Suddenly looking back, Confucius is looking at me...

The old-fashioned push song: (Look at the lyrics, songs, and movies carefully!)

As the helm of the Chinese cultural tradition, Confucius can be said to have influenced thousands of students, both physically and psychologically... After reading the materials, I was surprised that Confucius has become our shape, and we Also in the shape of Confucius.

Why do I say this, because for thousands of years, there have been too many people who have interpreted Confucius. From Xunzi, Mozi to Mencius, from Lu Jiuyuan, Wang Yangming to Zhu Xi, and even to modern Neo-Confucianism, everyone is talking about Confucius. Hundreds of species. But in a word, Confucius is a perfect man who is neither humble nor arrogant, and who preaches the golden mean. Perhaps more like a saint in our collective imagination. No matter how you say it, Confucius is almost always right, even if he kills Shaozhengmao, some people will come out to defend him. Therefore, Confucius's perfect imagination can almost be said to be created by us, and the process of creating it even follows the rotation of the times and adjusts it in a rolling manner, which is amazing.

Still, Confucius has something lovely and something worth discussing. Take his teaching for example!

Regarding the purpose of its education, it may be possible to cut into it from two aspects: historical contribution and personal life course. As far as its historical significance is concerned, the purpose of Confucius' education is to create a good government and cultivate "moral perfection", in other words, to break the existing political monopoly of the hereditary aristocracy through education . The discussion starts from Confucius' personal life experience. In Confucius' view, what he is engaged in is not so much "teaching" as it is a prospect of "co-learning" . Confucius himself was quite tired of being called a "teacher", and he also believed that a teacher was an equal and kind image, so he encouraged himself to learn more from others, and also encouraged students to learn more from different teachers, and even go further. Break the authority of the "teacher".

As for the form of teaching, Confucius' education is relaxed and approachable, which is related to the teaching purpose of Confucius. (How can class boundaries be broken if not approachable?) Confucius' education adopted a flexible approach that varied from person to person, and despite the ease of teaching, Confucius occasionally held students to high standards and mildly condemned what they did.

As the founder of Confucianism, Confucius must be involved in related philosophical propositions, including moral philosophy, natural philosophy and so on. One of the concepts that must be clarified is the concept of "li" . In traditional Confucianism, ritual is the basis of almost all discussions. Let's start with the history of Chinese philosophy! (smuggling)

First of all, Confucius framed his world view of values with the concept of "Fate" . In Confucius' view , "Fate" can be said to be full of causal relationships, and therefore all kinds of things cannot be chosen by people. In other words, in the inevitable world, people cannot make decisions freely and become masters of their own lives. Under this pessimistic perspective with the "destiny theory", Confucius further pondered the question of the meaning of life.

In addition to life, Confucius took "righteousness" as the root of the "freedom" of people, and under the inevitable determination of all things, this freedom is the meaning of life. On the one hand, Confucius's elucidation of righteousness systematically places "righteousness" in the three basic core expositions of benevolence, righteousness, and propriety; In this context, righteousness is regarded by Confucius as an ability to make value judgments and a conscious and spontaneous spirit. Further, it is not only conscious, but also conscious of the uncontrollability of "destiny", not only knowing what to be responsible for, but also knowing what to limit. It is only under the self-consciousness of "righteousness" that life can get rid of the pessimistic mechanism and destiny and move towards the promotion of the meaning of life.

Overall, "destiny" can be regarded as an inevitable objective limitation, while "righteousness" is a natural self-choice and self-judgment. Through "righteousness" to further establish social order and find the meaning of life. The relationship between the two is like the mutual opposition and interference between the natural law logos and the artificial law nomos of Western political philosophy, and Western philosophy also elucidates its interpretation of the meaning of life under such opposition.

So what is righteousness and propriety?

"Righteousness" is placed in the context of Confucius, and it can be understood as legitimacy or a responsibility. Righteousness accomplishes "li" , and the root of righteousness lies in "benevolence" (self-denial and return to ritual) . Confucius believed that etiquette was not a law of natural order, not the "Dao of Heaven" thought by the intellectuals of the time, and the basis of "ritual" was "righteousness". Sexuality consists in shifting the perspective from the so-called "Tao of Heaven" down to focus on "people" themselves, while the finer branches of ritual are various rituals. The root of ritual is righteousness, and the practice of righteousness will construct an orderly ritual. Furthermore, the root of righteousness lies in "benevolence". Ren has the spirit of selfless love, not indulging in selfishness and selfish love. Only by upholding this spirit can the legitimacy covered by righteousness be achieved . Hold the spirit of selflessness, and then practice legitimacy, and finally achieve the order of the whole society.

To sum up, the theoretical root of righteousness lies in following the norms of "li" and discovering the legitimacy of "righteousness"; and from a practical point of view, righteousness and benevolence are linked and mutually rooted, which means that we are reaching In the practice process of "li", righteousness and benevolence are not separated, but they are practiced together as a whole.

Okay, after finishing the philosophy class comfortably, I believe that everyone has a rough understanding of benevolence, righteousness, and propriety.

Returning to education, Confucius taught the "li" of the hereditary aristocracy and expected them to follow it from the bottom of their hearts. This point was also mentioned when Confucius discussed and exhorted his disciples to be filial. He believed that a perfect balance must be achieved between propriety and filial piety. Confucius did not appreciate rites and filial piety; on the other hand, if you only follow rites without filial piety, then filial piety is only a form and not from the heart. That is to say, to find the most balanced treatment method between right and wrong standards and filial piety. Ritual comes from the heart, not only in form, but at the same time, it needs to be expressed through "li". For example, in funerals, Confucius believed that through the "ceremonies" of funerals, we can relieve the fear and sadness caused by the dead and achieve order maintenance and moderation. Ritual thus became the primary core and policy of Confucius education.

In addition, Confucius' love and practice of music is also quite interesting. In fact, we don't know whether Confucius taught music or not, but Confucius' love for music can still be seen from the literature. For example, "Shao" is Confucius' favorite music. After listening to "Shao", Confucius actually "doesn't know the taste of meat in March". However, the literature does not clearly tell that the performance of "Shao" to Confucius is a court musician or a child on the road. It is precisely that what Confucius likes is not perfect music, but the harmony of the beauty of things and the best of people. Therefore, It doesn't matter who plays. From the above discussion, it can be concluded that the teaching of Confucius does not focus on teaching the so-called "skills", so whether to teach "music" is not the focus of Confucius, and the importance of music is precisely to reflect the pursuit of Confucius' teaching philosophy What is meant is a kind of perfection of moderation and harmony . Although such "extreme" is difficult to achieve, in the field of music or art, Confucius can enjoy this "extreme" imagination . This kind of harmony and moderation is not just a beautiful imagination, but also the expectation of Confucius in politics, teaching and even life.

Confucius, as a "reformer" (although Confucius considered himself to be a conservative) broke through the hereditary and stable class in the past, trying to "cultivate the gentleman" through education, and further, only the morally noble gentleman can become a scholar, and a scholar must Take on more responsibilities and obligations (so lazy people may have to go first). Confucius also exhorted his disciples to stay away from villains and remember not to be villains . Gentlemen help others through learning and self-improvement, villains are full-time fraudsters, and are easily tempted by rhetoric, and at the same time they are often eloquent. And eloquent debates are exactly what Confucius hated. At the same time, what Confucius hated most was probably hypocritical people. Everyone may not know that Confucius killed people in the literature because he hated hypocritical people ...

All in all, Confucius is portrayed as a very human and even a bit of a character. Through the pursuit of moderation and constant self-improvement, on the one hand, he practiced himself, and his words and deeds were consistent; Even if he also has a stubborn side, Confucius' status in traditional Chinese culture and history is still unquestionable.

There are so many things that Confucius can discuss, and this principle is just an extremely critical and irresponsible output of some things. However, after sorting out the data, I found that Confucius is a complete body of political correctness. It is no longer known whether Confucius shaped us or we constructed Confucius . But if you think about it deeply, the fact may be even more terrifying. Since Confucius, our culture has never been able to get out of Confucius. We are humble, moderate, and try our best to be a kind and polite person, and a good student.

Although Confucius told us to break the authority of the teacher.