The outer realm of politics, business, and civic life was for men. The inner realm of caring for children and managing the home was for women.
This became deeply entrenched in Chinese society, and unfortunately lingers to this day. The International Monetary Fund did a study in that showed that only 9 percent of corporate management positions in Japan and South Korea were held by women, compared with 43 percent in the United States.
This is demeaning for women and a national problem. In an age where you want to make your economies as competitive as possible, these societies are marginalizing a lot of their best talent. I started by walking around with a copy of The Analects in my bag. But I had an image of Confucius in my head that was quite negative, which I think many people in modern times hold: that he was arch-conservative, anti-women, and pro-autocracy.
But in the course of doing this book and reading the Confucian writings, I had a change of heart. If you go back and read The Analects and some of the early writings, you realize the way we see Confucius today is really not the Confucius who lived 2, years ago. A lot of his ideas are universal and timeless. He believed that people should do the right thing because it was the right thing to do. And that trying to do the right thing would have a ripple effect through society.
When you read this positive message, you realize that Confucius has value for us today, even though he first uttered these ideas thousands of years ago. We interpret it for our needs today and continue to find value in it. Follow Simon Worrall on Twitter or at simonworrallauthor.
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Ancient China is responsible for a rich culture, still evident in modern China. From small farming communities rose dynasties such as the Zhou B. E , Qin B. E , and Ming C. Each had its own contribution to the region. During the Zhou Dynasty, for example, writing was standardized, iron working refined, and famous thinkers like Confucius and Sun-Tzu lived and shared their philosophies.
Learn more about the history and rich culture of Ancient China with this curated resource collection. From the mythic origins of the Chinese dynasties to the eventual fall of the last imperial house, Chinese emperors have long fought to maintain control over one of the most enduring empires on Earth. The rise and fall of various imperial families oversaw waves of innovation and cultural advancement. At forty, I had no more doubts. At fifty, I knew the will of heaven. At sixty, I was ready to listen to it.
At seventy, I could follow my heart's desire without transgressing what was right. Analects, The inner pole of Confucianism was reformist, idealistic, and spiritual. It generated a high ideal for family interaction: members were to treat each other with love, respect, and consideration for the needs of all. It prescribed a lofty ideal for the state: the ruler was to be a father to his people and look after their basic needs.
It required officials to criticize their rulers and refuse to serve the corrupt. This inner and idealist wing spawned a Confucian reformation known in the West as Neo-Confucianism. The movement produced reformers, philanthropists, dedicated teachers and officials, and social philosophers from the eleventh through the nineteenth centuries. The idealist wing of Confucianism had a religious character. Its ideals were transcendent, not in the sense that they were other worldly the Confucians were not interested in a far-off heavenly realm , but in the sense of the transcendent ideal—perfection.
On the one hand, Confucian values are so closely linked with everyday life that they sometimes seem trivial. Everyday life is so familiar that we do not take its moral content seriously.
We are each a friend to someone, or aparent, or certainly the child of a parent. On the other hand, Confucians remind us that the familiar ideals of friendship, parenthood, and filiality are far from trivial; in real life we only rarely attain these ideals. We all too often just go through the motions, too preoccupied to give our full attention to the relationship. If we consistently and wholeheartedly realized our potential to be the very best friend, parent, son, or daughter humanly possible, we would establish a level of caring, of moral excellence,that would approach the utopian.
This is Confucian transcendence: to take the actions of everyday life seriously as the arena of moral and spiritual fulfillment. The outer and inner aspects of Confucianism—its conforming and reforming sides—were in tension throughout Chinese history. Moreover, the tensions between social and political realities and the high-minded moral ideals of the Confucians were an ongoing source of concern for the leaders of this tradition.
The dangers of moral sterility and hypocrisy were always present. Confucianism, they knew well, served both as a conservative state orthodoxy and a stimulus for reform.
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