Confucianism as a philosophy is a big umbrella, so there are a lot of different paths. One path would be to start with Mencius and Xunzi. They are considered elaborator of Confucius’ teachings. Of course, they added a lot of their own ideas. Another path is to read Doctrine of the Mean and the Great Learning. These are texts that were used in later forms of Confucianism as a well to draw metaphysical concepts to compete with Buddhism. Lastly, you could re-read the Analects with commentaries from Zhu Xi. Zhu Xi set the standard understanding of the Analects for about 700 years.

I believe in North American High Toryism instead of American conservatism. — BillMcEnaney

I don't follow politics. What is American high toryism and what is American conservatism and how do they differ?

By the way, though I'm a native-born Irish American, I believe in North American High Toryism instead of American conservatism. That's partly why Confucianism interests me. I suggest "American conservatism" may be an oxymoron because it seems to be Locke's classical liberalism. — BillMcEnaney

Disclaimer : not an expert on any of these socio-political concepts. But for clarification of terms :

High Toryism has been described by Andrew Heywood as neo-feudalist in its preference for a traditional hierarchical and patriarchal society over modern freedom and equality,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Tory

How close are Confucian ideas to the American conservatism of our day?
One thing, too, that I should point out is that conservatism in the West is often confused with libertarianism, because both tend to look very skeptically at the state. One could never confuse a Confucian with a libertarian, because Confucianism is about holding office, being a bureaucrat, managing the evolution of the social organism. It had no place for liberty or the individual or the rule of law.
https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2021/08/confucianism-conservatism-east-jonathan-chaves.html

Classical liberalism :
Considered the Father of Liberalism, John Locke wrote two treatises on government attacking absolute monarchy and supporting a more limited view of government. While his conception of liberalism is explicitly based on a theology many people would dispute, his reasoning has been applied in secular conditions to great success.
https://bigthink.com/thinking/classical-liberalism-explained/

Sure. But I was interested in how the OP was using these terms.

Terms like conservative and libertarian and right wing seem almost meaningless these days. And we can be sure that almost any Western government's chief allegiance is not to the people but to corporations and banks. What was Gore Vidal's salient quote? "There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings."

↪Gnomon
Sure. But I was interested in how the OP was using these terms.

Terms like conservative and libertarian and right wing seem almost meaningless these days. And we can be sure that almost any Western government's chief allegiance is not to the people but to corporations and banks. What was Gore Vidal's salient quote? "There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings." — Tom Storm

Me too. Being apolitical by nature, I wasn't familiar with the notion of American "High Toryism" or Western "Confucianism. So, I looked-up those terms.

In any case, the "fake news" media seem to be reporting a rebound trend away from chaotic Democracy toward orderly Autocracy. They envision a popular swing in favor of strong-man Right-wing leaders in US and Europe. I get the impression that modern politics historically oscillates between Right & Left extremes. But generally, the overall effect has been somewhere in the middle. Now though, Fascism has had almost four generations to shed its "evil" connotations, and to look "heroic" in hindsight.

In practice, the "Property Party" seems to support whichever candidate best serves their interest as Feudal Lords. I guess that us landless serfs in the hinterlands are best advised to keep our heads down as the sword-wielding landlords duke it out in the Capitalist capitals. May the best Oligarch win. :wink:

One thing, I would note. From my reading of Confucius, it would be a mistake to read him as just a political philosopher. He is teaching a life-philosophy (a way to create meaning) that centers around being human/social, which has a political aspect. However, it also has an ethical and customary aspect, too.

Keith,
Good. Keep the thread on topic. encouraging smile

Although I wish the author or one of the mods would correct the spulling in the title.

:up:

Thanks for that.

native-born Irish American — BillMcEnaney

Ain't no such thing. Choose one or the other.

North American High Toryism is Canadian conservatism. You should read the Manifesto in Prof. Ron Dart's book The North American High Tory Tradition to learn more about it. North American High Tories believe morality matters more than economics does. They think a country should adopt an official religion, too. They also support a strong, possibly big government when it would promote and sustain the common good. Some North American High Tories believe in socialism, too, but I reject it and communism. Those Tories treasure history, tradition, the traditional family, customs, and other such things.

From what I can tell, American conservatism is Locke's classical liberalism. American conservatives prefer small government, capitalism, and the Republican, constitutional kind of government. They also believe firmly in the U.S. Constitution and religious liberty.

An article from the Mises Institute

From what I can tell, American conservatism is Locke's classical liberalism. — BillMcEnaney

Not anymore. The roots of both liberal and conservative ideologies can be found in the works of classical liberalism but today's Republican Party is not conservative as the term was generally understood in the pre-Trumpian era.

With its emphasis familial piety, ritual, and ren (virtue) Confucianism is conservative in a way that differs from Liberalism with its emphasis on the individual.

I descended from Irish people and was born in the United States. I haven't emigrated to or from any country.

Consider "African Americans." That phrase usually denotes dark-skinned Americans of African descent, but some naturalized Americans are South African whites. That makes "African American" vague and ambiguous. Why not call dark-skinned Africans "Afro-Americans" to distinguish them from caucasian African Americans?

Tom, I believe in North American High Toryism, a Canadian. North American High Tories are monarchists who treasure history, tradition, wisdom from the past, and morality. They also believe a government should preserve and protect the common good. Those people want close relationships between families, friends, and neighbors. So, they disagree with extreme individualism in America. Colleges and universities should transmit a cultural inheritance, not mere job-related skills.

Some North American High Tories support socialism, but I reject it. I want to live in a highly decentralized, stratified kingdom where the sovereign rules for life. Thirteenth-century monarchs worked directly with their courts.

They also applied the principle of subsidiarity, which states that problems should be solved as locally as possible. Say you need help with something. Ask a family member for help. If he can't give it, go to a friend, a neighbor, a charity, and so on until your problem gets solved. It's immoral for a government to do what people ought to do instead. Now you know why I disagree with American leftists who want socialism, socialized medicine, and public schools. People like that hope the government will take care of everyone.

American conservatives, i.e., classical liberals, love the U.S. Constitution. They love small government, free market capitalism, liberal democratic elections, and more. They also talk endlessly about that constitution.

Maybe feudalism has some good points. For example, a feudal lord lived with people in a community and could explain their needs and concerns to the king. The lord wasn't some politician who held an occasional town meeting to listen to constituents. He knew them because his mom was in their neighborhood. So, he wasn't a power-hungry politician.

I'm not sure what the Wikipedia article means by "patriarchy." However, a sovereign should be an apolitical, nonpartisan father or mother to his or her subjects. If I'm right, I have no problem with patriarchy and matriarchy of that kind.

Can you name an American politician who ran for the Presidency because he felt obligated to promote and preserve the common good? I don't know of one. Like Sir Charles Coulombe, I want a Godly sovereign who strives to rule well partly because he knows God will judge him for how he ruled.

Pope St. Pius X, my favorite pope, wrote: "In addressing you for the first time from the Chair of the supreme apostolate to which We have, by the inscrutable disposition of God, been elevated, it is not necessary to remind you with what tears and warm instance We exerted Ourselves to ward off this formidable burden of the Pontificate. Unequal in merit though We be with St. Anselm, it seems to us that We may with truth make Our own the words in which he lamented when he was constrained against his will and in spite of his struggles to receive the honor of the episcopate. For to show with what dispositions of mind and will We subjected Ourselves to the most serious charge of feeding the flock of Christ, We can well adduce those same proofs of grief which he invokes in his own behalf. "My tears are witnesses," he wrote, "and the sounds and moanings issuing from the anguish of my heart, such as I never remember before to have come from me for any sorrow, before that day on which there seemed to fall upon me that great misfortune of the archbishop of Canterbury. And those who fixed their gaze on my face that day could not fail to see it . . . I, in color more like a dead than a living man, was pale for amazement and alarm. Hitherto I have resisted as far as I could, speaking the truth, my election or rather the violence done me. But now I am constrained to confess, whether I will or no, that the judgments of God oppose greater and greater resistance to my efforts, so that I see no way of escaping them. Wherefore vanquished as I am by the violence not so much of men as of God, against which there is no providing, I realize that nothing is left for me, after having prayed as much as I could and striven that this chalice should if possible pass from me without my drinking it, but to set aside my feeling and my will and resign myself entirely to the design and the will of God."

"https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-x/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-x_enc_04101903_e-supremi.html

What about liberty? Moral liberty is the ability to do what you should do. It's not a legal right to do anything I want to do that won't harm other people.

↪Gnomon
Maybe feudalism has some good points. For example, a feudal lord lived with people in a community and could explain their needs and concerns to the king. The lord wasn't some politician who held an occasional town meeting to listen to constituents. He knew them because his mom was in their neighborhood. So, he wasn't a power-hungry politician. — BillMcEnaney

True, but your description sounds like a romantic fairytale version of history : an age of fatherly kings, and courtly knights, and fair maidens, and rustic ignorant peasants. But scientific history is less rosy. Some have described Feudalism as a "Protection Racket". In recent history, something similar to European Feudalism*1 was being established by Hitler in Germany to implement his dream of a Third Reich. At the same time in Asia, the semi-divine Japanese Emperor ruled over a feudal empire of Samurai lords, fair maidens, and millions of contented land-bound peasants. And both attempted to impose their idyllic system of governance upon neighboring countries by military force. But no one could tell the Fuhrer or Heavenly Sovereign that trying to emulate Alexander the Great or Genghis Kahn in the 20th century was not a good idea. It took a distant liberal democratic nation to say "No!" with an atomic bomb.

On the positive side, Feudalism was a stable pragmatic system of land management and government for thousands of years all around the world. In a reality where the fastest mode of communication was a horse & rider, a rigid inherited or appointed hierarchy of lords & vassals & powerless serfs, simply worked. But in order for Feudalism to work in the 21st century, it would have to banish most modern education & technology & the middle class. Fast communication would tend to undermine the absolute authority of a remote king, and his hierarchy of authority. The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones stories describe a romantic but brutal side of top-down Feudalism.

However, maybe you can devise an updated system of government that incorporates the best points of all past systems, and avoids the worst : the stability of Feudalism without the oppression, and the freedom of Democracy without the chaotic politics. :smile:


*1. National Feudalism :
https://polcompballanarchy.miraheze.org/wiki/National_Feudalism

Feudalism was imperfect, and I reject Hitler's brand of it. Still, I admire Christendom in 13th-century Europe. So, please read The Thirteenth: Greatest of Centuries if you wonder why. Since when does any brand of liberalism promote subsidiarity, solidarity, and close relationships between relatives, friends, and neighbors? After my political science professor friend knew how much I admired Medieval Christendom, he said people there enjoyed too little liberty. But they wouldn't have wanted it in John Stewart Mill's sense. Neither would Confucius and his disciples.

I probably sound utopian, though I reject utopianism, egalitarianism, postmodernism, and every kind of liberalism. Though my field is computer science, I am thoroughly anti-modern. Since I'm a North American High Tory, too, I won't join any American political party.

Analects.

I want to start here:

[1:2] You Zi said: “There are few who have developed themselves filially and fraternally who enjoy offending their superiors. Those who do not enjoy offending superiors are never troublemakers. The noble man concerns himself with the fundamentals. Once the fundamentals are established, the proper way appears. Are not filial piety and obedience to elders fundamental to the actualization of fundamental human goodness?”

[Comment] The word ren 仁 is perhaps the most fundamental concept in Confucian thought. It has been translated into English as “benevolence,” “altruism,” “goodness”, “humaneness” etc. It is a difficult concept to translate because it doesn't really refer to any specific type of virtue or positive endowment, but refers to an inner capacity possessed by all human beings to do good, as human beings should. It is the quality that makes humans human, and not animals. In earlier iterations of this translation I have gone through various transitions: at first I attempted to use a unified English rendering throughout the text. I then pursued a strategy of leaving untranslated, as ren. Now I am presently leaning in the direction of translating the term variously, according to the context, but at present, remnants of all three strategies remain in the text. I intend to eventually sort this out.

In the Chinese “essence-function” 體用 paradigm, ren can be understood as the innate, unmanifest source of all kinds of manifestations of virtuosity: wisdom, filial piety, reverence, courtesy, love, sincerity, etc., all of which are aspects, or functions of ren. Through one's efforts at practicing at the function of ren, one may enhance and develop one's ren, until one may be called a noble man, or even better, a “humane person” 仁人. In the Analects, to be called a “humane person” by the Master is an extremely high evaluation, rarely acknowledged for anyone.

[1-3] 子曰。巧言令色、鮮矣仁。

[1:3] The Master said: “Someone who is eloquent and maintains a contrived smile is seldom considered to be a really good person. — A. Charles Muller translation

That is a great place to start. The first appearance of 仁(ren), which of course immediately brings up the question of what is 仁(ren) and the secondary question how to translate it? In some ways, the whole of the Analects is trying to answer that question, so it really should be tabled. However, the secondary question demands an attempt.

I like starting with the character itself. 仁(ren) is made of “people” plus “two”, which I think is a good start. For me, in Confusius’ philosophy, it seems to be human is to be social. This goes with another usage of 仁(ren). If your hand goes numb then you can say “not 仁(ren)” because you are disconnected from it.

So, I take the Analects to be answering, how to be human (live meaningfully)? It is through 仁(ren) or social connection or love (in Empedocles sense). This passage says the first place we learn 仁(ren) is in the family.

For me, in Confusius’ philosophy, it seems to be human is to be social. — Keith

So, I take the Analects to be answering, how to be human (live meaningfully)? It is through 仁(ren) or social connection or love (in Empedocles sense). This passage says the first place we learn 仁(ren) is in the family. — Keith

Yes, that is what I take it to be. To be human is to be social -- but it starts within the family.

[1:6] The Master said: “A young man should serve his parents at home and be respectful to elders outside his home. He should be earnest and truthful, loving all, but become intimate with his innate good-heartedness. After doing this, if he has energy to spare, he can study literature and the arts.”

[Comment] In the above-mentioned essence-function view, the development of one's proper relationship with one's parents and others around her/him is fundamental in life. Only after these things are taken care of is it proper to go off and play at whatever one likes— even if this “play” involves the serious study of some art form. — A. Charles Muller, trans

It's all good.

However, the modern, or urban, sense of human interaction (our sense of interaction) is tied with psychology and its dysfunction. The sociological interpretation of human relationships must address the dysfunctional aspects of a family or whatever group one belongs to.

I have not gone through most of the analects, so I don't know the confucian suggestion on how to address the stresses within a relationship. For now, I see confusionism as the description of an ideal human being.

Remember that to be in a relationship with other people is to give up part of your individualistic tendencies. This is, I think, where the modern sense and the confucian sense have in common. But I believe most of us are not interested in the "ideal" as much as we are in how to live if we find that our situation is not the best, or worse, abusive.

To be human is to be social -- but it starts within the family. — L'éléphant

Yes, this is one of the points of contention between the Confucianists and the Mohists (墨家). The Confucianist claimed the Mohists universal love would fail because it does not take into account the primary nature of the family in ren formulation. This leads to the question of, how is family primary in ren formulation? Is it the natural, usual place it is formed OR is it the only place it can be formed? From later Confuncianist (Mengzi and Xunzi), we see the first answer being favored. Despite those two being opposed on the question of human nature (Mengzi →Humans are good by nature | Xunzi →Humans are self-centered by nature), their action plans were the same: education. So, ren formulation is possible through any education plan independent of the family.

In the Analects, we can also see the roots of this thinking.

Chapter 2, Verse 5
Meng Yi Tzu asked about being filial. The Master answered, 'Never fail to comply.' Fan Ch'ih was driving. The Master told him about the interview, saying, 'Meng sun asked me about being filial. I answered, "Never fail to comply."' Fan Ch'ih asked, 'What does that mean?' The Master said, 'When your parents are alive, comply with the rites in serving them; when they die, comply with the rites in burying them; comply with the rites in sacrificing to them.' Lau [2:5]

In 2.5, we see filial piety is restrained by ritual and ritual is something that is learned and practiced. So, with ritual, we still have a chance to learn ren. (What to do in a world without ritual? Open-question)

For now, I see Confucianism [sic] as the description of an ideal human being — L'éléphant

To me, this primal nature of the family suggests a different way to understand the Confucian project. Education is the key to bring about this ideal state. However, this is not abstract education. It is a practice. So, one has to live the ideal, before it is real. In a phase, it is a “fake it until you make it” mentality.

Why do this?

[15:21] The Master said: “The noble man seeks within himself. The inferior man seeks within others.”

Education is the key to bring about this ideal state. However, this is not abstract education. It is a practice. So, one has to live the ideal, before it is real. In a phase, it is a “fake it until you make it” mentality. — Keith

Okay, so there is a system -- called education -- that could ensure the integrity of the family relationships. But this is a domino effect that we would like to happen without fail -- beginning with the parents, they must be educated enough so that the ritual is respected, but this chain could be broken and the spiraling down leads to the dysfunction.

Edit: I realize that I have been talking about the part of urban life when we could no longer aspire for the ideal.

But this is a domino effect that we would like to happen without fail — L'éléphant

In Confucianism after the Analects, I would say human nature is that first domino. For Mencius, human nature is good (Child and the Well story 2A:6), so we will seek the good, which is a proper education. Xunzi starts in the opposite direction, but ends up in the same place. Human nature is “evil” (self-interested), but some humans (The sage Kings) also had intelligence and understood we needed to work together for self-interested reasons, so they created rites/education. So, if Mencius is right then the domino can fall anytime. If Xunzi is right, it just requires an intelligent person to see the value.

However, I hate using other philosophers to explain another philosopher, so let me try to give an answer more directly from the Analects. Possibly the first saying in the Analects gives a clue.

1.1 The Master said, Studying, and from time to time going over what
you’ve learned—that’s enjoyable, isn’t it? To have a friend come
from a long way off—that’s a pleasure, isn’t it? Others don’t understand him, but he doesn’t resent it—that’s the true gentleman,
isn’t it?

To be human (which is the goal of the gentleman/君子) is to have these twin pleasures of learning and being social. If that is true then human nature again makes the domino fall.

In Confucianism after the Analects, I would say human nature is that first domino. For Mencius, human nature is good (Child and the Well story 2A:6), so we will seek the good, which is a proper education. Xunzi starts in the opposite direction, but ends up in the same place. Human nature is “evil” (self-interested), but some humans (The sage Kings) also had intelligence and understood we needed to work together for self-interested reasons, so they created rites/education. — Keith

I see the similarity with the Aristotelian conception of the good/essence of human being. There is the recognition or a deliberation of what good is. We don't have to start as good, but we could achieve it. The ideal is achievable.