How do People Today Think About Confucius?

Author: caren_zuo Date: 2006-11-13 02:58

By Caren Zuo

The Confucius Temple in Beijing

To many radicals and revolutionaries, China's backwardness was all too obviously associated with the great scholar's teachings. Out with the old and in with new. The debate about the true nature of Confucianism rages on through into the 21^st century.

"It (Confucianism) respects the old and belittles the young, respects the System and belittles reform. Thus it becomes quite a good tool for maintaining the status quo in various aspects, while excluding the possibility of making progress," writes Xu Yuanbo, a critic on Xinhuanet, echoing the views of Stavrianos.

Meng Shaoyong, a Classical Chinese Literature doctoral student at Xibei University in Gansu Province, holds Stavrianos' views on Confucianism's negative qualities as more incisive than those of Chinese because of Stavrianos' position as an outsider. Meng believes Confucius still makes a lot of sense. "Actually, there's two sides to every story. Sometimes it's hard to say whether Confucianism was a blessing or a curse.

Confucianism advocates peaces, humility, unity and harmony, while it also promotes obedience, conservatism and lack of aggression." Meng believes Confucianism even now is rooted in modern Chinese society. "Every nation has its character. It shouldn't be seen as simply a collection of backward thoughts."To others, Confucianism today will always remain out of touch with reality.

"I hate the Analects I learned from my parents," says Wang Guanglin, 35, a salesman in the communication industry. "I was taught Confucius from childhood. But growing up in this society, I found these values couldn't help me survive the rat race. It took me three to five years to accept a set of new commercial values."The 28-year-old Liu Yan is a strong opponent to Confucius.

"Confucius and Analects? Do you think it is important to instruct our behaviors? Now what we talk about are something about Zhou Jielun (one of the most popular Chinese singers), Yao Ming (a Shanghai native and an NBA player for Huston Rocket) and Hollywood blockbusters." The nineteen-year-old Fan Li replies."

He set the law that women are the lowest from a family to a society. This idea was still live today, especially in many rural areas, where the boy has the priority to enjoy education in a poor family." Mainland ideas about Confucius tend to proceed from a Marxist "mode-of-production" point of view. His teachings belonged to an agrarian, inward-looking society, quite at odds with China's ever-increasing role as an economic and political global power.

But Zhang Fengrui, a Xi'an civil servant, believes Confucius retains relevance: “Be humble forever, because there is always someone who will come around the corner who is better than you. Be obedient to your leader, although sometimes his ideas are pure folly, because a really smart employee will never reveal that he is more intelligent than his boss. Be friendly and refrain from quarrelling with others because a good temper will benefit you by always getting help from people around you.

"Thus stands the statue in the new millennium. Love him or loathe him, praise him or criticize him, he's not going away. If, as the controversial political theorist Samuel Huntington states, the world is now entering a new phase of battling civilizations rather than nations, then the old man had better get that ruler ready. Some scholars are already prepared to throw the sage back into battle.Tang Yijie, a professor of Peking University, interprets Confucius as being all about "unity, but not conformity." Confucianism, he says, emphasizes humanity, peace, self-restraint based on ethical principles and tolerance of others.

This, he feels, is an instructive attitude during a time in which China's rising status is forcing previously dominant western powers to reassess their world views. “Unity means not one side trying to destroy the other, or one side assimilating another," Tang says, "but trying to find common ground between two different civilizations and further promoting the development of each."

June 2005, That’s China