Playlist: The Confucian Tradition

The Confucian tradition has been a central force in Chinese culture and society since the fifth century BCE.

Transcript

[Excerpt from the Analects of Confucius]

Confucius said: "Having only coarse food to eat, plain water to drink, and a bent arm for a pillow, one can still find happiness therein. Riches and honor acquired by unrighteous means are to me as drifting clouds."

Robert Oxnam: Anyone seeking to understand the Chinese tradition inevitably meets with the term "Confucian." And when people today talk about the rapid economic rise of East Asian nations, from Singapore to Japan and Korea, they refer to the "Confucian tradition." What is this tradition? To learn more about it, we must begin with the man, Confucius — a man committed to improving the human condition — and the times in which he lived.

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Excerpt from Sources of Chinese Tradition, Wm. Theodore de Bary, ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), Analects 7:15.

Confucius lived during the era known as the Spring and Autumn period (722-479 BCE). The name derives from the annals, recorded each spring and autumn during these years, of significant events in Confucius' home state of Lu. Lu was one of the several feudal states into which the former territories of the Zhou dynasty (1050-771, also known as the Western Zhou) had split. The Zhou dynasty (known after 771 BCE as the Eastern Zhou dynasty) held nominal control over these states until the mid-third century BCE.

Transcript

Irene Bloom: The Zhou dynasty had conquered China in the middle of the eleventh century, just about the year 1050, before the Common Era. But by the time of Confucius in the sixth and fifth centuries, the Zhou had essentially lost its control, and China was divided up into congeries of contending feudal states warring with one another for power and control. Confucius lived in this very difficult time, a time of a great deal of tension.

Wm. Theodore de Bary: Well, in Confucius' time, the old order was breaking down, tradition was being challenged. The traditional privileges and rights of the ruling class were being questioned.

Transcript

Irene Bloom: Confucius is believed to have been born in 551, before the Common Era, and to have died in 479. In other words, he was born in the middle of the sixth century, before the Common Era, and lived well into the fifth century.

He was from a family of what would appear to have been impoverished nobility. In other words, people who had had noble status, but who had fallen on hard times and who are living in straightened circumstances. Indeed, the world in which Confucius lived was one of extreme social mobility.

Confucius traveled from feudal state to feudal state, advising rulers on how to rule ethically. We know this because a selection of Confucius' teachings, in the form of conversations, were written down by his followers in a book known as the Analects.

Transcript

Robert Oxnam: In China, where competing feudal states had replaced the Zhou dynasty, Confucius traveled from one small state to another, advising the rulers of these states to rule in an ethical manner. The teachings of Confucius are contained in a book entitled the Analects, a selection of conversations with Confucius recorded by his followers.

Confucius was a scholar and moralist with a sense of responsibility trying to persuade feudal princes to do what was right. Confucius offered practical advice and did not speculate about absolute knowledge or what happens to people after death.

Transcript

Wm. Theodore de Bary: Confucius appears in the Analects as a scholar, as a teacher, as a moralist, as someone who has a sense of responsibility for public service, and who himself tried often to render that service, who was willing to serve as an official if he could find a ruler, a prince, who would listen to him and would act in accordance with the principles that Confucius felt were appropriate; in other words, what was right.

[Excerpt from the Analects of Confucius]

Ji Kang Zi asked Confucius about government, saying, "What do you think of killing the wicked and associating with the good?"

Confucius replied, "In your government what is the need of killing? If you desire what is good, the people will be good. The character of a ruler is like wind and that of the people is like grass. In whatever direction the wind blows, the grass always bends."

Robert Oxnam: Confucius' teachings are concerned with the way people relate to one another in their daily lives. He sought an order in human interactions that would lead to social harmony.

Irene Bloom: One of the elements of Confucian thought that might be considered characteristic is its practicality. Confucius was extremely concerned with those things which could be known in the course of ordinary human experience of life, in contrast with the Indian thought of this Axial Age Period, which was, to some significant extent, concerned with absolute knowledge.

Confucius, when questions are put to him having to do with what would be considered the absolute knowledge, deflects to those questions. He wants people to live in the here and now, to live their lives in the best way that they can and not to be concerned with things such as an afterlife that cannot be known.

[Excerpt from the Analects of Confucius]

Zilu asked about serving the spiritual beings. Confucius said, "We don't know yet how to serve men, how can we know about serving spirits?"

"What about death?" was the next question.

Confucius said, "We don't know yet about life, how can we know about death?"

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First excerpt from A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, Wing-tsit Chan, ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), Analects I2:19.

Second excerpt from Sources of Chinese Tradition, Wm. Theodore de Bary, ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), Analects 12:15.