The point of Confucius

Perhaps the Confucian ethic has a role to play. Confucius lived in the 6th century BC, an era that, not unlike ours, saw states contend for supremacy. Although Mao Zedong tried his best to denounce Confucius and eradicate his teachings, the heritage of 2500 years does not die easily. What Confucius says in his “Great Learning” still sounds strikingly scientific and contemporary: “When things are investigated, knowledge is extended. When knowledge is extended, thoughts are made sincere. When thoughts are made sincere, the heart and mind are rectified. When the heart and mind are rectified, the personal life is cultivated. When the personal life is cultivated, then the family is regulated. When the family is regulated, the state will be in order. When the state is in order, there will be peace throughout the world.”

The life of this remarkable man was highly prosaic and unremarkable. Starting as a minor government functionary, he reported no great moments of enlightenment or revelation, nor did he theorise about freedom or justice. Instead, he meticulously set out specific levels of ethical conduct, starting with each individual. Confucianism strongly emphasises the network of obligations, duties and relationships that bind an individual to family, community, state and society, and so harmonises individual ethics with social order. Right action is not only the correct moral course for a person, but also one that makes society a better place. Confucius emphasised education as the foundation for moral values and “the investigation of things”. Chinese mass initiatives, from constructing the Great Wall (repeatedly) up to the early Communist programmes targeting universal health and education, certainly owe something to Confucian legacy.

Rather than emulate China’s economics (let alone politics), maybe we could do what she unwittingly did — look to our own tradition for modern expressions of our own genius, like Mahatma Gandhi did.