Confucianism in East Asia Confucianism Has Frequently Multiple Chapters

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Confucianism in East Asia

Confucianism has frequently been regarded as a religion without a supernatural dimension, a set of ethical precepts wholly of this world: however I would argue that, given the fact of ancestor-worship in traditional Chinese religion, the Confucian teachings about filial piety may truly seem to have the force of otherworldly command. Confucius himself complains about the decline in standards for filial piety in the Analects (II.7), noting that most people in his lifetime thought their filial obligations had been met when their parents were fed: Confucius' complaint is that even dogs or horses can be merely fed, and what characterizes genuine filial piety is reverence. This is, of course, a complaint made by Confucius about the broad gap between ideals and actual practice, even within his own lifetime: we cannot expect the general trend in China to have been particularly better at any other point in history. The real origin of Confucian emphasis on filial piety, however, is probably socio-economic reality, combined with Confucius' overwhelming concern for social stability and peace. For a population to aspire to live long and work hard, they must have a comfortable old age to await them. So the Confucian hierarchy of age whereby a parent is provided for in old age by a reverent child essentially takes the place of a "social safety net." As long as all observe these pieties, society remains orderly and incentives remain for persons to live long and work hard. To some extent the basic Confucian notion of self-cultivation is, itself, a form of filial piety already: what I mean by this paradox is that self-cultivation entails measuring one's achieved potential against the canons of tradition, the achievement of past generations.

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They provide the measure whereby one's own level of cultivation is to be judged. In terms of social groups, however, filial piety in China essentially becomes practiced as a form of competitiveness: individuals lose the sense of comparing themselves to the established measure of the past, and instead are busy comparing themselves to their contemporaries. On the state level, however, the tenets of filial piety most likely contributed to the political stability that was the ultimate Confucian goal: if one observes these pieties within the structure of the traditional family, then it is much easier (as Friedrich Engels once noted) to submit to similar hierarchies of power on the political level.

2. The central Confucian tenet of filial piety is certainly relevant when we consider what is perhaps the most memorable incident in Lixin Fan's documentary Last Train Home: the argument in which the father slaps his daughter, Qin. Of course the central premise of Last Train Home seems to….....

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