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Q: How come no one talks about Confucius?
Call me ignorant but I imagined everyone would be walking around quoting Confucius here. I don't think my students even know who that was. Americans talk about Confucius more than I've heard him mentioned here, which is 0 times. Has this been anyone else's experience?
I don't know, how many times do you go around talking about the founding fathers of your country or religion? How many kids do you know that like talking about history on a daily basis? Most students I know like talking about dating, music, movies and other pop culture. I think it's pretty normal.
rasklnik:
I talk almost only of Russian Literature, History, Geopolitics, and Ethics, and had friends in university with similiar interests. There are philosophy majors in China too.
lchickman:
I said I expected my kids to know who he was , not talk about him . But I'd say on a somewhat regular basis adults quote famous sayings , quotes , parables etc (i.e. my Chinese teacher back in the states ALWAYS quoted Confucius despite it never being related to anything) so I just imagined I'd hear it at some point
The communists used to consider him evil encarnate. Now they've rehabilitated him, but I imagine people are a little shifty talking about something that could have gotten you in trouble not too long ago.
Anyway, Confucius wrote in classical Chinese, and they teach very very little of that in mainland Chinese schools, so he's a bit cut off from the average Chinese person.
I know that my teachers don't know the English name of Confucius, while they do know the English names of George Washington, Ben Franklin and Abe Lincoln. They have a basic understanding of both the American Revolutionary War, the Declaration of Independence and American Civil War. They also don't know the word "soy sauce", or "Buddhist".
I was impressed by their knowledge of American history, I was only trying to show them pictures of American currency but they were very curious about the people on the bills, and they already knew more than I thought they would. Much more than my knowledge of Chinese history.
I know that the students (kids) often don't learn their own culture in English, I have to teach them the words "chopsticks", "rice", "noodles", yet they readily know fork, knife and spoon, and spaghetti, hamburger, hot dog, pizza.
Perhaps they think that since it isn't English culture English wouldn't have a word for them. But I think it's important to teach them words they can relate to better (in addition to a basic understanding of foreign cultures).
Well the commies seem to have rehabilitated Confucius.
How about San Chang Feng inventor of Tai Chi, or numerous Taoist scholars? Or the buddhist monk that travelled east (in the monkey king legends, based in fact but distorted by history).
Or bodhidharma, the indian monk dude who went to shaolin mountian, stayed in a cave for 10 years contemplating the poor condition of the monks and gave them internal and external arts that developed into Shaolin Kungfu!
I have been there and seen that cave, and the fake monks. All the real Shaolin monks left CHina eons ago, and taught deserving westerners!
They won't touch any of that with a ten foot pole!
Shining_brow:
Not entirely true! They do know Sanzang (that Buddhist monk who travelled with Sun WuKong), and they also know (of) Buddhism - Chinese Buddhism, that is... Martial arts? Only if they actually study and train in that stuff. The Indian Buddhist? Why should they? Does it have much meaning to most people??
It remains quite true as some have wrote that Confucious was considered a non-entity for a great period of time in the last half-century. The same also went for many other traditional theories such as feng shui and the like.
Confucious did write in ancient Chinese but his writings have been edited and are now available in simplified Chinese. When I first came to China, his name was barely mentioned but that has changed with the passing years.
It is same for traditional Chinese holidays -- so many of them have made their way back on the calendar and are considered official holidays these days with their traditional names being used.
It's just the vicissitudes of life.
How many people talk about, quote, or even know anything about Socrates back home? People are just as ignorant as one another the whole world over; it frustrates me, a good trans-historical debate on divergent ethical systems would be cool. Well, for me at least.
981977405:
Yes but there is a difference here, I think, dear Yian, and that is that Socrates was never officially mandated out of the system for a period of time as was the case with Confucious. I do concur, however, most people in the West are familiar with Socrates but that may be more due to a lack of education than anything else -- his writings and thoughts are not taught in schools at all. The reasons are quite different : one stemmed from an lack of tolerance and the other stemmed from an absence of learning.
Shining_brow:
Yeah, there is actually a substantial difference - but not what 9 was talking about.
Confucius was part of a civilisation that has had 5000+ years of continuity (or so they all tell you!) He drastically changed the way people think, to the point it became ingrained into society as its norms. Socrates, firstly, was Greek - not English or American.. so he's behind the 8-ball already compared to Fu Tze.
Secondly, his writings were lost for quite a while, and then when they did re-emerge, were in the province only of the well educated. Confucius' writings (well, talkings) were readily available to pretty much any Chinese person (as societal mores, they'd have to be!)
Thirdly, his ideas are very debatable.. not that he actually said a lot - he just argued against others' ideas. This is especially the case when you start looking at European history, dominated by Christian writers such as Aquinas (and others who won't come to the front of my brain right now...). Confucius, OTOH, has had no real competition (other than Mao...).
Socrates also wrote stuff that would have been considered blasphemous to the ruling elite of Europe (hey, it was to the Greeks in his own day - and he got sentenced to death for it!!). So, much of his writings were thus ignored, forgotten, or occasionally hidden. Fu Tze only had that recently, and only for a short time - not for centuries, as did Socrates' works.
Thus, yeah, Confucius should be FAR better known, and talked about, here than Socrates is back home!!!
981977405:
Shining Brow, that was a very good an solid apologetic, truly, well reasoned. I do find parts of it entirely debatable, however. It is true that Kong Fuzi entered into the mainstream of Chinese tought; nonetheless, his thoughts came to be melded with good doses of Taoism (to which I personally ascribe) and with Zen Buddhism. I am not sure quite what you mean in your post that "his writings were lost". Are you referring to Socrates? Considering that Socrates comes to us through Plato, who writings were never lost, and to us additionally by the plays of Xenophon, I am just have to politely disagree. Additionally, his philosophy would have come down to us additionally through the Roman Classicist. While you refer to Western though as essentially Christian in nature, its base remains and was essentially Hellenistic, as like it or not, are the tenants of Christianity. Aquinas remains a major figure, truly, but there were numerous and one should ignore Spinoza among others. I stay with what I said : all of this is totally avoided in Western education today. Western education has become Burger King and McDonald's, so to speak, and the great thinkers of history are simply not touched upon. There has been a vulgarisation ot teaching in the West, often to the lowest common element. Confucious and Taoism and even the philosophy of Zen Buddhism were officially proscribed here for nearly sixty years. They are making a comeback, albeit a slow one.
