Augustines Confessions and Confucius Analects are Classics - Book Report/Review Example

 Augustine’s Confessions and Confucius’ Analects are Classics Born in 551 BCE, Confucius was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher. Confucius’ philosophy focused on the issue of morality, both from a personal pespective as well as from a governmental perspective. Confucius taught lessons relating to the correctness of social and daily relationships, equality and fairness. He lived the period when China was not unified and they had lost T’ien Ming (the will of heaven). I.e., their own lack of boost moral behavior and awareness was resulting to the country to go out of control. The ‘fix’ Confucius thought was to give a positive example of ways on how to live so serving as a role model for moral education in a torn/divided country. If he could transform ’selfish’ leaders in ‘unselfish’ leaders by first changing their hearts and minds being in line with the Will of Heaven, then these exact/same leaders would provide clear examples of love and benevolence that could turn the war into peace and poverty into prosperity. He died in 478 BCE aged 71-72. He is the founder of Confucianism Main interests: Moral philosophy, social philosophy, Ethics Notable ideas: Confucianism. On the other hand Augustine, born and raised in the Roman Empire, his confession is a diverse combination of theology, philosophy, autobiography and critical exegesis of the holy Christian bible. The first nine book of the story trace the tale of Augustine’s life right from his birth i.e. 354 A.D. up to the events that happened almost immediately after his conversion to Catholicism i.e. 386 A.D. Augustine takes this autobiography as more than an opportunity to retell his life, however, and its hard to find an event mentioned in the book without an accompanying religious or philosophical explication. In fact, the circumstances that Augustine decides to recount are mainly selected with a view to these bigger issues. In a passage, Confucius teaches that a person’s behavior always evidences his mind when he states, “the master would not sit, unless his mat was straight”(analects 10:12). If someone’s behavior is disorganized and sloppy, then it would evidence a manner of thinking and that was unclear and improper. Such actions are against the virtue that call us to respect the persons with whom we live as well as a person’s property where we live and work. Both books have a lesson of endurance and perseverance, i.e. if one carries-on with hunt but using the right path, that person is destined to get to the intended destination. This is not in regard of the slowness in the speed. This is illustrated by Augustine when he travels long distance including Rome and Thagaste in search of the truth regarding his doubts. Finally, it was in Milan where he concedes to sue the only truth and join the Catholic. Another social lesson learnt is: personal development is a life-long process and there is are no skipping steps. Analects 2:4 says ‘the master said, “at 15 I set my heart upon learning; at 30I took my stand:at 40, I came to be free from doubts; at 50, I understood the Will of heaven; at 60 my ear was attuned;at 70 I followed my heart’s content without overstepping the line” .' This is the message sent across by Augustine when he wanders place after place in search for a solution for his troubles and finally found the answers in Christianity. He had to wander and hustle places to get an answer. These statements by both writers teach the society that hard work plus consistency is the key to success. Bottom line is that hard things are difficult to achieve and bad things comes twice as easy. Good things come at a price. This explains why it is easy to hate, have excuses and be negative. It is love, greatness and forgiveness that requires a great heart, mind and effort. All this relates to humans social life and guide on how to relate to one’s family and society in his pursuit of the truth. Throughout both books, there is a concept of never giving up. If its certain that things are not working as expected/planned, then that is a perfect opportunity to adjust the plans and believe that failure is never an option, but when it accurate that the goals cannot be met, it is a perfect moment to adjust the action steps. Also, every activity and outcome of a situation acts as a lesson for an individual. Humans should learn from mistakes and carry on from lessons learnt may it be from a crook or a saint. These two authors also looked to teach the society about leadership. ‘To govern is to correct. If you set an example by being correct, then who would desire to remain incorrect?’ (Analects 12:17). Leadership means perfectly leading by example. If leaders practice what they preach including learning from and correcting their mistakes, others will find it easy to emulate your best ‘practice example .' These are virtues used by pastors, fathers of Catholicism churches today. St. Augustine taught these virtues in his teachings for the leaders of that time as well as for leaders to come in the future. These are qualities once applied in the society not only by leaders would lead to young people be motivated by their role models and be brought u in a perfect mannered society. It would not be fair to not notice that the two books are centered on struggles before victory. Augustine had his struggles before he was converted to Catholicism. N his pursuit of the truth he had to undergo ‘hard’ situations in life as his sex life. He later came to regret living such a life when he converted. He also had a controversy where he was battling pelagianism. The Pelagians denied the original sin and the fall of humanity. In fact, his work is a painful apology. St Augustine’s teachings were centered on coming back to one’s senses and to follow the right salvation path. These would mean that the subject from his works had to behave in a way. This sound so similar to Confucius works whose main goal in preaching to his students was to ‘produce ethically well cultivated men who would show characters such a carrying themselves with dignity, speak correctly and demonstrate consummate integrity in everything they do.’ Basically, we can say that the two sets were based on qualities such as compassion, etiquette, virtue, filial piety, harmony with the natural order and effortlessness. He suggests that the experience of self-cultivation is akin to music (an .3.23). Music begins in a confusion of sound, each note denoting itself on the ear. In the unfolding, the music’s harmony and tension reconcile and resolve into a pleasing totality. From this passage, humans can derive important lessons concerning the environment. Environment preservation and decoration into a perfect world is cannot be accomplished in the blink of an eye. There is dirt, play and disgust involved in order to get that desirable site. Also, this takes time and patience to yield preferred fruits. Confucius tries to change people and take them back to the historic time where people had good virtues and behaved in pleasant behaviors acceptable in the society. In the environment terms, people can preserve, decorate and make the environment they live in today to make it the perfect place it were when it had no been contaminated and cut off for the emergence of industries and companies. The environmental history states that humans have influenced the environment negatively and also destroyed it over time and what remains today are remains of a once promising environment which made promises that never came. Thus Conficius books can be positively used to encourage/ guide humanity that: just as the environmental history dates back to the time when the environment was almost perfect, it is human's obligatory task to try to change it over time to the once dreamy world that the environment once was. To most Christians, the mindset of Eastern is largely a mystery. The rise of the eastern world view is not a laughing matter. While it was dormant in the western for many years, the dominance of eastern religions took off in the mid 60’s when access to eastern ideas became accessible through technology. There are over on million Hindus today and two million practicing Buddhism in the United States. More people are not interested in the western religions, but those of western are preferred. In fact my field has noticed that most students are getting carried away with eastern thought, some practice Buddhism, Hinduism and even Shuntiosm to some extent. Works cited: Ernest Callenbach. Ecotopia. German, Random House Publishing Group, 2009, 1-192. Print Read More