NOT NEWS BASED - Small thought on China's history, Confucianism and Treason

[S10]

Confucianism went through several stages of development, and painting it as weak and apathetic is unfair. Confucius himself was certainly not weak or apathetic philosophically. He was very much of an eye for an eye person, for example: 或曰：“以德报恨，何如？”子曰：“何以报德？以直报怨，以德报德。” Also, in 君子六艺 (Six Gentleman Arts), archery and chariots were both related to war, so he was not advocating for men to be weaklings. Confucius himself was said to be physically imposing and an expert swordsman. In addition, he stressed that men should behave by virtue and constantly seek self-improvement, especially rulers. While it was true he advocated loyalty to the ruler, the ruler also must be loyal to his people and rule wisely. If the ruler failed to act properly, the people can abandon him.

However, Confucianism had its meanings "corrected" several times by scholars looking to please emperors. First of such was during the Han dynasty, followed by Song, then Ming and finally Qing. It imposed more and more restriction on thoughts each time it was changed By the time of Qing dynasty, it effectively became a twisted version devoid of any connection to the original. It favoured scholars above everyone else, including craftsman, farmers, and soldiers. It was this twisted version that held back technological, military and societal development. Like Christianity in Europe, Confucianism was changed into a tool to maintain power by the ruling elites. For that, I hardly blame Confucius himself as he could not have forseen it.

 

[S10]

Also, below_freezing's arguments are factually flawed. Song dynasty was considered the wealthiest period in all of Chinese history, as well as a high point in literature and technology. Despite a myth that it was militarily weak, it actually won majority of battles against northern nomadic regimes (Xi Xia, Liao, Jin and Mongols). However, it lacked an effective cavalry force, so it was not able to deal a decisive blow to its enemies. The highly mobile nomads could evade Song troops after losing, while Song could not do the same against nomads. It was slowly worn down by corrupt officials over time, and even then it took the Mongols 50 years to finish off Southern Song, which was nowhere as strong as Northern Song.

Ming dynasty not only managed to beat back the Mongols, but also razed their capital to the ground. For a brief period, it pocessed the greatest naval force in Chinese history. Admiral Zheng He's flagship made Colombus' Sant Maria looked like a wimpy canoe. That was over a century before Colombus was born that China was dominating the oceans. This is not to brag, but to counter your point that China had nothing to be proud of after Tang.

Also, show me a society in which no corrupt official or traitors have even emerged. There were plenty of traitors in Europe when Germany invaded. History is full of collabrators and corrupt, so don't speak of it as of it's limited to China.

 

[ao333]

Buddhism as a religion is individualistic and Confucianism as a religion or philosophy targets a bunch of people how did they two match?How was buddhism seen by the court elites?Iam sure they might have been lot of fiction wrt to court elites

I recall a friend telling me that Buddhism was widely adopted by the Tang dynasty as a tool for repression. The concept of reincarnating into a better life if one swallowed his grievances of the current one was ideal for imperial regimes where wealth gap often caused uprisings.

Centuries later, when communist forces took over China, they realized that buddhists were overwhelmingly superstitious and spent more time worshipping statues than living productively. This was as Mao saw it, the root of Chinese unproductivity. To remedy this, the party launched numerous campaigns to combat superstition which resulted in the incineration of over half of China's temples (90% in Tibet). War against Buddhism, which made Chinese impotent by modern standards later progressed into an all-out war against antiqued culture known as the Cultural Revolution.

Ever since then, fewer than 10% of Chinese believed in any religion at all, as people loathed Buddihism as inferior Indian ideology and the government saw Roman Catholicism as the Vatican's (Western) attempt to influence China through religion.

The country today is an athiest state where the Buddhism population is declining sharply as people seek out for Daoism, Christianity and pragmatism.

 

[siegecrossbow]

I recall a friend telling me that Buddhism was widely adopted by the Tang dynasty as a tool for repression. The concept of reincarnating into a better life if one swallowed his grievances of the current one was ideal for imperial regimes where wealth gap often caused uprisings.

Rubbish. Buddhism was heavily repressed during most of Tang Dynasty. Tang Emperor Tang Wu Zhong forced the monks and nuns to be come celibate, tore down temples and abbots, and confiscated the Buddhists' lands. Taoism is heavily promoted during the Tang Dynasty.

If you want a real example of Buddhism used as repression it would be the Liang Dynasty. Even the emperor became a monk several times during his career.

 

[below_freezing]

Also, below_freezing's arguments are factually flawed. Song dynasty was considered the wealthiest period in all of Chinese history, as well as a high point in literature and technology. Despite a myth that it was militarily weak, it actually won majority of battles against northern nomadic regimes (Xi Xia, Liao, Jin and Mongols). However, it lacked an effective cavalry force, so it was not able to deal a decisive blow to its enemies. The highly mobile nomads could evade Song troops after losing, while Song could not do the same against nomads. It was slowly worn down by corrupt officials over time, and even then it took the Mongols 50 years to finish off Southern Song, which was nowhere as strong as Northern Song.

Ming dynasty not only managed to beat back the Mongols, but also razed their capital to the ground. For a brief period, it pocessed the greatest naval force in Chinese history. Admiral Zheng He's flagship made Colombus' Sant Maria looked like a wimpy canoe. That was over a century before Colombus was born that China was dominating the oceans. This is not to brag, but to counter your point that China had nothing to be proud of after Tang.

Also, show me a society in which no corrupt official or traitors have even emerged. There were plenty of traitors in Europe when Germany invaded. History is full of collabrators and corrupt, so don't speak of it as of it's limited to China.

Yes, I said, Song Dynasty was great with numerous military and technological accomplishments, but all that didn't matter because of the traitor Jia Sidao that sold Song out to Mongols.

贾似道 - 维基百科，自由的百科全书

Same for Ming. Yes, they were strong. So what? Wu Sangui just opened the gate for the Manchus and all that military might is for nothing.

You even said yourself, the only reason that the nomads could win was because Song was worn down by corruption and treason. Chinese culture produces too many corrupt traitors in times of crisis. It is because of Confucianism being used as a brainwash tool.

I also disagree that having skinheads and gangsters roam the street is purely negative. It keeps foreigners in control.

"
The greatness of Chinese culture is its assimilation of foreign cultures into ours.

The definition of Chinese is not that simple. Within our blood, it consists of those from various parts of the world. Those who used to be our enemies but later chose to stay in the Chinese circle either through inter-racial marriage or adopted our Chinese culture become Chinese. "

No this is called Ah-Q 精神胜利法. They were conquerors, that later became Chinese. They were not Chinese at the time of conquering us. In fact, the Manchus killed just as many people as the Japanese. Same for the Mongols. Them later becoming Chinese doesn't change the fact that at the start, they were foreign occupiers that defeated a militarily stronger but morally bankrupt country through treachery.

In addition, despite China's great traditions of scholarship, our human rights situation barely improved until 1911. Cruel punishment such as 凌迟 and 诛九族 remained in force until the establishment of the ROC. In fact, 凌迟 was established only in the Song Dynasty, with the more humane hanging 绞刑 used during the Tang Dynasty.

 

[Martian2]

I also disagree that having skinheads and gangsters roam the street is purely negative. It keeps foreigners in control.

Why do you need skinheads and gangsters to roam the streets? Foreigners are not in control of China. The CCP is in full control. If you don't obey Chinese laws, the CCP will kick your lawless foreign corporation out of the country (e.g. Google).

Why would you want lawless criminals roaming China's streets? China is governed by leaders, who are engineers. After 30 years of 10% economic growth and lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty, the Chinese technocratic leadership has demonstrated its unparalleled competence. Chinese culture has a strong affinity for law and order, cooperation, equality, productive use of time and resources, efficiency, safety for everyone, etc.

Your argument for "skinheads and gangsters" is counter to Chinese values and culture.

 

[below_freezing]

Why do you need skinheads and gangsters to roam the streets? Foreigners are not in control of China. The CCP is in full control. If you don't obey Chinese laws, the CCP will kick your lawless foreign corporation out of the country (e.g. Google).

Why would you want lawless criminals roaming China's streets? China is governed by leaders, who are engineers. After 30 years of 10% economic growth and lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty, the Chinese technocratic leadership has demonstrated its unparalleled competence. Chinese culture has a strong affinity for law and order, cooperation, productive use of time and resources, efficiency, safety for everyone, etc.

Your argument for "skinheads and gangsters" is counter to Chinese values and culture.

Russia was also a great nation under the leadership of CCCP where people got up on the bus for pregnant women, people dressed neatly, the sidewalks were clean, no one did drugs and produced some of the greatest scientists in the world. Now what? Russian culture sure as hell isn't based on alcoholism, gangsters, neo nazi racism or prostitution but guess what that's what Russia is today.

Chinese culture may be "strong affinity for law and order, cooperation, productive use of time and resources, efficiency, safety for everyone, etc." but the reality is, too many of us are docile, and too many take it to the other extreme and are greedy, cheating and cunning. Both have severe inferiority complexes. I'd put my estimate of self haters in the Chinese population to be about 15%, nonscientific of course.

The CPC is not in full power. 90% of CPC members have zero power. There are 76 million CPC members but only 10 million government jobs. Of those, 9 million are paper pushing office drone jobs. The real decisionmakers are the elite top 5% who hold critical, obscure posts like Ministry of Land Resources or Industrial Regulatory Committee.

 

[A1Kaid]

China does not need tolerance, forgiveness, or sympathy. We need skinheads. The day China has skinheads that stab and rob foreigners with police collusion, is the day I'd be happy to call myself Chinese.

To put it nicely, these guys aren't intimidating anyone. They better hit the gym and get their weight up before going out and intimidating people. These guys would get their arse kicked...lol. Besides why would you welcome a degenerate subculture into society? It is the job of law enforcement to deal with law breakers...


In stead of skin heads in China, what you need are Ninjas, Ninjas specially trained to keep foreigners under control.

P.S Quite amusing how that Chinese skin head is wearing a shirt of the Union Jack flag...

 

[S10]

Yes, I said, Song Dynasty was great with numerous military and technological accomplishments, but all that didn't matter because of the traitor Jia Sidao that sold Song out to Mongols.

贾似道 - 维基百科，自由的百科全书

Same for Ming. Yes, they were strong. So what? Wu Sangui just opened the gate for the Manchus and all that military might is for nothing.

You even said yourself, the only reason that the nomads could win was because Song was worn down by corruption and treason. Chinese culture produces too many corrupt traitors in times of crisis. It is because of Confucianism being used as a brainwash tool.

If the rulers of Song were smarter, the so called "traitors" would not have had their chance. People like Qin Hui and Jia Sidao ultimately got to their position because they pleased the emperor. In the case of Ming, Ming dynasty had already died by that time due to a peasant rebellion. Years of corruption and economic management had worn the country down to a point of no return. Li Zicheng wanted to kill Wu Sangui after disposing of Ming court, so Wu Sangui went to the Manchus to preserve himself.

Loyalty is a founding pillar in Confucianism in case you haven't noticed. Almost every government officials in ancient China was or at least pretended to be a follower of Confucius, and those millions of officials are bound to have plenty of bad apples. In fact, there are plenty of corrupt officials in the communist party today, so that must mean the entire party is by nature traitors? If Confucianism wasn't used as a tool, then something else will be. The pattern is the same for feudal ruling elite across the world. From Christianity/Islam in the middle ages, to Maoism during the Cultural Revolution. Why single out Confucianism? When somebody wrecks something, do you blame the tool user or the tool?

I also disagree that having skinheads and gangsters roam the street is purely negative. It keeps foreigners in control.

Having racist skinheads and gangsters roaming the street is a sign of civil disorder, only the brain damaged could interprete that as control. No healthy society should have extremists and thugs going about putting fear into people.

The greatness of Chinese culture is its assimilation of foreign cultures into ours.

The definition of Chinese is not that simple. Within our blood, it consists of those from various parts of the world. Those who used to be our enemies but later chose to stay in the Chinese circle either through inter-racial marriage or adopted our Chinese culture become Chinese. "

No this is called Ah-Q 精神胜利法. They were conquerors, that later became Chinese. They were not Chinese at the time of conquering us. In fact, the Manchus killed just as many people as the Japanese. Same for the Mongols. Them later becoming Chinese doesn't change the fact that at the start, they were foreign occupiers that defeated a militarily stronger but morally bankrupt country through treachery.

In addition, despite China's great traditions of scholarship, our human rights situation barely improved until 1911. Cruel punishment such as 凌迟 and 诛九族 remained in force until the establishment of the ROC. In fact, 凌迟 was established only in the Song Dynasty, with the more humane hanging 绞刑 used during the Tang Dynasty.

Again, Chinese is a cultural concept, not a bloodline concept. If the Chinese culture failed to assimulate foreigners, then China would be a tiny spot of land located on the banks of the Yellow river, instead of the third largest country in the world. Qin Empire, which united China in 221 BCE, were originally thought by various States under Zhou to be barbarians nomads. Yet nobody question their legitimacy as Chinese today.

In fact, there is a saying called 夏入夷则为夷，夷入夏则为夏. Northern Zhou dynasty established by Xianbei ordered all nomads to start dressing like the Han. On the other hand, Eastern Wei was established by a Han ruler, but he ordered the country to adapt the Xianbei way. Since then, everybody else considered Eastern Wei to be nomads, while Northern Zhou was accepted as Chinese. Sui Dynasty and Tang Dynasty's royal bloodline both had Xianbei blood in them. Today, Xianbei no longer exist as a tribe, but almost every Chinese person in the North has some of their blood.

Civilizations are formed and developed by conquests. While it's true that Xianbei, Khitan, Manchus, Mongols were conquerors of their time, they eventually embraced the Han culture. My father's side is actually Manchu, so I'm half Han and half Manchu. Yet, I don't speak a world of the Manchu language and I consider myself a Chinese like vast majority Manchus today. Hell, my family even adapted Han family name, from 索尔济 to 金.

In Han dynasty they had 车裂 and 腐刑 as forms of cruel punishment, both considered extremely cruel. In Europe they were burning witches up until the 18th Century. Hell they were still keeping a system of virtual slavery in Tibet until 1949. All feudal societies are basically brutal in repression, so why act like China was the only one? Hell, even in "democratic" early days of US of A, they were treating black people worse than animals.

 

[praveen]

So Buddhism did not propagate in China a la India where initally it was one of the many heterodox shramana philosophies which gained patronage by the lower classes and then the upper class,so it was quite the opposite in China.Any good historical accounts of these confucian and buddhist clashes in China

 

[S10]

Russia was also a great nation under the leadership of CCCP where people got up on the bus for pregnant women, people dressed neatly, the sidewalks were clean, no one did drugs and produced some of the greatest scientists in the world. Now what? Russian culture sure as hell isn't based on alcoholism, gangsters, neo nazi racism or prostitution but guess what that's what Russia is today.

All the strong military, number of scientists, sports achievement and flashy technology won't save you if you cannot supply for the basic demands of your people. It was a flawed economic system that cannot efficiently provide for the lives of its citizens, and does not deserve to be worshipped in any kind of way.

Chinese culture may be "strong affinity for law and order, cooperation, productive use of time and resources, efficiency, safety for everyone, etc." but the reality is, too many of us are docile, and too many take it to the other extreme and are greedy, cheating and cunning. Both have severe inferiority complexes. I'd put my estimate of self haters in the Chinese population to be about 15%, nonscientific of course.

You sound like American internet warriors that complain about how majority of Americans are fat slobs that are only concerned with eating/TV. Funny how every Fenqing (angry youth) in the world cry about people being apathetic sheeps. When people have good lives, they will want stability. That's just human nature. As far as cunning/greedy people go, there are plenty of those here in the business world.

 

[below_freezing]

Just a simple thought experiment to demonstrate how ridiculous the notion that "China is so welcoming of foreigners that whoever conquer us become Chinese."

If Japan won the war in 1937, occupied China with little resistance, didn't do the Nanjing massacre, didn't kill too many civilians and basically behaved "rather well" maybe only killing 2 million KMT soldiers, would Japanese now be "Chinese" and the Yamato race become the 57th ethnicity of China? Would Japan be then added to China's territory and we'll have a new dynasty, the Japanese emperor's? And we'll all be part of a new Chinese empire, but it just calls itself "Japanese". After all Qing, Ming, none of that actually says "China", we'll have a new dynasty representing China called "Japan".

In addition, language and words change across dynasties right? So if Chinese was replaced by Japanese, it doesn't matter, since Japanese was still written with mostly Chinese characters back then!

Look at the great assimilating power of China! Why did we even bother resisting! Should've just "assimilated" Japan right?

What a joke! You see how ridiculous this sounds? The claim that China is tolerant and welcoming to foreigners so much that we'll be conquered by them then assimilate them is the true definition of Ah-Q 精神胜利法!

If the rulers of Song were smarter, the so called "traitors" would not have had their chance. People like Qin Hui and Jia Sidao ultimately got to their position because they pleased the emperor. In the case of Ming, Ming dynasty had already died by that time due to a peasant rebellion. Years of corruption and economic management had worn the country down to a point of no return. Li Zicheng wanted to kill Wu Sangui after disposing of Ming court, so Wu Sangui went to the Manchus to preserve himself.

Loyalty is a founding pillar in Confucianism in case you haven't noticed. Almost every government officials in ancient China was or at least pretended to be a follower of Confucius, and those millions of officials are bound to have plenty of bad apples. In fact, there are plenty of corrupt officials in the communist party today, so that must mean the entire party is by nature traitors? If Confucianism wasn't used as a tool, then something else will be. The pattern is the same for feudal ruling elite across the world. From Christianity/Islam in the middle ages, to Maoism during the Cultural Revolution. Why single out Confucianism? When somebody wrecks something, do you blame the tool user or the tool?

The problem, of course, is that "loyalty" to "who" is not specified. The whole "mandate of heaven" idea combined with "confucianism" means that when your homeland starts losing the war against foreigners, your homeland lost the "mandate of heaven" and deserves to be taken over by foreigners. In this mindset, NOT REBELLING is actually morally wrong!

When did I say the CPC was clean? The CPC is dirty too, maybe not as much as the KMT, but getting there.

Why do we need "great leaders"? Other nations get fine with average leaders. We need a system that doesn't depend on the specific leader. The obsession with "great leaders" and looking for saviors to lead us is the typical flaw in Chinese thought.

“从来就没有什么救世主，也不靠神仙皇帝！要创造人类的幸福，全靠我们自己！”

 

[Martian2]

1. China's weakness during the past 150 years was due to criminal foreign invasions of aggression and a lack of Chinese industrialization to fight them off with comparable weapons. The CCP has fixed this problem. Stop trying to blame it on Confucianism.

2. China previously assimilated foreigners, because China lacked the means to destroy them. That is no longer the case. This is a New China and a new era under the CCP. With abundant thermonuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and vastly improving conventional weaponry, there will be no further accommodation/assimilation of foreigners. Get in our way and we'll crush you, sooner or later.

3. Except for you, almost all Chinese are happy with Chinese family values (e.g. Confucianism).

4. Except for you, no other Chinese member on this forum is in favor of lawless skinheads or gangsters.

5. Except for you, all of the Chinese members think that the CCP is doing a fantastic job and want the CCP to continue governing China until modernization is complete (e.g. all Chinese have a first-world living standard of approximately $45,000 U.S. dollars).

You have floated your idea of abandoning Confucian family values and advocated your belief in a China with greatly increased numbers of "skinheads and gangsters." Practically every Chinese member on this forum disagrees with you.

It is time to relinquish your radical ideas. At most, you have only two supporters (or "thanks" on your posts in this thread). In opposition, there have been numerous posts by Chinese forum members that are appalled at your radical suggestions.

I have never heard of any mainstream Chinese say that having more violent criminal skinheads and gangsters in China is a good idea. It is simply crazy! I do not understand why you are saying such a thing.

Chinese society believes in family values, meritocracy, fairness, equality of rights and opportunity, education, self-improvement, etc. Chinese do not believe in barbaric or criminal behavior to show foreigners that we mean business. That is an illogical, circuitous, and ineffectual method. If China desires to show strength, she can choose to build 500 MIRVed ICBMs, squadrons of stealth fighters, and a naval armada.

No sane Chinese would desire to lower China's civilizational standards and support lawlessness, intimidation, violence, and crude social behavior. That's intolerable and not Chinese.

This is my last post on this outrageous suggestion. It is absurd and no mainstream Chinese should have to discuss something this ludicrous.

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The picture posted earlier of the Chinese skinheads is repulsive. Those guys clearly look unfriendly and threatening. They are an extremely tiny minority and on the fringes of society.

The picture below shows the true spirit of Chinese culture (e.g. Chinese Confucian family values, self-improvement/technological advancement, dreams of a better world, and achievements and peaceful behavior worthy to be the next world leader).

Hangzhou, May 16 - A child watches a space suit in the company of his mother in Zhejiang Science and Technology Museum in Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province. The 2011 Zhejiang Science and Technology Week opened Sunday.

 

[HongWu]

The combination that makes China strongest is: a tiny bit of Confucianism + lots of Taoism + warrior spirit like classical Chinese martial arts philosophy + fanatical military organization + powerful central figure like Chairman Mao, Qin Shi Huang or Hong Wu Emperor!

The claim that 15% of Chinese have a slave mentality sounds about right. If only there was some way to remove this tumor from Chinese society.

 

[scuthan]

Buddhism as a religion is individualistic and Confucianism as a religion or philosophy targets a bunch of people how did they two match?How was buddhism seen by the court elites?Iam sure they might have been lot of fiction wrt to court elites

Buddhism is a religion but Confucianism isn't. Confucius himself is a atheist and Confucianism is a social norm system.

What distinguish Chinese civilization from others: European, Arabic, Indian, etc. is the overwhelming secular power over religious power. all ideologies serve to better control the society for the rulers. we view Confucianism as a norm for positive social involvement and view taoism and buddhism as spiritual asylum. we never take religions serious.