Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Confucianism

Starting point is 00:00:00 During the decline of the Zhao dynasty, warfare and clan violence escalated threatening the stability of Chinese civilization, and igniting an era known as the warring states period. But out of this chaos emerged a prolific, itinerant teacher offering a path away from bloodshed in political ruin. His teachings would sustain Chinese culture for more than 2,500 years, and would become the basis for almost every dynasty that followed him. Learn more about the enduring power of Confucian philosophy on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMGM and Game Sense remind you to play responsibly.

Starting point is 00:00:56 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor, free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. Welcome to the I Can't Sleep Podcast with Benjamin Boster.

Starting point is 00:01:24 If you're tired of sleepless nights, you'll love the I Can't Sleep podcast. I help quiet your mind by reading random articles from across the web to bore you to sleep with my soothing voice. Each episode provides enough interesting content to hold your attention, and then your mind lets you drift off. Find it wherever you get your podcasts. That's I Can't Sleep with Benjamin Boster. The philosopher known in the Western world as Confucius was born into an aristocratic family in the Liu province of northern China in 551 BC.

Starting point is 00:02:22 His birth name was Kongshu. The name Confucius is a Latinized form of the Mandarin Kung Fuzi. meaning great Master Kong. So if you went to China and mentioned Confucius to someone, they may have no clue what you were talking about, as he is primarily known today in Chinese as Kongji or Master Kong. Confucius' primary motivation was the decaying political order spreading across a fractured China.

Starting point is 00:02:52 During Confucius' lifetime, the Zhao dynasty was a fractured feudal realm splintered into more than 150 rival states. Hereditary aristocratic families frequently exercised power and warfare between states became increasingly common. Traditional political institutions were collapsing. His philosophy can largely be understood as an attempt to answer a single question. How could social harmony be restored? He had some minor administrative roles in local government, but never got the big promotion that he thought he deserved. But this was a blessing in disguise, as he read,

Starting point is 00:03:29 redirected his focus to teaching. Like Socrates, Confucius taught his students face to face and never wrote any of his teachings and lessons down. His work was preserved by his students who recorded his teachings and compiled them into a collection called the Analex. There is a fair amount of debate about the authenticity of some of the sayings attributed to him. Historian Edwin Moise noted, quote, A considerable portion of the book known as the Analex really does come from accounts of his teachings written by his students, but other sections were inserted into the work long afterwards. While scholars today can sort much of the Annelects into genuine and spurious sections, there are some passages about which doubt still exists, end quote.

Starting point is 00:04:15 The brilliance of the Analects and Confucian thinking as a whole lies in its elegant simplicity. Unlike Greek philosophers who often wrestled with abstract concepts far removed from everyday life, Confucius built a philosophy grounded in practical human relations that anyone could understand and practice. At its heart, Confucian philosophy centered on a simple premise. China could achieve an ideal, peaceful society if its people and rulers embraced fundamental ethical principles and social norms. Confucianism held that a basic social order existed in the universe and that this order generated a natural harmony, linking man to nature and heaven. The analects suggests that everyone in Chinese life played a social role, and if everyone fulfilled that role, the result would be a harmonious order. These social roles

Starting point is 00:05:11 were based on a hierarchy of relationships. In these five relationships, the ruler is superior to the subject, the husband to the wife, the father to the son, the eldest brother to his youngest brother, and the only equal relationship is the dedication and commitment between friends. Confucian teaching held that in the framework of these five relationships, the Superior Party held a sacred duty to provide care, moral guidance, and protection to those under their stewardship. In a concept known as Wren, the senior party was expected to lead by example, embodying the highest standards of sincerity, benevolence, and moral integrity towards those in their care. As Confucian put it, quote,

Starting point is 00:05:56 the relation between superiors and inferiors is like that between the wind and the grass. The grass must bend when the wind blows across it. To put the values of Wren into practice, Confucius relied on two contemporary virtues, Li and Yi. Lee represents ritual propriety, the shared manners, customs, and respectful behaviors that maintain social order, while ye is moral righteousness, the internal duty to do what is inherently right. The Annelax illustrates how internal morality is more effective than coercion. He noted, quote,

Starting point is 00:06:33 Guide them with policies and align them with punishments, and the people will evade them and have no shame. Guide them with virtue and align them with Lee, and the people will have a sense of shame and fulfill their roles. End quote. Confucian philosophy also placed importance on the role of the family in Chinese social and political life. The teachings promoted a principle called Shao or filial piety. Fial piety is the principle that children owe their parents deep,

Starting point is 00:07:03 loyalty, respect, and devotion. This reverence for parents superseded all other values. In contrast, parents have a duty to guide the family with moral integrity and benevolence, as he noted in the Analax, quote, you can be of service to your father and mother by remonstrating with them tactfully. If you perceive that they do not wish to follow your advice, then continue to be reverent towards them without offending or disobeying them. Work hard and don't murmur against them. Confucianism didn't demand blind obedient to parents.

Starting point is 00:07:37 In the Analax, he urged children to tactfully challenge their parents when they go astray, speaking truth with respect. And if the child's counsel is rejected, acting in rebellion or bitter resentment is unacceptable. You have to remain steadfast in your duty. For Confucius, true character wasn't about winning an argument, it was about preserving moral integrity and harmony under tension. Confucius and the scholars who followed him believe that human beings have a natural inclination

Starting point is 00:08:06 towards improvement. To satisfy that capacity, Confucian's advocated systems of formal education. Confucius promoted the education of, the six arts. To become an exemplary person or a jun-seh, students were expected to master the ancient six arts, a holistic balance of rites, music, calligraphy, and mathematics, paired with the martial discipline of archery and charioteering. The Confucian advocacy for education is front and center occupying the very opening line of the analects, which notes, quote, Is it not a pleasure having learned something to practice it continually at due intervals?

Starting point is 00:08:46 Education was arguably the most endearing legacy of Confucian teachings. Confucius placed profound emphasis on the virtues of the Junzu and the education and wisdom that they had gained. Over centuries, this transitioned into a revolutionary idea that reshape Chinese governance. Within Imperial China, the ruler was expected to embody Confucian values to main maintain legitimacy. Rulers were expected to maintain basic standards of living and to provide an ethical and moral example for their subjects. Rulers who upheld these constructs retained the right to govern, and those who failed would lose the confidence of the state, and in a Confucian form of the social contract, should be removed from office. In the 6th century BC, this marked a radical

Starting point is 00:09:35 shift towards merit-based rule over traditional models of hereditary governance. Under Confucian teachings, government should be an honor earned through a person's merit demonstrated through moral and academic excellence. In the years following his death in 479 BC, relentless warfare and annexation wiped out nearly all of the splintered states that existed during his life, reducing the entire Chinese world to just seven warring kingdoms. China descended into a period of intense civil unrest as the seven kingdoms were immersed in an all-out conflict that destroyed the Zhao dynasty and ultimately led to its unification

Starting point is 00:10:14 under the Chin. The Chin employed a philosophy called legalism and worked tirelessly during their brief control of China to oppress Confucian teachings through a systematic campaign of terror against Confucian scholars. However, the Chin's brutality failed to extinguish Confucian thought. When the mandate of heaven passed to the Han dynasty, its rulers embraced Confucian philosophy, and established it as the official ideology of the imperial state. Confucianism survived the chaos of the warring states in Qing periods, thanks to key

Starting point is 00:10:49 successors like Menchius, who expanded on Confucius' foundational ideas and transmitted them to future generations. From the Han Dynasty onward, nearly every imperial dynasty embraced Confucianism as the instrument of statecraft. Confucianism became a living philosophy, as other philosophers added to the body of knowledge, and in some cases, modified its original teachings. Even foreign conquerors like the Mongols of the Yuan Dynasty and the Manchus of the Qing dynasty ultimately adopted Confucianism as state orthodoxy. They maintained the imperial examination system to govern and legitimize their rule over China. These dynasties created an academic curriculum and an accompanying civil service examination system to staff their bureaucracy and build a

Starting point is 00:11:39 framework of political legitimacy. This system established a Confucian education as the pathway to power and prosperity within Imperial China. By the Ming Dynasty, nearly every political position was staffed by a scholar who had passed the Confucian exams. These exams, which I covered in a previous episode, were conducted at every level of Chinese political administration. The lowest level of administration was at the county level, and for those posts, one would take an exam at the county seat. Passing this exam allowed the examinee to take the next test at the district level, and success there advanced the student to the provincial level, and success there guaranteed the student the right to the greatest prize, the imperial exam.

Starting point is 00:12:24 The exams, which increased in difficulty with level, required students to memorize hundreds of thousands of lines of Confucian texts and scholarship. Driven by the immense stakes of these tests, Confucian Orthodoxy came to dominate Chinese education. Students as young as five began memorizing the Analects and other Confucian-related texts. Over time, the grueling focus on exam preparation eclipsed the entire academic tradition of the Six Arts, transforming what was a well-rounded classical curriculum into an intense race to memorize Confucian texts. Confucianism had to be able to be. special rules for women. It established rigid domestic expectations and social customs, and over time, Confucian scholars codify these behavioral expectations into law.

Starting point is 00:13:14 In her text, Lessons for Women, the first century female scholar and historian Ban Zhao emphasized the four virtues. Moral integrity, restrained speech, meticulous cleanliness, and diligent domestic labor. As Buddhism and Taoism spread across China, they gradually merged with traditional Confucian thought. This philosophical synthesis was formalized during the Song Dynasty in the 12th century under the scholar Zhu Shi and became known as Neo-Confucianism. Zhu Shi organized his core teachings into The Four Books, which served as the mandatory curriculum for imperial civil service examinations until the fall of dynastic China in the early 20th century. As the Chinese state expanded, particularly

Starting point is 00:14:03 during the Tang and Song dynasties, the Confucian system gradually spread beyond China's borders and became common practice across the entire East Asian world. Its impact peaked in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. There, governments adopted its bureaucratic framework run by a dedicated civil service, while society organized itself around the five core relationships. In feudal Japan, rulers imported Confucian teachings into the Japanese military philosophy of Boucher. adopting core virtues such as loyalty and filial piety into the samurai code of conduct. Confucius spent the final years of his life believing that he had failed. The Zhao dynasty never embraced his ideas.

Starting point is 00:14:48 The violence he witnessed during his life continued, and he never secured the high political office that he coveted. Yet the ideas he taught to hundreds of students became the bedrock of Chinese and indeed East Asian civilization for more than 2,000. 500 years. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer. Research in writing for this episode was provided by Joel Hermanson.

Starting point is 00:15:18 My big thanks go to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon. Your support helps make this podcast possible. And I also want to remind everyone about the community groups on Facebook and Discord, as this is where everything happens outside of the podcast. As always, if you leave it, a review on any of the major podcast apps, you two can have it run in the show.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Confucianism

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