proper expression of our emotions and of our rational way of dealing with the outside world to purify our soul and to make our spirit brilliant. Therefore, the Confucians talk about learning archery, song, dance, and calligraphy, which are all connected with the body discipline, or ritualization that allows the body to follow certain kinds of rituals. Huang (2007, pp. 196–97) also maintained that this type of body, as a “moral agents with the ability to think and make value judgments”, is “thoroughly penetrated by social values and norms”. For example, when Confucius describes the realm of “sixty years old and obedient”, the spiritual progress of his journey, the “body” in this realm does not refer to a human organ with hearing ability, but a body that can make a judgment “in the face of all kinds of value discourses”, so that any discourse that enters the “ear” will be “obedient,” and there is no longer any “contrary to the ear” speech. Therefore, to realize transcendence in personality, rationality, and morality, the key vehicles are dialog and listening, which have a long history in China as in the Analects of Confucius. Dialogue can cultivate our ability to listen, especially to the voices of those who do not share our values. The morality of listening is a very important value in Confucianism. In Mencius’ description, Confucius’ life realm is expressed by music, which is the echo of the harmony between heaven and earth. From that harmony, all things receive their being (Chapter of Yue Ji n.d.). In the Confucian Temple, you can listen to the” sound of gold (indicating the music is just beginning) “and “jade (indicating the music is almost ending)”. In the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the performance of rites and music represented Chinese Confucian culture. The so-called harmony is the pleasure achieved by the “resonance of various musical instruments” (Tu 2012, p. 44), with which to appease and purify people’s hearts, stabilize society, and achieve the function of individual spiritual transcendence and national governance.

Similarly, the Afrocentric vehicle for transcendence, according to Asante, is also firstly to interact with others, accompanied by magical words. What African preachers were “seeing or experiencing or trying to analyze was the way the African world approached the generative powers of the spoken word” (Asante [2000] 2007, p. 68). It is only in the give and take of the nommo, not in the lives of solitude, that we find energy. The most beautiful thing is ecstasy that occurs when a group of people have got on the same road to harmony at the same moment in the collective expression of power, which is the true manifestation of spirituality and the state of transcendence. The value put on the spoken word is the message of both sacred and secular orators in the African American experience, as can be found in Malcolm’s and Martin Luther King’s rhetoric, which was meant to move their audiences toward the ultimate goal of possession, or attaining harmony through style and power (Asante 1998).

The second vehicle is rhythm, especially the call-and-response mode, which is a principal path to transcendence for African Americans. For example, the short story Sonny’s Blues by the famous African American writer James Baldwin shows the great charm of black music represented by blues and jazz: the revival was being carried on by three sisters in black, and a brother. All they had were their voices and their Bibles and a tambourine. But their unity and cooperation allowed them to achieve the artistic charm of black music. “As the singing filled the air the watching, listening faces underwent a change, the eyes focusing on something within; the music seemed to soothe a poison out of them; and time seemed, nearly, to fall away from the sullen, belligerent, battered faces, as though they were fleeing back to their first condition, while dreaming of their last” (Baldwin 1998, p. 854). Through the description of the Revival meeting, Baldwin not only promoted the spirit of unity in the creation of black folk music and the soothing effect of music on black people, but also combined music with another black tradition—religion, consciously raising music to the height of religion (Bi and Tan 2011). Another case in point is Ralph Ellison’s works; the deep and melancholy blues music in his novels, as a metaphor for black people’s way of living, is not only a kind of emotional text used for performance, but also a survival philosophy and expression transcending suffering (Tan 2007). According to Asante (1998, p. 210), “a people oppressed and discriminated against created a liberated and free thought” in the form of music, which contains “the quality of freedom and transcendence”, and is the essence of the Afrocentric ideal as expressed in African American culture.

From the perspective of the Sino-African cultural community on the vehicle for transcendence, we may observe that both philosophies acknowledge the transformation of the constraints of primordial ties or ethnicity into tools for self-realization, achieved through the medium of music, which brings harmony, purification, and freedom to individuals and helps them transcend the restrictions of reality. In addition to that, embodied Confucianism values body learning and discipline in the form of ritualization while Afrocentricity prioritizes the generative powers of the spoken word toward the ultimate goal of possession or transcendence for the communal good.

5.4. Orientation of Time

A point of departure in the embodied Confucian style of transcendence is a concrete living human being here and now, and reflecting on things at hand and very close to our immediate concern. This is sharply contrasted with some of the great spiritual traditions like Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and so forth, which assume there is some spiritual sanctuary, a realm that is particularly meaningful to us and not necessarily directly linked to the world here and now (Tu 1996). However, Confucians maintain that an individual is not only connected with his or her family, society, country, and the world in space, but also with his or her past and the future in time. For example, the “sacrifice of rites” is the Confucian ancestral worship. As the saying goes, “Pay a careful attention to the funeral rites to parents and recall forefathers, then the virtue of the people will resume its proper excellence”. If the governor treats death as an important matter and honors the ancestors of distant generations, then the morality of the people will tend to be rich (Tu 2012). In other words, the essence of the present can only be enhanced by integrating the legacy of the past with the aspirations of the future. In the Confucian ethos, the concept of a utopia is not sought beyond the confines of society; rather, it is cultivated within the very fabric of society itself. Similarly, the pursuit of heaven is not a journey to a separate realm but a quest to elevate the earthly realm to a state of grace. Unlike the seclusion of Buddhist and Christian monasticism, Confucius advocated for the cultivation of virtue in the midst of daily life, where the noblest spiritual ideals are not merely contemplated but lived and experienced. This is the essence of embodied Confucianism, where the pursuit of the divine is intertwined with the mundane, and the transcendent is found in the ordinary (Tu 2012).

The concept of time in traditional African societies does not hold the same academic interest as it does for Western cultures. In these societies, time is viewed as a tapestry woven from past events, current experiences, and imminent occurrences. This perspective leads to a two-dimensional understanding of time, characterized by a rich history and a present moment, while not neglecting the future because the latter is also embodied in the ancestors. The Western linear perception of time, which encompasses an extensive past, a present, and an endless future differs from African thought. The future is considered almost non-existent because it is unmanifested and unrealized, thus it cannot form part of the temporal framework that is recognized in African traditional thinking (Mbiti 1970).

When explaining the orientation of time in Afrocentric transcendence, Asante holds that the person does not look for external powers to produce self-definition or self-transcendence, but develops inherent powers as an extension into the future of those who have gone before. The person is a testament to his or her forebears in a different guise, living in a different world (Asante 1998). In reality, African people place a profound emphasis on the significance of history. They hold the belief that following the cessation of physical life, a person’s trace does not swiftly vanish. The individual’s presence is sustained through the memories of those who were acquainted with him during his earthly existence and have outlived him. Individuals honor their legacy by recalling the names of their ancestors, though it is not always explicitly stated. Traditional Africans cherish the memory of their ancestors’ demeanor, traits, utterances, and the significant events of the life of the ancestors. If they “appear” (as people believe), they are recognized by name. The deceased ones are primarily perceived by the elder members of their family line, and seldom, if ever, by the younger generation (Mbiti 1970).

As far as the worship of ancestors is concerned, Afrocentricity is consistent with embodied Confucianism, which holds that ancestors seem to be more important than gods in everyday life. We must revere and appease our ancestors. They must be summoned and respected as agents of change. Ancestors help us understand human society because they live in it with a keen insight into the nature of ordinary life, represent moral and social values, and could serve as guiding principles for a good society (Li 2017), where we become more human and in tune with the rhythms of the universe, therefore, realizing the transcendence embodied in harmonious power (Asante 1998).

Although both perspectives share a transcendental view, they exhibit significant differences. Confucian transcendence is embodied in the harmony of past, present, and future, with a particular focus on the present moment. It posits that every individual should lead a daily life infused with the highest spiritual values, which are not just anticipated in the future but are actively experienced in the present, with great respect for the past, which is memorialized in the ancestors. This in turn enriches the current moment with the legacy of the past. In contrast, the Afrocentric concept of time is two-dimensional, characterized by a profound sense of the past and the present, yet with an almost negligible sense of the future. Their transcendental experience of time is manifested in the cultivation of inherent abilities that are inherited from ancestors, drawing strength from those who have preceded them. This does not mean that Africans have no conception of the future. Rather, it is a matter of emphasis.

5.5. Thinking Pattern

The “exclusive dichotomy” approach in Western philosophy is characterized by the “either/or” methodology, which is evident from the mind–body dualism in ancient Greek philosophy, through to the spirit–flesh, God–human (creator-creation) dichotomies in later Christian thought, and extending to the distinctions between the objective and subjective, materialism and idealism. These concepts have all employed mutually exclusive categories as the fundamental criteria for reasoning.

Contrasting with Western linear thinking, the transcendent perspective found in embodied Confucianism includes a “dialogical dichotomy” in the form of “both-and”. This could be aptly described as the yin–yang mode of thinking, which represents a more integrated and harmonious approach to philosophical inquiry. According to this mode, the yang is in the yin and the yin is in the yang in the form of mutuality and interchange. Tu (1992, p. 96) explained this mode of thinking as follows:

“The relationship between yin and yang is, therefore, both contradictory and complementary. The creative tension engendered by the fundamentally different thrusts of vital energy provides the wellspring for the great transformation of Heaven, Earth, and the myriad things. Actually, not only concrete living things but all modalities of being, including mountains, rivers, rocks, buildings, economic structures, political institutions, social organizations, and cultural artifacts, are the results of the generative power of yin-yang vital energy. The self, family, community, state, world, and universe are all suffused with the same kind of energy that makes the body alive”.

In essence, all things hinge on personal development. While managing one’s household requires a complex process of self-cultivation, governing a state presents additional challenges beyond this, though it may not be as intricate as achieving global harmony. In the pursuit of universal peace, the importance and complexity of self-cultivation become even more pronounced. To put it another way, when a household is in order, the focus is primarily on self-cultivation. When a state is governed, the task is not only self-cultivation but also includes the regulation of households. And when striving for world peace, the challenges encompass not just self-cultivation and household management, but also the governance of the state itself (Tu 2012).

The concept of yin-yang is also mirrored in the progression from sensitivity to sensibility, from sensibility to rationality, and ultimately from rationality to the realms of sympathy and empathy. This progression uncovers the essence of transcendence within the framework of embodied Confucianism. It implies that “sensibility is inherently linked to sensitivity; rationality encompasses both sensibility and sensitivity; and in the case of sympathy and empathy, all three—rationality, sensibility, and sensitivity—are integrated” (Tu 2012, p. 218). Beyond moral and intellectual dimensions, there exists a form of “knowledge of experience” or embodied knowing, which transcends the confines of the mind and heart (Tu 2012, p. 249). This is akin to a skill, a kung fu if you will, that “the body cultivates to assimilate the external world” (Tu 2012, p. 198). This cyclical mode of thought embodies the dynamic interplay between the part and the whole.

When talking about the difference between the Western thinking pattern and the traditional African world view, Asante maintains that the Western bias of categorization, which “divides people into teachers and pupils, sinners and saved, black and white, superior and inferior, weak and strong has developed the catastrophic disharmonies that we experience in the world”. The opposite of this bias is “the practicality of wholism, the prevalence of poly-consciousness, the idea of inclusiveness, the unity of worlds, and the value of personal relationships” (Asante [2000] 2007, p. 36) as expressed in Afrocentric transcendence. According to it, a healthy personality is grounded in the African idea of spiritual commitment to an ideological view of harmony, which is the source of all literary, rhetorical, or behavioral actions. The only important task of a person is to realize the promise of becoming human by performing actions that lead to harmony in the midst of others. One form of harmony where the Afrocentric transcendence finds its expression can be seen from the vertical kinship systems, which includes the departed and those yet to be born. Unlike Christianity, which maintains the separation of the spirit from the body and “a reincarnation that means the reentering of a body of the spirit that had left the dead person”, an Afrocentric point of view believes that an ancestor is not “a ghost, or spirit, but a person who lives, speaks, makes decisions, and can present in many different individuals at the same time and never leave the world of invisibility” (Asante [2000] 2007, p. 62). Therefore, a one-to-one reincarnation is replaced by the ancestor’s appearance in several descendants. Take the Akan for example; their concept of community is in the construction of the person as “soul, personality, and blood” (Asante [2000] 2007, p. 62). However, this cannot be understood in a Platonic sense, featuring the analytical thinking mode; it must be seen as an inseparable force of the human, a holistic thinking pattern, which shows there are no split humans in African culture. The holistic belief in the community of the dead as one with the living community means more than the oneness between the past, present, and future. “There was only what had been done before and what would be done again. This was not to be thought of as past and future, but, rather an orientation to the whole universe, a perspective on natural and human phenomena, and an acceptance of the inter-connectedness of the living with the dead and even the unborn” (Asante [2000] 2007, p. 43).

Although there is a shared holistic approach to transcendent thinking in both embodied Confucianism and Afrocentricity, it is important to recognize the distinct differences, unique elements, and potential limitations within embodied Confucianism. These aspects highlight the inherent paradoxes of transcendental thought, which can be outlined as follows:

The Confucians place a significant emphasis on self-cultivation as a pathway to moral and intellectual development. However, this focus can sometimes lead to egocentrism and self-centeredness, where the individual’s growth becomes an end in itself, potentially neglecting the collective good. While Confucianism highly values the family unit as a foundational element for personal growth and self-realization, it can also foster nepotism and an unhealthy degree of family connectedness. This can result in a form of familial loyalty that resembles the close-knit, yet potentially corrupt, structure of mafia organizations. Confucians consider their immediate neighbors and community as integral to forming a supportive network. This network can be immensely powerful in fostering a sense of belonging and mutual aid. However, it can also lead to parochialism, where local interests and perspectives dominate, potentially excluding broader societal concerns. Confucianism is not immune to ethnocentrism, nationalism, anthropocentrism, and other forms of centrism. These biases can limit the universal application of Confucian principles, as they may be overly focused on the cultural, national, or human perspective, to the exclusion of other forms of life or broader ecological considerations (Tu 1996).

This paradox confirms Derrida’s argument that community has a suicidal tendency in the form of “autoimmunity”, which results from the overemphasis on an aspiration and an ideal featured by commonality, sharing, belonging, connection, and attachment, and therefore, might lead to the disintegration of transcendental community.

6. Conclusions

As Asante put it, “Afrocentricity is not the reverse of Eurocentrism. With other options one might want to assume an Asian identity and Asian agency or, in the distant future, a Martian or alien agency” (2007, p. 18). His words resonate with Tu’s suggestion that “we should not be limited to capitalism and socialism, or only talk about North America, European Union and East Asia. It’s also very necessary to know about Africa” (Tu 2012, p. 82). As the fusion of these two visions, the Sino-African cultural community has consistently been forward-looking, foreseeing a future where the prominence of whiteness diminishes, the world of diverse ethnicities becomes more interconnected and unified, and the potential for social initiatives rooted in essentialism or separatism is reduced (Raphael-Hernandez and Steen 2006). What is not debatable is that Sino-African solidarity needs a constant reorientation to itself by advocating dialog on an equal footing, mutual appreciation and integration among different civilizations, safeguarding the world’s cultural diversity, and pushing forward the advancement of human civilization and the peaceful development of the world. The comparison between the views of the transcendence of Afrocentricity and embodied Confucianism adds to this solidarity and promotes the dialog and complementation of these two philosophies. Only by placing these traditional religions or philosophies under the global framework to be influenced by the tide of internationalization, and finding the convergence point with each other while reserving differences, can they be integrated into the modern world in the form of glocalization or rooted cosmopolitanism and therefore, be helpful for creating a more sane society and a model for a more humane world.