“Of course the gentlemen encounters hardship. The difference is that petty man, encountering hardship is overwhelmed by it.” 15.2 Once again everyone; gentlemen. I begin to understand more deeply the actual definition of being a true “gentleman” whatsoever. In my way of interpreting the text, a gentleman is what we would currently describe as the ideal person, citizen, etc. In Confucianism, it apparently refers to the goal a man must attempt to reach. "The gentleman takes rightness as his substance, puts it into practice by means of ritual, gives it expression through modesty, and perfects it by being trustworthy. Now that is a gentleman!" 15.18.
A line I found both inspiring and applicable to my life morals was the following: "When the multitude hates a person, you must examine them and judge for yourself. The same holds true for someone who the multitude loves." 15.28. Wow. It seems as if this was a quote from a motivational conference or something. What called my attention the most was how true and, more than anything, honest this was. In the world we live in, we base many decisions on appearances and stereotypes, rarely stopping to judge others fairly. Hmm, something to think about.
“To make a mistake and yet to not change your ways- this is what is called truly making a mistake.” 15.30. This is something most of us have heard before, the whole story about learning from your mistakes in order to prevent them from happening again, so I found it cool that such concepts were mentioned in the Analects as well.
Book seventeen was a combination of topics, and to vary a little, involved some more dialogue between the Master and his pupils. Six new terms were introduced to us: Goodness, Wisdom, Trustworthiness, Uprightness, Courage, and Resoluteness. “Loving Goodness without the love of learning will make you love foolishness. Loving Wisdom without the love of learning will make you love deviance. Loving Trustworthiness without the love of learning will make you love harmful rigidity. Loving Uprightness without the love of learning will make you love intolerance. Loving Courage without the love of learning will make you love unruliness. Loving Resoluteness without the love of learning will make you love willfulness.
A line I would like to talk about is the last one in the book that personally cleared out any previous doubts I had developed on the sexist tone of the Analects, “Women and servants are particularly hard to manage: if you are too familiar with them, they grow insolent, but if you are too distant, they grow resentful." 17.25. What exactly does this even mean? Women are being directly compared to servants. This is interesting due to the fact that women are also put down in previous reading we have done like Gilgamesh or the Bible.
Finally, in Book eighteen, the actual Confucius is introduced to us. However, this creates even more doubts in me as to who the Master is anyways?
No comments:
Post a Comment