Where Neo-Confucians the first fedoras?

>>1491764
The sole fact that you use the word "fedoras" indicates how much you belong in reddit

No, Laozi was.

It was Buddha

>>1491804
>>1491817
Confucius was pretty much the original neoreactionary so I think it's fair to say that classical Confucians were the first fedoras, not Neo-Confucians.

>>1491764
Yes.

Rites and religous syncretism with Confucian philosophies have no place in a social philosophy.
*tips Wushamao*

>>1491804
Laozi was too mystical, but there were plenty of Daoist naturalists. Here's Wang Chong's refutation of Creationism/Intelligent Design as well as seeing divine intervention or punishment in natural phenomena:

"By the fusion of the fluids of Heaven and Earth, all things of the world are produced spontaneously, just as by the mixture of the fluids of husband and wife children are born spontaneously. Among the things thus produced, creatures with blood in their veins are sensitive of hunger and cold. Seeing that grain can be eaten, they use it as food, and discovering that silk and hemp can be worn, they take it as raiment. Some people are of opinion that Heaven produces grain for the purpose of feeding mankind, and silk and hemp to cloth them. That would be tantamount to making Heaven the farmer of man or his mulberry girl [who feeds the silkworms], I it would not be in accordance with spontaneity, therefore this opinion is very questionable and unacceptable.

Among the many things of this world grain dispels hunger, and silk and hemp protect from cold. For that reason man eats grain, and wears silk and hemp. That Heaven does not produce grain, silk, and hemp purposely, in order to feed and cloth[e] mankind, follows from the fact that by calamitous changes it does not intend to reprove man. Things are produced spontaneously, and man wears and eats them; the fluid changes spontaneously, and man is frightened by it, for the usual theory is disheartening. Where would be spontaneity, if the heavenly signs were intentional, and where inaction [wu wei]?"

>>1492046
Arguing on calamitous events I have aready expressed my doubts as to Heaven reprimanding man by misfortunes.1 They say, moreover, that the sovereign, as it were, moves Heaven by his government, and that Heaven moves the fluid in response. Beating a drum and striking a bell with a hammer would be an analogous process. The drum represents Heaven, the hammer the government, and the sound of the drum or the bell is like Heaven's response. When man acts below, the heavenly fluid survenes, and accompanies his actions. I confess that I doubt this also.

Heaven can move things, but how can things move Heaven? Men and things depend upon Heaven, and Heaven is the master of men and things. Thus one says that, when Wang Ling 2 whips the horses, the carriage and the steeds rush over the plain. It is not said that, when the carriage and the steeds chase over the plain, Wang Liang subsequently whips the horses. The heavenly fluid changes above, and men and things respond to it below. Consequently, when Heaven is about to rain, the shang-yang 3 begins to dance, and attracts the rain. The " shang-yang" is a creature which knows the rain. As soon as Heaven is about to rain, it bends its single leg, and commences to dance.

When Heaven is going to rain, the mole-crickets and ants leave their abodes, the earth-worms come forth, the chords of guitars become loose, and chronic diseases more violent. This shows, how Heaven moves things. When Heaven is about to blow, the creatures living in nests become restless, and, when it is going to rain, the insects staying in holes become excited. The fluid of wind and rain has such an effect upon those creatures. Man takes the same position between Heaven and Earth as fleas and bugs between the upper and lower garments, or crickets and ants in crevices. Can fleas and bugs, crickets and ants, in so far as they

>>1492052
(shit)

are either rebellious or peaceful, wild or quiet, bring about a change of the fluid in the crevices? Fleas and bugs, mole-crickets and ants cannot do this. To pretend that man is able to do so, shows a misconception of the nature of the fluid of things.

When the wind comes, the boughs of the trees shake, but these boughs cannot produce the wind. In the same manner at the end of summer the field crickets chirrup, and the cicadas cry. They are affected by the Yin fluid. When the thunder rolls, the pheasants become frightened, and, when the insects awake from their state of torpidity, the snakes come forth. This is the rising of the Yang fluid. When it is near mid-night, the cranes scream, and when at dawn the sun is about to rise, the cocks crow. Although these be not phenomenal changes, they show at least, how the heavenly fluid moves things, and how those respond to the heavenly fluid. One may say that heat and cold influence the sovereign in such a way, that he emits a fluid by which he rewards or punishes, but are we warranted in saying that rewards and punishments affect high Heaven so, that it causes heat or cold to respond to the government?

During the dog-days, people stand against the wind, and in the depth of winter, they sit turned towards the sun. In summer, they are anxious to obtain coolness, and in winter, they would like to have warmth. These wishes are most sincere. When their desires reach their climax, they will perhaps stand against the wind, and simultaneously fan themselves, or turned towards the sun-shine, light a fire in a stove. Yet Heaven will never change its fluid for summer or winter's sake. Heat and cold have their fixed periods, which are never transmuted for man's sake. With an earnest desire one does not obtain it, how should it be brought about by rewards and punishments, when the thoughts are not longing for heat or cold at all?

>>1492061
The sighs of ten thousand people cannot move Heaven, how should it be possible that the sobs of Tsou Yen alone could cause the frost to fall? Could the predicament of Tsou Yen be compared to that of Chü Yuan? Was his unjust imprisonment like jumping into the river? Were the lamentations of the Li-sao and the Ch'u- t'se 1 nothing more than a sigh? — When Ch'ü Yuan died, there fell no frost in the State of Ch'u.

Ch'in buried alive 400,000 soldiers of Chao below Ch'ang p'ing, 5 where they were all thrown into pits at the same time. Their wails and cries then were more than sighs. Even if their sincerity was less than that of Tsou Yen, yet the sufferings of 400,000 people must have been commensurate to the pain of one wise man, and the cries they uttered, while falling into the pits, must have been worse than the moans of one fettered prisoner.

In spite of this no hoar-frost was seen falling down below Ch'ang-p'ing, when the above related event took place.

We read in the " Fu-hsing'' chapter: — 6 " The people maltreated universally complained that they had not failed against the Ruler of Heaven."7 This means that Ch'ih Yu's subjects suffering under his vexations universally complained that they had not sinned against high Heaven. Since the complaints of a whole populace could not cause a fall of frost, the story about Tsou Yen is most likely fictitious also.

>>1492067
Thus we may assume that the story about the frost falling down upon Tsou Yen imploring Heaven is untrue, and that the report of the wife of Ch'i Liang causing the city wall to collapse is false.

When Tun-mao 2 rebelled, the Viscount Hsiang of Chao 3 led an army against it to invest it. When his soldiers had arrived at the foot of the city wall, more than one hundred feet of this wall of Tun-mao crumbled down. Viscount Hsiang thereupon sheathed his sword, and went back. If the wife of Ch'i Liang caused the collapse of the city wall by her tears, was there anybody crying among Hsiang Tse's men? When Ch'in was about to be extinguished, a city gate collapsed inside, and when the house of Ho Kuang 4 was going to ruin, a wall of the palace was demolished of itself. Who was weeping in the Ch'in palace, or crying in the house of Ho Kuang? The collapse of the gate, and the demolition of the wall were signs of the catastrophe awaiting Ch'in and Ho.

Perhaps at the time, when the Ch'i State 5 was about to be subverted, the wife of Chi Liang happened to cry at the foot of the wall, just as Tsou Yen chanced to cry to Heaven, when it was still very cold in the Yen State. There was a correspondence of events and a concordance of time. Eye-witnesses and people who heard about it, most likely were of this opinion. Moreover, provided that the city wall was old, and the house-wall, rotten, there must have been a collapse, and a destruction. If the tears of one woman could make 50 feet of the wall tumble down, the wall must have been such, that one might have pushed a beam of 30 feet into it with one finger.