Confucianism and the modern world – A short essay.

Posted by Tadzio Goldgewicht on Sep 20, 2011 in Articles, Classics, Culture | 3 comments

The greatest Chinese educator - Confucius

Confucianism is the school of thought initiated by Confucius, one of China’s greatest thinkers and educators. The school has developed, thus changing some of its ideas, adapting to new realities and revealing the thinking of later masters. Yet, in this essay, I will be utilizing the traditional teachings of Confucius, as exposed in the book “Lun Yu”, also known as “Kong Zi” or, in English, “The analects”.

In my article entitled “Tattoos in modern China – a cultural overview”, I have written about how many traditional aspects of the Chinese culture are being left aside, either by being replaced by imported western values and ideas or just by being completely forgotten, continuing living only in the collective unconscious of the population (until when I do not know, but this is certainly a point of the utmost importance that will surely be addressed in a future essay). Being that Confucianism is the moral basis adopted by the Chinese society, it is important to first be clear about its place in modern China.

 Yet, what is important to notice here is that most Chinese people will probably not understand the true value of Confucius.

When it comes to Confucius, Chinese will have an attitude that is, by default, almost worshiping in nature. Confucius is not only a man anymore, it (the reader will notice I chose the word “it” instead of “he”. This choice clearly shows the actual status of Confucius, that has already surpassed that of a “man”, catapulting the old sage to the status of “entity”) is a kind of symbol, an iconic arquetype that represents at the same time China and its spirit, and the Chinese are proud of him. Yet, what is important to notice here is that most Chinese people will probably not understand the true value of Confucius. Once again, as noted in the above mentioned article, the Chinese will take Confucius’ greatness for granted in the sense that if you discuss the subject with them, they will be quick to point out how great the master was, but will generally fail to show any kind of insight into his teachings. For some people this might, in fact, indicate a deep level of cultural internalization, representing that the teachings of the master have gone so deep into Chinese culture that people practice them by default, unconsciously, unburden by the necessity of having to actually understand them. Some others, including myself, would argue that mechanical repetition without understanding is the mark of ignorance, and as such should not be hailed as a high-level attainment, even though it certainly has a social value that reveals itself when the necessity to educate in the most basic social levels arises.

Confucianism values, having reached the very core of Chinese culture, are visible in everything the Chinese do, but it does not mean, as I explained above, that they actually understand them. That would be most desirable, but it is certainly not the case. Here then, we unveil a reality that is twofold: very beautiful and very sad. It is beautiful because it reveals the everlasting power of the thoughts of a man that lived thousands of years ago, and that, in a way, the dream that he had so long ago still lives through the daily actions and thoughts of billions of people. It is beautiful because we can see how these thoughts lasted through time, while men have died, dynasties have perished, and ideas have been forgotten. Yet, Confucianism survived and shaped the way a civilization thinks. Such is the greatness in it. Simultaneously, it is sad to perceive how this great legacy is being forgotten and how it is becoming more and more subjective, being relegated to a place where its greatness and value are taken for granted or, at times, completely forgotten by the very same ones that benefitted so much from it. Tragic, to say the least.

Behavior that would be morally condemned a few years ago is now beginning to be accepted as commonplace.

Society changes, society promotes change, is affected and defined by it. Values remain, but the understanding of them may (and quite often does) not remain the same, morphing throughout time and adapting to new social conventions, while some would argue that social conventions are the adapting element. Nevertheless, in our modern society, it is clear that although some of the values we hold central to our lives are still present, the understanding we have of them has certainly mutated into something quite different. Behavior that would be morally condemned a few years ago is now beginning to be accepted as commonplace. Honesty, for example, that was once a value which evoked feelings of admiration, is now, for many people, the mark of a naïve individual. It was replaced by the necessity of self-profit that, as a value, seems to have surpassed the former in importance. The very notion of being moral, of having a set of moral principles that would guide a person’s life, is not en vogue anymore. What is en vogue is extreme individualism, extreme self-profit and extreme egotism.

One cannot have a nostalgic attitude towards this phenomenon. It is most certainly one of the signs that the human race has been failing during its time as rulers of the planet. We have achieved much, but still cannot think collectively. Intolerance and war are still, as they were since the dawn of man, words that do not cease to accompany us. Nevertheless, we must understand that this failing reveals nothing but our own nature as human beings. We are neither as important nor as evolved as we like to think we are. World peace, no hunger, tolerance and love, might not be reachable goals and might exist only in the minds of visionaries, fools or people that are ahead of their time. At this moment in time, I cannot say I believe we can truly live in peace and harmony, but we can certainly settle for the next best thing: social order. Perhaps the very reason why those utopic values seem so distant is the fact we do not have true social order – not in most countries.

The Confucian perfect society was called “Da Tong”. I believe that even for the old master this society was utopic in nature. He desired it but knew it was unattainable, or, in the very least, unattainable during his lifetime. Having realized this he understood that if he was to reform society he needed to begin from the very basic: by laying down basic social values, defining them and explaining both their meaning and their practice in simple terms, so that the common people could benefit from them.

 You have to play the game, perpetrate the lie.

I see a direct parallel between our modern society and the Chinese society during the life of Confucius. Both now and then, there is (was) much confusion. Values that were once considered important are now regarded as useless and morality seems to be unimportant. Just as Confucianism in modern China, most people learn traditional values by default: one must care about others, must practice good etc. These and other values are taught us at home and at school, because these are values we believe in. However, do we honestly still believe in them? Most people would answer yes. Ironically, it does not mean they believe in what they say, because for most people, these values are merely something taught to us, things we must consider right by default, even if in our hearts, we do not agree with them. Not agreeing is acceptable, as long as you wear your mask and tell everyone else you agree. You have to play the game, perpetrate the lie. There are those who truly still believe in those values, in having values, those who do not believe in them at all, and those that are not quite sure about what to do. Confusion indeed. Nevertheless, educating people is one of the solutions for this problem, and so, in a world as confused as ours, a few thousand years ago, the master called upon himself the responsibility to educate as many as he could.

As I wrote, society in the time of Confucius was, like in our time, very confusing. It was so in the sense that the moral values that should be the basis for social behavior and interaction were not being put to use. One could argue that those values were still present, and they indeed were. However, as in our modern society, the presence of a certain value does no guarantee that people will use it or live by it. Therefore, it might have been that the values were there but not being put to use or that there were no values (or perhaps there were different ones) at all. Nevertheless, the master felt that society was sick and the sickness was ignorance on the nature of moral values, their implementation and benefits. Showing an amazing degree of self-confidence, which is often considered by the ignorant to be a sign of pride, Confucius believed not only that society was sick, but also that he had the cure for its disease: his own teachings on the subject.

Since the social moment we are living now closely resembles that of the time of Confucius, I believe the instructions of the late master can (and actually should) be used today. In a first moment, it might seem unlikely that we use, in our modern society, teachings that were created thousands of years ago, but after some deeper analysis we can clearly see why this is not the case. First of all the teachings of Confucius are not instructions for the Chinese people only, they are teachings that have social benefit as their main objective. China, as we know it, did not exist at that time and Confucius led quite the international lifestyle. He travelled through several countries teaching his ideas. Therefore, it is perfectly plausible that western people, for example, can benefit from his teachings. Furthermore, we have to keep in mind that westerners, as people, do not differ so much from the Chinese as many would like to think. Yes, we do things differently, and yes, we do understand values differently, but we both have, basically, the same values, only understanding them in a different way.

 I believe that to some extent we have sacrificed the importance of moral values and their role as “social stabilizers”.

Socially speaking we have fought to arrive at where we stand now and we should, I believe, be proud of what we achieved. Even though there is still a long way to go, we can clearly identify many key social improvements in the last few centuries. Some would say we reached the peak of social advancement so far, meaning that we are now as socially advanced as we have ever been. Although this seems to be a correct statement, one could not deny that we reached such a place having to sacrifice a few things, and even though sacrifice is definitely part of the game, I think we should investigate a bit further on what we have sacrificed. I believe that to some extent we have sacrificed the importance of moral values and their role as “social stabilizers”. Social stabilizers are those elements that will contribute to the well-being of society as a whole, by promoting a more balanced interaction between people, thus allowing society to become more stable and harmonized. As I wrote in the eight paragraph, it seems clear that society is, to say the least, unbalanced. In my opinion, it is so because, for the sake of advancement, we have sacrificed a few of those social stabilizers. There are many indications that show this to be the case. One of them would be the fact that at the same time western society shows amazing social improvements, the world is still socially unstable, perishing from violence, intolerance and other diseases. It is so now, and it was so in the time of Confucius.

The basis of Confucius’ teachings is morality. While other schools of thought had religious elements build into them, those played an unimportant role in his teachings. Religiosity, the existence of God or Gods, the relationship between men and the “supernatural” are all secondary (to say the least) for him. For Confucius first things came first and on his list, social order and harmony were more important. He believed that social order was the most basic requirement and that other goals should be considered only after attaining it. Differently than what we think today, he believed that the collective was more important than the individual good. The master understood that the collective good, disguised as an unselfish element, was actually the way to achieve true and lasting individual good. There is, apparently, a right way be selfish.

By making clear that true benefit comes from directly benefiting society, he lays down the foundations for his work.

By making clear that true benefit comes from directly benefiting society, he lays down the foundations for his work. Perhaps he understood that people are selfish by nature and that the only motivation that makes them work is self-benefit. He then added the concept that self-benefit is directly related to social order and that you cannot have the former without the latter . By doing so, he makes sure that even though people are motivated by self-benefit they will always achieve it by benefiting society. A true epitome for justified cynicism. In here, there is no place for romanticism, self-delusion or hypocrisy about the grandeur of the human race, just the unavoidable finding that we, as humans, are motivated by self-benefit.

Whatever a society wishes to achieve or accomplish, proper health benefits, human rights, international recognition or internal stability, it can only do so if it has attained, at least, a basic level of social order. For Confucius social order meant two things: that people understood their role in society and that they acted accordingly. For him, society was much like a high precision machine. Such a machine is composed of independent parts, each one having an individual role or function that should be perfectly performed in order for the whole to work as it should. We could say that this was Confucius society, a place where people knew what their function was and what kind of actions or behavior that function required. Obviously, one cannot lay down all the roles that could possibly exist and the expected behavior for each one of them, therefore, what the master did was to teach his disciples about the most basic and most important roles and the actions and behaviors required of them.

 How well these social interactions occur will determine the wellbeing of a nation.

There are, basically, three types of relations that will directly affect social order. They are the relations between an individual and his family, an individual and other individuals, and an individual and the ones in power. How well these social interactions occur will determine the wellbeing of a nation. Within these social interactions, the master defines basic roles, such as the father, the son, the brother, the friend, the king, the minister etc. After having defined these roles, he then proceeds to describe basic values that will determine how social interaction should happen. Values such as benevolence, trustworthiness and courage are explained in detail, as well as their social need and functions.

Since this is not an essay that addresses the particulars of the Confucian doctrine, I will not write about how, in Confucius’ system, predetermined roles interplay with predefined moral values. For now, I believe it is enough to understand that this interplay does happen and is vital for the existence of a balanced society. The absence of it represents social chaos, much like the one we have been living under, even though it seems to be a popular choice to masquerade it under the veil of social advancement. Therefore, it is important to acknowledge the failure in not only utilizing, but also in defining moral values in our modern society. Nowadays, we fail not only by not defining or implementing moral values, but also by not clearly educating people on the benefits of having moral values. At first, such a statement might be met with disbelief – after all, who does not know why we need to have defined moral values and use them? Once again, we take for granted that we do know, when in fact we do not, because if we did we would most surely implement them. It seems that in our modern age we do not think much about certain social elements that were attained through much fight and sacrifice. We just have them and this is enough in itself. Things that should be remembered, such as why, how and for how long we fought for them, lie now forgotten in the memory of those that still find important to remember. Almost everyone will have a ready to go speech on morality and its social need, but do they really believe in what they say? Perhaps humans are not only selfish by nature, they are also lazy and frightened. To see it happening one only needs to pay attention to the little things, and example after example will be revealed. It is in the little things that we lift the veil, that hypocrisy fades away and we show who we really are and what we really think.

Confucianism might not be a complete solution for social chaos, but it is an honest approach to human nature and to what truly motivates us, and at how we could objectively attain social order, not by being hypocrites at what we really are, but by making use of it for a greater good, which is , at the same time, personal and collective.