How Many of Those Who Curse Confucianism All Day Actually Understand It? Go Back and Study Properly -- Stop Making Fools of Yourselves!

Probably a legacy of the May Fourth Movement and the Cultural Revolution, both online and in reality there are people who love cursing Confucianism, as if that's what it means to be modernized. But how many of those who curse Confucianism actually understand it? Do those people really think the "Three Obediences and Four Virtues" and "ruler be ruler, minister be minister" is all there is to Confucianism? That's absolutely shooting at the wrong target. Even if Confucianism deserves cursing, at least wait until you've read and understood all the Confucian classics before cursing -- otherwise what right do you have?

This bad habit first came from the so-called May Fourth elites. Which of them truly understood Confucianism? For example, Hu Shi's understanding of Confucianism was as absurdly laughable as his understanding of Chan Buddhism. As for others like Lu Xun, they weren't much better. What happened afterward, everyone knows -- Confucianism became the epitome of feudal reaction, and then there were even fewer people studying it.

The Chinese are already famous for not cherishing their own culture. Who knows how many classics were ultimately recovered from Japan, Korea, and other places. Moreover, Chinese people oscillate between doubting antiquity and worshipping antiquity like a revolving wheel, just like leftists and rightists. But both swallow learning whole without chewing, and their arguments never hit the mark. Now look at those Cultural Revolution articles criticizing Confucius -- they're laughable to the extreme.

Confucianism is one of the foundations of Chinese civilization. Without Confucianism, there would be no Chinese civilization. Confucianism of course has problems, but the problems of Confucianism aren't something ordinary people can explain by spouting a couple of careless sentences. From Confucius to Zisi, Mencius, Han Dynasty Confucianism, Song Dynasty Neo-Confucianism, and Ming Dynasty School of the Mind -- the logical developmental trajectory among them is neither blind nor something that can be negated at will.

You want to curse Confucianism? Fine, but let me ask: do you know what Confucianism is?