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compromise and functional adaptation to the world. In contrast, Kubin argues that “the I is not the expression of the I of an individual but of the manifestation of that which is universally true. Hence the history of the ‘I’ in China is that of increasing [self] control and not of [its] liberation.” Kwang-kuo Hwang (“Constructive Realism and Confucian Relationalism,” 179–204) distinguishes between “surface structure”—an umbrella term with which he describes the condition of “favor” (renqing 人情), “relationship” (guanxi 關係), and “face” (mianzi 面子)—and “deep structure”—referring to the ethical system of “benevolence-righteousness-propriety” (ren 仁, yi 義, and li 禮).

42. The debate on “shame oriented” versus “guilt oriented” cultures is interconnected with the one on “autonomy-heteronomy” in morality which can be seen as a reflection of the influence of both the psychoanalytic discourse and the publication of Benedict’s famous volume on Japanese ethos (The Chrysanthemum and the Sword). See also Hu Hsien-chin, “The Chinese Concepts of ‘Face,’” 223–242; and Zhu Zhenlou, Cong Shehui Geren yu Wenhua de Guanxi Lun, 85–117. At the end of his study, Eberhard (Guilt and Sin in Traditional China) specifies that there is no clearcut boundary between the Confucian sense of shame and the feeling of guilt. In recent years certain scholars have tried to make a critical analysis of this polarisation of guilt and shame. They have introduced intermediate concepts such as those on the external and internal level of shame. In a more general fashion, Riesman has postulated a tripartite division of personalities: (1) the “tradition-based” on which sanctions are imposed through shame; (2) the “inner-directed” that is sanctioned through the sense of guilt; and (3) the “other-directed” which, instead, is related to the sense of anxiety (The Lonely Crowd, 125).

43. Scheff, “Towards a web of concepts.”

44. Li Jin. “The Organization of Chinese Shame Concepts,” 767.

45. Shaver et al. “Cross-cultural similarities and differences,” cited in Ogarkova “Green-Eyed Monsters,” vol. 13, 91–92.

46. Roetz, Confucian Ethics of the Axial Age, 174–181, and “Chinesische Schamkultur vs. Westliche Schuldkultur?,” 211–226. See also Jin Yaoji (“Mian-chi,” and “Renji Guanxi zhong Renqing zhi Fenxi”), who denies the prevalence of a “shame culture” in China, and gives a moral interpretation to the Chinese ideas of “shame-responsibility” and “face,” which in his view are not to be understood purely as types of formal and external or inner sanction.