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Episode 366: 'The Analects' by Confucius
00:31:57
John J. Miller is joined by Erin Cline of Georgetown University to discuss 'The Analects' by Confucius.
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- [00:00]
Erin Klein
Foreign.
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John J. Miller
Welcome to the Great Books Podcast. Today we'll talk about the Analects by Confucius. I'm your host, John J. Miller of National Review, and you're listening to a production of National Review. Our guest is Erin Klein, a professor of theology and religious studies at Georgetown University. She's the author of the A Guide published by Oxford University Press, as well as Little Sprouts and the Dao of Parenting, Ancient Chinese Philosophy and the Art of Raising Mindful, Resilient, and Compassionate Kids. She joins us by Zoom as we record from Hillsdale College's campus radio station, WRFH in Michigan. Erin, welcome to the Great Books Podcast.
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Erin Klein
Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here.
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John J. Miller
Why is the Analect by Confucius a great book?
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Erin Klein
Because it really tells us what it means to live a good life and how to go about doing it. Sometimes when you look at early ancient texts, think of Aristotle's Nicomache and Ethics. All you get in those texts is an overview of what the virtues are, the things that we want to become. The Analects really focuses on how we come to cultivate those virtues, how we come to practice rituals that make our lives meaningful. And so it really provides us with some tangible instructions about how to become good people and how to live rich and meaningful and fulfilling lives.
- [01:27]
John J. Miller
We are going to talk about what this book says, what it can teach us, who is the author behind it, who was Confucius? Also his legacy in China and also in the West. Aaron, let's just jump right in with the title of this work. The Analects. That means selections, right? Is this a collection of miscellaneous works, a greatest hits collection? What is the Analects?
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Erin Klein
Yes. So the ancient Chinese term lunyu, which we translate as Analects, means selected sayings or collected sayings. And so this is a composite text. In other words, it's a collection of the records of Confucius followers. His disciples wrote down his teachings, and then they edited them all together over time. They kind of worked as a team and disciples, and they're the disciples of those disciples all worked together to put together the text as we have it now. That took a little bit of time, but it actually was put together not that long after Confucius's death. But yes, it is a collection of his sayings. So it's not really a text that is meant to be read just from start to finish. It's kind of an odd read. If you just sit down, it looks like a collection of maybe fortune cookie wisdom but that's because you have basically notes that his students took on what he said.
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John J. Miller
That's certainly how I saw it, as a kind of presentation of little nuggets of advice and wisdom. They did have a fortune cookie quality to them. Is there a real organization to this book?
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Erin Klein
There is some organization. You can see parts of it where you'll find clusters of passages focused on the same theme. But I think the best way to read the text is actually to what I. What I do with my students is I give them lists of passages that are focused on the same theme. So, for example, there's this concept of wren, which really represents human flourishing and sort of the highest, the best state of character you can have. And I have all my students read all those passages together. I also have them read all the passages on ritual together, all the passages focused on harmony, which is the highest cultural achievement together. And in my translation of the Analects, which will be coming out next year, Confucius Analects, it'll be a contemporary translation. What I do is I reorganize the text so that it is thematic, which makes it more accessible to contemporary readers.
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John J. Miller
Is there a traditional organization of this work? The edition I've been looking at has 20 chapters, for instance. Is that a traditional way of looking at it? You've changed that.
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Erin Klein
Yes. So the, the. The work has 20 chapters. The last five are a little bit later than the rest of the text. And there are what we call interpolations, which are passages that were sort of slipped in or added to the text later. But most of the text came together shortly after Kong's death and, and represents really the most influential record of his teachings. And so one of the interesting things about, about Confucius is that there's a really great argument to be made that he is the most influential thinker in human history, period. If we measure influence according to the numbers of people who have lived their lives according to a certain person's vision of a good life and what it means to be a good person, Analects is the most influential record of his teachings. So it's a really important text in that way.
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John J. Miller
All right, that's a bold claim. Most influential text to the history of the world. Is this partly just because there are so many billions of Chinese people? Is, is that the case here? Or is it more than simply demographics?
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Erin Klein
Yeah, so there are several, several aspects to this. One has to do with the numbers of people who have lived in East Asia. But you're also going to notice the language I use there which is that when we go to look at the influence of Confucianism, the teachings of Confucius, the Analects in particular, we. We can't just look at China. We have to look at all of East Asia and also Southeast Asia. So what you have here is a huge swath of the world where Confucianism has had an enduring influence, really, since its earliest beginnings. And Kongzi himself, Confucius himself, is looking back and passing along teachings. So this is not a tradition that even just begins with him. He's synthesizing and putting together and interpreting teachings of earlier thinkers. And so we have a tradition that goes back very far, continues all the way up to the present. And what you have in East Asia and Southeast Asia is really what I like to call cultural saturation. So if you look at all those different cultures, and they are distinct and different, you have Korea, Japan, of course, you have China, Thailand, Vietnam, you can kind of move through all those different countries. They all are deeply influenced by Confucianism. So when we think about things like family values, respect for elders, filial piety, when we think about the importance of ritual, the importance of learning and study, all of those values come from Confucianism. Confucianism in each of those places in East Asia and Southeast Asia mixes together with indigenous schools of thought, with Buddhism, with Daoism, and proves to influence those cultures in deep and enduring ways. And of course, many of those people then move to other parts of the world. So Confucianism then transmits its values throughout the world. So for all of those reasons, that's why the influence of Confucius is just really staggering.
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John J. Miller
Let's take a look, a closer look at one of the ideas in Confucianism, and it's something you've already mentioned. It's called ren R E N. This idea of kindness and benevolence. And. Well, Aaron, you explain it. What is wren and why is it such a big deal?
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Erin Klein
Yeah, I think it's a term that's hard to translate. So, I mean, if you think about. In the ancient world, we're dealing with different cultures and different concepts. And this is a really. What I. What I like to tell students is a big idea. It hasn't. There's an expansive sense to the term ren, So I think it really means something like complete goodness or highest goodness. I think that's probably as close as we can get to a translation. And ren really represents the sum total of all the different virtues. And if you read through the Analects you will find Confucius talking about many different virtues. So he talks about filial piety, he talks about generosity, he talks about gratitude. There are lots of different virtues that he thinks we need to cultivate in order to become good people and live good lives, have good relationships with each other. When we look at the person who has done that successfully, what we call them is a ren. Ren, which means a ren person, or a completely good person. So I always tell my students, there's sort of a cumulative sense to the concept of ren. It really does represent the state of your character when you are flourishing to the greatest extent possible.
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John J. Miller
This all sounds very Western to me. And of course, Confucianism is an Eastern philosophy. It's often called. We'll talk in a few minutes about what influence it has had on the West. But how different, how fundamentally different is this from a lot of the traditional Western virtues?
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Erin Klein
Long before Aristotle was talking about human flourishing, the Confucians were talking about human flourishing. And we have these massive philosophical traditions in different parts of the world. We, of course, are very, very aware of ancient Greece, especially in ancient Rome. But you have India as an. As a tremendous center of philosophy and multiple schools of thought coming out of India. Some of the most influential, of course, include Hinduism and Buddhism. But then if you look at China, you have Confucianism and Daoism, among other traditions. You can look at Japan and the traditions that emerge there, and we could continue around the globe. So in all these different places in the ancient world, you find different views concerning how we live a good life. But importantly, and I think it's very significant, all of them note some of the same things, and you certainly will see some different virtues being extolled and some virtues being emphasized more in one place than another place. But there's a lot in common, and that's because they were all interested in human nature and in what makes life meaningful for creatures like us. And regardless of different differences in culture and different times and places, you see some of the same things rise to the surface in all these different traditions.
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John J. Miller
Is there something alien to us as Americans or Westerners in Confucianism? When you read the Analect, maybe when you teach it to your students, is there something in it that makes them sit up straight and say, well, that's different?
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Erin Klein
I think two of the most difficult concepts to sort of wrap your mind around if you're coming from contemporary American culture are filial piety and ritual. And these are two of the most central virtues, values in the Confucian tradition. So filial piety, a deep seated respect for elders and especially your parents. I always tell my students, filial piety from a Confucian perspective is a multifaceted virtue, which means that we're going to have to use multiple, multiple English words to kind of get the sense of what it means. It certainly means respect for your parents. It means there's a sense of reverence, like a religious almost kind of reverence for one's parents. There is gratitude for one's parents and what they've done for you. Also love. And so the, you know, affection emotions are a part of filial piety as well.
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John J. Miller
How different is that from the fifth commandment, you know, honor your mother and your father. That sounds like the same thing.
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Erin Klein
Yes. And that's. And I think that's so significant because different cultures recognized that the relationships between parents and children are absolutely a pivotal part of a good life and living well and becoming a good person. Humans naturally live in kin groups, and so we all are trying to navigate relationships with our family members. The difference in the Confucian tradition is that filial piety becomes for them the most important virtue. In that, the Analects argues, actually that it's the foundation for all the other virtues. Filial piety is called the root of the other virtues in analects 1 2. So the idea here is that it lays the foundation for everything else about our character and everything we will do. The Confucians also paid a lot more attention to filial piety than other traditions. So, for example, if you look at Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, you will find an account of filial piety as a virtue, and it is the same virtue the Confucians are talking about. Now, of course, Aquinas understands it in some different ways because it's closely related to your relationship with God, to the Bible, as you're noting. Right. But what you see in the Confucian tradition is that this is not just a virtue that occupies a small part of a larger work. The Confucians wrote multiple books dedicated solely to filial piety, in addition to writing a lot about it in books like the Analects. So they pay it much more attention. They give it a much more central place in a good life.
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John J. Miller
You also mentioned ritual. What did you mean by that?
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Erin Klein
Yeah, so I mean, the truth is, is that if you think about contemporary America as a culture, we are really a culture that is bereft of rituals. We have lost a lot of the traditional mourning rituals. You think about the clothing that people not too long ago in our culture wore when they were grieving, and we have lost a lot of those rituals. Interestingly, Confucius was looking at his own culture in the 4th, 5th centuries BCE he's looking at his culture, and he's worried about loss and abandonment of rituals in his time. And he was convinced that rituals play a really important role in helping us to become good people. And so he was concerned that people were starting to abandon traditional rituals. They saw them as just sort of these simple matters of etiquette and rules that were kind of meaningless, that were taking up time, and so they stopped practicing a lot of them. And he was urging people not to abandon them so quickly. So he's offering an argument for the way in which rituals don't just. It's not just that they order our society. It's not just that they help us navigate difficult periods in our lives like grief and loss. It's also that they actively shape us into good people. So the rituals are the main way that we cultivate virtues which help us become good, help us to get along with each other, to live harmoniously, and eventually to build a harmonious society.
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John J. Miller
As I was looking at the Analects, I was struck by its emphasis on what we might call statesmanship, how to achieve political order. But maybe more importantly, how do you develop moral political leaders? Is that a strong theme in the intellect?
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Erin Klein
It is. And Confucius is arguing against some of his contemporaries that we want to have a good leader and a good government. What we need to do is put the most virtuous person in power, rather than just focus on laws and policies and having the right strategies. It really rests on moral virtue. So the early Confucians were monarchist, and Confucius argument is that instead of having sort of the heir apparent or the son of an elite or a ruler become the ruler, we should instead put the most virtuous person into that role.
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John J. Miller
So is he saying the personal is political, that private morality does matter in public life?
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Erin Klein
Absolutely, absolutely. And you just don't find this sharp separation between the public and private in Confucianism that you find in American thought.
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John J. Miller
Let's talk for a moment about Confucius. We already have a bit, but I want to get straight who he was and who he is in terms of this tradition that he started. Confucius was born in 551 BC, died in 479 B.C. that's right before the birth of Socrates, he dies right before Socrates is born, just to put this in that kind of context. But I'm wondering, was he like Socrates in the sense that. That we don't have the writings of Socrates, we have the writings of Plato about Socrates. Is there a similar phenomenon in China? We don't have anything that we know Confucius wrote. What we have are the things that other people said he said and wrote about.
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Erin Klein
That's correct. He is like Socrates in a couple of different ways. One is that we don't have any writings from him, also like Jesus in that way. But another way is that is that Socrates was really the catalyst for philosophical discussion in his time and sort of lays the foundation for the history of Western philosophy. Kongzi is similar in that way. He's similarly a catalyst for most of the philosophical discussion and debate that ensues in ancient China.
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John J. Miller
And so there's a long commentary tradition. Right? So if you're studying Confucius, what you're actually also studying is the tradition of commenting and thinking about what he is said to have said.
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Erin Klein
That's exactly right. And so usually what people would do traditionally is to read the Analects, when you read it in ancient Chinese, and it's written in classical Chinese, which is a really ancient dead language, kind of like Latin for us. So you would read the text in these columns, vertical columns of text going down the page from top to bottom and right to left. You would usually read interlinear commentaries alongside the Analect. And so you were never just reading the text alone. You were always reading the words of other Confucians who had written commentaries on the text and responded to it. And they interpreted the passages differently. They would debate about what Kongzi meant. And so you were kind of pulled into these really active and live debates and discussions as you were reading the Analects.
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John J. Miller
We've called him both Confucius and Kongza. This is the same guy, right? Help us understand, what are these names?
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Erin Klein
That's right. So Confucius is a Latinization of his name. And in the late 16th century, this is when Confucius teachings is initially encountered in the west through Jesuits like Matteo Ricci. And they give us the Latinization of his name, Confucius. In East Asia, he's known as Kongzi, which means Master Kong. Kong was his surname, his family name. We have kind of sketchy details about his biography. We know that he was raised by a single mother. His father died when he was very young. We know that he helped to care for his brother's family. Because his brother was disabled. So we kind of have some bits and pieces of his own biography. It's a little bit sketchy, the details that we have.
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John J. Miller
How exactly did he get to the West? How did the west encounter this Chinese thinker?
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Erin Klein
Through Jesuit missionaries. And Jesuit missionaries were very, very interested in accounts of human flourishing. So I teach at a Jesuit university, Georgetown, and one of the things that we really work at doing is teaching the whole person. It's a fundamental Jesuit value. And Jesuits like Matteo Ricci, who made their way into China as missionaries, were not just interested in trying to convert people to Catholicism, they were doing that, but they were also working at learning about different cultures. Matteo Ricci and others were very interested in what the accounts of human flourishing were, the accounts of the virtues, the traditions that were sort of on the ground. And so they started translating texts and gave us access to them for the first time.
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John J. Miller
Have these texts had an influence on Western thinking, Western philosophy at all? Are we Confucianists now, or are we all Confucianists now in some way?
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Erin Klein
There are some surprising ways in which some of the Confucian ideas and practices have influenced us. So, for example, the practice of civil service examinations is actually something that comes to the west through thinkers like Voltaire, who encountered it in China. And the Confucian tradition is really the catalyst for the civil service exams in China, because Confucians wanted to find ways for the very best people, the most virtuous people, to hold positions in government. And that's why they designed civil service exams which examined people over Confucian texts like the Analects, because they figured that was the best way to try to gauge what kind of person this is, how much do they know about the virtues, how much can they write about what it really means to be filial, to be compassionate, to be grateful, to be generous, to create a harmonious society. So that's one example of a practice that we have that originates in the Confucian tradition.
- [19:40]
John J. Miller
The Analects is the best known work by Confucius. It's probably the first one anyone should read, I guess. Do you agree with that, number one? Number two, what else did he write? Or what else has he credited with having written or said?
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Erin Klein
So it is. The Analects is the most influential record of Kong's teachings. It's also the earliest record of his teachings. There are other works that are attributed to him, works like the Great Learning, but those are later texts. And so the extent to which they really can authentically be attributed to him is in question. So in reality, those. Those texts are later, and they more closely align with some of the views of his disciples and the disciples of his disciples. And what happened after Kong TZ died is that his carried on his work, but they each established their own schools, and then the disciples of his students went on to establish their own schools of thought. And so the Confucian tradition sort of flourishes, and there is diversity. There's also agreement, of course, through all of that. But you can identify some of the later debates. You can identify texts that are later, in part, through the content of the texts and how they move on to other debates later.
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John J. Miller
I always like to ask guests to recommend an edition or a translation of a work when it's not in English. And I guess the answer to that question, when I ask you is your own, right, the one that's coming out next year. But you've already mentioned it. But tell us a little bit more about what you did, what is in your edition? Why did you approach it the way you did? Why did you think we needed a new translation?
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Erin Klein
So, a couple of things. When I teach the Analects, as I mentioned, I assign my students list lists of passages in the syllabus, passages on particular themes or idea in the ideas in the Analects. Because I want my students to be able to read the text in as close to the way that ancient Chinese thinkers read, would have read the text. Which means that you have to be able to see the unity and consistency throughout the text. When we approach the Analects cold, as you pointed out, it's easy to read it as a jumbled collection of different sayings, right? And it was the commentaries that helped people to see the unity and consist in the text originally. So I reorganized the text, and you'll see in my translation, it's organized thematically. So you'll read all the passages that are dedicated to harmony, all the passages on filial piety, all the passages on ren and other ideas as well. This allows you to read through the text and really to see the unity and consistency, the sort of coherent vision of a good life that's being presented, and not just to see it as a jumbled collection of bits of wisdom.
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John J. Miller
Is this a sacred text? When we think of China today as a secular society, maybe an atheist society, where nothing is sacred. Is this a sacred text? And what does that even mean, sacred? And why is it important?
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Erin Klein
Yeah, I think it is a sacred text. There are numerous rituals described in the text of the Analects. Those include rituals that are dedicated to venerating your ancestral spirits. So, for example, we're told that kongza would set aside a portion of every meal and take a few moments. He was making an offering by setting aside part of the food from each meal, making an offering to his ancestral spirits. And of course, there is a religious belief there. He believed that the spirits were able to take the essence out of the food and that they needed that to sustain themselves. But in addition, he believed that stopping and remembering who we came from, who those people were, helps us to become better people. And so religious rituals over the entire course of the text really play a key role in how we become good. The same is true when it comes to other kinds of rituals. And what Kongzi says at one point is, if I'm not fully present at a ritual, it's as if I haven't performed the ritual at all. And when he talks about presence and being fully present, what he means is being fully engaged, fully attentive to what you're doing when you go to perform a ritual, Stopping and really thinking about how grateful you are, Thinking about the people that you're giving thanks for bringing your whole person, your emotions, your thoughts, your memories, all of it, to the performance of the ritual. And so he actually says, if you're just gonna go through the motions, forget about it. You might as well not do the ritual at all. It's pointless. You come and perform a ritual. If you do it in the right way, then you're fully engaged, you're fully present when you perform the ritual, and it can transform you if you do that.
- [24:20]
John J. Miller
Is this a kind of ancestor worship? Or are there in Confucianism, are there deities? Is there a place for God?
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Erin Klein
One of the things I always try to help my students see is that when we talk about ancestor worship, we tend to just see that as transactional. Ancestor veneration for the early Confucians, really involved a lot more. It involved learning the stories of your great grandparents and great great grandparents, learning about who they were as people, meditating on their virtues and vices, and then trying to think about how you can live a better life as a result of all that. It also undoubtedly involved making sacrifices to them. And the belief was that the spirits of the dead continue to reside here with us in this realm and are reliant on us to make offerings in order for their spirits to be satisfied, and so they want to be remembered. They also need offerings of food and drink. So certainly that's a part of the text, but it's a really thick account in that it's not just this sort of simple transaction. Now, there certainly have been Confucians throughout history who have combined Confucianism with other traditions. And certainly you've had people who have combined Christianity, for example, with Confucianism. And so you. You might think about ancestral spirits, how they compare with saints, but they're definitely. They're not. They're not anything like God. Right. They're the spirits of. Of dead people.
- [25:42]
John J. Miller
How did you become interested in China and discover Confucius and the Analects? How's a nice American girl like you decide to devote her scholarly life to this topic?
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Erin Klein
Yeah, you know, I started out as a music major in college, and at a certain point, I decided not to major in music. I knew music would always be important in my life, but I decided that wasn't quite what I wanted to focus on as my major. So I just started working my way through all of my core requirements toward my degree. That's the only reason I took a philosophy course course. And the particular philosophy course that I ended up in was a comparative philosophy course that looked at three different traditions that are traditionally marginalized in the discipline of philosophy. Islamic philosophy, Japanese philosophy, and Chinese philosophy. It was the hardest course I had ever taken, but I loved the challenge. And I also really loved the way in which learning about these philosophical traditions helped me to understand and sort of unlock these cultures. So I came to see how, really, if you want to understand Chinese culture, Japanese culture, Islam, studying the philosophical underpinnings of those cultures really is incredibly helpful. Then I had a chance to go study abroad in China. After that, I really was hooked, especially because I came to feel like Confucian views get a lot of things right. Not everything, but they get a lot of things right. And I felt like they were offering a vision of a good life that really ought to be studied and has a lot to teach us.
- [27:17]
John J. Miller
You're the author of a book with an amazing title, which is Little Sprouts and the Dao of Ancient Chinese Philosophy and the Art of Raising Mindful, Resilient, and Compassionate Kids. What's that book about? Give us your elevator pitch.
- [27:35]
Erin Klein
So this book was inspired by me standing at the park when my three kids were playing and having other parents say, hey, you know, where do you work? What do you do? And. And when I would say, I teach at Georgetown, they'd say, what do you teach? And I'd say, chinese philosophy. And then they would inevitably turn to me and say, oh, so are. Does it influence you? As a mom, the way you parent. And I said, actually yeah, it does. And, and then they would say, are you a tiger mother? And so what I, what I always ended up telling them is actually really the opposite is true. And I have found these text to be so full of wisdom that informs just every aspect of my life and that includes most importantly, my life as a mother. And one of the things I love about Chinese philosophy is that you have lots of different perspectives in this massive, massive tradition. So in my book Little Sprouts, I talk about different Confucian approaches as well as different Taoist approaches, and how those different approaches can be good tools for parents as we face the challenges of modern parenting.
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John J. Miller
Give us one example of Confucian wisdom that might help parents raise their kids.
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Erin Klein
So one example of Confucian wisdom, as opposed to Taoist wisdom, I want to say is that I think anyone who has multiple kids knows that even if they're all growing up in the same house, they're really wired differently from the very beginning. And so with my own children, I think about my two daughters. I really have to use different approaches to help them. And this morning I was actually having a hard time getting my younger daughter ready to go to school. She was resistant, she been sick, she doesn't want to go back, she doesn't like school very much. And so with her I had to take what would be a more daoist approach, which is a less hands on approach. I had to sort of take my hands off the problem, step back, give her some time. My older daughter though, when she's in that kind of place, she really needs a much more hands on approach. And the Confucians of course are going to say, let's employ some rituals, let's sit down and talk about what kind of people we want to become. That's the approach that works with my older daughter. And so one of the things that I found as a parent is that as much as I'm immersed in these texts, I'm constantly translating them, writing about them, teaching them. I would find myself referring to different stories in these traditions and those approaches, those images, those metaphors really have helped me to find different ways of coming at problems and challenges with my kids, which I think there's no one size fits all approach to good parenting. I think what we need are a wide range of different strategies and approaches. And this tradition I think is just full of really a really rich range for us to explore.
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John J. Miller
It sounds like parents should read your book Little Sprouts and the Tao of parenting. But let's wrap up with one more question about what is the case for reading the Analect by Confucius? Is there a reason we should study that text right now, today in the 21st century?
- [30:26]
Erin Klein
Yeah, I think the Analects is amazingly relevant for us today. Kongzhou found himself living in a time when his society was sort of tearing itself apart at the seams. In Kongzi's time, he's living right before ancient China descends into what's called the Warring States period, where you had different states vying for supremacy. It was a time of violence and warfare, and he was working to help his society see how they could fix some of these problems, and not just at a political level. But he was convinced that the problem was really cultural and moral and that it rested on us being able to listen to each other, learning to harmonize diverse voices, listening deeply and carefully, responding to each other with a sense of reciprocity and compassion and generosity. And so he was convinced that the key to helping his society find its footing was going to be cultural and moral. And I think that's something that has enduring value for us today as we find ourselves living in really challenging times.
- [31:30]
John J. Miller
Aaron Klein, thanks so much for joining us and telling us all about the Analects by Confucius.
- [31:36]
Erin Klein
Thank you so much for having me.
- [31:37]
John J. Miller
You just listened to the Great Books Podcast, a production of National Review. Please subscribe to the Great Books Podcast and leave reviews of the show that helps us keep this podcast going. Send me your ideas for future episodes. You can reach me through our website@heymiller.com on Twitter. My handle is Eymiller. And last of all, special thanks to all of you for listening. We'll be back next week with a new episode of the Great Books Podcast.