ENGL 2013: The Analects

Confucius, The Analects

Confucius, like Plato and Socrates, was a real person. He lived in the 6^th Century BC, more or less from 550-470 BC, in NE China. This was just after the Zhou Dynasty collapsed into the Warring States period. Confucius lived, in other words, in interesting (which is to say, unstable) times.

The Warring States period is the period when various major states / city states in China are fighting for hegemony or control of China. It ends when the Qin (Chin) dynasty takes control (briefly) of China. (The Qin dynasty gives China its name.)

During the Warring States peroid, Confucius traveled from city to city attempting to find a ruler who would adopt his philosophy, which Confucius saw as the right way to create a stable family, a stable society, and a stable government.

He had no luck finding a ruler who would listen. He did gain many disciples, and – by the time the Han Dynasty took over from the Qin Dynasty, in about 200 BC – his way of thinking had become the force that governed, and stabilized, China. It would continue to do so for centuries.

Confucius had a system of ideas about how people should act toward one another, which would lead – he believed – to a stable and peaceful world. In this stable and peaceful world, people and civilization could prosper.

The center of Confucius’s system, its central relationship, is that of the father and son.

A father cares for his son: educates him, feeds him, raises him well. A son, in turn, honors, respects, and cares for his father all his life. (Notably, though, even if a father does not educate, feed, or take care of his son, Confucius says the son still has a duty to honor, respect, and care for his father.) This is Xiao, respect for one’s parents. Xiao also applies to the other social bonds in one’s life. 

The duty between a father and a son is the first and most important of the Xiao duties, and a model for the rest.

It was not just the son and the father who had to practice Xiao: there are five relationships, and all of these are reciprocal, though the inferior in each of these owes more to his superior:

·        Emperor to subjects

·        Father to son

·        Husband to wife

·        Older brother to younger brother

·        Friend to friend

Along with Xiao, Confucius speaks of Ren and Li. These three attributes, properly practiced, are the attributes of Junzi.

So what are Li and Ren?

Li: the Way of Behaving. It includes ritual, manners, and morals. In Confucianism, all three of these are very closely linked. Practicing correct ritual behavior will make us moral men.

This is not religious ritual, mind you: it is social ritual, like the proper way to enter a room, and how to greet someone; how to dress, how write a letter, how to speak to an ambassador, the correct way to bow, proper table manners, who opens a door for whom.

These rituals have to do how our world ought to be arranged. Confucianism teaching tells us that if the Li is practiced correctly, our souls and hearts will take care of themselves. (Be what you would seem; become the change you would see in the world; act and you will become.)

Ren: Being human. This is the Confucian concept of the golden rule – that we ought not to do to anyone else what we would not want done to ourselves. It also has to do with ethics and morality. We learn this, according to Confucius, mainly by reading and writing poetry.

All three of these, plus studying the Classics, will give us Junzi. But what is Junzi?

Junzi is a difficult word to translate.

Junzi is how a superior, or an excellent, or a noble man behaves. Junzi is sometimes translated as “gentleman,” but this is a dicey translation, since gentleman in English has a concept of being highborn – as does “noble man,” frankly – and the central concept of Confucius’ Junzi is that birth has nothing to do with it.

Anyone, from a plowboy to the Emperor’s son, can be Junzi. It is in how you behaved, not in who you were born to. The Emperor’s son, if he failed to behave well, was not Junzi; if he behaved well, though, he was. Same for the plowboy.

Junzi is very like the Greek term arête, both in that it is difficult to translate, and that it is central to the philosopher’s thought (here, Confucius’s thought; there, Plato’s).

All through the hierarchies of social order, everyone, from the herdsmen to the Emperor – and the higher up in the social order we rose, the more essential this became, since the behavior of the ruler is more important to the world than the serf – all these people needed to practice Junzi.

How do we attain Junzi?

Among other things, we study hard, practice Xiao, practice Li, and practice Ren.

What do we study, you wonder?

Poetry, all the classics, and of course the Analects. It was also important to avoid petty behavior – stay away from dwelling on greed, and spite, desire and such as that.

As time moved on, Chinese scholars, and those who want to be scholars – or clerks, or to become anything in the Chinese world or government – spend a great deal of time studying the Chinese classics, which include

·        the Analects,

·        the Classics of Chinese Poetry,

·        the Classics of Chinese History, and

·        other works that are considered classics.

They memorize these works, and practice writing them in elaborate calligraphy, because in order to gain work in the government, or to find any sort of important position in Chinese society, it is necessary to pass written exams on these classics.

On the other hand, anyone who can pass these exams – even a kid whose parents are farmers – can rise into the government. (Well, anyone male. Don’t get too crazy.)

This introduction of Meritocracy is Confucianism’s real innovation and the source of its great strength. Confucian thought teaches that one rises or falls by merit – that nobility lies not in blood, but in the qualities of the man himself. Anyone, in theory, can be Junzi – and anyone can fall from nobility.

Thus, a son of nobility who fails to respect his filial duty, who does not practice Li, and does not have Ren, no longer has Junzi; while the son of a merchant, who studies hard and rises by his own merit, can, if he passes the examinations and follows Li, rise into the upper classes and attain Junzi. (This class mobility was one of the things that kept China stable for centuries.)

Final note: Confucianism, like Buddhism, is not a religion (though in some places it became one). No faith or belief is necessary. You only need to follow the rules and precepts to achieve the results. Confucianism makes no promises about an afterlife; in fact, it says little about any next world. It’s a philosophy directed at doing things to make this world better.