贤贤易色章

Original text

子夏曰：“贤贤易色，事父母能竭其力，事君能致其身，与朋友交，言而有信，虽曰未学，吾必谓之学矣。”

Translation

Tsze-hsia said, "Having more appreciation on virtue than on appearance for one's spouse, laying oneself out for one's parents, serving devotedly for one's master, always keeping faith for one's friends, for such a person, even he or she is said not to have been formally educated, I must say he or she has completed the education already."

Annotation from research

The four cardinal relationships among Chinese: the husband-the wife, the parents-the children, the master-the lieges and relationship among friends, are repeatedly mentioned. Adding relationship among siblings, it is usually called five cardinal relationships among Chinese. Certainly, while not everybody has brothers and sisters, the former four relationships affect everybody, so they are considered more important.

The original and full meaning of the first clause should be as follows:

Change your mind from appreciating only for appearance, to appreciating for virtue as well.

Literally there isn’t a word about the couple relationship, but it can be easily deduced from the context. But the word change reminds us of the effect of the civilization: what leads to such change in mind? And, what differentiates human beings from the animal world? After all, appearance counts. But, the term virtue only makes sense among human beings. The more one is socialized, the more he or she will value virtue. That is what Confucian followers mean for education: to form an order to the extent of the whole society by means of socializing each individual and evaluation system is based on their virtue, their moralities, rather than their endowment such as appearance or intelligence, which is very different from the western evaluation systems.

Tsze-hsia became a disciple, a student of Confucius when Confucius was in his old years.

巧言令色章

Original text

子曰：“巧言令色，鲜矣仁。”

Translation

Confucius said, "Hardly with any benevolence is one with adulatory words and flattering look."

Annotation from research

Here Confucius lists an counterexample for benevolence. If we can simplify the concept of benevolence to "the kindness toward people", we must look out so as not to be deceived by the nice appearance. Benevolence is created upon a basis of truth and empressement. Sometimes, adulatory words and flattering look is only a kind of etiquette. But if one takes the flattery as the only artifice for personal development, it goes too far. Confucius is by no means setting equality between etiquette and flattery, though these two looks very similar on the first sight. So, Confucius reminds the people in power not to be deceived when reviewing and appointing new political comers in this section as well.

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.