Philosophy Phriday - Confucius and his Analects

Post 6 – Confucius and Analects

“Confucius says…” was, for all of my childhood, the intro to some punchline of a high school type joke. Yes, I’m aware I made the same joke in the first Confucius post, I am childish. Other than the sayings of Confucius I ran into as part of pop culture or some corporate motivational poster, I have never sat down with a list of Confucius’ Analects. Today, we’re going to change that. Went online and found a list of Analects. We’re going to look at some, not sure how many yet, interpret what we’re reading, and take what lessons we can based on the analect itself and the application of the personal philosophy I’ve been working with from the start.

“Have no friends not equal to yourself.”

The first time I read this I took it as being aware of the type of friends that you keep. I would like to say that’s more about the way this is written and less about the influence of modern society on the way I read words, but I can’t give myself the benefit of the doubt. However, I can credit myself with reflecting on how this is written and letting what I believe to be the true meaning of this Analect. All your friends should be treated as your equals. You are no better than your friend and your friends are no better than yourself.

Friendship is very important in my life. The ties I had to my immediate family were loose when I was a kid and fell apart early in my adult life. I turned to friendships as a support system and celebration of my personal triumphs. Equality across a friend group resonates with me because the group is a powerful support group when one of the friends is down. I’ve been on the receiving and giving end of that kind of support. Even if it’s a distraction for an afternoon, relief from that which holds us down can be the difference between temporary struggle and long-term trauma. To me, this is what presence is all about. Being able to identify when your friends are acting differently is being present at the moment and comparing it to historical patterns.

Being a good friend is practice for being a better human. When we practice empathy with the people we choose, we open the possibility of empathizing with those elsewhere in the human experience. We don’t need to have a direct connection to the individual but we can understand the mindset of being in a particular situation. To use a positive example, I was at a Lindy Hop dance conference over Labor Day weekend and one of my local instructors won what I will call a lifetime achievement for their efforts to expand and make the dance community a better place. In my humble opinion, a well-deserved award. I see the award happen and I witness what it means to the people in my local dance community. Seeing the result of a lifetime of sustained effort to help others enjoy that which you are passionate about makes me want to find ways to build up a community to which I’m close. On a small scale, that could be my friends. On a large scale, that could be the people who read posts like this and go on this philosophical journey as well.

The lesson here is that individuals have the power to save and empower the next individual. That power lives at the friendship level and when focused, can expand to the group and those who exist around the group. That can be a dance community, an online community, or your local community where you live. Friendship is powerful, friendship is equality and Confucius recognized that.

“To rule a country of a thousand chariots, there must be reverent attention to business, and sincerity; economy in expenditure, and love for men; and the employment of the people at the proper seasons.”

I read this Analect to say “Leaders must support productivity and humbly recognize that human expense is more than the fees associated with labor. Like the seasons, humans need a cycle to be in harmony.” I love this Analect. The basis for this is the cost of labor for the people producing said labor. Leaders are the stewards of labor and while productivity is important, it is not the most important. However, productivity is given its due as the primary concern for leaders. However, that reverence is framed against the seasonal needs of humans. Humans evolved alongside the change of the seasons. When the ground rests, so do the people who live upon that ground. Somewhere along the way, the constant need to produce became the only basis of the Analect of Modern Business.

What hurts the most is those in power forget along the way, what it was like to be the person who hadn’t had rest. Adam Smith had his version of the Invisible Hand. I have my own version and that is the motivation of the individual who reaches a point where supporting the Analect of Modern Business becomes more important than the support of human needs. The best example I can think of in the news today (Sept ’23) is the support of managers and the shift back toward working in the office. I’ve had managers tell me they had zero interest in going back to the office. When it was announced employees had to go back, those same managers were the first to say this decision was great for the company. What is that invisible hand that makes people shift their interest away from the nature of humanity toward the unwavering support of the Analect of Modern Business? It genuinely hurts the heart of my soul that humans are susceptible to the invisible forces of business over the long-term health of the people who work around them.

Ok, I’m not going to turn this into a Corpo trauma dump post. Time and place, this isn’t it.

Humanity might want to consider the benefits of a slow to production. Humans lose their value when they are no longer able to feed the Analect of Modern Business. Leaders might want to consider how the seasonal nature of Humanity can be harnessed to create forever sustainable value in forms other than monetary value.

“When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it;— this is knowledge.”

I believe this is about self-awareness while in the presence of other people. What we know and what we have learned along the way is unique to our own story. Our knowledge is not better than the next person’s and their knowledge is an opportunity for further experience. Some knowledge is more utilitarian than other knowledge. Knowing all the lyrics to 90s cartoon theme songs is great, but geothermal infrastructure knowledge probably has more utility for humanity.

This Analect tells me that being humble in the face of what we don’t know is just as important as being humble with the information we’ve internalized in our lifetime. Be open to the exchange of knowledge. It is more important to be a conductor of knowledge than a gatekeeper.

“I will not be afflicted at men’s not knowing me; I will be afflicted that I do not know men.”

Just because I don’t know who you are, doesn’t mean I won’t try to understand your nature and make this place better for you and me. I read this Analect as all of us having a responsibility to make the world better than we found it. The modern world has made it easy to apply the face of anonymity to anyone outside one of our spheres of influence. This Analect says to me that we are in this existence together. I don’t need you to know who I am and what I do, but you can know that I am doing what I can to make our existence better. This is the act of being selfless on behalf of humanity. Being selfless seems like the kind of idea that would fit in well with my personal philosophy. I think being truly selfless is difficult to achieve and sets an aspirational bar so high we are setting ourselves up for failure.

Care about humanity, do what you can in your space. Be mindful of the traces you leave behind.

CHR;)