Second, the commonsense air and the flat, seeming arbitrariness of the observations makes their startling profundity easy to miss. That results in Confucian materials being something of an awkward, theme-based conceptual collage, with many gaps and repetitions, which is hard to follow. The gist of opinion is that “the writings of Confucius” are a composite of things Confucius may have written, notes from his students, and commentary from collaborators. First, it’s not clear if Confucius, like Socrates, ever wrote down anything at all. There are, perhaps surprisingly, several problems in Westerners grasping the ideas contained in Confucian writings. Businesses, government, and schools, as well as the famous residents of Anytown, may be interested in adopting some of these brilliant Confucian principles for the management of self and society. There may be some benefit to Westerners in having a concise, practical summary of Confucian premises and reasoning, expressed in a manner which will strike Western eyes and ears as recognizable and understandable. For Asians, Confucian thought is akin to the conceptual foundation of social reality. Confucian writings carry a truly remarkable weight in Asia, conveying a quality of timeless wisdom not too far from the sun coming up in the morning and going down at night-an overall framing of life. The reverence in the East for Confucian principles is both fundamental and widespread, placing the principles somewhere between a philosophy and a religion. There’s really no comparable figure in the West ( The Geography of Thought, by the psychologist Richard Nesbitt). People often wonder at the calm refinement, gracious courtesy, respect for education, meticulous perfectionism, social stability, and phenomenal work ethic of Asians. The name Confucius doesn’t ring, in the West, with the same clarion power as, say, Batman, Harry Potter, Dante, Good Queen Bess, or Aristotle. There is reason to believe that the rock upon which Asia is built is a thinker from 2500 years ago.
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