The good leader and the good person in Confucius’ Analects VI
5. Further Stoicising observations on the ancient Chinese classic
Confucius lived in a time of great disorder in the middle Kingdom, Zhongua, China. His assessments of the times are redolent with our own. In Analects VI, he says:
Whoever has not the glib utterance of the priest T’o, as well as the handsomeness of Prince Chu of Sung, will find it hard to keep out of harm’s way in the present age.
It was an age of competing duchies and civil turmoil. In such ages, certain strengths are selected for, which are very partial: will and daring, physical beauty over ethical strength, cunning over wisdom, the glib willingness to say and do whatever is needed in one’s partisan agenda, without shame.
Confucius’ teachings are an anecdote against chaos. One recurrent theme in the Analects are Confucius’ despairing assessments of his times. At the end of Analects III, we get:
“High station,” said the Master, “occupied by men who have no large and generous heart; ceremonial performed with no reverence; duties of mourning engaging the attention, where there is absence of sorrow; how should I look on, where this is the state of thing?