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Confucius Man & Myth

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At a time when China's centralized government had broken down and public wars went on unchecked there was a wise man named Confucius who wanted to change China. His idea of how to do this was to have better leaders who were well trained ministers and not someone of royal blood. In the book Confucius The Man and The Myth, the author H.G. Creel describes Confucius's life somewhat vaguely.
At the beginning of the biography(25) there is little explanation about the time in which Confucius lived. The most it said was at that time China was ruled by aristocrats that taxed the people too much. This was what started the public wars. However everything else in the biography is mostly about his life.
The way H.G. Creel tells us about Confucius, it seems he thinks of him as a virtuous man. On page 26 Creel explains to us that "Confucius never tried to hide his humble past, but he was a little ashamed of it when he grew older." Creel thought that Confucius was humble and it was this that made him into a great man. This proves that the author thinks of him as someone who would be ethical.
There is a "biography" chapter, but only summarizes his life in a few pages. At the part of his life when he was a teacher Creel talks about Confucius for only 7 pages. Creel states that "What had Confucius been doing up to this time, aside from teaching? We simply do not know."(36) Since this is stated it means that they don't know much about this part of Confucius's life. He could have done a lot more than just teach. In the book Creel tells us that some stories about Confucius were false rumors. He states that "no one knew what, if anything, Confucius had done when he was minister of crime."(37) not knowing exactly what he did at that time makes it hard to comprehend some other parts of his life. In Chapter 8 Creel mostly talks about whether or not he was a scholar or if he even wrote anything. He writes that in the Analects in a rather obscure context, Confucius referred to himself as a "transmitter" and not a maker. He said that he believed in the ancient ways. Creel states that no one knew at which circumstances was this said so it proves little. So the part about him writing anything could just be an assumption.
After Confucius died people considered him a king without a crown. His teachings are still known to be used today in the teachings called Confucianism. Though Creel did not mention much about the setting of the China at the time of when Confucius lived, he explains to us that Confucius was wise. Confucius was born at about 551 B.C. and this book was published in 1949. So I think most of the information is based on the Analects mentioned in the book, Because of this, there are some things that aren't clear about Confucius's life. There are other sources that are more recent, such as on http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/confucius/. Some of the text is hard to understand unless you already know more about the time at which Confucius lived.

My mother pointed out to me wheen i was a teenager that religion is inherently cruel, and that if I wanted an ethical system without cruelty, I would haved to develop one on my own. Over the years I ended up with a sort of basic Confucianism based on the five cardinal virtues--human-heartedness, righteousness, proper social conduct, wisdom and sincerity.

So I was pleased to learn that Creel had, in stripping Confucianism of centuries of accretion, got back to pretty much the same thing. Nothing mystical or other-worldly--just a basic system of social ethics that promises a life of productive contentment.

I regret that I came across this book too late to write Creel to thank him.