Insights into Confucianism

Confucianism is the most influential school of thought in ancient China. Confucianism, as a bai manifestation of the inherent value system of China, is not an academic or school of thought in the usual sense.

Generally speaking, especially during the pre-Qin era, although Confucianism was the most influential school of thought, it was only one of the hundred schools of thought, with the same status as the other schools of thought, and it did not matter whether they had a master-slave relationship. The status of Confucianism today is due to the fact that Confucianism, after its emergence and in the long historical process from ancient times to the present day, especially in the more than 2,000 years of feudal society after the implementation of the principle of "Dismissing the Hundred Schools of Thought and Exclusively Respecting the Confucian Schools", has come to dominate the position of grand unification of thought. Confucius is the founder of Confucianism, the most famous thinker, educator and statesman in ancient China, who had a profound influence on the development of Chinese thought and culture, and is also the most well-known Chinese in the world. Its representative figures include: Confucius, Mencius, Xunzi, Dong Zhongshu, Cheng Yi, Zhu Xi (the most learned Confucian after Confucius), Lu Jiubuan, Wang Yangming, etc.; with the Zhouyi, Shangshu, the Book of Poetry, the Book of Rites, and Zuozhuan as the classics; advocating the rule of etiquette, and emphasizing the traditional ethical relationship, especially focusing on the ethical relationship between people, and so on. Confucianism was fiercely criticized by the Mo, Fa and Tao schools in the pre-Qin Dynasty, and was rejected by the rulers in the Qin Dynasty and the beginning of the Han Dynasty; it was challenged by the metaphysics and Buddhism in the Six Dynasties, and it experienced unprecedented difficulties under the climax of the May Fourth Anti-Confucianism and Non-Confucianism, but it still survives to the present day, which is attributed to the fact that Confucianism has been rooted in the intrinsic value system of China, and that it can readily self-adjust itself to adapt to changes in the times and the society. And to a large extent, it is the most valuable knowledge system in the East, so much so that today it is in a sense synonymous with nationalism (traditional culture). Confucianism is the core and mainstay of national studies.