Confucian Thought
Confucius believed the child should be subordinate to the parent, younger brother to the older, wife to husband, and subject to the sovereign who is to be regarded as the father of the nation. The state as the family writ large was the most harmonious, orderly, and natural form of government. This was later expanded to cover international relations (e.g. the emperor of China is treated as the older brother of the Korean king). Confucian family theory is still espoused in North Korea to justify their method of leadership succession.
The concept of family is important in classical Confucianism. For Confucius, xiào or filial piety was a dé or virtue. The character representing xiào, 孝, itself represents a basic family structure, with the upper component representing elders (lao, old), and the lower representing children (zi, son). Those acting with filial piety, such as through the performances of lĭ (rites or ritual, perhaps most notably those associated with jìngzǔ or traditional ancestor worship), were therefore acting in accordance with yì (righteousness, or fulfilling one's proper roles or acting in harmony with one's station). The relationship of this concept to the state is discussed at length in the Xiàojīng, or Classic of Filial Piety. In politics, xiào is not simply loyalty on the part of subordinates and citizens, but also an expectation for the king to provide for his subjects with "paternal love"; just as the people were expected to act with respect for the king's law, the king was expected to make those laws out of kindness for the people.
Read more about this topic: Family As A Model For The State
Famous quotes containing the words confucian and/or thought:
“Take the serious side of Disney, the Confucian side of Disney. It’s in having taken an ethos ... where you have the values of courage and tenderness asserted in a way that everybody can understand. You have got an absolute genius there. You have got a greater correlation of nature than you have had since the time of Alexander the Great.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“Since the beginning of time, three-quarters of the mental energy and of the lies inspired by vanity have been expended for their inferiors by people who are only abased by such expenditure. And Swann, who was easygoing and unaffected with a duchess, trembled at the thought of being scorned and put on airs when he was with a housemaid.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)