What is the main basis for Confucius being a representative of traditional Chinese culture?

Confucius was an enthusiastic politician, but his main achievement was in education. Before the Spring and Autumn period, learning was in the government, and cultural knowledge was monopolized and hereditary by the aristocrats. Confucius pioneered private lectures, recruited students from all over the world, and imparted cultural knowledge to cultivate talents for politics, making him the first educator with far-reaching influence in Chinese history. According to the Records of the Grand Historian, Confucius had 3,000 disciples, 72 of whom were proficient in the six arts. After the death of Confucius, "seventy sons of the students wandered around the vassals, the big one for the master of the ministers, the small one friends teach the scholar", so that in politics broke the aristocratic monopoly of the regime of the world of the ministers, for the authoritarian monarchs free to appoint and dismiss the ministers of the bureaucracy of the bureaucratic system has created the conditions; in the academic dissemination of the classical literature for the Hundred Schools of thought to prepare for the traditional thought material, this is the development of Confucius to the history of China, the development of China's history. This is the greatest contribution of Confucius to the development of Chinese history.

Confucius believed that human nature can be educated. Therefore, he proposed that "there should be education for all," and that he would accept all students without discrimination as long as they were willing to advance and were willing to learn. Confucius educated his students, emphasizing the cultivation of virtue and practical ability. He was good at adopting the question-and-answer method, inspiring and inducing his students to go deeper and deeper step by step, and he himself insisted on the principle of "never tired of learning and never tired of teaching" throughout his life. Lifelong teaching practice has enabled Confucius to accumulate a wealth of experience, refined some scientific education methods: such as attention to cultivate students' motivation to learn, "those who know are better than those who are good, and those who are good are better than those who are happy," and advocate learning from both sides of the positive and negative sides of the "see the wise and think of qi zhen, see the unwise and internal introspection also "; against the self-defeating attitude of learning, encouraging young people to make continuous improvements, catch up with their predecessors, "when the benevolent teacher"; but first of all, you have to grasp the learning, "learning as if it is too late, fearing that it will be lost"; requiring students to be able to To learn by example, development and innovation; to have a pragmatic attitude of humility "to know is to know, do not know is not know, is to know"; pay attention to constantly correct the error, "over is not afraid to change", "over and do not change, is said to be over! "Confucius knows his students very well, often on the same problem, for each person's characteristics, to give different or even opposite answers. For good learning and deep thinking students, he openly praised; for students to point out their shortcomings, he can also face correction. The lively atmosphere of free debate maintained in Confucius' teaching was the key to cultivating many talents. However, Confucius also suggested that "those who are born to know are first; those who learn to know are second; those who are trapped and learn are second; those who are trapped and don't learn are second; and those who are trapped and don't learn are second" and that "only the wise and the foolish are unchanging". He discriminated against the working people and regarded them as unteachable fools, all of which showed the class prejudice of the aristocrats and scholars, as well as the skepticism and denial of his own educational ideas and teaching activities.

Confucius created a relatively complete system of thought, which, despite the traditional concept of the Mandate of Heaven, was in general favorable to the progress of society, and was therefore further developed during the Warring States period, becoming one of the prominent schools of thought of the pre-Qin period. Before the unification of China by the Qin Dynasty, Confucius and Confucianism were only one school of thought among the hundred schools of thought in the pre-Qin era. After the Han Dynasty, in order to satisfy the establishment of a feudal centralized state, the feudal rulers needed a kind of thought that could be suitable for the feudal society but also had a certain conservative tendency, and thus the thought of Confucius was given importance. When Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty adopted Dong Zhongshu's "Dismiss the Hundred Schools of Thought and Exclusively Respect the Confucian Schools", the supremacy of Confucius in Chinese history was officially established.

Confucius' thought had a great influence on the development of Chinese philosophy, and also had a great impact on the literature, art, education, history and political theory of feudal China, which, in a certain sense, made him an outstanding representative of traditional Chinese culture. In a certain sense, Confucius was an outstanding representative of Chinese traditional culture. However, during the long feudal society, the ruling class, out of its own needs, unilaterally developed the conservative side of Confucius' thought and turned it into a rope that bound the people's thinking. "The May Fourth Movement put forward the slogan "Down with Confucius", and Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao, Lu Xun and others criticized the feudal authoritarian system, while the conservatism of Confucius' thought was also sharply attacked.