Keeping the positive : comments [benlehman]

You know, I rarely read Confucious. There's parts that are pure gold, and then there's parts that... ahh, irritate me to no end.

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It's important to remember that he saw himself largely as a keeper of the traditional Zhou culture.

We have *no fucking clue* what traditional Zhou culture was like.

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Well, I'm also aware of the fact that text tends to get diluted over time with additions and deletions depending on who's in charge at the moment. It's hard to tell whether the irritating stuff was original or added.

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Almost certainly both.

It's hard to even imagine that a petty Chinese noble from 2700 years ago would %100 share a value set with a modern Chinese-American.

It's kind of amazing how much of it is still relevant at all.

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