Is Confucius really a Conservative?

[freethinker]

I have seen this connotation everywhere, and obviously in the thousands of years bureaucrats used him to put forward his agenda.

I have just never seen the man that way, he seemed to mainly pushed people treating each other with respect and leaders taking their jobs seriously..

[Zukunftsmusik]

From my crude understanding of him, yes he is a conservative. He talks mainly about how people should fit the task/role they're born into, and that different hierarchical roles demands different rights and duties. This is supposed to bring about "harmony".

[Zugunruhe]

Exactly, Brostana. Confucius described a rigid social structure in which everyone has their place. It describes social inequality as a necessity to the functioning of society. He did do things that weren't horribly anti-revolutionary, but as a whole, his writings weren't particularly progressive either.

[Ilyich]

According to Wikipedia, Chen Duxiu, the co-founder and first General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, wrote some critiques of Confucianism. They were apparently written in his magazine La Jeunesse or New Youth. Unfortunately, I don't think there are any online copies of New Youth. Wikipedia says, however, that in an article called "Warning the Youth," Chen establishes six values which should replace Confucian values:

Independence instead of servility;
Progressivism instead of conservatism;
Aggression instead of passivity;
Cosmopolitanism instead of isolationism;
Utilitarian beliefs instead of impractical traditions;
Scientific knowledge instead of visionary insight.
Chen opposed Confucianism because:

It advocated superfluous ceremonies and preached the morality of meek compliance, making the Chinese people weak and passive, unfit to struggle and compete in the modern world.
It promoted family values and rejected the idea that the individual was the basic unit of society.
It upheld the inequality of the status of individuals.
It stressed filial piety, which made men subservient and dependent.
It preached orthodoxy of thought, disregarding freedom of thinking and expression.

[freethinker]

According to Wikipedia, Chen Duxiu, the co-founder and first General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, wrote some critiques of Confucianism. They were apparently written in his magazine La Jeunesse or New Youth. Unfortunately, I don't think there are any online copies of New Youth. Wikipedia says, however, that in an article called "Warning the Youth," Chen establishes six values which should replace Confucian values:

Independence instead of servility;
Progressivism instead of conservatism;
Aggression instead of passivity;
Cosmopolitanism instead of isolationism;
Utilitarian beliefs instead of impractical traditions;
Scientific knowledge instead of visionary insight.

Chen opposed Confucianism because:

It advocated superfluous ceremonies and preached the morality of meek compliance, making the Chinese people weak and passive, unfit to struggle and compete in the modern world.
It promoted family values and rejected the idea that the individual was the basic unit of society.
It upheld the inequality of the status of individuals.
It stressed filial piety, which made men subservient and dependent.
It preached orthodoxy of thought, disregarding freedom of thinking and expression.



Thank you Lyich Fellow Trotykist

[hatzel]

Confucius is one thing and one thing only: long dead.

I'm reminded of the Ricardo Flores Magón quote, something like "we're radicals now, but for the coming generations, we will be the conservatives." If anybody can be bothered to look up the exact wording it would be cool. But pretty much the point is that asking whether Confucius is (present tense) a conservative is ludicrous. Even overlooking the fact that conservatism as a political ideology didn't even exist when matey was knocking about, expecting him to have been progressive by modern standards is just...yeah...I mean, Rousseau wasn't really all that conservative in 1760 (perhaps he was even progressive!), but nowadays...those ideas, progressive? Do me a lemon! And maybe 2500 years ago Confucius too was pretty progressive. Maybe he wasn't. But to answer that you'd have to know a lot more about the state of China under the Zhou dynasty than I do, because seriously...why would I know the first thing about that?

[Rafiq]

Confucius's mode of thought, though, is undoubtedly reactionary.

[freethinker]

Confucius is one thing and one thing only: long dead.

I'm reminded of the Ricardo Flores Magón quote, something like "we're radicals now, but for the coming generations, we will be the conservatives." If anybody can be bothered to look up the exact wording it would be cool. But pretty much the point is that asking whether Confucius is (present tense) a conservative is ludicrous. Even overlooking the fact that conservatism as a political ideology didn't even exist when matey was knocking about, expecting him to have been progressive by modern standards is just...yeah...I mean, Rousseau wasn't really all that conservative in 1760 (perhaps he was even progressive!), but nowadays...those ideas, progressive? Do me a lemon! And maybe 2500 years ago Confucius too was pretty progressive. Maybe he wasn't. But to answer that you'd have to know a lot more about the state of China under the Zhou dynasty than I do, because seriously...why would I know the first thing about that?


That is true as well, in his life the early spring and autuam the man actually was consider a progressive (hence: he was loved by the students) but for thousands of years after his death most of his teachings were definitely used for the reactionaries in China up into the 20th century. Much less how can Confucianism be judged fairly by the acts of government bureaucrats.

First you should look up this guy, the person whos ideas were stomped upon by the Confucian conservatives:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozi

Then you should look up this guy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Yangming