look. Jason Lee Allen Confucianism was apparent in ancient Chinese culture in many ways. It was, in fact, the dominant force in shaping and defining many relationships in ancient china, such as between state and citizen, parent and child, and so forth. It also had the distinction of forming the basis of the Chinese Civil Service examination system, which was the first of its kind in the world and lasted two millennia. Confucianism was a traditionalist philosophy embodied not just the literal words of Confucius, as transcribed by his students in the Confucian Analects.
It also included the works of his followers such as Mencius and later other Confucian texts. It emphasized “proper” behavior for people and carefully spelled out what was expected of certain relationships. It directed nearly every aspect of Chinese culture in some respect, with the major exception of religion. It did not address the question of a God, focusing more “on the here and now. ” This left room for religious expansions into china, which is a way of affecting Chinese society on a large scale. On the smaller scale it governed the way a child would be responsible to a parent, allotted specific times spans for mourning, and other familial responsibilities.
Responsibility to family was one of the most important obligations a person in Chinese society had. Filial responsibility, to ones parents, was the most important of these. Filial piety, the respect for, obedience to, caring for of ones parents was tantamount in Chinese society. A son would be expected to care for his parents in their old age. This was accomplished by having an extended family, one where several generations lived together.
He would also have to obey and respect his parents, even after death, with mourning and ancester worship. Confucianism had specifically alloted times for mourning and special rituals prescribed for ancestor worship, where valuablew meats and wines were offered to the spirits of the departed forebears. Parents also had responsibliities to their children, such as to provide for and protect their children. This filial system for families was also extended to other dominant / subordinate relationships as well, such as between an emporer and his subjects, a master and a scholar, a husband and a wife, and a high minister and a lower one, to name a few. andVrettosLit & Medicine “What the hell is wrong with this Guy?” Vrettos English 150″Do we see the hundred-thousandth part of what exists? Look here; there is the wind, which is the strongest force in nature.
It knocks down men, and blows down buildings, uproots trees, raises the sea into mountains of water, destroys cliffs and casts great ships on to the breakers; it kills, it whistles, it sighs, it roars. But have you ever seen it, and can you see it? Yet it exists for all that. ” – The MonkMany things that once seemed mythical and mystic are now commonplace and easily explained by science and reasoning. Lightning, once thought to be a weapon of the gods, is now understood as a product of friction between cloud and earth.
Physical disease, once believed to be a punishment from God, is now elucidated by science as being caused by bacteria, fungi, and viruses. Science gives us a power to explain why things happen to us. The narrator in Maupassants, “The Horla,” applies science, or at least his interpretation of science, to explain his mental disease, his madness. His misuse of science causes him to believe he is sane when he is not, so instead of seeking treatment he tries to cure himself, leading to the tragedy at the end. This bad science is not primarily a result of bad methods or unsound reasoning.
Rather it results from the narrator himself being the subject, questioning his own sanity. Being possibly unfit, data coming from him is not nessacarily reliable. Thus this data cannot be used, as the conclusions drawn from it would be similarly unreliable. And so he is not in a position to collect and evaluate the evidence of his mental state. Despite this, the narrator gathers evidence and assesses it in a seemingly scientific manner.
He tries to make a scientific judgment .
