Oppression Of The Family In Confucius's Analects

In the Analects, Confucius responds to a story the Duke of She told him in regards to an ‘upright’ man reporting his father’s crime of stealing a sheep. Confucius responds saying, “the upright men in [his] community are different from [that].” Confucius insists that a truly ‘upright’ man will conceal the crimes of his father, just as the father should conceal the crimes of his son. The father and son should cover up the misconduct of the other in order to keep harmony within the family. If the son were to turn in his father for his crime, this would create much disharmony in the family, and as a result, in the society itself, since the family is the building block of the society.
The idea of prioritizing family or societal concerns over …show more content…
For example, when attempting to compliment the hand-made clothing of an Yi woman while on the Yunnan excursion, she replied multiple times that the clothing was not very good looking, or that others’ were better. This example shows how some people in China today will still not accept compliments on an individual level, but will instead diffuse them to a communal or societal …show more content…
The purpose of the imperial exam was to test individuals on their knowledge of the classics and literary style; those who passed could then become scholar-officials who made up the most elite class of society. Although the imperial exam has its origins in the Han dynasty, its remnants remain in the current day “gaokao” or China’s national university entrance exam. Both exams give every individual a chance to rise above his or her current social and economic status by eliminating as much bias as possible, since Confucius believed that there should be no class distinction in regards to