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non-coercive order

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important theme in the Analects

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the Confucian rule through the power of his de, or charismatic power, can bring about order in a non-coercive way

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connected to theme: anti-militarism

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archery

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one of the important arts that the Confucian gentleman is trained in

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not valued for its military effectiveness

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not military training

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Analects 3.16

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"In archery, one does not emphasize piercing the hide of the target, because people's strengths differ."

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archery is about comportment, aim, learning the ritual, explicitly non-military

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if you were learning archery to use in war, you would be strengthening your arm

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this use of archery is part of a broader suspicion of the use of force, and a denigration of military force that we see throughout the Analects

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Analects 15.1

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Confucius comes to visit the Duke Ling of Wei

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he asks Confucius about military formations (chen)

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Confucius says, "I know something about the arrangement (chen) of ceremonial stands and dishes for ritual offerings but I have never learned about the arrangement of battalions and divisions.

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the way you are going to get political order is through ritual order, or becoming ritually correct

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the Zhou dynasty ruled through virtue rather through force

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true order is achieved by power of Virtue, emanated by a person in the wu-wei state

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Book of Documents

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on Zhou history

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the famous battle of mu-yeah

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when King Wu showed up on the battle field of the evil king of the Shang

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the opposing army saw how virtuous and splendid he was

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and they just threw down their weapons and surrendered

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he didn't even have to fight, it was the power of his de which caused them to submit to him

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you see this farther back in history with the sage king Shun

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Analects 15.5

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"Is Shun not an example of someone who ruled by means of wu-wei? What did he do? He made himself reverent and took his proper ritual position facing South, that is all."

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the goal is to get your de in order, acquire it and hang on to it, you don't need to exert force to rule

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Analects 2.1

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"One who rules through the power of Virtue is analogous to the Pole Star: it simply remains in its place and receives the homage of the myriad lesser stars."

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all people fall into place in the gravitational pull of his duh, or virtue, and take their proper ritual positions around him, and that's how order comes to the world

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soteriology

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the strategy of salvation

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Confucian's soteriology is tied up with the political soteriology

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we are a fallen people living in a fallen state

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it's chaotic, nothing is being done right

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the strategy is:

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become an wu-wei gentleman

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transform a ruler into an wu-wei ruler

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this is an odd element of Confucianism, since Confucius doesn't seem to think that he, himself, can become this ruler

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he's somewhat conservative in that he feels that someone from the Zhou royal house will have to become this ruler

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when you become this gentleman, you will then use your de to transform this ruler into a proper ruler

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then he is going to be this pole star at the center of this concentric circle radiating order that is going to go out through the universe

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so you're going to transform yourself and through transforming yourself, you're going to transform the world so that once again its in harmony with the order of tian, i.e. heaven or heaven's will

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minor tweaks, major payoffs

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while all this sounds very mystical, there is a kernel here that we can bring into the contemporary world

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from the standpoint of social psychology, we are becoming increasing aware of the power of the situation

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the physical environment

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also the social situation

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so the power that small changes in the tone of voice, posture, the way you great someone, can have a powerful effect on others which can cascade out socially through different iterations

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Hagop Sarkissian

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you can see the power of de as harnessing these types of social effects

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ethical bootstrapping

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me taking it upon myself to be more virtuous than you makes it easier for you to be more virtuous in return, and this can radiate out

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ethical bootstrapping enables a resonance you can set up based on small details of your comportment

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paying attention to details can be very important

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modern example: pharmeceutical representatives

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1991: pharmeceutical representatives would give gifts to doctors

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they made a law that gifts could not be above $100

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so representatives were reduced to giving doctors a little pen with the brand's name on it, etc.

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it turned out that many of these little gifts were more effective than a few large, expensive gifts

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minor gestures over time can have a powerful effect on people's behavior

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modern example: emotional contagion

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it's quite clear that emotions are contagious

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joy and respectfulness and spread through populations

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this can be shown with yawning as well

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emotions engage our empathy

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in a way that it causes us to reproduce behavior

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good or bad moods can spread

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studies have been done on how moods can get propagated through social networks

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Friedman and Riggio 1981

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modern example: prestige vs. dominance in social hierarchies

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two ways which humans establish control over others

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1. dominance

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being bigger, stronger, or more powerful than others

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either make others do what you want, or have others make you do it

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2. prestige

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Cheng et al. 2013

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non-coercive

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people who share the values that you share

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people who sincerely commit to the values that you have

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causes emulation

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a valid social pathway for people being successful within large groups

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this is Confucius' idea of wu-wei and de

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Adam Grant

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"In the Company of Givers and Takers"

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giving vs. taking

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people in the workplace who are givers

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unselfish

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will put down their own project

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in a group project won't try to grab all the credit

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will give credit around to other people

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these people actually end up doing better than takers

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the reason is because

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people admire givers

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they feel a drawn to givers

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the irony to watch out for, and an irony which Confucius was conscience of with his concepts of wu-wei and de, is that takers are tempted to act as givers in order to get the payoff that givers often get

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if we can believe Confucius, giving only works in the long run if it's sincere

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this gets to the heart of the paradox of someone who doesn't love the Confucian way in a genuine sense to really come to love it