What is Confucianism?
Confucianism began with the teacher Confucius in China, around 500 BC. Its politics start with character. A ruler who is good will be followed without threats, it says, and officials should earn their posts by learning and virtue. Society holds together through roles and duties, and the family is where those duties are first learned. For about two thousand years it was the guiding creed of Chinese emperors, and it left a deep mark on Korea, Japan and Vietnam. Today it is being looked at again, both by scholars and by some governments.
Core beliefs
- A ruler should lead by moral example, not by fear and heavy punishment.
- Officials should be picked for talent, learning and good character.
- Harmony comes from ritual and from people doing their duties to one another.
- Respect for parents and the family is where public order begins.
- The purpose of government is the wellbeing and moral growth of the people.
- A ruler who betrays the people may lose the Mandate of Heaven.
History
Confucius lived in a time of war between small states and saw himself as passing on older wisdom. Mencius, a later follower, said people are born good and may rightly cast out a cruel king. Xunzi took a darker view of human nature and put his faith in training and ritual. The Han dynasty made the teaching official in the second century BC. Exams on the Confucian classics became the main road into the civil service and ran until 1905. Zhu Xi and others rebuilt the tradition from the eleventh century on, and his reading became standard in China and in Korea. In the 1900s reformers blamed it for China's weakness, and the Cultural Revolution attacked it again. Since the 1980s it has made a comeback.
Variants
Even the early teachers disagreed: Mencius trusted human nature while Xunzi did not. Neo-Confucians added theories about the universe and self-cultivation. Huang Zongxi, a thinker of the 1600s, argued that a monarch must be bound by limits. Kang Youwei tried to build a modern constitutional version. Later New Confucians such as Mou Zongsan sought to join the tradition with science and democracy. Today, thinkers argue over whether it supports democracy, rule by the capable, or a blend.
Criticisms
Liberal critics say its stress on rank and obedience clashes with equal rights, and feminist scholars note how low a place it gave to women. Reformers in 1919 and later Marxists called it a prop for an old, unfair order. Others say leaders use Confucian words to excuse strong-man rule, as in the Asian values talk of the 1990s. Defenders answer that the tradition also holds rulers to moral standards, demands service to the people, and prizes honest, trained officials.
In practice
For centuries Confucian ideas shaped palaces, courts, schools and family law across East Asia. Its habits live on in how people in China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Singapore and Vietnam treat study, public service and the family. Chinese authorities now promote Confucian heritage, and Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, who died in 2015, cited Confucian values for his style of government. On the 12 axes, it scores strongly toward Traditional on Morality and toward National identity on Culture.