Episode 159: Confucius on Virtuous Conduct (Part Two)

0:00 Seth: Say hi to Berlin for me.

0:01 Tsu: All right, thanks.

0:02 Mark: Well, so that was so great having Tzuchien, but he has a three week old infant and was not able to stay on with us for the full period. A few pieces of overview that we did not explicitly spell out so far in the conversation. Just that this is. It's 500, you know, what we would call now aphorisms that were definitely put together quite a bit after Confucius death. Many of them are not even sayings attributed to him, they're to his followers, to related people. So it's not really clear how much of this he actually said. You know, very much like the issues we had when we were doing the Jesus episode. What did you guys think of the aphoristic form of this? Was this make it especially difficult?

0:47 Seth: It'd be interesting to see the individual aphorisms reordered along different themes. Like, it'd be great to have this thing online in such a way where you could say, show me all of the ones where he's speaking to disciple X or disciple Y, or show me all the ones that are associated with Ren or Xian or something like that. So that we could try to see if it was possible to glean some kind of more general principles by looking at them grouped in that way. I thought that would be interesting. It's very readable as it is. But when Tzuchien gave that example and then gave like a 45 minute.

Sorry, that's an exaggeration, like a 5 minute detailed explanation of what was behind it. You realize that us just kind of reading this this way, without context and without delving into what's behind some of these things, trying to understand the nuances and the motivation and the context. We're reading it as if it was a Western text. We're reading it for the assertions or the arguments at a general level. And one of the first things I think you sent out, Mark, was the link to something that was saying, this is not the way people, people who grow up learning this, this is not the way they read it.

And in fact, very few people actually read the whole thing. They typically just focus on a small subset of the sayings and use them as levers for teaching principles, behaviors, whatever. And so in what sense do these things function more like what we think of as Zen koans, which are designed to provoke thought and stimulate insight and conversation, as opposed to being a systematic articulation of a position?

2:27 Mark: Yeah, that LaFleur lecture series made a similar case in terms of as if this were a textbook for a course. So you'd read one of these things aloud and then it would be discussed a while, and then maybe a little later the same topic would come up and would be approached from a slightly different angle. You know, that is all doing quite a bit, of course, of reading into the text in A perhaps helpful but very imaginative way, I'm sure, fueled by the subsequent texts. Tzuchien had told me, like, it's not this text by itself. It's this text in dialogue with, like, five other texts.

That's the thing that you would become familiar with. And so he mentioned the Mencius, which, if we were going to do a second Confucian philosopher, that would be the guy. Like, so the Mencius is canon in the same way that Analects is. And there were a few footnotes in this version of stuff from Mencius where it would be like, oh, Mencius illustrates this one line Analect passage with the following. And then there would be like a full page of text of a story of. You know, apparently the Mencius is quite a bit longer even than this. So I think, yeah, it is very much like the Bible, where you'd take.

Somebody would be doing a service and say, okay, here's our thing for contemplation today. I will read this one, two verses from the book of Job, and then I'll talk for a half hour about that.

3:46 Seth: Yeah, and that's all traditions, right? There's the history of commentary, which becomes a text in itself on top of it. And so in a certain sense, we're kind of like those Bible study groups that are just sitting there reading Leviticus or something like that and trying to get meaning out of it without reading the original language or having any understanding of the context. We're terrible, terrible people that way.

4:11 Mark: Well, nonetheless, the original question I was going to put on this episode when I was just a few chapters into the book was, does Confucius actually give us good advice that I think there's a value no matter how culturally divorced you are from the original. This is what the position most of our listeners should be in. If they're just going to pick up the Analects and start reading bits of it. It will be okay insofar as I can make sense of this. Does this actually add anything to my understanding of ethics? Does this give me a new idea? Does this give me some good advice?

Is this even. You know, there are plenty of sayings that in isolation, are just kind of cool sayings, like, so this just could add something to your life by adding you some of those pithy proverbs. You know, some of these became proverbs in China. So I think, yeah, we're acknowledging our deficiencies, so leap ahead. You still have to make something out of it.

5:01 Seth: Yeah, well, there's definitely useful stuff in here, if you think of it from the perspective of giving you some good life advice and you don't need any metaphysical justification or baggage. Like for example 16:4 Confucius said having three kinds of friends will be a source of personal improvement. Having three other kinds of friends will be a source of personal injury. One stands to be improved by friends who are true, who make good on their word, and who are broadly informed. One stands to be injured by friends who are ingratiating, who feign compliance, and who are glib talkers. I think that's generally good advice. Surround yourself with good people.

5:45 Wes: So what's the significance of glibness and ingratiation? Because it comes up so often, and I say I asked that, not having formulated my thoughts on that, but knowing that I should have it seems like

5:57 Mark: the village worthies are like his sophists, right? The people that were kind of trying to do what he was trying to do, but he thought they were not in fact profound, they were the petty people.

6:08 Wes: Yeah, I think that's right. I think I even wrote sophists in my notes somewhere. But there's this also this concern for using the right words for things and having to be careful in one's speech, the significance of the way we talk about things and how that can affect us morally.

6:26 Seth: This is 13 three were the Lord of Wei to turn the administration of his state over to you, what would be your first priority? asked Zilu without question. It would be to ensure that names are used properly, replied the master. Would you be as impractical as that? responded Zilu. What is it for names to be used properly anyway? How can you be so dense? Replied Confucius. An exemplary person defers on matters he does not understand. When names are not used properly, language will not be used effectively. When language is not used effectively, matters will not be taken care of.

When matters are not taken care of, the observance of ritual propriety and the playing of music will not flourish. When those things don't flourish, the application of laws and punishments will not be on the mark. When that happens, the people will not know what to do with themselves. Thus, when the exemplary person puts a name to something, it can certainly be spoken, and when spoken, it can certainly be acted upon. There is nothing careless in the attitude of an exemplary person towards what is said.

7:27 Mark: So one of the I think it was the I was looking at the introduction to the D.C. Lau translation, which is sort of the other. It's before the one that we actually did. It uses gentleman for junzi instead of exemplary person. But it's a Very widely read one. Maybe this was the Internet encyclopedia of philosophy, anyway, and it had said that specifically he was talking about people who call themselves something either improperly, like, they give themselves a title that they're not entitled to, and that they don't live up to the title that they have taken on.

So put it in the context of social order. Right. So there's all these things where he's complaining that, again, like, this family has eight dancers and they're doing these rituals that really are only appropriate to the ancient kings, and they're not entitled to do that. So that kind of bullshit. And then also, the rulers should rule. The subject should be subject. The fathers should father and the sons should son. What is another one? Everybody should actually do this. The thing.

8:26 Wes: Yeah. And then, you know, the passage Seth just read, basically the argument was that if you use language improperly, the social order breaks down.

8:34 Mark: But what are the other examples of that besides a king calling himself?

8:38 Wes: The words we use are, you know, they go along with the sense of ritual propriety. And so our guest was talking about the way students speak to teachers and teachers speak to students. What's said and the way it's said is a way of establishing hierarchies. And who respects who and what role owes some sort of honor or respect to what other role. Those sorts of bonds are mediated by language. That seems to me like an extension of the whole ritual propriety argument. The specifics of his argument are when language is not used effectively, matters will not be taken care of. And then if they're not taken care of, then the observance of ritual propriety. Blake, breaks down. Matters will not be taken care of. I mean, that's a question as what we. We think that means. Exactly.

9:27 Mark: I mean, it sounds like that your underlings will not obey you, will not be, well, managing your underlings to actually get stuff done. But, like, what that has to do exactly with the use of language to say things. Precisely. I'm not, you know, other than were your orders clear? Like, I don't think that's what he means.

9:46 Seth: Well, that's a good question. It feels that way, doesn't it?

9:49 Mark: Or is it a matter of having your underlings act responsibly and actually, you know, effectively get things done is a matter of instilling them with the right kind of judgment, which means you have to exhibit that right kind of judgment. And one of the ways, you know, the obvious way that that manifests itself, in addition to you serving as an example and, you know, bowing at the right times or whatever the. And acting virtuously but it's also in exactly what you say, how you present the world to so if you are, you know, being a good ruler, then you have love for the people and you are presenting.

You're talking about your people not as those rubes. I'm just making up obviously examples, you know, not as the enemy but as. As our charges, as our responsibility. Something like that. So that that might be an example of the kind of thing that well use words to really correctly and precisely express the responsibilities of the government toward the people and vice versa and then that will spread to your underlings and actually make them do stuff and not collect too many taxes when the people can't afford it and pull them away from the harvest time to go fight their wars or anything like that.

11:07 Seth: I think there's probably something to that. I mean if the idea is that the ruler is the expression of the cosmic harmony or the tian and is also the moral center or the moral leader of the of the country, then whatever guidance or instructions that the ruler is giving to not directly necessarily to the people but to counselors and so forth, needs to be precise to make sure that things are done exactly in the way that that's intended. And if you do think about in terms of a hierarchy where there's. Because he does constantly mention titles, you know, there's kings and dukes and ministers and all this that effective governance requires precision in speech in the sense that if what you say is going to have to cascade down through multiple layers to, you know, from one to many thousands of people, it's important to be precise otherwise things will not be handled appropriately.

And I won't say chaos will ensue, but at least order. The harmony that we're looking for in the order is that peril. I mean, hey, I'm sympathetic to that.

12:18 Mark: Apparently this adjustment to names is something that got made a lot of in subsequent Xunzi, the sort of the guy after Mencius has a whole the Zhengming so that's the rectification of names. So I just don't think we can tell a lot from this text what he actually means here.

12:38 Seth: Possibly.

12:39 Mark: I think our guesses are good.

12:41 Seth: Yeah, well, there's other quotes about speech. You know, one aspect of being precise and guarded in your language when we talk about being glib is not making commitments that you can't follow through on. There's a couple of other quotes where he says something to the effect of the exemplary person acts and does not speak or speaks after acting. I think the idea being words are a promise and if you are incapable or unwilling to fulfill your promise, you should keep your mouth shut.

13:11 Mark: So we haven't actually talked about filial piety much at all here, just the relationship. Just reflecting back on Aristotle and his several of the political folks that we've read when we're talking about the social contract, we talked about what is the relationship between the family and is like the government, the extended family and well, it looks like in this case, yes, definitely. In fact, it's the very same virtue

13:33 Wes: this Xiao, should we read 2.5?

13:38 Mark: Go ahead.

13:39 Wes: To begin with, Meng Yizi asked about filial conduct, xiao, is that how you pronounce it? The master replied, do not act contrary. Fan Chi was driving the master's chariot and the master informed him further. Meng Yizi asked me about filial conduct and I replied, do not act contrary. I like the way that retells the Fan Chi asked, what did you mean by that? The master replied, while they are living, serve them according to the observances of ritual propriety. When they are dead, bury them and sacrifice to them according to the observances of ritual propriety. Is that enlightening? Sorry, it's not.

14:20 Mark: Let's look at 2.6, the one right after that, which is one of those ones that I really like as itself. Meng Wuo asked about filial conduct. The master replied, give your mother and father nothing to worry about beyond your physical well being. That's cool.

14:33 Wes: There are parts of this in which loyalty to one's family and showing respect to one's elders takes precedent even over what's right in some cases. So if your mother murders someone, I get the sense that you wouldn't turn her in. Your filial piety would come first.

14:51 Seth: There's one very explicit example of that, isn't there? Somebody says that some guy is judged true in this kingdom because he turned in his father, and Confucius says that actually makes him not true. And I think there was another example that was brought up in the great course's lectures.

15:07 Mark: Yeah, there's like a whole other book of filial, a supplementary textbook to this, all about filial piety.

15:13 Seth: At least for me, the filial stuff is more challenging to accept than the hierarchical governance stuff.

15:19 Wes: There's this classic tension between what is right and then loyalty, whether it's to nation or to family. So the principle of the Mafia, for instance, is that you put family first. Right? And crime is not one's moral measure. It's loyalty to family. And then justice is meant to transcend those bonds. Sort of justice is anti tribal in that sense. And then we see countercurrents to that or interesting emendations of that. So we saw in Plato's Crito was this idea that somehow our obedience to the law comes out of something like filial piety to the law because it's our parent.

It's the thing that makes us. So that's the tension that seen it in a lot of different texts. There's the sense in which we can't talk about what's right without talking about the more primitive version of that which has something to do with loyalty and family. But on the other hand what's right ultimately runs against that. It transcends that. And many a moralist would say yes, you do turn in your mother or your father for a crime or at least you don't protect them. I don't know how you resolve it really or how Confucius really resolves it. I know you guys were searching for it.

The one where he is talking about a crime Right on part of a parent.

16:26 Mark: Yep. Although when was that historically thrown in there? If that runs contra to what a lot of what Confucius is saying elsewhere then it's not out of the question that we don't just puzzle and say how could these both be true? We just say that's a different authority. More likely than not when you see something wacky probably in here. So despite this potential conflict here and there between the government and the family, it really is a continuum. So there is no room in here to say what the limits of government are. No, it's the father rules the family and then as you go up the hierarchy whoever is at the top rules everything in the two sided way of is also the servant of the Tian Tian again that's heaven.

But it's also everything. It's the order of things. So it's not really the otherworldly heaven. It's not the God creator. It is the 10,000 things. And that is what the ruler is the servant of the natural harmony of all things. There still might be some reflection about aren't there things like earthquakes and stuff, circumstances that involve. There's clearly a difference between culture and a potentially hostile nature. You don't really see that in here. So it seems ripe for authoritarian use. Which was why one of the emphases in the lecture series was on remonstrance was on this thing that just comes up a couple times in the text about what do you do if not that your mother has killed somebody but is on a path to kill somebody, or what do you do if you're the minister of a government and as so often happens, they are about to do stupid things?

17:58 Seth: I get the sense that there's this. If you take those passages where he talks about when the dao prevailing, that the harmony exists, the implication is that when harmony exists, then everyone is or the majority, or at least the people who can influence the majority. It's not certain critical players or a majority of people are all judging things in the same way because there is an element of judgment. This is not an external force. Everything relates to judgment of your own ambitions and your countenance and your place and then the place of others.

And the idea is that it seems to me that when harmony prevails, then people are aligned in judgment and they understand. I say, okay, well, Mark is my inferior and Wes is my superior and I hold myself appropriately towards them. And you guys all feel the same way, like you say, oh yes, well, I'm Seth's superior and Mark says, you know, he's my superior. And we all sort of judge that way. And the sense in which when you have to make a judgment about whether to be dutiful to your filial responsibilities or the state, if they come into conflict, you have to judge who is more in the way, who is more harmonious.

And that's a function of you saying, who's ruling in the state right now? What are they doing? What is it that led to this conflict? What's my mother or my father doing? Is what they doing appropriate and exemplary or not? And that's ultimately going to be the determiner of whether you prioritize filial piety or not. I can't believe or I didn't see in here a kind of blind devotion that your parents are always right, no matter what. Now, there's a certain qualifiers on what you can do to correct their behavior or how you correct their behavior.

But there wasn't a requirement that you judge everything that they do, just like you don't judge everything the ruler does as being absolutely right.

20:01 Mark: Yeah, I think there are only a couple remonstrance ones. We might as well just read them. 4:18 is the first one that I have. The master said in serving your father and mother, remonstrate with them gently on seeing that they do not heed your suggestions, remain respectful and do not act contrary, although concerned voice, no resentment. So the question was, is it a matter of, okay, well, say your piece but if they overrule you, then shut up. The lecture series LaFleur was saying, no, no, that's not the way it works. But it is one of your duties as the inferior in the relationship.

Even children, small children can remonstrate their parents. But you really have to be careful. You have to only do it in the context of I so respect you, I really acknowledge my inferiority but it is my job to tell you this thing that you might want to look out for. And then yeah, you have to be on the team and go with their decision and don't be bitter when you get overruled. But you don't put aside your judgment. You don't sacrifice your integrity to the superior.

21:11 Wes: Be a team player. That's one of these, right? Which one is that?

21:17 Seth: Well, and that kind of a response is a Burkian and that's what made me think of. Made me think of Burke.

21:24 Mark: 1910 is another remonstrance, one that I wrote down in the political realm, Zixia said and I'm going to pronounce the X's. I know it's like Zhishia, but. But they have all these X's and X's is too cool a sound not to make. Zixia said only once exemplary persons have won the confidence of the common people do they work them hard. Otherwise the people would think themselves exploited. Only once they have won the confidence of their lord do they remonstrate with him. Otherwise their lord would think himself maligned. So that seems to fly in the face of some of these stories about Confucius actually going into these foreign states and immediately saying like ah, yeah, you're doing stuff all wrong.

22:10 Wes: Well, there's got to be a reason why he couldn't get a job.

22:16 Mark: He was not sufficiently unctuous.

22:19 Wes: Didn't his duh, his.

22:21 Mark: His virtue, he did not suck up

22:23 Wes: enough lead people to follow him.

22:25 Mark: Naturally you would think so that it'll happen. Give it time. It's another one of these kind of apparent conflicts but it's a matter of judging to the situation of. We've talked about a couple passages like when the way does not rule in the state, just don't be in office, don't take rewards. Like if you're well to do in a corrupt state, that's bad. Like things you would normally say being poor is bad. But if you're poor in a corrupt state, if you are hated when the people around you are bastards, that's okay. That is what you should be doing. On the other hand though you have a responsibility.

If you have this ability to share your wisdom, then if there's any chance that they're going to listen to you, you better get in there. 9:13 was one that I only understood because of the endnote. Zigong said, we have an exquisite piece of jade here. Should we box it up and put it away for safekeeping, or should we get a good price and sell it off? The master replied, sell it. By all means, sell it. I am just waiting for the right price. Like that seems absolutely bewildering.

23:38 Wes: Right?

23:39 Mark: Some commentary. There's not even an endnote here, so I don't even know why I know this, but one of the interpretations of it was, yeah, your wisdom, your political acumen, your ability to spread your virtue up and down the hierarchy is something that should be put into the market. And there are other places where he says that more explicitly. Should you join the Trump administration or not?

24:07 Seth: I think I'm in no danger of being asked.

24:10 Mark: I think Confucius did wear a hat that said, make the state of Lu great again. That was one of his main ways of spreading that. Unfortunately, he could not do that. He could not wear a hat. It would not be ritual propriety because the whole chapter 10 tells us, for instance, 10.6 I'm not going to dwell on the all the absurd stuff here, but I got to read this is one that I was reading to my family. Persons of nobility do not use reddish black or dark brown for the embroidered borders of their robes, nor do they use red or purple in casual clothing.

In the heat of summer, they wear an unlined garment made of fine or coarse hemp, but would invariably wear it over an undergarment to set it off. With black upper garments they wear lambskin with undyed silk upper garments, fawn fur with yellow brown upper garments, fox fur, casual fur. Robes were long overall, but the right sleeve was somewhat short, etc. That's only the first half.

25:01 Seth: That reminds me of Leviticus. There's also a nice thing in chapter 10 you got me reminding, talking about what Confucius ate. Yep, if the food was off in color or smelled strange, he would not eat it. But it says down here, only in his wine did he not limit himself, although he never got drunk. And that made me think of Socrates.

25:21 Mark: Does that mean he never drank to excess even though he didn't limit himself? Or he was just such a mensch?

25:26 Seth: I think he was such a mensch.

25:28 Mark: Drink so much and he never got drunk.

25:31 Seth: Exactly. That, I believe, is what it means.

25:33 Mark: I Think we'd have to look at the Chinese of got drunk and what that entails. What a. Some other interesting themes we haven't talked so much about.

25:41 Wes: I suppose we could do a little more on learning and education, the emphasis on that.

25:46 Mark: Yeah. In fact, I had pulled out maybe as a way of introducing this, the modest bits that sound like Socrates. Right. So how he describes himself. So 2:17 was the first one of those I had pulled out. The master said, Zilu, shall I teach you what wisdom means? To know what you know and know what you do not know. This then, is wisdom. And then he just describes himself. Well, you know, it's really what characterizes me is my love of learning. And I just keep trying, even though it's hopeless.

26:17 Wes: Yeah. Say pessimistic things like at 6:3 where he says at the end, Nowadays there's no one. At least I haven't come across anyone who truly loves learning. Or we read that passage that Seth brought up, the sense in which learning is important. So it's the difference between vice and virtue. Which reminds me of Aristotle. You could be reckless, foolishly reckless, or you could be courageous. And learning is the difference between those two. It seems like in that long list that he gave. So it's almost like the thing that provides us with the golden mean, the tempering effect that otherwise even what we think of as a virtue could collapse into a vice.

26:58 Mark: Yeah. Well, I had thought of before I'd found this passage, 8.2 that said something similar about ritual propriety. The master said, deference unmediated by observing ritual propriety is lethargy. Caution, unmediated by observing ritual propriety is timidity, Boldness, unmediated by observing ritual propriety is rowdiness, et cetera. So it's this mediated part. So should we almost equate then this learning with ritual propriety? Right. That's what you need to do. That's really what the learning is about. It's not about reading books. Like, it's about learning and putting things into practice.

Like, they don't really have that strong, like, theoretical, practical distinction here. Like all learning is. Is practical. But there's. There's another verse where he. There's only a couple places where they mention Confucius son. You'd think that being his son, like, he would have taught him a lot of stuff. But he, his son, he tells his son, like, well, you want me to teach you? Have you gone and memorized the Book of Songs? Have you memorized the Book of Rites? So there's a few Books that you have to spend a lot of time with. And that's certainly like just in line with what he says about how much better things were in the olden days, that really what you're doing is you're learning.

The learning involved is about learning about the olden days and how people act. And that is what learning ritual propriety is. So learning ritual propriety is about learning tradition. And the tradition is expressed through the Book of Songs, the Book of Rites, but then also just, you know, being in on the action and seeing how people do these things. But clearly it's not just seeing how the nobles of his day do things. Since he's so critical of the nobles of his day.

28:39 Wes: There's a relevant passage, 17.9, which is after 17.8. 17.8 is the one where he talks about things like the flaw and being fond of candor without equal regard for learning is that it leads to rudeness. That passage that we read before.

28:53 Seth: Right.

28:53 Wes: So 17.9, the master said, my young friends, why don't any of you study the songs? Reciting the songs can arouse your sensibilities, strengthen your powers of observation, enhance your ability to get on with others, and sharpen your critical skills close at hand. It enables you to serve your father and away at court. It enables you to serve your lord. It instills in you a broad vocabulary for making distinctions in the world around you. Where again, the making of these distinctions, I think, has something to do with hierarchical distinctions. So that, I think, goes towards some of the stuff you were saying there, Mark.

29:33 Mark: Well, but maybe not even just hierarchical ones, but just more generally what you were talking about. What we were talking about is the correct use of names.

29:40 Wes: Right, Good point. Yeah.

29:42 Mark: Like, what's a fancy scientific name for redheads?

29:46 Wes: Gingers.

29:46 Seth: Okay, sorry,

29:49 Mark: I told you to kill all the gingers, not all the. The brunettes.

29:54 Wes: If you just learned the names, oh,

29:57 Mark: man, I would have been more effective in my genocide.

30:01 Wes: Don't go to a pogrom with the wrong class of people. Oh, God.

30:07 Mark: There's only a few places where war comes up. You know, he's generally against war. Killing is unjust. And it comes up in the context of him potentially giving advice or one of his students giving advice to one of these leaders who wants to do something, who wants to do warlike stuff, which is most of what they do. And so that 12, 19 that we brought up before Ji Kangzi asked Confucius about governing effectively, saying, what if I kill those who have abandoned the way and attract those to Attract those who are not on it. Like just. Let's just seriously consider whether we should impose Confucian thinking just by a process of weeding out the chaff. No, not cool.

30:53 Wes: And you'll know which people are on the way because they'll have like an armband with an arrow on it. Oh yeah. So you really think this lends itself to authoritarianism? It seems there are aspects of it which are anti authoritarian. Like what? You just recalled us to that passage.

31:14 Mark: Yeah, I think it's more. We would read it that way just because he's writing within such a stratified society. And he has a few things that run counter to that. Like he says, I'll teach anybody, I don't care how much poor they are, as long as they have the basic materials in them to become wise is what he's concerned with. So in that sense he is, you know, he says as far as teaching goes, social class doesn't even enter into it. So in that sense he's very radical. He's a radical egalitarian and he says a lot of things about, again, about ruling well means actually caring for the people.

And yeah, if they're suffering from a drought, then you, the leaders should not be surprised that your coffers are not full either. You should be suffering along with them and don't send them off to war again during the wrong season when they should be picking their crops. But that's not seriously challenging the hierarchy. It's just saying that there are good kings and bad kings, not that there shouldn't be kings.

32:18 Wes: Yeah, I don't think there's anything inherently authoritarian about hierarchy. Right. So one of Burke's points was that the existence of a king, for instance, and nobility and the way they're, the tension between them can actually enhance the freedom of the people. There's greater inequality, but inequality and freedom are different things. And in fact, in a democracy it can be, you know, as Tocqueville argued, equality and freedom can be a tension with each other. So you can actually have a very equal society that's unfree, a very unequal society that's free. So I wouldn't see the existence or an argument for hierarchy as being inherently authoritarian.

33:03 Mark: Sure. And that stuff we were saying about you shouldn't need explicit laws because it's your example. There are other things about like, oh, why isn't my state more populous? Well, if you have a well run state, then people will be attracted to it. We just have to put this in the context of just kind of like the Greek city states, but more so because it seems there are less cultural differences between the different provinces, at least as far as I could tell in here, that if you didn't like the way the government was going, you just go 10 miles, you're somewhere else.

33:32 Wes: Yeah, book 13 is basically like. Almost all of them, it seems like, are about leading by example, by setting an example.

33:42 Seth: And it's not clear to me that birth or stature or anything is a barrier to being able to be a moral example. So to the extent that anyone can be an exemplary person, then I think in a lot of respects, the character of this that's authoritarian in the sense of emphasizing the hierarchy and the harmony of the political order and the social order. It's just assuming that government has this feudal character and that the idea would be that you identify when things are going well. Exemplary people are put in positions of power regardless of birth. And, you know, obviously there's the standard assumptions that come along with thinking, you know, that children of nobility are typically noble themselves and all that.

But there's also the element of judgment, to go back to this piece from earlier, that filial piety and the piety that you show or respect that you show to the political and social structures, it's respect for the institution and for the people in it. It's not necessarily obedience to it. The law does not flow down. Everybody still has a responsibility to judge whether somebody is acting appropriately or not, even if that person is above them in the food chain. And so to that extent, it's not demanding blind obedience. He's not telling people that they should have blind obedience to parents or rulers.

35:16 Mark: So section 1.2, the first introduction of Ren in this whole thing, and Dao for that matter. Master Yu said it is a rare thing for someone who has a sense of filial and fraternal responsibility to have a taste for defying authority. It is unheard of for those who have no taste for defying authority to be keen on initiating rebellion. Exemplary persons concentrate their efforts on the root. For the root having taken hold, the way will grow therefrom. As for filial and fraternal responsibility, it is, I suspect, the root of authoritative

35:48 Wes: conduct, the root of Ren, the word authoritative. There just that translation keeps like hammering that in the authoritarian element. But again, I would prefer benevolence or humanity or something.

36:02 Mark: Well, yeah, the one, when I forgot, when we were talking about the different etymological or whatever analysis, the pictological analysis of this was it's not just person. And two, but it's that one of them is above the other. At least one of the introductions that I looked at stressed that element that I think that was why they used authoritative conduct. Because there's some implication that you're asserting class of some sort or asserting moral superiority.

36:33 Wes: Wait, what do you mean?

36:35 Mark: So ren is not just being nice to someone, it's being nice to someone in a way that is. Well, is it only being nice to your inferiors? I don't think so, but it has an implicit reference to the inequalities of

36:50 Wes: class, our deference to our parents, our respect for them, our that that's the root of ren or co humanity. I'll just use that. Yeah. So that our co humanity, that our relationships with people at large will be grounded in our relationships with our parents and siblings. We've seen this elsewhere. There's the circle of concern, the Aristotelian one zone. And then you expand that in order to get your relations with others. So there's the bond element of it, but then there's the hierarchical element. But if anything, it seems like, you know, if you're saying filial piety is the root of co humanity or ren, then you're saying it's deference of some sort. It's not you being above, it's you being below. Am I wrong about that, or.

37:39 Mark: Yeah, I'm just. I'm unclear because it says so much. Like, when we talk about ren. Is that applied in political contexts? I don't think so.

37:49 Wes: What do you mean?

37:50 Mark: In other words, if there was a saying that said, you know, exerting ren is part of what it is to be a good ruler or something, then that would imply that ren involves putting me above you or acknowledging that I am above you and I'm being benevolent to you.

38:05 Wes: Yeah, I mean, there is the golden rule. Articulation of ren.

38:10 Seth: This is 1524. Zigong asked, is there one expression that can be acted upon until the end of one's days? The master replied, there is shu. Do not impose on others what you yourself do not want.

38:24 Wes: It's a weird golden rule. It's not the.

38:26 Seth: There's a similar thing in Judaism where somebody asks a famous rabbi to explain the entire Torah, the five books of Moses, to him while standing on one foot. And the rabbi says, what is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah. The rest is the explanation of this. Go and study it. And that 1524 that I just read could not be more of a parallel to that than it's pretty much identical.

38:56 Wes: So we were talking about. We're trying to get at the meaning of Ren and that's why I thought this rule was kind of revealing.

39:06 Seth: What do you think the connection?

39:08 Wes: Well, it's the other passage. He connects it directly to Ren.

39:11 Mark: 4:15 at least is one of them. The master said, zeng, my friend, my way. In other words, the dao is bound together with one continuous strand. Master Zeng replied, indeed. When the master had left, the disciples asked, what was he referring to? Master Zeng said, the way of the master is doing one's utmost and putting oneself in the other's place, nothing more. So that putting oneself in the other's place, that is also shu.

39:35 Wes: But I'm pretty sure there's one with Ren that connects that to Ren as well anyway. Or that could just be my imagination, but at least logically. Yeah, we can see the connection between benevolence and not doing things to people that they don't want. Is that even the right.

39:50 Mark: Yeah.

39:50 Wes: Yes.

39:51 Mark: Although there's one version of that that one of the disciples voices to him and he's like, this is beyond you. Like he doesn't say it quite right.

40:02 Wes: Right. I just said it wrong myself. It's not don't do what they don't want, it's don't do to them what you wouldn't want, but you wouldn't want done to you.

40:09 Mark: Is there really subjunctive mode in ancient Chinese?

40:13 Seth: No clue.

40:16 Mark: I don't think there's even tenses. I think. I think there's. There's not distinction between nouns and verbs. There's definitely no punctuation. Like it's. It's really hard to figure out from the original what the hell is going on.

40:31 Wes: Yeah. So putting yourself in the other's place and not imposing on them what you would not want. And if I'm right, hopefully that's connected to co humanity or authoritative conduct, whatever you want to call it.

40:47 Mark: So 6:30 is another one about Ren. I see. Zigong said, what about the person who's broadly generous with the people and is able to help the multitude? Is this not what. What we would call authoritative conduct? Is this not what we call Ren? So this is one that makes it sound like Ren is that you're in a superior position. The master replied, why stop at authoritative conduct? This is certainly a sage, even a Yao or a Shun would find such a task daunting. Authoritative persons establish others in seeking to establish themselves and promote others in seeking to get there themselves.

Correlating one's conduct with those near at hand can be said to be the method for becoming an authoritative person. Correlating one's conduct with those near at hand, which I had written, I think, based on the intro, full participation in personal relations, which I'm not sure, you know, that that all lines up in the ideal state. The ideal world is one where everything is flowing in harmony with the. The ruler as the unmoved mover at the center. And so. So Ren is. Well, I'm out somewhere on the periphery, and I'm coordinating my conduct with those near at hand.

One of the secondary sources had talked about, you know, just think about everything that goes into a handshake and what makes for a good handshake or a bad handshake. That it's very complicated, you know, if you're a foreigner trying to learn what the hell this is, or bowing in that society, like, how deeply do you bow? How that everybody being similarly familiar with the conventions, such that you're not even having to explicitly draw on them, you just act like there's a musical kind of harmony to that. And it doesn't feel unnatural. It doesn't feel like you're trying to remember what the script is and then just follow through it, like as if you were doing some ritual that you do at an explicit church service once a year and you have to kind of trot out what the thing exactly is like.

None of these are much more elemental kind of rituals.

42:45 Wes: The rhythm of the social.

42:48 Seth: Ah, so when you guys were talking about Ren, I just went back to the IEP entry, which I think we all agreed was useful. DC Lau has pointed out that Ren is an attribute of agents, while yi, literally, what is fitting, right or righteousness, is an attribute of actions. This helps to make clear the conceptual links between li de and which is the exemplary person.

43:13 Mark: Exemplary person.

43:15 Seth: The exemplary person qua exemplary person exerts de, which is moral force according to what is fitting, what is yi? That is what is aesthetically, morally and socially proper. And in doing so manifests Ren, or the virtue of co. Humanity in an interdependent hierarchical universe over which Tian presides. So harmony. You know, if we think about it that way, we have all these actors who are judging what's appropriate or fitting and by virtue of their moral character, acting appropriately or exerting their will. Their moral will and doing the thing that's appropriate in essence, it's almost.

It generates Ren, if you think of. It's poetic in a certain sense. I like the notion that, like I can create moral force in my immediate vicinity, or I can be exemplary in my own actions in my immediate vicinity, which will in turn have a positive benefit on those around me. And if those people take the cue from that and act exemplary, that in essence we create these waves of manifestation of Tian in our communities locally, and then it can resonate and grow. But what is required is to start with oneself. I kind of like that notion and the fact that it requires agents to be active, be engaged socially, and exercise judgment.

44:46 Mark: Yeah, let me throw out a few more words here on Ren from the intro to our translation. This is page 49 and 50. Again, humanity for Ren suggests a shared, essential condition of being human, owned by all members of the species. Yet Ren does not come so easy. It is an aesthetic project, an accomplishment, something done. Human becoming might be more appropriate term to capture the processional and emergent nature of what it means to become human. And then on the next page, it is further ambiguous because it must be understood relative to the specific concrete conditions of the person in question. There is no further formula, no ideal. Like a work of art, it is a process of disclosure rather than closure, resisting fixed definitions and replication. So this is an example of maybe that creative philosophical thing that you were finding irritating. Wes. Yes, he's written Nietzsche into this.

45:36 Wes: I don't know. There's some hackishness in the intro, I'm afraid to say.

45:39 Mark: But anyway, so the next paragraph, he defends why authoritative. Authoritative entails the authority that a person comes to represent in community by becoming Ren, embodying in oneself the value and customs of one's tradition through the observance of ritual propriety. The prominence and visibility of the authoritative person is captured in the metaphor of the mountain, still stately, spiritual, enduring, a landmark for the local culture and community.

46:04 Wes: Yeah, I do not buy this explanation. I just. On the basis of internal consistency and other stuff, I think this is overreach, but I'm probably wrong.

46:16 Mark: But, you know, although it's interesting that the other word, junzi, we've been talking about as exemplary person Is in the D.C. Lau translations, or in the traditional translations is gentlemen.

46:27 Wes: Right.

46:28 Mark: Isn't that weird that it's in that respect, to the point where in the D.C. Lau, scholar, apprentice, what they call shi in here is gentleman lowercase g, and then junzi is gentleman uppercase g or something. One of those, like, they both have to use this traditional term, which doesn't make it sound like anybody can go and be a gentleman. Anybody can become the exemplary person. Confucius might say that like, oh, I'll teach anybody, no matter how poor you are. But he also. It seems like he's forgetting about class privilege, that the peasants don't have time to go study the Book of Songs all day. Come on. They don't have time to learn the ritual propriety. So it's de facto classist, if not intentionally. Next topic.

47:18 Wes: We've exhausted Ren.

47:21 Mark: So maybe about the. We're talking about the capacities of different people to be virtuous. Just explain my joke from the beginning of the episode 5:10 Ziwo was still sleeping during the daytime. I remember this is a time when they didn't have electric lights. So like, that was pretty precious. The master said, you cannot carve rotten wood and cannot trowel over a wall of manure. As for Ziwo, what is the point in upbraiding him? The Master said further, there was a time when in my dealings with others, on hearing what they had to say, I believed they would live up to it.

Nowadays, in my dealings with others, on hearing what they have to say, I then watched what what they do. It is Ziwo that has taught me as much. So this is one of his faithful disciples that traveled around with him when he was looking for a job. There's four of them and he's bad mouthing freaking catty about this one guy. Yes. Cannot carve the rotten wood or trowel over manure. Nice. But other places he seems to say, yeah, everybody pretty much has the same natural capacities and it's just. Just what you've learned that makes the difference. Although 5:13 Zigong said we can learn from the Master's cultural refinements, but do not hear him discourse on subjects such as our natural disposition or the Way of Tien.

So apparently he doesn't like to talk about human nature, even though there's a few places where it is mentioned here. I guess mostly to the extent of it not mattering. That's what that is. The. But he's an existentialist. Sounds like Ziwo.

48:52 Wes: Sorry?

48:55 Mark: Sounds like this thing about Ziwo. He's just rotten wood. Lee or did he become rotten? His parents raised him wrong. That's not clear.

49:04 Seth: I don't know that I would go and try to interpret a statement about human nature necessarily out of that. It's about teaching. Is he worth teaching? Is the question is he worth being a good student? So there are two other places. One was 15 8. The master said, to fail to speak with someone who can be engaged is to let that person go to waste. To speak with someone who cannot be engaged is to waste your words. The wise do not let people go to waste, but they do not waste their words either. That's one.

49:40 Mark: And that's one of the ones I had in mind about when you should be a political advisor as well.

49:45 Seth: Yeah, I think it applies to teaching also. And then I've got another one. 7 8. The master said, I do not open the way for students who are not driven with eagerness. I do not supply a vocabulary for students who are not trying desperately to find the language for their ideas. If on showing students one corner, they do not come back to me with the other three, I will not repeat myself.

50:10 Wes: Like that one.

50:11 Mark: Yep.

50:11 Seth: So those are. I think in saying that this person sleeps during the day, it's basically saying he's not going to put out the effort. That makes it worth my time to try to teach him or to engage him. And you shouldn't either.

50:24 Mark: Just about the basic disposition stuff. 6, 18 here the master said, when one's basic disposition overwhelms refinement, the person is boorish. When refinement overwhelms one's basic disposition, the person is an officious scribe. It is only once one's basic disposition and refinement are in appropriate balance that you have the exemplary person. So basic disposition is zhi there. So that's probably not human nature.

50:50 Wes: Sounds like temperament.

50:51 Mark: Yeah. Yeah, well. And it reflects what we were saying about ritual propriety, that it's not just following the rituals, it's you have to mean it. And so you need your natural temper, your natural fire, as well as the refinement of the culture. So that might be two ways somebody could be a bad student. And actually, yeah, I think that a lot of these stand ins, you know, who is Ziwo and who are all these people? Well, they're kind of presented as archetypes. Like this guy is the one who is way too ambitious, and this is the one who's a little too punctilious, pays too much attention to detail, and misses the spirit of the thing.

I had written one down about the golden mean. 11.16 Zigong inquired, who is of superior character, Zizhang or Zixia? The Master replied, Zizhang oversteps the mark and Zixia falls short of it. Does that make Zizhang better? Asked Zi Gong. One is as bad as the other, replied Confucius. Not quite. The golden mean or 1122 was one related to that. Change your teachings to fit your audience. Zilu inquired, on learning something, should one act upon it? The master said, while your father and elder brothers are still alive, how could you, on learning something, act upon it.

Then Ran Yu asked the same question. The master replied, on learning something, act upon it. Gongxi Hua said, when Zilu asked the question, you observed that his father and elder brothers are still alive. But when Ran Yu asked the same question, you told him to act on what he learns. I'm confused. Could you explain this to me? The master replied, Ran Yu is diffident. And so I urged him on, but Zilu has the energy of two. And so I sought to rein him in. So that seems to more or less explain. I mean, I don't know that this gets at. It's not like the golden mean.

It's not like a central concept that carries you through understanding his ethical teachings here. But it is. The idea of balance seems very useful just again, in terms of this overall harmony of everything and your place within it. So of course, there could be different ways that you could be out of harmony. And one might be being too letter of the law oriented or too rash, impulsive, your own temper. Even those elements of human nature have to be kept in balance. I suppose along the same lines, we could talk about grieving.

53:04 Wes: Ah, yeah. That is something I wanted to bring up.

53:06 Mark: Just focus on what is your passage that you have.

53:08 Wes: Mourning.

53:09 Mark: Isn't that one of the things that Aristotle considers explicitly, like, don't get too upset, but you can be not upset enough. There's the golden mean there.

53:18 Wes: Yeah.

53:19 Mark: And we don't get quite the same thing. Confucius here.

53:22 Wes: I mean, there's this emphasis on. Is it observing the rights of mourning. Is it. You know that. So for instance, there's a passage about being in mourning for three years, because three years is the time that you're nursing at the breast. And, well, it's kind of long, but. And that before you're weaned, you're your own person. Something like that.

53:42 Seth: Yeah. Your parents took care of you because you were helpless for three years. So the three years of mourning is the respectful amount.

53:49 Wes: Right.

53:50 Mark: And you shouldn't in rituals like that, even though there are other places where he says, you know, be thrifty, but you need to really just go all out in certain circumstances. Even if some of these rituals involve a lot of expense, that might seem very excessive. Don't skimp.

54:07 Wes: Do you guys have any of the passages noted?

54:10 Mark: I have 11, 10, which is just related to his disciple Yan Hui. Yan Hui, that is his favorite and There's a whole bunch of passages about how this guy died young. When Yan Hui died, the Master grieved for him with sheer abandon. His followers cautioned, sir, you grieve with such abandon. The Master replied, I grieve with abandon. If I don't grieve with abandon for him, then for whom?

54:33 Wes: Yes, Yan Hui was his favorite by far.

54:37 Mark: So you have to feel it, but if you're not feeling it, don't go overboard. But as one of the other passage you were referring to, Wes, if you don't feel like you want to mourn for three years, then there's something wrong with you. It's not that you could just correct it by doing it. It's just you're not developed enough. Also in the passage before that, in 11.9, when Yan Hui died, the Master cried, oh my T' ian is the ruin of me. Or one of the other translations was heaven has abandoned me, which I was commenting how in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, they kind of interpret that as existential, that most of the time he's like, oh, I am so in sync with Tien.

I'm the servant of at least, like, that's my goal. But here he's saying, it's actually appropriate for you to mourn like crazy for somebody that you really feel for. But it sounds like there then he's out of sync with Tien. Tien is either abandoned or is the ruin of him.

55:33 Wes: So 3.26 is another passage. What could I see in a person who in holding a position of influence, is not tolerant, who in observing ritual propriety, is not respectful, and who, in overseeing the mourning rites, does not grieve? So this goes to Mark what you're saying about, you know, it shouldn't just be a ritual to you, you should actually feel it.

55:55 Mark: Yeah, there's a lot of references to music. That's one of the things that just like being into the songs you read that quote about it will sharpen you in all sorts of ways, but it also seems an example of the kind of thing that you're doing it. It's ritual. You're playing cover tunes, you're playing traditional songs, but yet you're exerting yourself. In fact, there's 323 above what you were looking at. The Master talked to the Grand Music Master of Lu about music and said much can be realized with music if one begins by playing in unison, then goes on to improvise within purity of tone and distinctness and flow, thereby bringing all to completion.

56:32 Wes: He's Talking about jazz there.

56:34 Mark: So improvise, it's an interesting word there. I mean that. That does kind of make it sound like the Nietzsche interpretation that these translators were giving of Ren might actually make sense if the ethical life is at once observing ritual propriety but also improvising, you know, making your life an art, something like that, putting life back in the rituals, that's what makes society continue and be vital.

57:04 Wes: I thought there were more passages about mourning.

57:06 Seth: There are quite a few actually. Did you do 3, 4 read it. Lin Fang asked about the roots of observing ritual propriety. The master replied, what an important question. In observing ritual propriety, it is better to be modest than extravagant. In mourning, it is better to express real grief than to worry over formal details.

57:28 Mark: Yes.

57:29 Seth: So is there something about funereal rites that are really important? I know that when he talks about sacrifices, there are some passages in here about ritual sacrifices and appropriate sacrifices and that they would do sacrifices to their ancestors. So I'm assuming that something having to do with the way funereal rites are somehow critical in establishing an appropriate transition from the living to the venerated dead. And that he's saying something about that here. But I mean, there's got to be context that we don't know.

58:02 Mark: Yeah, and I think that would be related. 3:12 the expression sacrifice as though present is taken to mean sacrifice to the spirits as though the spirits are present. The master said, if I myself do not participate in the sacrifice, it is as though I have not sacrificed at all. That's not exactly funeral rites, but it's similar. It's related since it involves the spirits. And again, you got to be into it. It's not ritual propriety if you're just going through the motions.

58:28 Seth: I don't know. I mean, the way I. What it sounds like is he's saying if you can't genuinely feel grief when you are mourning, if you don't genuinely feel grief for somebody, I shouldn't say. If I should say you should genuinely feel grief when somebody dies. If you don't and you just go through the motions of lighting a candle or attending a ceremony or whatever it is you're supposed to do, then there's something going on. But that's the only thing where he talks about an authentic emotional response being appropriate that I can recall. He doesn't talk about it being appropriate to react with fear or horror or anger or happiness or joy to anything. It seems that grief is.

59:09 Mark: Yeah, he's a lot of stoic sounding things in here.

59:12 Seth: There's a Lot of golden mean sounding things too. Yeah.

59:15 Mark: This 15.2 exemplary persons are steadfast in the face of adversity, while petty persons are engulfed by it. Which doesn't necessarily mean you don't feel anything, it just means you stand up.

59:27 Wes: I mean, if the difference is if we think of Ren as humanity and something related to compassion, then we get more like a sense of ethics grounded in sentiment. Right. As opposed to an ethics that's grounded outside of sentiment. So it would make him more of a human in that sense than a Kantian. Or if it's virtue ethics, if we're thinking of Stoic virtue ethics, then the grounding is ultimately in one's flourishing, one's happiness.

59:57 Seth: It feels like it has more in common with the Stoic virtue ethics than with other things.

1:00:01 Mark: Just less individualistic, probably.

1:00:03 Seth: Well, just that flourishing has a much stronger social component to it. Not to say that there wasn't a sense of a social component. There's a social and a political component to flourishing, obviously for Aristotle and for the other ancient Stoics. But we've already read a couple passages about the concept of shame. This reminded me. There's a really wonderful short novel by Salman Rushdie. I think it might be his first published book called Shame. And he contrasts the world of where he came from in. I don't remember which country he's from, but that this shame culture versus a guilt culture, you know, the Eastern or the.

What you might call the Middle Eastern, wherever he's from was a shame culture. And the Western world that he was living in, in England, it was a guilt culture. It's a novel about how those things play out. And it's interesting that the assumption here is that the reason why exemplary people have moral force or have moral authority is. And we already talked about this, not because they enact laws, but because people recognize their behavior as morally appropriate and will seek to fall in line or emulate it. Presumably because not doing so is not because it's punitive, there's punitive response, but because they are shamed into acting appropriately or acting accordingly.

And so there is that element there, which I don't know if it's present in our Western, in that virtue ethics. I think it might be present in moral sentiment, but I'm not sure. Anyway, it's a critical piece of the puzzle. It's just not highlighted. I think it's one of those things that is taken for granted. It's one of the underlying assumptions of the way things work in this text.

1:01:54 Wes: So in virtue ethics. Yeah, I would be teleologically grounded and the ends inherent in being a human being and being a rational creature, as opposed to some more human grounding it in some sort of sentiment, if you can even give it such a grounding. I'm honestly unsure of how you would classify it. But yeah, I mean, I see the similarities to virtue ethics.

1:02:16 Mark: I'm torn here between the admonition by our translator to say, well, they didn't have the notion of inner and outer. They didn't have all these Cartesian problems that we have, but yet there are a number bs.

1:02:31 Wes: Total bs.

1:02:31 Mark: Yeah, there are a number of things. So we shouldn't psychologize these notions. We have to look at them in social components, not psychological components, if that makes sense. But yeah, there are a lot of things clearly, like there are pretenders. There are people that only pretend to be virtuous. Those are the, you know, the petty people that he's. And maybe what distinguishes them is, well, you test them and they actually don't have the virtues that they claim to have. Maybe that's all there is. So it's not a matter between inner and outer.

It's a matter of like, have you tested the person enough? Have you looked closely enough at them to see that they're, you know, lying or whatever? This emphasis on don't just go through the motions, you have to really mean it. But that sure as hell sounds like a distinction between inner and outer. And you could interpret it in terms of if you are just going through the motions, then your motions are not fluid, you're not actually playing the music gracefully. So that bringing your natural temper to bear actually feeling what's going on is not a matter of.

The outer expression could be exactly the same, but is the light on inside or not? Which is the Cartesian way of taking it. But instead it's are you being fully present in the outer motion? Well, in any case, according to 15.17, the master said, those who would get together all day long and occupying themselves with witty remarks, never once get to the topic of appropriate conduct. Such persons are hard to deal with.

1:03:57 Wes: This is what I meant to read as the ground rule in the very beginning. A 180.

1:04:04 Mark: I don't know which side of that line we are on, but at least today we are talking about appropriate conduct

1:04:10 Wes: and not merely made some witty remarks.

1:04:13 Mark: Attempting to be witty. Not merely. He's definitely. He's a catty guy.

1:04:18 Wes: True. I guess you're right. I guess wit is okay as long as you're getting to the point. But glibness is never okay.

1:04:26 Mark: Although it doesn't. Some of what he says sure sounds glibness in terms of. I guess what makes a glib is like that there's no understanding or something inside.

1:04:35 Wes: Yeah.

1:04:35 Mark: So as long as you. You can be aphoristic, say that everything is profound. It can be snarky and aphoristic as long as it's profound. But there's this whole like, oh, the way they perform that ritual. I just can't even watch it. There are several that I was reading with a tone of. This is some sort of stand up comedy thing. What 1425 is one that I marked. Qu Boyu, a minister of Wei, sent an envoy to see Confucius. Confucius, sitting together with him, asked him a question. How's the minister doing these days? The envoy replied, the minister has been trying to reduce his faults, but with no success.

When the envoy had departed, the master said, that is an envoy. That is an envoy. See, there you go. It's just a matter of the tone. I don't know what it means. Is he saying that the envoy was good for sharing the grimy details of his master's failure to become more virtuous, even though he's trying, or is it showing that they were just talking envoy to envoy and he was just showing that he was a good remonstrator, that his master was at least trying. Was he dissing him or not? I don't know.

1:05:41 Wes: No, he's praising him. Yeah, he's praising him. He's praising him for talking honestly about the minister instead of just BSing and saying, oh, the minister's great.

1:05:50 Mark: Any last bit, Seth?

1:05:52 Seth: Yeah, I've got a couple things. So first off, if I were to do this again and do it in like a more robust and way, I would learn more about how Confucius has been taught for thousands of years and has so permeated all these different cultures. Because I think the idea that it's the moral cornerstone text for our culture that's been in place for thousands of years and politically has been some different things, particularly in the post communist era. I'm curious about that. You know, anytime a text has a lot of influence, I think we have to acknowledge that, like we were pretty hard on Boethius, or I should say everybody else was.

Wes and I were less so. But the fact that that scene was so important to so many people for so long, you have to kind of acknowledge that there are a lot of great moral lessons in here. Even, you know, if you Just look at moving beyond the idea of ritual propriety as specific to that society. I think we talked about how there's value in traditions in some respect, and rituals at least showing them some level of respect before simply dispensing with them and being ritualists. Confucius is very much like Socrates in many respects. There are numerous passages where he says, for example, four things from which the master abstained.

Speculation, demanding or claiming certainty, inflexibility and self absorption. And then of course, we talked about him being able to drink and knowing only that he knows nothing or whatever. The. There's a lot of similarities. And the last thing was. It's interesting that there's a cult of personality around Confucius in these cultures that's not the same as the Buddha or Jesus or even Socrates for that. Maybe more so like Socrates, but. And in the introduction or somewhere, we're reading that saying that had things been slightly different or had certain things been written down, or had things been done a different way, he very much might have been a religious figure.

He certainly carries all of the same moral authority and has had just as much impact as Christ has had. And so that is really fascinating to me. And it's hard to get my mind wrapped around that there's a figure that plays that same role culturally as Christ does in the Western tradition. And this is like the first time I'm actually reading it or have very little access. It has very little influence outside of Eastern culture, maybe because it's not proselytizing and there isn't a strong metaphysics that can be exported so that you can hammer people and destroy their cultures with the capital T.

Truth. So in that respect, I find it much more compelling.

1:08:23 Mark: Well, just to reflect on the reverence for texts. 15.28 when everyone despises a person, you must look into the matter carefully. Where everyone celebrates a person, you must also look into it carefully. So the fact that an entire culture has based itself intermittently on this, like, that's interesting, but that is also suspicious.

1:08:44 Wes: So what interests me, I'll give my closing here, is this tension between the different sorts of ends that get defined for us, the ones that we might think that there are certain ends or things we ought to do relative to being human beings. And then there are things that society prescribes for us. And then there's the sort of Nietzschean being oneself, determining who you are as a character and then figuring out how that sort of teleologically sets up ends for you that you have to achieve. And there's overlap between those things. Right. So I know I have.

I incessantly bring up the Crito now since we read it. But the laws and customs, right, they can create their formative forces that in some sense we owe some sort of respect to, even when they're unjust and even when they're bad. So I was reminded of all of this at 4:19. The master said, when your father and mother are alive, do not journey far. And when you do travel, be sure to have a specific destination. So I see that as a sort of. We're caught up in these identities, these formative forces, and it's not that we can depart from them, but when we do that, we should know where we're going.

And I think to some extent we should keep in mind that what's right, the passage through that might, as Confucius seems to say, be through, for instance, things like ritual propriety. It's not unrelated to that. Or there's a way of inhabiting ritual propriety as we've talked about with certain sentiments or something like that, which can. I don't know if moralize it is the right word, but which can be a path to one's virtue.

1:10:29 Mark: Well, Wes, I just gotta read 1726. The master said, the person who at age 40 still evokes the dislike of others is an hopeless case.

1:10:41 Wes: Thanks, man. I thought of myself too when I read them.

1:10:47 Seth: This is a perfect text for Mark.

1:10:51 Mark: There's a lot of fun stuff in here. Yes. All right. Well, we certainly have more room. I don't think we would do another session on this. In particular, though, I would really recommend that. I hope people are inspired by this. Maybe you want to get this translation or start a not school group to read chunks of the Analects and learn about that. There's a lot of great thing about this is that there are so many resources online. Since it is so studied. I didn't look hard for that great courses thing at all. And that was like 40 lectures. I didn't listen to them.

That was many lectures. But Even just on YouTube, you can find quite a lot of stuff if you want to learn more about them. I think it's very possible we would go on and do another one with Mencius or Xunzi. I guess if I have any of these pronunciations correct. We can't leave without saying that really Confucius is the Latinized, like Mencius is the Latinized name. And really we should be calling him Master Kong because that is an awesome name.

1:11:49 Seth: Yeah.

1:11:51 Mark: Next time we're actually though going to talk about George Orwell, his book 1984 of course, and Politics and the English Language, 1946. So please join us. Please go like our Facebook page, join our Facebook group for a heck of a lot of discussion and follow the blog. Sign up for your daily email, follow us on Twitter, etc. Etc. We would love if you would go on the itunes store and give us a nice rating. If you have not already done that. We would love to hear back from you. Pelartiallyexaminedlife.com Feel free to drop us a line. Our closing song is Please Allow Me to Look at You Again by Gary Lucas, guitar virtuoso from his album the Edge of Heaven, which is all Chinese music from the 1950s.

This song was originally sung by Chaoshuan with music by Chang Hung, lyrics by Yen Huan. You can hear about this project and the many other diverse things that Gary has done on Nakedly Examined Music Episode 7. Check it out at nakedly examinedmusic.com thanks again to Tzuchien. Good night everybody.

1:12:57 Wes: Good night.

1:13:29 Tsu: Shing.

1:14:46 Mark: Sa.

1:15:11 Wes: Sam.

1:15:37 Tsu: Nik.