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the Analects is a composite text

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has different layers to it

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the last part of the book is late and has many anomalies

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stylistically distinctive

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has long narratives

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for the first time we see Confucius confronting critics

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he confronts rulers who don't listen to him

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he doesn't confront rivals in the sense of other philosophers who have different views of the world

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Analects 14.39

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Confucius is sitting in front of his residence in the state of Wei

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playing the stone chimes

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a man dressed strangely with a basket strapped to his back stops and listens

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Confucius is frustrated because he has come back from on unsuccessful meeting with a ruler

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man says, "Whoever is playing the chimes like that certainly has something on his mind"

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then the man says, "How despicable is this petty stubbornness! If no one understands you, just tend to yourself"

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then he quotes from the odes

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"If the river ford is deep, use the stepping-stones, if it is shallow, simply raise your hem"

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i.e. you need to change your behavior to accord with different situations

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this was a standard way of critiquing someone: don't say anything directly, but quote a provokotive piece of poetry

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the Master then says, "Such resoluteness! Who could take issue with that"

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most commentators interpret this as Confucius being sarcastic

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Confucius rather has a mission and will see it through

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Analects 18.06

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Confucius is on a trip from one state to another trying to find a job

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"Confucius passed Change and Jie who were yoked together pulling a plow through a field"

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odd for a few reasons

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their names mean something

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"Standing tall in the Marsh"

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"Prominent in the Muds"

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using self-conscious primitive technology

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people at this point used oxen to draw plows

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it would be as if someone was cutting their lawn with an old fashioned manual lawn mower

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you would be sending a message

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deliberately primitive

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Confucius sends one of his disciples to ask these two people where the ford is to get across the river

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one of the men ask if that is Confucius, and the disciple says yes, and the man says, then he should know where the ford is

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meaning: Confucius travels so much, he should know where the ford is

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second man says, "instead of following a scholar who merely avoids the bad people, wouldn't it be better for you to follow scholars like us, who avoid the age itself?"

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these people are uses old technology and lower than peasants

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but they are intelligent, i.e. they know who Confucius is

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these are people who have dropped out of the march of progress

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they are saying that it is the world itself that is bad

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why not join us

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Zilu the disciple goes back and reports to Confucius

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Confucius thinks and says, "A person cannot flock together with the birds and the beasts. If I do not associate with the followers of men, then with whom would I associate? If the Way were realized in the world, then I would not need to change anything"

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dropping out is not the answer

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we are humans and we have to live in the human world

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going to live in the countryside is quitting, it's not trying to change anything

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the primitivists

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motif in Analects: people who are educated but who have dropped out of society

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quit their jobs

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returned to rural live

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rejecting technologies

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rejecting urban culture

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believe that Confucius' efforts to change the world are not going to work

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the cultured, civilized world is the problem

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being in the system doesn't allow you to change it

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a movement that was consciously apposed to Confucius' mission

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little known about it

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loosely connected movement

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reject public service

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returning to nature

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rejecting the Confucius way, the Confucius strategy

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this was the beginning of waring states philosophical debate

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these people sound quite a bit like the hippies of the of the 1960s counter culture in North America and Europe

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educated elites: white kids who dropped out of college and wanted to become farmers

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explicit rejection of technology, comfort, and urbanism

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the natural world is a model

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have a faith that there is something about the natural world that is inherently good

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there is something about society that is messing up that goodness

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we need to get back to a primal, natural goodness

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there is something deeply wrong with culture

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faith in nature

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faith in the goodness of humans as a natural creature

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today the equivalents would be back to local food movements

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self-conscious appropriation of simplicity

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the primitivists don't fare very well in the Analects because it's not their book

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they get in good jabs

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but Confucius always comes in at the end and says something like, "a person cannot flock together with birds and beasts"

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these people are irresponsible and childish

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the way the Eisenhower generation viewed the hippy movement, i.e. just a bunch of kids running around like savages

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but they do get their own book

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The Guodian Daodejing