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ritual is a humanizer

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it restrains and reforms human nature

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without ritual we don't know how to act

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a behavioral language

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metaphor of carving and polishing

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becoming a proper human being is like shaping a raw material

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reshaping your emotions

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acting out ritual emotions

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allowing you to achieve the mean

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in our natural state we tend toward excess

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the concept of ritual which Confucius has inherited from the Zhou is very broad

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state ritual

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the way you dress

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in what order you eat your food

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Analects 8.2

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If you are respectful but lack ritual you will become exasperating, 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."

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e.g. today Chinese hand things to each other with two hands

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ritual

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becomes part of our affective landscape

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ritual is the "right kind of feeling"

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Confucius wants you to feel certain social values

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gives you scripts to perform to make you feel new virtues

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evidence in contemporary social science and cognitive science that indicates this is an effective way to attain desired behavior

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if you want to develop the virtue of gratitude, sitting down daily for ten minutes and writing in a gratitude journal can be an effective way to do this

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rituals are scripts

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like in a film or a movie

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social scripts are standard ways we have for behaving in certain public situations

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words have to have fixed references in order for people to be able to communicate

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the same is true for ritual

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e.g. hand shaking

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this can morph into e.g. fist bumping, but this is still understood as a similar gesture to shaking hands

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rituals tend to be conservative in this way, even if they evolve over time

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for Confucius you are engaging in ritual all the time, it pervades your entire life

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even if you are eating alone, it structures the way you arrange your utensils

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the way you dress properly even if there is no one to see you

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ritual is not just about the social communication but about the shaping of internal dispositions

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in this way, ritual becomes internalized

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not just motions that you go through, but when perform the ritual, you feel what the ritual expresses

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you are not just putting out incense, but you are feeling the emotion of respect and honor

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Analects 3.12

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Sacrifice as if the spirits were present, comport yourself as if the spirits are present.

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Analects 3.12

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If I am not fully present at the sacrifice, it is as if I did not sacrifice at all.

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ritual as striking a balance

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wen (cultural form)

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native substance, what is on the inside

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the raw material is merged with the form

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e.g. the grain in a wood bowl

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this is the Confucian gentlemen

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Analects 6.18

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When native substance overwhelms cultural refinement, the result is a crude rustic. When cultural refinement overwhelms native substance, the result is a foppish pedant.

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Book 10

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a series of passages which describe Confucius' ritual behavior

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most Western scholars don't know what to do with this book

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Analects 10.6

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"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."

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Analects 10.23

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"When receiving a gift 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."

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this book gives examples of how Confucius had internalized the rituals of the Zhou dynasty

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shows that when you internalize the rituals you attain a certain degree of autonomy

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book 10 is a kind of training video

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an example of how a perfectly balanced gentleman moves through the world