Sunday was the birthday of Confucius.  I knew it was right around this time, but I missed it.  Something about the economic crisis and the insane presidential election distracted me.  Oh well.  Better late than never: Happy Birthday Confucius.

    Although I do not consider myself a "Confucian" – I fall too far from the ideal in my daily behavior and I am influenced by Taoism – I continue to believe that the thoughts of Confucius are relevant to our everyday lives in the present.   I am not longing to recreate a past that was never the ideal some may want to believe nor am I buying into a Chinese nationalist nostalgia.   Rather, I simply believe that the outlook of the ancients can fundamentally challenge some of our settled assumptions and offer new insights into contemporary questions.  And I think the classic texts can be made accessible to non-specialist American readers.

    Think about it: in the hyper-individualized mind set of contemporary America, how often do we lose sight of the fact that we are, in fact, wholly dependent upon various social relations and networks for our personal identity and prospects.  We do not stand alone, we never stand alone, and thus we must always try to understand how it is our actions affect others.  A fairly straightforward Confucian idea but one that we may tend to forget.  Indeed, Confucius says it better in this excerpt from Analects 6.29: