Confucian Virtues and Gender Essay

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Accept, qualify or refute the contention that failure of late 19th-early 20th century reforms and the subsequent collapse of the imperial system spelled the end for Confucianism in China.



Although the effectiveness of the attempted reforms implemented in China in the late 19th through early 20th century undoubtedly had significant implications for the followers of Confucianism and its status as a state religion, it would be a stretch to say that it spelled the end of this religion, or ideology, and that it was completely eradicated. Although the followers of Confucianism today represent only a small fraction of the world's total religious community, there are millions of individuals who still follow and practice the teachings of Confucius today. However, with that being said, an argument could be made that before sometime before this period marked the peak of the Confucianism influence in China and its influence plateaued before falling out of favor for the vast majority of intellectuals in China. Thus, it could be said that Confucianism lost its position as the dominant worldview held by the large majority of Chinese citizens as a result of these events. Yet, even despite the evolution of the Chinese religious preferences, the impact that Confucianism had on the collective culture can still be felt in many aspects of Chinese society today.



The impact of the Western world's scientific and technological achievements is undoubtedly one of the primary factors in the evolution in the Chinese ideology as it attempted to reconcile new discoveries with age old traditions. The West, after the Enlightenment, developed a fairly materialistic worldview that say nature as a mechanistic system, which in turn led to a range of discoveries involving the planet's natural phenomena. The Chinese, who wished to absorb some of the scientific progressions that they were witnessing, wished to merge some of the Western views within their own cultural identities.



"The world consists of nothing but actual physical phenomena or concrete things. The Way is the Way (or Ways) of actual phenomena, but one cannot describe the actual phenomena as phenomena of the Way. "When the Way is nonexistent, so is the actual phenomenon" is something that anyone is capable of saying. But if the phenomenon exists, why worry about its Way not existing? The sage knows what the gentleman does not, and yet ordinary men and women can do what the sage cannot . . . ." When the actual phenomenon is nonexistent, so is its Way" is something that few people are capable of saying, but it is really and truly so.



• Quanshan yishu, Zhou Yi (Theodore de Barry)



This passage seems to reflect the Chinese desire to move from a worldview that centers on supernatural forces, to one that is more mechanical in nature; likely due to the fact that this was the epistemology that led to many discoveries in the West.



By contrast, Materialism and Confucianism have been argued to be in direct contrast to each other and Confucius did not promote any sense of materialistic wealth, nor did he promote a materialistic view of nature (Low).

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Confucius seemed to believe that such views promoted greed and was bad for the society in general. The fundamental human values encouraged individuals to work hard, but also to be prudent and save the fruits of their labors to better the family and the community at large. The Western view was one that encompassed a significant amount of individualistic consideration and competition among members of society, a view that stands in opposition to the collective nature of the Confucian way of life. The individual in the Confucian custom would view themselves as a solely a member of a group, and would follow a humanistic approach to maintaining an ethical system that considered the collective well-being of the community and of the society. However, once the Chinese leaders began to aspire to acquire some of the components of Western thought that they believed could lead to progress, they were essential forced to abandon much of the Confucian pillars as these views were unreconcilable. 2. 2. Accept, qualify or refute the contention that whereas implementing a neo-Confucian system proved to be regressive for women of Choson Korea, such was not the case in Tokugawa Japan.



The Neo-Confucian ideas were not implemented in every geography and cultural in an equal fashion. One example of a stricter interpretation of Confucian ideas can be illustrated by the Choson dynasty. Virtually all of the women of the Neo-Confucian Choson dynasty were constrained to domesticated duties, even the elites among women rarely got to participate in non-domestic activities (Deuchler). For the most part, women were not supposed to make their opinions or voices heard beyond the domestic realm and only a portion of the women were literate and could write to people outside the home. This was a change from previous dynasties that allowed women to have more political, economic, and cultural freedoms in society. However, after the injection of the Neo-Confucian values on this society, women experienced a range of regressive measures that strictly limited their existence to the familial home and even further limited their ability to leave this arrangement if they found it unsatisfactory.



Under the Choson dynasty measures, women were confined to a highly structured patrilineal social paradigm in which they were entirely dependent upon their husbands for their mere existence (Deuchler). The dynasty used various textbooks to help them transform the ideologies that were expected in the new social norms such as the Elementary Learning text and these texts were expanded upon and propagated throughout the entire society so that nearly everyone was familiar with them. These texts set strict guidelines for the various types….....

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Works Cited

Deuchler, M. "Propogating Female Virtues in Choson Korea." Ko, D., J. Haboush and J. Piggott. Women and Cufucian Cultures. University of California Press, 2003. 142. Hardcover.

Low, P. "Materialism, Confucianism and Confucian Values." Educational Research (2013): 403-412. Online.

Theodore de Barry, Richard Lufrano. Sources of Chinese Tradition. Columbia University Press, Second Edition, 1999. Hardcover.

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