(Unrequired) Thought Piece

(Unrequired) Thought Piece

Although it took the Western world thousands of years to become familiar with The Analects of Confucius, people in the late 19^th century nonetheless embraced this text when they finally discovered it. What were educated Westerners in the late 19^th century doing latching on to Eastern philosophy? And why did they do so when they could have gotten so much of the same advice from ancient Greek texts and subsequent Western literature?

Or is it precisely this similarity between this bedrock of Eastern philosophy and the foundation of our own Western tradition that made and still makes the modern reader fascinated with The Analects? A comment that came up in class last Wednesday was that there was nothing in The Analects that we have not read before. I argue that this remark is less a criticism of The Analects and its inclusion in our curriculum than a vindication of the text and its place on our reading list. The fact that our Eastern and Western ancestors were pondering many of the same questions and arriving at almost identical answers upholds the idea of “timeless truths” that are supposed to be present in Great literature. These are the questions and answers that stand the test of time and the ones that are worth revisiting because they cross all time periods and all cultures.

To give a couple examples of analects that seem right out of Western philosophy:

“He does not mind being in office; all he minds about is whether he has qualities that entitle him to office. He does not mind failing to get recognition; he is too busy doing the things that entitle him to recognition” echoes Socrates’ question about who should take the ship of state and his insistence that it is the Good man who is entitled to office although he may not always be the one in office (IV.14).

Also, “I have never seen anyone whose desire to build up his moral power was as strong as sexual desire” brings the Symposium and Socrates’ discussion of eros as the love and pursuit of knowledge immediately to mind (IX.17).

And Confucius resembles Socrates. Humble just as Socrates was, Confucius denies claims that he is a prophet or even a wise man (IX.8, IX.7), champions moderation (VI.27), and only allows that he is a passionate learner and teacher (VII.33). Thus, it is not only the ideas and the answers that are similar, but also the teachers.

What are the parallels between this text and the ones we have read before, including but not limited to the Platonic dialogues, and are these similarities still worth discussing even though we may have read and thought about them before? Am I right in suggesting the idea of timeless truths, and if not, how else can we explain this phenomenon of déjà vu that anyone steeped in Western tradition must feel when reading this Eastern text? Finally, what in this text is purely Eastern, that is, neither included nor relevant to Western culture?

(436 words)