>"Teacher, in your opinion, could the Kingdom of Lu grow

>>1589868
Things magically work out in anarcho-bureaucracy.

Instilling respect for authority by education and culture rather than sheer force is better

>just put the right people [me] in power and everything will work out!
Confucianism is a joke.

>>1589894
>just put the right people [me] in power and everything will work out!
Platonism is a joke.

>>1589894
Go to bed Chuang Tzu.

>>1589894
This isn't what it's about at all. For Confucius the basic unit of "power" is the family. Filial piety is an individual's chief moral obligation. Submission to political authority is secondary. The mountains are tall and the emperor is far away and all that

Here we sit now in the heart of a mighty Empire, with all the outlying states looking up to us for the solution of crucial domestic and foreign problems. 3 Our minds are in a state of watchful tension, as if we were crossing a great waterway 4 in the face of a gale, with no haven yet in sight. Thus day and night we ponder and worry over the expenditure of this great Commonwealth, forgetting sleep while in bed and oblivious of food when hungry. Statistical tables 5 never depart from our presence; we ransack our minds ever searching to solve a myriad problems. Our assistants are, of course, of mediocre ability and not fit for consultation! We struggle alone with great principles and our thoughts have turned to the Scholars with hope and expectation, as to some Duke Chou or Duke Shao, 6 and we crave their bounties as if from some Tzŭ-kao. 7 While our Secretariat manages affairs, year after year a search is made throughout the provinces and demesnes for men of high integrity, and talented and worthy scholars are recommended.

You who cherish so the practices of the Six Arts, 8 fleet in thought and exhaustive in argument, — you ought now to let out the flood of your light and dispel our ignorance. Come, show to us now how you disparage everything modern, putting all your trust in the past; how you discourse upon Antiquity, with never a reference to present conditions. Is it due to our ideosyncracies that we are unable to recognize a scholar; or is it rather your habit of falsifying truth by slandering ability in your stilted tirades? How difficult indeed it is to find a really worthy scholar! From Ni K'uan of Ch'ien-shêng, 9 upon whom was bestowed the hat of a high minister for his studies on the Book of History, down to all the recommended scholars that I have ever seen or heard or as soaring high as recipients of Imperial favor, — none has shown transcendant ability, none has helped the government in solving difficulties, none has had any merit whatever!

>>1589962
T'ai Kung, 26 as Chancellor to kings Wên and Wu, made them Emperors of the world; Kuan Chung, as Prime Minister to Duke Huan, made his master Lord Protector of the feudal princes. Thus when real worthies obtain high positions they are like dragons plunging into water, or soaring serpents disporting on the clouds.
But Master Kung-sun Hung, when acting as Chancellor, lectured his late Majesty upon the Spring and Autumn, and while secure in the position of one of the Three Highest Ministers, and with all the advantages of Dukes Chou and Shao, 27 with powers extending over ten thousand li, and with the possibility to set a standard for the whole world, proceeded to establish examples for the Empire to follow by never dressing in two colors and never dining on more than one dish, 28 all with no noticeable benefit to the administration. 29

h. Learned doctors such as Chu T'ai and Hsü Yen 30 in accordance with an Imperial rescript, and endowed with special powers, rode through all the length and breadth of the Empire, through every province and demesne, making selection among the filial and incorrupt, 31 and urging the people of the realm to reform—yet folkways and morality showed no great change for the better. We have seen also recommended scholars of the classes of Worthies, Probi and Literati suddenly raised to high rank and honor, some of them even holding ministerial posts. This is certainly doing more in promoting scholars than king Chao of Yen ever did, and wider employment of the worthies than Wên Wang ever attempted. Yet in spite of all this we never saw anything accomplished by these men. We should say that these worthies could not be exactly described as possessing talents that would lead us to compare them with dragons and soaring serpents.

>>1589966
To talk is easy, but to act is difficult. So the ancient worthies would stick to the realities and exert their efforts and would banish the mere exhibition of empty learning. Formerly, the Lord of Shang intelligently pursued the policy of encouragement of proper activities and restraining the improper. 38 He made use of the powers in the contemporaneous world for the advancement of Ch'in, sought profit and achieved success; therefore he was victorious in every battle and always captured his object of attack, absorbing his nearest opponents and crushing the distant.

The feudal lords, gathering up their skirts, faced westward and followed Ch'in's leadership. After him came Mêng T'ien 41 who led armies against the barbarian Hu, ejecting them from their lands to the extent of a thousand li and going as far as the north side of the Yellow River, all that as easily as breaking rotten wood or destroying decayed matter. How, may I ask? — by virtue of the plans of the Lord of Shang, handed down, brought to perfection and constantly followed. Every undertaking brought advantage and every move had its reward as a consequence of this. Accumulation, storing up, and shrewd calculations are the means of strengthening a state.
Within the universe the swallows and sparrows know nothing of the distance from earth to heaven; the frogs in a well know nothing of the vastness of rivers and seas; poverty stricken bumpkins and their stupid wives know nothing of the cares of statecraft. Peddlers with packs on their backs know nothing of the wealth of I Tun.
To slacken and disperse [authority], therefore, and leaving things to the people, that is not yet having conceived a Great Scheme and walking in a Great Path.

>>1589930
nice one

File: Qin Shi Huangdi.jpg (145KB, 321x406px) Image search: [Google]

145KB, 321x406px

>>1589868
Lel, confucianists, watch me unite dis empire with my sick laws.

t. First Emperor.

>Eat burgers at Mcdonald's then go to strip club

What did he mean by this?