其为人也孝弟章

Original text

有子曰：“其为人也孝弟，而好犯上者，鲜矣。不好犯上，而好作乱，未之有也。君子务本，本立而道生。孝弟也者，其为仁之本与？”

Translation

Yu-Tze said, "If one has filial piety and esteem toward his siblings, then very rarely will he be in favor of rebellion. If one is not in favor of rebellion, then never will he rise in revolt. The noble pays attention to the key. Only if the key is taken care, can the whole matter be in order. Isn't filial piety and esteem toward siblings the key to the benevolence?"

Annotation from research

Benevolence is one of the core concepts of the Confucianism. This sentence is not delivered by Confucius himself but by his student. But the underlying thought is consistent. That is, the family is the fundamental construction of a whole society. So, the education on common citizens should begin from the correct behaviors inside their families. The filial piety is the correct behavior from the children to their parents. The esteem toward one's siblings is the correct behavior among the ones of the same generation. Please pay attention that in traditional Chinese, esteem toward one's siblings is more likely to be the respect from younger siblings toward elder ones. So the general meaning of this sentence emphasizes an order, which points at the junior family members showing their respect to the senior ones. The order inside families will influence one's behavior when he enters the society. The one who is clear of such junior-senior order will rarely be bellicose toward the authorities, so as to avoid many unnecessary troubles. In the point of Confucianism's view, whether the senior is correct or incorrect is not very important. But the respect from the junior toward the senior is. We shall paticularly see the benefit from this thought, which puts the priority of keeping an order to the top of the list. It's sure to be unfair for some of the cases, that the junior is correct but senior is not. But it is much harder to define what is correctness than what is senior. What's more, the senior members are not necessarily taking the control, but they should receive respect because of their contribution. In other words, one should first know how to respect others, especially the senior members, and then be able to get support and put his talent to good use. To be more concise, one should first learn how to bear oneself, what the game rule is, rather than taking part in the game only with technic. Anyway, the philosophy of Confucianism is focusing on modus vivendi. So, here Yu-Tze helps us define an order engaging all to show respect from junior members to senior ones, beginning from one's infancy and inside one's family. We can clearly see from this section that Confucianism is not a bit abstract, it starts from the family affairs, but tries to extend the same principle to the whole society. It is comprehensible, as well as practical, so it encourages everyone to approach the realm of benevolence. Just like that, do you want to be benevolent? Show your respect first to your parents and elder siblings, then to your senior contacts, and the key to the benevolence is already in your hands.