Finding a Way with Confucius. Week 4: The Analects

Confucius’ Analects was my reading this week, accompanied by Chinese traditional music and art. I’ll probably be better off for having read it...

First, The Analects is a lot like the book of Proverbs in the Bible: aphorism after aphorism, with very little narrative and not much to connect each paragraph. It was truly like drinking from a firehose. That’s exactly how I felt this week, trying to get through the book.

I did, in fact, try to put together a few cogent thoughts about The Analects itself, ideas I can take forward with me into further reading:

• The most important virtues for Confucius are courage, wisdom, and Goodness. Goodness is embodied as adherence to type. Whaley’s description (from 1938, if that helps) is that it’s like calling someone a “true Englishman” as the best compliment. It is attainable by aligning yourself with it rather than chasing it.
• Ritual is supremely important. Adherence to ritual is necessary to attain the Way of the Good (which is the Ancient, and better way) rather than the Way of Violence (which is the current-day way). Further, respect for parents is a crucial part of ritual.
• There is a tension between the life of the mind, which is what a gentleman is to develop, and the practical life, which is for common people. Confucius says more than once that a gentleman doesn’t pursue practical knowledge but only contemplates ideas.
• I saw parallels with Stoicism occasionally, and there was some Utopianism, it seems to me. There were also plenty of times when it struck me that Confucius was actually complaining that even though he had great ideas and great teaching, he wasn’t getting hired by anyone important.

Additionally, I found this podcast about Confucius, by professors at Mount St. Mary’s University. A Catholic theologian who likes Confucius was really helpful for this Christian to get a handle on the work.

Here's an interesting album of Chinese music.

This is a year-long challenge! Join me next week as we tackle two texts from Aristotle.

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