Max Weber's study of the interplay of orthodoxy and heterodoxy in Chinese history was accurate, given the limited material
with which he had to work. But for political reasons illuminated by Giddens [136] and others, Weber did not use the category
of social class in either his theoretical work or in his empirical analyses of world religions. In the case of China, in particular
Weber's study of the interplay of orthodoxy (Confucianism) and heterodoxy (Taoissm) remains merely descriptive because of
his refusal to see society in terms of social classes.
Confucianism and Taoism were dialectically opposed on cultural, political and social levels. Their philosophical systems were
at odds; Confucianism presented a rationalistic, moralistic philosophy of social behavior, while Taoism argued for a mystical,
existential philosophy of life. In political theory and practice they were equally at odds: Confucianism became inseparable
from the operating became inseparable from the operating mechanisms of state, while Taoism perceived the state as a repressive
means for maintaining the existing hierarchy, and therefore became the political philosophy of the sects and movements which
challenged the state hegemony. And, finally, Confucianism and Taoism were dialectically opposed on the question of social
class: Confucianism preached the benefits of a stratified and stable hierarchy and provided, therefore, the political philosophy
of repression. Taoism, in contrast, called for the abolition of hierarchy, and provided the ideological basis for rebellion.
Societies must be viewed in their full complexity when one studies broad questions such as the interplay of orthodoxy and
heterodoxy. One cannot settle merely for the sociological or any other social variable. For it is only the dialectical movement
of specific interacting elements, that is, the social totality, which enables us to grasp the means through which societies
reproduce themselves. The momentous paradox is that these continuities and discontinuities, these transformations define the
historical integrity of a culture.
J.W. Freiberg is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Boston University and research fellow at the Centre d'Etudes des Mouvements
Sociaux in Paris.