There are many different ways to approach the topic of how Confucius and the tradition he is associated with are theoretically and morally appreciated. Let us consider first what Confucius is said to have appreciated himself. When Confucius says in The Analects (論語) that he does not innovate but rather transmits, we can begin to understand his reference point for evaluating the ideas and values associated with him. Confucius regarded himself as a custodian of the ceremonial institutions and sacrificial rites inherited from the early days of the Zhou Dynasty (周). He did not see himself as innovating any new ideas or ritualistic behaviors, but rather trying to restore and preserve the social mores established by the founders of the Zhou Dynasty, King Wen (文王) and his son King Wu (武王). Confucius especially revered another of King Wen’s sons, the Duke of Zhou, who became regent for his brother King Wu’s young son (King Cheng, 成王) instead of disrupting the Zhou customs and usurping power for himself. Confucius lived in an age that increasingly neglected the social mores established during the early part of the Zhou Dynasty; he was disturbed by patterns emerging in his time of local strongmen usurping power for themselves and aggrandizing themselves with inappropriate ceremonies. Time and again in The Analects, Confucius advocates a renewed reverence for ancient ritualistic ceremonies as he believed such proper adherence would guarantee harmonious governance.

This devotion to ideas and ceremonies from antiquity informs a Ming Dynasty illustrated biography of Confucius known as Pictures of the Sage’s Traces (Shengji zhitu 聖跡之圖); in the page titled “Imitating Rites by Displaying Sacrificial Utensils,” the illustrators imagine an early scene from Confucius’ life that demonstrates his reverence for the ritualistic practices handed down from the early Zhou Dynasty. The page depicts Confucius as a young child engaged in serious play with some mates mimicking ritualistic practices by wearing the proper ceremonial clothes and laying out the specified ceremonial vessels in preparation for studiously performing a liturgical ritual. While this scene is entirely fanciful since it does not appear in the historical record, it attests to the importance Confucius placed on the concept of li (禮), often translated as “ritual” or “propriety”. If you look closely at the Chinese character, it depicts a ritual vessel being placed upon a sacred alter and its original meaning in fact meant ‘to arrange ritual vessels’. For Confucius, ritualistic propriety ensured that society would be well-ordered and harmonious and he devoted much of his life studying and codifying ancient rituals. Ritualistic practices required a reverent and sincere attitude in making sacrificial offerings to ancestors as though they were truly present; these sacrifices had specified numbers and types of ceremonial vessels and included liturgical prayers, music, and dance meant to bring the participants into harmonious union with ancestral practices. This emphasis on the importance of ritual propriety is an important contribution to future Chinese dynasties and regulated state functions up until the collapse of the Qing Dynasty in 1911.

This reverence for the political and moral efficacy of past rituals has had a profound effect on Chinese thought and social mores for millennia; but it is equally important to realize that such a deep respect for the past has never been universally appealing to all Chinese thinkers. Chinese literature and letters has many colorful voices critiquing this Confucian orientation to the past. Close to Confucius’ own time, the Warring States legalist man-of-letters Han Feizi savagely ridiculed a Ru-scholars’ worldview as one of his “five vermin”:

There was a farmer of Song who tilled the land, and in his field was a stump. One day a rabbit, racing across the field, bumped into the stump, broke its neck, and died. Thereupon the farmer laid aside his plow and took up watch beside the stump, hoping that he would get another rabbit in the same way. But he got no more rabbits, and instead became the laughingstock of Song. Those who think they can take the ways of the ancient kings and use them to govern the people of today all belong in the category of stump-watchers!

This satirical dismissal of the Confucian reverence for the past took on a very virulent strain in more recent Chinese history, particularly in the iconoclastic thought of the May Fourth ideals of a writer like Lu Xun, who denounced Confucianism as a cannibalistic tradition bent on “eating people” in such memorable short stories as “Diary of a Madman”:

…I seem to remember, though only vaguely, that people have been eating each other since ancient times. When I flick through the history books, I find no dates, only those fine Confucian principles ‘benevolence, righteousness, morality’ snaking their way across each page. As I studied them again, through one of my more implacably sleepless nights, I finally glimpsed what lay between every line, of each book: ‘Eat People!’

During the height of the Cultural Revolution, this wholesale condemnation of Confucian ideas and traditions was expressed in violent outbursts and destruction of many temples and artifacts related to Confucius, especially in his ancestral home of Qufu.

As China moves into the 21st century, the rehabilitation of Confucius and the resurgence of his legacy can best be appreciated only once one balances it against a tradition that critiqued Confucius’ orientation to the past as a debilitating obsession that cannot adequately address contemporary issues and challenges unknown to the great sages of yesteryear including Confucius himself. At the same time, Confucius’ vision of a harmonious society built upon veneration for China’s past achievements resonates strongly with a populace that has a newfound nationalistic and cultural pride as they boldly enter into the 21st century as a strong and powerful nation.