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Notes on video lecture:
Confucius' Use of Ritual as a Tool
Notes taken by Edward Tanguay on February 7, 2015 (go to class or lectures)
Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:
feeling, training, Zhou, foppish, incense, raw, two, excess, substance, movie, humanizer, nature, exasperating, gift, writing, behaving, affective, act, social, crude, balanced, dress, Western, bumping, polishing, utensils
ritual is a
it restrains and reforms human
without ritual we don't know how to
a behavioral language
metaphor of carving and
becoming a proper human being is like shaping a material
reshaping your emotions
acting out ritual emotions
allowing you to achieve the mean
in our natural state we tend toward
the concept of ritual which Confucius has inherited from the is very broad
state ritual
the way you
in what order you eat your food
Analects 8.2
If you are respectful but lack ritual you will become , if you are careful but lack ritual you will become timid, if you are courageous but lack ritual you will become unruly, if you are upright but lack ritual you will become inflexible."
e.g. today Chinese hand things to each other with hands
ritual
becomes part of our landscape
ritual is the "right kind of "
Confucius wants you to feel certain values
gives you scripts to perform to make you feel new virtues
evidence in contemporary social science and cognitive science that indicates this is an effective way to attain desired behavior
if you want to develop the virtue of gratitude, sitting down daily for ten minutes and in a gratitude journal can be an effective way to do this
rituals are scripts
like in a film or a
social scripts are standard ways we have for in certain public situations
words have to have fixed references in order for people to be able to communicate
the same is true for ritual
e.g. hand shaking
this can morph into e.g. fist , but this is still understood as a similar gesture to shaking hands
rituals tend to be conservative in this way, even if they evolve over time
for Confucius you are engaging in ritual all the time, it pervades your entire life
even if you are eating alone, it structures the way you arrange your
the way you dress properly even if there is no one to see you
ritual is not just about the social communication but about the shaping of internal dispositions
in this way, ritual becomes internalized
not just motions that you go through, but when perform the ritual, you feel what the ritual expresses
you are not just putting out , but you are feeling the emotion of respect and honor
Analects 3.12
Sacrifice as if the spirits were present, comport yourself as if the spirits are present.
Analects 3.12
If I am not fully present at the sacrifice, it is as if I did not sacrifice at all.
ritual as striking a balance
wen (cultural form)
native , what is on the inside
the raw material is merged with the form
e.g. the grain in a wood bowl
this is the Confucian gentlemen
Analects 6.18
When native substance overwhelms cultural refinement, the result is a rustic. When cultural refinement overwhelms native substance, the result is a pedant.
Book 10
a series of passages which describe Confucius' ritual behavior
most scholars don't know what to do with this book
Analects 10.6
"With a black upper garment he would wear a lambskin robe; with a white upper garment he would wear a fawn skin robe; and with a yellow upper garment he would wear a fox-fur robe...His informal fur robe was long, but the right sleeve was short. He required that his nightgown be knee-length."
Analects 10.23
"When receiving a from a friend, even something as valuable as a cart or a horse, he did not bow unless it was a gift of sacrificial meat."
this book gives examples of how Confucius had internalized the rituals of the Zhou dynasty
shows that when you internalize the rituals you attain a certain degree of autonomy
book 10 is a kind of video
an example of how a perfectly gentleman moves through the world
Spelling Corrections:
insence ⇒ incense
Ideas and Concepts:
Chinese etiquette of the day via tonight's History of Chinese Thought class: "Another good example of Chinese ritual is the way you deal with chopsticks. When you are pausing at a meal and putting your chopsticks down, you should always lay them horizontally, on a little chopstick stand if you have been given one, or across the top of your bowl. You should never stick them into the rice standing up. The reason is that chopsticks sticking up in a bowl of rice reminds people of the way you offer incense to the dead."