There were three readings this week.
The first was the second chapter in An Outline History of East Asia to 1200. The chapter focused on the Zhou dynasty, from the victory over the Shang to the political and societal history, to the philosophy of Confucius.
An interesting point brought up is that a lot of the primary text we talk about was edited and added on to by tons of other people. So we’re dealing with not just the bias of one person, but the additions and edits of tons of others. What’s said to be written by Confucius may just be what a bunch of people over the course of centuries thought he said. But we have to believe that it’s Confucius because it’s likely as close as we’re going to get to his writing.
I also read a series of writings from the Zuozhuan. Teh stories often contain some kind of lesson , though some lean closer to philosophy than a story. Many of the stories deal with death which makes sense in a world filled with war and battles. Two of them deal with Dukes dying and the rest still deal with leaders in some way. Compared to bronzes, the writings deal less with being rewarded for victories and more with morals found from failure and/or death.
Finally, I read excerpts from the philosophers Confucius, Mencius, Laozi, Xunzi, Mozi, and Zhuangzi. I found it interesting to see what was consistent between some of the philosophers and what was different. Some philosophers thought alike in the idea that learning is extremely important while Laozi believed that the public should be kept ignorant.
Next week will be extremely focused on the show and tell project in terms of this class. It’s likely going to be just a simple blog post, probably encyclopedic, but I’m not sure what it’ll be about exactly yet. I will figure that out tomorrow.
