Filial Piety and Confucianism

The religion and philosophy of Confucianism has had a deep impact on the Asian way of life from ancient times right up into our present age. The practice of filial piety within Confucianism still influences a vast amount of people today.

Let us first define what filial piety is. Filial piety (xiao shun) is the primary duty to one’s parents - a fundamental virtue for the Chinese way of life. Throughout the Analects, Confucius talks a great deal about the virtues for particular types of human relations, such as the virtue of filial piety (xiao) between parent and child. In classical Confucianism filial piety was commonly understood to consist of three key moral obligations; respect for one's parents, honouring (or not disgracing) them, and supporting them financially.

From this relationship with one’s parents, Confucius states is the Analects, that “When your parents are alive, serve them according to propriety; when they die, bury them according to propriety; sacrifice to them according to propriety” (Liu, p.237).

From the Confucian point of view, familial relations (parents and children, husband and wife, and elder and younger) are more important than the ruler-minister or friend-friend relation. The latter may end voluntarily, but familial relationships can never be deliberately forsaken. Kinship is consequently a crucial prerequisite in the Confucian notion. As Confucius claims, "filial piety and brotherly love are the roots of humanity” (Fan, p.356-357).

There is an interesting example of Confucius’ stance on filial piety and it shows that it should take precedence over everything else. Within the Analects, the Duke of She tells Confucius: "In my country there is an upright man. When his father stole a sheep, he bore witness against him”. Confucius says: "The upright men in my community are different from this. Fathers conceal the misconduct of their sons and sons conceal the misconduct of their fathers. Uprightness is just to be found in such mutual concealment" (Liu, p.234). Placing this example and many others found in the Analects together, we can see that the Confucian ideal was to forfeit all for filial piety and brotherly duty, as if anything else, such as decorum, honesty, righteousness, the empire, people, or even humaneness itself, by contrast, seems to be insignificant.

"Filial piety and brotherly respect are the very root of humaneness” - From this Confucian viewpoint, then, if kinship love can be genuinely ingrained in one's heart, all the other qualities of personal qualities will then spring from it as their source. This is the very reason why filial piety is always held to be a fundamental virtue in Confucian beliefs. Filial piety is simply the basis, not the final destination, of ethical tradition.

Examples of filial piety can also be found in pre-Confucian texts. For instance, there is the famous legend of young Shun (later to become one of the greatest of China's sage kings) in the Classic of Doctrines (Shangshu): "His father was obstinately un-principled; his step-mother was insincere; his half brother Xiang t was arrogant. He has been able, however, by his filial piety to live in harmony with them, and to lead them gradually to self-government, so that they no longer proceeded to great wickedness” (Fan, p.370).

It is filial piety, above all other concerns, that inhabits the dominant place in Confucian belief. It could be safely claimed that filial piety is the essential force flowing through the entire structure of Confucianism.

Bibliography:

Fan, Ruiping (2002) Reconsidering Surrogate Decision Making: Aristotelianism and Confucianism on Ideal Human Relations, Philosophy East and West, University of Hawai’i Press.

Liu, Qingping (2003) Filiality versus Sociality and Individuality: On Confucianism as "Consanguinitism", Philosophy East and West, University of Hawai’i Press.

The History and Significance of the god Hades

Greek mythology has both fascinated and entertained society from ancient times to our modern contemporary society; the deities of the classical world are some of the world’s most famous figures. One of these deities, Hades, offers us great insight into this fascinating culture, as well as entertaining us with his myths and legends.

Hades, according to mythology, was the brother of Zeus and Poseidon, one of the six children begot by Rhea and Cronos (also spelt Kronos and Cronus). Hades, along with his brother and sister, apart from Zeus, was swallowed by his father in order to prevent the prophecy that one of his children would overthrow him. Hades, along with the others, were rescued by Zeus when he made Cronos vomit them up by the aid of a potion.

With Zeus receiving the heavens to rule over and Poseidon the ocean, Hades drew the lot of the Underworld to reign when their father’s kingdom was divided between the three gods. In the Underworld, which was named after the god, Hades presided not only the lands where the dead dwelled, but also everything that lay beneath the earth’s surface. Therefore Hades controlled the wealth itself in the form of the Earth’s agricultural riches and minerals.

Hades most famous myth concerns the legend on how he procured his wife, his niece Persephone, the beautiful daughter of Zeus and Demeter. Mother and daughter were in a meadow picking flowers when Persephone wanders off to look at other flowers. Hades, seeing his chance, creates a hole in the earth, drives up his chariot, grabs the young Persephone and returns back to Hades with his stolen bride.

For a long time, Demeter searched the world for her daughter before finally finding Persephone in the Underworld. She requested her daughter back but Persephone, having eaten 6 pomegranate seeds (this varies in different accounts), is required to stay in the Underworld. Asking for help from Zeus, he decreed that Persephone spend 6 months in Hades with her husband and 6 months on earth with her mother (again, the amount of time can differ with different sources; some say 6 months, others say a third of the year). It was this myth that explained the changing seasons on earth.

When looking at the significance of this god, we must put everything into context. For the ancient Greeks, it was ideal for one to achieve glory in one’s life. Occasionally, a mortal who was loved by the gods was granted a form of immortality by placed amongst the stars as a constellation, but for the most part, the afterlife was not relied upon to bring any rewards for good behaviour in life.

It is due to this that could explain why Hades was seen as a dark, unattractive and hard-hearted figure in Greek mythology. He was reluctant to spend time on Mount Olympus, the home of the gods, instead he spent the majority of his time Underworld, emphasising the permanence of death. Due to this, he was the supreme god of the chthonic or earth gods and sometimes called the Chthonian Zeus.

Hades was not a god that was widely worshipped throughout Greece, and there are few myths that he features in. Unlike his brothers, Hades was not as sexually active. Apart from the abduction of Persephone, he did not become involved in the passions that make up so much of the myths of Zeus and Poseidon.

Bibliography:

Alderink, Larry J. (1982) Mythical and Cosmological Structure in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Numen, BRILL.

Cotterell, Arthur & Storm, Rachel (1999) The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology, Hermes House, Anness Publishing House.

Secret Sino-Soviet Negotiations on Outer Mongolia, 1918-1925

Politics is always full of secrets the government don’t want us to know about; this has been the case since ancient times and continues right into our present time. It is only years afterwards that the general public are made aware of them.

In May 1924, China and the Soviet Union agreed that “The Government of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics recognises that Outer Mongolia is an integral part of the Republic of China and respects China’s sovereignty there”. The Soviet also agreed to withdraw her troops in a month’s time but by November, Soviet troops had completely dominated Outer Mongolia and helped establish the Mongolian People’s Republic.

The period leading up to this can be divided into five points – Russia’s expansion into Outer Mongolia after 1911, the Soviet government’s unequal treaty with Outer Mongolia in 1921, the Soviet’s attempts to get China to recognise the 1915 tsarist tripartite treaty on Outer Mongolia (with little success), in 1923 – 24 the Soviet promised to abolish tsarist treaties but resorted to secret diplomacy to maintain them, and finally, when the new USSR’s envoy to Peking signed a secret treaty with China where China recognised the tripartite treaties.

After the October Revolution, the Soviet renounced Russia’s Imperialistic unequal-treaties with China in order to open first diplomatic ties with Peking (Beijing). In July 1918, Georgii Chicherin presented a proposal before the Fifth Congress of the Soviets which would satisfy China’s desire to abolish all former Sino-Russian treaties: “We renounce the conquests of the tsarist government in Manchuria and we restore the sovereign rights of China in this territory … we agree to renounce all land-rights of our citizens in China, Mongolia”.

On the 25^th July 1919, the Soviet government issued a manifesto that promised China that the Soviet government renounced “all annexations of foreign lands, any subjugation of other nations, and indemnities whatever”.

On the 2^nd October 1920, Karakhan met with a Chinese mission under the leadership of General Chang Ssu-lin. Here he presented the Chinese general with the second manifesto which stated that certain conditions must be met before the Soviet government would be willing to open up relations with China. This second manifesto stated that all former Sino-Russian treaties were now null and void. In April 1924, the Soviet government agreed that “The Soviet Government renounces everything seized by the tsarist government in China, Manchuria and in other places”.

Although the treaty signed in May 1924 agreed that the Soviet troops were to leave Outer Mongolia, they in fact stated. “The Soviet Union tightened its hold over Outer Mongolia during September 1924, when a purge organised by the Revolutionary Youth League, an organisation “entirely dominated by Soviet Advisers and more particularly the head of the Secret Police”.

On the 25^th November 194, the Mongolian People’s Republic was officially founded.

Bibliography:

Elleman, Bruce A. (1993 – 1994) Secret Sino-Soviet Negotiations on Outer Mongolia, 1918-1925, Pacific Affairs, University of British Columbia.