When Confucius Cut off His Ear (JS)

14.38 Zilu stayed the night by Stone Gate. The morning gate keeper said, “Where are you coming from?” Zilu said, “From the Kong home.” “Is that the man who knows it can’t be done and keeps doing it? 

    Reading the Analects with the knowledge of the present world and knowing that the ideas of Confucius eventually gained recognition creates a complicated image of the man to ascertain. Had he never gained fame, reading this text might have felt akin to reading the diaries of a mad man… a passionate mad man, but a mad man nonetheless. However perhaps it is his mad pursuit of the seemingly unattainable that give his thoughts and words their strength. I wonder if his philosophy reached high status because of the relatability one can find within him. There is of course nothing more universal in this life than struggle. Like Confucius aren’t we all, in our hearts, misunderstood? And in tapping into that humanness, can The Master be even more revered? Had Confucius met with fame during life, would his words still ring? Is his martyrdom crucial to his power? 

    On that note I think Confucius and Van Gogh share vast similarities. Both wholly devoted to their craft of beauty. Both lacking the living recognition which contributes to the beauty we now find in them. One might find absurd similarities between Van Gogh slicing off his ear in response to the devastation he felt with his friend abandoning him and Confucius breaking down entirely over the death of Yan Hui while refusing to honor him. Both incapable of expressing themselves accurately in this mad world. Both mad men in a madder world.  



Comments

  1. Nick KaeleschFebruary 22, 2022 at 12:14 PM

    This is a very interesting and provocative connection you are making to madness and the Confucian project. Especially in light of todays readings where Confucius is directly interacting (or at least trying to interact) with the recluse, another kind of "madman". As you point out, is it not a kind of madness to persist in a venture that may be doomed? Perhaps an even more tragic question might be, would it not DRIVE one into madness to have believed so much, put out so much effort, and brought so many others into your orbit on the same path, only to end time after time in disappointment and failure?

    I have found it interesting how on the one hand the recluses function as a kind of living criticism of the Confucian Way, yet Confucius seems to respond with a genuine concern for them. Now we might say (if we are more inclined to the spirit of the recluse) that this makes Confucius look all the more pathetic but that's not how the Analects present this relationship to us.

    I also think you are right to point out how odd it is for us to read the Analects and see a frustrated and under appreciated Confucius when we know how influential he (and the Analects) eventually become. I read somewhere that if we were to go on the sheer number of people influenced that it would be reasonable to say that Confucius is THE most influential individual in history. This also makes me think about how the commentarial tradition is a PART of the Confucian project itself. And isn't this blog yet another addition to that project?

    Thank you for your insight,
    well done, and well put.

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  2. Krishnan VenkateshMarch 4, 2022 at 8:31 PM

    Beautiful, both of you. I think of Quixote:

    “In his quest for immortal fame, Don Quixote suffered repeated defeats. Because he obstinately refused to adjust “the hugeness of his desire” to “the smallness of reality,” he was doomed to perpetual failure. Only a culture based upon “a religion of losers” could produce such a hero. What we should remember, however, is this (if I may thus paraphrase Bernard Shaw): The successful man adapts himself to the world. The loser persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the loser.”

    — The Hall of Uselessness: Collected Essays (New York Review Books Classics) by Simon Leys
    https://a.co/bSnK5cQ

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